The Small Benefits Row

It was not big. In fact having watched the on demand version (I don't have Channel 5 on my telly, by choice) I think it has been subsequently edited. It was awful; a poorly run affair with nothing to offer beyond deliberate provocation on the part of Edwina Wannabe (aka Katie Hopkins) and Edwina Currie.

Even the intro spiel is nothing more than polarising language: is it great or is it terrible? Are they all deserving or are they all undeserving. Particularly "are they dragging the country down"? Well that can't be true because how else do you explain the success of people like Currie or even Hopkins (she would say she was successful, her business record says otherwise). 

That's the psychopathy of the benefit haters; they are all the exception. They will say "well if everyone grafted like me they'd all be successful", but capitalism doesn't want that, nor could it sustain it. Success = shagged a married man while both in government, bragged about it and gained some notoriety enough to sell lurid sub-erotica off the back thereof while maintaining a career as an after dinner talking head of sorts - 'after hate' mints, or in her case 'minge'.

If there's anything guaranteed to turn me off while reading erotica it's that creature.

Oh fuck, sat next to 'White' Dee is Fraser Nelson. FFS this guy is haunting my radio and tv! I wonder if i could get a restraining order. Seriously, ever where I turn, televisually speaking, he is there. He is like a public opinion poltergeist, throwing ignorance instead of plates.

The editing is disgraceful; clips of generally 'pro-benefit' people (if i may put it that way) like Owen Jones or Sonia Poulton cut in such a way that makes even them sound anti. So you'll have someone in the context of a broader point in response to the statistics regarding benefit fraud cut so that they say 'there are people scrounging', and leaving out the 'but they are less than 1% of the whole'. Already this show sets out its stall, and the wares are vile.

And the first words out of Grating Hopkin's wordhole, spoken with real venom, are "I really don't care", in respect of claimants. She is actually genuinely (a first for her) very irate! This really is the show's downfall; the audience knows she's a joke and her rage only serves to make her a laughing stock. At last the spell is broken and we can see behind the green skin of the wicked witch. She's not scary; she's a desperate individual who wants so badly to be part of the white skinned elite, but knows she will never be because no one will ever take her seriously. If they ever did.

And with that, discussion over. Is there any point me continuing watching this pissy riot (which, on the 5od website, i thought I'd never have cause to use, seems bizarrely cut)?

This must be what it's like when the Jeremy Kyle shows comes to town, setting up cameras in a pub car park in hopes of a surly brawl between aggrieved council tenants, wound up by the crew I shouldn't wonder. Hopkins is in a right old strop, right from the get go. I wonder if that's because she's starting to sense just how reviled she is and has felt provoked into coming out guns blazing. She's not winning anyone over and done nothing but throw a really cheap shot at Annabel Giles after she asked Hopkins not to jab her bony claw into her face ("I'll point where I like"!).

Now they've dragged out some kind of weird cab fare meter that is going to keep running, showing increasingly high numbers supposedly representing the cost, real time, of benefits during the show's airtime. What the hell? This is the same logic that 'Dr' Gillian McKeith used to use when she presented a year's worth of transfats to one of her TV patients in the form of a life sized Mars Bar and kebab man-construct. It's just as ridiculous.

This has not even been on fifteen minutes and it's already descended into farce.

Goodness me, she really is angry! But all she's doing is (of course) hogging the debate and presuming. "We have had enough", we, the hardworking taxpayers, blah blah blah. The sad part is that when someone tries to respond to her on her level (which may or may not be advisable) they aretold to get to the point. What this does is give her free reign to continue with her bullshit and it's never challenged. Again you can show her facts, and the programme has actually put numbers into the debate that clearly refute, quite correctly her conclusions (they aren't hers of course, she's just a mouthpiece), but you can't make the horse drink them.

Sadly, like this programme, this long winded post is filled with...Katie fucking Hopkins and that's the way she likes it. But boy is she steaming! Hilarious!

Now it's the turn of Professor Peter Stringfellow who's years long research into social deprivation and the relationship between capitalism and benefits is well known.

