The government have unleashed their latest and greatest ploy to get the unemployed back into work. It’s a simple procedure that involves the precision hacking away at the benefits of jobseekers everywhere, no matter how much you’ve worked in the past or where. This is supposed to incentivise work by showing that benefits will never pay more than employment.
Only there seems to be two problems with this. First off is the use of the word ‘incentive’, which implies an improvement somewhere, rather than just financial suffocation. This is the equivalent of taking away the oxygen tank from a diver and pointing to the surface. Second is, of course, the economic climate.
This new policy has received, seemingly, widespread support, both from the public and politicians, who see those on benefits as nothing more than a permanent drain on society. Despite the release of the ‘common misconceptions’ statistics last week, it seems no one has learnt. Politicians and the media continue to spin the numbers and now seemingly swallow them, happily and now consciously.
I already wrote a blog entry on those figures, but let’s recap – it would seem a recap is needed for those swimming around their bowls:
The perception is that capping benefits at £26,000 per household will save more money than increasing the pension age to 66 or stopping child benefit for those earning over £50,000. The reality is capping household benefits will save £290million, compared with £5billion for raising the pension age and £1.7billion for reducing child benefit.
In addition, the perception is £24 in every £100 spent on benefits is claimed fraudulently. The reality: £0.70 in every £100 spent on benefits is claimed fraudulently.
The most important set of statistics is the second one. For some reason we have and - despite information like this - continue to have an extremely warped view of those on unemployment benefits. The vast, vast majority of claimants are claiming legitimately and fairly.
People say they understand that the economy is in tatters, only sometimes it seems like their ‘understanding’ is merely the squawking of a very well trained parrot. Sort of like, ‘everyone is using that sound bite, so I will too’. But it seems even after finishing their regurgitation, they have absolutely no idea what economic crisis entails.
To most, it seems that a pay freeze or maybe a raise under inflation is what all this is about. Not the millions who are out of work because there just isn’t the work available. It’s not about the hundreds of people flooding each vacancy with hundreds and hundreds of applications. It’s not about the countless people, not just in the public sector but the private sector too, that have lost their jobs - not just the unskilled, but the highly skilled too who have been made redundant due to budget restrictions or decreased profits. It’s not about all those qualified, experienced and skilled people stagnating in part-time work. And it’s not about the Sword of Damocles that could well be swinging above almost every normal working person’s head, ready to drop when they least expect it. All this, it seems to me, is considered a myth by the majority of middle England.
I just heard an acquaintance lost their job. She was three years qualified at a top London law firm, where for all intents and purposes, she was very successful. However, due to budgetary cuts (and no doubt the partners’ reluctance to take pay cuts) she was made redundant. She was hardly one to stand up for universal benefits, but now she finds herself either at the mercy of the state or eating into the money she carefully put away for her future – a future the government seems less and less enthusiastic about supporting. This is the plight of the majority of those on jobseeker’s allowance.
But this is the real issue here. It’s not the cap at all. What the real issue is is that if the government want to incentivise work, then they have to make working conditions better. It no good having workers worrying about whether their position could go at any minute, rather than just concentrating on the job in hand.
All the government have done in this area is make it easier for employers to sack their workers, cut the amount of compensation they have to pay to only 12 month’s salary, and cut consultation to just 45 days in the case of mass redundancies – and all this was put forward by Vince Cable, the ‘friendly face’ of the coalition. There’s no added incentive when the government so whole heartedly supports business, not the people they represent.
But this isn’t the only area where businesses get the blind support of the government. The fact is employment doesn’t always pay. There are millions of people who are so underpaid by their employers that they cannot make ends meet on their wage alone. It’s then up to the tax payer to make up the shortfall. Far more money goes on these kinds of benefits than on those who are out of work.
The argument that these are tough times and that businesses and corporations can’t afford it is, for the most part, utter bollocks. The average salary of a FTSE 100 chief executive was estimated to be 100 times that of a school teacher in 2011 or around the £3 million mark in 2012. They continue to pay themselves huge and rising salaries each year, along with their vulgar obligatory bonuses. Not to mention throwing away money on risky ventures like Tesco did with their Fresh ’n’ Easy gamble - something they dusted themselves off from pretty quickly. Meanwhile, the average working person’s wage (around the £25,000 mark) rises only 1% per year, if at all.
What’s more, the new jobs that these companies are creating are mainly part time work, which cannot satisfy the absolutely basic living conditions each human deserves. So is the money being widely invested in a few high-powered boardroom individuals?
Perhaps if a few execs could forgo their raises or bonuses, or better yet take a pay cut, perhaps the wages they pay to their lowest drones wouldn’t be so low. But the ‘not enough to go round’ issue is what every corporation argues when the issue of the Living Wage comes up, yet they have enough stashed away to be used as a play-thing. A cynical person would say some at the top of the food chain have found a convenient excuse in the economic climate.
The biggest scandal we face as far as benefits goes is not that there are so many unfortunate people forced to claim them, but that so many people need them whether they are in work or not. It’s the product of irresponsible capitalism and individualistic greed that is so being pushed by the government and right-wing press and swallowed by the public. As an employee, we shouldn’t be expected to work as low-paid slaves, but rather we should expect inclusion and adequate financial remuneration. Most of us are ultimately working for someone else’s dreams of money, influence and power after all.
It’s the gap between the executives and the average people that is really tearing this country apart. However, it’s the weak, not the strong, we turn the cannons on. This is because we’re told to. And we swallow everything the media and our politicians have to offer. A real incentive to get back into work would be the promise and respect of a living wage and the feeling that one isn’t worthless when compared to those watching over us from their ivory towers.
Tuesday, 16 July 2013
Wednesday, 10 July 2013
The lies we’re told, the lies we believe and the lies we tell ourselves
This one is a lie I let myself believe, but it’s not one I believe anymore. This is a lie in the same vein as ‘I’m not racist, but...’, ‘I don’t dislike homosexuals, but...’ only it it’s on a much wider scale, a lie attributed to an entire society. It’s a lie that’s told by those leading voices and rehashed by those that follow. It’s the lie that goes ‘The British people are a tolerant bunch, but...’
It doesn’t feel good attacking our society like this. It’s something I slurred out to one of my progressive friends on a night out, only to find myself quickly rebutted. On the whole, she said to me, we are much better than most. A fair enough comment if we believe what we’re told, only I’m not sure what the source material for this is. We read all sorts of stuff that holds us up on the pedestal of tolerance in all sorts of publications, especially the Daily Mail. Only it’s usually written in a column that also drops some kind of anti-minority bomb or something against the disenfranchised in the same paragraph. The slur I made is the bomb I’m going to drop now. The British people aren’t all that tolerant at all.
