Toffee

Bloody Ozzy Osborne; I ‘ate him, the posh, Tory toff. With his toffy nose and his toffy, totty wife and all his toffy friends and all their…. Toffee. What do they know about the working man, eh? Tell me that? You can’t, can you, you toff? You toffy, toffy toff-toff tosspots, the lot of yer! With your, “Work for your dole money” and your “No more something for nothing” whines. Well we’ll bloody show you. You bloody toffs.

“A serious plan for a grown up country” he said. Making work pay? Hah! Any idiot can do that. I, on the other hand, have been a right entrepreneur; I’ve made not working pay for all of my life so far. He says if you’re not in a job you have to turn up every day at the Job Centre, or else do charity work, or jump through a bloody hoop in some other way. Training, he said, training to get some basic skills. He thinks we’re all illiterate and innumerate.

Well I have a dozen mates who’ll show him who’s innumerate. If we round up another dozen there’s twenty, straight off, ready to march on Number Ten. Wait, that’s Cameron’s house innit? Osborne’s next door isn’t he? Number twelve, it’ll be. So, we’re gonna march on Number Twelve Downing Street and demonstrate outside until we get an answer. What’s that? They’re in Manchester? Fuck off! Bloody toffs never leave that London. We know; we’ve seen ‘em on the telly with their Lamborghinis and their yachts, scoffing posh grub in their posh castles.

It’s criminal what they get away with. I mean all them expenses scandals, ripping off us taxpayers, like that. The nerve! And it’s not like they do fuck-all is it? I’ve seen ‘em, getting pissed and shouting at each other in the House of Commons and all that. Calling coppers plebs (allegedly) and flipping their ‘ouses and everyfink. And don’t get me started on the bloody Bedroom Tax. Where else am I gonna keep me ‘ydroponics? I ‘ave a business to run you know; it’s not like I can survive on the pittance I get off the dole.

You don't get me, I'm part of the Onion!

So anyway, we’re gonna show ‘em, right? My mate Dave is out there right now, nicking a minibus and we’re gonna drive down to that London and we’re gonna give ‘em bloody illiterate all right. We’re gonna march up and down outside that Number Twelve until we get our grievances heard. Now, back to them placards. Anybody know if there’s one or two I’s in ‘wiirk’? 

Work not fair?

So, an interesting evening's fun on The Twitter last night as I was gently gummed by a pair of caring lefty-types eager to berate me for being a Fascist monster intent on eating babies. It's a fair point that I'm not a fan of mewling, puking  rug rats, but I've never eaten a whole one.

It all started out as one of my playmates complained about having been to Tesco and encountering what she saw as the jaw-dropping hypocrisy of their support for food banks. Maybe they should have considered this before participating in the heinous practice of Workfare, went her wail, to which I responded that the two were entirely unrelated.

I was called several unpleasant names and my entire reason and right to existence were questioned but, to be fair I did respond in hysterically ranty terms by suggesting she had a naive grasp of the situation as may befit, say, a socialist. This grossly unfair slur on my part was taken in poor humour as another joined the fray and I became a eugenecist and an unfit human, yada, yada, yada...

But here's the thing. Far from being slave labour, workfare involves companies in all sorts of financial risks from the deployment of untrained staff. Resentful, surly youths are unappealing in a visible, front-of-house role, while teenage lads trundling trains of trolleys into parked cars are hardly a great advert for your enterprise. The unreliability of those with no work ethic can cause logistical headaches and the lack of gratitude for the opportunities afforded can be astonishing.

In my business - electrics - the taking on of an apprentice is fraught with uncertainty. Many youngsters these days have no idea how to behave with customers and see the imposition of work into their formerly fully-catered lives as some form of punishment for having been born. Taking on an unskilled worker is a risky business expense with any prospective returns occurring only a long way in the future; I have met many small business owners who have forgone the practice after seeing what a thankless task it can be.

Not so many generations ago the apprentice's father paid the master for the privilege of learning a trade, not least because an apprentice slows you down while simultaneously foisting his cack-handedness on your innocent customers, who may not thank you for it. Now, not only is a business expected to pay a wage, but you also somehow believe them to have an ethical role in society.

What do we want? Not too much work!

So, listen; the only ethical concern a business has is to its owners. If you don't like the way Tesco plays then don't shop there, but at least recognise that in taking on your idle, worthless spawn without charging you for the training, they are actually doing us all a favour. Now, excuse me, I have to go to work to pay taxes so that you can sit on your sofa and be outraged at my horrific right-wing stances.

Wrong to work?

Hmm, I happened upon an interesting discussion yesterday in which a lawyer was arguing with a benefit recipient about the relative merits of their respective endeavours. The lawyer pontificated about the apparent lifestyle choice of the supposed scrounger and its validity, resting on the principle ‘wrong to work’.

The benefit recipient, quite rightly asked what (if anything) positive came from the lawyer's work. The lawyer lost the argument (soundly, it appeared to me) when the only response mustered was 'achieving equality for clients'. This was countered with the accusation that, as an intangible benefit, equality didn’t count as value.

Then, naturally, the labels started flying, starting with something like commie, which resulted in the lazy and obvious retaliation of fascist, swiftly followed by Tory, red, chav, scum, toff and all the usual suspects and before you could say ‘giro’ the whole argument was a busted flush.

