Summer of 2012:
Paralympic legacy and the welfare benefit scandal

Abstract: Through the summer of 2012, two opposing sets of images dominated the British press. Welfare benefits reform met the Paralympics, the former casting disabled people as scroungers, the latter as superhumans. Seemingly independent yet intertwined, the images have profound consequences for public perception of disability and the lives of disabled people. These are explored through one claimant’s traversal of the benefits system against a heady backdrop of the Games. In exploring the images and their impact, the values that drive them are exposed, holding profound consequences for disabled people’s campaigns and offering hope for an abiding legacy from the summer of 2012.