What can you say to this?
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| Pesky EU, first they want money form the Greatest union that ever was, then they want to interfere with the British way of dealing with poverty. Why won't these pesky Johnny Foreigners push off and leave us alone? |
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| How to deal with unemployment the Great British way |
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| Think someone at the DWP got a bit mixed up here? You're supposed to put it on a fictitious account, ya dick, not the work account. Duh! |
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| Couldn't happen to a bigger bastard |
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| But we are still all in it together... unfortunately, including Scotland |
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| On Mr Duncan Smith's expenses, no doubt. |
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| Well, well... and Britain knows so much better than damned foreigners how to run things, doesn't it? |
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| In some parallel universe (as usual) the Express seems to be under the impression we voted YES |
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| Most sensible companies would take the hint... |
Your posts are true but so depressing tonight tris. I've been reading a couple of articles on Gough Whitlam tonight, the parallels between Australia then and Scotland now is very apparent so maybe I've just got a case of what if blues. How long can these mendacious beggars carry on tho, it's heartbreaking to see honest, hardworking folk being treated as scrum when, as we all know, scrum rises to the top. AYE enough to make saint swear, and I ain't no saint.
ReplyDeleteAnyway thanks for helping to highlight these facts
Yes, M, it is depressing, but I felt I needed a break from the 'crisis which may turn into a catastrophe' in La la Labour land.
DeleteWhen governments need someone to blame for the mess, they invariably pick on the poor, the sick, the immigrant, the disabled, the outsider, if you like.
British governments have done it for a long time. Peter Lilley and his "little list" of people who wouldn't be missed, back in the day when Thatcher wanted to make an example of some of the outsiders (and make sure that the other "outsiders" knew that they could save their unpleasant and unworthy necks by doing exactly what she told them to do).
They blamed the EU for everything; they blamed the unemployed (which they created) and the sick (which they then created by shifting the unemployed on to the initially cheaper and ever invisible sickness benefit).
We've got to the stage where we expect everything to be the fault of the EU or the skivers who can't or won't work... and now of course, the immigrants.
Never mind what the facts say: that the EU actually provides millions of jobs; the benefits system is a tiny cost compared to tax fraud, and in any case most of the benefits go to employed people to subsidise low wages and astronomical rents. Never mind that immigrants cost less than natives, are less likely to require benefits or health care and are therefore an economic advantage to the country. Sod that; that doesn't fit the agenda of finding anyone at all, except politicians and bankers to blame for everything.
Sometimes we just need to be reminded that we live in a vile and corrupt country government by vile and corrupt people and institutions.
Tell me one British institution that you trust...
I'm one of those who, unfortunately, has been ill for a long time and I currently receive ESA. So I've been through the degradation of ATOS interviews and have had my benefit frozen many times whilst they investigate me.
ReplyDeleteI write this anonymously as I am ashamed. I worked for a long time before I became ill and I would love to be well enough to work now.
I don't ever tell anyone that I'm on benefits. Not only am I ashamed but I'm proud too.
When I was working I felt that I was contributing and the job I had was a very good one. But people do get ill and need help. I am better off than most as I have an understanding partner. I don't want to accept handouts or receive more money, I just don't want to feel that others condemn me and see me as less then human, a weakling, as I need help.
You have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of and I'm sure just about everyone who read your post feel that indeed you should be given every help and support from those of us who are more fortunate. The people who should be ashamed are those who subject individuals into such a degrading situation. I find it difficult to read your comment without being a bit ashamed myself for allowing this to happen so do not for one minute feel you are being condemned or denigrated.
DeleteThanks for your reply to Anon, John, I read his post when I was not able to reply but I want to simply say that I feel exactly the same. To many are lumped in under the scrounger label and there are damned few of them. When the National Health and Welfare Bill was passed way back when I was just born, nobody was meant to feel like that and I too feel ashamed that you do. My own family would have benefited as my Gran became a single parent in the middle thirties. She had to go and beg to the Parish at that time a charity and was told she could not have anything from them unless she divorced her husband. So everyone needs a hand at sometime in their lives even in the States with very little welfare support, people support others.
DeleteWe all voted here for a better Scotland, well we did not win that vote for you Anon but we will win the war.
Anon. I was moved to tears by your post.
