Alright? 4 months since my last blog post........ Yeh i
really am no good at this keeping up with the Jones of "witty banter and
hard hitting political commentary" but i will try harder in the future i
promise. In my defense, I am about to enter into my 8th year straight of
University education and i have to admit that this summer, if id picked up
another historical book/newspaper, i was more likely to burn it rather than
read it. So i took a bit of a break and i read fictional books (.....not 50
shades tho....i mean come on....i have respect for my brain cells) took my
first trip back to Italy (my spiritual second home) in 6 years and reacquainted
myself with Pizza, Prosecco and the joys of swimming in my friends lake for
6hrs a day, and just generally did bugger all! (i also got to see my hero Tony
Bennett live in concert so iv spent a good few months just singing his greatest
hits on a loop. Also, im just generally a bit rubbish at putting my thoughts
down on paper – I generally think that no one will read it anyways ….but you
never know….
Anyway....enough pointless info....lets get back to the
papers.
Iv been fearlessly coding again
all week, which has strangely been a delight (ok delight may be a bit strong
but its been interesting shall we say). Twas good to get back into the world of
the 1940's tabloid and to read many an interesting story concerning everything
from vegetable crops being ruined in Dover due to frost, Craven cigarette
adverts where the tag line is "for your throats sake" (wow....just
wow) or the story of mysterious doorway 135 - the divorce courtroom that no one
could find....hence why divorce rates were down in Sussex. But a topic that
kept coming up again and again in stories, editorials and letters was The
Beveridge Plan and Britain's reaction to the report that would eventually
become the foundation for the Welfare State as we know it today. (For those of you who are not familiar with
the report - basically, it was chaired by William Beveridge, an economist, who
identified five 'Great Evils' within society which included squalor, ignorance,
want, idleness and disease and the point of the plan was to propose widespread
reform to the system of social welfare in order to address these problems after
the war. Published on December 2nd 1942, it was exceptionally popular with the
public and helped Britain and the newly elected Labour Gov. of 1945 to
develop systems to implement amazing things such as National Insurance and the
NHS - ok, factual bit over and il take my history teacher tweed jacket off now
:)
Now reading about the origins of the welfare
state struck a chord with me, not only coz i think its an awesome thing....like
amazingly brilliantly fantasticly fucking fabulous (i know it aint perfect but
still)...... it is, right now, in papers
across Britain and the world, being passionately debated as to whether this
Government and others like it can continue its spending on welfare. Questions
about its moral merits and affordability and the people who depend upon it are
a topic of daily discussion within the media. In America, at this very moment,
indignation is on the rise because Mitt "i think 47% of America are
slackers" Romney has not only threatened to dismantle the healthcare bill
known as 'Obama Care' (but still continue to provide healthcare for Americans
and all the lovely bits of Obama Care but basically remove the ‘taxes’ which
help pay for it…….yeh don’t ask me how that works either), he also wants to cut
millions from the Government budget which helps provide subsidies to things such as PBS. Basically Romney wants to
make Big Bird, Elmo, Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch
unemployed.......anyone who knows me well (or even if u don't know me THAT
well), you'll know my love for Sesame Street knows no bounds! Mitt has taken on
Elmo.....and in my book....no one fucks with my favourite cute, red furry monster
and gets away with it!
Similarly on this side of the pond, our own
lovable David "im really just an old elitist etonian scumbag" Cameron
has outlined his plans for his ‘Big Society’, his ‘Aspiration Nation’ which
will once again make Britain great!! And
as we all know this makes some very fine words but in reality, the translation
is that he continues to support vast swathing cuts to the NHS, welfare, public
transport…..anything you hold dear and that you and I think makes this nation
REALLY great….Dai Cameron will probably be supporting a cut somewhere along the
line. These policies continue to widen the gap between rich and poor and as the
OECD's latest report on rising inequality in Britain indicates, the bottom 30%
of the population hold just 3% of UK wealth, while the top third controls
somewhere close to 75% (ARE WE SURPRISED I HEAR YOU CRY??”). Clearly….as always…..money
speaks louder than words. Anywho, I bet you are wondering where I am going with
this? I mean I could rant all day long about Tory policy….believe me I could….and
how much I hate and disagree with it on every fundamental level. However, there
is a point to all this.
