I was listening to Any Answers on Radio 4 earlier today, as
I do occasionally when I want to feel intellectually superior to the general
public. I'm not claiming actual superiority per
se, just the ability to tell the difference between the joint which links
the humerus and ulma, and the orifice from which faecal matter is passed.
I use this image as the phrase 'faecal matter' was one which leapt energetically to the forefront
of my mind in reaction to the opinions of a handful of contributors.
In keeping with the current spirit of the age there was a barrage of attack, a sheetwind of accusations of Skullduggery, Shiftlessness and General Ne'er-Do-Wellery amongst
the poorer members of society, who are actively evading bettering themselves. It was most informative.
Indeed, I was more than glad to be enlightened about
the plethora of employment opportunities available out there. There are untold golden doors leading forth, and we
should encourage people to snap up gleaming career-paths such as zero-hour
contracts at Sports Direct (Alan Pardew's
current job, seemingly), or low-effort,
high-yield roles in the field of black-market organ 'donation'*.
And to highlight the wonder of these career-opportunities, we
must make the carrot shine by smacking the shit out of people with the pointy
stick of not paying any kind of benefit to the unemployed. How did I not see the simplicity of this logic
before?
Britain's soft-touch, over-indulgence of the feckless
layabout class does nothing other than to encourage people to stay out of work,
breeding like jack-rabbits, smoking like laboratory beagles and laughing at Ordinary, Hard-Working Families, all while watching Jeremy Kyle and Bid-Up TV on their 52" Plasma
flatscreens. It cannot continue.
Equally, I was beyond grateful for the enlightening fact that if we provide Child-Benefit for single-mothers with more than three offspring, we
are only encouraging 'them' to keep popping the little buggers out. I don't know why I had never thought of it,
but the solution to this problem was there, as clear as day, dancing a little jig of revelation
in front of my stupid, complacent face: don't support anyone with four** kids. Let
the little fuckers starve. That'll teach
them to be born.
I used to think opinions like these belonged to a minority
of insaners. Worryingly, I'm coming into
contact with them more and more frequently. Speaking to an elderly relative recently I was moderately shocked***
that she was banging on about Romany coming over here like cockroaches, laying
eggs, committing crime and depriving our own criminal lads of thievery
opportunities in their own country. What's the world coming to when you can't mug
old ladies in your own backyard because some benefit-claiming, Polish-Speaking
Bulgarian Gypsy has already stolen all their stuff for scrap?
It is dishearteningly true that, as a teacher, I come into contact with this level of
ill-conceived crazy on an almost hourly basis. Most popular questions of late
have been 'Why are we giving benefits to illegal immigrants?' and 'Why can't we
celebrate Easter any more?'. Usually in
the classroom, although sometimes in the staffroom.
I do try point out that
if anyone is here illegally, it's unlikely they're registered to receive state
help. And,if you want to celebrate a festival which commemorates some dude
getting nailed to planks two-thousand years ago, then not only are you free to
do so, but you've got a four-day weekend over which to do it. Stuff yourself with chocolate for Jesus.
Unfortunately, by this point, the other member
of the conversation is usually staring into the distance, dreaming a world in
which there are no poor, no strugglers, no dissenters, no rabble-rousers, no
foreigners, no one in need of help, no-one angry at injustice. A world of beige
Swastikas.
There is definite social-shift towards more right-wing
attitudes riding the Zeitgeist. I
suspect it goes in cycles, as people grow dissatisfied with one general hue of the political-attitudes
spectrum, there is a slide along to the other side, and then, after some time down that end,
vice-versa.
I'm hoping that we're as far towards the right as we're going
to get, and that people will start to question the course of the National
Conversation, in much the same way that people are beginning to question the coll quotient of beards. They are not actually cool, but they are one-step away from living in the woods
and shagging goats to assert some sort of misguided masculinity.
And I hope we are not on a slide towards further blame and accusation against those most in need. I hope this because, today, I read about the detrimental impact of zero-hours
on the psychological well-being of those who are on them. I read about the rise
in the need for food-banks in the sixth-richest country in the world.
I also read that Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles (Or is
she Camiila Windsor now? I have no idea how the apportioning of names works in those
levels of the German Nobility) charged the taxpayer £30,000 for a plane from
Windsor to Scotland, for a personal trip. Because Lord Ears 'is always on duty'. I also read
that the average annual salary for the CEOs of the top 100 companies in Britain is
£4.4m.
And I wonder how, when we live a society like that, where
the rich are, in the words of the song, getting richer, and the poor, in the
words of another song, are getting rained on from a great height, that people
don't look up to see why they're actually getting shafted, but look across, or
look down, and see blame where there should be human solidarity.
Any answers?
* The latter was implied, rather than explicitly stated. I
was listening to Radio Four, after all. Not BBC London.
** This may seem like an arbitrary number. It's not of
course. Any less, and we'd be no better than those there Chinese communists.
And besides, we need to keep breeding so we don't get outbred by them there
Muslims, innit?
***Moderately . There does seem to be a correlation between ageing and being the Daily Mail in human form.
