Why the English object to Scotland's social welfare

I found out yesterday that Education Maintenance Allowance was never abolished in Scotland, and it also continues in Northern Ireland and Wales. Only England took the poorest people in the country who had children in further education and deprived those young people of the £30 a week that made their lives a bit easier. I can remember when Tory scum wrote that EMA was used to provide students with beer money, which may very well have been true but it also paid their bus fares and bought them a few books. More importantly than that, in England, it is the parents who have to find the money for beer, buses and books out of their capped benefits or low wages.

It is interesting how many people in England complain about these goodies that the people in the rest of the country enjoy. So, the English pay student university fees, prescription charges, and their children do not receive EMA. They have no chance of getting a council house because they are no longer being built and the few that remain can still be sold off at knock-down prices. In Scotland the sale of council houses has now been banned by the government, and Scots do not pay either university fees or prescription charges. 

The people of England could demand the same for themselves, but instead far too many Englishmen adopt an attitude of sullen resentment, and seem to say that if they cannot have these goodies then neither should anyone else. It is as if having bit down on the shit sarnie which capitalism has served up to them they then feel that everyone else should swallow it as well.

The fact that the Scots, Welsh and Ulster peoples have refused to chomp on that rancid offering only serves to remind the English of what utter cowards they are for refusing to demand the same level of social provision that the rest of us enjoy. That is why they complain at the level of services which exist outside England: they don't like being reminded of what mugs they were to give it all up.

Why does social work filth chase people abroad to bring them home?

Christopher Booker over at the Telegraph wonders why the social work industry do not leave people alone when they have fled abroad to escape their clutches. I think I have the answer...

If you were a lump of social work shit then you would know that all the aspiration in the world wasn't going to alter the fact that you are as thick as two short planks, which is why only a former poly would take you with your crap A-levels. Having got your "degree" social work is about all your can realistically aspire to do, since nobody else will give a third-rater such as you even an interview.

Such a creature may have enough sense awareness to know that human society survived for several millennia before the social work industry was even thought of, and will survive for many more after its members have been reduced to doing something more in keeping with their intellectual abilities, such as flipping burgers. Obviously, what our representative lump of social work shit wants to do is to put off that day of reckoning for as long as possible that that his place in the first class section of the local government gravy train is assured for his lifetime.

This why pregnant women who flee abroad have to be pursued. If the word gets out that these women are more than capable of fending for themselves and their babies in foreign lands then why were they not left alone to do the same in Britain? If they were capable what then is the point of having a large social work industry that leeches off the public purse? Would it not be far better just to close it down and leave people alone to lead their lives?

The social work industry doesn't want us to ask those questions, so it tries to ensure that we are cowed by demonstrations of the industry's power. That is why when a pregnant woman flees abroad she is persecuted unmercifully: so that everyone else will see her anguish and be terrified into submission by it.

Alas for them, it doesn't work, and more and more people are asking why we are subsidising these creatures in their lifelong cushy number at our expense?

When Edwina Currie took on Jack Monroe

Former Tory MP Edwina Currie's main claim to fame was that she used to put a shine on John Major's knob when he was Prime Minister. Jack Monroe is a food writer who went through a period of incredible financial hardship and began to blog about her recipes that allowed her to feed herself and her son on about a tenner a week. A little over a week ago they came to blows on television, with Mother Currie accusing little Miss Monroe of being a middle class type on the make. La Monroe's howls of anguish were an entertainment in themselves, and all in all I scored that bout as a technical knockout for Edwina Currie.

It is not that Jack was never poor because she obviously was for a few months. Nor is it that she did not have to sell just about everything that she owned to get by and still found herself with only a few pounds left over to feed her young son when some of her benefits were not paid properly. No, the point is that Jack Monroe was a nice middle class gel from a nice family who found herself on her uppers for a short period of time. Had she taken that as her starting point then the right would not be able to attack her, but she doesn't. What she does is try to present herself as being more proletarian than thou, and that will not work for the granddaughter of a hotel owner, who is also the daughter of a senior fire brigade officer and a nurse. Certainly not when faced with a political bruiser like Edwina Currie...

Jack Monroe has become the voice of poverty porn for the Guardian reading middle class, none of whom would have given her a second glance had she not been a young, attractive, girl who writes the recipes that they want to make in their kitchens. Poor people have been producing dishes like stovies, since time immemorial, but the gobby harridans who churn out such delicacies do not fit into the Guardian's view of what a poor person should be. Jack Monroe does which is why she was able to work her ticket  out of poverty and back into the warm embrace of the middle class that spawned her.

I am sure that she will continue to work her ticket, probably all the way into the House of Commons. It's amazing what a few weeks of hardship can do for a person, especially if they have the cultural knowledge that allows them to market that poverty in a way that is acceptable to the consumers of poverty porn over at the Guardian and the BBC.

Which is pretty much the point that Edwina Currie was making, if you think about it.

