Not content with pillorying disabled people in the House of Commons, it is claimed that the Labour government along with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) are continuing to encourage the press and television to portray us all as work shy scroungers.
John McArdle, co-founder of Black Triangle Campaign, claims that the DWP was “emphatically” behind the “false narrative” displayed in a string of recent newspaper articles and television programmes. He pointed out that the last 14 years had shown that this hostile rhetoric always increased before major disability benefit reforms were announced. And it’s no coincidence that this comes as the new Labour government prepares its own reforms of the disability benefits system, which are set to be published in a green paper in the spring. John added: “They are trying to say the benefits bill is bankrupting the country and it’s simply not the case.”
Damaging Articles
So, what are these damaging articles and programmes that disabled people are up in arms about? Well, if we take a look at the more recent examples, there’s an article in the Mirror newspaper this month by journalist Paul Routledge who describes that “millions” of disabled people are dishonestly claiming out-of-work benefits.
He writes that “millions of people who could, and should be in work, sign on for long-term sickness benefits”. He also claimed that mental health was “the ‘bad back’ of the 21st century” because it was “easy to self-diagnose, virtually impossible to disprove”. He provided no evidence for either of his claims.
Disabled journalist and author Rachel Charlton-Dailey said she was “sickened” by Routledge’s column. She said: “The media hostility towards disabled people has been an infuriating thing to try and combat … [but] I’m especially sickened by seasoned columnists using us as a punching bag when they should know better than to publish unsubstantiated lies about benefits claimants that can cause a lot of harm and add to the public’s distrust of us.”
Dr Natasha Hirst, the disabled president of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), who has frequently spoken out about discriminatory reporting in the media, said: “There are a multitude of barriers that prevent disabled people from accessing the labour market. The impact of long Covid, and lack of timely health services, plays a significant role, as well as negative attitudes from employers and lack of accessible transport and housing”.
Damaging Programmes
Three days later a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary on disability benefits was aired. It claimed to expose the “scandal” of the disability benefits system that can “drive people towards benefits rather than work”, and that the costs of supporting disabled people who cannot work “threaten to derail the government’s hopes of economic growth”, and it asked the question: “Are we getting sicker? Or lazier?”
There were multiple concerns about accuracy and unevidenced claims in the Dispatches programme, while the radical working-class media organisation The Canary pointed out that the presenter Frazer Nelson – former editor of the right-wing magazine The Spectator – had failed to state he was on the advisory board of the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), the right-wing thinktank that devised Universal Credit.
The film for Channel 4’s Dispatches caused outrage among many disabled people who watched it. One user-led mental health group Recovery in the Bin (RiTB) described the new documentary, Britain’s Benefits Scandal, as an “atrocity”.
Rick Burgess, an RiTB spokesperson, said: “We see what this is, it is a cycle repeated endlessly of government working with media to ready the way for another round of DWP abuse. Shame on everyone involved.”
Read the full story about both the Mirror article and the CH4 documentary in Disability News Service (DNS). Both articles are written by disabled journalist John Pring who’s recently published book The Department is described as a thoroughly researched exposé of the bureaucratic violence and hostility of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over the last 30 years.
Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software
A bald DWP manager in a grey suit is standing alongside a female journalist who is typing on a computer keyboard. Above the monitor a sign declares that this is the ‘News Desk’. The DWP manager is holding a piece of paper with ‘disabled scroungers’ printed upon it. Around the feet of the journalist are other pieces of paper with ‘disabled benefits bill is bankrupting the country’ and ‘millions of disabled are dishonestly claiming benefit’ printed upon them. The DWP manager is saying: “You can run with the story as long as you don’t need any evidence!”. The journalist replies: “Don’t worry about that – we’ve never needed it before and we’re certainly not going to look for any now!”
Crippen Cartoons 