As a society many of our sayings have origins in our earlier cultures and some disappear into the depths of history where they have been spoken in many languages by many peoples, different themes but all with the same meanings. There is one saying that I think is very appropriate to the situation we find ourselves in. A situation that has not appeared overnight, or indeed over a few months, a situation that has been years in the making and as a result will be many years in the unmaking. I’m not referring to Brexit here but to the overall situation of which the vote to remain or leave the EU is simply a part, though the most obvious part, instead I am referring to the damage done to our society as a whole, to our overall attitudes and unity as a nation. Six years ago a single man did very well in a series of television debates and as a result his inconsequential political party suddenly found themselves in the position of kingmakers, they chose to place the crown on the head of one David Cameron and he in turn picked out those he thought loyal (or owed favours to) and made them his senior ministers. History may well curse Mr Clegg for his choice that day, men certainly do, but the fact remains that he made a choice and set this nation on the path it still follows. Almost from the beginning the Tory rule was one that the kings and princes of history would recognize, divide and conquer, divide and rule, lies and deceit, corruption and greed, fear, the spy listening at the door or peering through the window, crushing poverty alongside unimaginable wealth and all carried out as the will of the King become divine and therefore beyond challenge. You can read the above and chuckle but think about what I am saying, but remember Cameron standing at a gold plated lectern wearing his suit that costs as much as many make in a whole year while he spoke of permanent Austerity, that name that they have given to a political and economic policy that has the sole purpose of transferring wealth from the poor to the rich. Remember Cameron speaking about the recent death of an MP, murdered in an act of domestic terrorism we normally associate with third world banana republics, remember him calling for an end to the hatred and division. Rank hypocrisy, his words, his attitude, enough to make many otherwise decent people want to punch him in his smug mouth as he took advantage of a memorial service to a woman murdered by the hatred and division that has been the standard of his rule, to call for an end to division and hatred. Hypocrisy. And yet he is hardly alone in this, his entire government's policies over the last six years have been based around turning one part of our society against another, of spreading fear and making people afraid of the future or of one group or another, and of spreading hatred about groups of people or potential futures. All supported, and in the case of channel 5 enthusiastically so, by a mainstream media that operates more as political or government propaganda. The unemployed are all cheats and frauds, workshy and lazy, living the life of luxury on the money paid by those hard working tax payers. The poor, feckless and worthless, if only they worked harder to find a good job so they weren’t sponging off the system with all those benefits they claimed. The disabled, nothing but a bounce of scam artists with their hands outstretched and a sob story on their lips, refusing to work and instead demanding ever more money for no better reason than they ‘claim’ to need extra help. The old, people who think that just because they got old they are entitled to a pension when they still have a few years of work left in them. The young, those under 25 who are lazy and useless, can’t be trusted and such an unproductive waste of a job that they don’t deserve to be paid an adults wage, oh and who should still be living at him with the family and aren’t worth anything till they are over 21. Then we have those dammed immigrants coming over here taking jobs that British people are too lazy to take or even apply for. The whingers and the whiners who complain they can’t live on those zero hours contracts. The greedy people queuing up for all that free food that food banks hand out. Students who complain that leaving Uni with debts of £40k + is a bad thing, bunch of trouble makers looking for the hard paying taxpayers to fund them. Even that phrase that I have deliberated used several times and which our politicians have pushed into general use, a simple phrase and yet one that is an integral part of the division and the hatred. Hard working taxpayer. A taxpayer: Someone who contributes to society by paying taxes, so not anyone who earns under £10k a year, meaning not the poor, not those on benefits, not those in part time or zero hours jobs that pay under the tax threshold. Hardworking: Diligent, dedicated, working with determination and energy, tireless and unflagging, industrious and enthusiastic, someone prepared to make the extra commitment and to work those extra (unpaided) hours for the good of the company and country. So not applying to those slackers and wastrals who aren’t (or can’t) give 110% for the full eight hours a day five days a week. Put these two together and consider the way in which this phrase is used by Cameron and the rest of his type, it is Hardworking Taxpayers who are being cheated by the benefit frauds, Hardworking Taxpayers who “It is not fair to ask hardworking taxpayers to fund the benefits of” “Victims of a welfare trap laid by Labour, paid for by hardworking taxpayers.” “My commitment to 30 million hardworking taxpayers” “They never stand up for are the British people and hardworking taxpayers.”