I’ve often felt this after watching some political panel show like Question Time, listening to comments from the public on certain political issues like immigration or benefits, or even simple things like teenage pregnancy or recreational drug use. A placating statement followed by a spill of bile. I hear it so much that I think, maybe they are speaking the truth. I mean, this person is saying it, the slightly out of shape man with the thinning hair and glasses also said it, and the man in the all too padded, ill-fitting suit who’s trying so hard yet failing spectacularly at looking statesmanlike has also said it, so in there must be some truth here. Scroungers are stealing all the money from the public purse and the island is going to sink into the sea under the creaking weight of all those immigrants. If they repeat what they say, over and over, maybe it’ll be true.
Goebbel’s is attributed to saying something like that once, though I think that might not be strictly correct. However, it doesn’t sound too off what the mastermind of Nazi propaganda might have said. Say something enough and it becomes truth. The problem is this kind of truth is it can be smashed by things like facts and figures and statistics. You know, the pesky objective evidence thing that Locke and Hume so graciously gave us with that whole empiricism idea. And this is exactly what has happened to the great slew of Britain’s misconceived preconceptions.
Splashed all over all the newspapers recently are The Top Ten Common Misconceptions Among Britons About Britain. I first came across this in a rather right-leaning publication, so immediately thought ‘ah, it’ll be something about the length of rivers or about the species of birds we have here’, but instead it did actually list out the top ten of the list of countless items of crap we like to spill out on a daily basis. This includes all the fan favourites; immigration, benefits, overseas aid and – although it’s fallen slightly out of fashion recently – teenage pregnancy. I’m not going to reprint it here, but I would like to go into some specifics.
So, according to these stats, it seems capping benefits will not be saving us anywhere near the amount of money we thought it would, while 70p in every £100 is claimed fraudulently, not the quarter we all thought. Also, we’re spending much more on pensions than on job seekers allowance – fifteen times more.
The overwhelming increased demonization of those on benefits has come at a time when the economy has gone to shit. Many people in the public sector have lost their jobs and find themselves blamed for it – blamed (incorrectly) for causing the economic problems here in the first place and then for claiming benefits. In actual fact, it was the banking crisis that caused this, not the public sector and Labour. And people seem to forget those in the private sectors are suffering too, suffering from pay freezes and job losses while their company overlords thrive, both monetarily and in respect. It’s a sad and pathetic time where the weak maul the even weaker.
And what about immigration and religion? Well, today’s current, fashionable bogeyman is Islam. People talk about how it’s replacing Christianity and how 'soon Sharia Law will take over'. Well, 5% are Muslim, hardly the horde everyone talks about, while 59% of the people of this country consider themselves Christian. This is rather disconcerting to me because I don’t know where that puts the atheists and agnostics. However, it also show the ridiculous focus and obsession that people seem to need to need to put on something the consider 'other' in order to go about their daily lives. In the 21t Century, what does the representation of religious groups really matter?
As far as immigration and ethnicity goes, people of ethnicities other than white make up 11% of the population, not 30%. It’s more likely that if this country does sink into the sea, it won’t be under the weight of people mainly from the lands conquered by the British Empire, but rather from the descendants of those that conquered these islands between the end of the Roman Empire and 1066. It’s not race and immigration that we are buckling under the weight of, but just the number of people in general, whatever their colour or race. So now do we want to stop having kids entirely?
Of course, I do understand that people have to get their information from somewhere. Unfortunately, the media and politicians have been feeding us outright lies for years to fit their own agenda. After all, the erroneous figures must have some source. The problem seems to be, however, that no one bothers to think about them. No one trusts what they see and would rather apply themselves to a strictly abstract idea.
We, as a nation, are turning on each other. In our time of need, rather than sympathising with the jobless or those seeking sanctuary, we set them as targets. Rather than being inclusive, we shut ourselves off and try our best create moats and defences between us. We aren’t all in it together, and this is a myth that goes far beyond just the gap between the rich overlords and the rest of us. The citizens of this country are allowing themselves to become completely divided.
The problem is it’s the same new sources and politicians that deem us as a tolerant nation that come up with all the rubbish that we’ve let ourselves believe. It’s them that spout all the intolerant drivel that has been disproved by these latest, national figures and statistics. It’s another case of ignoring the evidence, only the evidence they are ignoring here is their own voice.
And even if we are more tolerant than some incredibly intolerant nations, it’s not a competition. Surely what we want to achieve is a harmonious and prosperous nation, which we cannot do if we aren’t working together.
When a Tory cabinet minister spouts something that creates misconceptions, they usually follow it up with ‘which the British public agree with’. So maybe it’s more their intolerance than all of ours, only we all get painted with the same brush.
Giving prisoners the chance of review, not the promise of freedom by any means, just the promise of review means we should let go of our human rights and allow this government to rewrite them for us – minus the Liberal Democrats. It’s what the British people want. Well, it’s not what I want and I’d thank you for not including me in anything you say. The British people you speak of are intolerant, but not all of us are the British people you speak of.
Read the source article here.
It doesn’t feel good attacking our society like this. It’s something I slurred out to one of my progressive friends on a night out, only to find myself quickly rebutted. On the whole, she said to me, we are much better than most. A fair enough comment if we believe what we’re told, only I’m not sure what the source material for this is. We read all sorts of stuff that holds us up on the pedestal of tolerance in all sorts of publications, especially the Daily Mail. Only it’s usually written in a column that also drops some kind of anti-minority bomb or something against the disenfranchised in the same paragraph. The slur I made is the bomb I’m going to drop now. The British people aren’t all that tolerant at all.
I’ve often felt this after watching some political panel show like Question Time, listening to comments from the public on certain political issues like immigration or benefits, or even simple things like teenage pregnancy or recreational drug use. A placating statement followed by a spill of bile. I hear it so much that I think, maybe they are speaking the truth. I mean, this person is saying it, the slightly out of shape man with the thinning hair and glasses also said it, and the man in the all too padded, ill-fitting suit who’s trying so hard yet failing spectacularly at looking statesmanlike has also said it, so in there must be some truth here. Scroungers are stealing all the money from the public purse and the island is going to sink into the sea under the creaking weight of all those immigrants. If they repeat what they say, over and over, maybe it’ll be true.
