Tuesday 6 October 2009

WHO ELSE ARE YOU GOING TO UPSET? NOT THE BANKERS I'LL BET




So far, after falling out over Europe again (yawn), the Tories, such a shoo-in for next year's election, have managed to upset the Incapacity Benefit claimants by worrying them about extremely strict testing and the 50+ because they want them to work longer.


OK, I know there are people on IB who shouldn't be; people on the fiddle, but there are probably a couple of million who are too ill to work but who are worried sick that somehow they won't pass the test of being able to walk 20 steps and get up from sitting down without using arm rests. All so that they can be taken off IB and put on something that pays lower rates. There are no jobs so it's not like they are actually going to be working.


Nice savings Dave. Reminiscent in many ways of the school bully hitting the sick kid in the playground.


Now they've upset the 50+ crowd, the people who are most likely to vote. Oh, they say, people live well into their 90s now. They want to go on working. It’s only fair that they should.


Hello, what world do these Tories live in? They are nearly as out of touch as the Labour lot, hard though that is to believe.

No. They don't want to go on working. Here’s how the situation is Dave. In the old days people had a job for life. As they got older they maybe did a wee bit less than they used to, but they added value to the company with all their experience. They had been “faithful servants of the company” and the company kept faith with them. With very few exceptions these days are long since gone. Jobs are rarely long term, except in the public sector. Many people in their sixties have been made redundant, and no one wants to take them on, so they are on the dole. They desperately look forward to their pension. It, grimly low though it is, means a few more pounds a week.


Many of the working classes are pretty much done by the time they reach 65. They hurt; they have all manner of illnesses. It's all about a lifetime in damp houses often with poor food, too much drink, too much smoke, not enough exercise or too much hard physical backbreaking work, often around chemicals that have affected their health.


In some areas of Glasgow, for example, many are dead by the time pension comes around, but those who aren't are on the dole. No one wants to employ ill people in their 60s. You know, it's not all stockbroker land in these isles of ours, Dave, and some people do live outside the Home Counties of England.

But hey, the IB claiments and the nearly pensioners are an easy target. Probably no one at your conference has these kinds of worries. It will get you a big cheer in the hall and the blue rinses and the colonels, the stockbrokers and the bankers, who aren’t even aware that people like that exist, will be thinking what a good chap that David Cameron is. The bankers in particular have much to be grateful for. Phew!


It reminds me of Mrs Thatcher saying in that condescending way that she had, lips curling into an evil smile "But people WANT to pay for their eye tests".


Bravo Dave.


So, to summarise. It seems that this week you have hit the old and the sick and the poor.... in order to pay for the mess made by the super rich.


Brilliant. Now I remember what the Tories were like and why we wanted rid of them so badly and believed the ridiculous mantra that things could "only get better".

6 comments:

  1. Ye nailed the bastard - well done.

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  2. Thanks Scunnert. It just makes me so angry that these guys will take what little bit the poor have to pay for the sins of the mega bucks boys.

    Talk about Robin Hood in reverse. Robbin' Bastards if you ask me. This is no way to run the kind of country I want anything to do with.

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  3. The 'cause' starts and stops with that single simple premise: Scotland will not have Tory Government imposed.

    How long till the message gets through?

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  4. We shall see in May next year I suspect Sophia. Of course we probably will have a Tory government imposed upon us, but I don't know how long that will last.

    Interestingly, once the Tories are in power in England, the Labour opposition in our own parliament may become more likely to support SNP policies to thwart them. It can only be a linmited amount of time before the Labour group see what an advantage it would be to them personally to have an independent Scotland.

    Maybe we need to start spelling that out to them in words of one letter.... Maybe then that little chubby man who seems to be in charge of them will catch on... I wish I could remember his name

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  5. I'm sure a lot of what we hear from the Tories between now and June won't frighten the horses, the problem being that those horses all live in the East Midlands! I fail to see how the Tories can speak to the Scots while still winning the votes they really want, those of the Middle-English working-middle classes.

    As you say Tris the old the sick and the poor are not popular targets in Scotland. I don't think they're popular targets doon South, but certainly more palatable. Let's not forget that the Tories beat Labour in England at the last election. England is a Tory country, it always has been.

    I have never wanted Scottish Independence because it would make us better off, nor cos we would be better represented on a global stage (tho both are true) I just think we are different nations, always have been, and always will.

    England and Scotland lay on different continents until about 500 million years ago. It's no surprise to know that the seam lies directly below Hadrian's Wall.

    Always have been, always will.

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  6. Sophie:

    That's an interesting piece of history I wasn't aware of.

    I totally agree with you though, as I think do many Scots. Independence isn't all about oil or money, it's mainly about self determination, and going a way that is suitable to our country and out people.

    We are a very different people from the English. We have different values. I'm not saying that we are better than them, just different. It is good that much of our domestic policy is decided in Edinburgh, by Scots. It would be so much better if everything were decided here.

    The oil wealth is the icing on the yummy cake, and I'd be perfectly happy without it.

    Simple really.

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