• Jeffrey Marshall, senior organiser for the BNP's London European election campaign. Following the death of David Cameron's disabled son Ivan, Marshall claimed in an internet forum discussion: "We live in a country today which is unhealthily dominated by an excess of sentimentality towards the weak and unproductive. No good will come of it."

Later, in response to comments made by others on the site, Marshall is alleged to have written: "There is not a great deal of point in keeping these people alive after all." He said the comments were private and some had been paraphrased and taken out of context. He admitted making the former comment, but said he could not recall making the latter one in an email to the forum, a copy of which is in the Observer's possession.

From today's Observer.

Oh I wish I could show this to the bitch in the chemist on Friday who said she would be voting BNP. She was a pensioner so not contributing to the economy anymore, thus I'm sure she'd fall into the group of people Marshall would like to see dead.

I'm sure Marshall would like to start by cutting off her free prescriptions in the hope that she'd die. Rather ironic considering I encountered her in a pharmacy.

A junkie in to collect her methadone tried to explain that the BNP are racist Nazis with the same political convictions as Hitler. To this the old bag said "at least they're all English." (As a friend of mine pointed out: They're not all English. They're the British National Party, so some members are going to be Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish.)


If I were the (Turkish) pharmacist I'd have banned the cow from my shop at that point. I wonder where this woman is planning on collecting her free prescriptions when her local pharmacist has been sent back to Turkey? And the next pharmacist down the road has been sent back to India? And there are no trained, qualified "English" people to take their places?

Edited to add: I've just learned this today (June 13th); Nick Griffin is one of us! He has a false left eye. I wonder if Marshall wants to drag him off to a concentration camp too?

BADD 09

I still haven't written a post for Blogging Against Disablism Day 2009 for 2 reasons:

1. My disablist cat. Last week I was staying at my dad's. I had to come home on Thursday in order to go to Cine-Excess III on Friday. So when I decided it was time to put the cat in her carry box she disappeared. For 5 hours. I spent a good 90% of that time walking around looking for her. As everyone who knows me knows I can barely stand for 5 minutes without pain, so after standing for 5 hours 3 days ago my legs are still killing me. (I eventually found the cat inside the sofa.)


2. My disablist computer. The bones in my arms are funny shapes because of my osteogenesis imperfecta, so the muscles in my arms are in funny positions. This has made my arms incredibly vulnerable to RSI. So for typing anything substantial I need to use speech-to-text software. My computer decided it wasn't powerful enough to run Dragon's NaturallySpeaking so had to go to computer hospital for a RAM upgrade. It's still there.

Hopefully I should get my computer back around Wednesday. So in the meantime here are my 2 favourite posts, both exploring disablism in film and TV:

• Sweet Perdition: Monkey Shines: An Experiment in Fear (of disability)


• Trouble is Everywhere: BADD: Bloody Torchwood

ETA: I won't be getting my computer back until Monday, so by then I think the BADD sailboat for 09 will be well and truly passed. I was going to write something about disability in the media, but I think Sweet Perdition and Trouble is Everywhere did better than I could (at least while I'm on painkillers for my foot that make me forget what I was saying whilst in the middle of saying it). So instead I'll just direct you back to my post about how I think Susan Boyle was a victim of disablism when she appeared on Britain's Got Talent and my post on #amazonfail; specifically "edited to add"s 3 and 4 in which I talk about how the press completely failed to acknowledge that disability titles were affected too.