If you’ve been paying attention to our almighty Tory led government over the last couple of years you will no doubt have become aware that everyone on benefits is a lazy, cheating lay about who deserves nothing. As soon as they can find a way to placate those miss-guided liberals who maintain that people who rely on the welfare state have rights like anyone else, these spongers will be taken behind the chemical sheds and shot.
Well, it’s OK if that had slipped your notice because Alec Shelbrooke, MP for Elmet and Rothwell (depressingly near to me) has given us a reminder with a suggestion for a flagship policy in this hateful agenda. According to Shelbrooke people on certain benefits will be given their money on credit cards that prevent them from buying anything the government doesn’t think they should.
You’ve probably guessed where this is going. The two ‘big baddies’ of wasted welfare are mentioned. No fags and no booze for you naughty dole bunnies. You’re not allowed to gamble either. Or use ‘paid for TV channels’ (so…as I can’t find anything telling me specifically what that means, I’m assuming it’s anything that isn’t Freeview. I'm confidant that, if you're that way inclined, you will still manage to waste your life watching Freeview and fulfill another benefit recepient stereotype). As an aside I’m pretty sure if you’re locked into a contract with a company like Sky or Virgin they won’t look kindly on you cancelling it mid contract and will wallop you with fines, which you then won’t be able to pay because your only access to currency is a flimsy little plastic card that bars you from buying anything but pre-approved items.
One also can’t help but wonder how far they’d go with this. Will it be extended to banning you from buying anything but economy brand food? How about if you insist on shopping at Sainsburys? Will it frog march you down to Lidl to save the Treasury pennies? There’s also the assumption that the government (and Alec Shelbrooke in particular) know exactly what ‘essentials’ are. You might not starve to death if you don’t buy your child a birthday cake or present, but it seems unnecessarily cunty to deny them these little things because their parents had the audacity to lose their jobs.
Right, now I’ve done my nit picking we can move onto the moral objections. Chiefly among the moral objections is HOW FUCKING DARE HE?! What gives this trumped up Tory fuckwit the right to tell people how to live their lives? Treating people on benefits like idiots who don’t know what’s good for them is far more damaging than the odd snifter of booze or puff on a cigarette. It infantilises people and will only build up resentment for the government and the agencies that are trying to support them.
There is also the pretty insulting implication that people who are on benefits are utterly feckless and can’t handle being trusted with money. How would Alec Shelbrooke like it if they lost their job and, rather than being treated like a human being, they were treated like an incompetent fool that can’t be trusted not to drink themselves to death as soon as their given a lump sum in cash? Because that’s what this outrageous proposal will mean. This is the further dehumanisation and vilification of people on benefits. People who have done nothing wrong and need support. People who may be going through a very rough patch in their lives. Ideas like this, although not law, feed into misconceptions that blight the lives of millions of people. This will do no good at all.
Also has that arrogant thundercock ever considered that, when you’re at your lowest, you might need a few comforts to make you feel better? As us dole bunnies look like we’re about to lost the right to a pint down the pub with mates I suggest we be allowed to lynch clueless Tory MPs.
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