Westministenders: BAH HUMBUG said Mr Rees-Mogg

[RedToothBrush]

"At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge Rees-Mogg, ... it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."

"Are there no prisons hostels?"

"Plenty of prisons hostels..."

"And the Union workhouses foodbanks." demanded Scrooge Jacob. "Are they still in operation?"

"Both very busy, sir..."

"Those who are badly off must go there."

"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge ^Rees-Mogg, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

He continued "Besides I do not believe that anyone would die without them. I think Theresa is right, there are many complex reasons why nurses go to food banks. The real reason for the rise in numbers is that people know that they are there and Labour deliberately didn't tell them. To have charitable support given by people voluntarily to support their fellow citizens I think is rather uplifting and shows what a good, compassionate country we are"

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This thread is dedicated to Mrs8 and anyone else who is working to make life just a little better in the difficult circumstances that ALL politicians are currently doing their best to ignore (despite what they profess).

No Deal = even more poverty and destitution.

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HERES HOPING FOR A HAPPIER NEW YEAR
especially to those of you, who might be having a tough time or facing real uncertainity.

I would expect the UK govt to try to keep trains running above all else,

For some reason, that sounds much more sinister than it was meant to ... governments obsessed with running trains on time haven't had a great track record (pun fully intended )

Potato harvest this year was crap even without blight

apparently the few frosts have led to a super fruiting season for magic mushrooms, or so I hear.

Well yes, it something that happens in an emergency situation
and a govt can take advantage of that to put in measures that wouldn't normally be accepted

Quiz:
Think of a new 21st century name for workhouses

If things really crash after Brexit, I expect housing benefit, child benefit, WTC etc might go
also care facilities for adults of all ages

so that would be an obvious way out (if you are hard right doctrinaire)

Amazon workhouses (Amazon warehouses with bunk beds in them)

You know, it's probably best said here, away from the more rabblish areas of the site, but I found myself wondering about the long term effects of war(s) - in particular the type of societies they leave in their wake.

Because if we accept the narrative that the brightest and best (mainly men) gave their lives during WW2, it's rather obvious the people they left behind weren't necessarily the brightest and best. And they're the ones that went on to run the country in the 50s, 60s and 70s (depending on your definition of "run").

In fact I'm sure I've read that theory a while back.

There was a series that ran on PBS some years back that involved taking city people and having them live in conditions similar to the old west here in the U.S.

The focus was on a man ( owner ) and his wife and the cowboys they would employ for their ranch. The man did okay acting like an owner of a ranch in that era would act, but the wife was something else.

The primary diet of a cowboy consisted pretty much of rice, biscuits ( US style, not cookies or what the British call biscuits, more like rolls or baked bread ), and beans. The ranch had a vegetable garden with various vegetables growing in it.

When asked if she willing to share the vegetables with the cowboy's she got a puzzled look on her face and said something to the effect that probably wasn't a good idea, it might ruin the cowboy's taste for rice, biscuits, and beans.

WRONG ANSWER !!!!

The most valuable thing you can have on a ranch are good cowboys, they are invaluable and the human body needs a variety of nutrients and vitamins in order to function properly. You just can't stay healthy on nothing but a grain-type diet.

I was reading a report on how the UK would handle a severe fuel shortage in terms of farming and the emphasis would be on producing grains, not meat. Grains that might be normally reserved for farm animals would instead be used to feed people.

Seeds for vegetables would certainly be lighter and a lot more fuel efficient to transport than vegetables themselves. You don't really need to produce a large amount of vegetables every day, but it would be good to be able to produce some to add to a grain-based diet.

It might be good to team up whether you live in the country or city with someone who has been growing vegetables for years. They could probably give you some real good advice on what to grow and what not to grow and how best to grow it.

UC Houses? Sanction Houses?

Given that you can be sanctioned on UC if you're not doing "enough" to earn more and reduce your reliance on benefits , despite it being the Government that sets the unliveable on Minimum Wage

leclerc your response to my (slightly) tongue-in-cheek idea:

{Full of desperate UK stowaways fleeing a country in chaos?}
No, you own this chaos, jolly well stay there and leave the EU in peace.

It leads me to ponder how much sympathy and support we’d get from the EU and other countries if we were in real trouble.

So many of us are against all this, but relatively powerless. Do other countries know this?

We are totally reliant on MPs to come to their senses now...

DG I remember reading discussion that the disastrous handling of the 1920s & 1930s exonomic crises, then the fascists coming to power was partly because
the cream of the Europe, including the UK, died in their thousands in the WW1 trenches.
Particularly the upper crust who totally dominated pre-WW2.

