I Warn You

[DanaC]

With the conservative conference speeches promising the removal of benefits for the under 25s, the revamping of the NHS along more privatised lines, the so-called 'bedroom tax' which forces poor families to move from the social houses they're in to the smaller social houses that don't yet exist (long story, previously covered somewhere in here) and that the unemployed will have to work for their ever more meagre benefits (thereby putting out of work those who currently do those jobs for minimum wage), and basically going further in their ideological destruction of the unerpinnings of our society than Thatcher ever dared, it seems to me a good time to remember a speech given by Neil Kinnock, former Labour leader in the run-up to a past election which saw Margeret Thatcher once again take Downing Street.

I think it bears some relevance for America too, as your own political right fights to strip away any and all safety nets and provisions and further forces down wages in a climate of job insecurity and fear of unemployment.

If Margaret Thatcher is re-elected as Prime Minister, I warn you.

I warn you that you will have pain - when healing and relief depend on payment.

I warn you that you will have ignorance - when talents are untended and wits are wasted, when learning is a privilege and not a right.

I warn you that you will have poverty - when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a Government that won't pay, in an economy that can't pay.

I warn you that you will be cold - when fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don't notice and the poor can't afford.

I warn you that you must not expect work - when many cannot spend, more will not be able to earn. When they don't earn, they don't spend. When they don't spend, work dies.

I warn you not to go into the streets alone after dark or into the streets in large crowds of protest in the light.

I warn you that you will be quiet - when the curfew of fear and the gibbet of unemployment make you obedient.

I warn you that you will have defence of a sort - with a risk and at a price that passes all understanding.

I warn you that you will be home-bound - when fares and transport bills kill leisure and lock you up.

I warn you that you will borrow less - when credit, loans, mortgages and easy payments are refused to people on your melting income.

If Margaret Thatcher wins, she will be more a Leader than a Prime Minister. That power produces arrogance and when it is toughened by Tebbitry and flattered and fawned upon by spineless sycophants, the boot-licking tabloid Knights of Fleet Street and placement in the Quangos, the arrogance corrupts absolutely.

If Margaret Thatcher wins -

I warn you not to be ordinary.
I warn you not to be young.
I warn you not to fall ill.
I warn you not to get old.

[Sundae]

Some very good (and prescient) points there.
But I was disappointed with the way Labour behaved when they did get into power.

However I got a laugh from:

"... the rich don't notice and the poor can't afford"

Just because Diz was being a distratcion and I flicked my eyes over it, jumping from home poverty to the poor eating catfood.

That's (one of my) secret fears.

[Lamplighter]

I learned 2 new words from your post today... "quangos" and "Tebbitry"... thank you, Dana

Quangos is essentially just another new word for my limited vocabulary.
But "Tebbitry" opens a whole new exploration of history and politics.
There are several Google pages devoted to "Tebbitry this" and "Tebbitry that"
I felt the Tebbitry Test was particularly, ummmm shall we say "illuminating" ?
He is, or must have been, a very delightful fellow !

But within Kinnock's speech, I feel the following line was most important, and could have been his final thrust:

I warn you that you must not expect work
- when many cannot spend, more will not be able to earn.
When they don't earn, they don't spend. When they don't spend, work dies.

[lumberjim]

fear based socialism.

warn these nuts.

I warn you that when you let yourself depend on the state, you will be unequipped to fend for yourself when they make inevitable cut backs.

[Undertoad]

I warn you

I will fucking kill you

[Undertoad]

So, objectively, 30 years down the road, which warnings turned out to be true?

[DanaC]

Pretty much all of them during Thatcher's latter years and the Major years. Then Labour got in and piled funding into the NHS and developed a fairly successful series of back to work programmes - all of which got defunded or closed down when the Tories got back in.

The recession which was primarily a result of the global financial meltdown was laid wholly at the door of Labour and used as a rationale for the next phase of destruction of the welfare state and socialised medicine.

This is what always happens. The Tories get into power and sell off/privatise anything they can, defund or shrink the rest and then when labour get back in they have a broken system to try and mend, which costs a lot, and then the tories can point to Labour's dreadful 'tax and spend' policies as a way of getting back in to do the same again.

I am glad I am over 25. I am glad I got my degree when fees were still reasonable and finance available. I am glad I am not yet old.

[DanaC]

Have to agree with Sundae though: I didn't much like a lot of what the last Labour government did. They maintained the momentum on a lot of stuff (privatisation of various things, sell offs and anti-welfare). That's the problem really. A powerful ideologue like Thatcher doesn't just change the present, she changes the whole consensus. She shifted policy to the right and Labour moved to the right with it in order to 'modernise' and be 'electable'.

The Tories do as much as they can to strip down the state when they come into power (except for those parts of the state that they like obviously) in the hope that they will move things too far in that direction to ever go back to what was. They usually succeed.

So, now we have a government that claims to be for 'hardworking people: workers not shirkers' yet cut working benefits for families along with unemployment and disability benefits. They freeze public sector pay and accept zero hours contracts as part of the need for a 'flexible labour force'. Most of the people who are referred to foodbanks are not unemployed, they are families with working adults, often two adults working full-time.

