Thursday, 28 April 2011

Because you're worth it?

I have a real love/hate relationship with facebook.

It enables me to keep in touch with friends. It is a source of information.  It is, when used positively and sensibly, a tool for social cohesion (and, as was once the case for me, career advancement).

However. It is also likely to be the reason I develop a stomach ulcer.

A very high percentage of the status updates which appear on my news feed are relating to people whinging that they have no job.  They always blame the government for this.  When I point out that there are jobs out there, but they seem unwilling to take them / keep them, they invariably state that "it's beneath me".  Really?!  Earning your own keep is beneath you, but going cap-in-hand to the dole office every fortnight isn't?  I don't know if I have a superbly highly-developed sense of pride, but to me, the idea of saying 'please sir, can I have some more?' sends a shudder down my working-class spine.

The irony is that these people claim to be working class, and lambast me for being a 'traitor'.

Yes, there is little manufacturing in the UK these days, I do not deny that.  However, the people using this as an excuse for why they do not work are hardly the sort who would roll up their sleeves and get down the pit / into the mills, as, you guessed it - it would be 'beneath them'...

And so my philosophy is that it matters not a jot what the ruling political party does / doesn't do.  While we have a society so used to being able to pick and choose what they [don't] do, Britain is fucked.  Irretrievably.


  1. "Yes, there is little manufacturing in the UK these days, I do not deny that"

    Amazingly that isn't entirely true. There's little "heavy manufacturing" these days, so maybe fewer jobs in it. But actual manufacturing has been growing 6% year on year, see:
    Burning our Money for details.

  2. I should probably have been more specific, as my main point of real-world reference here is the small part of the north which I'm from. Everything there closed down years ago and nothing replaced it.