If the validity of somebody's existence lies in the sum of 'worth' they provide to the world, it could very easily be argued that lawyers, as a ‘species’, contribute very much to the deficit. In fact the best paid lawyers are generally retained by those whose own actions are highly questionable – that’s antimoral leverage in action. It is no accident that many US politicians and presidents have practised law, a trend becoming ever more popular over here.

So, stalemate? I don't believe in rewarding idleness - how could any rational thinker? But I actually quite like the idea of 'wrong to work' in a sense - it is often said that if you find a job you love you never have to work again. And if more people were happy there would be less need for bloody lawyers in the first place!

I understand and support the idea of a financial safety net – instant evictions and suchlike would only create yet more work for lawyers, after all – but any such system will always be open to exploitation by the unscrupulous. We’ve seen it happen time and time again.

But, rich or poor, fit or lame, the concept of earning a living still applies. If you earn your place by graft or talent or by the largesse of those around you it shouldn’t matter until you are perceived as taking the piss. This applies as much to tax-avoiders being ostentatious as it does to those fraudulently ‘on the sick’. Nobody should get a free ride (although you should be allowed to coast in the slipstream from time to time).

Self-sufficiency is a laudable aim and moral self-sufficiency is a grand idea, except for the huge lack of self-awareness that man displays, but unless you want to cut yourself off completely it can rarely work. Bartering a few eggs or an occasional sack of spuds is hardly likely to fund a Sky subscription. For that you need money.

And there’s your problem, right there. Even if you reset everything and money became merely an intermediary currency, it would take no time at all for human avarice to re-establish, then accelerate, the wealth gap. In a grown-up world, I guess you just have to accept that and choose which course of living makes you least unhappy.

Is it so wrong to work? (Comments below)

The Good Old Days

The Grauniad's stance on the news that Jobseekers are being 'encouraged' to work for their allowance is predictable. "Where will it all end?" their readers cringingly ask, not an un-wrung hand amongst them.

Yesterday, on Twitter I suggested that the word 'breadline' is bandied about as if there really was such a thing in Britain today. Well, today, I look to the future. Here, in an extract from an interview published in The Guardian 16th February 2087, you can clearly see the damage being wrought...

"Strikers threaten families like us."

Jean is a typical young mother, struggling to cope with ever-increasing demands on her income. She is a fashionably trim eighteen stone and always makes an effort to present herself well, but times are getting hard. Jean tells of a terrifying encounter in the car park at her local Asco superstore:

"So, there I was, puffing and panting, trying to get my shopping into the hover car and would anybody help me? No. And I'll tell you why - the lazy, skinny little bastards that Asco employ are only interested in one thing - prising as much of my money off me as possible. I mean, it's not like I'm wealthy is it? They just watched me struggling and I think I saw one of them laughing... or it might have been a cough - so many of them are diseased aren't they? They should just be grateful they have jobs, I mean the state just can't afford to support them; they have to pay their way, innit?

I do my bit. I try, anyway. I always buy the best cuts and I don't skimp on the trimmings... and I don't bother with that scrimping and saving that some whinge about. I'm a member of a health spa - fat lot of good that does me, as I never go, but it does help to move money round the economy doesn't it? Every little helps. I even take one of my holidays in England these days, just to help, you know? We do go abroad, yes, 'cos you have to get away from the hell of it all, don'tcha? We tried Scotland once, though. Big mistake. 'Orrible. All them beggars and slums and stuff.

Anyway, what was that? The gym thing? Oh yeah, the government decided that with my condition it would help me lead a better life, but it wouldn't be no good, really.  I have a low metabolism. My homoeopath told me and she don't come cheap, so she must be right, right? And that's just one more expense, I mean, what with the aromatherapy and the acupuncture as well, it all adds up. I'm no stranger to cutting back, I can tell you - I had to cancel my daily personalised horoscope subscription. I cried that day; just like it said.

I like, blame Mrs Thatcher. My great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather told me. Well, it was all her fault, really, the breakdown in society. I mean, it stands to sense doesn't it? Before she come along, everyone was happy doing their bit for The Unions, gawd bless them. (Jean crosses herself) But she started that war, you know, with the young people - the minors - and then all hell broke loose. It was never the same afterwards and it wa'n't worth it anymore.

I mean, back then,you worked for the unions and they promised to pay you what you were worth, whether you were worth it or not. A fair deal. They even made the government employ twice as many people as they needed sometimes, but she ruined all that. And look where it's come to! It's come to this! (By this, Jean means the bustling activity of the supermarket.)

I mean I can hardly bear to look at them, they're like, like... insects! I can hardly say their name - those 'workers' - ungrateful bastards. They make my flesh crawl. Last time we needed to put up taxes to keep the country fed they threatened to go out on strike. Strike! It's always "me, me, me" with them. They only threatened, mind, because they know the police are allowed to shoot on sight at civil disorders. Can you believe the cheek of it? If I had to work, I'm sure I wouldn't begrudge 80% of my wages to help us poor people, struggling to get by on benefits."

Our interview closes with a last word from the beleaguered Jean:

"I have to get off. I have an aerobics class I'm not going to go to."

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Sometimes I'm accused of being out of touch with the thoughts of upright, decent, socialist members of society. It's good to know that, on Twitter, I can find as many right-thinking friends as I like! Here's what one Tweeter posted this morning - follow her and be saved!