How did this disabled-hating bigot ever get elected mayor of Swindon?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/15/hard-life-disabled-hating-bigot-mayor

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It's a sad day for Swindon following the resignation of its mayor, Conservative Nick Martin. Or a good day, actually, as he happened to be a disabled-hating bigot.

The problem started last year when, at a council meeting discussing the challenges for disabled adults in modern society, Martin asked: "Are we still letting mongols have sex with each other?" Despite saying he'd done nothing wrong, Martin was found guilty of breaching the members' code of conduct. Told to apologise, Martin – apparently blocking out the part where he inferred that disabled people shouldn't be allowed to breed – said mongol was a word he "was brought up with", and that it was "not a modern word". It was at this point I started to weaken and feel absolutely no sympathy for Martin (or Mayor Martin the Misunderstood, as I imagine he refers to himself).

"I wish I hadn't got it wrong. The committee want a new apology, and I will keep apologising until they fall over," he said, in perhaps the worst apology about an apology that has ever been spoken. "I'm sorry, I'm human, and I don't know what is wrong with my apologies." I can only imagine the frustration Martin feels living in a world where not only do people complain when an elected official uses hateful slurs at public meetings but complain again when you give them an apology you were forced to make and is absolutely terrible.

Clearly what no one understands is that people such as Martin are renegades, fighting against the oppressive march of PC progressives. "First they come for the disablist politicians, then the homophobic teachers." Before you know it, the Daily Mail will have closed its doors and people in positions of power will be going about their day without being a bigot to anyone.

Martin isn't even alone. Cornish councillor Collin Brewer hit the headlines last year for suggesting disabled children should be put down. Forced to resign not once but twice, Brewer was a victim of his own innovation, really. Much like Martin, Brewer didn't know why he'd launched into such an abusive rant at a council meeting, putting it simultaneously down to having a bad day, being "hot under the collar" after a budget cuts talk, and wanting to start a debate.

I like a debate. I also like to point out the ridiculousness of people, let alone politicians, talking about 10% of the population as if they are another species.

Aside from Martin's self-pity and my sarcasm, I can't help but pause over the reality that in 2014 there are people who still hold these attitudes towards disability – and some of them are even our elected leaders. Whether the words are extreme but laughable like Swindon's ex-mayor, or gentle but damaging, this supposedly progressive country of ours too often still equates disability with strangeness, laziness and fearful difference.

"Are we still letting people hold these attitudes about people with disabilities?" is the question Martin should have been asking and one we should all be saying publicly and loudly.