The Nature of the Bully

What's worse: the nasty bully or the one that pretends he's your friend?

After the election I felt utterly bereft; alienated. These people are not just in control, but in control of an ideology that makes people believe that, despite how little they get, they must never ask for more. These people believe that the nation's riches - it's assets and income - is their personal property; that it is for them to use to dictate how others must live and what others can or can't have. They believe this because their class has historically held that position, originally by brute force. Now that brute force is the one's and zero's of financial sorcery.

Knowing that the Tories were not likely to transform from bastards I had hoped Osborne, under the aegis of a Tory majority, overreach himself. That he might deliver a budget of such brutality it would shake the confidence of those who created that, admittedly thin, majority. Of course that's just my naivete; what we got was very much the bully pretending to be your pal. Essentially this was a budget that robbed 'lazy' Peter to pay for 'hardworking' Paul's pay rise in the form of the mirage that is the new living wage.

This is who Osborne is, a scam artist. During the election campaign fought by Cameron who both promised Child Tax Credits would not be touched and refused to define the terms of the welfare cuts the Tories were promising to make. Cuts that, depressingly, did not cost them the election either. Two months later and here we are, having elected a party that treats the truth with as flagrant a disregard as I have ever seen. Promises mean absolutely nothing to them anymore; it is no wonder the times we live in are so insecure where people feel unsure of what's right or wrong. Not only that, but they steal from Labour, making the latter's dismal performance seem all the more stark; Labour promised to increase the NMW to a laughable £8/hour by the next election. Osborne offers a little more, albeit with caveats hidden in plain sight against a backdrop of propaganda.

One of the more irritating aspects of this budget is how it seems to have caused those who should be speaking out, and even those who are, to couch their criticisms in complimentary terms. You hear statements to the effect of  " while it's right/great/lovely that the Chancellor is focusing on growth/building an economy/a thin hateful stick insect" proffered as sweeteners to the criticisms that are necessary to be heard. But all this does is dilute those criticisms and make them seem as the speaker is equivocating - almost conceding their argument before it's made.

One of the nastiest policies is the removal of a third of the income received by those that will follow me into the Work Related Activity Group claiming ESA. What message does this send when you set the rate of payment for such people - who will have been found unfit for work by the government's own already onerous testing process - as the same as those merely (so to speak) unemployed?

On Newsnight, David Gauke, Tory treasury shitehawk, said this was perfectly acceptable because the government was planning additional support to get these people into work. Once more we see the Tory attitude toward disability; if you are in the WRAG you are not fit for work. The only difference is that your condition is believed to be transient and that you will heal, eventually. What help from the likes of the Work Programme is going to accelerate that process? This is simply the Tories saying "you are faking it, pull yourself together, stop feeling sorry for yourself" - and if they can come after people in this grloup then it stands to reason they will eventually hit the Support group. This is a profoundly dismal attitude suggesting there is no escape, not even through ill health, from the lot of the modern day serf. it is your duty to toil in the modern day information sweat shops and money making salt mines, to make the ruling elite more powerful, more sure of themselves, and of course richer; even if you are not well. That your worth in life is diminished if you dare to feel sick. Don't forget people in the WRAG will have already gone through and passed the government's own strenuous and incompetent Work Capability Assessment. So as far as the government should be concerned, by their own terms, you cannot work. But now that still means you are to be treated as a mere jobseeker. This is utterly wrong.

Other people have calculated the price effect of the cuts in tax credits to people with families or on low incomes, suffice to say that in closing I will leave this here, as evidence that we are living under the stewardship of the most mendacious government I have ever known. Truth is merely a commodity to leverage for these filth where they can and will lie to get power and then do anything, throw anyone under the bus, having done so - all just to shore up the vote that gave them power. Bribe those 'shy Tories' that voted for them to make them feel as though they made the right choice, and use the poor - those that are never going to vote Tory - to pay for it. We already live in insecure times, where truth is subject to popular opinion and facts are ignored to suit agendas; this only makes it worse.