Monday 8 July 2013

Dog On A String Theory

Having just watched John ‘No Tommy, you weren’t there!’ Sweeney expose Trump on Panorama (in much the way Trump’s syrup exposes his vanity) I caught a trailer for the latest piece of BBC anti scrounger torture. On Thursday the Laura and Hardy of the Apprentice, Margaret Mountford (nee ‘Rodupyourarse’) and Nick ‘is it me or has someone farted’ Hewer preside over another slice of car crash TV, sympathetically titled ‘We Pay All Your Benefits’. The premise seems to be: gather a group of claimants and a group of taxpayers and…FIGHT!

I don’t know how much more of this I can take. The trailer featured a revealing interlude wherein, it was implied, at least one claimant was getting more than they ‘should’ by virtue of a household menagerie. They seemed to have a lot of pets: dogs, cats, lizard. Presumably this is the dog-on-a-string scam whereby people, according to urban myth, usually crusties, get themselves a dog with a rope for a lead and then claim more benefit. File under: girls get pregnant to get free housing.

What are we meant to learn from this? Are we to deny pets to people once they start claiming? Are we to ban claimants from having pets, as if they all stand outside pet shops with their JSAg’s eyeing the collection of staffies with a view to claiming more. This is patently nonsensical. What is the point of this? People of course are meant to think that benefits are, universally (on the basis of a tiny sample), too generous. But what does that even mean? Too large for what? Presumably people are meant to sit in a cold grey room on a milking stool staring out the window waiting for a job. No doubt some claimants will have modern looking TV sets, probably an xbox, a laptop, a smartphone, because we all do.

Even if the viewing audience comes to that conclusion, what are they meant to do? This is the problem: people are being conditioned to hate and resent with no outlet. This is extremely dangerous. This is why disabled people get hassled in the street. This is why people phone up the benefit fraud hotline to rat on their neighbours despite the overwhelming majority of such reports being unfounded.

Of course this will be predictable: what kind of people would apply to be on this show? What are the conditions set during the audition (where they decide who would make good tv)? Isn't it likely that the taxpayer contingent is going to be more biased toward the judgemental sort; the people already predisposed to believing the government line about the rate of benefit? This of course will be reinforced by who they picked to be on the opposing 'team'. Likely the claimants will be those that are less likely to resist - or so bolshy they are to be seen as representative of the perceived antisocial nature of all claimants, of course.

This reminds of the time Pig of the Dump (my name for Digby Jones, Lord of the Tax Avoiders) interrogated a couple of young unemployed me for Panorama. Had the show been mute I wouldn't have been surprised to see him hand them each a shovel and then wave a pistol at them until they started digging: he had taken them, bedecked like a gangster in some afghan coat, to industrial waste ground to basically call them scroungers. These kids obviously thought they were, in some way, doing the right thing participating in this BBC farce, but nope. Instead they got the honour of having to justify their already meagre existences to the country's top tax avoidance apologist and business popecunt. Unbelievable - and they were hardly a pair of rogues and rapscallions. They were quiet and thoughtful. They didn't spend their time robbing and a-stealing. But that's not good enough: WE PAY ALL YOUR BENEFITS!

I haven’t seen the show yet, as I can’t travel through time, but this guy’s none too pleased. One love y’all.


5 comments:

  1. 'We Pay All Your Benefits'?!

    If anyone ever says that to me, I have a great reply (no, not a swear word, lol): 'My family have paid for my benefits'.

    At the setting up of the welfare state, my Grandfather and his family, were all business owners. They had not come from the middle classes but 'working class made good' generations before. My Grandfather had multiple businesses. My mum then went into business owning a grocery store, my sister had always worked professionally, my aunts and uncles had always worked, and so on.

    None of them claimed a penny from the state. Even when my Grandfather had to to into a home, he paid the whole amount out of his hard earned income, but they paid a fortune in taxes.