Goebbel’s is attributed to saying something like that once, though I think that might not be strictly correct. However, it doesn’t sound too off what the mastermind of Nazi propaganda might have said. Say something enough and it becomes truth. The problem is this kind of truth is it can be smashed by things like facts and figures and statistics. You know, the pesky objective evidence thing that Locke and Hume so graciously gave us with that whole empiricism idea. And this is exactly what has happened to the great slew of Britain’s misconceived preconceptions.
Splashed all over all the newspapers recently are The Top Ten Common Misconceptions Among Britons About Britain. I first came across this in a rather right-leaning publication, so immediately thought ‘ah, it’ll be something about the length of rivers or about the species of birds we have here’, but instead it did actually list out the top ten of the list of countless items of crap we like to spill out on a daily basis. This includes all the fan favourites; immigration, benefits, overseas aid and – although it’s fallen slightly out of fashion recently – teenage pregnancy. I’m not going to reprint it here, but I would like to go into some specifics.
So, according to these stats, it seems capping benefits will not be saving us anywhere near the amount of money we thought it would, while 70p in every £100 is claimed fraudulently, not the quarter we all thought. Also, we’re spending much more on pensions than on job seekers allowance – fifteen times more.
The overwhelming increased demonization of those on benefits has come at a time when the economy has gone to shit. Many people in the public sector have lost their jobs and find themselves blamed for it – blamed (incorrectly) for causing the economic problems here in the first place and then for claiming benefits. In actual fact, it was the banking crisis that caused this, not the public sector and Labour. And people seem to forget those in the private sectors are suffering too, suffering from pay freezes and job losses while their company overlords thrive, both monetarily and in respect. It’s a sad and pathetic time where the weak maul the even weaker.
And what about immigration and religion? Well, today’s current, fashionable bogeyman is Islam. People talk about how it’s replacing Christianity and how 'soon Sharia Law will take over'. Well, 5% are Muslim, hardly the horde everyone talks about, while 59% of the people of this country consider themselves Christian. This is rather disconcerting to me because I don’t know where that puts the atheists and agnostics. However, it also show the ridiculous focus and obsession that people seem to need to need to put on something the consider 'other' in order to go about their daily lives. In the 21t Century, what does the representation of religious groups really matter?
As far as immigration and ethnicity goes, people of ethnicities other than white make up 11% of the population, not 30%. It’s more likely that if this country does sink into the sea, it won’t be under the weight of people mainly from the lands conquered by the British Empire, but rather from the descendants of those that conquered these islands between the end of the Roman Empire and 1066. It’s not race and immigration that we are buckling under the weight of, but just the number of people in general, whatever their colour or race. So now do we want to stop having kids entirely?
Of course, I do understand that people have to get their information from somewhere. Unfortunately, the media and politicians have been feeding us outright lies for years to fit their own agenda. After all, the erroneous figures must have some source. The problem seems to be, however, that no one bothers to think about them. No one trusts what they see and would rather apply themselves to a strictly abstract idea.
We, as a nation, are turning on each other. In our time of need, rather than sympathising with the jobless or those seeking sanctuary, we set them as targets. Rather than being inclusive, we shut ourselves off and try our best create moats and defences between us. We aren’t all in it together, and this is a myth that goes far beyond just the gap between the rich overlords and the rest of us. The citizens of this country are allowing themselves to become completely divided.
The problem is it’s the same new sources and politicians that deem us as a tolerant nation that come up with all the rubbish that we’ve let ourselves believe. It’s them that spout all the intolerant drivel that has been disproved by these latest, national figures and statistics. It’s another case of ignoring the evidence, only the evidence they are ignoring here is their own voice.
And even if we are more tolerant than some incredibly intolerant nations, it’s not a competition. Surely what we want to achieve is a harmonious and prosperous nation, which we cannot do if we aren’t working together.
When a Tory cabinet minister spouts something that creates misconceptions, they usually follow it up with ‘which the British public agree with’. So maybe it’s more their intolerance than all of ours, only we all get painted with the same brush.
Giving prisoners the chance of review, not the promise of freedom by any means, just the promise of review means we should let go of our human rights and allow this government to rewrite them for us – minus the Liberal Democrats. It’s what the British people want. Well, it’s not what I want and I’d thank you for not including me in anything you say. The British people you speak of are intolerant, but not all of us are the British people you speak of.
Read the source article here.
Monday, 8 July 2013
Paranoid about being paranoid: putting ourselves at the mercy of the state and Theresa May
Over the past couple of days, our TV screens have been awash with jubilation and victory speeches. The accolades of ‘calmness’, ‘sheer determination’ and ‘thoroughness’ have been bestowed upon a new British hero for what has been deemed a ‘stellar performance’. I wish I was talking about Andy Murray here, whose match on Sunday was a show of strategic and athletic perfection, having swiped the Men’s Singles Wimbledon title away from the world number one, Novak Djokovic in three straight sets. Unfortunately it’s not Andy Murray I’m talking about here, it’s Theresa May. And her accolades, unlike Murray’s, are not well deserved.
I’m not going to comment on the man, Abu Qatada here. I will freely admit that I do not know enough about the man to comment. Despite the pages and pages of media fury whipped up over the years, none of it gave me an insight into the man it demonised. None of it was informative. Instead, all I got was flat rhetoric on a caricature of evil; on a comic book villain.
I have little to no patience with the highly religious, whatever novel they like to adhere to. So where religion could be used as a tool to the damage a democratic and secular way of life, I’m going to take my place on the side opposing it. If he committed crimes against society, then surely he must be held accountable for them; that is common sense. However, it is the wider issues that have been brought up by these events that have stirred feelings not only of anger and disgust but, most of all, of dread.
Politicians often use periods of self-satisfied backslapping as springboards for policy. When the public are good and placated, politicians believe they will swallow anything, whether it be chocolate milk or razorblades. And whether it’s the sweet residue or the smear of blood around their mouths, they will smile after.
In tandem with the announcement of Abu Qatada’s deportation to Jordan came the Home Secretary’s firm resolution to remove Britain from the European Convention of Human Rights. To the public, this seems like the double toot of the victory trumpet. According to the right-wing press and their political allies, these are two ‘one-overs’ on the great controlling block of Europe and a victory in the war to return power to the British people.
Of course, this is rubbish. I have been constantly astounded at the reaction that this campaign has got from the public since the first rumbling started at the beginning of this coalition. I am absolutely stunned that one of the issues at the forefront of so many people’s minds is to relinquish their own rights as a human beings. The notion is absolutely insane.
