Why I joined the Labour Party
No, not me (I have never been that stupid): some guy over at LabourHome has poured out his wee heart on this topic.
Now, this is all very lovely, I think that you will agree. And, it is fantastic that some of the money has indeed helped people rather than being pissed up the wall.
However, it is also worth remembering that in order for Labour [sic] to help this character and his mother, the state stole a substantial amount of money off other people to do it.
If you are going to thank the Labour Party for all of this bounty, then I think that you should also thank the thousands of ordinary people who had the fruits of their hard work extorted from them, under threat of fines or imprisonment, in order to deliver the money that helped you.
Don't you think that's reasonable?
Oh, and whilst we are about it, why not have a quick peek at this wonderfully excoriating review of LabourHome by Unity, a Labour Party member...?
I joined Labour because earlier this year I had a heart operation. And I only waited 12 weeks for it. Had I been waiting 18 months for my operation, I could be very ill.
I joined Labour because they gave enough funding to schools that they couldn't give up on me, even with a learning "disorder".
I joined Labour because they've given the economic security through redistribution for my mum to be free.
When my family has been poor and alone, a Labour government did not abandon us. They helped. Whether it is through EMA's, or SureStart, or the minimum wage, a Labour government didn't forget me. And I haven't forgotten their help.
Now, this is all very lovely, I think that you will agree. And, it is fantastic that some of the money has indeed helped people rather than being pissed up the wall.
However, it is also worth remembering that in order for Labour [sic] to help this character and his mother, the state stole a substantial amount of money off other people to do it.
If you are going to thank the Labour Party for all of this bounty, then I think that you should also thank the thousands of ordinary people who had the fruits of their hard work extorted from them, under threat of fines or imprisonment, in order to deliver the money that helped you.
Don't you think that's reasonable?
Oh, and whilst we are about it, why not have a quick peek at this wonderfully excoriating review of LabourHome by Unity, a Labour Party member...?
Labels: blogging, lefty fuckwits, pointless wastes of time and money, state funding, taxes, who fucking cares?
| 20 blogger comments
| links to this post
20 Blogger Comments:
Bingo
Now we know why 24% STILL vote Labour.
An non labour voter might say:
I joined xxxxx because earlier this year I had a heart operation. I had the good sense to pay a little each month in medical insurance, instead of PS3 games, lager and Dominoes Pizzas, so I was seen immediately and by the best in the world. I don't have MRSA, the hospital has proper cleaners, not Nigerian dirt pushers.
I joined XXXXX because and education is important. My parents cared enough to find me a school that could teach me, even though I am a thick cunt, behave like a baboon on speed and hit the teachers everyday with a joint hanging from my sallow face. They had put a little by each month to pay for this, instead of going to Lanzarote twice a year and buying soveriegn rings to impress the other dross "dahn the markit"
I joined XXXXX because they've let me keep most of the money I've earned, instead of pissing it up the wall on diversity classes for Newts or employing chink cunts dressed a bit like policemen to tell me to eat my greens.
When my family has been poor and alone, a XXXXX government did not abandon us. They helped. Whether it is through free education, making me responsible for my own failures and successes, minding their own fucking business and not giving me just enough money to keep the plasma, Sky TV, the carp fishing gear, three Rottweilers and my uninsured Saxo wiv da big bore exhaust, innit, without actually have to do any real work, thereby trapping me into poverty.
And I haven't forgotten their help. I now know that whatever government is in power, it is MY responsibility to educate my kids, educate myself, look after my health. That way, no matter those cunts get up to, i'll have covered my own arse.
Ah, Freedom.
DK sez
>it is fantastic<
You're right, Devil - it *is* fantastic, in the purest sense of that word. It is a fantasy.
It's a fantasy that Labour improved the health service (unless by 'improved' you mean that they've stuffed the service with more bureaucrats than medics and imposed a hiring system that places a candidate's ethnicity ahead of his competence).
It's a fantasy that Labour have improved the schools (unless by 'improved' you mean that they've turned teachers into box-tickers, dumbed down the exams to the point where even illiterates can't fail and landed the treasury with debt for a generation to come in the name of pursuing ideology-driven academies).
