We need a war on welfare, urgently.

 

Not so long back, people used to care.

Not sure what to make of this.  "Benefits Street features the lives of locals living in James Turner Street, Winson Green, Birmingham.  90 per cent of residents living in the 137-house street claim one or more benefits ranging from £500-£900 a month in free hand-outs."

On the one hand I think some of these individuals seeing themselves on screen have been confronted with a few home truths and aren't too happy about it - but won't confront reality and would rather blame the producers than themselves. On the other hand Channel 4 are masters at documentary stitch-ups. They create a concept, define the conclusion, write the script then go out auditioning people who fit the stereotypes they are looking for. I've had this stunt pulled on me and wasn't very happy about it.  But it was a worthwhile learning experience for me and it makes it easier to spot manipulative bullshit.

That said, I am routinely told by people at The Guardian that welfare dependency doesn't exist and abuse of the system is a not a huge issue. Tosh! What is shown here is not a contrivance. I think many of us identify with what is shown because we see it every day.

The squalor in the street tells you everything about the mindset of welfarism. When you pay people to be poor, and give them everything for free, they won't respect themselves, their homes or their street. For all we may criticise Roma, it seems we have our own trailer trash who also see it as the responsibility of others to maintain them.

I won't entertain the excuse that these people are simply poor. Poverty is no excuse. Yesterday I found a family photo from the 80's (above) taken outside our home and what I noticed was the house next door had flower pots and the pavement was weeded. Now it is overgrown and long grass grows from the cracks in the pavement, even though the occupants are at home all day. Welfare has created a class of slovenly, stupid, lazy, self-entitled people and we actually subsidize these people to breed.

Go anywhere in the country and you will see this now. A decay so gradual we barely notice. And the Left don't see a problem with this. These people are "victims"!  But you know what I think. I think it's fucking bullshit. And I hate it with every fibre of my being. We have to stop this. Labours answer is to throw more money at the problem but giving people more free money won't change their attitudes or engender any self-respect or self-discipline. It won't restore community pride and it won't improve their lives. It will merely perpetuate this squalor, filth and degradation.

And now you see why I despise patronising vermin like Jack Monroe. Ignorant hacks who know fuck all about nine tenths of anything, telling us that these are poor defenceless people, and our problems would go away if only we were to throw more money at them. This is why I cannot contain my contempt for her or the Guardian.

But the left need these people to stay poor. Without a bloated public sector to muck out the welfare lepers, their union paymasters go short and they have to develop ideas to win power, rather than bribing us with our own money. These people aren't just wrong. They are evil, evil people.

We need a war on welfare. All of it. Every benefit must be slashed to the bone. I've heard all the excuses now. I am not moved by any of them. Like I often say, it's better to lose one generation than condemn the next ten to more of this. The sad thing is, even though we need a war on welfare, we're not getting one. We're getting timid tinkering by IDS and Co. It only seems like radical reform from the volume and shrillness of the lefts whining. For all the noise, we still haven't made a dent in the problem.

Leftists commonly argue that welfare isn't a large part of our national spending, and by contrast with other spending, they're right - and it doesn't save all that much money. But that does not excuse this. This isn't about saving money. It's about saving people. It's about reshaping our society to one where people meet their obligations as citizens and human beings. One where we are all responsible for each-others welfare, rather than a faceless monopoly corporate state that consumes ever more of our money, while gradually destroying social mobility, crushing our liberties, spying on us, coercing us and making each day on this rainy little island just that little bit more depressing.