. “Where hard work is rewarded – where we make work pay” Hardworking, a phrase so often used by the lords of the land to describe the peasants and the serfs and with such contempt. Divide society, turn it against itself, foster fear and hatred at every level. People who hate and fear those in another town or in the next street cannot unite to oppose the king who rules over them, people struggling to put food on the table don’t have time to challenge the rule of their lords and masters. People with huge debts hanging round their necks like millstones don’t go near the sea of discontent for fear of drowning. It’s all about control and how to get it and keep it. A government that represents the counted votes of a quarter of the nation and yet able to impose such terrible conditions on the population without any real fear of response. Because they have made people fear any alternative (though Labour incompetence certainly helped). Brexit didn’t start this, but it does show it clearly as the curtain has been pulled down and the division, fear mongering and hatred is clear to see. Jo wasn't killed because of Brexit, she was simply another victim of the fear and the hatred that has been government and Tory policy for years. A sign that people are beginning to reach the point where such violence becomes an option. If someone who by all accounts was a decent and fair MP can be killed by this fear and hatred how must someone like IDS be feeling, what chill wind is blowing down the well guarded corridors of power as those who have earned such fear and hatred look at what they have created. Tomorrow the nation goes to vote, on Friday we will have the numbers. But nothing will change, oh the markets will scream and the situation will be used to make the likes of Soros even more millions. But the sun will still rise, it will still rain and life will go on. The fear, the hatred, the division, they will still be with us, because these have become part of our society thanks to six years of deliberate political and governmental policy by our Tory lords and masters. It will be years before anything changes as a result of tomorrows vote, if anything does change. But on Saturday there will still be sections of our society that are used as objects of fear and hatred, groups who are made out to be the enemy, people whose income makes them worthless to society as a whole, or at least that’s what we are told. Next week channel 5 will still be making those on benefits out to be money grabbing scum, the phrase ‘Hard working Taxpayers’ will still be used to divide and to dismiss the poor, the unemployed, the part time workers. After six years of almost constant fear and hatred and division it will take a generation to recover from this, if it is even possible. Six years of being taught to fear and to hate by our own government, six years of constant media propaganda about the enemy without and the enemy within. Six years. The length of the Tory rule. Six years of hatred and envy, six years of fear and uncertainty, six years of turning neighbour against neighbour. That isn’t going to fade anytime soon and even if Dave and everyone like him is killed by that asteroid strike that will happen if the leave vote wins the damage they have done will be with us for long years. The Brexit campaign will be done and forgotten but the anger and the fear will still be there, not because of a few months of campaigning over Europe, but because of six years, six whole years, where fear and hatred and division has been political and governmental policy. Six years in the making and a generation in the recovery. The poisonous legacy of Cameron and his Tories and he hasn’t gone yet, nor will the Tory policy of division, fear and hatred fade with him, his replacement will come from a short list of people surrounded by those who actively spread the fear and the hatred. At the beginning of this piece I spoke about a saying, something that in many forms and many languages has existed I believe for thousands of years. Some will recognize it as biblical, others will know it from other sources but while the words change, the meaning remains the same. What you sow, what you plant, that is what you will harvest. Cameron and the Tories have spent six years planting seeds that are growing into trees whose branches are fear and hatred, trees whose roots are division and separation, trees that have grown quickly and are now everywhere you look. After six years those trees are being harvested and the fruit of all that hatred, fear and division is going to be bitter indeed. |
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