Welcome to Little Britain (4)
A reader writes:
I recently visited a young family in a council maisonette block and the first thing I saw (apart from a mountain of rubbish, broken glass, dirty nappies, etc littering the area outside of the flats) was a huge IT IS ILLEGAL TO SMOKE INSIDE THESE PREMISES sign on the communal door.
Inside, the hallway stank of urine and was littered with slices of mouldy bread and butter scattered on the stairs, as well as other rubbish. A little smell of smoke caused by residents - all of whom smoke in the small block - going about their daily business could only be an improvement.
Compare this with another visit I made to a nice middle class gated block of flats. Very clean and nice with carpeted stairs ... but absolutely no signs stating that it is illegal to smoke in the communal areas of this apartment complex.
Could it possibly be anything to do with class (ie those who live in council accommodation can be legally bullied while those who live in cozy middle class lodgings are treated with kid gloves)?
Reader Comments (22)
There is a perception, perhaps stemming from John Reid's comment, that smokers are confined to SEGs DE. I also suspect that this is why HMG thought it could get away with a blanket ban: it doesn't care about the votes of DEs because traditionally few vote at all.
It seems to me that there is a great deal of high-handedness and bullying going on by government agencies these days. The middle classes will be more likely to tackle it head on, those who feel unequal to the task will circumvent it.
Agreed, Joyce. Which is why we must fight on their behalf. There but for the Grace of God, [so far], go all of us.
Simon: Were you a bit of a socialist class warrior in your youth, burning resentment of he alleged privileges of the bourgeoisies, lol? You appear not to like Tories, and seem to take time out to be critical. However I do agree with your point about local government bullying residents, because they can. As a working class Tory, my experience of middle class estates fall into two areas, minimal fuss and regulation or some uptight, busybody with plenty of time on their hands doing the best to make your life miserable. The communal areas of middle class apartments tend to be jointly owned by all the Leasees or on shared freeholds, so one dissenting voice is good enough to change, for example the smoking laws.
The chattering middle classes no longer smoke, and those who do indulge pretend they don't, as it's 'not fashionable' whereas looking down on smokers is. Maybe when the war on alcohol gathers steam they might wake up to the fact it has nothing to do with health and everything to do with control.
Oh dear, Dave Atherton, I do hope you do not expect a reply from Simon regarding his own personal political preference.
A person's politics are their own private affair. That is, unless one is an ardent Conservative like Peter Thurgood or a steaming new convert to UKIP like myself. Personally, I have always believed that Simon is in fact a conservative by nature as he has blocked several of my posts.
I don't bear any sort of grudge about this and prefer to respect what is stated on all FOREST websites - that they are non political in nature and simply there so that people can have freedom to express their views.
There is a lot of truth in the fact that money may not necessarily buy you happiness, but it certainly can buy you choices. Unlike some lower income earners in council accommodation, who have to abide by the dictatorial edicts of the local council. It also brings to mind one rule for the rich and one for the poor.
This is why New Labour will always be the party of high taxation as a means of wealth distribution supposedly, but in reality it is wasted on ludicrous, multi-million pounds projects that benefit very few. Less taxation means you, the citizen, have power and choice on how you spend your hard-earned money.
The nu-labor mentality does specifically target the poorest for special bullying. Middle-class nu-labor have this Utopian fantasy about "improving" the working-classes. Not empowering them to make choices, you understand, for they are not deemed capable. Rather, to influence and manage their behaviour in order to make them more productive and less vocal.
When nu-labor talk "communities", they see community as being an agent of state; something there to exert peer-pressure against the individual, to suppress the individual's will.
Nu-lab want the state to have a moral-authority over the poor to replace that which used to be asserted through organised religion being added to their economic-dependency. As the poorest are so used to being bossed about, they present little opposition against the new campus-rulers.
Margot, my comment was tongue in cheek, do not take me seriously.
Basil, Have you watched the Zeitgeist film? (accessed via the front page of F2C or zeitgeistmovie.com). Margot, too, might be interested. It's long but worth looking at. (Sheeesh!)
Did anyone see India Knight's excellent piece in the Sunday Times yesterday? I thought I might write and thank her.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/india_knight/article3779909.ece
Lost part of my link - should have been :
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/india_knight/
article3779909.ece
Oh, we are giving each other a lot of things to do today! I'll follow all suggestions through, thanks, when I have time.
Here's my contribution, just received in:-
http://www.iberica2000.org/Es/Articulo.asp?Id=3729
These are two absolutely stunning videos on the total lie of man made CO2, or any other CO2, affecting climate change. Also climate change itself - which simply is not happening. It is scare and control tactics plus big business, all created by the IPCC. Tens of thousands of jobs now depend upon this political ideology of climate change.
The videos feature the most important scientists in this field. Absolutely furious that their profession is being so abused and degraded by these lies being quoted as "scientific evidence shows..."
