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Monday 16 February 2004

Definition of irony? [muz]

What is the definition of irony? While I'm sure there are various racial and occupational stereotypes that the other members of the crosshatch will be only too happy to enumerate, I myself would like to add a new one to the list:
'Right-wing Asian student coming home to find BNP recruitment flyers in letter box.'
Photos of said flyers may be viewed here, here, here, and here.
Do you get the feeling that they failed to ascertain the nature of the residents before leaving said flyers, perhaps? :)
There are some very interesting claims on there... apparently it costs the UK £1.25 million per hour to be a member of the European Union, and asylum seekers get free 20' colour TVs and have their licence fees paid for them every year. I shall leave it to the more vitriolic members of the clan to debunk these claims. I for one will return to attempting to control my bladder while collapsing into a fit of hysterical giggles.

6 comments:

  1. Cor, I could do with a twenty foot tv Muz, sign me up!

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  2. You noticed that the BNP leaves off their more radical agenda from those leaflets? Stuff like that forced repatriation (we generously pay for it!) and stuff like that.

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  3. Regardless of what you think of the BNP, the state of play for the elderly in this country is nothing short of criminal.
    A recent BBC survey (admittedly small in it's scope) showed that quite a lot of old timers are actually having to go back to work at the age of 70+ to make their ludicrous state support up to the cost of living. One guy had just started doing a 24 hour week at B&Q and he was 68.
    I mean if we take a fairly simple example; let's assume you start work at 20 (you've been to uni) and stop / retire at 70, and averaging out your salary across your lifetime you earn approx £40,000 - £50,000 a year. By my reckoning you'd have paid around £600,000 in income tax and national insurance.
    It's somewhat odd therefore that we have 70 year olds sitting in the cold and dark because the financial support the state gives them after a lifetime of contributing to the nation's coffers isn't enough to light up a 60W bulb.

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  4. the whole 'old age pension' thing is quite complicated actually - it's a social ill that has numerous causes. First of all, the government does do it's level best to shaft pensioners in some ways - the infamous 'increase the pension by the inflation rate in November' trick for one - but it is also true that a lot of pensioners don't actually claim other government benefits they are entitled to which could increase their income. Secondly, there are those who have a private pension that they thought would see them through their dotage only for it to be mullered by companies pilfering their employee schemes or private schemes being devalued by the dotcom crash aftermath. It has to equally be said thought that a lor of pensioners are sitting on significant assets they don't want to liquidate - my parents (who are both roughly of that age) are living in a huge 5 bedroom house that was required as their family (me and siblings) was growing up. They don't need it now. The!could sell it, buy a decent two bed semi in a nice area and still have a massive wodge left over to have a better life on. But they don't want to. The logic apparently being they want to leave it to their kids. Despite their kids all telling them numerous times that we'd all rather they sold the place and enjoyed their free time, because we all already have houses thanks.
    So, I think times are hard for coffin dodgers but I also think a lot of them don't do everything they can to make their lives easier, either because they feel an obligation that isn't actually there, or they don't understand what's available for them to use or their upbringing doesn't allow them to think the right way.
    One thing though - the idea that because you've paid tax you should get a big pension is and always has been a fallacy. You pay tax so the roads are built and the bins are empited and there's a nurse at the hospital when you feel ill and there's an army to protect you and trains to ride on. Tax is a bill, not an investment. National Insurance is just a tax by another name - it all goes in the same pot. It doesn't matter if you paid £50 or £50 million in tax, the governments social obligation to ensure you're cared for late in life is exactly the same.
    In any case, back to the topic of conversation. I live in an area that has a significant muslim population. While the missive to Muz is indeed ironic, I do wonder what some of the numerous leaflets in arabic writing that get shoved through my door are all about. They could be advertising car boot sales or be recruiting leaflets for Al Quieda, I simply have no idea. I'd imagine some old Indian patriarch who doesn't read english all that well might have exactly the same sense of bemusement at one of the leaflets Muz has seen.

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  5. Bloke I used to know looked like a typical skinhead. Very short hair, green bomber jacket, big DM's. Was leafleting in his local area one day and a black guy came out of one of the houses clutching the leaflet shouting at him. He told him to actually read the leaflet which was when the guy realised he was an Anti-Nazi/Racism leaflet. :-)

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  6. Poor pensioners my arse:
    news.bbc.co.uk
    'The government is saying that it will guarantee a single person at least an income of £102.10 a week or £155.80 a week, if they are a couple.
    £102 a week, in their sky-rocket. To spend on what? Cat-food and teabags. What are these fuckers doing with all this money, that's what I want to know? And they get a bucket of money towards their heating bills in winter.
    If they have no pension other than the state, which is the norm where I come from, they are making out like bandits. They get their council tax paid and they get Income Support. My dad after years of working as a bricklayer for British Steel where manual workers weren't allowed to pay into the pension scheme, made the terrible mistake of getting a night job at Bail Hostel for crims awaiting trail. He spent his last eight working years, before he was compulsory retired at 65, paying into the local goverment pension scheme and gets £50 a month from that pension. Consequently, he can't claim for free council tax or income support.

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