When is the word ‘vulnerable’ the right word? Plus celebrating Lenny Rush

The Way We Roll

A bumper show this month. There’s an underlying theme around the erosion or optionality of including disabled people.

What do you do when you’re hotel room isn’t ready…especially when you return to the hotel after a night out at midnight and find out? Move to another room? Not so simple if you’re a wheelchair user. Kat Watkins had this happen to her, and we explore what coulda shoulda happened.
Did you know there are new consumer duties which may assist differently disabled people (beyond Phil’s favourite group being learning disabled people who fill in forms).

Simon and Phil have noticed the word ‘vulnerable’ is creeping back into the language to describe disabled people. Used without context or explanation, as in, ‘financially vulnerable’ or ‘vulnerable to exclusion’, the use of the word feels patronising and retrograde. Is it linked to Covid when lots of people were vulnerable? Is it broader, a moral driver of ‘being kind’? The issue is the word is disempowering, and inclusion isn’t optional nor a favour. There are legal duties underpinning this, as well as a moral imperative.

More happily, we enjoy the success Lenny Rush is experiencing. A British actor with dwarfism, only 14 years old, he is absolutely storming it. We ask, was Peter Dinklage in Game of Thrones a watershed moment?

Links

Disabled woman forced to sleep in hotel dining area ‘after the booked room was unavailable’

Disability and Vulnerability paper

New Consumer Duty.

Speech introducing a new duty

Best Bits of Am I Being Unreasonable with Daisy Cooper and Lenny Rush

Lenny Rush BAFTA acceptance speech

Chapters

1. When is the word ‘vulnerable’ the right word? Plus celebrating Lenny Rush (00:00:00)

2. Hotel Access Nightmare (00:05:06)

3. Not happy with the term "vulnerable" (00:15:55)

4. New FSA Regulations (00:28:05)

5. Lenny Rush wins a BAFTA (00:38:54)

6. Listeners Corner (00:46:22)