Fraud
The Trashy Telegraph
Founded in 1855 as The Daily Telegraph and Courier, this national broadsheet newspaper now refers to itself online as The Telegraph.
Supporting the Conservative political party (the Tories), it is one of the worst offenders when it comes to promoting ableist political policies and thinking, as well as manipulating public ableist attitudes.
According to YouGov statistics, 69% of Telegraph readers support the Tories, compared to 28% of other newspapers’ readers.
64% are male (compared to 49% of other newspapers), 22% are considered to have a higher-than-average income (compared to 15% of other newspapers) and 38% are aged 60+ (compared to 30% of other newspapers).
As a broadsheet, The Telegraph’s readership traditionally had higher levels of education than tabloid readers.
This means readers of broadsheets tended to be those who would employ more critical thinking than those who stuck to tabloid publications - hence they were (supposedly) not so easily manipulated as those with lower levels of education.
Since the online spread of newspapers, this has changed.
Comments convey the educational levels of those who write them via the way they are written.
Spelling, punctuation, grammar and the vocabulary used, all give clues as to the educational levels of those writing them.
This may be hard to stomach, but facts
are facts, and facts don't need to be
liked or agreed with
to be facts.
My ableism research has led me to studies about the causes of bigotry -studies linking bigoted thinking to lower levels of intelligence (as I’ll explore in the editorial special mentioned above).
Those with lower levels of education and lower intelligence levels are more easily manipulated than those with higher levels of education and intelligence.
That’s not to say education automatically equals intelligence, but these are the facts.
This may be hard to stomach, but facts are facts, and facts do not need to be liked or agreed with in order to be facts.
While training to become a news journalist at the UK’s first and most prestigious School of Journalism, which set the template for every journalism degree in the country, we were told we were being taught to ‘manipulate the masses’, and this is something The Telegraph does in ways beyond the words it uses.
Insidious
For those who use critical thinking and take time to analyse the words they’re reading, The Telegraph’s ableism is obvious. But what about its more subtle methods of manipulation?
Rather than offering all their content for free and free of obligation, newspapers now either charge us for reading their articles or avoid accepting cookies by paying or, at the very least, by requiring us to subscribe – meaning we have to hand over our email, personal details and card details.
What does this have to do with The Telegraph contributing to the rise in ableism and it being sneaky? Allow me to explain…
Many of its stories are hidden behind a paywall, where you have to hand over cash to go beyond inflammatory headlines and standfirsts.
Of course, not everyone is willing to pay, so their knowledge of the articles doesn’t go any deeper than the (usually incorrectly written) posts and captioned graphics they see on social media.
Obviously, the posts and graphic captions are as inflammatory as possible in order to trigger outrage and get people to comment – the more comments, the higher The Telegraph’s online statistics, the more advertisers agree to pay them for space, and the more profit is made.
Aside from generating advertising revenue, The Telegraph’s other ambition is turning the UK public towards voting for and supporting the Tories and away from the Conservative party’s traditional opponent, the Labour party.
If it can’t do that, it goes for the ‘best’ second choice – the ultra-bigoted Reform UK party, which contains a growing number of ex-Tories who jumped ship once support for the Conservatives fell and Reform’s popularity grew.
Historically, Labour voters and supporters would not have read broadsheets, and certainly would not have read the Tory Telegraph.
To challenge and change this, it has altered its style, adopting more tabloid-type writing styles and topics, running stories that broadsheets would not usually have touched with a ten-metre pole.
The Telegraph also appeals to a different demographic by dropping the use of punctuation in its social media posts.
This may seem to be an insignificant thing, but in the wider context of how it plays people online, small things add up.
The evidence of the change in readership can be seen in comments beneath its open-access stories on its website - including things like incorrect spellingand grammar, using typically ‘text speech’ (things like ‘u’ instead of ‘you’, for example) and poor, if not totally absent, punctuation.
In terms of attacking disabled people to increase support for the Tories (and Reform), The Telegraph’s manipulation now goes beyond the usual and insidious means we’re taught to use.
Now, it’s resorting to pure deception.
The Bandwagon
News doesn’t happen, it’s made, usually with a specific motive in mind. One of the biggest topics covered in the last few of years has been PIP - Personal Independence Payment.
PIP is paid to disabled people to help cover the extra costs life with disabilities leads to, the details of which will be covered in other pieces.
News media have manipulated much of the masses into seeing PIP as a benefit that's easy to qualify for and often claimed fraudulently.
'Every year an estimated
£388 billion that should have been paid in tax disappears
into tax havens.'
- Tax Justice UK
Neither of these are true, but it’s a narrative news media have pushed hard for a few years, especially since a Labour government came into power.
