Ok, I know I promised a detailed and entirely scientific analysis of why Thatcher, Bush, Blair, Cameron et al are almost certainly psychopathic, but that is going to have to wait, although the following may provide an evidentiary case study.
I actually cried today on hearing Cameron's proposals to abolish housing benefit for the under twenty fives. I'm not under twenty five. It won't affect me. So why the tears?
It's the callous, glib heartlessness of the man who is not even bothering to pretend to care any more about the "lower orders", as he undoubtedly thinks of us. Three quarters of the homeless are under twenty five and that figure is set to explode if this insane proposal comes to fruition. Cameron apparently thinks young people should continue to live with their parents. Well, that's all very well if mummy and daddy can afford to keep you for an extra ten years, and if all is well. But let's remember that many families are abusive and dysfunctional, and in these cases staying at home is not an option. And that's not to mention those already vulnerable and often sadly emotionally damaged youngsters who grow up in care homes - kicked out at eighteen? Where are they supposed to go for the seven years before they qualify? Our streets and prisons are already littered with the human detritus who have fallen through the cracks - the abused, the kids who have run away from care homes or unimaginable abuse at the hands of parents supposed to keep them safe, the mentally ill, the dispossessed. It's a depressing fact that these vulnerable legions who most need help and compassion are exactly those considered disposable and worthless by the Old Etonian millionaires club that makes up the current cabinet. (I also find it interesting that he has the gall to talk of a culture of something for nothing, when that is exactly what he is asking of already beleaguered parents - to extend indefinite care for adult children, with presumably no extra financial help on the table.)
Cameron is the living, breathing embodiment of a system which unashamedly extends laissez faire to those at the top, who create the inequality, but regulates and controls the poor by means of what the sociologist Loic Wacquant has called a carceral assistantial net - prison on the one hand, and the transformation of welfare on the other into a system where even the most miserable, minimal assistance comes with endless hoops to jump, surveillance and a complete stripping away of human dignity. Whatever you get, they'll make sure you know you're a worthless and inadequate specimen for needing it. The removal of housing benefit for under twenty fives is also another example of the cynical targeting and scapegoating of young people, who at the end of the day do not by virtue of being young somehow need food and shelter less.
It will also bring about an explosion in US style working poverty, as documented in Barbara Ehrenreich's brilliant Nickel and Dimed. Ehrenreich went undercover to investigate life in low wage USA, and met many coworkers who were homeless, or just one paycheque away from homelessness - that is, if they met with an accident or unexpected illness or couldn't work, they would lose their accommodation. The US has no equivalent of housing benefit, and we should remember that Cameron's talk of a culture of entitlement obfuscates the fact that housing benefit is also there to help those on low incomes keep a roof over their head. But then a minimum wage people can actually live on without topups isn't "business friendly" and we can't have that of course.
I've said it before and I'll doubtless say it again, but the brazen hypocrisy of a government which appoints the billionaire Philip Green as an "efficiency advisor", a man reputed to have dodged a tax bill of £300m, is sickening. Again and again, the super rich get away with it and those at the sharp end get squeezed and squeezed until we can barely breathe. Young people especially are being left a legacy of no money, no jobs, no prospects, no hope. The riots may only have been the beginning - Michael Young's 1950s prophecy of a meritocratic elite, who justify their power by controlling what constitutes merit, and an underclass so disenfranchised they take to the streets is coming eerily, terrifyingly true.
As for supporting families who want to work, who is Cameron kidding? A friend of mine confided that to put her baby son in a creche while she worked would cost £36 a day. It simply makes no economic sense, she'd be no better off and so you can't blame her for wanting to spend the time with her son instead. The Tories also idolise the family and stay at home mothers - remember John Major's ill fated "Back to Basics" campaign? So are working mothers the agents of moral deterioration or do we support them now after all? Or is it more like they'll take any position that paints the poor as immoral, feckless and thus deserving of the constant attacks on them?
One final word. Feckless families? I don't know how he has the cheek. I know a lot of parents who are making ends meet on very little, but not one of them has ever left their child behind in a pub toilet.
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