It's a fantasy that Labour have improved people's basic income (unless by 'improved' you mean that they've robbed all working people - including the working poor - in order to pour money into the pockets of the bone idle and criminal classes who form Labour's hardest of hard cores).
Leave aside the libertarian theory and the detestation of statism for a bit and think about this fool's claims from a purely pragmatic perspective. Ask yourself if Labour has actually delivered what he claims they have delivered. The fact is, even by Labour's own statist left-wing measure, Labour has failed.
Education, health and poverty are all far worse than when Labour took power. The working class is worse off not only because they are raped by ridiculous - and regressive! - levels of taxation but because their children have been denied the opportunity for social advancement. The small pleasures of the working man, like tobacco and alcohol, are turned into moral failings by a government that has gone further in its nannying know-it-all attitude than all previous Labour government combined.
Do not measure Labour's failings by the metrics of the libertarian because, frankly, no-one can ever live up to that metric. Measure them, instead, by their own socialist statist class-war metric and then you will see just how badly they have failed. And that is why, at the next election, Labour will suffer a wipe out that will make the Tory defeat in 1997 look like a fucking picnic.
Thanking Labour is like thanking the benevolence of a Mafia Don. Kiss their hand, why don't you.
Labour has "given" NOTHING. They TOOK then handed out.
Maybe by Statism NL has failed, but by Socialism and Fabianism, it is a triumph. The lumpenproletariat is established, the despised middle classes - by definition, workers who have bettered themselves and thus class apostates - under the cosh and the super rich still fawned upon, for Socialists are, at heart, slaves to power.
that cunt on labourhome has ZERO self of self worth and ZERO sense of shame.
its bloody obvious that he sees nothing wrong with depending on handouts from the state.
on the other hand - if i were ever in his situatuon i certainly wouldnt be bragging about it - and you know why? because i have a sense of self-worth. and i would be HIGHLY ashamed of it.
"Thanking Labour is like thanking the benevolence of a Mafia Don. Kiss their hand, why don't you."
Hey, I'll take the Mafia don over a Lab pol anyday. At least the don isn't going to tell you not to smoke/drink too much/eat too much pasta!
I think we should be thanking Gordon for that little post.
Say what you like about socialism but I think there are one or two fundamental dynamics that still hold popular appeal, and have little to do with arcane political theorising.
It wasn't that long ago that ordinary working families received inadequate education, health care and had limited prospects in the job market.
These kinds of universal injustice were captured by authors like Steinbeck [Grapes of Wrath] and Orwell [How the poor die].
Nye Bevans father, a Welsh miner died of black lung [aka pneumoconiosis] - like many of his generation Bevan senior had little chance of receiving medical attention until communities grouped together forming co-operatives.
After cradling his dying father perhaps it was little wonder the Welsh firebrand wanted to improve our health system.
Surely it was this sense of community that drove socialist aspirations - coupled with the economic reality that ordinary folk had greater bargaining power if they acted collectively.
Of course nowadays, Broon & Co hide behind slick spinmeisters - obsessing about how they can winkle more cash from workers, while imposing ever greater controls on public services [a process fuelled by their own gargantuan paranoia].
What a travesty.
A & E said: "It wasn't that long ago that ordinary working families received inadequate education, health care and had limited prospects in the job market."
This is like saying "ordinary working families" couldn't fly to the moon in 1920.
My uncle died as a child of scarlet fever not because he was poor (or rich) but because the knowledge and facilities to save him did not exist then.
Sounds like a contribution from that Mr Derek Draper of Minitrue that Guido was on about the other day.
verification: new wet
Sure Start! SURE START!! don't get me started on Sure Start. Mrs Night took the son and heir down to Sure Start and it was great. All the local married / cohab Mums who were already doing a great job at bringing up baby plugged straight into what was a very good local resource.
