Daily Archives: 9 June, 2011

The Chav is the word.

by maxattacks

First off, incredibly sorry for the lack of blogging lately. Exams and all that are finally over for nearly of all of us in BULS so normal blogging is now commencing.

Anyway, sorry if you’re not her biggest fan but Poly Toynbee did probably a brilliant article on the rise of the Chav. She points out that this in fact a derogatory term, a term of class-hate and despite the hate it ensues it is an acceptable word unlike other hate terms such as “paki”, “nigger” and “faggot”. Now this disregard for the supposed “under-class” has been going on for around thirty years unchecked (thank you Maggie) and is probably best symbolised through the rise of the “benefit-scrounger”. But benefit fraud is a major threat to society isn’t it though? No, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) latest figures shows that benefit fraud (including so-called “benefit scrounging”) costs the tax payers £1.6 billion. Now not only does this merely account to 0.7% of the benefits bill but it is literally a drop in the ocean compared to the estimated £70 billion which is lost each year through tax avoidance (mainly through the financial sector). It’s only when you realise this that it becomes apparent that despite what the Daily Mail and Express and the Jeremy Kyle show might say it, “benefit scroungers” are the very least of our worries.

So when ever you hear the word Chav being used please don’t accept the term and be critical as yes, there has always been a problem with benefit fraud throughout the Welfare state’s history. But when it becomes apparent that the problems have been shifted on to a comparatively non-issue, you know we’ve got deeper problems.

Max

Unite Behind The Unions

by labourluke

This week, the ominously-titled Business Secretary, Vince Cable, quickstepped down to Brighton to address the conference of the GMB Union, and calmly warned delegates, in no uncertain terms, that they can either lay back and take the savage cuts from the coalition government or face the consequences, which will take the form of more draconian anti-union legislation than even Maggie could dream of.

The coalition’s plans to pre-empt any upcoming Seasons of Discontent include only allowing official strike action to be valid where over 50 percent of members vote to withdraw their labour. This despite the fact that turnout in May’s AV referendum was only 42 percent; if the rules being drawn up for the unions were applied to that particular plebiscite we would now be going through that shambles of a campaign all over again. Perish the thought.

However over the last twelve months we have come to expect this sort of hypocritical posturing from the government, aimed at punishing the ordinary working man and woman for the 30-year poker game that took place in the City of London. We have even got used to the fact the the Liberal Democrats are happy to do all the dirty work while the Tories get on with the more important matters of screwing up the NHS, the Royal Mail, higher education and so on.

What is most worrying is the deafening silence coming from the Labour party over the last week.

It seems Ed Miliband, frightened by the response of the reactionary media after his speech at the March for the Alternative in Hyde Park earlier this year, has taken cover in the vain hope that all will blow over and the coalition will make itself so unpopular by 2015 that he will be swept to number 10 to save the day. It is not going to blow over. The Con-Dems will continue on their crusade against the public sector in the coming years, and can be forgiven for believing they have no effective opposition – when the only public figure speaking up for public sector workers is the Archbishop of Canterbury, you know Labour is in a bit of a pickle.

It’s time we got over the 1983, defeatist attitude and spoke up for ordinary working people who face falling wages, living standards and an uncertain future. This does not mean retreating into an unelectable, hard-left cocoon; it means not forgetting those who founded the Labour party in the first place over a century ago.