With its right-wing, Tory bias, one role of The Telegraph is to protect the wealthiest people and corporations (its traditional readership).
This protection includes attacking the most vulnerable in UK society - disabled people - instead of covering the hundreds of billions of pounds lost to tax evasion by the wealthiest people and companies.
In 2024,
Tax Justice UK published a piece detailing the unimaginable amounts of cash that
should have gone into the public purse, but left the country instead.
In their article, they wrote:
'Every year an estimated £388 billion that should have been paid in tax disappears into tax havens.
Two thirds (£274 billion) of this is giant multinational corporations shifting their profits offshore to avoid tax.
The rest is wealthy individuals evading tax.'
Closing the legal loopholes allowing such obscene amounts of tax avoidance would more than cover PIP payments, which are said to be around £77billion per year (2025-2026).
When it comes to The Telegraph and other news media not writing about this issue of loopholes allowing tax avoidance, ask yourself why it isn’t being covered.
Rather than detail the best way to pump cash into the public purse - close these loopholes enabling the wealthiest people and companies to avoid paying tax - national news media choose to create a bandwagon of ableist hate upon which much of the UK public have jumped.
The Telegraph is one of the worst offenders, moving beyond the manipulation journalists are trained to write and now opting to use outright lies.
The Real Fraud
One of The Telegraph’s favourite topics is how PIP fraud is a massive issue, with many people lying on their applications to get their hands on cash.
Repeated again and again, the hundreds of examples of
ableism I've collected show The Telegraph is particularly bad for attacking
disabled people, having published many
ableist stories, translating into increased hostility aimed at
disabled
people.
This article, though, is particularly egregious because Tory MP, Helen Whatley, and whatever Telegraph staff who signed-off on this article, are lying.
In this article, she writes:
'Welfare has become easier to claim than ever before...There used to be a stigma against signing on.
Now you can get thousands of pounds of sickness benefits with just a form and a phone call.
'
This is a blatant lie.
PIP is not specifically mentioned, but readers of this will see ‘sickness benefits’ and, combined with the many negative pieces this newspaper has published about PIP, will apply the lie to this particular payment.
This then perpetuates the myth that many PIP claims are fraudulent – something I have seen repeatedly in comments
This translates into disabled
people enduring accusations
and abuse in the streets,
as I've read about in online groups and experienced personally.
The Truth
The saying ‘Never let the truth get in the way of a good story’ seems to be something Tory MP, Helen Whately, and The Telegraph stand by in their ableist treatment of disabled people and the financial help they receive. So, what is the truth?
First of all, claiming PIP is not easy and it takes far more than a phone call simply filling out a form.
It takes much medical evidence from specialists. Even then,
disabled
people are refused, must reapply and go to tribunals.
In my case, my application was nearly an inch thick, with medical evidence from two internationally renowned Ehlers-Danlos specialists (one of whom sat on the board behind PIP), along with many letters from numerous specialist consultants I’ve seen over the years.
I was denied this vital financial help. I reapplied and, again, was denied. Knowing I should have been in receipt of PIP, I went to a tribunal.
Within just minutes, the judge reinstated my PIP, telling the DWP how wrong they had been for refusing to reinstate it.
The DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) is, as its website states, ‘responsible for welfare, pensions and child maintenance policy’.
Despite what an apparently increasing number of people in the UK think, PIP is not easy to qualify for, and it is not often claimed fraudulently.
Indeed, the DWP has stated that PIP fraud is SO low, it stands at 0%, with the actual figure standing around 0.4% of claims.
In contrast, the number of fraudulent undisabled Universal Credit claims stands at 14-15%.
But, many readers of The Telegraph take what it publishes as fact.
They don't research this rag's claims – especially when what it writes reinforces their opinions and bigotries.
Neither do bigots bother to think about how or why news media manipulate them, including using lies to do so.
My research proves ableis
is the most accepted and
acceptable form of
discrimination
in the UK.
While publications like The Telegraph could cover the hundreds of billions of pounds lost to legal loopholes allowing tax evasion, it instead targets those most in need of financial help.
Ableists angered by what it publishes don’t seem to think about this, don’t ask themselves why the tax-avoiding wealthy aren’t attacked in the same way disabled people are.
Instead of seeing the smoke screen and peering behind it, they simply swallow the ableist rhetoric they’re fed, then regurgitate it online – and so the discrimination grows…
Lower levels of intelligence make people easier to manipulate, which is what we, as journalists, are trained to do.
My research proves that ableism is the most accepted and acceptable form of discrimination in the UK.
And, as national news media attack disabled people while avoiding pointing their pens at those benefitting from tax-avoidance loopholes, the ableist bandwagon is well and truly in motion…
…With The Telegraph leading the charge,
moving beyond manipulation into outright lies.
