There seems to be lots of outrage at the moment about the
odd exodus of people from London to random other parts of the country. There
was a large chunk of Newsnight1 the other day devoted to asking why London councils had decided to
dump children in care in towns that were rife with crime. People couldent
understand why London would send their most vulnerable children, those who had
been placed into care, into situations that in some cases were worse than the
ones they left. How is it that there is a high concentration of privately owned
children's homes in one small area known by the police for its large quantities of drug
dealers, prostitutes, probation hostiles and registered paedophiles?
Here's what I think is going on. The government, the people in charge of
allocating where the children should go? They don't care. The rent in these
places was cheap, and the law said that they had to stash 'em somewhere. So
like anyone forced to do tidy-up, they did it in the easiest, most half assed
manner possible. Throw some money at the problem, and get the cheapest bidder
to do the dirty work. Yay capitalism! Who
cares if a few hoodies get raped? They should of had the good sense not to be
born poor. It's just like the parenting classes.2 Poor
people are just inherently a bit shit. They must be, because they don't even
have any money! I mean, you must be stupid or lazy or addicted to drugs or
something! After all it's so easy to make money these days, isn't it?
Well no, actually it's not. It's easy to make money if you
already have money. If you can afford the police bribes, or the stakes in the
giant casino that is the stock market, then yeah, good for you. But if you're
working a part-time minimum wage job because that's all you can get, because
all the unpaid workfare people have been allocated all the hours that you used
to do, then no. Money is not easy to come by. And when the housing benefits get
capped, but the landlords are still allowed to charge whatever they want, there
is simply not enough money3. And so, Exodus. The movement of the
people. Out with you filthy poor scum. Only pure-bred yuppies are allowed to
live here. As a council officer declares: "To live in Westminster is a
privilege, not a right!"4. Personally, I think that
says it all. It's an ideological argument, not an economical argument. Economically
it's a bit suicidal. I mean, if you can't afford to live in London on a
bin-man's wage, then who is going to empty the bins? Who will deliver the
letters if being a postman doesn't pay? Who will man the tills at Tesco? Do you
all really like self-service checkouts that much?
Of course, there will be those who tell me I'm spouting
bollocks, that there is no such thing as class warfare or even class any more.
That this is just incompetence and people not paying attention, or being unable
to do anything about it because there not enough money, debt crisis, mess Labour
left us etc. I don't know, maybe there's an element of that, yes. But as this
guy concludes5;
"The government's own impact assessment and academic
research makes clear that people will be forced to move because of the changes
and central parts of London will to a certain extent become the preserve of the
rich with more lower income people congregating in cheaper areas of the
capital. "Social cleansing" is a strong term that some readers have
objected to. But there is some evidence of a trend consistent with it. "
No comments:
Post a Comment