A British news channel has said it has nothing to apologise for after a right-wing commentator and comedian suggested the best way to cut the number of disabled people claiming benefits was to starve, or even shoot, them.
It is just the latest example of disability hate speech broadcast and published by mainstream media organisations over the last 35 years that have run in parallel with government attempts to cut spending on disability benefits.
GB News presenter Patrick Christys had told viewers that “welfare needs to be cut” – while ignoring the evidence that working-age social security spending is stable as a proportion of GDP* – before claiming that the prime minister was not “doing much” to cut disability benefits.
He then asked his guest Lewis Schaffer how he would “get them off their backside”.
Schaffer replied: “Just starve them, that’s what people have to do, that’s what you’ve got to do to people, you can’t just give people money.”
He then added: “What else can you do? Shoot them? I mean, I’d suggest that, but I think that’s maybe a bit strong.”
Christys then replied: “Yeah, it’s just not allowed these days.”
On his X/Twitter profile, Schaffer describes himself as a “virologist, cardiologist, climatologist, historian”, but elsewhere he is described as a “comedian and broadcaster”.
One of the earliest commentators to pick up Schaffer’s comments was “Maximilien Robespierre”, who described the comments on his YouTube channel as “dangerous rhetoric”.
GB News originally refused to comment, but it eventually produced the following statement for Disability News Service (DNS): “Having reviewed the comment, which is clearly comedic, GB News does not consider there is anything that requires an apology, or further explanation.”
But Dr Natasha Hirst, disabled members’ representative for the National Union of Journalists, told DNS: “It is appalling and unacceptable for an Ofcom-regulated broadcaster to encourage and allow discriminatory and harmful commentary about disabled people.
“Suggesting violence towards disabled people is no joke and has real-life consequences by emboldening hate speech and harassment.
“We expect Ofcom to do its job as a regulator and investigate the complaints raised with a recognition of the wider context of exclusion and abuse that disabled people experience in their daily lives.”
Disabled campaigner Ben Scott called for GB News to be shut down by the broadcasting regulator Ofcom because of the “astronomically shocking” and “appalling” rhetoric.
He said Schaffer’s comments reminded him of Nazi “useless eater” rhetoric from the 1930s, which eventually led to the targeted killing of hundreds of thousands of disabled people in Germany through the Aktion T4 programme.
After Scott criticised him on X, Schaffer repeated some of his comments, posting: “I’m suggesting ‘starving’ or and then ‘shooting’ the disabled, to lower costs!”
This week, Schaffer’s website appeared to have been taken off-line, but Wikipedia describes him as “an American comedian and broadcaster” who is also a GB News presenter.
The comments come just three months after the Department for Work and Pensions drew horrified comments after publishing figures that showed the total cost to the economy of disabled people who cannot work, which was described as a “chilling” echo of the propaganda of 1930s Germany.
Ofcom confirmed that there had been complaints about Lewis Schaffer’s comments, but because there were less than 50, it was unable to say how many.
An Ofcom spokesperson said: “We are assessing complaints about this programme against our broadcasting rules before deciding whether or not to investigate.”
*Gross domestic product, the size of the country’s economy in a particular year
Picture: Patrick Christys (left) and Lewis Schaffer
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