What's that? Oh it's the other Stringfellow; the creepy strip club flesh peddler who looks like Bucks Fizz's dad.

Oh dear.

I think even the people participating from all sides know this show is a joke.

And Hayley Taylor is in the audience telling her to shut up!

Words fail me.

Flooded With Ignorance

First things first, David Cameron says money will be no object in the battle against the elements. Clearly money is no object when buying votes little over a year from a crucial general election. Some businesses are underwater; a florist on the radio was already writing off her business having been hit at the most inconvenient time of the year. But isn't that too bad? Capitalism is blue in tooth and claw; if your business goes under - literally - why should the rest of us bail you out? That's the worldview espoused by the people in power. That's their message to everyone else: if you fall on hard times then, by our deeds if not our honey coated words, then it's your own failings that you can't provide for yourself. Michael Gove dismisses foodbanks by saying it's the individuals that can't budget properly who use them, for example. But when it comes to business, money is no object even if it comes from those that despise the concept of a nanny state. 

We shall see, but isn't that what constitutes socialism? This constant veneration of business is ridiculous. When things go wrong they expect to be helped, the rest of the time the CBI is more than happy to make excuses for tax avoiding and piss poor wages. Surely you cannot have it both ways? Either you want a world where you stand or fall on your own, or it's socialism. They have rigged the deck so they have the best of both worlds - in other words, they get to profit exorbitantly at our expense, paying as little as possible, avoiding their financial responsibilities as much as possible, while getting a hand out when times are tough.

Why then is that not something to be extended on an individual level. Didn't Thatcher famously say there is no such thing as society only individuals? Don't you people all worship the wicked witch?

On to the main topic: recently there have been two televised spectacles, both masquerading as debates, confronting benefits and the supposed benefits culture (which of course is different and murkier than the Westminster culture, or the Etonian culture - of course). Channel 5 produced a laughable cardboard shoutfest fronted by the increasingly tabloid Matthew 'Wrighty' Wright, called the Benefit Row - I will discuss that separately and in more depth than last night's Benefits Britain, which capped off the infamous Benefit Street series whose 'stars' featured in the 'debate'. I'm quickly running out of quote marks, there's that much sarcasm necessary.

The latter was hosted by Richard Bacon who, in my opinion, has the most frustrating presenting style of anyone that drawls less than the interminable Robert 'um ah er' Preston. In short it was another shoutfest, though notable for not being a vehicle for the repugnant and irrelevant Katie Hopkins. It attempted more substance, by inviting on Chris Bryant and Mike Penning, but again issues were not discussed and the depth necessary to really expose just what is currently happening was not, nor was it ever going to be, present. Penning is the Disability Minister and yet, despite mentioning DLA (in the context of inheriting a, yawn, massive number of DLA claimants), was never called to account for the decision to cut DLA and replace it with the unncessary and unfair PIP system, which calls people for further tests at further public expense (despite austerity and recession).

What really is there to say. My write up of the first of these programmes is more a blow-by-blow account, but really it's the same old same old. Instead of actual points facts and evidence or even solutions we get promises of 'passionate' debate where everyone's views are welcome. No, they are not. I don't want to hear from Joe Public per se; I want to hear expert testimony and facts. As an example one gentleman said that in Africa people don't get benefits (they do get slavery, famine, warlords, fundamentalism, tribal warfare, corruption, poverty, rape and mutilation - but not benefits), and that everyone receiving benefits should have theirs cut. No explanation of how this would work or what it would achieve, though it's fairly obvious it would be a shortcut to chaos and crime going through the roof. This is what is regarded as a passionate discussion where everyone can have their say - as if that's a good thing. 

I'm all for free speech, and I'm all for people being able to express themselves, but that doesn't factor in the poisonous influence of the mainstream media, or the framing of the benefit narrative. It also doesn't account for the ignorance of those contributing who, like the person I just mentioned, is then given equal standing to someone that's campaigned on the issue for years and knows his facts. Owen Jones, for instance, proffered two solutions: a house building programme and an industrial response to the changing environment. In response Penning was heard muttering 'pie in the sky', but this wasn't picked up on by anyone. It was barely caught by the producer.

