• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / Politics / Disabled politician won’t fight general election after ‘intolerable’ hate crime
Head and shoulders of Chris Nelson, smiling, wearing glasses, in front of trees

Disabled politician won’t fight general election after ‘intolerable’ hate crime

By John Pring on 22nd February 2024 Category: Politics

Listen

A disabled politician has announced he will not stand for his party at the next general election because of the rising and “intolerable” levels of hate crime directed towards him as someone with a stammer.

Chris Nelson (pictured) has stood for the Liberal Democrats four times in Kettering, but he announced yesterday (Wednesday) that he would not be standing at the next general election, which will take place in the next 12 months.

He said he had been one of the few people with a stammer to have stood for parliament but could no longer accept the targeted disability-related hostility he has been subjected to, both from other local politicians – although never from any of the local MPs – and some members of the public.

He has been verbally abused, chased down the street, and had recordings of radio interviews posted online to mock his impairment.

Other politicians have made jokes about his stammer, with one describing it as an “embarrassment”, and he was told that one politician had asked a colleague at an election count: “How’s C-C-C-C-C-Chris doing?”

He said the “final straw” was an incident involving another politician that took place in a street near his home, which was later recorded by police as a disability hate incident.

He said he believed that it remained “politically acceptable” to mock people who stammer.

Nelson, a secondary school teacher, told Disability News Service yesterday: “Every time there is some person with a disability who gets abused, the people from [their] party are up in arms, and people in the opposition are looking for excuses.

“Every side is guilty of hypocrisy and every party has a minority of people that are a problem.

“The vast majority of people in my party have been lovely, and from other parties, but there is a minority that are abusive.”

He said that all political parties were equally guilty of such behaviour, although his party locally had been “very supportive”.

Nelson said he was “really sad” to have made the decision not to stand again, because he enjoyed the process of fighting an election, such as speaking to voters, and taking part in debates and hustings.

But he said: “It comes with a price and the price is not being able to sleep at night because of all this abuse.

“It’s not constant, but it’s regular and it’s there and there’s a degree to which you just go, ‘do you know what, I can’t live with this at the minute,’ particularly when you don’t see it getting better, and particularly when it seems to be getting worse.

“I feel quite sad, because my principles are such that I should keep going, but I have to put my wellbeing first.”

He said that both the media and political parties needed to address the issue of disability-related hostility.

He said: “There needs to be a culture shift within the media and the political sector in general, within political parties.”

And he pointed to the lack of people with a stammer on television, other than when they are “trying to overcome something, so we don’t have representation”.

Jane Powell, chief executive of the disabled people’s organisation STAMMA, which campaigns for people who stammer, said: “The consequences of mocking people because they talk differently can be, as in Mr Nelson’s case, career-changing. It is unacceptable.

“For this to happen in a political environment, and one which seems to encourage bullying and prize fluency over content, should shame all our politicians.”

She said Nelson had been subjected to unlawful harassment, and she added: “As a society we shouldn’t devalue what people say, because of how they say it.

“MPs need to model the behaviour that we want to see generally.”

She said STAMMA had set up an advocacy service to take on such complaints, to help cement its case that such behaviour was illegal.

 

A note from the editor:

Please consider making a voluntary financial contribution to support the work of DNS and allow it to continue producing independent, carefully-researched news stories that focus on the lives and rights of disabled people and their user-led organisations.

Please do not contribute if you cannot afford to do so, and please note that DNS is not a charity. It is run and owned by disabled journalist John Pring and has been from its launch in April 2009.

Thank you for anything you can do to support the work of DNS…

Share this post:

Share on X (Twitter)Share on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on RedditShare on LinkedIn

Tags: General election Hate crime Kettering Liberal Democrats STAMMA stammer

A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities. Get 10% off with BDA10'

Related

GB News says it has nothing to apologise for, after guest suggests starving disabled benefit claimants
3rd July 2025
Ministers are considering further extension to disability hate crime laws, after pledge on ‘aggravated’ offences
26th June 2025
Labour government faces questions over why it stuffed access to elected office committee with Tories
12th June 2025

Primary Sidebar

On the left of the image are multiple heads of different colours - white, aqua, red, light brown, and dark green - all grouped together, then the words ‘Campaign for Disability Justice. Sign up to support. #OpportunitySecurityRespect’
A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities. Get 10% off with BDA10'

Access

Latest Stories

Government ignores warnings of new DWP deaths, and UN intervention, as MPs pass universal credit cuts bill

Urgent letter from UN to Labour government warns: We think your cuts continue Tory attack on disability rights

Race against time to secure DWP deaths evidence before parliament passes new benefit cuts bill

‘Complete shift in thinking’ needed on education of disabled children, says ALLFIE

Minister ignored concerns from disabled advisers, months before publishing cuts bill

Frustration after government only issues partial ban on new floating bus stops

Report suggests five big ideas that could transform disabled people’s mobility

My new book shows exactly why we need the disability movement, says disabled author

‘Disastrous’ cuts bill that leaves legacy of distrust and distress ‘must be dropped’

Four disabled Labour MPs stand up to government over cuts to disability benefits

Advice and Information

Readspeaker
A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities. Get 10% off with BDA10'

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Bluesky
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Threads
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2025 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web