Scroungers!

It is a bit difficult to wake up these days without the economic softening up being gently whispered in your ear by Avon bunnies in business suits....

Closely followed by whispers of scroungers..... immigrants... a wasteful benefits system.... in fact the usual right-wing trick of necessary cuts being made to cover ideological warfare and the greed of a stupidly rich few. We all know swingeing attacks on not just the poorest sections, but ordinary middle income earners are coming too..... they point the finger at scroungers, immigrants.... but really, dear people, they mean most of you.... anyone on child benefit, income assistance, rent support? they mean you. anyone here use schools, the NHS, social care, social services, council services whatsoever? they mean you. It is alright saying no frontline services will be cut, but besides being a lie, it is also a simplification: if you cut support staff, administrative staff, then those frontline staff will spend more time doing those tasks than the "frontline" ones they are purposely employed for...... more paperwork for teachers and headteachers, doctors, nurses, social workers.

The coalition has so far proved unsurprisingly adept at it: Ian Duncan Smith's rhetoric is little more than Norman Tebbit's with a smile and a hug; the slightly sinister hug that mafia dons give those they have killed in the next scene. But they're Tories, you expect it.

What is more concerning is the way this rhetoric is being clutched at by Labour leadership contenders ( a peculiarly drab, middle class version of X-Factor, where everyone is desperate to seem 'normal' and 'down with the proles'.... ). Much silly balls (and, of course, silly Balls) is being stressed about a need to deal with ordinary fears over immigration, scroungers, and a "something for nothing culture".... apparently what lost them the election (an election where only 36% voted for the Tories, but 52% voted for Libs or Labs) was a failure to outflank the opposition on the right..... thus, we have them murmuring how they should show they are "tough" on immigration.... "tough on benefit cheats".... want to help ordinary working families.... as if ordinary working families don't need unemployment benefit, child benefit, or support with any aspect of their lives.

The Labour party got duped into this crap before, under Blair. Just because an (actually relatively small) section of working and middle class people get conned into believing such scapegoating crap, a newspaper myth that uses a very small minority to blacken the name of a much larger and more honest set of people who really need help (ask the 2 million plus unemployed if they wanted to lose their jobs, if they enjoy living at pure subsistence level, with a huge dent in their self-confidence and self respect...), doesn't mean their argument is right. the popular argument, if it draws on prejudice, is almost always wrong.

Congratulations working class folk! you've bought the shit again! the people who are actually screwing you (who took huge salaries and ran your economy into the ground) now want to pay less tax than they should, and want you to sacrifice for them.... well, not you obviously (you're decent, ordinary, hardworking)...... but THEM.... the others.... the scroungers... the immigrants...
Of course the argument recurs now, because the last few years have made most people rightly sceptical of the value and work of the wealthiest. Support for fairer taxation (more on the richest £100k plus earners, less on low earners, and more on unearned incomes and business profits), and sympathy for the downtrodden has been on the rise, because many more people fall into that category; of course, at this point, the scapegoating starts again, the media sleight of hand that attempts to divide and conquer..... we are back to the "deserving poor and "the undeserving poor".... could they be deflecting attention? Of course they bloody are.

The grotesque image rather reminds you of the wealthy kid who's nicked your tuck money all year, suddenly turning round at the point of confrontation and pointing at the scruffy, slightly foreign kid that smells funny, and shouting "but he's got a packet of Fruit Pastilles!".... and waiting for everyone's fear and prejudice to kick in.

But, as anyone who is on benefits knows, and anyone who has friends on it too, will tell you: life on these benefits is hard, and given the difficulty of obtaining them and their tendency to fuck up, you really wouldn't want to be on them very long..... sure, there are a few exploiters of the system (always are, in any system; many of whom will see the self-interest and greed our society cultivates , and think well this is how the system works for me), but most people on them are honest and doing the best they can to get themselves out of difficult straits. Unemployment and incapacity is soul-destroying, confidence-sapping and frankly boring... people want to work. people want to achieve. They don't want to be treated with contempt, and made to feel wasters by people with large houses, large unearned incomes, and considerably more political influence than them.

Part of the problem, i guess, is the myth the successful construct for themselves: everything i have is deserved (even my £200k income)..... everything I've achieved is through my own merit and hard work (even though i went a top private school, and a friend of a friend got me this job), therefore why should i be taxed more. Truth is, we are all guilty of it. I like to think the good things are my just reward, and the bad things aren't my fault (the lie of merit). No-one denies many of these folk work hard, or that in some sense they deserve success for their work.... but The truth is people's background and opportunities, their networks, and their accents, and then just plain old luck.... the self-made millionaire is the exception not the rule..... most people work hard all their lives and get nowhere near £50k, let alone higher, through no lack of ability. The mistake of the successful is not to realise their luck or their better chances, and to assume that everyone else who achieves less is stupid or lazy, or undeserving. it is rubbish.

A combination of the City and business mismanagement with goverment borrowing rather than increasing the tax yield, created this "crisis" (which isn't as serious as many across the world). Now a small section of people (CBI-endorsed, discredited rightwing economists, and the upper middles classes who wish to hang on to their material and social advantages) want to escape their responsibilities. They got seriously rich in the boom, and now they aren't prepared to help the rest of us in the crash, by absorbing some of the trouble..... poor souls.... its truly hard to cope on £100k a year, rather than £150... you must understand.

As for the racial scapegoating of immigrants (and much of it uses racial fears).... well, it happened in the 80s causing social division, and it happened in the 30s (some place called Germany had serious problems with it.)

Decreasing benefits and more stringent means testing, fewer and poorer public services, and greater unemployment are not an acceptable price for so-called "economic recovery"... it is no recovery at all to force millions of people into greater hardship, while protecting the incomes and advantages of the highest earners. (90% of people in Britain earn under £40k; it is entirely justifiable to protect them over the very few earning £100k plus; besides when the average income is that low, is the earning of £250k truly acceptable in a time of economic contraction??)

If the Labour party, or the Condem Coalition for that matter, wants to get people off benefit, then firstly do nothing to threaten an increase in unemployment. That should be the first concern. Secondly, do not cut services essential in enabling bearable life for the mass of people in this country; poorer public services equal poorer opportunity for not just the weakest, but even those on middle incomes (most of use these services, particularly education and the NHS). Thirdly, don't cut benefits and make them ridiculously stringent: the majority of honest claimants will be the ones to suffer; instead work on increasing low pay levels, so it is genuinely affordable for those supporting families, assisted by state help, to leave those benefits for work. Make it pay to work, don't punish those who are trying. Finally, actually do something about affordable housing, about social housing, council housing; the country desperately needs these things; if housing is affordable, then fewer people will need benefits to help them live, and fewer will need rent assistance.
Don't punish those in hardship; make working life fairer, and properly rewarded, for those going into it.