Mister Ed says the word “responsibility” 33 times in his speech and yes, I was counting. And it’s riddled with contradictions. As I mentioned in a previous post he conflates the ridiculous (finance sector, private care homes with benefit claimants) and he is inconsistent.
And there is a link between the man on incapacity benefit and those executives at Southern Cross. What is that link?
That these are people who are just not taking responsibility – and the rest of us are left picking up the pieces.
Yet later on Mister Ed states this:
We should not demonise people anywhere in society.
I do not accept the Conservative characterisation of those on benefits as being feckless and worthless.
The man was I talking about earlier cared about his children and wanted to bring them up right, but the system neither demanded nor encouraged him to do the right thing.
We have a responsibility to provide people with opportunities to improve their lives and escape poverty.
Essentially Mister Ed is demonising people on benefits. He may go on about “doing the right thing” but doesn’t go into detail about the much adored word, “responsibility”… How will Labour take responsibility? And what was even more depressing is that Mister Ed not only quotes war mongering neoliberal Tony Blair but there is a sermon style approach to the way Mister Ed delivers his speech. It certainly sent a chill shiver down my spine as it was Blair all over. Welcome to the world of blue Labour. Rights and responsibilities: less rights for the poor but more responsibilities. Damn those work-shy people shirking their responsibilities they’re just as bad the Fred Goodwin’s of the world and greedy care home providers.
And it’s…er… meaningless as there’s no real examples of solid policy proposals instead we have this guff, terminally mundane and boring. Just what has Mister Ed been doing for the past months if all he could muster was this speech?
A more responsible economy
A more responsible society
And a sense of common life that offers meaning and purpose.
That is the mission for our party.
That too should be the mission or our country.
But how?????? How is this going to happen????? Mister Ed wants to keep those blue Labour numpties happy, right-wing populist newspapers and Labour’s own supporters. Yet in the pecking order of responsibility the poor are at the bottom. In the desperation to keep everyone sweet Mister Ed will have to jettison something and that something will be people on benefits. NL never gave a damn about the poor in those 13 years and it still continues.
The start of his speech mentions an anecdote (see this excellent post going into detail).
While out campaigning during the local elections, not for the first time, I met someone who had been on incapacity benefit for a decade.
He hadn’t been able to work since he was injured doing his job.
It was a real injury, and he was obviously a good man who cared for his children.
But I was convinced that there were other jobs he could do.
And that it’s just not right for the country to be supporting him not to work, when other families on his street are working all hours just to get by.
Is Mister Ed now a qualified doctor? How does he know the man can do other jobs? Has he spoken to the man’s doctor? I doubt it but hey, is it not wonderful when you can point the finger and moralise and make assumptions about a person’s life. As someone mentioned in a very witty tweet maybe Ed, once deposed, should just become an assessment officer for Atos.
As the post I refer to correctly argues, Ed is tapping into the hostility and it’s misplaced. It’s bandwagon jumping on the right-wing press. Instead of succumbing to it question it. Yes, you always hear anecdotes from people who believe that asylum seekers have better housing (based on what?) and that the “person down the road” is claiming loads of benefits they shouldn’t (How do they know?).
Capitulating to this is creating even more of a climate of fear, stigmatisation, bullying and indeed…demonisation. Something which Mister Ed remarked that he was against. Back on the subject of these anecdotes, I was gawping at the telly watching the debate on the Welfare Reform Bill yesterday, listening to MPs making and certainly breaking the lives of ordinary people. It’s a thoroughly vicious and nasty Bill.
But hark, after 8pm, Tory MP Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) came out with this:
I recently met a lady in my constituency who is a health visitor, and she told me of a trip that she had paid to a family living in Northamptonshire. The mother had just had her fourth child, and her eldest child was 15 years old. As the health visitor left, the older daughter chased her out and said that her mother was trying to persuade her to have a baby to improve their income, but she did not have a boyfriend and did not really want one. She asked what the health visitor would advise that she do. That is symptomatic of some of the problems that we have in this country as a result of our welfare system.
More anecdotes being quoted speculating just how easy people have it on benefits, myths and further hostility. What is easy is for MPs to discuss tittle-tattle and gossip as hard evidence. If any of that anecdote is true, it just shows how desperate people get and I would love to see the MP for South Northamptonshire live on meagre benefits to get by. You don’t live you exist. I would also be interested to see Mister Ed exist on benefits. But these anecdotes sells papers and gain votes while the people on the sharp end get put under the spotlight and their benefits scrutinised and dissected.
Yet nobody, and you would expect a Labour leader to say this and it NEEDS expressing, is the number of benefits that don’t get claimed! People are losing out on benefits that are rightly theirs. But that don’t sell papers nor garner populist votes. And that’s just for starters. Rather than lazy bandwagon jumping, dividing and ruling and scapegoating the poor Mister Ed should be defending his class (I give you a clue, Mister Ed, if you are unsure which social class that is) working class. The one thing the Tories do well and that is defending their own class interests. If Mister Ed is such a one for responsibility then be responsible for that,.
H/T to Tim for giving me the link to Mister Ed’s tedious speech.