Sitting next to Owen was professional loudmouth and somewhat damaged goods John Bird (I don't trust the Big Issue, the homeless have to buy their stock to sell, if they don't they are fucked), Mehdi Hassan who tried to contribute facts but, being a Muslim, clearly can't be trusted - sigh - and next to him was the toxic Alison Pearson. She buggered off half way through after Owen Jones called her to task over her vile comments conflating claimants with the Philpott affair. I make this point because it affords people like her the same degree of credibility, in the eyes of the viewer (they are all in the front row), as Owen or even John, who despite being far too temperamental and loud, does occasionally blunder ideologically in the right direction, or Mehdi. Also in the front row, for some reason, was Douglas Murray. Need I say more.

Sadly the 'debate' got off to a bad start by focusing on 'white' Dee (could they not differentiate between the two Dee's by virtue of their surnames rather than their colour, or am I missing something) and her struggle with depression. Again it's putting someone under the spotlight by virtue of calling their claim into question. One might think it right, objectively, to want to get to the truth of this; people can lie and it would be ignorant to assume otherwise. But ours is not an objective world; it's one governed by powerful interests who wilfully propagate criticism of and negativity toward such people - even though that exacerbates such problems, creating a deeply vicious cycle. So we have to question Dee - is she really as depressed as she claims? Look she's articulate, she's smiling and joking - she's on TV in a group of people! Bloody hell...she must be scrounging?

Dismally Alison Pearson, a right wing hack, resorts to the cheap tactic of "she didn't look ill to me", referencing - incorrectly - the effect that the government's application, via ATOS, of the Work Capability Assessment, has had on the apparent number of sick claimants, as evidence that people are playing the system. Of course she, like the rest of the dogs, doesn't have the courage of her conviction (evident by her doing an IDS later on and slinking out) to make the accusation. Of course not; she'd be liable if she did as I assume Dee has a genuine claim - and why would I assume otherwise? Even if she secretly is some criminal mastermind behind the camera, who cares? 

This about sums it all up: the constant reinforcement, if only by reiteration, of existing unfair tropes. Consequently the debate stumbles and never catches up to where it needs to be. Everything is held back by the simple tactic of regurgitating bullshit. As a result Alison gets to speak way more than she should - she isn't a claimant and her knowledge of this is based on watching...Benefits Street.

I say no platform. Don't bother with these people anymore; tell Richard Bacon to fuck off and the rest of this coked up media shit haze. They are only interested in themselves, their set and the ratings their venal ant hill kicking exercsies create. These people have no worth and I am not interested.

Echo Chamber

Summer's almost here!

Which means Spring is almost here!

Oh well. It's February and despite the hurricanes and relentless monsoons that can only rationally be explained away by climate change I like the think that we're almost through Winter, even though by and large it's not been as cold as I'd feared (just monstrously wet). There's a point, when the day is at its shortest, where the trees on the far side of the horizon, as I look outside, obscure the sun as it sets so early. The sun has returned past that point and is heading for a a small bank of very tall trees about half way to the mid point (which would be the equinox). It usually hits that point mid February and is a sure sign that the days are gaining strength. 

It's things like that, bizarre as they may seem, that keep me going. It's how I view the world. But that isn't what I'm going to be talking about. I've been somewhat lax in my musings recently. There was the recent Benefit Street debacle (or has it somehow turned against the propaganda pimps?), but I resolved not to watch it. I knew that it would be poverty porn (apparently Channel 5 has been sniffing around Wales to film their own slice of bullshit). What is there to say about this that hasn't been said many, many, times before. The unemployed, the poor, the sick and the vulnerable, they are just zoo exhibits now. There for the benefit of our betters to moralise over and gawk at. 'How do these people live?' they say? It must be the fault of a sinking of moral character fed by 'welfarism': dependency and indolence. The devil makes work for idle hands (just not rich idle hands it seems).

