Consistency is everything

With around one in ten of the world's population possessing some kind of disability, and this figure set to grow substantially with the advance of clinical technologies and the ageing process, the way our society treats the disabled has never been more important.

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is the very first global human rights legislation of the twenty first century, proposing fair and equitable treatment among those countries who agree to be bound by its contents.

However, the Government of one country has so far refused to sign up to the legislation.

Best guesses could include Kenya? China? Some Eastern European state?. You'd be wrong.

It's us - the UK, whose Labour government was so fanatically over-eager to embrace every last aspect of human rights legislation, leaving our businesses and public services to suffer daily organised abuse from those who "play the system".

Consistency in New Labour? We're still looking...