This made my blood boil, so it's time for a revolution, I think. The Tories have been seriously slashing the welfare system in the UK causing great hardship for 30% of the population. The Conservatives say work is better, but most of these people are in work and yet still live in extreme poverty. Work doesn't pay!
The U.K. Welfare State was never a socialist utopia, says Philip Aston, the UN Special Rapporteur. It was always about hard work, but it provided a safety net - the bare minimum - and guaranteed good healthcare, educaton, and accomodation. But now Conservative Parties around the world, including the Republicans in the US, are looking at the British model to see if they can cut welfare even more, says Philip Aston.
The UK did not need to do austerity after the 2008 crash, but it did anyway, with most of the cuts falling on the poor, who became the whipping boy. The aristocracy screwed up, so the poor had to pay.
The U.K. is the fifth largest economy in the world, but it is probably a lot richer than that. The City of London is the international crime center of the world, where billions are stolen and squirreled away into tax havens, not all of them off-shore.
Billions are stolen from Africa each year that disappear in the City of London. In the Spider's Web, Britain's Second Empire, you will see how this crime network works. It has corrupted the Houses of Parliament.
The British model since 2010, based on ‘austerity’ can be seen as a transfer of resources from the poor to the relatively wealthy, explains UN Special Rapporteur for Extreme Poverty & Human Rights, Philip Alston discussing his investigation into UK poverty.
Since the US and UK governments create their spending money out of thin air, austerity at the national level is 100% gratuitous (unlike France, for which austerity is unavoidable). Not one penny for social programs comes out of the pockets of the rich. Therefore the purpose of Anglo-American austerity is to make the peasants scream so much in pain that they beg for relief, even if it means privatization, which makes their suffering worse than ever.
ReplyDeleteThe peasants insist on suffering. Right-wing peasants call any alternative “Communism,” while liberal peasants are only concerned with “homophobia” and “white male privilege” in the lower classes.
Rather than the peasants banding together so they can break out of poverty, they attack each other, while their owners enjoy the show. And the worse off the peasants become (because of theft by bankers and oligarchs), the more the corporate media outlets claim that the economy is doing great. Therefore if you are struggling, it is entirely your fault.
Apparently, the pensioners and over 50's are rich. They have their nice houses and good pensions, but young families are poor. Two thirds of the over 50's vote Tory - I'm alright jack!
ReplyDeleteBut their healthcare is crap, which they are going to have to rely on more and more as they get older. A lot of people are already paying to see private consultants rather then wait months to see someone. The Tory supporters have their castles, but everything is crumbling around them. Their children may eventually inherited their patients houses, but it's possible that healthcare and care home costs could eat away at the eqyity.
Until the children of the over 50's inherited some property, their lives are harder too. Work doesn't pay as well, and homes are expensive - and they many even be renting.
Thatcher spent all the oil money on tax cuts which was a poor stimulus to the economy. She privatised BP and the oil wealth was off-shored into secret bank accounts, so today we have austerity, rather than plenty.
The over 50's by voting Conservative are bringing us further to WW3. I remember one working class Tory that I used to work with about 20 years ago, who would go around saying that it was too late to do anything about climate change now. He kept saying that. He didn't care!
Another working class Tory I knew would always complain about pensioners getting free transport travel in London saying the cost came out of his rates. But he had a very well paid job working for a London bus company which gave him a top rate pension too. He had done well out of the system, and he would get free travel in London when he retires one day.
Everywhere we look we see an attack on workers. Hungarian workers voted for the current government because it is nationalistic, and resists EU dictates. The current government shows its gratitude by crushing those who voted for it.
ReplyDeleteLast week the Hungarian government decreed that employers can demand up to 400 hours of overtime work per year from employees without paying for it for three years.
This is an equivalent to an extra hour of UNPAID WORK every day, an extra day each week, or 50 days a year.
You have to pay your bills every month, or you will be thrown onto the street. (It is illegal to sleep in public anywhere in Hungary.) But employers don't have to pay you for overtime for three years. Long enough for employers to deny that they owe you, or to claim that they “lost the records.”
And employers have the government to enforce their lies.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46551904?fbclid=IwAR15XwDQZY1DDtig3gWufWA6JACBuOv_OHjA-CKuNU0PSQNlSSqHM6nerGc