Dangerous card

The resignation of David Laws as Chief Secretary to the Treasury draws some interesting parallels with disability, says Peter White

I was intrigued by one reaction to the spectacular fall of David Laws, who resigned after he was shown to have claimed parliamentary expenses for the rent he paid to his live-in lover.

He said he'd not wanted to reveal the nature of the relationship to his family, and that the relationship wasn't on a par with that of a spouse.

Ben Summerskill of the gay rights campaigning organisation Stonewall said he felt it was inappropriate to attribute a clear breach of parliamentary rules to the fact of Laws' being gay, or to possible reactions to it; and suggested that this implication of anticipated discrimination did nothing for the cause.

I have to say this struck a chord with me in relation to disability. Disabled people know between ourselves there's tacit recognition of "playing the disability card": using your disability to get something you want. Some disabled people disapprove of this and see what a hostage it is to fortune; but I'd say they're in a minority; and I certainly couldn't say with my hand on my heart that I've never done it: to explain work delivered late, to get a seat on a crowded train, to score a point in an argument.

But deep down, I know it's a dangerous game because it feeds into the very ignorance about disability we claim to hate.

To give just one example: I and other columnists for Disability Now often speak of our concern that governments confuse the fact that many unemployed disabled people want to work with the assumption that those who can't get work are in some sense not trying hard enough, or pleading disability as an excuse. In fact, there's a systemic problem and this is not, as some politicians like to hint, a case of mass-scrounging.

From what I hear from the new Government about more testing, and threats of benefit removal from those who fail these tests or won't take them, it seems the lesson has not been learned - despite recent research in Scotland where huge numbers of cases where people were judged fit for work after testing were being reversed on appeal.

The truth is, politicians just don't get disability and fall for the simplistic line that if benefit figures aren't dropping, people must be very skilled at bucking the system! Not so. The truth is that the jobs aren't there, the support isn't there, and employers still baulk at taking on disabled people.

We could help by not falling into the trap of attributing everything that happens to us, including perceived discrimination, as relating to our disability. After all, we don't like it when they do it to us!