We keep hearing that various people make up the 'most vulnerable group in society'. I think (but may be wrong) that the phrase was first coined to describe transpeople, but now it applied to the disabled, to the homeless, to asylum seekers, to pensioners, to children in poverty and probably more. I've just heard Carole Malone describe pensioners as such on Jeremy Vine, which is what inspired me to see what you all think.
I'm not saying that there are no vulnerable people in any of those groups - of course there are - but are all members of any group vulnerable? Is it fair to compare a disabled child with a pensioner, or a transperson with someone in poverty? And why is there a need to do so anyway? Isn't it the case that if someone is vulnerable they are vulnerable, regardless of the vulnerability of others?
Is it that describing a group as 'vulnerable' means that anyone advocating for anything that might reduce what they get is, by definition, 'attacking the vulnerable'? So it's a way of ring-fencing support, in a way? The problem with that is that it leads to situations where groups are pitted against one another, and (for example) the triple lock is assumed to be taking from the young, or PIP payments stopping support for the homeless, and of course the assumption by some that everyone is losing out to asylum seekers. Clearly there have to be rules when it comes to who can claim for what, so I'm not really asking about that, but about the idea that whole groups are (or are not) 'vulnerable' because they are in a particular demographic.
I realise that this is not a clear-cut question, so feel free to deviate, but I suppose it boils down to 'what does being vulnerable mean to you, and/or who do you think is the most vulnerable group in society, and why?'
