The wheat from the chaff.

Right, NO one is callous enough to use that wording, but having read some things on line, that's how it feels. I had vague ideas about this post, like I do every post, before typing takes over and the million voices in my head spill out and I have to cram them all back in before someone decides I need to visit my GP, again. In the last two months, the Tory party have had two fairly prominent figures say outragious things about the disabled and their worth in society. Researching this topic has thrown up a barrage of professional opinions from all of the main stream media and rebuttals from groups and charities with a much higher profile than myself. So with all that in mind: small time annoyances away!!!

The first is Lord Freud, who according to GOV.uk is the undersecretary for state and responsible for welfare reform, decided that disabled people are only worth £2. Anyone who pays any attention will realise that is delightfully lower than the UK minimum wage, which for anyone over 21 is £6.50 and we need to drop right down to the Appretice grade for anything close to Lord Freuds suggestion with a £2.73, and this only applies to apprentices under 19 or those in their first year, and then it becomes National minimum wage. 

To suggest some one, anyone, isn't worth at least the basic equal dignity and respect is abborant and heads us towards Godwin's law rather rapidly. I would rather avoid making obvious, if a little extreme statements, or conservative opinions, or any political opinions, will be variations of well known extremes. To suggest that people who are valuable, integral, and intelligent parts of businesses, or running their own businesses, people who are emotional, feeling, caring humans, aren't worth a minimum wage, which is supposably a living wage, lowers them to a different class. Class drives British society. I do find that generally it is a fictional construct that no one pays attention to, but I have occasionally been treated as not worth someone's time due to a perception as "lower". This, hilariously, isn't usually people with a title, but those who wish to be part of the "gentry". This is going wildly off topic, before I start discussing how WW1 changed the class system forever I am going to veer back on course.  

Often critics of blanket attacks on Muslims say "replace the word in your argument with Jews, and then watch how uncomfortable and unpleasant your point becomes. That is why your argument is invalid." I would ask Lord Frued to do this. Replace your suggestion that disabled people are only worth £2 an hour and with the suggestion that Jews/Muslim/Christian workers are only worth £2 an hour and we will watch the credibility and validity of your argument crumble.

The second comment came from Mr Andrew Selous, MP for South West Bedfordshire (GOV.uk). He stated that disabled people are grateful so work harder. Yes because companies pick their staff through pity and not ability. My manager does joke that I tick the companies diversity policy when we are inspected, and by saying I am gay too catches every box, but this is just a joke and clearly so. Stating that disabled people are grateful and work harder for it ignores the fact that the economy is still tanked and anyone with a job should be grateful, even if not gushingly so. This statement could be seen as a positive, hire disabled people, they work harder type message. 

Disabled workers, like myself, should be hired and supported based on their merits and abilities, not on medical conditions. Diabetics populate every professional field, asthmatics work every day. Disabled people work without flags signalling them to all and sundry. I know of a severely disabled gent who runs his own business using a light writer and business acumen. I know blind people who can buy and sell my ass with very little trouble. A blind man was an MP. 

Saying disabled people are worth less than others and should work harder to be thankful is ignorant and misinformed.