Remember Jane Cordell, the deaf FCO diplomat who was taking the FCO to an Employment Tribunal after they refused to pay for her posting to Astana on the grounds that the ‘reasonable adjustments’ needed to make her posting work were just too expensive?

She has lost her claim on all counts.

Here is my commentary on this issue (Note: the Indy website previously had only a very truncated version):

Most employers and taxpayers will hail this result as a triumph for common sense. What about all the other disabled people? What about sick people needing expensive drugs which the NHS can’t afford? What about the local school’s leaky roof? You have to draw a line somewhere. It just can’t be right to spend so much public money on supporting one diplomat overseas, can it? There are plenty of other cushy diplomatic jobs she can do anyway.

Well, yes. And no. There’s more to it than that…

Yet something important is missing in the way the FCO handled the case, and in the Tribunal’s judgement itself: commitment and leadership — the idea that the very fact of supporting this disabled diplomat in a senior overseas position itself sends a hugely powerful signal of encouragement to deaf people round the world. That this has policy value in itself, and is worth paying for…

The overall result? The FCO won this case. But it has nothing to be proud of.

The UK’s small numbers of disabled diplomats are de facto now in two unhealthy categories. Those whose disabilities can be supported relatively cheaply overseas. And those like Jane Cordell who are proclaimed to be too expensive to post to our embassies abroad. The whole point of Equality legislation is to help break down barriers. This is a dismal result, for deaf people in particular. So much for the FCO’s ‘vision’ of “being a world leader in embracing and harnessing difference”.

Did the Employment Tribunal really want to set a new Orwellian standard for disability policy in this country? All disabilities are equal — but some are more equal than others.