34% of UC claimants are working. So, 34% of UC claimants are employed by benefit scroungers, many of whom could easily afford to pay actual, living wages. Every UC claimant has to be means tested. Must prove they are poor enough. Why not means test those employers? If they are posting billions in profits, paying their execs 200 times their lowest paid, then they should be forced to pay liveable wages. If those on minimum wage need benefits in order to survive, then that minimum wage is clearly not enough. Am I alone in blaming corporate greed for many of our problems?
I’m so sick of dog whistle politics - especially when it’s increasingly coming from supposed “bastions” of our nation, “The Times” “BBC” plus these days “The Government”. It just shows how morally bankrupt they have become trying to appease their big business paymasters. We need a total reset.
There is a TV show that I often see listed called “The Nazis a warning from history”. And when you see how they rose and how they dehumanised a set of people it is hard to imagine how it took such a hold but yet here we are seeing it play out all around us. Articles like yours heed the warning of course but can they stop this seemingly unstoppable train? I fear a significant amount of people just don’t want to hear what you are saying.
First: Funnily enough this week I shall be mostly thinking about pensions (due to me doing a first level course on the pathway to becoming a union pensions rep). Now pensions are something that have been jiggered about with going back to their very first inception as a state duty. Both state and additional... it's very long and complex. TL;DR? A lot of money is involved and every flavour of government along with every part of the finance sector has been licking its eyeballs over that. TL;DR#2 as you get older you're going to get shafted harder and harder (oo-err).
Second: I have to pull you up over "it’s a social safety net that’s based on your residency and contribution". I've seen the to-and-fro with the person who clued you in to this and therefore (IMO) you should be crystal about your use of "contribution" in this bit. It's obvious in context, but t's crossed and i's dotted... don't give them any ammo at all. They'll pick at hairs. Damn, they'll pick at imaginary hairs even.
Third: What better way to prevent any real independent scrutiny of policy that by hollowing out, say, the institutions that will be producing the next generation of scrutineers. One direction of attack might be, say, restrict the numbers of lucrative foreign students that are actually subsidising our home students. Another might be, for example, proscribing the prospectus so as to eliminate "Mickey Mouse" courses like sociology, anthropology, history (including economic and political history in some cases). Government-controlled HE would cease to be a map of intellectual possibility and more a blue print for political conformity. Curiosity would be replaced by compliance; critical inquiry by a career checklist. The vibrant diversity of a modern university would be streamlined into a tidy, utilitarian pipeline, promising only a straight path to the jobs the current government deems valuable (I'll leave 'pay' out of the consideration of value for now). Removing or reducing for example arts and humanities would send a clear message that in Newspeak terms might read " ignorance is strength–a society thrives not on imagination, but on obedience to a central plan".
Last two things: One persistent myth about migration that deserves retiring is the knee-jerk demonisation of Islam and sharia law. The 'meat-roll-necked' brigade rarely bother to learn the first thing about either before launching into their tirades... it's tiresome, it really is. As for headline rewriting—nothing comes close from this humble Paddingtonette (Cubly? Do you have a preferred term for followers? Other than 'sane people', that is.).
The value of a University degree is to be measured by the amount that can be earned when they graduate, meaning acquiring knowledge for its own sake has no value.
I don`t think these are the exact words the previous P.M. said ( Rishi Sunak ) but they are what he meant.
"The UK is home to some of the best universities in the world and studying for a degree can be immensely rewarding; but too many young people are being sold a false dream and end up doing a poor-quality course at the taxpayers' expense that doesn't offer the prospect of a decent job at the end of it. That is why we are taking action to crack down on rip-off university courses, while boosting skills training and apprenticeships provision. This will help more young people to choose the path that is right to help them reach their potential and grow our economy."–Rishi Sunak
"These new measures will crack down on higher education providers that continue to offer poor quality courses and send a clear signal that we will not allow students to be sold a false promise. Wherever they choose to study, it is vital students can gain the skills needed to get great jobs and succeed - supporting the Prime Minister's priority to grow our economy."–UK Education Secretary Gillian Keegan
Source: Economic Times / Indian Times. Jul 17, 2023
Cost of everything, value of nothing springs to mind.
