Crippling burden

There is something a little reckless about having a go at the disabled lobby. I can happily question the zealousness and rectitude of the Commission for Racial Equality, Stonewall and any of a multitude of women’s groups, safe in the knowledge that I am not about to be rendered black, gay or female in the foreseeable future. But disabled? Hell, who knows? This is one lobby group not to be messed with. Disablement could happen at any moment; there but for the grace of God, etc.

In fact, when you study the qualifications required in order to call oneself disabled, it seems almost impossible that it won’t happen in the next 48 hours or so – or, indeed, has already happened. I may well be disabled right now. Because – like television comedy programmes, parliamentary democracy and the England football team – disablement ain’t what it used to be. In the good old days, disablement meant paralysis, blindness, chronic limblessness and so on. These days you can probably grab one of those orange car stickers if you’re a bit on the porky side, or are simply as thick as a plate of mince.

Like any profitable business, disability is an expanding concern. The disability lobby groups, who rather pleasingly seem to hate each other more, even, than they hate the rest of us, at least unite upon a figure of 8.6 million disabled people in Britain. It is in their interests to be as inclusive as possible, of course, because it means that their organisations are assumed to be more powerful than, in fact, they should be. Look at how many people they represent! But come on, do you believe there are almost nine million ‘disabled’ people in Britain? What do your own eyes tell you? Nope, me neither. Still less do I believe the government’s own assertion that ‘one in four’ people are either disabled or – get-out clause alert! – ‘close’ to somebody who is disabled.