[Closed] Tory Scum

Oh shit! Is it half term again?
Yet you seem to reject anyone who wants to help those that come from similar backgrounds and label them as spouting tory rhetoric. You appear to jump to conclusions about people without knowing anything about their backgrounds.
You seem happy to dismiss the ideas of others yet don't offer your own.
You are simply no better than the people you hate.

oh dear 🙂

as a few others have pointed out your comments are fairly naive but I don't hate you for them.

as a few others have pointed out your comments are fairly naive but I don't hate you for them.

no-one is suggesting that its fine to sit on your arse and do nothing about your situation, what the more enlightened amoung us are observing is that

I never suggested you did suggest it, I simply said the opposite is perfectly possible in this country. That's the only point i was trying to stress here - i.e. as I said, social mobility is fine in the UK, people taking up on societies offers is less well patronised.

its far easier to make a success out of yourself if you come from a reasonably affluent background...as you yourself have (inadvertently) proved.

I don't actually see it as being any more difficult, I don't think my position proved anything. I started from scratch, I got the same chances at qualifications anyone else did until I became an adult, from there I tracked down further chances and opportunities for myself, I tracked down multiple part time jobs to pay for stuff. I don't see how that was any different from anyone else, other than in mind-set and effort. My parents position, when looked at in this light, gave me nothing more over a less well off family (and we were in no way "well off") than a good work ethic and a comfy house, which didn't exactly come free - as I said, my parents worked multiple jobs to keep food on the table when I was a sprog. Sure, all kids should get education to a level for free but beyond that life is what you make of it. If you parents are not capable of providing for you then they need to step up and provide a bare minimum of care, or expect to have you removed. They chose to have kids, they need to be sure they can provide for them for life. In the case where they were working and end up out of work outside their own doing, sure they need help and finance for some time - I'm all for that, benefits far outweigh the damage of a family destitute, but that needs to be kept in check and for there to be some reason for a person to get back into work ASAP. And don't give me the balls about lack of jobs, I've first hand experience that shows that even in the most deprived areas of Glasgow there's jobs to be had by anyone with a good worth ethic. Not great pay, but enough to live on just fine.

As I say, I don't subscribe to any specific ideology but I do believe the far left (and right) views are nonsense.

The only thing holding people back are the people telling them that it's ok to sit back and do bugger all

Wow, that's quite a bold statement.

So you don't believe that drug addiction, abuse, poor quality schooling, social deprivation, mental health problems, disabilities etc have [i]any[/i] impact at all on peoples' ability to get on in life? And you think if people don't succeed it's all the fault of hand-wringing lefties?

Really?

That's the only point i was trying to stress here - i.e. as I said, social mobility is fine in the UK, people taking up on societies offers is less well patronised.

What are you basing it that statement on exactly? Social mobility is significantly worse than in most other developed countries, as I said earlier, and people from privileged backgrounds are still far, far more likely to get into positions of money and power. Where is your evidence that it's 'fine'?

My parents position, when looked at in this light, gave me nothing more over a less well off family (and we were in no way "well off") than a good work ethic and a comfy house

I can't honestly believe you are downplaying the importance of those things. 🙄

Many of the kids I have worked with come from incredibly chaotic/abusive/negative home backgrounds would kill to have supportive parents and a 'comfy house'.

So you don't believe that drug addiction, abuse, poor quality schooling, social deprivation, mental health problems, disabilities etc have any impact at all on peoples' ability to get on in life? And you think if people don't succeed it's all the fault of hand-wringing lefties?

The [b]only[/b] thing holding people back are the people telling them that it's ok to sit back and do bugger all, people like you.

What else does this mean?

So are they scrum because they are tory, tory because they are scum or is it just coincidence and there is scum all round?

Cillit Bang is good with scum apparently - or is it semtex bang? I never can remember

So anyone from a deprived background who is addicted to drugs, abused, has poor quality schooling (this might actually be quite important), socially deprived, have mental health problems, disabilities etc, should be labelled as such, told they don't have a future and should really know their places and consequently not make the effort because the mere idea of doing well for oneself is pure theory?
really?

Nope - we should be realistic and honest about the challenges these people face and help and support them to make something of their lives. Instead of ignoring their problems and blaming them for being lazy and ****less as the reason why they're poor.

Improving aspiration is obviously desirable - pretending they can all be CEOs or Alan Sugar or even MPs/cabinet members isn't realistic or helpful though.

coffeeking thinking he is totally 'self-made' despite coming from a supportive family background is a classic example of the way myths get created/perpetuated.

