I put this short video out this morning. In it, I express my surprise that our politicians only seem to think that what they call 'hard-working people' matter in this country. What about everyone else?
The transcript is:
Why do politicians only talk about working people?
It intensely annoys me that everything is apparently framed in the interest of ‘hard-working families.'
Why do they even talk about families when so many people live by themselves? This is just profoundly prejudiced language.
What about the young who have yet to start work?
What about the old who are retired?
What about those with disabilities who can't work?
What about those who are unemployed through no fault of their own?
What about carers?
What about those who are looking after young children and families have chosen that that a person doesn't work?
Are these people all to be excluded from political consideration by politicians who only want to talk about working people, and hard-working ones at that?
I don't understand where their prejudice comes from because in this country everyone matters. And they're getting it wrong when they only talk about some people as if no one else matters.
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Newspeak – 2024.
“Woke” (to avoid having to say “those that support fairness, justice and freedom” – which would negate the word in its current useage)
“hard working families” (as per your points)
“strivers not skivers” (Camoronism – to suggest anybody without a job is a skiver)
“builders not blockers” (LINO construct to demonise those that might be unhappy with the wave of transmission lines about to engulf the UK)
“better regulation” (well we know it has not worked but will are going to double down)
“more efficiency in the NHS” (more privatisation)
“maxed out credit card” (I’m an economice imbecile and I’ve been told to say that by the BoE… & anyway UK proles will swallow it)
Labour supporter. The mass of the population are no better of than in 2006. We need a change.
Tory supporter. ‘But woke. They’re pushing a woke agenda.’
LS we need to invest in the NHS.
TS But Woke. Men is women’s toilets.
LS We need a massive house building program.
TS But Woke is threatening the moral fibre of the nation. I read it in the Telegraph so it must be true.
LS So what is Woke?
TS lots of silly ideas about, er, well, you know, lack of respect for tradition.
LS it comes from African Americans. It means being awoken to the way society runs. It means asking questions about why some people have power and other don’t. Or why some have more money and others are poor.’
TS WE CAN’T ALLOW THAT !
Sunak used the phrase a lot being interviewed last night. “Working families” are good. “Welfare claiming families” are on the list for more austerity ……… It’s just a code.
Non-working rentiers are not mentioned. Welfare receiving wealthy are not mentioned, etc
Agreed
Hard working rentiers ..
Welfare speculators…
Grifting hedge funders
There is just so much consumer choice
Thank you for an important prosocial/society cohesion point!
Might part of “our” politicians’ cliche obsession be connected with:
Neoliberal cultism?
Fashion?
Laziness?
Lack of socio-economic learning/research?
Lack of genuine difference/choice between dominant political parties?
Significant similarity of socio-economic background?
Ditto education?
Mike Parr – You referred to a ‘the wave of transmission lines about to engulf the UK’. I can imagine some features of a better alternative but would love to have a professional view. Please give us a bit more – and a link to an article perhaps.
We’ve already had a massive upgrade of the Beauly to Denny line – about 140m in Scotland to transport wind farm output south. The pylons take 400kV and are about 55-65m high.
In Argyll we have a new 275kV line from Kintyre to Loch Lomond, instead of a much shorter submarine interconnector under the Firth of Clyde.
SSE are just another multinational and Blackrock own almost 10%.
In England the obvious solution would be to have a major publicly owned offshore interconnector from Orkney to the Thames Estuary linked to offshore generating sites, as well as the French and Norwegian interconnectors.
The technology is easy and they built an entire grid of gas pipelines in the North Sea from the 70s on, to Bacton. The arguments seem entirely cost based regarding above ground connections and obviously ROI and profit margins for SSE. Yet the landscape and planning impacts are enormous, especially in rural areas reliant on tourism.
The National Grid is rigged against us here in Scotland . We pay a price premium for our domestic electricity of up to c.5 p kWhr compared with London and the SE when it is here we’re actually generating the power they are consuming.
Mike is in mid Wales (I think) and the proposals there for power lines east will have a much larger impact that the actual upland generating sites there.
Hello Joe & Tony.
Tony gave part of the answer. The proposal is between now & circa 2030 – there will be about 35 – 40GW of off-shore wind added to the UK’s transmission system. This will bring off-shore wind to 50 – 55GW. This is literally a new generation system & deserves a new transmission system.
