Quote:
Originally Posted by ToffeeGuy
100% agree. It annoys me when old Etonians like Cameron and Boris born with silver spoons in their mouths bang on about people having to get jobs on the minimum wage in Poundland. Like they'd know.
Let the masses be distracted by their bread and circuses whilst the upper classes rule.
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So, in soft sap land, you'd rather politicans tell people that they shouldn't bother with a paid job, and instead they should stay at home sat on their arse, because those in work will provide them with more income on benefits, than if they actually worked for a living?
Give me strength.
Earlier Eric put this all down to the British class system, and the divide between rich and poor.
Rubbish.
As a society, materially, we never have had it as good.
Of course there's disparity between rich and poor.
There always has been, and always will be.
Unless we abandon capitalism, and go down the soviet, or communist China route.
Which still had/have a hierarchy, haves versus the have nots, but on power, rather than class divisons.
You only have to go back a few years to see how the lives of the poorest members of society have improved.
Fifty years ago your destiny was mapped out aged eleven. With 90% of children given an inferior education, knowing they were factory fodder. Now, rightly or wrongly, we've never had as many graduates.
Working class women especially had a life of hard toil and drudgery. No automatic washing machines, no vacuum cleaners, no hot and cold runing water, with indoor bathrooms to keep your kids clean in. All this after working full time, as many were forced to do.
We've never had a higher percentage of people with their own transport, access to communication, mobiles, computers, etc, and the majority of people have never travelled so much. Plus all the leisure activities the vast majority of people have, such as films, television, games, reading material etc.
So no, I disagree. We've never had as many opportunities for social mobility in this country.
People certainly don't doth their caps, and tug their forelocks to their 'betters', as would have happened once over.
Our parents/grandparents generations had relatively little, compared to us.
In desperation, when out of work, some might have stolen food in the past, to make sure their children didn't actually die of starvation.
However, those generations of folk didn't take to the streets, rioting and looting, so they could have the very latest dolly tub, or wind-up gramaphone player.
That's the difference.
Pride, and self-respect.
Not what nowadays passes as poverty, and some see as an excuse to do whatever they want, and take what they see as their's by right.