Nope - we should be realistic and honest about the challenges these people face and help and support them to make something of their lives.

Instead of ignoring their problems and blaming them for being lazy and ****less as the reason why they're poor.

Enough of your tory rhetoric, young man!

That's not Tory rhetoric - where in the Tory rhetoric is the bit about helping and supporting them? That's just nanny-state leftist molly-coddling surely. Survival of the fittest is the Tory way.

The only thing holding people back are the people telling them that it's ok to sit back and do bugger all, people like you.

Perhaps we should do a Norman Tebbit and tell them to get on their bikes. Then they could get to the places where the jobs are, you know places like the south east with the high property prices, particularly around schools performing well.

Why does everything have to be extreme in this place?

Well its a reaction to your extreme view that "the only thing holding people back are the people telling them that it's ok to sit back and do bugger all, people like you", kind of jibe.

To believe that simply telling people "you're on your own, now get on with it" in this day and age and expect those less fortunate than ourselves to dig themselves out of a hole without providing the foundations on which they can achieve their potential...well we've been doing that in this country for a while now.

Instead of ignoring their problems and blaming them for being lazy and ****less as the reason why they're poor.

It costs less to do so. It's an individual wiping his hands clean of his responsibility to wider society. It's very tory.

That's not Tory rhetoric

Those Tories, they love you to think you have a chance to better yourself, but you only have to look at how they shouted "Gin & Tonic Steward" whenever Prescott stood up to speak in the House of Commons - proof that they don't really like it when someone does manage to drag himself up through the morass. Right wingers, they don't like it up 'em.

If you look at what I posted, I mean really look, you'll see that I want to encourage people from all backgrounds to succeed and stand on their own two feet, and that with the right support they can.

Doesn't seem like it to me - seems like you want to tell people that unless they strive incredibly hard to compete effectively against people who have massive advantages over them they are lazy failures.

with the right support they can.

But isn't supporting them just nanny-state molly-coddling encouraging dependency and ****lessness? And what about those that can't, even with the right support (which this government in particular seems to have absolutely no interest in giving)? **** em eh? Lazy scum.

Improving aspiration is obviously desirable - pretending they can all be CEOs or Alan Sugar or even MPs/cabinet members isn't realistic or helpful though.

Why would everyone want to aspire to that?

Surely a more realistic and potentially even more fulfilling aspiration would be to re-educate yourself, achieve a career you can be proud of, possibly purchase your own home & build a family you can be even more proud of, in an area you enjoy living in?

None of these things are beyond anyone should they truly desire them, the opportunities are available. Yes you will have to work hard, is that your problem?

If your heart only desires monetary riches then its unlikely your first or second POA will result in wealth, but if you set your mind to it and learn from your mistakes - and are willing to put in a ton of hard work, who's to say one of your ideas may not bear fruit?

Of course we can't all be millionaires, providing the economy doesnt go all Mugabe.
But we can all acheive, even the users, abused etc (even the rich/wealthy abused/users - they exist too)

If you look at what I posted, I mean really look, you'll see that I want to encourage people from all backgrounds to succeed and stand on their own two feet, and that with the right support they can.

There wasn't anything about "encouraging" and "support". You said :

[i]"Regarding having the ability to get off your arse and do something positive is within reach of everyone."[/i]

Which is pretty bog standard cheap and meaningless Tory rhetoric.

Now tell me that I'm a "condescending little twerp" and how you feel "insulted".

Oh dear 🙂

Which is pretty bog standard cheap and meaningless Tory rhetoric.

by that standard, blaming others is your rhetoric

Doesn't seem like it to me

Lazy scum.

"Regarding having the ability to get off your arse and do something positive is within reach of everyone."

by that standard, blaming others is your rhetoric

Oh it is, is it ? So where have I blamed "others" ?

Do tell me.

Surely a more realistic and potentially even more fulfilling aspiration would be to re-educate yourself, achieve a career you can be proud of, possibly purchase your own home & build a family you can be even more proud of, in an area you enjoy living in?

Yes ok.

None of these things are beyond anyone should they truly desire them, the opportunities are available. Yes you will have to work hard, is that your problem?

What you seem to fail to realise up in your ivory tower is how unattainable all that seems to many people - often with good reason. These kind of statements usually come from those who had a good start in life, were brought up with good values and aspirations, and who's parents valued working hard and achieving in life. Many people don't have that.

