The last paragraph says it all ....... By Kaarina Elisabeth So yesterday, with fear and trembling, we turned on our televisions and opened our newspapers to discover our fate. It was, however, predictable, who the main losers would be from the comprehensive spending review. Essentially, the Tory motive (and they admitted this in a radio interview recently), is to dismantle the welfare state in order to kick start the Big Society. The welfare state, they reason, has caused society to become selfish, unwilling to look after its own or fight to improve itself. Take away the welfare state, and Britain will return to a golden age, when people chatted to one another at the bus-stop and looked after their own. With this in mind, they have used the recession as an excuse to implement an ideology as old as the workhouse. Whilst I agree that the welfare state has contributed to a self-oriented society, the question is, will dismantling it kick-start the Big Society? Sadly, the answer has to be no. We wouldn’t have a welfare system in the first place if there was no need for one. And there have been no signs of the Big Society ever since the economic crisis first hit us. A recent study found Britain to be the most individualistic society in the world. Thirty years of self, triggered by the Iron Lady, have brainwashed a generation into incurable materialism. One suspects that even these huge cuts will not budge our self-centredness then. What these cuts will do, is lead to a more marginalised society, one where many will be catapulted into unemployment and poverty with no way out. A government that believes that removing benefits from a sick person whose partner is on the minimum wage, and who fails to recover within a year, ‘to incentivise work,’ pretty much says it all. If the government really wanted to address the deficit, they’d target universal benefits, the kind that allow wealthy pensioners to receive free travel and cold weather payments. They could have even touched that sacred cow, the NHS, that remains free at the point of access for everyone, no matter their income. They haven’t done any of these though, knowing that if they did, they’d lose the political support of the better off and the press that overwhelmingly represents those people’s interests. The poor, disabled and unemployed, on the other hand, are essentially voiceless, unable to fight back, so hitting them hard will result in little political damage. So there you have it. The Big Society. The George Osborne class will, I am sure, be the last to rush down the soup kitchen to help the homeless whose numbers are set to rise. Where your treasure is, there your heart is. That’s why the rich are rich. You don’t become wealthy by spending your time helping others. - See more at: communitycare.co.uk/blogs/service-user-voice/2010/10/tories-dismantle-welfare-state-to-protect-rich-from-cuts/#sthash.X6bCNmAl.dpuf
Posted on: Mon, 01 Jul 2013 12:34:23 +0000
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