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.

One thing I have noticed is that as the U.S. becomes more and more unequal in terms of income, the more corrupt and prone to corruption both ends of the financial spectrum are becoming.

The U.S. is experiencing a real problem with people stealing packages from other people's front steps. This has mutated to people getting their little kids to steal packages from other people's front steps in the hope that if the kids are caught, they won't get punished like an adult would.

The latest variation involves UPS drivers calling their buddies when they have just dropped off a package so their buddies can steal packages off of people's front steps.

The lower you allow a minimum wage for a country to drop in terms of purchasing power, the more you tempt people to compromise their values because of the harsh economic situations they find themselves in, whether that is stealing from others or being content to live on the dole because the kind of work they can get just doesn't pay.

You are forcing otherwise decent people to become beggars and / or thieves and I have seen that with my own eyes.

Tory Nicola Blackwood set for shock return to Health via a peerage next week

Please God no. The best thing that May did was call her election early, so that we had the opportunity to oust the useless Nicola Blackwood MP. So now we will be lumbered with her in the Lords, where she will be equally useless. I wonder if she will still decide that she was Remain? Which way is the wind blowing?

xebob It may be divisions in society, but your story sounds like the precariat stealing from others like them,
or do they just do this only from the rich ?
That's different from previous generations' experiences and reactions.

When my dad grew up very poor in the NE during the 1920s & 1930s, the whole area was destitute,
people were barefoot, in threadbare clothes & hungry, couldn't pay for any medical care, some babies died because their mums were too malnourished to produce milk
BUT

noone stole from each other.
Society stuck together to that extent, even though they were too desperate to share food or clothing.

I don't know if they would have stolen from someone wealthy, but they never met anyone like that.

They didn't even rob the town pawnshop

• my gran pawned her last pair of shoes there for food for her kids and walked barefoot all the way home.

oh Jeez peregrina. I hadn't realised until quite late in the election process how much of a May yes-woman Nicola Blackwood was. Or quite how unpleasant she could sound admittedly I dive for the off button whenever a local MP is on as they usually sound demented while promoting two directly opposing policies simultaneously

I have wondered:

when Brexiters and some others look book to WW2 when saying we'll cope, I wonder why they never look back to the 1920s and 1930s ? 🤔

After all, we're facing a possible Depression, not a war

Could the reason be because the 1920s and 1930s were another example of how the poor, the JAMs and even the lower mc suffered dreadfully

when the ruling class blindly stuck to what they mistakenly thought would benefit themselves
.... and crashed the whole country over a cliff

The numbers of people of NFA who do this are high.

@MrsR8 you are a star. I am NFA, so I'm unseen homeless because I don't look homeless. Those who occupy my current city centre do. I'm on a zero hours contract and don't earn enough to rent a place, so I live in empty commercial properties for zero rent. I'm lucky, I'm not on the street, if that happens that's it for me, and Brexit could well end how I live with property owners preferring to shutter up their buildings.

I fully understand why so many people on UC/PIP are dying, this government is dehumanising them every day.

If you have a god, may he or she walk with you.

You don't shit on your own doorstep.

It always was a shock going to friends of friends in Stoke and how they left their front doors unlocked. But the community felt confident enough in the idea that no one would steal from their neighbours and everyone looked out for each other.

I do think the mentality would be sorely tested if there were food shortages though for example.

AIBU has a thread: "we should turn back the boats"
Some people sound angry / scared even on MN

The forrin-haters are out in force today. It was bad enough on the AIBU about the charge for EU citizens, but some of the posts on the boats thread are vile.

when Brexiters and some others look book to WW2 when saying we'll cope, I wonder why they never look back to the 1920s and 1930s ?

But this didn't affect everyone evenly. Think of all those 1930s houses - enough people were well enough off to buy them.

Javid was on holiday in South Africa wasn't he?

uk.yahoo.com/news/south-african-beach-race-row-145150910.html

Call me naive and old fashioned but when all moral goes, when that despicable outlook wins then what's the point of anything? That's not civilisation, it's hell.

What do people do if its purely about survival?

And there is a total breakdown in the concept of community.

In the past we had the Church which provided that ultimately. Then the State took over a lot of that role and there has been a crisis of faith.

If the state is removed from the equation there is a gap which pretty much has never existed in society in England. Which something of a frightening prospect in itself.

That AIBU thread is truly vile

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/3463912-Westminstenders-Welcome-to-2019?watched=1

New thread up and running

BigChoc

I think it's a combination of things; low wages, people being angry because they studied hard in school / college / university but make about as much as they did in high school at a part-time job, and just a basic lack of morality.

People move around more and so there is less of a sense of community at the local level and also at the national level as the elite have seemed more interested in themselves than what was good for the country as a whole.

Politically I was a Bernie guy, he was electrifying the crowds whereas Hillary was not but it seems the DNC decided that Hillary was the one. Hence a virtual civil war in the Democratic party occurred, disaffected and angry Democrats decided they would do " WHATEVER IT TOOK " to keep Hillary from winning the Presidency.

Obviously that meant voting for Trump. Dr. James White of youtube fame had a sign in his yard with Donald's and Hillary's picture on it and underneath it said " Nope and Noper ". I think that reflected a lot of people's attitudes toward both candidates.

Trump won I think because despite his abrasive and quite frankly vulgar personality, he seemed to express concern and even love for those left behind by the global economy as opposed to the global corporatism that Hillary seemed to represent.

Just I'd close the thread with a little story someone told me once:
Hell is a banquet with gorgeous food but the forks are just too long for people to put food in their mouths, so they starve for eternity whilst staring at it.
Heaven is a banquet with gorgeous food and the same forks that are too long to eat with, but people feed each other.

I think many Democrats stayed home as opposed to going out and voting for Trump. Maybe same difference...

A wise story, rebel

BigChoc

I don't think they really care who they steal from, it would be hard though to steal from the ultra-wealthy as they tend to live in gated communities protected by security guards and plenty of cameras.

I think Amazon could really have a problem with this hurting their sales. Stores with a physical presence that also offer online shopping could come out the winners from this in that you can see what they offer online and then go to a physical store and actually get to look at said product and then buy it and not having to worry about it getting stolen.

Just caught up. Off to check the new thread now. Apart from all the lovely food and interesting breakfasts, this one has been grim reading.

Are there any good Tories?

And why can't people grasp the tax and services connection?