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"

------------------------

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.

peregrina The UK ruling class hasn't changed that much in composition over the last 100 years,
but does seem to have become stupider and to have less sense of duty.

there were serious strategic errors made from the 1930s -1970s that imo are down to so many of the better members of that class being killed in the WWs

If we didn't STILL have such a class-ridden society, much of that could be could be corrected now, but it's not in their interests to spend money on the poor.

The 1980s in the UK and US marked the rise of the unashamedly pitiless hard right conservatives and the demise of the remains of the One Nation ones

imo, the fall of the USSR accelerated this, as they no longer had to worry about angry people turning to the communists.

They had a free hand - and boy have they used it

The great divide between rich and poor,
cutting public spending as a % of GDP, cutting taxes rather than spending on the poor ^

are all democratic choices made by UK voters

many of the wc in particular have switched from Labour to Tory, support benefit cuts, oppose tax rises even on the better off.

The EU does not govern the UK, so can't order it to be a more equal society - there would be outrage if they tried !

The ERG want a "Bonfire of Red Tape", i.e. remove the very limited EU regulations about minimum workers' rights to have a level playing field with the US, even China & India

There is no magic money tree
UK voters decide how the available pot is split wrt rich vs poor.

Brexit would reduce the size of the pot; Remain is status quo

Actually making things better requires UK voters to choose higher taxes if they want to improve public investment, benefits & public services;
to raise low wages requires higher prices, or higher Council tax, depending on the employer

MrsR8 If you won't let the queen near you with a medal, here's one from me 🏅💐

How much cash did we decide was a decent amount to have on hand post March 29th??

Mrs8 I would forget cash and invest in cash substitutes - cigarettes, nappies, booze.

I'd nominate you mrsr8 but I take your point about republicanism (actually a colleague's DH will be given a gong in this year's honours and despite sharing your tendencies I am oddly excited for them!)

The food bank I volunteer with has just emailed with its stats for 2018. Over 27000 meals distributed, in an area of the SE with an average house price well above £600K and Universal Credit.

But yeah, I'm sure some of that famous 'resilience' will kick in over the next three months

Yep. And, honestly, this is an area that is the sine qua non of middle-class, suburban affluence.

Oh dear I seem to have created some sort of conflict when it wasn’t my intention.

What I meant is that I dint believe that Remainers have much better intentions than leavers (I exclude the brexiters in that).
I know many Leavers who are very involved with charity work/food banks etc... and still would have no hesitation to vote Tory or vite Leave again. My MIL is one of them and yes can’t comprehend the dissonance in her choices.
There are also many Remainers who dint give a s* about the poor.

I don’t think there is any relation between voting Leave or Remain and caring for poorer people in our society.
I also think that OVERAL the british society has a very ‘laid back’ attitude about poverty or human rights protection. Basically, it’s not seen as important to most people. hence no one has screamed when the news that 120k people died bue to austerity measures or about human right abuse re immigration or protection of civil liberties. Actually it was hardly mentioned in the news.

Of course, you have people like Mrs8 who DO care. And people like posters in this thread who ARE aware of all of those issues.
I just dint find it a common attitude around me.

Sorry, slightly incorrect use of that phrase, but Boris Johnson I ain't

The great divide between rich and poor, cutting public spending as a % of GDP, cutting taxes rather than spending on the poor are all democratic choices made by UK voters

YY to that.
But also, I’d like to see people taking RESPONSIBILITY for their vote. By voting for TM or the Tories AGAIN (I mean they’ve been elected to take on the PM role 3 times in a row now....), they’ve been giving their seal of approval for all the austerity measures. They’ve basically been saying that all the benefits cuts were ok. Even if they lead to the death of thousands of people, rising poverty and has been so bad to be against human rights.

That’s also why I’m saying that staying in the uk won’t change anything because the population overall has VOTED for that to happen :(

Queenie I'd argue that 'hardly mentioned in the news' isn't a good measure of whether it's a subject that ordinary people care about.

But I do take your point that voting to Remain certainly doesn't = caring about people worse off than you (I would cite, anecdotally, the dinner party I went to just before Xmas where I got into a fierce argument discussion with a solid Remainer about the 'fact' that 'everyone who goes to a food bank has a new mobile phone and demands dishwasher tablets' )

I voted Remain but wouldn't say I was much of a paragon of compassion. That said, one of the many reasons I voted Remain was to avoid stretching an already overburdened economy.

