Taking the P*ss?

First it was the unfortunate French actor Gerard Depardieu publicly humiliated by wide press coverage of his getting caught short on a flight to Ireland earlier this week. 


Gerard Depardieu apologises for plane incident




Then today, the spotlight falls, not without reason this time, on the bathroom habits of UK Conservative MP and Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan-Smith.

I am grateful to that gracious and inspiring human being, Stephen Fry, one of the most avidly followed Twitterers, for bringing this to my attention with a tweet earlier today. Me and about 2,979, 706 other followers of his at the current count!

The link is to the fantastic "Broken of Britain" blogspot which tells this story in full from the point of view of the disabled person in a wheelchair who had to make the distressing wait for Mr Duncan-Smith to emerge from the facilities prioritised for those for whom they were, after all, originally and specifically designed!

Iain Duncan-Smith and the Disabled Toilet incident 

As somebody with an invisible disability, I know how hard it can be to feel comfortable using things designed to help the disabled in public. In my case, this is often the priority seats on buses.

I almost always use a walking stick in public, as the ground can switch to rubber cake-walk mode for my weak and easily exhaustible muscles and nerves even on those "good" days when I can get out at all.

Buses invariably leave me frazzled and exhausted. I don't always head for those seats allocated to the disabled, to wheelchair uses, the elderly or people with pushchairs. I like to feel "normal", naturally, whenever I can! I hate being conspicuous! 


But on some occasions, when my knees have been practically buckling even with the support of my stick (days when even the vibration between stick and my sore wrists seems hard to bear), there are times when those seats close to the front of the bus are really needed and appreciated. I am usually with my Mum on those occasions, and she too, at 80, counts as "elderly" (don't tell her!) and with a valid claim to these seats.


My point is that usually, people will jump up to let you sit down (this IS South Yorkshire, and most folks on public transport are very helpful and fellow-feeling in my experience.)

But others gladly leave their legs trailing in gangways, their feet on adjoining seats and look affronted at these intruding "needy" folks  to whom they are supposed to give way. Perhaps today, with the media's constant haranguing and demonising of the sick, fellow passengers also look on every disabled person as a thief and a faker, too? I won't get that paranoid, though. Then we'd all be the losers!


I wouldn't wish Gerard Depardieu or Mr Duncan-Smith, or any other person in need of urgent relief to be humiliated in doing so.

But in the case of Mr Duncan-Smith, a man whom the country trusts (?) to take on board the position of the disabled, hopefully the reaction to this incident will make him think twice, and remind others that disabled facilities are not just there for decoration or political correctness!

As Kaliya Franklin, co-founder of The Broken of Britain blog that exposed this rightly says there:


'Given the minister’s commendable desire for everyone to be held responsible for their personal behaviour through community service, sick and disabled people will expect the punishment to fit ‘the crime’.'