UK politics

When Britain was proud of the welfare state

Cartoons, Socialism, UK politics, Video
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Back in the 1940ties, under a proud Labour government, a cartoon star called Charley explained the wonders of the welfare state to the British public:

The “Charley” films were produced in 1946 – 1947 and released from 1948. There were eight films in total, looking at the new towns, schooling, the National Health, building up exports and working for heavy industry. Charley had his own chirpy theme tune, and opening titles, in which he would ride across the screen on his bicycle, writing out his name. And each film was billed as being part of an ongoing series, so you knew there were others to view and learn from.

Topics included New Towns:



The NHS:



National Insurance:



And the new school system:



All created for the Central Office for Information, abolished only recently by the ConDem government.

Disagree With An Atos Decision? Then Starve

Health, Tories, UK politics
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There have been a lot of problems with the Work Capability Assessment run by companies like Atos, testing and retesting whether people are disabled enough for Employment Support Allowance (ESA), as claimaints are declared fit for work when they’re patently not. Now things are going to be made worse, as the possibility to appeal against these decisions is going to be made, both by complicating the process to do so and by stopping ESA during the appeal process, with claimants needing to apply for Job Seeksers Allowance instead:

This will mean that those appealing an ESA decision and claiming Jobseekers Allowance will be placed in a potentially fraudulent position. They will be appealing an ESA decision based on the fact they do not believe themselves able to work, and will be claiming JSA based on a claim that they are able to work.

It’s been quite clear for a while now that the current UK government is engaging in the salami slicing of welfare, discontinuing some benefit schemes, means testing others, tightening up access in general. The point in these exercises is clearly not limiting fraud or other tabloid friendly excuses, but to throw people off of welfare regardless of whether they need it or not. This has been the clearest in the way disability benefits have been handled, with no regards for the wellbeing and health of the people affected.

To put it blunty: the suicides, the unnecessary deaths of people cut off from disability benefits, the starving, that’s the system working.

Westminster’s last class warrior

UK politics
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In The Herald, Ian Bell nails Thatcher’s personality and ideology:

Nevertheless, her ideology, like her geo-political activities, never approached consistency. Mrs Thatcher’s politics was a visceral thing, formed of a belief in a natural order, in the assumption Britain needed restoration, and in a nostalgia for some never-defined golden age. She was, in the purest sense, a reactionary politician. Hence her failure, for long decades, to take apartheid seriously, and her willingness to dismiss Nelson Mandela as a terrorist. Hence her revulsion at the very idea of trade unionism. Hence her embrace of the casino economy.

She had the streak of vanity usual in prime ministers, one enlarged by three election victories. Her statements, in power and after, suggest Mrs Thatcher believed herself indispensable. She enjoyed the unlikely idea of the Iron Lady, a suburban Britannia, the politician who was “not for turning”. She felt entitled to invoke Churchill, as though “Winston” had been a blood relation. In truth, her sense of destiny was near-Gaullist. And she had no sense of humour: laboriously, her speechwriters had to explain the Python dead parrot joke.