The European Convention of Human Rights was written up post World War in the wake of the mass persecution, genocide and wide scale torture regimes inflicted on their own people and the people they conquered. The victors were shocked into finally providing the people they ruled over or represented - depending on your view - with co-operatively ratified fundamental freedoms, which all countries would uphold for people everywhere. These fundamental freedoms include such basic rights as freedom of expression, freedom from torture or servitude, the right to privacy, fair trials and to regular and free elections.
With the horrors so fresh in the authors’ minds, the images of death camps and slaughter on an industrial scale, what we got was comprehensive, and rightly so. As living, comprehending and self-aware creatures, these are fundamental rights that we deserve. And we deserve to know that all these rights will be upheld; with others watching over us as well should our own government falter. Our lives are short and stressful, in the most part in service of the dreams of those at the top, rather than our own. So this is the very least we should expect in return.
But it’s not just the recent history of the war that the Human Rights Act serves to protect us from. Look back at the previous centuries. These were times of political and social repression, and people were allowed to live in appalling conditions. Think of the factories of the industrial era, the poor houses, the near slavery of the working people, let alone the actual slavery of Europe’s colonial conquests. That in certain stratas of society, a human was considered more like an animal than a human.
Now the government desires to take them away from us and replace them with a Bill of British Rights or UK Bill of Rights, which incidentally makes no mention of the word human. The reason they give for doing this is purely a financial one. What they want is to make it easier to deport people. Abu Qatada was in custody while he was here. He had no freedom to incite anything. All he was was a cost. He cost the taxpayer £1.7 million, which is a measly sum when compared to the trillions spent on bailing out the failed banks. However, our government is in no hurry to introduce legislation to take control of those. This is how it is in pretty much every, or if not every single, case.
I know it seems like a lot of money, but it’s probably a fair price to pay to know that your absolute and essential rights and freedoms are maintained. This comprehensive list was put together by a co-operative of nations and organisations, with Winston Churchill at the helm. It was the coming together of multiple bodies giving us the rights that we, as humans, are entitled to. This was done to ensure these rights weren’t just those a state or government were willing to give us - so long as it didn't infringe on their desires and ambitions. It’s exactly this danger that the introduction of this new Bill would present.
The problem now is the opinion of people has changed over recent years. Instead of casting doubt over our rulers, we instead cast the doubting eye over our own doubt. To question certain government policies or to suspect the possibility of some kind of malevolence, whether at present or a possible future infraction, is seen as paranoia by many, even with the evidence to suggest otherwise.
It has just been revealed to us that our intelligence services have already been engaged for years in mass data mining, that they have bugged fibre optic cables and it’s been suggested that they have found ways around the legal checks and balances we thought were there to protect us. Our government criticises countries like China and Russia, but they do exactly the same thing. Ultimately, these surveillance methods are the responsibility of the Home Secretary, Theresa May – the very same individual that wants to rescind all our rights, including our rights to privacy, and rewrite them.
Our country also doesn’t have the best track record with torture. We have sent our own citizens to the illegal Guantanamo Bay for brutal interrogations, with no one at all facing the consequences since the revelations. Many politicians even believed we should have sent Abu Qatada back to Jordan illegally, in defiance of the Human Rights Act, without the treaty with Jordan that ensures his protection from torture. A human is a human, regardless, and if we want to stand tall over those that do wrong, we cannot be hypocrites. Those that rule over us, for all their expensive educations, seem to have forgotten that. How can we trust a government that has so little regard for human life to rewrite our rights as human beings?
I’m not going to comment on the man, Abu Qatada here. I will freely admit that I do not know enough about the man to comment. Despite the pages and pages of media fury whipped up over the years, none of it gave me an insight into the man it demonised. None of it was informative. Instead, all I got was flat rhetoric on a caricature of evil; on a comic book villain.
I have little to no patience with the highly religious, whatever novel they like to adhere to. So where religion could be used as a tool to the damage a democratic and secular way of life, I’m going to take my place on the side opposing it. If he committed crimes against society, then surely he must be held accountable for them; that is common sense. However, it is the wider issues that have been brought up by these events that have stirred feelings not only of anger and disgust but, most of all, of dread.
Politicians often use periods of self-satisfied backslapping as springboards for policy. When the public are good and placated, politicians believe they will swallow anything, whether it be chocolate milk or razorblades. And whether it’s the sweet residue or the smear of blood around their mouths, they will smile after.
In tandem with the announcement of Abu Qatada’s deportation to Jordan came the Home Secretary’s firm resolution to remove Britain from the European Convention of Human Rights. To the public, this seems like the double toot of the victory trumpet. According to the right-wing press and their political allies, these are two ‘one-overs’ on the great controlling block of Europe and a victory in the war to return power to the British people.
Of course, this is rubbish. I have been constantly astounded at the reaction that this campaign has got from the public since the first rumbling started at the beginning of this coalition. I am absolutely stunned that one of the issues at the forefront of so many people’s minds is to relinquish their own rights as a human beings. The notion is absolutely insane.
The European Convention of Human Rights was written up post World War in the wake of the mass persecution, genocide and wide scale torture regimes inflicted on their own people and the people they conquered. The victors were shocked into finally providing the people they ruled over or represented - depending on your view - with co-operatively ratified fundamental freedoms, which all countries would uphold for people everywhere. These fundamental freedoms include such basic rights as freedom of expression, freedom from torture or servitude, the right to privacy, fair trials and to regular and free elections.
With the horrors so fresh in the authors’ minds, the images of death camps and slaughter on an industrial scale, what we got was comprehensive, and rightly so. As living, comprehending and self-aware creatures, these are fundamental rights that we deserve. And we deserve to know that all these rights will be upheld; with others watching over us as well should our own government falter. Our lives are short and stressful, in the most part in service of the dreams of those at the top, rather than our own. So this is the very least we should expect in return.
But it’s not just the recent history of the war that the Human Rights Act serves to protect us from. Look back at the previous centuries. These were times of political and social repression, and people were allowed to live in appalling conditions. Think of the factories of the industrial era, the poor houses, the near slavery of the working people, let alone the actual slavery of Europe’s colonial conquests. That in certain stratas of society, a human was considered more like an animal than a human.
Now the government desires to take them away from us and replace them with a Bill of British Rights or UK Bill of Rights, which incidentally makes no mention of the word human. The reason they give for doing this is purely a financial one. What they want is to make it easier to deport people. Abu Qatada was in custody while he was here. He had no freedom to incite anything. All he was was a cost. He cost the taxpayer £1.7 million, which is a measly sum when compared to the trillions spent on bailing out the failed banks. However, our government is in no hurry to introduce legislation to take control of those. This is how it is in pretty much every, or if not every single, case.