Teaching a mouthy cyclist some manners

I don't have anything against cyclists. As a cheap from of transport for the urban poor, or kids going to school, a bike really has a lot going for it. This guy was happy to pose for the camera in Mexico City on the 24th December 2013 as he piled his booze on the back of his bike, making sure that it was firmly tied down:

The guy explained to me that one day he plans to buy a car, and I told him that one day I plan to fuck Salma Hayek, and we both had a laugh at our respective fantasies and wished one another a Merry Christmas before he cycled off to get ready for his glorious festive piss up.

So, yours truly really does have nothing against bikes, just so long as the riders treat them as a cheap and cheerful way to get about the city.

Alas, that is not the case everywhere, especially not in London where the sanctimonious, self-righteous middle class have taken to peddling around with a complete indifference to everyone else. Occasionally, though, the fuckers get their comeuppance:

Take this gobby bugger as a case in point. He picks a fight with a motorist, who drives off to get away from the loon. The cyclist then peddles madly to catch the car at the next set of lights and proceeds to give the driver a mouthful of abuse - and gets a perfectly delivered left hook when the driver gets out of his car to put the ponce in his place.

As you can see, at that point the cyclist runs away like a little doggie that has just been kicked as types like him usually do when someone stands up to them:

It has been a long time since I have seen insolence put so firmly in its place. My congratulations to the motorist on a job well done!

Here comes the mong!

It is far better to be physically disabled than mentally, at least people treat you better if they can see some physical disability or at least infer one. I discovered this truism exactly four years ago today, when I was in some God awful town in Essex, that spiritual home of Thatcherism.

I walk with a stick, but for some reason I did not have one with me that night. To make matters worse, I had not then received any physiotherapy so my feet looked as if they were welded to my ankles and I walked with my arms outstretched on either side to balance myself. I didn't only walk like a duck, I must have looked like one, especially with the air of super concentration on my face as I tried to walk without falling over.

The fellow I was visiting loaded me into his car and we went to an Indian restaurant. The place was half full, with most tables by the door already occupied so I had to waddle as best I could about twenty paces or so to the first unoccupied spot. 

I can still remember the look of horror on the people's faces as they saw this apparition staggering past them:

Oh my God, it's a mong! What the fuck are they doing letting mongs out at night? Is the mong gonna sit near me? What if he starts dribbling? Strewth, I don't pay my taxes for this!

Nothing happened of course, much to the relief of the assembled diners, and in the fullness of time we paid our bill and I was helped back into the car.

A few days later and I was in London with a walking stick to hand. Another friend and I went to another Indian restaurant, with the main difference here being that this eating house was not as open plan as the first, so I really had to struggle to get past the line of tables to an empty one. Come to think of it I did almost fall once and a young athletic fellow dived out of his seat to grab me. The difference, however, was in the attitude of the diners, as reflected in their faces, all thanks to my walking stick:

Oh, look, that poor man can hardly walk, but isn't he brave to get about like that? So young to need a stick, he can't be more than 50, and he walks like my grandfather.Gosh it could happen to anyone, couldn't it? Bless.

The only real difference at work between those two restaurants was my walking stick. The lack of one at the first place led people to believe that the local nutter had walked in with his carer. A few days later a walking stick led people to correctly conclude that I have physical problems rather than mental ones.

More importantly, in London  with my stick I received nothing but courtesy and empathy from the people whereas just a few days earlier the vibes given out were a mixture of distaste and worry that I might upset everyone's digestion.

I suppose you are expecting a rousing conclusion, but I don't have one to offer you. I just know that since the 30 December 2009 I have never gone out without my walking stick. Never again do I want to see the looks of outright hostility that I saw that night.

But I'm Here for Mental Health

Tyneside Mind have produced a powerful new film about the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) which forms an integral part of the Employment Support Allowance claim process. In the film, actors depict the experiences of people who are supported by Tyneside Mind and have been through the WCA. Bloggers have been asked to publicise this ten minute video and I am pleased to be able to run it here.

Let's be honest, it is tough passing the WCA if you are of sound mind and fucked body like me, but if you have mental problems then it must seem as if the whole system is geared to do you over.

I don't think that is intentional, but it is an obvious by-product of the box-ticking exercise that the last Labour government introduced when they brought in this system and then paid the French company Atos to run it for them. The Tories are merely encouraging Atos to sail closer to the wind with their rejections of claims, but the flaw was inherent in Labour's wheeze.

What they wanted was a cheap and cheerful system that could separate the halt and the lame from the able-bodied. The ESA 50 form which all claimants have to fill in as part of their EA claim and the WCA which most of us have to go through aimed at putting people into one of three categories. The Support Group for people who are not expected to improve. The Work Related Activity Group for those who are expected to recover their health and go back to work, and the people who fail the tests and are declared fit for work immediately.

The problem is that people who have physical ailments can be slotted very neatly into one of the categories, but that is not the case with mental illness as the video shows. Just watch it and weep.

What is to be done? Getting the Tories out of office is an obvious start, because Tories are scum who should never be allowed anywhere near the levers of power, anyway. How to ensure that Labour, the party who introduced all this in the first place, do not simply carry on where the Tories left off is another matter and one that I do not have an answer for..

A few opponents of Scottish independence make their views known.

As the opinion polls show the yes campaign coming up on the rails, I thought it might be a good idea to show people the side of Unionism that Alistair Darling and Better Together do not want people to see.