As I say, I’ve been reading about
the opinions and thoughts of newspapers and ordinary folk during the 1940’s on
the creation of a welfare state and how successful they thought the Beveridge Plan
would address and hopefully eradicate the inequalities which permeated their
society….and which apparently still
dog us today (I say apparently in my most sarcastic tone coz according to the
coalition inequality and “class division” just doesn’t exist anymore….. yeh
white elephant delivery for Number 10). Unsurprisingly however, many of the
questions that are asked of welfare’s validity and practicality today were
naturally asked at its inception. The Daily Herald on January 6th
1944 reported of a meeting of over 2000 young adults, teenagers mostly, who
were raising their questions and concerns about the report and whether its
ideas could become a practical reality. One boy asked whether it was possible
to get rid of unemployment in Britain when it still relied upon a faulty
Capitalist system. Surely a model based upon the USSR would be better? (yeh the
less said about that the better…….) However, he did ask what precautions would
be made in the event of ‘wanton idleness’ amongst those who would come to rely
on welfare? Oh my yes…..my dear boy….The Daily Mail would be proud of you and
that question (ok it is a fair question I’ll grant you but that’s neh my point –
im just getting to that). The main piece of commentary about the report that
really caught my eye and that got me thinking were the comments by a VERY right
wing Tory back bencher (described by my supervisor as a raving lunatic who
caused nothing but trouble and whose policies and attitudes towards Beveridge
were considered to be “behind the times” over 70 years ago…..
……….good….i loves me a good old
fashioned batshit crazy right wing nutjob I can have a pop at) name of Sir
Archibald Southby (you cant make that name up….its a beaut). Here is the segment
in full.
“Sir Archibald
Southby, Conservative M.P for Epsom, still pursues an anti-Beveridge policy. He
told a meeting of naval ratings regarding the Beveridge Plan that if things
were all right after the war, we shouldn’t need the Plan. If they were not we couldn’t
afford it anymore. You can only have it,
apparently, if you don’t want it”
The
Daily Herald, 9th May 1944, pg 2.
So basically, in the words of our
Archie……you’ve got to NOT want it before you can get it. So ladies and gentlemen,
in this world of ever changing political rhetoric and language, maybe we’ve
missed a trick! It’s now pretty much commonplace amongst politicians/corporations/banks/universities
to replace words such as “cuts” with its more amenable counterpart, “economies”,
or “coverups” with the phrase “redistribution of the facts”……(I mean im gonna
keep it brief coz the list goes on and on – again I’ll be here all day) But
maybe it’s not the words we use anymore (coz as our FABULOUS example of a
Deputy Prime Minister Cleggy illustrates, the meaning of certain words and
promises mean nothing in this day and age) but our actions instead. So I say to
you good people, start acting as though you don’t give two hoots for the NHS.
Welfare state? What’s the point in that then? Never liked it….don’t want it…..get
rid of it please!If you’re over the other side of
the pond, please….for you own sake….pretend you never liked Elmo, Big Bird and
Cookie Monster. Counting with ‘The Count’? Dear god……my children don’t require
this kind of Liberal brainwashing. Take it away from my screen if you please …..
(btw Fox news honestly believes
that Sesame Street is brainwashing your kids….teaching them about healthy
eating, sharing, kindness…..yeh the mind boggles….watch Jon Stewart tear Fox
apart because of it – seriously it’s a work of genius) http://www.deadline.com/2012/10/the-daily-show-rips-foxnews-sesame-street-jon-stewart-muppet-video/)
(also….i need a Che Grovera t shirt….anyone…Christmas…just thought id mention
it) where was i…oh yeh…
ONLY THEN, when you have eschewed
everyone’s favourite furry red monster will Mitt leave it alone……
Only
one problem with this….i love Elmo…. I love Cookie Monster….i love the NHS and I
owe my continuing existence to the fact that as a struggling student who faced serious illness, i didn't have to choose between paying for my health or paying the rent. The men and women who work for it so tirelessly every
day to keep it running, for low pay and little gratitude, are to be applauded for their efforts! And if we all start
pretending we never wanted them then I’m afraid they’ll disappear for good with
no hope of their return. Shame many politicians these days can’t seem to see
that many within this country are proud of the creation and achievements of the
Welfare State – that this very monument, to what we see as the cornerstone of a
civilised, developed and moral society, is what really makes Britain
GREAT. These politicians who shout that
we can no longer afford to keep it, while refusing to act upon the closure of corporate
tax loop holes, should really take a leaf out of our Archie’s ‘political
rhetoric’ book…….its not what you say, but how you act!
Pity they also seem to have the mentality of a man who was ‘behind
the times’ in 1944…… and they say politics has progressed……..