I know it seems like a lot of money, but it’s probably a fair price to pay to know that your absolute and essential rights and freedoms are maintained. This comprehensive list was put together by a co-operative of nations and organisations, with Winston Churchill at the helm. It was the coming together of multiple bodies giving us the rights that we, as humans, are entitled to. This was done to ensure these rights weren’t just those a state or government were willing to give us - so long as it didn't infringe on their desires and ambitions. It’s exactly this danger that the introduction of this new Bill would present.
The problem now is the opinion of people has changed over recent years. Instead of casting doubt over our rulers, we instead cast the doubting eye over our own doubt. To question certain government policies or to suspect the possibility of some kind of malevolence, whether at present or a possible future infraction, is seen as paranoia by many, even with the evidence to suggest otherwise.
It has just been revealed to us that our intelligence services have already been engaged for years in mass data mining, that they have bugged fibre optic cables and it’s been suggested that they have found ways around the legal checks and balances we thought were there to protect us. Our government criticises countries like China and Russia, but they do exactly the same thing. Ultimately, these surveillance methods are the responsibility of the Home Secretary, Theresa May – the very same individual that wants to rescind all our rights, including our rights to privacy, and rewrite them.
Our country also doesn’t have the best track record with torture. We have sent our own citizens to the illegal Guantanamo Bay for brutal interrogations, with no one at all facing the consequences since the revelations. Many politicians even believed we should have sent Abu Qatada back to Jordan illegally, in defiance of the Human Rights Act, without the treaty with Jordan that ensures his protection from torture. A human is a human, regardless, and if we want to stand tall over those that do wrong, we cannot be hypocrites. Those that rule over us, for all their expensive educations, seem to have forgotten that. How can we trust a government that has so little regard for human life to rewrite our rights as human beings?
Friday, 3 May 2013
The Freedom Fallacy
When Rudolph Rocker wrote about his experiences in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War, he wrote about an idyllic society based around voluntary, free association that rejected wealth and ownership. The hierarchies were rebalanced, meaning no one person stood head and shoulders above another. Traits that were believed traditionally to be more worthy than others were completely recast. Footing was not so much lost as voluntarily rescinded, so that legal professionals stood on par with waitresses. Management fell away in favour of direction, as workers obtained the means of production and chose instead to follow the guidance of a collectively decided as worthy.
I fell in love with this idea during university. In fact, I argued it as the logical conclusion of humanity's political system in one of my final exams. That as people continue to educate themselves through the endless streams of information and ideas freely available to them, they will start to thinking increasingly more creatively, overcome the problems they face and find a way where the hierarchical systems that govern us become, finally, superfluous.
When I argued this issue with my more straight thinking friends, the common rebuttal was that this is pure romanticism from an advocate. But it wasn't just through Rocker that I learnt about this historical anomaly. Most of what Rocker wrote about was supported many decades later by Anthony Beavor - hardly the world's most premier Anarchist thinker.
This was the school of thought being advocated, Anarcho-Syndicalism. It was the fuel for my faith in the future back then, that one day this would come to pass. Of course, with each passing year you find a little more cynicism trickling down over those rose tints you've used to filter your view of the future. While deep down this natural harmony remains my view of a logical conclusion, rationally it seems to me to be utterly out of reach.
The problem is that while Anarcho-Syndicalism was the brief realisation of freedom. It occurred in a fractured society where a dangerous enemy, the extreme right, scratched at the doors. It grew in reaction to that threat at a time when distinctions and battle lines were much more easily recognisable.
Now, the distinction between ideas has blurred considerably. The enemies of freedom have now begun to position themselves as its engineers - all you have to do is look at some of the party names out there. Both Britain and Austria have far-right parties that have high-jacked the name of Freedom when what they advocate is anything but. Then there's Geert Wilders Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, one of the only far-right to gain themselves a significant voice in a parliament where their anti-liberal views are not only on view for all to see, but actually enacted.
The problem is that with this advent, the idea of freedom has actually begun to erode. It's a clever enactment to redefine and mutate the word. The only way we can understand and identify the things around us and especially concepts is by their label. If their label begins to take on a new meaning, then so does the thing itself.
At the risk of saying something incredibly unpopular, a large proportion of the blame should go on people themselves for accepting such a ridiculous shift in definition. To me, the definition of concepts have to come from their relation to past occurrences. If people are so ill-informed that the label of freedom can be accepted as fitting for a party of the far-right shows not just a failure of the education system, but a laziness and arrogance in people who think that their opinion is worth so much without requiring any work at all.
I don't think that the failure of the education system is a valid argument. I hated school, was bullied almost relentlessly from primary to secondary, though I managed to punch my way out of that paper bag eventually, and was never recognised for my hard work by teachers, who seemed to heap praise on my tormenters. Starting to sound bitter?
Well, I'm not. School didn't diminish my desire to learn, and I learnt a hell of a lot outside of school than I did in. I spent hours pouring over books, absorbing documentaries and ensuring I followed the news from a collection of different publications. You learn to pick out certain pieces of information that can be defined as the closest thing to facts and identify them from the majority of spin. You learn that just because something is said, no matter how, with whatever authority and no matter how many times is not necessarily true.
I left school with average GCSE's, poor A-Levels and in a dead end. A few years later I had a diploma in Journalism and was at Westminster University studying Literature and Creative Writing. What I'm trying to get at here is that people have the means to prevent freedom becoming the fallacy it's becoming, which it's in danger of becoming completely.
Of course, these examples are the extreme versions (ba-doom-cha). They are very blatant high-jacking of labels, but they have allowed for the mutation of the intricacies of employment too. Now I turn my fire on the so-called 'Libertarians'.
To some, Libertarianism is the bastard child of Anarcho-Syndicalism, and it's a concept that I briefly flirted with for a while. Primarily, people should expect to live their lives according to the very rational principles set forth by John Stuart Mill that so long as your actions do not infringe on the utility of others, then it should be permissive. This is a major characteristic of Libertarianism.
The problem is it's all rather conflicting. Modern Libertarianism rather than freeing up all the machinery of society that keep us acting in certain ways, rather wants to remove safeguards that give us our freedom. They advocate a withdrawal from the Convention of Human Rights, which are an ironclad, multinational assurance of our freedoms and right to dignity as humans. They also advocate the reduction of corporation tax and increase of personal tax for many on lower and middle incomes with a flat tax, so those with less have more of the means of their financial freedom taken away, while those with more retain. What's more, they oppose gay marriage, an individual freedom they believe to remain in the hands of an institution.
