The World Tonight 15 September 2006 : Listener Debate

I am a regular listener to BBC Radio 4 The World Tonight. I recommend this to all my readers. Last night I heard a discussion about whether campaigners for disabled people have gone too far. As a campaigner myself this was obviously of major interest. After listening to the programme, I made the following contribution on the BBC programme website (this link might change shortly). My contribution: I think that Mr Binyon and his disabled adversary (Mr Kelly), each made the case for his opponent ! Both were unreasonable and did not deal with the real world. Mr Kelly grossly understated the progress made in the environment for disabled people since 1995. His manner was very aggressive and seemed designed to put peoples backs up. I am not politically correct but I do not like the term 'the disabled' rather than 'disabled people'. No mention was made of the hidden disability: deafness. It was particularly ironic the well-intentioned Caroline Goodey from the DRC conducted a discussion with Mr Kelly with intrusive background noise from a shopping centre. The programme producers should have realised that this meant that the discussion was very difficult for people with hearing impairment to understand. Perhaps Caroline Goodey should have insisted that the discussion take place in a quiet location.