So, what have we seen in the last eleven months? Seems we've seen plenty of people being hit bloody hard by the austerity measures introduced by the coalition, and yet it would appear that certain folk among us still feel it's acceptable to sit around on their arses all day while the rest of us work our tits off to make ends meet.
I'd be the first to admit that when I was a younger man, there was a time when it was easy for me to sit around all day watching the telly, but eventually even I realised that it becomes very, very difficult to justify yourself to your family and friends. In that sense being out of work is almost emasculatory, because there comes a time that you realise that you're not putting in, and that other people are paying your way. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing that I was relying on my peers to enable me to live from day to day.
I hear a great deal of bollocks about how certain jobs are 'beneath' people. There's no such thing as employment that is beneath a person who doesn't have a job to start with. Can we allow people to be picky? Can we afford to give people a choice as to whether or not they want to become gainfully employed? To my mind, that's what's happening a lot of the time. For those of you who like choice, or feel somehow entitled to it, my answer is this: Choose to work a menial job, or for every job you turn down, be it menial or otherwise, your benefits get cut incrementally until you are no longer entitled to them unless you're prepared to do some work for the betterment of the community in which you reside. It is my belief that our benefits system has allowed too many people to live too comfortable a life for too long, and that many of the people who have collected their 'entitlement' every fortnight for months, even years, are now almost unemployable. Quite what we do with them is a subject for another day.
The most irksome part about all of this is that I see many such people on my travels who haven't had a job for fucking ages but seem to be doing much better than me! I don't see them counting their pennies or watching their bank balances with the scrutiny they tell me is required for a person claiming benefits. Then we have these people banging on about how foreign workers come to Britain and take jobs that they could be doing if things were different. I'm of the opinion that foreign workers have a different work ethic that is plainly more attractive to certain employers. Maybe they'll work long hours at minimum wage? Maybe it's because they understand that getting paid for doing something is better than doing nothing at all; furthermore, it's nothing short of fatuous to suggest that foreign workers are the reason for your unemployment when you've used the excuse that the very jobs they undertake are somehow beneath you. Come to that, those foreign workers also add to the pot that pays your dole money, too.
I've heard some really redundant and half-arsed points of view just lately, and I am becoming utterly tired of it. The rise in VAT... The big hike in the price of a packet of fags... The Conservatives 'putting everything up'... EMA being cut... Tuition fees... It's laughable in the extreme that some of the people saying this shit are claiming and living on the very benefits paid for by the TAXPAYER, and yet put absolutely nothing back in themselves. What difference does a hike in income tax make to you when any income you do have is totally fucking unearned and un-fucking-taxed? Why does it matter that you've seen a 2.5% increase in VAT when the money you spend isn't even your own? What fucking right have any of you lot got to whinge and moan about when it comes to the state of the very economy that your unmitigated indolence has squeezed and squeezed for fuck knows how long? If you can justify yourselves I'm listening.
In some ways I suppose it must be quite nice being paid for doing nothing. What would I do with all the time that not working would afford me? I'd be able to socialise more. I'd be able to watch all the DVDs I have but I've never seen. I'd have more space available on my Sky+ hard drive. I spend enough time scratching my bollocks already, but even I'd be glad of a few more minutes a week to do the same.
Or would I?
As I get older, it becomes more and more evident to me that government past and present have not done enough to make benefits something that people get as a last resort. I don't apportion all of the blame to government, because I understand that the blame lies squarely at the doors of those who can't be arsed. I do believe that more could and should be done - mainly because it is my conviction that it should not be acceptable for someone to be given money for doing nothing. Why aren't we means testing these people? Why do we allow government handouts, our money, to be spent on Sky TV, new mobile phones, trips abroad, booze, fags, nights out and cars? Is it justifiable? I think not.
Long term benefit claimants seem to be masters of avoidance. They avoid having to work. They avoid having to pay tax. They avoid having to take responsibility for their own lives. They get free prescriptions. They benefit from the NHS in the same way that the rest of us do. It's little wonder they're called 'benefits'. It amazes me how the mendacious always seem to profit from those of us who earn an honest living. I am even more amazed that little or nothing is being done to prevent it.
