New report finds Britons to be retarded, fetal-alcohol syndrome babies

[Cain]

Or words to that effect. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16063271

Britons are less willing than ever to pay higher taxes to support the National Health Service, schools or the environment, a new survey suggests.

The National Centre for Social Research's 28th annual British Social Attitudes report also found increasing numbers blaming poverty on "laziness".

The BBC's Home Editor Mark Easton said it was a move towards "more emphasis on individual responsibility".

He said Britons were becoming increasingly "judgmental".

Mr Easton told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The proportion who think we should pay (more) taxes to improve health and education and social benefits is only 30% in England, 40% in Scotland. A decade ago it was 60% in both nations."

The survey suggested 54% believed social security benefits were too high and discouraged people from finding jobs, up from 35% in 1983 when the study was first carried out.

The report echoes last year's British Social Attitudes Report which the Guardian suggested showed Britons 'more Thatcherite than in the 1980s'.

Of the 3,297 people questioned this year, 63% believed parents who "don't want to work" were to blame for children living in poverty.

Penny Young, chief executive of the National Centre for Social Research, said: "In a time of economic austerity and social unrest, the big question coming out of this year's report is whether we really are in it together, or just in it for ourselves?

OK, I can kinda see the tax thing.  Incomes are stagnating or dropping, with millions struggling to even make it to payday, so I can kinda see higher taxes not going down well.  It also depends how the question was asked because, in an ideal world, environmental, health and education issues should probably be privileged over, for example, bailing out the financial sector or spending millions on yet another war of choice, which may not necessarily require a rise in taxes at all, but a reallocation of critical concerns and spending.

However, what exactly at the moment, jobs aside, is more important in the UK than education, health and the environment?  Not much.  We're having freak weather patterns year on year, with insanely hot autumns followed by snowy winters (which were a rarity when I was a kid), along with unprecedented mass flooding.  Education is about the only thing which could probably save our economy at the moment, so of course we're cutting spending there.  And Britain is the most obese nation in Europe, and associated health issues cost the country billions in efficiency every year, so obviously there is no problem there.

But the poverty = laziness thing is hilarious.  Yes, we're in the biggest financial recession since the Great Depression, so clearly people who are poor Aren't Trying Hard Enough.  That makes perfect sense.  To an idiot.  I'm so glad to see our government's crusade to restore 19th century values such as shitting on anyone poorer than yourself and ignoring reality is finally starting to pay off.  Combine this with our usually sneering, xenophobic attitude to foreigners, and we will certainly be a country able to "win the future"!  And the control-freakery and ritual humiliation those on benefits suffer is tremendous (even though this is entirely different to the control freakery Labour subjected people to. No, honest guv.  Small government n shit, all the way).  I am fully aware there are benefit cheats, but given the insane amount of policing currently being done in the system, the only way this can be happening is through the incompetence, laziness or otherwise involvement of the civil servants involved in the benefits system.

Apparently, this country wants austerity.  As a man of democratic inclination, I say, let them have it.  Let them have it good and hard.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

OK, I can kinda see the tax thing.  Incomes are stagnating or dropping, with millions struggling to even make it to payday, so I can kinda see higher taxes not going down well.  It also depends how the question was asked because, in an ideal world, environmental, health and education issues should probably be privileged over, for example, bailing out the financial sector or spending millions on yet another war of choice, which may not necessarily require a rise in taxes at all, but a reallocation of critical concerns and spending.

However, what exactly at the moment, jobs aside, is more important in the UK than education, health and the environment?  Not much.  We're having freak weather patterns year on year, with insanely hot autumns followed by snowy winters (which were a rarity when I was a kid), along with unprecedented mass flooding.  Education is about the only thing which could probably save our economy at the moment, so of course we're cutting spending there.  And Britain is the most obese nation in Europe, and associated health issues cost the country billions in efficiency every year, so obviously there is no problem there.

But the poverty = laziness thing is hilarious.  Yes, we're in the biggest financial recession since the Great Depression, so clearly people who are poor Aren't Trying Hard Enough.  That makes perfect sense.  To an idiot.  I'm so glad to see our government's crusade to restore 19th century values such as shitting on anyone poorer than yourself and ignoring reality is finally starting to pay off.  Combine this with our usually sneering, xenophobic attitude to foreigners, and we will certainly be a country able to "win the future"!  And the control-freakery and ritual humiliation those on benefits suffer is tremendous (even though this is entirely different to the control freakery Labour subjected people to. No, honest guv.  Small government n shit, all the way).  I am fully aware there are benefit cheats, but given the insane amount of policing currently being done in the system, the only way this can be happening is through the incompetence, laziness or otherwise involvement of the civil servants involved in the benefits system.

Apparently, this country wants austerity.  As a man of democratic inclination, I say, let them have it.  Let them have it good and hard.

I didn't realize this just-world bullshit had so thoroughly infected the UK. Nasty timing. Few things make me want to gnaw someone's face off more than the "lazy poor" line. Yes, like a baboon.

Every time I've asked someone advancing that argument about why massive numbers of people suddenly became lazy, they don't have jack shit to say. I hope to run into one of these fetal-alcohol types who will at least attempt to flesh out the full absurdity of their position. I doubt I'll be able to make up something funnier than the utter bollocks I'm anticipating.

[Cramulus]

But the poverty = laziness thing is hilarious.  Yes, we're in the biggest financial recession since the Great Depression, so clearly people who are poor Aren't Trying Hard Enough.  That makes perfect sense.  To an idiot.

[Freeky]

  <- Not sure if should be laughing

[The Good Reverend Roger]

 

America:  Highly Contagious.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

America:  Highly Contagious.

This.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

America:  Highly Contagious.

This.

Well, to be fair, England's always had a bit of assmunch about it.  They've been hovering on the knife edge of fascism for centuries, and they've always enjoyed kicking the poor in the face a bit...ESPECIALLY on the part of the Britons who are damn near poor themselves.

[Cain]

This is probably where you get it from.  Just remember, all your worst media assmunchers are either British (Hitchens, Ferguson) or desperately want to be British (Brooks, Podheretz Elder).

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It's all pretty facepalmtastic.

[Scribbly]

Last time I saw my dad he spent two hours explaining to me how the entire economic crisis is the fault of the immigrants, that every person on welfare should be forced to go somewhere from 9-5 three times a week to weed out the scroungers (because that helps you search for jobs, I presume  ), that our failing education system is the fault of the kids and that it is perfectly right and just for my generation to fuck itself for the next thirty years in order to pay off debt, because then Britain will come out ahead of those damned euros and we'll be great again and the world will bow down to the might and power of the Little Island That Could.

I hate that the entire country seems to be made up of people like my Dad. I mostly think that national identity is a load of shit and trying to paint an entire nation with a broad brush is ridiculous, but if we have a national character, it is as a bunch of entitled, drunken idiots, pining for our glory days and clinging to anything that might make us feel like we're still as 'great' as we were.

Also, related:

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

The UK: Dickens-era nostalgia?