Julia Hartley Brewer (she writes for the Express, what else do you need to know?) commented on Question Time that, if she were in 'their' shoes, she'd get up at double-figures a.m. and drink beer from tins. What a grotesque assumption. That's what the unemployed do - and it's reasonable that they do because their lives must be so crap. Of course some lives are - because benefits are so pitifully low (as the Europe recently told IDS). Instead of helping them, we sneer at them and turn James Turner street into a sideshow, a circus for white van driving gorillas to visit photograph and leave their indignation on the walls like painted graffiti. Who are the real parasites (the Mirror recently alleged that some of the most squalid housing imaginable, on 'Benefit' Street belongs to a Tory who charges over the odds for places so damp ridden and cold the kids go to bed dressed! 

We can't expect better from the media at the moment. The BBC has lost the plot entirely. In fact the discussion on the Jeremy Vine show this afternoon prompted me to post. The topic was workplace nepotism based on the reporting that Michael Gove had sacked a Labour person from a high ranking education position and that this was a partisan decision. I have no idea if that's true or not, though I certainly wouldn't be surprised given that Gove is selling off our schools to his chums. However when the BBC invites on Fraser Nelson to discuss this I have to say excuse me? The BBC turns to, for about the tenth time this month, right wing Spectator journalist and Tory bullshit merchant, Fraser Nelson in a discussion about nepotism. This is surely irony! He and the few other regular right wing blowhards are never out of these discussions.

Sadly this is what the BBC has become; an echo chamber for the most regressive small minded right leaning thinking going. Watching Question Time, for example (or it's radio equivalent, a copy and paste job to the point it's hosted by the other Dimbleby), and what do you see: a Tory that will bemoan Labour's term in office, A Labour shrinking violet without an opposition bone in their body, a right/centre right journalist/pundit, one of the schizoid Yellow Tories from Clegg's Club, and, if you're lucky (usually no more than once every couple of months) a token lefty who, if you're really lucky, has the wit and spark to rise above the mire. Unfortunately the prevailing paradigm is so stifling that no one takes them seriously. They are light relief at best - oh look it's that guy that used to play Baldrick!

The debate chokes on its own fumes; it's a vicious self defeating cycle of lamenting borrowing and dreading spending, of cuts that lead to more cuts and more austerity. We all know that austerity has nothing to do with managing a perceived debt; if it was they would act to cut it not fob us off with excuses for tax avoidance while hammering the poor and rewarding the rich. Yet the debate revolves around quaint and fallacious nonsense about family credit cards because that's the frame: the 'hardworking taxpaying family'. This poisonous notion has grown dense like a sociological black hole, sucking all reason and ingenuity into its negative depths. Everything has to be fair to this construct yet what that actually means is never discussed, particularly in relation to welfare. What does it mean? We are all taxpayers so who is being fair to me?

Meanwhile the audience comprises a lobby, no doubt earnestly and piously formed the moment the Young Conservative wing locally heard that Dimblebly and Co. were coming to town, of students and local business types. These are people, bedecked in their blazers and ties representing their part of the old school network, who think the world revolves around them; they are business people - gods in our society. We must abase ourselves in front of them while they reject anything that isn't capitalism even though they  must plainly see that capitalism has failed. Aside from the politics students wearing ties for the first time eager to try out their theories and demonstrate their political naivete you might get a few token lefties, but they fare no better than the person on the panel. They might get some applause, but they won't be taken seriously.

Round and round it goes - and I haven't even mentioned the staggering frequency by which Ukip appears; a party that bemoans the BBC as representing the 'liberal elite', despite UKiP having no MP's. It's a joke; when was the last time a member of TUSC, the SWP, or evne the Communist Party appeared? They wouldn't stand a chance. The closest we get is Caroline Lucas, from the greens. At least she got elected.

I don't see how this will ever change. Ultimately we will spiral to the bottom until the cracks start to appear. But things cannot go on as they are. Something, somewhere, will give. The question is what and when, and will we count the cost?