George Osborne followed conventional wisdom yesterday, littering his speech with political wisecracks made at the expense of the Labour Party. It worked in the conference hall, raising laughter among the gathered delegates, but in a tiny one-bed council flat on a run-down estate just 10 minutes down the road, an uneasy silence fell.Because here’s a typical example of the problems we have developed in our society:
Emily Young is a teenage mother who gets by on benefits on the Welsh House Farm Estate in Quinton, a suburb of west Birmingham. She doesn't laugh, or even care about Mr Osborne's jokes. "That's the problem," she says. "I just can't engage with someone like him who has no idea what it's like to struggle to get by."Whereas you could engage with the likes of Gordon Brown? Because correct me if I’m wrong, but he’s not exactly a pauper, is he, for all he reduced the country to that state..?
"I want him to tell me what his cuts are going to mean to me; I want to go to university so I can get the education and job that will give my son a better life. I'm not interested in his snide jokes about the Labour Party."Well, that does at least sound as though she has a smidgeon of personal respo…
Oh:
As Mr Osborne continues, she talks about her upstairs flat and the area. "I suppose the people are friendly enough but I just keep myself to myself," she says. "I moved here to be close to college, the council assigned me the house, I had no choice in the matter. Me and my boyfriend want a larger flat together so that our son can live with his father, but we're on a waiting list."It upsets you that you are on a waiting list for a larger house paid for by working families, yet it never occurred to you to go on a ‘waiting list’ before breeding?
Yet, incredibly, the ‘Indy’ reporter thinks this might be a future conservative voter!
…Ms Young is exactly the sort of person the Tories are trying to reach out to. Her circumstances are difficult but she aspires for something better and wants to work. "I'm not sure I will ever be able to get on to a law degree," she says, "but I refuse to complain. I have my own life and it is my responsibility."Ah. A law degree.
Because we desperately, desperately need more lawyers, right?
And you consider that to be your responsibility, yet not breeding until you can support a child clearly isn’t?
Although she has been placed in a flat in Birmingham, Ms Young – originally from Weymouth – still has to get up at around 5.30am to get her son ready and get to college.Oh, my heart bleeds for her! I have to get up at 5:00am in order to get everything ready to go to work to earn tax to support the freeloading little cow!
"When I get home, I have to get the pram upstairs by myself, that's tough," she says.You clearly don’t even know what the word means…
"It would be nice to have a park I felt safe in and even a leisure centre, I love swimming but there is nothing around here," she says, adding that none of the politicians seem interested in those issues. "That's why I feel disenfranchised," she says.
Ms Young admits she did not even know the Conservative Party was holding a conference down the road…Well, she’s clearly cut out for university!
"A year ago, I was offered a temporary job but I would have been worse off if I had taken it because I would have lost so much in benefits. If they make it possible for someone like me, I would love to go out and work."Well, the 'Indy' is certainly right about one thing: she's exactly the sort of feckless, welfare-dependent baby-breeding machine that the ConDems need to 'reach out to'. It's far too late to reach some, who are now so mired in the life of living off the state that they are beyond help.
In order to impress upon them that the money tap is slowly and inexorably being turned OFF. And not before time.
Great post.
ReplyDeleteThe Conservatives need to reach out to people like her with a steel claw.
How did they get from the centre of Birmingham to Quinton in 10 minutes? I think the journo is telling fibs.
ReplyDeleteyep, and on a day when we see real effort. 33 Miners caught, buried alive and what happens....companies, the Chilien Government, people even the media FFS seem genuinely, honestly happy to save thier lives.
ReplyDeleteThis is what it is all about, humanity. Fuck religion, fuck politics, fuck country and state can you imgine doing your job and bieng buried alive?!?!? I think not.
So single mothers in Britain, high tax bracket earners take note how very fucking lucky you are. Take responsibility for your actions. Because I am sick of feckless, scrounging wankers telling me how unfair things are. Get off your arse and do something for yourself or even, for some one else. Move if you have to, I don't care what it takes but stop, just stop making it my problem because I just don't care.
allotments, public buses cheap as chips, publicly funded leisure centres open to all within reach, libraries, education, countryside to roam free in, NHS, the list goes on.
ReplyDeleteFucking woe is me my arse, the old, disabled, allegedly poor parents, all of you just fuck off
struggle to get by, oh fuck off. try walking an hour to get clean drinking water then fucking complain you feckless piece of self absorbed shite. i had to carry my pram up some stairs... what was the butler not on duty that day!!!!!
ReplyDeleteYou had it
You deal with it.
Did your member of parliament live in the constituency for many years before being elected? Or, like most others, were they posted in from far flung places in the UK to stand for parliament over and above anyone in the constituency with long lineage who could stand instead?
ReplyDeleteThe method of selection of candidates by the main political parties in this country is lacking in democracy at the very least. We need a different method of selecting candidates to stand in an election, one where the prospective candidate has lived in the constituency for a minimum of ten years, and has a lineage in this country going back to at least their grandparents, before they are eligible for an office such as local council or parliament.
The local political parties should not be able to nominate anyone this is where the corruption starts. A local constituents would sign up at the town hall to stand in their constituency and they can align with a political party. Many other constituents may do the same.
They would give a speech at the town hall stating their aims and why they are the best candidate for the job as m.p for the area.
On polling day one candidate will be the winner - at least they will be a local constituent not like we have at the moment all millionaires in the parliament playing at politics and never done a job of work in their lives.
Their money gets them into the local party, their donations get them nominated for parliament - totally un-democratic.
The constitution has got to be changed to not let this happen ever again.
Rant on:- http://www.rantonuk.org
"A year ago, I was offered a temporary job but I would have been worse off if I had taken it because I would have lost so much in benefits."
ReplyDelete<argumental>Isn't this a case for reducing benefits?</dave>
Seriously - why do we have a system that encourages the unemployed to breed to get more money rather than get a job?
Feeling deprived, Julia?
ReplyDeleteBitching about how things could be better for you and people in your situation?
Seeing other people as the problem?
Why don't you change things, instead of indulging in all this infantile whinging?
Ah! The system is rigged against you ...
Now where have I heard all that before?.
Anon1 beat me to it. From the ICC to Quinton in 10 minutes? When did they build the bullet train link through west Brum?
ReplyDeleteWell she certainly "engaged" with her, presumably jobless, boyfriend in the certain expection of getting priority housing from the council.
ReplyDeletefeckless, useless, CHAV.
ReplyDeleteCouncil House And Violence btw
sterilise her and take her child away.
then she can have all the WKD she wants and doesn't have to carry a pram up some stairs, boo hoo
I like the post Julia, even though my guess is the breeder in question may not be the real problem. My guess is we could repeat the attack you make on your attack. Our system is half-baked, as is your position in this one, and pretty much anything we can add.
ReplyDeleteI once suggested that 30 teenagers becoming welfare mums on one YTS scheme was not coincidence. A bunch of Tweed (the vile perfume)council feminists told me no woman would go through pregnancy to get a flat. Another 30 followed.
The half-bakedness is so embedded all we can do is fume. The Dutch, meanwhile, seem to be stopping it.
"The Conservatives need to reach out to people like her with a steel claw."
ReplyDeleteIndeed!
"We need a different method of selecting candidates to stand in an election..."
I'm not sure any method is beyond corruption, to be fair...
"Now where have I heard all that before?"
Dunno. What sort of voices do you listen to in your head?
"Anon1 beat me to it. From the ICC to Quinton in 10 minutes? "
Journalistic licence? ;)