Of course the back-to-front approach to this (I do like to sidle up to a problem and tip it on its head when it isn't looking) is that you could make the employment outcomes of "Mickey Mouse" degrees pay better. The problem isn't per se the courses that are leading to low pay employment–the laws of supply and demand determine the courses that are active and survive from prospectus-to-prospectus over the years–the problem is that some courses, particularly the arts, lead to jobs that aren't paying so good. It's clear the demand is there in terms of intellectual interest and student ability. Surely it's a crime that someone, by reasons of economic forces, has to choose between playing the clarinet and playing the stock market or turning a pirouette and turning a lathe?
Paddingtonette (n.): A thoughtful, quietly rebellious individual who navigates the world with civility, wit, and a marmalade-scented moral compass. Often found rewriting headlines and sipping tea whilst dismantling nonsense.
Those in charge (sic) are useless at so much, but masters of division. Convince the pitchfork people that the torch people want their pitchforks and vice versa and hopefully they won't notice your bloody great limousine, other luxury swag and ill-gotten gains.
The Times article is propagandised racism. It is also part of a broader scheme.
The right as a whole, whether Tory, Blue Labour and Reform are in thrall to the idea that Social Security is bad, literally scrounging by feckless ner-do-wells sponging of the deserving entitled wealthy and the comfortably off.
Within that payments to immigrants is just a small subset.
The whole project is deeply malicious. Foul in fact.
It's not often I feel compelled to object to something in one of your missives, dear Iratus, but in this case I really must. This may appear the height of pedantry; however, we pride ourselves on our fidelity to the truth and our pursuit of accuracy.
On the topic of Universal Credit, in the case of low-wage workers, you make the following observation:
"UC has become a wage top-up scheme for people whose jobs pay them too little to live on."
This is arguably only partially correct. It does, as you note, raise those workers' standard of living from destitute to merely impoverished. However, there is another dimension to Universal Credit: another group that is exploiting the benefits system, who they've not contributed adequately to, who are utterly undeserving of those benefits, and who could forego them and still maintain a standard of living most of the country could only dream of.
Who, I hear you cry? Why, it is the British companies that are the leading employers of UC claimants. The likes of Tesco's, who post multi-million pound profits whilst begruding workers pay rises and working hours that would allow them to stop claiming UC.
The narrative of immigrants coming to the UK to claim benefits is kind of funny but also tiring. If I wanted to live off the state, I would have remained in Spain. There's zero safety net in the UK if you are down on your luck and, say, lose your job or get ill.
For some reason the narrative that has stuck post Thatcher is that it is somehow a moral failing if you need to resort to being supported by the state, when in fact one would expect that the reason we pay taxes is precisely to fund a welfare system that has our back when we need it.
The problem is not that people are claiming benefits, whether British or not. The problem is that a neoliberal agenda has taken over and little by little is convincing people that they need to be self-sufficient in any circumstance at all times because that's what being a good British citizen is.
But when even people in good jobs have already started to struggle to afford rent, let alone buy a house, blaming immigration isn't going to cut it anymore.
The underrepresentation could also be because they are unaware of the entitlement to universal credit. Our daughter and son in-law (white British and both working) have only just discovered they are entitled through a random conversation with a friend.
The only legitimacy Chris Philp has ever given to something is the idea that extremely stupid people can attain high levels of office. It's a worrying trend.
34% of UC claimants are working. So, 34% of UC claimants are employed by benefit scroungers, many of whom could easily afford to pay actual, living wages. Every UC claimant has to be means tested. Must prove they are poor enough. Why not means test those employers? If they are posting billions in profits, paying their execs 200 times their lowest paid, then they should be forced to pay liveable wages. If those on minimum wage need benefits in order to survive, then that minimum wage is clearly not enough. Am I alone in blaming corporate greed for many of our problems?