So where does the argument of freedom come from? Well, what it offers, essentially, is more freedom for the large organisations and corporations that hold power over us. There's no doubt that they will free up companies to have more power and rescind our rights as employees. This is already happening under the coalition, who have plans to make it far easier for employees to be fired. It's almost a forgone conclusion that there will be no action on a living wage or even regressive action on the minimum wage.
What they believe is that by freeing up legislation in regards to companies, everything will work itself out. The problem is, restrictions on corporate and company actions have been an evolutionary thing. From the times when Britain was the workshop of the world, and entirely exploitative, to all the safeguards and corporate requirements that protect us now.
What people wrongly believe is that we could never go back, but that's not the case. We live in times of economic hysteria, where correct treatment means lower returns to those on top. Europe is a massive safeguard in regards to this, though admittedly they do enforce some very stupid policies too. But what people never bother looking into is the balance. What we have to remember is the aim of business enterprises is to make money, not to care for the people in the world. They are abstracts that still take precedent over the real. The only way this has even begun to be humanised is through regulation.
Political power is by no means the only power structure that wields control over us. On a very basic level, we are essentially slaves to our employers who pay our wages and give is the means to survive, not to mention every other branch of our lives that they control or influence. A completely free market economy, free of all government interference, in our current economic condition would be disastrous for the quality of our private live. The whims of management and directors would have to be followed, as an alternative place of employment is no viable option. Business works by a system of supply and demand. At present, humanity is in abundant supply while its use to business is in low demand. Vis-à-vis, humanity is disposable. Think how bad this would be without a welfare system to catch us when we fall.
And that is a major Libertarian policy, to severely reduce welfare. So without a living wage or any form of top-ups to those low wage that companies are criminally allowed to pay, how do people survive? Well, short answer would be they don't.
Finally, in what should be seen as a joke, but is instead accepted in a wholly unironic fashion by middle-England is the rejection of free movement. Liberty and libertarianism forcing the closure of boarders, preventing people from moving from one area of the globe to another. This, surprisingly, is a form of control... the faces staring back are still blank.
It is dangerous to perpetuate the hysteria over the immigration as it does fuel racism. It can also result in ridiculous rulings like this. Immigration is never discussed in-depth, rather thrown about in its most basic forms. Fear and horror stories are what sell and if the papers are to believed then one would believe no Brit has ever left the country for warmer climates. The thing is, plenty of retired British citizens have made new homes in the South of France, Spain and elsewhere. Where we to leave Europe and close our borders they'd be sent home where they'd be forced to use the welfare state here, if it still existed, in a place that they don't want to be.
The world is smaller, and the people we meet aren't necessarily from our country. Being a mixed race guy, the idea of nationalistic incest isn't something that I'm to concerned about, and I think the easier it is to be with people, wherever in the world they are from, the more you are going to enjoy your short life.
And that's the point, right? Utility. What we should be working toward is a happier life, and business is not the end all be all of life. Our rights against those of the power structures built around us must be maintained. By voting for 'Libertarians' like Ukip, you are essentially voting in a lobbyist group of the heads of big business, forwarding their cause via crude and populist right-wing, borderline nationalistic means. Whether people want to believe it or not, government is supposed to be there to check business. Of all the undesirable power structures, government is the one we have most control over it. To trade this for the free-rule of big business conjures the words 'frying pan' and 'fire'.
Prior to the domination of Nationalistic ideas in the 1800's, freedom of movement was absolute. So go back a little further to a by-gone day and you have attitudes quite different to those you believe you want to reinstate now. But to make things more confusing you have children working in factories until the early 20th century. Living conditions have improved unimaginably over the last few decades, yet people pine for by-gone days. This takes me back to my previous point. Perhaps people might want to educate themselves a little more rather than putting all their faith in the rather average Downton Abbey.
I fell in love with this idea during university. In fact, I argued it as the logical conclusion of humanity's political system in one of my final exams. That as people continue to educate themselves through the endless streams of information and ideas freely available to them, they will start to thinking increasingly more creatively, overcome the problems they face and find a way where the hierarchical systems that govern us become, finally, superfluous.
When I argued this issue with my more straight thinking friends, the common rebuttal was that this is pure romanticism from an advocate. But it wasn't just through Rocker that I learnt about this historical anomaly. Most of what Rocker wrote about was supported many decades later by Anthony Beavor - hardly the world's most premier Anarchist thinker.
This was the school of thought being advocated, Anarcho-Syndicalism. It was the fuel for my faith in the future back then, that one day this would come to pass. Of course, with each passing year you find a little more cynicism trickling down over those rose tints you've used to filter your view of the future. While deep down this natural harmony remains my view of a logical conclusion, rationally it seems to me to be utterly out of reach.
The problem is that while Anarcho-Syndicalism was the brief realisation of freedom. It occurred in a fractured society where a dangerous enemy, the extreme right, scratched at the doors. It grew in reaction to that threat at a time when distinctions and battle lines were much more easily recognisable.
Now, the distinction between ideas has blurred considerably. The enemies of freedom have now begun to position themselves as its engineers - all you have to do is look at some of the party names out there. Both Britain and Austria have far-right parties that have high-jacked the name of Freedom when what they advocate is anything but. Then there's Geert Wilders Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, one of the only far-right to gain themselves a significant voice in a parliament where their anti-liberal views are not only on view for all to see, but actually enacted.
The problem is that with this advent, the idea of freedom has actually begun to erode. It's a clever enactment to redefine and mutate the word. The only way we can understand and identify the things around us and especially concepts is by their label. If their label begins to take on a new meaning, then so does the thing itself.
At the risk of saying something incredibly unpopular, a large proportion of the blame should go on people themselves for accepting such a ridiculous shift in definition. To me, the definition of concepts have to come from their relation to past occurrences. If people are so ill-informed that the label of freedom can be accepted as fitting for a party of the far-right shows not just a failure of the education system, but a laziness and arrogance in people who think that their opinion is worth so much without requiring any work at all.
I don't think that the failure of the education system is a valid argument. I hated school, was bullied almost relentlessly from primary to secondary, though I managed to punch my way out of that paper bag eventually, and was never recognised for my hard work by teachers, who seemed to heap praise on my tormenters. Starting to sound bitter?