DeleteI'm not sure what to say in response. I agree with John and Helena and I'm grateful to them for their contribution.
I'm disgusted that someone who is sick is made to feel ashamed of that fact. The truth is that we never know what is around the corner for any of us. Health can change at any time, or people can have accidents that change their situation. The condemners may one day be in a situation where they need help.
A decent person would never condemn another for being sick. It's ignorance that does that, but it is ignorance which is encouraged by a weak government trying to transfer the blame to someone, and it's perpetuated by papers like the Mail and the Express, whose readership like to have someone to blame for their situation.
It has no place in a decent society. Clearly we are not that. The country isn't broke and in more debt that it can ever pay because some people are too ill to work. It is so because of incompetent government, a desire to play a role in the world that we cannot afford, warmongering, and greedy people at the top.
Anonymous, I just have to reply to your comment as I understand a little of what you are suffering. I worked for 30yrs with not one day off sick when, after a few years of feeling very unwell with gut pain and such exhaustion that I had to drag myself out of bed every day- even after sleeping round the clock, I was finally diagnosed with crowns disease. Unfortunately this exhaustion has never left me, has only worsened so, eventually I had to take early retirement. Luckily tho this was before atos etc so I never had to fight for a pittance, only my sense of self worth and esteem, which must be a continual battle for you. Our sense of self is, in large part, tied up with what job we do. Why should we put big hurdles in front of people who have more than enough to cope with by just getting through life day to day. Please try and keep heart anonymous, most of us are decent, civilized folk who do care about others. It is only the 'elite' who care for only themselves. The young folk, especially have given us all hope for a far better future. All the best
DeleteMary V
Thanks for adding that M...
DeleteI agree with you 100%.
Great to see the Sunday Herald more than double it's sales in a year - when will the rest of the press take the hint that Scotland is sick of pro-unionist press commentary. Great also to see the Daily Record suffer the biggest fall of all the Scottish papers ..... regret publishing the Vow now?
ReplyDeleteYes Alan. I wonder that other editors/ proprietors didn't see the commercial benefits of a more open approach to the union. It's interesting that (according to Wings) Miliband's office doesn't really know anything about the vow; that Stuart published an email from his office and that the editor is up in arms about it. They don't seem to learn.
DeleteTris, you asked M if there was one British Institution that was trusted. You know, I do not think there is one. Not one can be said to have been either pro independence or at the very least neutral, all were having their chain tweaked by the British Government/Establishment.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I am jaundiced but we have been having a discussion, never an argument, as to whether the SNP should have called the referendum off when the Vow/Gordon Brown appeared in the press during what seems to have been only our period of Purdah.
It's not just over the referendum Helena.
DeleteThe royals are on the take. Not just peripheral ones like the useless Air-miles Andy, but Charlie taking free jet rides in return for invitations to Willie's wedding. They are friends with the most disgusting middle east dictators and invite them to Buckingham Palace to be entertained at our expense.
The Commons is half full of expenses thieves, the Lords are the same. When they are found out most get away with it and only a few hapless idiots that no one likes are thrown to the wolves and do a few weeks in prison.
The Metropolitan Police are a bunch of lying incompetent racists who get away with shooting people or pushing them to the ground and killing them and whose management is in the pay of the newspapers. The newspapers themselves will pay out bribe money to the police, hack phones, and use their power to get a sensational story about anyone who is a "celebrity". When the courts are forced to look into the behaviour of the press, they pick a scapegoat to take the rap, Coulson, and the real criminals get away with it. The BBC seems to have been run pretty much exclusively for a pile of sexual deviants and everyone covered it up... and when the government set up an inquiry into the behaviour of the "top people" they try to palm us off with judges who are a part of the same circle of friends or relatives, and whose judgement is a foregone conclusion. The Church is tainted by abuse of the vulnerable.
OK... these are British institutions and I'm pleased to say that so far none of it has touched Scotland. But we need to remember that only a month ago, we wanted to stay British...
You do have to ask yourself why.
Yes but should the referendum have been cancelled since the Government and the rest of the creepy crawly establishment broke their own rules by offering people things during Purdah or was purdah only for us on the YES side,
ReplyDeleteThat way we might have had another chance after shouting about them cheating, and cheating they did. My Husband says that the SNP need to start thinking out of the box. R. Bruce was very lucky at Bannockburn, we need guerilla warfare not set battles to win.
