In the final week of September, the UK Government launched their new campaign for disability rights with the slogan “Ask, Don’t Assume”. Apparently developed in conjunction with hundreds of disabled people, the campaign allegedly urges people to ask those of us with disabilities if we need help rather than assuming we do. Unfortunately, any noble intentions fall flat as the slogan is unclear and potentially even harmful, and as such many disabled people take issue with this campaign, myself included. There are three main reasons why.

First and foremost, this campaign does not stress what questions it is and is not appropriate to ask. It’s excellent practice to ask if someone disabled needs help, or anyone else to be honest, but asking intrusive and personal questions about our disabilities is something this community has been actively campaigning against for decades. It’s not just rude to ask why someone uses a particular accessibility aid; dredging up the cause of a disability can be downright traumatic. I would really rather not recount my experience of meningitis while trying to buy toothpaste, for example. Unless you’re a medic in a clinic where I am being treated, you don’t need to know my medical history, and there are even less examples of appropriate situations for someone to ask how I, as someone disabled, has sex (I lie down).

In addition, simply stating “ask” fails to capture another essential aspect of how to ask a disabled person if they need help, which brings me to my second point; there is little point to asking a question if you aren’t prepared to accept the answer. Asking if we need help and immediately leaping in to “help” without waiting for our reply is no better than not asking in the first place, nor is the classic disregarding our response altogether. I have suffered multiple injuries as a direct result of people “helping” when I had declined help, included having several mugs of hot coffee spilling directly into my lap, and badly pulled muscles when doors I had been opening were wrenched from my grasp. My wheelchair has also had several near misses in terms of damage when people have tried to push or lift it unsafely. I will always explain exactly what to do if I do need someone to manually handle the wheelchair, but most people seem to assume they know more about handling a wheelchair than the person sat in it, for some reason.

The final big issue with Ask, Don’t Assume actually has nothing to do with the campaign itself per se, but pertains to the fact that this campaign has already existed for years. Just Ask Don’t Grab by Dr Amy Kavanaugh is a campaign created and led by a disabled person, and does a far better job of explaining what can be asked and how to respond to the answer than the similar sounding government hashtag. Frankly, if I was Amy, I’d be incensed at the blatant plagiarism, although I know that her time since the program’s launch has mainly been taken up with trying to undo the damage it has already caused.

The salt in the Ask, Don’t Assume shaped wound was seeing many disability charities and organisations supporting the campaign, and it was equally upsetting that already disabled individuals are having to put forth significant labour to counter the ill-performed Ask, Don’t Assume campaign. It’s not much, but in a matter of days I’ve found myself putting together a video and blog post, all around a full-time job at the busiest time of the year. This pales in comparison to the contributions of others such as the aforementioned Amy, but is still more effort than I would have had to expend had the government not launched such a half-assed excuse for a campaign.

Sadly, in many cases the efforts of disabled people have also been met with lash-back explaining to us how we’ve misunderstood the campaign about the issues we face, or how we should just be grateful for the government’s efforts. Frankly, when the government is destroying the healthcare, social care, and financial support disabled people require to survive, having also failed to protect us during a global pandemic, the very last thing we should ever be is grateful.

In conclusion; Don’t Ask. Don’t Assume. And don’t trust a Tory.