Well, I'm not. School didn't diminish my desire to learn, and I learnt a hell of a lot outside of school than I did in. I spent hours pouring over books, absorbing documentaries and ensuring I followed the news from a collection of different publications. You learn to pick out certain pieces of information that can be defined as the closest thing to facts and identify them from the majority of spin. You learn that just because something is said, no matter how, with whatever authority and no matter how many times is not necessarily true.
I left school with average GCSE's, poor A-Levels and in a dead end. A few years later I had a diploma in Journalism and was at Westminster University studying Literature and Creative Writing. What I'm trying to get at here is that people have the means to prevent freedom becoming the fallacy it's becoming, which it's in danger of becoming completely.
Of course, these examples are the extreme versions (ba-doom-cha). They are very blatant high-jacking of labels, but they have allowed for the mutation of the intricacies of employment too. Now I turn my fire on the so-called 'Libertarians'.
To some, Libertarianism is the bastard child of Anarcho-Syndicalism, and it's a concept that I briefly flirted with for a while. Primarily, people should expect to live their lives according to the very rational principles set forth by John Stuart Mill that so long as your actions do not infringe on the utility of others, then it should be permissive. This is a major characteristic of Libertarianism.
The problem is it's all rather conflicting. Modern Libertarianism rather than freeing up all the machinery of society that keep us acting in certain ways, rather wants to remove safeguards that give us our freedom. They advocate a withdrawal from the Convention of Human Rights, which are an ironclad, multinational assurance of our freedoms and right to dignity as humans. They also advocate the reduction of corporation tax and increase of personal tax for many on lower and middle incomes with a flat tax, so those with less have more of the means of their financial freedom taken away, while those with more retain. What's more, they oppose gay marriage, an individual freedom they believe to remain in the hands of an institution.
So where does the argument of freedom come from? Well, what it offers, essentially, is more freedom for the large organisations and corporations that hold power over us. There's no doubt that they will free up companies to have more power and rescind our rights as employees. This is already happening under the coalition, who have plans to make it far easier for employees to be fired. It's almost a forgone conclusion that there will be no action on a living wage or even regressive action on the minimum wage.
What they believe is that by freeing up legislation in regards to companies, everything will work itself out. The problem is, restrictions on corporate and company actions have been an evolutionary thing. From the times when Britain was the workshop of the world, and entirely exploitative, to all the safeguards and corporate requirements that protect us now.
What people wrongly believe is that we could never go back, but that's not the case. We live in times of economic hysteria, where correct treatment means lower returns to those on top. Europe is a massive safeguard in regards to this, though admittedly they do enforce some very stupid policies too. But what people never bother looking into is the balance. What we have to remember is the aim of business enterprises is to make money, not to care for the people in the world. They are abstracts that still take precedent over the real. The only way this has even begun to be humanised is through regulation.
Political power is by no means the only power structure that wields control over us. On a very basic level, we are essentially slaves to our employers who pay our wages and give is the means to survive, not to mention every other branch of our lives that they control or influence. A completely free market economy, free of all government interference, in our current economic condition would be disastrous for the quality of our private live. The whims of management and directors would have to be followed, as an alternative place of employment is no viable option. Business works by a system of supply and demand. At present, humanity is in abundant supply while its use to business is in low demand. Vis-à-vis, humanity is disposable. Think how bad this would be without a welfare system to catch us when we fall.
And that is a major Libertarian policy, to severely reduce welfare. So without a living wage or any form of top-ups to those low wage that companies are criminally allowed to pay, how do people survive? Well, short answer would be they don't.
Finally, in what should be seen as a joke, but is instead accepted in a wholly unironic fashion by middle-England is the rejection of free movement. Liberty and libertarianism forcing the closure of boarders, preventing people from moving from one area of the globe to another. This, surprisingly, is a form of control... the faces staring back are still blank.
It is dangerous to perpetuate the hysteria over the immigration as it does fuel racism. It can also result in ridiculous rulings like this. Immigration is never discussed in-depth, rather thrown about in its most basic forms. Fear and horror stories are what sell and if the papers are to believed then one would believe no Brit has ever left the country for warmer climates. The thing is, plenty of retired British citizens have made new homes in the South of France, Spain and elsewhere. Where we to leave Europe and close our borders they'd be sent home where they'd be forced to use the welfare state here, if it still existed, in a place that they don't want to be.
The world is smaller, and the people we meet aren't necessarily from our country. Being a mixed race guy, the idea of nationalistic incest isn't something that I'm to concerned about, and I think the easier it is to be with people, wherever in the world they are from, the more you are going to enjoy your short life.
And that's the point, right? Utility. What we should be working toward is a happier life, and business is not the end all be all of life. Our rights against those of the power structures built around us must be maintained. By voting for 'Libertarians' like Ukip, you are essentially voting in a lobbyist group of the heads of big business, forwarding their cause via crude and populist right-wing, borderline nationalistic means. Whether people want to believe it or not, government is supposed to be there to check business. Of all the undesirable power structures, government is the one we have most control over it. To trade this for the free-rule of big business conjures the words 'frying pan' and 'fire'.
Prior to the domination of Nationalistic ideas in the 1800's, freedom of movement was absolute. So go back a little further to a by-gone day and you have attitudes quite different to those you believe you want to reinstate now. But to make things more confusing you have children working in factories until the early 20th century. Living conditions have improved unimaginably over the last few decades, yet people pine for by-gone days. This takes me back to my previous point. Perhaps people might want to educate themselves a little more rather than putting all their faith in the rather average Downton Abbey.
Monday, 29 April 2013
Universal Credits and the shortcomings: are you really on our side?
The Universal Credit system. The great shakeup to Britain's benefit system. It's aim seems to be primarily, from what those talking heads propose, a simpler system. It does look simpler. I have always preferred working on the internet, and if you are stuck on the temping plateau, it's easier than calling up every time your situation changes - this I'll admit.
I also understand the logic behind monthly payouts and the need to manage your own rent payments. Having the same monthly payment system both in and out of work makes sense and it's likely that it'll make people a little more ready for that system.
Of course not everyone has the luxury of a constantly buzzing, ultra-fast broadband connection, and most libraries are closing down, so where people are supposed to go to sort out their claims is a bit of a conundrum. It also seems distracted by the minor fiddling with sums, rather than tackling major issues - and the major issues are not with the benefit system itself.
The real issue - the glaring issue - is that none of this is really on the side of people who want to work. For the government to be on the side of those who want to work they would need to force businesses to adhere to a living wage. This would be a wage that can realistically sustain a person. This is a wage that we, as tax payer do not need to subsidise. In effect, without a living wage, our tax money goes toward supporting a corporation/businesses, some that make billions in profit every year. So how does changing up the way benefits are claimed fix this issue?