Every so often, a Kappa clad single mother would turn up with the brood in tow, see that the free stuff was "just like books and crap" and realise that there was advice on what was a good or bad idea in child caring. Without exception, they took the advice as a personal affront and stormed off complaining about being "dissed" and how the Sure Start workers didnt have the "right to tell me how to live." (Personally if I pay for your kids, I think me or my agents get a say but so it goes). Time after time they never came back. The married Mums were happier when they were gone. Kappa girls tend to smoke around the kids, had and aura of chaotic violent potential and they just weren't much for a chat over a cuppa and some rich tea biscuits. Sure Start was meant for Kappa Girls but they were exactly the people who are sure to run a mile from it.
Earlier this year, Mrs. Night was walking past the local Sure Start centre. Project over. There was a skip full of box fresh unused childrens games and books. The scheme was ending and they were chucking thousands of pounds worth of stuff we bought and they never used into landfill.
Sure Start was best appreciated and used by people who didn't need it. The target audience avoided it like the plague as soon as they realised it might suggest a childcare regimen more involving than a battered PS2, NickToons, Pot Noodles, Takeaway and Maccy D's backed up with casual beatings and a parade of father figures who are always gone in the morning.
Sure Start is one of my personal cyphers for all that is wrong with Labour's approach to social deprivation. Whatever they do, they never seem to build in anything necessary for the intervention to work anywhere but on the white board in the Applied Sociology Dept. University of Shitsville
Sssh, Nightjack: don't tell Polly: her head will explode...
DK
I must live a very sheltered life ... what is a Kappa? I presume it has something to do with Lidl.
A&E: "like many of his generation Bevan senior had little chance of receiving medical attention until communities grouped together forming co-operatives."
Yes, voluntary cooperatives. Excellent stuff. It begins to break down when it becomes an INVOLUNTARY cooperative, as we have now. You disconnect the giver from the receiver, the community is replaced by a faceless State. Result: Entropy.
Budgie - nobody could fly to the moon in 1920.
You are right about the limitations of medical technology: the 'golden age' didn't really get going until after 1935 [and has stalled again in recent years].
But infant mortality [a fairly sensitive measure of state effectiveness] was three times higher for the plebs in the 1930's when compared to the death rate amongst toff nippers.
Is it any wonder disadvantaged communities considered collective action as an antidote to this miserable state of affairs ?
Kappa is the name of clothing manufacturer associated with chavdom. Originated in Viz. Vicky Pollard wears Kappa clothes.
Thank you Mr Ken. Nice to know I was right about Lidl.
A&E - do you have any link(s) to the child mortality stats in the '30s (presumably with some kind of class or family income breakdown)?
I can't find anything by googling, but that's probably me not being very good at it.
TIA!
In 1919 the infant mortality rate in Jarrow was 151 [per 1,000 births] compared to the national average of 58.
By 1931 the IMR rose to 159 [in Jarrow] while the national average stood at 62.
http://www.edexcel.org.uk/VirtualContent/120457.pdf [stats on page 6]
Meanwhile Friedman notes in "Primer of Epidemiology" [p71] - can be found using google.
"A marked socioeconomic gradient in infant mortality has long been noted. Table 5-1 shows social class and rates of infant mortality (at age under 1 year) per 1000 live births in England & Wales during two time periods, 1930-1932 and 1949-53. Note that even though there was a marked improvement by the later time period, social class V still had MORE THAN TWICE the infant mortality rate observed in social class I".
These rates [of infant mortality] are as follows:
Social Class 1930-32 1945-53
I 32.7 18.7
II 45 21.6
III 57.6 28.6
IV 66.8 33.8
V 77.1 40.8
Note the linear progression.
A & E said: "nobody could fly to the moon in 1920."
Well I never!
That was my point. Many criticise past societies for not providing the benefits we enjoy now, without acknowledging that frequently it was not possible to do so.
But certain health possibilities did exist Budgie, at least in relative terms, providing you didn't belong to class V.
If you did then they tended to slip away down the "socioeconomic gradient" [if we take infant mortality as indicator of state effectiveness].
From the perspective of the older generation in Jarrow, or South Wales, say, I can see why socialism might have seemed attractive to them.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home