The Disability Industry

Three cheers for Rod Liddle, everyone's favourite polemical leftie. Today, in The Sun, he is having a go at the pretend disabled. Hurrah to that. If there's one thing this country does well it is inventing afflictions and illnesses and then complaining about them until someone in government compensates you for your terrible suffering. Rod mentions the made up illness ME, essentially a decade long bout of tiredness and ennui which mysteriously only seems to affect middle class people who can spell fibromyalgia. There is no actual evidence for the existence of this condition, only the opinions of doctors who are probably the sort who dispense antibiotics to those suffering from colds for a quiet life, or tell men that they are suffering from sex addiction to excuse their sexual incontinence. 

According to some figures, under definitions established in the last decade or so, Britain has 11 million people now who qualify as disabled. 11 million? How do we ever get any work done? Presumably a large number of these apply to be so defined so as to claim benefits or to have those handy stickers in their cars enabling them to park wherever the hell they like. I could probably apply for this myself since I have a malfunctioning left leg and walk with a bit of a limp. I have declined to do so however since if I did I would feel like a bit of a fraud. This probably makes me a bit of a mug in modern Britain.

Inevitably of course Rod's article has attracted the usual opprobrium from the usual sources. People will claim to be offended soon and will then call for him to be sacked. Yet anyone looking objectively at this industry (for that is what it is) can see that it is an absurdity and another example of good intentions being hijacked.


In this last week we have had our unelected peers trying to frustrate the attempts of the government to rein in our welfare state. We had Tanni Grey Thompson, a celebrity disabled person (she actually is disabled) arguing that she should be paid extra because she is forced to drive an automatic car. This is the rights and entitlements society that our politicians have created and are even now defending. Any slight misfortune or impediment is something that should excuse our behaviour, be fixed for free by the NHS or be compensated from the bottomless cash pit that is the Welfare State. And then we wonder why Britain can no longer compete in world markets and is struggling to grow.