Mock the Weak

Lots of propaganda skirmishes joined over the last few days, but who do you believe? They say you can’t hypnotise somebody who doesn’t want to go under and it is much the same with persuasion; entrenched views are harder to shift than shit on a blanket. 

Some cultures need to be mocked out of existence - far left, far right, faddish and marginal movements and any religion intolerant enough to create people like Azhar Ahmed. But should this have ever got to court? Far better, surely, to let him say his stuff, point out his gullibility and ignorance, then point and laugh from your loftier vantage point… the British way. George Galloway was on LBC talking about freedom of speech and the limiting of such rights. But, George, where do you set those limits? 

A survey on attitudes to welfare reveals that those in work are feeling the strain of paying for those out of work, but at the same time there is an upwelling of feeling against the Atos witch-hunts, with plenty of stories of deplorable treatment at their assessment centres. Who do you believe? It wouldn't be the first time that special interest groups had rallied their supporters to flood the newspapers and radio phone-ins with sob stories. In life as in warfare we appear to have arrived at a point where no casualties are acceptable and to say otherwise is denounced as cruel. 

Talking of war, I was alerted recently to an apparently pernicious EU plot to brainwash tender young minds into becoming Euro-sheep. 

And so it goes. We are bombarded daily with a cacophony of propaganda from all the party machines with varying degrees of atrocity being forecast as the result of dissent. This is (sadly) a good thing because few people will be dissuaded from their chosen course and the UK will remain a mishmash of diverse opinion. It’s also (sadly) disastrous, because few people will be dissuaded from their chosen course, etc. 

How I long for the fictional good old days of the nineteen-sixties when, as amply demonstrated in psychological cold-war claptrap such as The Avengers (Diana Rigg could persuade me of anything!) whole audiences could be hypnotised and programmed by watching spinning discs and a tone sent over the phone could scramble an assassin before you could say 'Manchurian'. 

Whatever she said...

So, what ‘truth’ would you go for? Time to grow up, Britain and accept the cold reality that there is no free ride in life, that there is no magic sky pixie and that we each must triumph by our own endeavours. After all, even Ed Miliband appears to have embraced the notion that this doesn’t necessarily make you evil. 

Or do you want to carry on believing there is a limitless pot to satisfy every need, that every life has equal possibilities, that every soul is sacred and that we will all live happily ever after in a fluffy, happy wonderland?

Fact or fairy story; you choose.

Feeling Lucky?

According to our supposedly Christian creed it is more blessed to give than to receive, at least that’s what we were always told in the run-up to every Christmas ‘when I were a lad’. So, it’s not very Christian for all the various whingers out there to complain about giving back things which they should never have had in the first place.

It’s back to work this week for the government. With the traditional cabinet reshuffle under way and a horde of malcontents beating down the door to parliament, MPs will return to a barrage of feeble moaning from benefit recipients adjudged to not be in need, kids and teachers bemoaning their more representative exam results and minorities – why do we have so many bloody minorities? - demanding back their unequal rights in the name of equality.

In a telling sound bite from last week, following Atos’s “fit for work” assessments, I heard the demand, “Are we to believe there are deserving disabled and undeserving disabled?” Well frankly, yes. Just as there have always been deserving welfare recipients and undeserving, wilfully idle, it is well established that there are many thousands ‘on the sick’ who are perfectly capable of working for a living; the painful weeding out process is a necessary medicine.

Britain’s forty-year dalliance with Socialism – apart from an all-too-brief optimistic interlude in the eighties - has been marked by an erosion of our national character to be shored up with an absurd sense of individual self-worth, self-awareness and an X-Factor-infantilised population who believe they can all be stars. The cold reality is and always will be that people are what they make of themselves. Sometimes that’s easy, usually it’s hard, but it’s slightly absurd of the disability rights campaigners (with whom we all, no doubt have some sympathies) to use those who have done just that – the paralympians – to lobby for many who won’t.

Governance isn’t about fairy tale endings for all, it’s about doing what we can with what we’ve got and we just can’t afford to deal equally with every marginal ‘social’ issue when we are drowning in debt. Of course that means that all the special needs lobbies will clamour all the more for the scarce resources left, but as that bites harder on those who provide, is it any wonder that support is waning?

Ask yourself, would you really rather we were nice than alive? If Cameron is going to rescue his beleaguered administration, now is the time to tighten the screws all the more. Strong leadership and sod the consequences - bugger the inconsequential and get on with the job while you still have a chance Mr C. Oh and George Osborne? Don’t worry about being booed last night – that’s just the sound of commie-pinko weakness being squeezed from the British body corporate. You keep cutting old son – cut until they have no option but to get back to work.

But a ray of light in all the darkness. Government Minister Alan Duncan, said his constituents Andy and Tracey Ferrie should not be prosecuted for allegedly shooting burglars who targeted their property in Melton Mowbray. Hooray for common sense. In fact this could go further.

Feel lucky, punk?

In the United Dingdom it will be the duty of the police not only to catch burglars but to restrain them while the property owners take pot-shots at them with a twelve-bore.