You do realise that there actually aren't enough jobs for everyone to have one - so how is this dream available to everyone exactly? Set up their own business? OK, can everyone do that - then there will be no-one unemployed right?

What you seem to fail to realise up in your ivory tower is how unattainable all that seems to many people - often with good reason.

You do realise that there actually aren't enough jobs for everyone to have one

Those Tories, they love you to think you have a chance to better yourself, but you only have to look at how they shouted "Gin & Tonic Steward" whenever Prescott stood up to speak in the House of Commons - proof that they don't really like it when someone does manage to drag himself up through the morass.

they do like it if you forget your roots and become greedy like them though
EDIT: for balance I assume we all accept that people will get beeter outcomes via effort but it is not true to suggest this aloone will equal success or that everyone succesful did actually work hard*

* i am happy to accept murdochs son worked hard and still does but I am sure he is where he is because he is Murdochs son rather than any personal skill/hard work other reason [ as recent events show] on his part.

And very often that good reasonm is that they are given the excuses for failing before they even try.

Right, so the problem is not that people find it hard to get on in life when they come from a deprived background, have problems with drugs/alcohol/abuse, have poor quality schooling, mental health problems, disabilities, parents that either don't care or actively discourage achievement, and live in an area of high unemployment/crime, it's that they've read the Guardian too often and it told them it's ok to be lazy. Hmmmm....

By the way, in my work I actually do encourage young people from deprived backgrounds to make something of themselves. I imagine given that you are obviously very passionate about this issue you do something similar right?

And grum closes in with the moral high ground pincer movement. 🙂

I get vertigo up here on this [i]massive[/i] high horse sometimes. 😀

But what I actually do is just go out and lecture kids about the best excuses for failing in life - that's what really switches me on.

The fat lady is warming up

I'm a dirty self-employed capitalist. So I'll just mince around in the foothills of morality for now extracting money from the wealthy. 🙂

What are you basing it that statement on exactly? Social mobility is significantly worse than in most other developed countries, as I said earlier, and people from privileged backgrounds are still far, far more likely to get into positions of money and power. Where is your evidence that it's 'fine'?

Your definition/proof of social mobility came in the form of data which showed that people tended to have the same wages as their parents. I don't think that proves anything about the individual opportunities that people have. I believe that the very fact that there many are folk who have come from nothing to achieve good wages/positions purely through hard work is proof that the potential for social up-ward movement is just fine (though I did add the admission that the possibility of the *very* top positions may somewhat more restricted).

I can't honestly believe you are downplaying the importance of those things.

I'm not downplaying them at all. What I'm doing is pointing out that, having come from a non-affluent background and a family that didn't follow the leftie belief system despite being in a working class northern UK town, my parents and those around did just fine by trying. Naturally kids need a comfortable life and to have work ethic instilled in them, but I don't think that has anything to do with a political persuasion.

Many of the kids I have worked with come from incredibly chaotic/abusive/negative home backgrounds would kill to have supportive parents and a 'comfy house'.

Snap, but ultimately in those situations the kids have to make the decision to improve themselves and be shown that they can by those educating them as their parents won't. We have folk that do this, across a broad range of professions, I was a small part of it too. The biggest issue I came up against was funding too, while my time was donated free of charge and so was equipment, the less well off parents would bring their kids along and refuse to let their kids do things because the nominal cost of their kids food while away meant that they couldn't afford it. Despite the fact that they would not have to feed the kid whilst they were gone, and that we were charging a subsidised cost far cheaper than a meal really costs, and they turned up to the centre with a mcDs meal each week and a pack of 20 cigarettes in hand. For the sake of the kids the costs were swallowed but it just goes to show what some folk think while bitching and moaning about whoever is in power. Some folk think the world owes them a living. The sad reality is some of the folk at the centre I was at had been there 20 years and had taken the parents away on the same basis, who now saw it as free child care too. Like others on here i'd happily do anything to help the kids but rubbing shoulders with useless parents with horrific attitudes who took it out on those helping their kids made me so angry. This is probably why I have a built in instinctual wince when I meet vocally lefty folk, as experience has told me they are often the same folk. Not always clearly, but often.

As I said, my point was that the ability to move up is dictated primarily by making the choice to and seeking the help that is available all around. I was not making any suggestions as to whether or not one party line was better than the other.

it's that they've read the Guardian too often and it told them it's ok to be lazy.

I imagine given that you are obviously very passionate about this issue you do something similar right?

