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IDS has been making speeches again!
I came across this report in the Guardian. I don’t really think there is any comment I can make without increasing my blood pressure to unsafe levels!
http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/jun/05/the-big-issue-iain-duncan-smith
damned if you don’t work, damned if you do.
the man should be arrested for inciting racial hatred.
Not to mention sacked for lying to Parliament! (No targets or “expectations” for sanctions/UC is on time and on budget etc, etc, etc)
The fact that this totally dishonest cretin is still in office is a far bigger scandal than Big Issue sellers claiming WTC.
There may well be many Big Issue sellers who are migrants from marginalised communities in Eastern Europe and who claim WTC to top up their earnings. This is an inevitable result of the deliberate long-term destruction of the job security associated with an industrial economy and the shift to low paid casualization of employment in an economy based on services. The deliberate investment in WTC and other in-work benefits have been key elements on facilitating these changes.
It is not a sustainable, long-term solution for people to have to up sticks and move to the UK to sell the Big Issue in the UK, anymore than it is for British Citizens to have to rely entirely on selling the Big Issue for the rest of their lives. The governments of places like Slovakia, Hungary and Romania need to be made (through the EU) to take concerted action to address the appalling discrimination, poverty and exclusion among communities like the Roma.
Equally, what is forgotten in the debate about EU migration is that it’s a two-way process. At least 2 million British Citizens live in other EU countries, accessing health, benefits and other public services. Professionally and personally I know of quite a few unemployed Brits who have gone to EU countries to study or do temporary, low paid jobs in the hospitality industry and others with long term illnesses who have ended up in EU states and who then make full and proper use of the benefits and health systems in those countries.
Restricting rights of movement and access to services is ultimately a lose-lose situation as will happen if/when many of those 2 million Brits lose their rights and are forced by economic necessity to return to the UK.
However, I think this is all too complex and enlightened for IDS and the Kippers to grasp.
There are some in this country who sometimes picture England as the land of the village green, the sound of leather on willow, the cry of the fox hound, a frothing pint of real ale in the local inn, where all the faces are white and everyone speaks the same language, praying to the same God and Europe is a place where the foreigners live and is nothing to do with us. A place where there is no common agricultural policy (actually that would be a good thing, if not reformed) and no quotas on fishing, a place where bankers are free to do whatever they like, landlords are able to charge whatever rent they like and property prices remain stable, and, where the lower orders show due deference and gratitude and are happy and content.
Well, of course there is no such place and there never has been. There are bits of these things that have existed for finite periods but nothing is ever immutable. Being English means different things to different people and ‘Englishness’ is a social construct based on class division rather than a homogenous cultural identity. You have far more in common with your neighbour, wherever he comes from and whatever God he worships, than the folk who live in the big house on the hill.
There are some in this country who sometimes picture England as the land of the village green, the sound of leather on willow, the cry of the fox hound, a frothing pint of real ale in the local inn, where all the faces are white and everyone speaks the same language, praying to the same God and Europe is a place where the foreigners live and is nothing to do with us. A place where there is no common agricultural policy (actually that would be a good thing, if not reformed) and no quotas on fishing, a place where bankers are free to do whatever they like, landlords are able to charge whatever rent they like and property prices remain stable, and, where the lower orders show due deference and gratitude and are happy and content.
Well, of course there is no such place and there never has been. There are bits of these things that have existed for finite periods but nothing is ever immutable. Being English means different things to different people and ‘Englishness’ is a social construct based on class division rather than a homogenous cultural identity. You have far more in common with your neighbour, wherever he comes from and whatever God he worships, than the folk who live in the big house on the hill.
Blimey, the first bit had me worried, I thought Nigel Farage had joined rightsnet!
Mind you, the concept of ‘Englishness’ doesn’t mean that much to me and Pete is now officially not ‘English’ either (at least by residence).
I hadn’t thought of that, if I’m now a foreigner I clearly dont have R2R as (judging from my postings here) I never do any genuine or effective work!