Tony covered this in his post. The old GEC of Rugby/Stafford (now part of GEC (USA) has HVDC tech (specifically multi-terminal VSC). This could be rolled out to build an off-shore HVDC power network – thus matching the erm… off-shore wind farms. This is no different in concept to the land-based Tx network built in the 1960/1970s that linked 2000MW coal stations in the north to load in the south. The problem is that the only org that will fund this is……..HMG. But according to Reeves, the credit card is maxed out.
At the moment Nat Grid is taking a piecemeal approach – to network reinforcement. It won’t work – because what you are dealing with is a new system – which requires a new Tx system.
Travail, famille, patrie
Phil,
To my shame, I wasn’t aware of this phrase. But Marshal Pétain’s interpretation/explanation of the motto ties in well with the recent discussions here on fascism. From:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travail,_Famille,_Patrie#:~:text=Travail%2C%20Famille%2C%20Patrie%20est%20la,fran%C3%A7ais%20%C2%BB%2C%20avec%20un%20labrys :
“When our young people […] enter life […] we will tell them […] that real freedom can only be exercised in the shelter of a tutelary authority, which they must respect, to which they must obey […]. We will then tell them that equality [must] be framed within a hierarchy, based on the diversity of functions and merits […]. Finally, we will tell them that there can only be true fraternity within these natural groups which are the family, the city, the Fatherland”
No need to be ashamed, we all always have more to learn! And thank you for now putting the phrase in context, which I didn’t bother to.
Sunak obviously wants to avoid mentioning the term working class as opposed to his conception of Conservative poliitics whose raison d’etre is to preserve the priveliges and wealth of the ruling class against those of the working class. He needs to preserve this capitalist system where workers wages and benefits must be kept as low as possible to maximise expoitation and profiits in order to maintain their social status and esteem in the eyes of those they regard as their inferiors. It is feudalism backed by the power of capital that Sunak represents.
He did manage to mention working families, well kind of, in this clip by Led By Donkeys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnwurflqrfQ
It’s usually hard working families. Single people don’t figure, other than to pay a lot just to survive. For various reasons adult single person households are growing and I think are well over 30% of households, but we are invisible other than paying a disproportionate amount of money in terms of council tax (we pay 75% of what a family does), standing charges etc. compared to family households.
So we have 2 prejudices. Firstly that only hard working people matter,and secondly that only those in families matter. I found both equally unhelpful. My concern is that as a society we care for our vulnerable, the young, the elderly, the disabled and those too ill to work. Also that we think of what is best for us as a society, not for our own selfish needs.
Much to agree with
Hard worker. You could be experiencing hardship in your life which prevents you from working. You aren’t a hard worker. You could be working but not working 50 plus hours a week because you value a life balance. You aren’t a hard worker.
Just another slogan. It has nothing of value.
But just let any of these Hard Working People have the temerity to combine to try to have a conversation with their masters over the tems of their service and you’ll soon hear a different tune.
Hard working managers will make sure that the hard working senior executives commitment to low wages is maintained, and try to ensure hard working people won’t have union representation.
Apparently, all 20,000 employees at Sport Direct were on zero hours contracts or as ‘self employed’ and even the Labour current proposals would not fully address the get-outs.
Thank you for bringing this up. My partner has long disagreed with ‘workers’ as a basis for political programming for exactly this reason. In the hands of elites appealing to the idea of ‘working people’ and ‘working families’ it is a hijacking and distortion of left-leaning politics; in the hands of the ‘many’ it is an unfortunate reductive move from theoretical Marxism to practical politics which excludes a large proportion of their potential constituency.
Please add the many single mothers to the list of those excluded.
I am sorry if I missed them
I am acutely aware of the problems they face – I have known many
They always used to refer to ‘pensioners who have worked hard all their lives’. Of course many pensioners have done so, but many have spent their lives receiving benefits that included pension credits. For some reason they seem to have stopped using that one at the moment. Does that mean that pensioners will be a target soon?
Surely not *everyone* can work as hard as they imply either. Do we really want to set government policy around stressed out workaholics, or perhaps we should be aiming for people to have to work less hard, take more leisure time and contribute their free time to improving society and culture?
Though I guess that doesn’t fit with the ideal of forced labour for young people, or legions of cheap and free workers for the aristocracy, so perhaps not on brand for modern ableist political rhetoric.