Int: Back again after the world's longest commercial break. So where do you go from here?
me: well the choice is living on the street (but my wife won't hear of that), throwing myself in the Main (ditto), or hoping that a real job still turns up, which seems unlikelier by the day, or hoping against hope that summat emerges from my small claims procedures. If those don't get resolved in my favour and fairly quickly, we'll be already humming "the Highway to Hell".
Int (laughing): You're an atheist, but you believe in Hell?
me: I think that we live in summat close to what Hell is supposed to be already. If it doesn't exist in the here and now, it did. I lived in the North of England during the Thatcher years during the 1980s and that was a living Hell. As for Hell after we die - no there isn't one, but we can actually live in summat like one. I think that living in Saudi Arabia or Iran or Gaza would be like living in Hell. Anywhere where there is fanatical belief be it religious or political in fact.
Int: You never seem to have a polite word for Margaret Thatcher?
me: to reword what I wrote on Facebook the other day, she should have become Prime Minister in 1977 instead of 1979 - and in the Falkland Islands not in the UK! And stayed there forever where the Empire loyalist spirit lives on!
Int (shaking head): But surely she made Britain great again?
me: A great what? Casino for the gamblers in the City of London, maybe. And for the rest. Debt culture, speculation and mass unemployment. There was all the talk of breaking the dependency culture. Her government saw a doubling of the rate of unemployment (in places like Manchester and Middlesbrough it tripled). There is nobody who is more dependent than someone who is unemployed!
As for the debt culture, the dependency factor was there as well - and still is. Instead of encouraging sound money principles (only borrow what you can afford to pay back), you were encouraged, in fact often obliged, to borrow way beyond your means with no clear view as to when you could pay it back.
Instead of being dependent upon the government, you became dependent upon private lending institutions. Interest rates were anyway at record levels throughout the 80s (anybody remember interest rates stuck nearly permanently at 12%?), and private institutions usually charge well over the standard rate. The people who had least got stuck with paying most. Madness!
Int: This still bothers you? You haven't lived in the UK for years.
me: It was the start of the road to uncertainty. In a sane and sensible economy someone with my talent and work ethic should always have a place and a reasonable job. As it is, going to Holland and Germany kept me working for longer, but finding a permanent job in those countries after you reach a certain age isn't easy either. Notably my talents seem appreciated in good times and nobody seems to want to know in bad times. Which is why you cannot keep working, why you cannot save for the future and eventually become dependent upon the state like it or not (and I don't).
If we need to end the dependency culture in reality we need to re-establish the concept of full meaningful employment accompanied by the presence of a living wage. This used to be a feature of the political capital of Social Democrat parties across Europe. These days they all seem to have sold out to the Neo-Liberal economic nonsense that is taking us further and further into the abyss.
Check out the German elections later this year. The SPD party leader, Sigmar Gabriel, talks the talk. Their candidate for Chancellor though, Peer Steinbrück, is more in with the banks and the bankers than virtually anyone in the CDU.
Not sure if die Grünen have a candidate for Chancellor this year, but I would seriously hope that people here who do not want any more of Merkel's austerity programme will have a better choice than Steinbrück.
Int: die Linke?
me: not a chance - and have they really freed themselves of the former East German yoke? While Oskar Lafontaine was around they seemed relevant, these days they are nowt more than a fringe party. See RESPECT in the UK if you want a similar example.
Int: Time for another commercial break. Back after yet more beer and car commercials. And don't get too drunk while waiting!
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