Now that is a brilliant idea. Taxpayers shouldn’t be subsidising their profits.
I’m so sick of dog whistle politics - especially when it’s increasingly coming from supposed “bastions” of our nation, “The Times” “BBC” plus these days “The Government”. It just shows how morally bankrupt they have become trying to appease their big business paymasters. We need a total reset.
Brilliant article, Bear. Seriously, hats off and pints raised.
You carved through the noise like a chainsaw through butter, and somehow made it look civilised.
We couldn’t resist tipping our own hat, covered it in our usual satirical carnage.
Thanks for doing what you do.
Keep swinging the pen like it owes you money.
https://satiricalplanet.substack.com/p/dear-matt-dathan-your-19-million
There is a TV show that I often see listed called “The Nazis a warning from history”. And when you see how they rose and how they dehumanised a set of people it is hard to imagine how it took such a hold but yet here we are seeing it play out all around us. Articles like yours heed the warning of course but can they stop this seemingly unstoppable train? I fear a significant amount of people just don’t want to hear what you are saying.
Another superlative piece of analysis.
Comments:
First: Funnily enough this week I shall be mostly thinking about pensions (due to me doing a first level course on the pathway to becoming a union pensions rep). Now pensions are something that have been jiggered about with going back to their very first inception as a state duty. Both state and additional... it's very long and complex. TL;DR? A lot of money is involved and every flavour of government along with every part of the finance sector has been licking its eyeballs over that. TL;DR#2 as you get older you're going to get shafted harder and harder (oo-err).
Second: I have to pull you up over "it’s a social safety net that’s based on your residency and contribution". I've seen the to-and-fro with the person who clued you in to this and therefore (IMO) you should be crystal about your use of "contribution" in this bit. It's obvious in context, but t's crossed and i's dotted... don't give them any ammo at all. They'll pick at hairs. Damn, they'll pick at imaginary hairs even.
Third: What better way to prevent any real independent scrutiny of policy that by hollowing out, say, the institutions that will be producing the next generation of scrutineers. One direction of attack might be, say, restrict the numbers of lucrative foreign students that are actually subsidising our home students. Another might be, for example, proscribing the prospectus so as to eliminate "Mickey Mouse" courses like sociology, anthropology, history (including economic and political history in some cases). Government-controlled HE would cease to be a map of intellectual possibility and more a blue print for political conformity. Curiosity would be replaced by compliance; critical inquiry by a career checklist. The vibrant diversity of a modern university would be streamlined into a tidy, utilitarian pipeline, promising only a straight path to the jobs the current government deems valuable (I'll leave 'pay' out of the consideration of value for now). Removing or reducing for example arts and humanities would send a clear message that in Newspeak terms might read " ignorance is strength–a society thrives not on imagination, but on obedience to a central plan".
Last two things: One persistent myth about migration that deserves retiring is the knee-jerk demonisation of Islam and sharia law. The 'meat-roll-necked' brigade rarely bother to learn the first thing about either before launching into their tirades... it's tiresome, it really is. As for headline rewriting—nothing comes close from this humble Paddingtonette (Cubly? Do you have a preferred term for followers? Other than 'sane people', that is.).
The value of a University degree is to be measured by the amount that can be earned when they graduate, meaning acquiring knowledge for its own sake has no value.
I don`t think these are the exact words the previous P.M. said ( Rishi Sunak ) but they are what he meant.
Was it this?
"The UK is home to some of the best universities in the world and studying for a degree can be immensely rewarding; but too many young people are being sold a false dream and end up doing a poor-quality course at the taxpayers' expense that doesn't offer the prospect of a decent job at the end of it. That is why we are taking action to crack down on rip-off university courses, while boosting skills training and apprenticeships provision. This will help more young people to choose the path that is right to help them reach their potential and grow our economy."–Rishi Sunak
"These new measures will crack down on higher education providers that continue to offer poor quality courses and send a clear signal that we will not allow students to be sold a false promise. Wherever they choose to study, it is vital students can gain the skills needed to get great jobs and succeed - supporting the Prime Minister's priority to grow our economy."–UK Education Secretary Gillian Keegan
Source: Economic Times / Indian Times. Jul 17, 2023
Cost of everything, value of nothing springs to mind.
