Disability and Politics | My View
I know, I’ve said the P word. Sorry. If you’re sick of it, I’m sorry about that too. But the older I get, the more I realise why I have to learn about it all. I can’t afford not to.
Every part of my life has a price tag, the care I receive, how I get out of my house, transport, equipment to literally move around, getting to work, the list is endless.
That price tag is only increasing.
So when I look back and I used to say ‘oh I’m not political’ I feel so cringe. And if you do that, I get it, because I think sometimes we mix being political with being angry (most of the time, rightly so) at life. It feels weird to say you have strong opinions about things and put yourself into a party of beliefs when you’re not really sure what’s going on in the world.
I never really understood what it all meant (I thought a cabinet was just a posh cupboard…) But we all have things that we care about and when scenarios are explained, we can all make our own opinion on them. That’s politics.
I don’t really blame younger me either because let’s be honest, it’s not like disabled people are represented in politics, we’re mostly talked about as statistics.
But now I think I know, well I know I know a bit more of what’s going on. I know that everything I want to do in life involves filling forms and answering questions in order to get help with achieving everyday tasks. It involves planning and taking the worst case scenario into consideration because the world is full of social and physical barriers. Sometimes it’s tiring, frustrating and weirdly just expected to be like that.
Now I understand that this is all because of the decisions that are being made everyday by people in power elected by us, the community. This is why I absolutely loved to hear that two disabled MPs were elected this week. Two doesn’t sound very many, and it’s not – but it’s a good old start. I’m absolutely buzzing that young disabled people will see/meet them, aspire to be like them and maybe even imagine themselves being an MP too. They will be tackling these issues that at the moment, are being pushed to the side. In the future wouldn’t it be great to be able to list more than two well known disabled MPs?
It kind of made me want to try and become an MP for like a millisecond, but I still had to google what a hung parliament was on Friday morning so I don’t think it’s the right career path for me somehow…
Anyway, thank you to Marsha de Cordova and Jared O’Mara for putting yourselves out there, representing and creating the change we so desperately need!
[Link to more information on the MPs]
p.s. I’ve probably missed out loads here so please feel free to comment and carry on the convo, or Contact Me to chat more!
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