The argument is that if we meddle with companies they won't want to set up here. They won't want to set up offices, outlets or operations here, and so won't bring work here. But the question is, do we want them here if ultimately a percentage of wages they create are coming from taxes - taxes which evidently a fair few companies neglect to pay.
The argument continues that companies provide higher paid jobs too. True, but why is the gap between rich and poor growing so quickly. It's because those at the top earn far too much and those at the bottom earn far too little. So, by ignoring this issue on pay, we not only up the tax bill, we promote inequality and promote businesses that act as, at least in part, a drain on society.
So, don't just play around with the benefit system, since that's simply cosmetic. Instead, introduce and force on business a living wage. They can afford it. It's hard to argue that those multi-billion pound enterprises can't, especially when companies like Tesco make it painfully obvious through a blasé failed attempt to take on the American market and casually tossing away £1. To be honest, if needs be they can take the money from those at the top. Those at the top tend to sit on their money which is part of the reason economy is stagnant. Those that tend to spend more (the middle and lower) are blighted with far less.
We shouldn't bend to business, because it's pointless if their setups do nothing to promote growth. Get tough, but not with the poor and the powerless who bear none of the means to create wealth. Businesses should not treat the world like their own personal playground. For this system to work, there needs to be responsibility, and if responsibility no longer exists, then there must be rules.
Despite the current claims of the right wing press, it's not the fault of the poor. Unless businesses actually operate to bring wealth to a country, not simply to amass wealth for a select elite, the fault falls at their feet. Our politicians should remember it's their job to represent us, not the corporate member's only club.
Saturday, 20 April 2013
Happy 420, Ladies and Germs
I will write my own piece on this, but for now, enjoy the genius of Bill Hicks.
Tuesday, 16 April 2013
Paying for another man's porn
Apparently we are skint. Incredibly skint. Dangerously skint. As a nation, we are way more skint than me. I'm lucky enough to have some pennies left over to keep me afloat since travelling, but the nation - God no! We have to borrow from international loan sharks, that's how bad it's got. In fact, the international loan sharks that are threatening to break off Cornwall if we don't pay up soon. This is why we hear about all these grumblings regarding Cornish independence, it's simply in case the sharks come a'calling and the government need a good excuse... though I'm not sure who they are giving the excuse to, us or the loan sharks.
Anyway. We have no money. This is what has lead to so may 'inevitable' cuts in services, loss or jobs in the public sector and pay freezes too. Just recently, there was announced a cut of £11.6 million to the Art's Council. They were completely and utterly 'unavoidable'. It's either arts, or keeping pensioners fed and warm, you heartless, arty bastards.
Fair enough. You told me. How ashamed I feel for doubting your noble cause, because you see, what I thought was... Oh, wait a minute...
It seems the government have found an extra £10 million in funds, just lying around the place. You see, these Eton boys have never been too careful with their pennies. Loosing them left right and centre. They don't want to look like stingy little penny pinchers when the fellow big boys are around - so long as it's not public spending. What's a couple of cool mills to me, old boy?
You see, in an orgy of Orgueil and caviar H'orderves, he got a little carried away and threw countless wads of the treasury's money in the air to impress his friends from the city. When they asked if he'd get in trouble he was keen to remind them he was totally in charge of the money, that it may as well be his money, and even if he lost some, he could replace it with his own. Check him out.
Of course, he's not willing to replace with his own. However, he's not a great drinker, is little boy George. His constitution has developed much like his face - and that would be not much further than a 14 year olds. So he quite forgot about the £10 million that fell down the back of the radiator. It's also quite likely that his imagination has the same whimsical fantasy to it as a 14 year old, so when he saw the money he thought the Thatcher fairy had put it there, and the Thatcher fairy isn't one for helping out the people -
Their damned entitlements, being human doesn't mean you get compassion! That kind of rubbish will bring the abstract of this nation to its knees!' That is what the Thatcher fairy likes to say.
- So obviously, what the Thatcher fairy had put it there for was a Thatcher festival. A festival to worship the goddess of both plenty and famine, of wealth and poverty. The all in one deity, perfect in a modern world, who arbitrarily bestows riches on some and inescapable destitution on others. The rich sit in their heavenly towers while the poor starve below.
Yes, this is a great idea for this money I have found behind the radiator, thought little boy George. And do you know, that's just what he did...
I suppose you could say the money is going toward pensioners. Well, one pensioner. Well, one ex-pensioner. A dead pensioner essentially. Because the dead ones are naturally more important than the living ones who face cuts on fuel allowances, bus passes and TV licences. And we've already spoken about those whinging arty bastards. Wasting time on creating things of beauty or trying to suss out those ultimate conundrums regarding the essence of existence. They should be making money, that's the essence.
It would be nice to take comfort in the possibility that the rich were paying for this, the very rich, those that got rich on Thatcher's ticket. But hell no they're not. They had their taxes cut to the tune of £54000 (what my Dad made, before taxes, in a year) and that's if they even pay their tax at all.
No, it's the norms who are paying for it, half of whom... probably more than half of whom... hate her. All those families who had their communities ruined those people, and their sons, daughters. They have to foot the bill too. Isn't that a bit of a slap in the face, can no one see that?
No, it's the norms who are paying for it, half of whom... probably more than half of whom... hate her. All those families who had their communities ruined those people, and their sons, daughters. They have to foot the bill too. Isn't that a bit of a slap in the face, can no one see that?
See, that's why I can see why people want to party over her death. I'm not going to party over her death, but I can see why people would want to. Strike a little balance perhaps? £10 on a party in her memory, why not a tenner on beers for a party of good riddance.
Essentially what is happening here is that this money is going to be put to the very good use of allowing some Tories to indulge fully in their necrophiliac fantasies until their little right hands are red raw and blistered. While impossibly virtuous thing are read about this polarising figure, they will sit in a circle and wank to each other, dreaming of a time when they could (figuratively) fuck the people - the invariable act of sociopaths.
Now, there are plenty of sites out there, like Youporn and Xvideos. I'm sure you can find some Thatcher lookalikes on one of those sites and it won't cost anyone £10 million.
Oh well, I'll be at work tomorrow... trying to pretend that a percentage of what I earn isn't going towards this charade. I should have stayed abroad.
Couldn't we have privatised it? Who came up with that plan? I liked that idea.
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