“So, George Osborne: why did you go into politics?”
“Well, I went into politics in order to make the rich richer and to make the poor poorer. I looked at disabled people who had almost nothing and thought how much better their lives would be if they had nothing at all. And when I became chancellor, all my forecasts, predictions and targets were wrong, everything I did was for short term political gain and I then repeated that all was going well because of my ‘long term economic plan’. Do you know what? I got away with it. I just kept saying, “we’re all in it together” and people fell for it.”
Osborne didn’t actually say all these words during his budget speech yesterday because he is a typical smoke and mirrors politician. He says one thing, then means and does quite another. He must be in politics because he hates us.
I do not know what the sick and the disabled and the young and the homeless – the list goes on forever – have done to so distress Osborne. Does he really look at someone with a debilitating and deteriorating condition and think: “Hmm. How can I make these people’s lives more miserable?” I think he must do because why else would he be such an unpleasant chap? I know I am a bit old fashioned, but honestly, I do not look at someone who isn’t in the best of health and wish them ill. If a person is struggling to afford a much-needed medical appliance, my first thought is not “Oh, that’s just too bad. Just manage without like I do, even though I don’t need the appliance myself.” If another person has lost a leg, my first reaction is not to tell them to stand on their own one foot.
Generally speaking, I am in favour of people doing well. I like to see my family and friends make a success of their lives, I don’t get jealous when someone earns more than I do or is able to buy a bigger house or a newer car (which is probably just as well). It pleases me to see hard work rewarded. In saying that, I also believe that those who have the most should contribute the most to society. I do not know if this is the socialist in me, or just the human being. I just think that’s how it should be. We now have a government which doesn’t agree with that.
In our society where ordinary people are not part of the political discourse, we are running into a problem. I genuinely believe that most people do not like to see those with serious conditions and illnesses struggling horribly but because of the nature of our closed society, our in house politics where politicians debate solely among themselves and a media that obsesses with what I regard as trivia, their voices are not heard.
Imagine you suffer from a disability and you listened to Osborne yesterday. There was quite literally nothing in it for you, all the messy stuff didn’t appear in the speech; it appears in the mountain of paperwork that followed the speech. If you don’t even bother to mention it, people will forget. That’s the calculation and unless you are one of those affected, that’s the reality too.
Imagine dedicating your life to making people’s lives worse. George Osborne can’t be a very nice man, can he?
