21 millionaires in Cameron's Cabinet.....

[Rita Postlethwaite]

I have just had a good laugh, a guest on Steve Wrights radio 2 show (a coloured gentleman) said " I don`t understand why Britain is fighting racism because your class system is racism that looks down on everyone below themselves". This was said in jest but I punched the air and said "right on man! So relevent in todays "I`m alright Jack, s*d the rest of you" being led by those at the top!!

[caminito]

I think that Peabody's idea that you should help the "Industrious poor" & not the "Idle poor" sounds correct.
I had family in the 50s&60s & 70s who lived in Peabody Housing Estates in London .They were terrific places to live .
No neighbours from hell or bad mannered yobs but families who appreciated the heip and were willing to work !
They took a pride in keeping the estates clean and tidy and above all concern for their neighbours !

[Angelo]

I have a problem with Peabody's  Deserving or Undeserving Poor. Just who decides that. Many of the undeserving poor and thier testomoies can be read from poor house records. Luck and missfortune played a big part in determining the difference. Some of the missfortune was not as characterised self inflicted.
 Yes you are right about the newcomers to social housing. I have experience of the 50s to 80 s council housing. When I left the people who were newcomers were  what the Americans call trailer trash.

[Papaumau]

If you get a chance to see it, watch Ian Hislop's  " When Bankers Were Good", as screened last night.
One thing that forever stays in my mind is the Victorian principal that the poor deserve their status. They are Lazy , Feckless and Drunk.
I am not unsure that the same missguided principal is still held by those who are, Born To Rule !
Which might account for the thinking behind the Big Society. This is the 21st Century, why should anybody have to rely on CHARITY ??

Yes Angelo, if the country was run better the so-called "Big Society" would be carried out by the government and there would be much less need for voluntary, charitable and unpaid "care".

The "class system" that Blair once said "no longer existed" is alive and well and is upheld by the privileged classes that come out of the Eton and Oxbridge "born-to-rule" factories.

So long as we have these privileged classes running things in this country we will still see this gulf between the poor-and-getting-poorer and the-rich-and-getting-richer stratas of our society continuing to grow wider and wider.

An eminent economist, ( cannot remember his name ),  said recently that if this gulf is not narrowed we are going to see Britain going right back to the standards we suffered under during the Victorian days.

I have always thought that !

[Angelo]

Yes Papa, there is clear evidence for all to see that it is exactly where we are heading. Back to the good old 1800s.
You just have to add up all the cuts and what it means in reality, plain for all to see!
If there are those who don't recognise the signs the it will all become starkly apperent very soon.

[Oldtimer]

I am just going out to find a horse for my cart LOL

[Angelo]

Don't  jest Old Timer have you seen what they are going to do to the price of fuel ? You might be just doing that soon, if you can afford one.

[Oldtimer]

I think evryone should seriously contemplate the situation but if we are not allowed a sense of Humour what have we got left?

[Papaumau]

OldTimer.......

While there is nothing wrong with a sense of humour there is also times when we really should GET ANGRY at the way that these privileged classes are driving the wedge of poverty between the haves and the have-nots.

The "haves" at the top of the tree are getting inexorably more and more while the "have-nots" at the centre and bottom are getting less and less and are paying for just about everything.

It is basically this situation that is driving the unions to try to get a message across to our political servants that what they are continually doing has to stop before both the country and the great mass of the electorate are ruined so that the top-end fat-cats can continue to get fatter at our expense.

This is the most glaring attack on the ordinary people of Britain that we have ever seen before and it is now time that we all stood up and were counted.

Even as a retired civil servant and a pensioner I WILL be standing with the strikers on the thirtieth as if we allow their pensions to get ripped apart they will come next for ours. 

[stormrider]

Back to Camerons " big society", as a volunteer for a charity called Right To Read that enables me to go into a local primary school once a week to help little ones with their reading I have now been informed that because of government cutbacks I can only continue there (when my CRB check runs out) if (a) the school agrees to pay for the check or (b) if I pay for it myself! Well Mr Cameron, because schools are having their grants cut too and as I am a pensioner I will sadly give up this position and drop out of "the big society". 

   

Now that is a sad state of affairs, when Cameron goes on about kids leaving school unable to read, and good volunteers are being forced to leave,
 I  think its crazy,

[Papaumau]

Yes Stormrider....Cameron does not seem to realise that his "Big Society" has been running for many years without his help or hindrance and as he goes about making it look as if it was his idea the selfless volunteers are still doing the job that they have always done.

[Angelo]

Another example of Youth over Experience. but then again every generation think they have all the answers. Six months on a Trawler or down a coal mine would cure them perhaps ??