The world tonight
- 12 Sep 06, 10:44 AM
This Thursday and Friday, the 14th and 15th of September, Radio 4's The World Tonight will broadcast two reports on disability rights. The question posed will be, 'Have Disability Rights gone too far?'
One report will be a day in the life of Jim Kelly, a wheelchair user in Aylesbury as he attempts to go about his daily life and the difficulties he faces i.e accessing a cash machine that doesn't make room for his wheelchair, trying to find a disabled loo etc.
The other report is with Michael Binyon, a journalist from the Times Newspaper who thinks disability rights have become a sort of 'disability mafia'. He speaks to small businesses who can't afford to make alterations to their facilities such as installing a disabled toilet, a journalist from railway magazine on train stations that have been asked to make costly renovations and an employer who let go an employee who went blind from an accident. The employee in turn won a landmark case. Friday's report will conclude with a discussion between Michael Binyon, and Caroline Gooding from the
The world tonight broadcasts on week nights between 10 and 10.45 PM.
Comments
Disability Rights haven't gone far enough! This "agent provocateur" approach by journalists may have serious ramifications for our civil rights - while these self-satisfied hacks will chuckle smugly to themselves.
Totally agree - disability rights have gone too far - political correctness, expensive, delivered by craven politicans who rush to support any well organised lobby where massive public expenditure is of trivial importance. They have their inflation - linked pensions and care nothing about the average taxpayer.
Trust the media to sensationalise things! - they find one or two instances of businesses struggling financially to make adaptions and blow it out of all proportion.
The thrust of the DDA is reasonable adjustments and if an adaption would genuinely impoverish a business then they would not be expected to carry it out - and my emphasis here is on genuinely
as for train stations - most adaptions benefit non-disabled people too and thus all their customers
Accessible facilities are useful for those with pushchairs or heavy luggage, a fair proportion of travellers!
Perhaps buildings needed renovation anyway and blaming the DDA is just being used as it is a soft target when the cost is being resented
moreover don't forget that the biggest disabling barrier is people's attitudes.
the last thing that we need as disabled people is a reinforcement of negative attitudes and I fear this programme may do this.
I agree. The fact is a small startup company can problems investing but i think if they do business with people, they should do business with everyone. Disability mafia is really a strong word!
Yet again we have 2 put up with small minded attitudes, I would like 2 remind Mr Binyon, that if it had not been 4 the "Disabled Mafia" I would not be able 2 access buses, Trains, etc... So before he suggests that we "Should be good little Crips" I suggest that he takes his unhelpful comments, and crawlS back the pond he lives in!
CRIP 4 LIFE!