Welcome to Britain, land of the rising scum.... We've cornered the market on welfare layabouts, drug addicts and feral gangs
The first time it properly dawned on me that the game was indeed up was about 20
years ago in Blackpool, where I was covering the Labour Party conference.
As
I made my way from the Clifton Hotel, opposite the main pier, past
Yates's Wine Lodge towards the Winter Gardens, at approximately 9.30am, I
had to step into the road to avoid a family walking four-abreast on the
pavement in the direction of the sea front.
They were all
breakfasting on fish and chips from polystyrene containers, washed down
with what I seem to remember was Irn-Bru, in the case of the children,
and Special Brew, for the parents.The whole family - mum, dad,
son, daughter - was dressed in matching turquoise shell-suits and
imitation designer-label trainers. They all had earrings. Each wore a
baseball cap.
The father's cap was distinguished by a plastic dog turd stuck to the peak, beneath a logo which proclaimed: 'S***head.'
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I can remember thinking to myself, as I watched them window-shopping at the pork butcher's: 'What chance have these kids got?'
The
other thought which occurred to me was, given that the children were
aged, at a guess, eight and six, and this was late September: why
weren't they at school?
Now I know what some of you are thinking. Don't rush to
judgment, Rich. They could have been a blameless, sophisticated couple,
who had taken their children out of their fee-paying convent school for
the day to treat them to a field trip to study the varied marine life
to be found in the Irish Sea off Blackpool, and had decided to dress
down for the occasion.Feeding them fish and chips for breakfast
was simply a way of giving them an authentic working-class day-trip
experience to broaden their horizons and drum home the message that not
everyone starts the day with organic muesli from Waitrose.
The
novelty baseball cap could have been an ironic, post-modern take on the
nature of unbridled consumerism or a witty protest about societal
stereotyping.
Then again, they could just have been scum.
You know what? I've just thought about it again. I'm going with scum. Sorry, but there's no other word for it.
For all I know, those children could have grown up to become brain-surgeons.
My
guess, though, is that they're both living on benefits in some scruffy
council garret, halfway up a burned-out tower block, surrounded by
raggedy children who look pretty much like they used to on their jolly
outing to Blackpool.
Only the fake designer labels have changed.
We're
now on to second- and third-generation scum, sustained by a patronising
and non-judgmental welfare juggernaut. We've always had what
sociologists prefer to call an underclass. But not on this scale and
never so visible.
A quick glance at the news is all it takes
to confirm the worst. In Haringey, North London, the child of a
dysfunctional 'family' is tortured to death under the noses of social
services. When the tragic Victoria Climbie died in similar circumstances
on the same manor, we were assured it would never happen again. I wrote
at the time that it could and it would. It has.
The
lb100,000-a-year, hatchet-faced harridan in charge of the social
services washes her hands of the death, refuses to resign and boasts of
providing a 'three star' service,
backed by pie charts, graphs and a perfect paper trail of criminal incompetence and wilful neglect.
Somewhere out there, there's a baseball cap with her name on it.
Frankly,
I can't bring myself to read the details of this horrific case, other
than to note that the father was an SS freak and the mother spent all
day in pornographic chat rooms on the internet, when she wasn't smoking
in the street. What did they do for money? What do you think?
In
Yorkshire, a ghastly-looking woman and her gormless boyfriend's uncle
are on trial for abducting her daughter and attempting to extract a
reward for her safe return. They
look as if they have stepped
straight out of Little Britain, in which Matt Lucas and David Walliams's
Burberried chavs captured perfectly the gruesome reality of so much of
our modern landscape.
Captive: Shannon Matthews' mother is on trial for kidnap and false imprisonment
This
week, a court heard of the conditions imposed on poor Shannon Matthews
while she was in captivity. She was allowed to watch TV and play
computer games provided she didn't look out of the window. Sounds pretty
much like her everyday life - and that of thousands of children her
age, I would imagine.