    Though I've always had to have a top up in my income via whatever that might be, housing benefit or tax credits, I worked most of my life until I became too ill to do so.

    In the end, I reckon that my family have more than paid for what I receive presently, and I'm damned if I'm going to be made to feel as if I am a scrounger.

    That said GW, these last couple of years have made me feel different. So many times I've gone out and had people think that they have to right to demand 'what's up with you then?', others loudly discussing how their taxes pay for my night out and so in. It's made me stay in more.

    But no, I'm not now going to feel embarrassed over it. My family paid their dues and are still doing so.

    Good article.

    Sassonx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. People now think they own the unemployed.

      Like serfs.

      That's how far we've sunk.

      People can't just treat their fellow citizens from positive places of compassion and of wanting the best for them. Instead they seek to undermine them, to question their motives and demand to know where they got their money and what the are doing with it.

      This is simply disgusting, but that fact alone will not be reinforced and will be lost.

      Delete
  2. No surprise that pets are next in the toolbox as a means to beat those on benefits over the head with, since the flat screen telly meme is getting a bit old.

    Currently thousands of animals a week are
    killed in large animal rescue charity shelters due to the huge number of animals that are being abandoned.

    This abandonment is often due to lack of money and a will to find a better solution than leaving an animal on the streets to die. To me there is no excuse for abandoning an animal. There are also a huge number of people in this country who keep animals who shouldn't, due to ignorance of basic animal welfare and whom allow their animals to breed without thought for where those cute puppies, kittens and baby bunnies are going to end up. This wanton attitude is prevalent across all income groups which is an inconvenient fact that is rarely mentioned

    For an overview of just what a fake bunch of animal lovers we have become in the UK, just have a look at the revolting Gumtree. The plight of those animals given away for free or for sale for ridiculous amounts of money is pretty bad. Their outlook is inevitably worse.

    Mountford and her grim reaper chum might do well to realise that for many, pets are part of the family and no humane person is going to have their pets killed or dump them due to being on benefits. For many, their pets are a lifeline to sanity and comfort, not a luxury. Never mind the fact that humane euthanasia is expensive. For many on very low incomes, they feed their pets before themselves.

    For years the RSPCA have been targeting (sometimes via social services) those who are vulnerable and who have a pet. The disabled have been a particular target, followed by the elderly, and now, it will be the unemployed. All it takes for an animal to be seized (and usually killed, not always humanely) is one whisper from a sanctimonious or animal hating social worker and all manner of fictitious reasons are found to seize the pet.

    Amongst those campaigning for the massively wealthy RSPCA to be accountable, this problem is very well known.

    Some branches of the RSPCA refuse to let OAPs and anyone else on benefits adopt from them. The prejudice is already well seated.

    As a nation we have forgotten to first be kind. To me, simple (and cheap) kindness at its most basic level can solve a lot of our problems.

    IDS & company are the complete antithesis of this ideal.

    Families who have pets and look after them well are showing their children how to become compassionate and responsible adults. No matter what money is coming into the house. We don't need Mountford & Grim implying that animals are a luxury commodity.

    The Daily Mail will ride the wake of this programme big time. Animals will suffer because of it. Animal haters don't need much of a push to persecute pets belonging to others, this irresponsible programme will be a gift to them.

    I won't be watching this latest in hate programming from the BBC, it will enrage me so much that I might throw a brick through my "flat screen telly"

    Lucy







    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is very disturbing stuff.

      I don't kniow how much of a focus pets will be in this show. I'm sure each scrounger will have their particular act: one keeps lots of pets, another has a large TV and an xbox, another is a single parent (probably with kids that have ADHD which of course the Daily Mail disputes even exists), and so forth.

      I shall watch it. God knows why. I have to know!

      Delete
    2. I'm in awe of your masochism!

      If pets aren't such a big focus in the edit then they will be in in The Daily Mail I bet. Any stick is better than no stick to the media.

      Delete

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