Monday, August 16, 2010

The Unwashed

The press in general and especially the odious Daily Express who loves to churn out doom on a regular basis are seemingly laying the smack down on the unemployed without mercy at the moment. They want you to think the unemployed are the great unwashed responsible for nearly everything going wrong in the country today. It's easy for the government and the press to lay the blame with people out of work, after all they are an easy target but are the newspaper editors and politicians really in touch? Do they empathise with the man in the street that may have just lost his job, or a single parent struggling to hold down a part time job and raise a child?

Have we become a society that is so divided we can look down on the less fortunate so readily? I ask you, who has the moral high ground in say a boss that plays games on Facebook for hours a week in his office whilst doing nothing or the man/woman who is out desperately searching for a job? And let's be honest here, jobs that just aren't there.

The government must be revelling in the press headlines at the moment, it makes there job easier when it comes to purging the less fortunate or making them even poorer.

I will readily admit that there are people that use and abuse the benefit system to their advantage but this has been going on for years now, through different governments. Gradually as Britain has shut down over the last 30 odd years and lost its industry successive governments haven't addressed the problems of growing unemployment, training and a growing populace in general. Back in the 80s the Tory government had the Youth Training Scheme but everyone knows it was just a way of keeping the unemployment figures down and giving employers free reign to exploit cheap labour, believe me, there was little training involved in the YTS.

Apprenticeships are seemingly unheard of these days were once they were commonplace. Initiatives aren't being taken to remedy the growing underclass. Most young people from working class families or families on benefits have low literacy levels but lets be honest society is on decline in many different ways.

I'm not sure if we are still actually in a recession technically, I suspect we are, jobs aren't readily available for sure. I realise there's problems, I realise people do take advantage but most importantly I realise there are genuine people out there wanting to work. The press will play devils advocate and raise questions regarding unemployed people or foreigners taking jobs because it's easy pickings. The press loves to peddle misery and be divisive, out of touch editors love to curry favour with out touch politicians whilst quaffing wine and eating business lunches unawares of thousands of miserable people out there desperately wanting work.

We are becoming more of a divided nation, a case of those of have, and those that have not. I'm pretty sure we've all used benefits of some sort in the past, especially as the last couple of decades have been turbulent employment wise. What we have in the benefit system is an amazing thing, unique in the world, like the NHS. Before we chastise the unemployed, berate people for claiming some form of helpful benefit take a moment think about the plight of those that genuinely need it and realise that the majority that do need it outweigh the ones that abuse the system.

As for me, I won't be joining silly Facebook groups that denounce the unemployed, I won't be buying into fluctuating figures of this and that regarding scrounging people on benefits from the press. There are thousands of people out there that need benefits, disabled people, war veterans, people with mental health - who are we to label them lesser citizens?

I feel for the average man out there that may have lost his job and may be losing hope due to the sense of apathy that comes with being out of work. As a nation though it seems the powers that be would prefer us to pour scorn upon them, decry them and lay the blame on them when it is past governments (mainly the Tories but Labour are guilty too) who have sold British industry out and encouraged cheap imports that are culpable.

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