Justin Tomlinson, The Missing Disability Minister
In a time of global crisis, communities should be able to rely on their elected representatives for support and guidance, regardless of their voting persuasions. Those deemed responsible for the lives and laws for said communities should be vocal and visual, especially when the country is at war with an invisible enemy that is especially targeting and decimating that representative's charges. The community in question here is the disabled community, a community of power and talent. However, at the moment disability is in flux, people are worried, getting no answers, or reassurance as a silent killer stalks the land. Disability is seemingly abandoned by the man charged with representing it, Justin Tomlinson MP, the minister for disabled people.
Covid, the said invisible enemy, has run rampant through the disabled community, affecting it more than any other. The statistics speak for themselves, especially this week on the first anniversary of the pandemic explosion. 59% of all covid related deaths had a disability. To put that into numbers is even more horrifying, 88,000 out of the 146,487 deaths from the virus were disabled people, and this number tragically grows daily. People with learning disabilities are more prone to infection and even disabled children, the most vulnerable, the most precious are becoming just numbers on an ever-growing and ignored numbers chart. That alone should be front-page news, sending shockwaves through parliament to hammer upon Mr. Tomlinson's door.Justin Tomlinson does however seem an amiable sort of fellow, but one not fit for such an important ministerial post. Virtually every other cabinet minister has stood in front of the nation and soullessly acted out their pretend sympathy to the country. We have heard from everyone, from the woefully inept Helen Whatley (the ironically named care minister) to even the minister for culture, Oliver Dowden, but not the man responsible for a community desperately looking for answers and help in a crisis. Disabled leaders and charities get the distinct impression that, as usual, disability, even in the grip of a horrific pandemic, is playing second fiddle to theatres, football fans, and holidaymakers. In short, it was and is looking like disability is collateral and expendable in the eyes of a system obsessed with productivity and profit before people.
Some people may think I am being overly harsh, selfish even as the death toll tragically rises, but, I am a father to a disabled child, I live with a hidden disability, my anger is justified, we have seen all our daughter's services halted and still no sign of a vaccine for either her or me. Our story is just one of many that fill my inbox daily from families of disabled people, stories of being thrown the lion of Covid, a community silenced and seemingly sacrifical.
For the Government and the minister for disabled people there can be now no redemption, no sudden and false concern, it is too late, the damage is done, the community decimated. The legacy of Tomlinson and this administration will be one of long-standing inequality, one of shoulder shrugging, one of a passive non-response to mounting casualties. If there is to be a legacy from this appalling dereliction of duty, then it must be an apology for weakness and invisibility from both him, his party, and a tabloid media guilty of towing the party line. This ministerial position that has failed can be readdressed and rebranded in the most obvious way possible, make the minister for disabled people a disabled person, lived experience and shared values, there really is no other way to avoid constantly repeating ignorance, failure, and history.