Sorry, I meant to also say Global Warming, of course, Climate change including global warming and cooling are just continuing the slow cycle they always have done.
Most of us know this, of course, but as with the smoking scare - there's always a question mark in the back of one's mind due to the brainwashing we are all subject to.
It's fascinating to compare the crusades against smoking and climate change.
Both crusades...
1) rely on appealing to people's better nature
2) encourage people to give up frivolous luxuries that they don't "need", but enjoy
3) inconvenience many people with petty, nitpicking rules
4) reinforce the petty rules with huge overbearing mantras and generalisations
5) place the welfare of children (or other helpless people/planets) at the heart of their "message"
6) propagate feelings of guilt based on 6)
7) rely on science, so are inscrutable to most people who therefore can't really argue against the gospel
8) promise impossible things if you obey
As for the place of the middle-classes in all of this, they are traditionally guilt-ridden and traditionally obedient to fashions and fads. Therefore, they are easiest to manipulate.
I don't see the middle-classes escaping the smokefree hysteria or benefitting from the war on climate change. In fact I see them as the main victims of both movements.
They are the section of society most self-conscious and most gullible about trendy ideas, and also the section best equipped (financially) to serve those trendy ideas.
It is the middle-classes who are compelled to believe they are responsible for untold damage to the lower-classes and to the planet. With that albatross, they will rush towards any redemption.
The more inconvenient that redemption is, the more plausible it seems. It's the equivalent of pretentious, boring arthouse films. The more boring they are, the more you are tempted to believe that watching them did you good. Same with the smoking ban, climate change etc.
Undoubtedly the smoking ban and the WOCC inconvenience the working-classes but it is the self-hating middle-classes who promulgate both crusades. They are bent on self-destruction because for 50 years they have believed an infantile rebellion fantasy about undoing your parents' best work.
Almost as a separate issue, Britain as a country has a nation-sized version of middle-class guilt, based on the Empire. I think that's why the public are so anxious, or are told they should be so anxious, to relinquish their heritage. Anything British must be bad, because Britain is bad.
A very clear sighted summing up, Col Dee.
Well thankyou, Margot. I was worried I hadn't expressed it very well. Nevertheless, I'd like to clarify some stuff.
My main point is that, if you go down the road of blaming the middle-classes and accusing them of snobbery re. health and social control etc., you're going to run into trouble when you hit the fact that they're victimising themselves at least as much as the working-classes.
It simply doesn't make sense to say that, for example, the Smoking Ban was an effort to attack the working-class. (I saw that posted on another site.)
How can anyone believe that snobbery could, in today's Britain, survive the journey from a casual remark to the statute book?! In this day and age... no way. "Inverse snobbery" of course, is allowed free reign throughout society. Nothing is more fashionable than to scold the middle and upper classes.
And for a long time it's been logical to blame stuff on the middle and upper classes because they were in control. But from what I can gather, the old boy network barely exists anymore and the remaining faithful will surely get short shrift from right-on organisations like ASH, Common Purpose, New Labour and the EU. They are the very last remnants of a long-dead empire; why would anyone give them the time of day now?
The middle-class is destroying itself because it believes itself to be wicked, and the prime reason for that is the Empire.
Of course, the middle-class chastising themselves has unfortunate side-effects for us all.
1. Classical education. How passe! What use is Chaucer when you can learn about diversity!
2. Speaking properly. Wha', yi hink yer be'er thin me? Believe it or not, there are now BBC newsreaders who don't prononunce their T's. After all, why would you care about manners unless you were an evil snob?
3. The desire to further oneself. Today our children are taught that competition is inherently bad because there will be a loser, who may feel upset. You may argue this is to psychologically prepare them for a future, ultra-classless, ultra-equality society in which there are literally no opportunities because of the Marxist EU destroying industry. It will certainly help to bring that situation about.
4. The security of being able to "locate" yourself within society, with the inevitable desire and drive to traverse the social strata by working hard and doing well.
Of course there were bad aspects to the class system, but I honestly believe it was preferable to the social chaos we are now enduring, and which is going to destroy Britain.
But the belief that a class system is totally bad is, I think, the main engine behind pretty much everything going on in politics now. It explains:
1. The propagation of the welfare state and the resulting culture of idleness and aimlessness. That culture is embodied by chavs but I believe it affects many, many more members of my generation. (I'm 25.)
2. The WOCC. The blame for climate change can be laid squarely on Britain's Industrial Revolution, which fuelled the infamous Empire. In other words, Britain's middle-classes now have "a debt to pay to the planet".
3. Diversity/multiculturalism. Being middle-class used to mean being at the helm of Britain's efforts to subjugate foreign countries, especially less civilised ones. Therefore, today's middle-class must atone for that by approving of multiculturalism no matter what the cost.