The Guardianistas railed against Little
Britain's portrait of the underclass, accusing it of cruelty and making
fun of a 'vulnerable' section of society. The truth is, the Leftist bien
pensants have built a land fit for Vicky Pollards.
This was life imitating comedy. In Little Britain, Vicky Pollard swapped her baby for a Westlife CD.
Meanwhile, in Manchester, a three-year-old child and a three-month-old toddler are stabbed to death allegedly by their mother.
Outside
the house, neighbours are interviewed by TV reporters. Not so long ago,
they'd have looked like Les Dawson and Peter Butterworth's doughty
Northern battle-axes.
Of the two women I saw, one was wearing a
grey hoodie and the other had her hair pulled back in a Croydon
facelift, a stud through her nose and so many earrings in her left lobe
it looked like a curtain rail. Both appeared old beyond their years, a
legacy no doubt of cheap cigarettes and super-strength lager.
In
Hackney, East London, a teenage girl is gang-raped for not showing
sufficient 'respect' to a local yobbo. It barely makes the newspapers.
Britain
seems to have cornered the market in welfare layabouts, drug addicts,
feral gangs of obese children and hideous, drunken scrubbers, littering
the gutters of even our more genteel suburbs.
The women are
the worst of the lot, giving birth to a procession of bay-bees by
different, transient fathers and expecting - nay, being encouraged by -
the state to pay for their upbringing.
The Government's
preferred solution is to keep on throwing money at the problem, hiring
legions of social workers and 'parenting skills advisers' to keep the
scum in check, while importing hundreds of thousands of immigrants to do
the jobs our indigenous idle are paid not to do.
It doesn't work and things aren't going to get any better. It's at least 20 years too late.
The game's up.
What next? Polly puts the jackboots on?
Hatred makes strange bedfellows. Earlier this week, the Editor of the
Daily Mail gave a speech condemning the way in which judges are bringing
in a privacy law by stealth. He cited in particular the
ludicrous privacy case brought by Formula One boss Max Mosley, who was
turned over by the News of the Screws for his kinky sex sessions with
prostitutes dressed up as German soldiers.
This was enough to
get Pole Dance Polly foaming at the mouth, consumed as she is with fear
and loathing for the Mail and all its works.
In
a splendidly barking and rabid piece in the Guardian - which inter alia
accused the Daily Mail of being responsible for giving children measles
- Toynbee found herself not only attacking press freedom, but siding
with the son of a well-known fascist notorious for exploiting women for
his own sexual gratification.
You couldn't make it up.
Maybe Max should give Polly a call. She'd make a marvellous stormtrooper.
Achtung!
Qatada's a terrorist, get him out of there
Huh?: Radical cleric Abu Qatada is accused of plotting to flee the country
This week's edition of Am I Missing Something? concerns preacher of
hate Abu Qatada, said to be Osama bin Laden's European ambassador.
For
some time, he has been living on benefits in a North London council
house, after being released from prison under the yuman rites act.
The courts have also stopped us deporting him to Jordan, where he is wanted on terrorism charges.
So why on earth was he rearrested this week when he tried to leg it to Lebanon?
Surely it would have made more sense to buy him a one-way ticket.
Don't let facts spoil a smear
During the U.S. election, the BBC was especially condescending towards Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
One
of the more ridiculous smears given currency was that Palin wasn't
aware that Africa was a continent, not a country. It fitted perfectly
with the perception of Palin as a thick hick.
Now it turns out
that the credit for the allegation has been claimed by a pair of
American internet hoaxers, posing as a Republican strategist.
One of them, Dan Mirvish, was interviewed on the Today programme by a clearly disappointed Sarah Montague.
At one stage, she blurted out that even if it had been made up, it didn't mean it wasn't true.
We're still none the wiser, but why let the facts get in the way of a good story?
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1085518/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-Welcome-Britain-land-rising-scum-.html#ixzz30ObW3OxX
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