Comments on: Fighting over the scraps

By: Further reading (The Quiet Road)

Further reading (The Quiet Road) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:16:37 +0000

[...] at Chicken Yoghurt has a couple of good pieces (Fighting over the scraps and Avoiding, evading, dodging the issue) on the tendency of mainstream politics to demonise the [...]

By: jameshigham

jameshigham — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 03:21:41 +0000

Parents who are out of work will have their home lives and their children’s prospects investigated…

Stinks.

By: Justin

Justin — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 17:29:25 +0000

Not consciously. I think I may have unwittingly suppressed the memories.

By: redpesto

redpesto — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:59:22 +0000

You’re ignoring the likes of John Hutton, and the Freud ‘review’.

By: ejh

ejh — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:42:53 +0000

I wonder what Purnell and Woolas are going to do when New Labour lose the election?

I can just imagine them forming some sort of get-the-bastards party on the lines of New Zealand First.

Talking of Purnell, Jackie Ashley seems to have had a touch of the Toynbees:

it seems clear enough that for all his image as a Blairite boot boy, James Purnell recognises that the current climate means he cannot clobber people on benefits, or force them into inappropriate job

When you say “clear enough”, Ms Ashley, do you mean “clear enough” to anybody but you?

By: Justin

Justin — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:07:00 +0000

Oh yeah, you’re right. It’s just that since Purnell came along we seem to be having an escalation of hostility.

By: Justin

Justin — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:02:17 +0000

I like that whole quote, actually:

‘The Shannon Matthews case was a horrendous extreme and in no way typical, but it raises the curtain on a way of life in some of our most deprived estates, of entire households who have not had any productive life for generations. It’s a world that really, really has to change,’ said Grayling.

He’s not making massive generalisations on the basis of one case, oh no, no, no. Except he is.

By: redpesto

redpesto — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:57:32 +0000

Welfare issue is starting to look like the new crime issue for the political parties.

Not ’starting’, Justin – New Labour have always given vent to their inner Peter Lilley – at one point they made something like six ‘benefit crackdown’ announcements within less than 12 months, soon after taking office. All those ‘we’re watching you’ ads with the Mysteron rings – just a continuation of the reassurance to Daily Mail readers that the scrotes will be kept in place that the Tories offered for so many years. And in Karen Matthews, they now have their new poster child.

By: ejh

ejh — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:53:13 +0000

it raises the curtain on a way of life in some of our most deprived estates, of entire households who have not had any productive life for generations

Really? How many of them are there, do you think?

By: Justin

Justin — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 12:55:33 +0000

I kid you not.