I don't think that proves anything about the individual opportunities that people have. I believe that the very fact that there many are folk who have come from nothing to achieve good wages/positions purely through hard work is proof that the potential for social up-ward movement is just fine (though I did add the admission that the possibility of the *very* top positions may somewhat more restricted).

* Are you really suggesting that the child from a council estate borne into poverty with drug addicted parents has had the same opportunities as the privately educated son of millionaire like say call me Dave - its not a great argument tbh

What I'm doing is pointing out that, having come from a non-affluent background

my point was that the ability to move up is dictated primarily by making the choice to

What exactly do you do Don Simon?

What exactly do you do Don Simon?

DS at work earlier today
[img] [/img]

You mentioned that you do something similar to grum. I just wondered what that was.

@Junky 😆

You mentioned that you do something similar to grum. I just wondered what that was.

Do you understand statistics at all - that is rhetorical btw.
1. if there wer emany then the graph would not look like that - there are very few
2. To talk of opportunities when shown the outcomes is to suggest the reason they failed to get the same outcomes , when given the same opportunities* [ you seem to be arguing wealth confers no advantage on a person as well BTW} is because of some fault in them

Yes thanks, I'm fairly well versed in stats. Unfortunately that graph shows social [b]motion[/b], not social [b]mobility[/b] and your use of it means you make the assumption that people will always try to better themselves rather than give up and accept their position. Mobility is fine, motion is poor.

the estate is a baren wasteland now due to social mobility I assume?

No, because there is a turnover of people coming in for the cheaper housing while they can't afford better and moving out as they get higher wages. Virtually no-one I know still lives there but plenty of new folk do, usually folk who have moved from the even less well off areas in city outskirts around.

aye right so people choose to not move up then and work 60 hours shifts for the minimum wage....they are rather stupid even if they work hard, what what

Come again in English? People do often choose not to move up, yes. Are you that far out of touch? I've worked those shifts, I've been in those employers where the staff are offered more cash for more responsibility and the minimum wage staff say "^*£$ off, I don't want that responsibility for only a grand a year more, I'm happy packing boxes". If you think these people dont exist, and don't exist in droves, you're living in lala land.

Mentoring business start ups.

So not really similar at all then.

Mobility is fine

Again, what are you basing this on? Your own biased personal experience and your perception of those around you? Pretty poor evidence really. Whereas there's lot of pretty clear evidence that social mobility in this country is particularly poor (that you seem very keen to deny).

So not really similar at all then.

By the way, in my work I actually do encourage young people from deprived backgrounds to make something of themselves. I imagine given that you are obviously very passionate about this issue you do something similar right?

Why not?

Well because most of the people I work with are a long way off having the skills/confidence to even think of starting their own businesses I suppose (probably because I've infected them with my excuse-providing Guardianista ways).

(probably because I've infected them with my excuse-providing Guardianista ways).

I rather suspected it wasn't similar at all 🙂

Your words, not mine.

Clever what you did there.

So you specifically work with people [i]from deprived backgrounds[/i] who want to set up businesses or are at the early stages? Really? Hmmmm....

Again, what are you basing this on? Your own biased personal experience and your perception of those around you? Pretty poor evidence really.

Jesus, do I have to repeat myself again? It's based on the fact that people can and DO move up from council estate to nice 4 bed houses in the 'shires through hard work and making opportunities. Not just my experience, the experience of many around me. Several of the folk who lived in the estate with me are now earning double what I do doing jobs that don't require degree qualifications because they worked their asses off as teens/20s. Some of the classmates are now in jail and others still living in what would be classed as poverty. Naturally I can't speak for all areas so my experience is limited to a couple of small northern towns. I do accept that it's more difficult from the depths of poverty and easier from a well off middle class household, clearly, but I don't think there's a mobility problem, there's motion problem. With more education of kids and better aspirations the motion may get closer to the mobility. If you class mental attitude as part of mobility then sure mobility is poor, but since the argument is usually put that social mobility is government-related I don't believe that holds true - the government is not responsible for peoples aspirations and intentions.

It's based on the fact that people can and DO move up from council estate to nice 4 bed houses in the 'shires through hard work and making opportunities. Not just my experience, the experience of many around me.

But that's just your anecdotal evidence and your perception of other's experience - it's statistically meaningless in the overall picture. Repeating your opinions over and over again doesn't make them universal facts.

I don't think there's a mobility problem, there's motion problem

Again, your opinion, based on your own perception and having not looked at (or dismissed out of hand) any of the real evidence.