Of course the back-to-front approach to this (I do like to sidle up to a problem and tip it on its head when it isn't looking) is that you could make the employment outcomes of "Mickey Mouse" degrees pay better. The problem isn't per se the courses that are leading to low pay employment–the laws of supply and demand determine the courses that are active and survive from prospectus-to-prospectus over the years–the problem is that some courses, particularly the arts, lead to jobs that aren't paying so good. It's clear the demand is there in terms of intellectual interest and student ability. Surely it's a crime that someone, by reasons of economic forces, has to choose between playing the clarinet and playing the stock market or turning a pirouette and turning a lathe?
Paddingtonette (n.): A thoughtful, quietly rebellious individual who navigates the world with civility, wit, and a marmalade-scented moral compass. Often found rewriting headlines and sipping tea whilst dismantling nonsense.
Those in charge (sic) are useless at so much, but masters of division. Convince the pitchfork people that the torch people want their pitchforks and vice versa and hopefully they won't notice your bloody great limousine, other luxury swag and ill-gotten gains.
The Times article is propagandised racism. It is also part of a broader scheme.
The right as a whole, whether Tory, Blue Labour and Reform are in thrall to the idea that Social Security is bad, literally scrounging by feckless ner-do-wells sponging of the deserving entitled wealthy and the comfortably off.
Within that payments to immigrants is just a small subset.
The whole project is deeply malicious. Foul in fact.
It's not often I feel compelled to object to something in one of your missives, dear Iratus, but in this case I really must. This may appear the height of pedantry; however, we pride ourselves on our fidelity to the truth and our pursuit of accuracy.
On the topic of Universal Credit, in the case of low-wage workers, you make the following observation:
"UC has become a wage top-up scheme for people whose jobs pay them too little to live on."
This is arguably only partially correct. It does, as you note, raise those workers' standard of living from destitute to merely impoverished. However, there is another dimension to Universal Credit: another group that is exploiting the benefits system, who they've not contributed adequately to, who are utterly undeserving of those benefits, and who could forego them and still maintain a standard of living most of the country could only dream of.
Who, I hear you cry? Why, it is the British companies that are the leading employers of UC claimants. The likes of Tesco's, who post multi-million pound profits whilst begruding workers pay rises and working hours that would allow them to stop claiming UC.
The narrative of immigrants coming to the UK to claim benefits is kind of funny but also tiring. If I wanted to live off the state, I would have remained in Spain. There's zero safety net in the UK if you are down on your luck and, say, lose your job or get ill.
For some reason the narrative that has stuck post Thatcher is that it is somehow a moral failing if you need to resort to being supported by the state, when in fact one would expect that the reason we pay taxes is precisely to fund a welfare system that has our back when we need it.
The problem is not that people are claiming benefits, whether British or not. The problem is that a neoliberal agenda has taken over and little by little is convincing people that they need to be self-sufficient in any circumstance at all times because that's what being a good British citizen is.
But when even people in good jobs have already started to struggle to afford rent, let alone buy a house, blaming immigration isn't going to cut it anymore.
The underrepresentation could also be because they are unaware of the entitlement to universal credit. Our daughter and son in-law (white British and both working) have only just discovered they are entitled through a random conversation with a friend.
Thank you so much for this. I just wish the people who believe the nonsense in the Times could be reached but that’s looking increasingly hard!
The only legitimacy Chris Philp has ever given to something is the idea that extremely stupid people can attain high levels of office. It's a worrying trend.
Love a bit of number crunching. Well done Mr. Bear
Pellucid. Thank you.
nail on the head (comme toujours) Bear.
I also agree with a couple of your commentators who point out the 'scroungers' who refuse to pay a living wage, despite making enormous profits...