Tom Shakespeare is our guest this month. An English sociologist and broadcaster he is known to many who are involved in disability rights as well the broader public because of his appearances on Radio 4 and numerous television documentaries. Tom has achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism and uses a wheelchair. He has worked at the World Health Organisation and is currently Professor of Disability Research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Tom has never been afraid to share his views on a whole range of subjects. As you might expect he was very frank about some of the more difficult moments in his life; when he challenged the thinking of many disabled activists, about the social model, his take on bioethics and more recently assisted suicide. Our discussion also explored self-confidence as distinct from self-esteem and how ‘adversity inoculation’, that is experiencing surmountable challenges in life, can help with resilience rather than overprotecting people from taking risks.Tom talks about his influences; his father and Jenny Morris’ book Pride Against Prejudice. He questions whether we can get stuck, rejecting diversity of thought and resist smart allegiances which will ultimately weaken disabled people’s progress in society. For example, we need medical classification so how do we work with medical professionals, adapt them and own them? Or why don’t we work with the organisations we don’t like to change them?Transcript available here (https://www.dropbox.com/s/l81rw0y72yzy3qc/Phil%20%26%20Simon%20Show%20No%2032%20Tom%20Shakespeare?dl=0&fbclid=IwAR0blfPXkfNE4Z1R2naXnLRlvmhgoIJPC1rssYCCjXe2JqTVB8mJQz9yXQM) - click Download once you arrive. Finally just to let you know in advance there is a little swearing in this recording. Plus there's a ten second gap at the end before we sign off, so you can recover your breath from the interesting conversation. If you need a full transcript of this show please email us at [email protected] 

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