Nowadays, the ruling classes avoid risking their precious arses, e.g. think of various draft-dodging POTUSes
However, in WW1 particularly, I read that one pointless charge out of the trenches could wipe out a full year's intake from an Oxford college

I think that wars generally take the unlucky, not the brightest and best.
Things possibly started going wrong when politicians who had no experience of the hardships and responsibilities of war arrived...so the 1980s?

Hester Despite bafflement, amusement and hurt feelings over disgraceful insults by UK politicians.
I have always found there is sympathy (even sometimes after giggles) for UK expats.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the announcement by Germany, probably followed by other wealthy EU countries, that they want to encourage non-EU immigrants,
has a possible No Deal Brexit very much in mind

We would be geographically the closest non-EU country and our mother tongue, English, is ever more widely spoken in business
and nearly everywhere by those under about 35
I was recently suprosed by a heating technician who came to repair something, addressing me in fluent English (because of my English surname & accent)

Agree with born. And any argument about taking "the brightest and the best" equally applies to other European countries.

born The slaughter in WW1 particularly, but also WW2, took disproportionately those of the ruling class and middle+ classes whose sense of duty put them in harm's way.

Yes, there was luck, as not all died, but the casualties in e.g. WW1 trench warfare horrific
I remember reading a US military article on mass warfare gave dreadul statistics of a few weeks for the life expectancy of a young officer.

WW1 was a classic case of this - Study the memorial boards of the most famous public schools and of Oxbridge colleges: most of a year's intake wiped out in the same charge "over the top"

I deliberately included Euope in the wiping out of much of the best & brightest of the ruling class and the next level

No comparison to NI, Iraq etc, where "only" hundreds of UK soldiers died, mostly squaddies.

Bigchoc I hope you’re right that there is still sympathy from the EU. I’m pleasantly surprised when I come across evidence of it. Like this:

mobile.twitter.com/StayWithUsinEU

Young men who were the product of the public schools and Oxbridge were not necessarily the brightest and best - just the luckiest, until they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and stopped being so lucky.
I’m no historian, but didn’t the experience of the first WW kick start the move to a more egalitarian society, which became more pronounced after the second? Many of those young men from poor backgrounds who rose from the ranks to replace their deceased commanders will have been as bright and as good as their predecessors.

“All I ask is if brexit does not happen will all the people against brexit do what I and many others do, I'm sure, on here and put all the energy they used against brexit, into helping the poor in a meaningful way?”

I hope so. Of course, the time to start doing it was immediately after the Referendum. That was Cameron’s biggest betrayal - to run away instead of behaving like a leader and addressing the real concerns of the People.

BigChoc

What really bothers me is the way that EU citizenship can be taken away from those who want to remain EU citizens and who have done nothing wrong.

If EU citizenship is informal then what governing body can declare a person's EU citizenship null and void? If it is formal then where is the due process before a EU citizen is stripped of his or her rights?

I am glad that Germany ( and hopefully other countries ) seems to be welcoming any Brits that might prefer to live in an EU country rather than what the UK might become in a few months time.

I've probably blathered on enough so I am off to catch up on the " Three Blokes in a Pub " series.

I'm quite depressed today. I think rights are a flimsy concept, way too easy to ignore. I have a bad situation at work where my rights aren't being respected and just had an argument on another thread with a 'remainer' who thought stripping people of their rights was obviously the government's prerogative.
Honestly, I despair.

Looks like most of you have spent the better part of the day in carving up ( or trying to) what I wrote last night. I don't think I've met such pessimistic views about every word anyone writes before. Gee, its a wonder you all get through the day without chopping yourselves!

tanith have you everseen a placard waved outside Parliament when the press are interviewing MPs with 'Save the poor' on either before or after the referendum? Nope nor have I. No doubt there has been demos against austerity etc but truth is they aren't newsworthy to the media and people with red placards day in and day out since the referendum don't think 'save the poor' is either just 'we want a peoples vote' not 'we want a peoples vote so we can save the poor. '.........

mistigirl said -also find it very odd that someone who boasts about their good deeds with one breath, celebrates the idea that others will experience hardship with the next.
I do not celebrate anything. And nor do I boast. Your interpretation of my posts has been way off the point. Find something else to critisize.

All I ask is if brexit does not happen will all the people against brexit do what I and many others do, I'm sure, on here and put all the energy they used against brexit, into helping the poor in a meaningful way?

Of course not.
The poors have never been on the top of the agenda. I can’t see why they would become important just because the U.K. is staying in the eu....
People who are vehementally against Brexit are spending energy to protect what they think is good for them. Few of them will also be affected by poverty or issues with human rights etc etc. Or at least, they feel they aren’t just at the moment and somehow feel above all those issues.