Is your fridge door littered with magnets? Mine is; in fact 44 of them, ranging from reminders of places I have visited to a variety of messages.

They all jostle for pride of place and are a source of interest to people who visit.

My latest acquisition, given to me by a friend, announces: “Warning; I have attitude and I know how to use it”.

The message is accompanied by a picture of a giraffe. Is my friend telling me I am always sticking my neck out? Probably true if I am campaigning to make life equal for disabled people.

However, I am concentrating on the word ‘attitude’ as I think this is the most important word on that magnet. But what does this word mean?

Quite often it has a hostile message but, whatever we think it means, we all have ‘attitude’ in some measure or other. It is how we behave that defines it.

Scroungers, fakers, fraudsters, lazy – all these words have been hurled at disabled people and show people’s attitude towards them. I am not saying that these terms can never be applied to disabled people but that they can just as easily be applied to anyone else in society.

The cuts are making life harder for everyone. They affect disabled people too but a scapegoat must be found and an easy target is the disabled section of society.

Let us look at some examples. People using blue badge spaces that they are not entitled to. Could they be called “fakers”? A person ringing in to work to say they are unwell when they are just suffering from a hangover. Are they fraudsters?

How about binge drinkers? Their self-inflicted condition requires the help of police, doctors and ambulance men to answer their needs. What price is all that compared with that needed to help a disabled person live a fulfilling and independent life?

On the whole, disabled people want to be independent and want to be included in the job market. But did you know that employment rates for disabled people are 48 per cent, compared with 78 per cent for non-disabled people? Very often their educational needs haven’t been met adequately so they do not have the skills necessary to enter the job market on equal terms.

Lack of opportunity makes them sit by silently while abuse is thrown at them for not working.

So let your example change other people’s attitude for the better.