My little Christmas message...

I've taken the unusual step of posting this entry here as well as submitting it to Your Thurrock because I get the feeling it won't get posted over there.  It's a little strong for the silly season but, I have to say, it's been toned down from my original that invoked images of Nazi book burning!

So, let’s recap the financial situation we find the UK in at the moment…

We are in the middle of the most severe financial crisis in living memory.  We are suffering the most severe austerity measures in living memory.  The austerity measures that the ConDem Coalition forced upon us to solve the problem of the enormous budget deficit are not going to solve it in the five-year timeframe they thought it would; it’s now going to take seven years, which is longer than the current term of the Coalition.  Austerity measures on this scale have never lasted as long as the current ones have to last, let alone an added two years.  According to experts, it is now too late to stop the austerity measures without spooking the financial markets.  The banks that caused the global financial crisis seem to be carrying on as if nothing was their fault, paying their bosses huge bonuses for their sterling work of bring about a global financial apocalypse; banks who, indeed, threaten to move their businesses overseas at the mere hint of sanctions against them.  The previous Labour Government that allowed the banking system to take such risks with the money in their charge by de-regulation now fails to take responsibility for their part in what happened.

Hmmmmmmmmmm…

I have been rather vocal in my assertion that the ConDem spending cuts are a way of culling the human herd, of killing off the underclass of society – the people on benefits and the elderly who are seen as leeches sucking the blood from society’s coffers.  Now, according to the local media, pensioners are going to have to make the impossible choice between keeping themselves fed and keeping themselves warm because of the high cost of energy production that is being passed down to the consumer.  And I’m not entirely convinced that it is just pensioners who will be making that choice.  We have extremely cold weather forecast for the coming winter and, even with the poor accuracy of the long-range forecasts, I’m not sure they’re wrong.  So how can the ConDems say with straight faces that their spending cuts aren’t hurting the most vulnerable in society?  I don’t see any of the current intake of MPs making that choice but then, aren’t they just overpaid parasites feeding off the misery and suffering of the people they say they represent?  What I’d like to know is – what are the ConDems going to do to try and help those they have hit hardest with their austerity measures?

If I’m right about the cuts being a way of culling the human herd, can we expect to see the books from closed-down libraries being burnt on huge funeral pyres onto which we will toss the bodies of the elderly, infirm and vulnerable who die during the winter having decided that they would rather die of hypothermia than starvation?  All the Government would have to do is make sure that the pyres are kept dowsed in some flammable liquid to stop them going out and it will look like the Springfield tyre fire in The Simpsons.  The pensions crisis would be over in a flash and the benefit bill would likewise be reduced, leaving the ‘productive’ section of society safely protected from the harsh realities of living hand to mouth, not knowing where the next meal is coming from.  But beware; the lower classes will then be the targets of Cameron and his cronies until only the rich survive.

I may have painted a rather bleak picture but am I the only one who can see this being a real possible future?  I may have exaggerated a bit for the sake of shock value but we’re not far from that dark reality that I have fixed in my mind.

I was a little dismayed that the focus of the recent strike action was on the purely selfish concern of public sector worker pensions rather than the greater issue of how the cuts are going to affect the poorest and most vulnerable.  With such a narrow focus, even with two million strikers, it made for a pretty poor message.  If there should be a repeat performance, the strike should focus on the bigger issue and then more people might come out in support and deliver a message to the ConDems that cannot be ignored.

So, while those of you who are in a position to celebrate Christmas this year, please spare a thought for those who will be lucky to make it through the winter alive.  Be kind and reach out to those in need because one day it could be you.

Until next time…