New Years Honours Lists – usually a bunch of recently newsworthy celebrities and sportspeople, and a huge list of people you never hear of who are knighted for services to Banking or something equally banal.
This year, the bankers and City dignataries were largely absent – what with ruining the economy and all, and this coupled with the recent Olympic shindig left lots more room for athletes.
In fact every Gold medal winner who wasn’t a paraolympian got some kind of honour. Paraolypian gold medalists were not quite as equal as their non-disabled counterparts though, as only about half of our gold medalists were considered worthy of an honour.
There is absolutely no reason for this. Other than to say that the Politicians who submit names for the New Year Honours List, and the Government who approves the final list, cannot believe that a gold medal won by a paraolympian is equal to the same achievement by an non-disabled athlete in the mainstream olympics.
This is a clear indication that the achievement of disabled people is not as highly valued as that of non-disabled people – we call that prejudice leading to a discriminatory act.
Shape up Government team GB.
