Benefit Street and Hypocrisy

The Channel 4 programme ‘Benefit Street’ is yet another example of the lazy generalisation and the demonization of an unrepresented minority within our society that allows politicians, employers and the nation in general to abdicate responsibility for their policies, attitudes , the provision of a living wage and to turn their heads away from some inconvenient facts.

 ‘Benefit Street’ is a televised Daily Mail view of the world, a paper whose readers should, perhaps once or twice, lift their heads up and look around and perhaps they may form their own opinions rather than allowing themselves to be fed pernicious, reactionary inaccuracies and generalisations. But I suppose thinking for themselves would be too much to ask of their particularly small brains.

‘Benefit Street’ is just another example, of which there are many being perpetuated by the media, both visual and written, including, sadly, the BBC, and of which this government is happy to see perpetuated as they continue their policy of ‘divide and rule’ by turning rich against poor, black against white, Christian against Muslim, gay against straight, poor against the poorest, and those on welfare against those who do not claim.

Of course there are many people who are part of the section of society who does claim welfare benefits, but yet wilfully pretend, or ignore, the inconvenient facts that they are in receipt of benefits. These are the true hypocrites. The people who happily jump onto the bandwagon of stigmatising and persecuting other welfare claimants but conveniently turn a blind eye to the Child Benefit they are in receipt of, or the Working Tax Credits they receive, or the pension they receive along with the warm weather payment, free bus pass or free television licence, or, if you’re a farmer, the taxpayer funded subsidies benefits you receive for not ploughing a field. It’s easy to pick on the weak and defenceless. That’s what cowards and bully’s do. These are the same people who gather behind the fascist banners of the BNP, UKIP and the Tory party, hoping to see some ‘leftie’ skulls being broken. They’re the same people who if you caught them alone in an alley they would cower and whimper like the serial masturbator’s they know themselves to be.

 And of course, let us not forget the biggest benefit claimants in the land, The Monarchy, and their enablers, the claim addicts supreme, the politicians, who happily allow the tax payer to cover the costs of their food, heating, TV licences, mortgages, rent, light bulbs, heated towel rails, bath plugs and dirty videos while implementing policies that make poverty a crime and treat the working classes as undeserving criminals who must bear the brunt of austerity while the ruling and the political classes, as well as the wealthy, are allowed to escape any austerity measures and are free to continue to accumulate wealth within an economy that they trashed and destroyed.

I am fully supportive of our welfare state. I support the payment of Child Benefit, disability allowances, JSA and pensions, a country should be judged by how it treats its poor, the elderly, the disabled and the vulnerable, although I do recognise that there is a very small minority who play the system, of which evidence was apparent within the programme. What I cannot abide is someone who, if, for example, they have two children, will be in receipt of upwards of over £50000 in benefits, yet attempt to claim the moral high ground by claiming to have worked all their lives and never received a penny in benefits, even though this is patently untrue, or an Employment Minister who happily partakes in the persecution, through lies and misinformation, of a vulnerable section of the community while purchasing some cushions and a heated towel rail and charging them to the tax payer. This is nothing but stinking hypocrisy being perpetrated by frauds who expect others to keep their part of the social contract yet consider it acceptable for themselves to break their part of the agreement for political or personal gain. Their motto is ‘do as I say, not as I do’ when it should be ‘I’m a stinking hypocrite, do not believe a word I say.’

All I ask for in this argument is for honesty. For people to portray the facts and speak truthfully, but all you get are people distorting the truth, exercising their own prejudices, conveniently ignoring their own hypocrisies and tailoring the argument to their own self serving agenda while punishing a defenseless minority for the purposes of personal or political gain.

Perhaps Channel 4 or the BBC would like to make a programme called ‘Tax Dodge Caribbean Island’ and highlight the billions in tax avoided and evaded by Big Business and the wealthy, although I doubt the Daily Mail and their tabloid cohorts would review it. Probably because the tax arrangements of certain newspaper owners and media types do not bear particularly well when scrutinised.

‘ Do as I say, not as I do’. Hey? Why don’t we all live by that motto? As well as ‘What’s yours, is mine.’ That’ll have ‘em fainting in the shires.

Stupid Gove.

Apparently, according to Education Secretary Michael Gove, we have all been cruelly mislead by devious socialist historians into believing that WWI was an orgy of carnage where millions, lead by inbred upper class simpletons, were driven into a charnel house of slaughter, when in fact no one died at all except a cow in Ypres. And Gove should know, because before becoming an MP, he was a journalist, so he’s a bleeding expert on the subject!!!!!!

More Hypocrisy.

In this age of austerity, The Mayor of London, Boris ‘buffoon’ Johnson, a man notorious for fathering children with women who happen not to be his wife, has decided he would like to waste thousands in taxes on the purchase of water cannons. No doubt he is in fear of some type of uprising, ‘a London spring,’ perhaps by all the women he has had extra marital affairs with. Why else would he want to divert thousands in tax payer’s money which could be used to improve the quality of life for Londoners? I expect Londoners will feel almost obligated to riot now, just so they can get their money’s worth. After all it seems a shame to let the water cannons gather dust in some wharf side warehouse if there’s a chance of putting the tax dollar to work while getting a new pair of trainers and a shower into the bargain. Just don’t forget the shower gel and your swimming costume. And pick a nice hot day my ‘cockerney’ friends. It’ll be fun.

Plebgate.

PC Keith Wallis, the officer found guilty of misconduct in public office has resigned. The MP involved, Andrew Mitchell, wants to know why the police tried to ‘fit him up’.

Mr Mitchell, the answer is probably because you are a rude, arrogant, pompous snob who believes he is entitled to abuse a police officer with total impunity. If you had treated people in the manner you yourself would wish to be treated then we would never have had to suffer this apparently, never ending saga. Let us hope you have learnt your lesson and in the future you behave more respectfully towards people who are only doing their job. A job which, although is far harder to do than yours, receives only a fraction of the remuneration you receive. So do us all a favour and stop whining on and on and on and on an...................

You’re not special, you’re a civil servant.

Thomas Hitzelsperger.

The international footballer has let it be known that he is gay. The media reported that he had ‘admitted’ he was gay, as if he had been doing something wrong and had decided to come clean. It feels like we are still living in the dark ages when somebody announcing they are gay is news. As a society we are not as progressive as we like to pretend.

                                         "The rioting's on the wall". (anon)