That flaming Heat sticker!

Who on earth came up with the “hilarious” idea of including a sticker featuring Jordan’s disabled son Harvey with the words “Harvey wants to eat me” on it in a collection of stickers in Heat magazine?

For those off the celebrity gossip radar, Katie Price, aka Jordan, has a disabled son – Harvey – who has septo-optic dysplasia which amongst other things means he is visually-impaired and clinically obese, hence the “eat me” so-called “joke”.

OK, Jordan isn’t shy of a bit of publicity and consequently her whole family is in the public eye with a frequency that challenges the Beckhams, but is that necessarily a bad thing? She could have just hidden Harvey away and not highlighted the issues around having a disabled child as she has done.

It’s all very well Mark Frith, editor of Heat, apologising, saying no offence was intended, but how the heck did he think it wouldn’t cause offence? Did Heat really think people would find it funny to take a dig at a disabled child?

What’s all too apparent is that while people tread on eggshells when it comes to poking fun at people on the basis of race and religion, disability is still considered an easy target.  

The worst thing about the Heat gaff is the fact it is so far away from picking on someone your own size it’s untrue. As Liz Sayce, chief executive of RADAR, points out, “bullying of disabled people, especially children, is endemic”.

Society’s reticence to accept difference means disabled children who want to be included in it are cruelly pushed to its periphery.

Then here we have a mainstream magazine poking fun at a child who can’t fight back, in a word – pathetic. It would be easy to dismiss this by saying, “What more would you expect from Heat magazine?” But 550,000 people buy it and many more read it. Its content presumably reflects the opinions of its readership – that’s the worrying bit.

Thankfully, there are people who will fight the likes of Harvey’s corner – dozens of people have complained to the Press Complaints Commission and Katie Price has made an official complaint, which means they have to investigate it.

Ironically, it takes a celebrity-induced fiasco to highlight issues affecting disabled children, but at least the topic is getting a public airing and that is no bad thing.