London Orbital

Well, I suppose despite everything that has happened, the thoughts of Ashley Mote remain rather more interesting to the BNP - & most other people, I should think - than those of Mrs Pike (not the one in Dad's Army).

By the way, how strange PC-inflected English has become. I mean, one would have imagined middle-class Caribbean holidaymakers and benefit-funded gypsies flying to far-eastern sex-spots alike would at least both be considered "travellers".

But no. We inhabit the land of euphemism where, by and large, "travellers" tend to remain perfectly stationary, since, once they have succeeded in invading a plot of land that doesn't belong to them, several months of court action are usually required to remove them, during which time they don't travel anywhere at all.

And why on earth should I mean 'untermensch' when I have already used a perfectly good English word - underclass? Both the native terminology and the natives themselves are quite good enough for us, thank you. That is our message. We're not promoting some neo-Nazi revival, if that's what you are implying. Although, of course, the Hope Not Hate crowd are doing their best to suggest otherwise. But people are not stupid - so with any luck Londoners will wake up on May 2nd to find they have a number of BNP representives on the London Assembly.

The Bear

Who or rather what are the "underclass"

Maybe I’m one!

I don’t work, I claim benefits and manage quite well on that, I manage to run a second hand car, I have a wide screen telly, DVD player / recorder, a telly in the spare bed room (we live in a three bedroom house) our garden is a bit unkempt at the moment as there’s a trailer full of junk sitting in it.

We get free prescriptions, we both tend to eat chilled supermarket meals a lot of the time, you’ll find a couple of tubs of Pot Noodles in our food cupboard, our dog gets let out to cr*p where IT wants, our cat comes and go’s when IT wants, our son lives in subsidised housing with his partner and her two kids, he has a kid of his own by someone else …

Am I and my family members of your underclass?

DOO tell! Please!

London Orbital

Underclass –a way of negatively describing certain other people’s behaviour or choices, I suppose, rather than being a real entity, which, admittedly, is how it sounds.

Maybe it’s a bit like when people used to say such and such was "common" (disapprovingly) or so and so was "respectable" (approvingly). Neither word resonates much these days, so one looks around for new words to express disapproval or approval.

Your lifestyle choices seem harmless enough to me - not reckless or criminal or dangerous to the rest of the community, at least from the information you've provided. So - no - I wouldn't wish to describe you & your family in this way. And you know better than I do why it is you don't work. Maybe you are looking for work. If so, best of luck.....

The Bear

No, not looking for work. I see no reason why I should.

Do I break the law? From time to time when it suits me and to the estent that I consider appropriate.

Am I reckless? My wife says that I am at times.

Lie I asked, am I a member of your underclass?

brian pearson

How would I describe the person in the example you give ?

An example of the huge and growing sector of society that the welfare state allows to live as they want while the rest of us pay for it.

The Bear

So a member of the underclass then?

brian pearson

Couldn't give a toss what you want to call them. But as the number taking out of the pot increases and the amount put in decreases (it will, even though we continue to pay more and more tax) the whole cuddly game will grind to an ugly halt.

I want a welfare state to be a safety net. Not a life choice.

The Bear

How about if I amended what I wrote and added just a little more.

I’m Retired, in my early 60’s and in receipt of a pension well in excess of the national average wage from my ex employer, Fellow of professional institute, and a house owner

The garden IS a bit unkempt right now because the grass in the orchard area has grown a bit higher than I normally keep it due to the ride on lawnmower having given up the ghost, the rubbish in the trailer is the old ride on mower ready to be taken away by the same people who are due to deliver the new replacement any day now.

Our free prescriptions are because of our age, we both tend to eat chilled supermarket meals a lot of the time because they offer good value and allow us to keep an eye on calorie intake, and our couple of tubs of Pot Noodles in our food cupboard will remain there until one of us slings the horrible things out.

Our dog gets let out to cr*p where IT wants because we have a section of our lawned garden set aside for her to do just that, our cat comes and go’s when IT wants through the cat flap in the lower half of the stable door that leads to our kitchen.

Our son lives in subsidised housing with his partner who he will shortly be marrying. Living in a subsidised house? Yes, a house that I used to own having inherited it from my mother who recently died and have given to them, hence it has been subsidised by ME.

Yes, he has a kid of his own by someone else … his ex wife from SUCH a good family who did the dirt on him with her own cousin of all people.

The point that I was trying to bring out is that to assume that simply because a person lives in a way that has been described to say the least partially as has been done with Mrs McKeown causes others, especially the smug self satisfied snobbish self opinionated “uber Class”, to run off at the mouth in the worst possible way making all sorts of unjustified assumptions on the way.

London Orbital

Bear - I knew you weren't a wrong 'un, which is why I was taking a bit of care not to step into your various traps. However, leaving aside the emotive nomenclature of uber- and underclass, there is undeniably an element of moral consistency in the way a person lives and behaviour that might - or might not be - expected of that person.

Fair enough, we shouldn't leap to mistaken conclusions which are merely based on our prejudices. But what if you really had been “not looking for work” & seeing “no reason why I should” at a much younger age - content to live on the dole and whatever you managed to knock off from time to time?

You could still argue the same point, of course - that you weren’t necessarily a truly bad person, and that people who thought the worst of you were mainly being snobbish, smug and self-satisfied. And in a strictly limited sort of way you might even be right. But what would we think of you?

In my local paper recently, an old Kray associate - in the process of complaining about a gang of young hooded street muggers - pointed out that in his day he had only engaged in a bit of house-breaking, which of course wasn’t the same thing at all. The argument obviously made perfect sense to him. But many people must have blinked at his letter and thought - why on earth are we getting lessons in morals from a convicted burglar?

To further illustrate this point, you didn’t happen to enlarge on the ways in which you break the law when it suits you. No doubt, I suppose, you break it fairly harmlessly. Or at least do so in the sort of ways the rest of us tend to break the law on the odd occasion.

However, what if the way it actually suited you to break the law was to drink down three or four bottles of Scotch at the weekend, and then drive your car at twice the maximum speed limit merely because you enjoyed these sensations and anyone who condemned you for it was just being ridiculously snotty, snobby, smug and middle class and should just get themselves a life, eh pal?

My point is that no-one’s behaviour can be totally factored out of the moral equation.

david H

People's behaviour is the moral equation!

__________________
"You think you are combatting prejudice but you are at war with nature". Edmund Burke.

http://www.buchanan.org/pa-98-1127.html