4. The dumbing down of TV. Again it comes back to the gap between state and private education. The memory of this shames today's middle-class, who respond by levelling everything DOWNWARDS so that no matter where you were educated, you will understand E4. Of course the dumbing down of TV has other causes, but the desire to discredit education (in the old-fashioned sense of the word, as exemplified by Eton and Oxbridge etc.) must surely help things.
5. CCTV. As a nation, the Brits enjoyed unfettered access to less-privileged countries by taking them over. Today, there is a subconscious belief that that "pillaging" tendency exists latently in every British person (original sin). So they must be watched and observed for the sake of everyone's safety. I'm pretty sure about this one. The fact we are the most watched nation on Earth surely links up SOMEHOW with the fact that, pretty recently, we annexed a quarter of the globe.
6. Smoking. This is more complex. On the one hand our politicians believe they must protect the working-classes from a traditional working-class vice. But they also despise themselves so believe middle-class smokers must be somehow punished - not for being smokers, but actually for being middle-class; the smoking is just an excuse, as will be the alcohol. There is a national drive in Britain to chastise ourselves for any reason and it all goes back to the Empire. In a sense, anti-smoking legislation seems more triumphant when it inconveniences a well-educated, self-sufficient middle-class person than a badly-educated or working-class person. The more educated the victim is, the more their acceptance of being victimised signifies that the victimisation is "right" and that the State has "won".
Of course, the implementing of a class-wide smoking ban also helps to nullify the class boundaries. All smokers, regardless of class, are bastards.
7. The Hunting Ban. I don't think I need explain this. The recorded comments of Labour MPs at the time say it all.
8. Our acceptance of Islam. If the British public of 1880 were to learn that we were harbouring a religion which deemed itself incompatible with democracy, and many of whom's adherents wanted to destroy Britain, with many more of them not considering themselves "British"... well, I doubt they'd have been here for long. Again it is shame about the Empire which is behind our appeasement of Islam.
9. Europe. Our class system distinguishes Britain from all other European countries because it is far more pronounced here. Perhaps this explains why it is considered so important for Britain to be "Eurofied". The self-hating middle-classes know that such a process will utterly crush what remains of our class system.
10. Our namby-pamby treatment of criminals. Today if a youth mugs you, society assumes he did it because of his working-class background which stifled him and compelled him to crime. That is effectively a way for the middle-class to apologise to the working-class. Is it appeasement of the uneducated BECAUSE they are uneducated? No. It is appeasement by the educated BECAUSE they are educated. They will appease anything which their middle-class ancestors would have resented.
I realise a lot of these examples are a little airy-fairy, but consider this: would any of the things I listed be happening if our class system was as solid as it was 100 years ago? I doubt it. With the collapse of class, we are scrambling for a new identity and we're effectively running scared straight into the arms of Brussels.
Being Scottish, I was unaware until two minutes ago that today is St. George's Day. So, Happy St. George's Day. everyone! (even though NuLabour seems to be doing its damnedest to stifle both patriotism and happiness)
BTW over on "Nanny Knows Best" a rousing rendition of "Jerusalem" accompanies a video that celebrates Englishness.
Col Dee - it surprises me that you are only 25 years old. You certainly possess great depth of thought as well as displaying maturity when putting your thoughts into words. You are absolutely right about the middle classes being the instigators of all these society-changing ideas/dogmas. By doing this they are ignoring the wishes of working class people and annoying them immensely. They are systematically killing off all of our traditions and way of life.
In the past, the middle classes often championed working-class people (I realise a lot of them oppressed them as well), but I do think that the working classes looked to the middle classes to fight their corner as the aristocracy was far-removed from ordinary people. Ironically, today, it is not the upper classes who are wanting to belittle the working classes and destroy the lower classes' way of enjoying themselves and their lives. A lot of middle class people are envious of those who have more money and property than them, hence the erosion of 'aristocratic' pursuits such as hunting with hounds. As for the erosion of lower classes' pursuits - well, the consequences of all this will manifest themselves in due course. I, personally, do not regard the smoking ban as being solely targeting working class people because lots of people from different classes/backgrounds enjoy smoking. However, I do think that a lot of working class people will and do interpret all this as an attack upon them. This is something I predicted well before the legislation came into force on 1st July 2007. A happy St George's Day to you all, regardless of whether you are English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Cornish or Manx!!
>Col Dee - it surprises me that you are only 25 years old. You certainly possess great depth of thought as well as displaying maturity when putting your thoughts into words.
Well thankyou very much, Jenny. That's the nicest thing that's been said to me for a very long time!
Col Dee - I agree with Jenny and meant to find time to write the same. I've given you a mention in the recent comments on Free Society's article "No taxation without representation." Hope you don't mind.
Col Dee - I agree with Jenny and meant to find time to write the same. I've given you a mention in the recent comments on Free Society's article "No taxation without representation." Hope you don't mind.