I think that Nicola is already doing that.
DeleteThis EU thing she is proposing is going to put Eton boy on the spot.
Quite so Helena-we will get nowhere playing to londons rules.
DeleteA few demonstrations, sit ins, refusal to pay this and that, lets make this place ungovernable………..
SNP has got off to a good start methinks…..
I still think that the game plan should be to give them some time to come up with devo-super plus...
DeleteMaybe they will... almost certainly they don;t.
When they don;t it can be gloves off.
What, in my opinion, we don't want to do is to be seen to play the awkward card. It will loose us support.
We lost the referendum on the strength of almost federalism.
We need to give them a chance with it.
When they fail to deliver I have no problem with demos (not that they listen to that sort of thing); I've already stopped paying for the BBC, but most other things I pay are Scottish, and I don't want to do the local council out of money which they need.
I'm happy to play my part to make Cameron's life utter hell if I can...(or Miliband's in the unlikely event of him actually making it to Downing Street and lasting more than a week).
Looking at the stats above, its going to be a terrible winter for some poor children and families, whether to eat or heat will be the topic, around the sparse dinner table at Christmas. Yet we're spending £3 Million pounds a day fighting an unjust war in Iraq, again, I just don't understand people voting against their fellow countrymen women and children's interests.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to the UK, why have they left their citizens in a state of despair and fear?
Because they don;t give a damn about them. They care about their careers, their legacies, their bank balances and themselves.
DeleteDo you seriously think the likes of Duncan Smith or Fraud or McVile give a damn what poor people are eating on Christmas day or any other?
I stopped paying my tv licence and give the money in donations to the food bank.
Apart from a few little gifts, I'll give christmas money to the same cause and I'll be asking people not to buy me stuff I don;t need for Christmas and gift the money.
I simply don't see how people can do other than that.
Some might say it lets Smith and his department of heartless bastards off the hook, but as I said. Do you think he would give a stuff if people died of starvation on Christmas day?
I don't know what happened to the UK. I never liked it much. I'd suggest Mrs Thatcher happened and made greed respectable.
Sorry, Tris, but I've got to mention Murphy - it seems that Ian Davidson is accusing him of causing Lamont's down-fall. It is not often I would pay any attention to hat odious creep but can very well believe him on this occasion. I don't usually comment on people's appearance but Murphy reminds me of something that Salvador Dali sketched with a bad pen after an alcohol generated nightmare. I was going to nominate Cutie Cathy for the post but she informed me, not for the first time, that she was not available!
ReplyDeleteNothing you could say about Murphy would surprise me.
DeleteHe's an ugly version of Blair... (although how the boy wonder's looks have left him. Greed isn't good for the complexion, it seems!)
I can't imagine he really wants this job stuck away in what must be the back of beyond to him, Edinburgh, and I can't believe that at this particular time he would be willing to take it, unless he thinks that in 18 months he can turn it round and win the next election...especially not with HIS politics of rightwing warmongering. Doesn;t seem to be what Margrit was telling us Labour was going to become.
BTW, do you ever get bored of hearing women tell you that they are not available?
They really are a bunch is Selfservative baisturds, so is Spud.
ReplyDeleteof not is
DeleteSpud is a Tory. He's a right wing Blairite. He votes for wars and WMDs and benefit caps.
DeleteAt least the Tory Tories have the guts to stand as greedy selfish bastards. He sneaks in pretending to be a socialist.
No tris I have thought hard and cannot think of one British institution worth a jot, apart from NHS, which of course the Tories have always hated. Tho it was Labour that started the way to demolish it. Here's hoping they will finally get what they deserve, and it ain't statues. Every time I see Dewar's one I get so angry, this is the guy who did us out of 6000mls of water so wastemonster could ?legally get their Hans on some of our oil. The so-called 'father' of Holyrood who never wanted us to have our own parliament- irony or what. AYE Donald we'll get our own back and very soon
ReplyDeleteMary Vasey
The NHS is a good organisation, and it is fortunately separate in Scotland. But you know, France and German regularly spend 12% of their GDP on health. The UK (and Scotland only gets what England says it gets) spends around 7%.
DeleteMaybe if there were human beings in charge on the money, we'd spend a bit less on killing people and a bit more on saving their lives.
Alas there are not.