Ré foodbanks - the food bank in my area covering two villages in a prosperous area is supporting 100 families. Thank god for the work they do and all the volunteers on this thread, but really, how horrifying.

Queenie Brexit is not a wholly left vs right issue, whereas poverty is.

Lexiters - who are usually on the left of Labour - happily support rightwing Tory Brexiters and not just over Brexit
while Remain Tories are at least on the liberal wing, so it' not that odd they have views in common with centre and left voters.

So, if you talk to a centrist or Tory Remainer, they often won't support measures to help the poor which cost themselves money

As I posted, Remain is status quo, Brexit is making things worse
Remain : Leave in the polls is currently 54:46

however, the reluctance to actually pay more - in taxes or prices, not just verbal platitudes -
to help the poor seems a very large majority of voters, probably 60% or more
(Just look at threads on MN, suppsoedly a leftwing site)

They believe in the rightwing economists' "trickle-down theory" that the rest of the population getting richer will trickle down to the poor
and that those who are better off have worked hard and "deserve it" - including those with property windfalls.

The large number of people who won't pay any more to support the poor grew from the views of the 1980s,
when the old mostly One Nation Tories were replaced by the spivs

Over the years, the wc switch to the Tories has added to their numbers.

Even in the late 80s, I was annoyed at Thatcher for reducing the basic rate of taxation, as I recognised that if we/I wanted decent levels of spending on the NHS, education and benefits, then we needed to be prepared to pay taxes for them. And this despite the fact that as a young, single, healthy relatively high earner, I wasn't making direct use of education, health or benefit spending - but knew that one day I would be.

Later, as a higher rate tax payer, I was equally prepared to pay more in tax - because I could afford it . Higher rate tax payers now pay more in Scotland than they do in England - yet when it came into force, the BBC was hard pushed to find higher rate payers who objected to it (you could tell that they'd tried really hard as the strongest criticism that they could find was along the lines of "I'd rather not pay more but if it means better services for those that work for me and it's being well spent, I'll tolerate it"

I ve always despised the Tories, they are the party for the rich and just pretend at caring about normal folk, May is just the last in a long line of Tory PMs who say they care but do the opposite or nothing at all, in her case on MH or the JAM's no new policies so far.......

She is willing to take the country onto (what many would consider a war footing in terms of civilian prep) just to get her own fucking way.

She cares nothing for the millions of brits who will lose out, who worry about meds, who will or have lost work, the 2m living and working brits abroad or the 3million eu citizens here... just so long as she stays in power.

There is no magic money tree

We're lucky in the UK to have a central bank that's allowed to form its own policy, unlike those countries in the Eurozone. The BofE is busy using QE to keep the banks alive when the money could be better used by putting, say, £10k in every UK based bank account. Much of those accounts would be owned by people who spend much of their income, like me, and that money would help so many of us, and would get spent increasing GDP at least temporarily, whereas austerity does the opposite.

It is very clear to me that I wouod never vote Tory.

But I’ve met enough Tories who have very little to know it’s nit just abiutbthe rich wanting to stay ricch or get richer.

and that those who are better off have worked hard and "deserve it
Ime that is a view shared by many, not just the Tories.
In some ways, it also explains why some Leavers aren't that worried about thé consequences if Brexit. Because they believe that quickly, people who work hard and deserve to be better off will be again. So no harm done really.
The consequence of course is that the poor are those who also deserve to be poor rather than people who might have had difficult circumstances. You can see it on MN with the constant comments along the lines of ‘why did you have children if you can’t afford them’ when people have a 10~15yo and have just explained how their circumstances have changed (divorces, widow, illness etc etc).

Brexit is overwhelmingly the creation of the Tory right,
but very cleverly they have managed to divert some of the anger about the effect of their own policies away from themselves
and instead towards FOM / immigrants & the EU, i.e. for Brexit

All those who are angry about the policies that made people poor and keep them poor:

think seriously think if you really want to support Brexit, the creation of those same Tories responsible for the increased poverty

Brexit is intended to make the wealthiest 0.01% much wealthier still, paid for by the rest of us

Queenie That's what I was saying before:
poverty exists at this level and continues to increase because imo at least 60% of voters are not preparedto pay extra in taxes or prices to change this

That 60+% is obviously not just Tories, but also a significant section of LDems and Labour

That's a separate issue from Remain / Leave, which merely affects the size of the national pot, not how to divide it among us.