They throw us the bone of raising the tax threshold, but allow fuel prices to skyrocket and cut the top rate of tax to the lowest it's ever been. Time and again, the people making decisions about farming out NHS services, or selling off the few remaining publicy owned services (Royal Mail for instance, which as usual is being sold off for a fraction of its worth) are shown to have direct links with those who will benefit from it.

the whole thing stinks.

[Pico and ME]

Originally Posted by lumberjim

fear based socialism.

warn these nuts.

I warn you that when you let yourself depend on the state, you will be unequipped to fend for yourself when they make inevitable cut backs.

Lack of empathy for that fear means you never experienced it. I grew up with it, my mother lived it. If it wasn't for Johnson's Great Society, we might never had escaped it.

[lumberjim]

No doubt, Leslie. I do have empathy for people that want to work but can't find it. I do not have it for those that expect to eat when they choose not to work. It's far too complex a situation at this point for either extreme viewpoint to be correct.

My ancestors suffered through rough times, worked hard, and succeeded. Each subsequent generation has done as well. I'm doing well, partly because I was raised in a good place, inherited good genes, and HAD to work hard to get what I wanted. There was no financial aid for my college because my parents were not poor. I lasted one year there and quit because I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up, and it didn't make sense to go into debt for a degree in art.

My kids are coming up on college age. I look at credit reports for young car buyers ...some that owe over a hundred thousand bucks in student loans and are earning 40-50 thousand. After many years, they may crack 6 digits. .. but only if they are talented. How long will they pay on those loans? hardly seems worth it.

Now, why are tuition rates so high? Because, just like health insurance, we are paying for the people that attend on grants.

Socialism.

I think health insurance should be abolished too. Impossible at this point. Also Radical, ....I know. .. but eventually, prices of care would drop into the realms of the reasonable. There would have to be some provision for emergent care and life threatening illness, but mundane things should be pay as you go.

This is why I stay out of politics. Too complex, and too late to fix any of it because of the money being made by those who could.

[lumberjim]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I warn you

I will fucking kill you

I will chew through you.

NSFW. Language



...slow blinking eyes. ...

[DanaC]

Unfortunately, the people who are the most ideologically wedded to the free market in all things have done a bang up job of convincing the rest of us ordinary schmucks who have to actually live in the world that creates, that most of the people being helped by the state are workshy and living it up on our tax dollars/pounds.

It's just not true. Most of the people claiming benefits are those in need and who have no other recourse or have serious barriers to getting employment. There are a few. Always will be. No matter what the system there will be a few who will try and probably succeed in gaming the system.

I find it easier to live with the idea that my taxes helped that one bloke down the road continue to live in a house I couldn't afford and eat better than I can, than that several families can't feed their children.

It also seems ridiculous to me, that when there are hundreds of thousands of people desperately wanting but unable to find work, we are going to force the much lower number of people who don't want to work into the limited number of jobs around.

Get all the people who want to work into work first. They're the majority of the unemployed. Then maybe try and figure out why the minority that are content to stay on the pittance that benefits pay are the way that they are.

Meanwhile, it's high time that companies were forced to pay a fair wage. the rush to create a 'flexible work force' has not solved the unemployment problem. It's just created a bloody great slew of underemployed and working poor.

I keep hearing politicians saying work should always pay more than benefits. But instead of tackling stagnating wages, zero hour contracts and the rising cost of living, they just keep cutting benefits.

It is obscene that two people in full time work have to claim benefits just to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. It shouldn't require both parents to work two jobs just to survive.

Working benefits (tax credits for families, housing benefit for the low paid) are just a way of the tax payer funding workers for private business. I would far rather my tax money went straight to those who can't work, whilst those who can got paid real wages.

If a business cannot afford to pay its workforce a fair wage then they should be considered insolvent. Just as they would were they unable to pay their ground rent or their product costs.

[DanaC]

Also: when the state pays benefits to people it isn't lost money. If you're on the dole, you don't save. You spend what you have on basics for survival. If the benefits are even slightly generous, you maybe also spend a little on a cheap tv and a day out for the kids now and then.

Money being spent in shops helping keep those shops in business and bringing in tax revenue.

Cutting benefits takes those people out of the market. Stagnated wages and rising costs of living along with the prospect of unemployment as so diabolical that it's frightening, means people in the lower end jobs also stop spending. Siege mentality takes over.

We're in a demand led recession in the UK. You cannot cut your way out of that.

[Pico and ME]

Now, why are tuition rates so high? Because, just like health insurance, we are paying for the people that attend on grants.

Actually, it is the drop in state funding for higher education that is the one of culprits there, not the financial aid for students.

[Lamplighter]

I'm doing well, partly because I was raised in a good place,
inherited good genes, and HAD to work hard to get what I wanted.
There was no financial aid for my college because my parents were not poor.

You chose your parents wisely.
... unfortunately not everyone gets to make that sort of decision.