Fuck Off Back to Eton

  Fuck Off Back to Eton by Paul Hanes on Sunday, March 6, 2011 at 11:02pm · This Article was submitted to Read Magazine Hamburg March 2011.

  Since Britain's last election in May 2010, which saw the rise to power of the right in Britain in the form of the Conservative / Liberal Democrat Coalition Government. Under the leadership of David Cameron and Nick Clegg, Britain is beginning to transform in a way which nobody could predict. 

  Since the coalition governments rise to power less than a year ago Britain is seeing fundamental changes in the structure of the society it has known since the end of the first world war. The Welfare State would conjure up images amongst the readership of mainstream news sources of single mothers and of the unemployed by choice. 

  In fact the welfare state set up by the generation who fought Works War Two is has informed the personality and landscape of Britain in every aspect from safety by ensuring the absence of extreme poverty, keeping the nation healthy with the NHS, to ensuring a productive economy through educating the best capable minds as apposed to only those who can afford quality education. 

  By definition the Welfare state is a model in which the state assumes primary responsibility for the welfare of its citizens. This responsibility in theory ought to be comprehensive, because all aspects of welfare are considered and universally applied to citizens as a "right". As such Britons have enjoyed access to a good level of education, health care, suitable standard of housing, access to a minimum standard of subsistence when out of work through good quality public services available to all and targeted at those who need them most. 

  The framework for delivering this was set up at times when the ruling classes conceded to the citizens concessions which were popular to the working classes who had supported the continuation the the ruling classes and industrialists though their service and sacrifice in the Second World War.

  Additionally the terms in which we organise our societies and in fact the greater world was also part of the reordering as well as the rebuilding which occurred after. The United Nations which formed on 24th October 1945 in order to bring law and order where there had been war. In the Past 10 months of under what is being termed the CON/DEM coalition britain's welfare state is under attack from funding cuts the like of which it has never before been seen. 

  Thousands of public sector workers have been given notice that in March they will be joining the dole queues. The 442 Local Authorities across Britain are shedding £1.5 Billion from their Budgets with job losses of over 1000 jobs not uncommon and Manchester City Council announcing an attack on wages and conditions by giving notice to 25,000 employees. 

  The combined London Boroughs expected to shed around 35,000 jobs during its period of cuts. Oldham plan to cut 544 jobs; Northumberland is considering up to 800 losses. Newcastle and Tower Hamlets plan to cut 500 jobs, including 200 senior and middle management posts; Bristol plans to cut 400 and Westminster 200 permanent and temporary jobs. 

 All this at a time when the Davos Economic Forum in Switzerland has stated that the western economies especially Britain and the United States must create jobs immediately to avoid an irreversible and catastrophic down turn in the economy into recession.

  The ruling classes of Britain consist of around 250,000 millionaires. The wealth of the rich has continued to rocket over the past 40 years and recently despite so called recession the division of wealth has continued to shift towards the rich with the United Nations acknowledging in a report, from the World Institute for Development Economics Research based at the UN University, says that the poorer half of the world's population own barely 1% of global wealth. 

  The Condem Cabinet consists of 29 MP's of which 23 of them are millionaires. Of these three are women. They represent a divide between the rich and the poor. With an estimated 32 millionaires in the Conservative Party alone you would expect the traditional party of the worker The Labour Party setup up and supported by the Trade Unions would be significantly different. Unfortunately not. The Labour Party in opposition has about 26 millionaires. This is proof that the ruling class have significantly occupy senior government positions and it needs to be questioned if they are in touch with every day living.

  This group of predominantly men disproportionately went to the private school of Eton. 19 Prime Ministers have been there and some estimates are that 10% of ministers have attended Eton before. I cannot accept that such a school has significantly better teaching methods to produce more academic students, however such a school is a factory for the values and morals of the ruling class. 

  It is the networks formed at institutions of the ruling class which supports its power base and British Politics is infested with them. Prime Minister David Cameron's first cabinet features 13 chums from his old school, Eton. Having Graduated high school these predominately now middle aged privileged men went onto university which was for their generation free. 

  They also bought houses at a time when the average house price was about 2.5 times average annual income. They then went onto buy second houses and enjoy careers and wealth beyond most people. It is difficult to see how politicians from all three parties can have the empathy to rule over the majority of the population who share so little of the wealth.

  It is the Eton attitude of getting things done and not caring about anyone else which seems firmly entrenched in the Tory Conservative Party and something where their morals need to be examined more closely in the actions they take. 

  In 2010, the Condem's immediately started to pull apart the Welfare State. One of their first moves was to announce that unlike their generation, this generation will have to sustain huge debts in order to attend University. The Condem Mantra is that anyone can attend University and pay afterwards however young people will be saddled with fees of between £3,000 and £9,000 a year with many Universities initiating the top level of fees to their students in the first year of this fee hike. 

  These fees do not cover living costs which are also soaring with 25% increases in utility bills such as gas and soaring food prices all squeezing young people into higher debts than ever before. Leaving University with potentially £36,000 fees debt after living on a meagre existence and also indebt for living expenses has proved unpopular with young people in this country. So much that 50,000 students marched on London and preempting their egyptian colleagues descended on the ruling parties head quarters. They occupied it and trashed it.

  Then when these people leave University all Young people live in increasingly rented accommodation as the price of a house has gone from costing 2.5 times annual average income which the generation of MP's who enjoyed free University education to almost 15 times average annual income. 

  As such the high cost of rents in Britain mixed with burgeoning debts of the young has seem two thirds of wealth in this country owned by the above 45's. Having enjoyed free education and affordable housing David Cameron's Millionaire pals also often went on to own second homes as an investment which fueled their wealth and increasing Housing prices which has disaffected the young into lives of debt and renting from the rich. 

  Cameron also has announced that Housing Benefit will be cut. Housing Benefit helps people of low incomes to pay for housing and rental costs. He has proposed to cut it to levels where rents in inner cities could not be afforded. Notably many people in receipt of these payments are also working full time. They have regular jobs however as the wages are so low the Government needs to chip in so that people can afford to live. 

  In some aspects it is supporting the status quo of businesses paying low wages which are below living standard and as such being subsidised by the state who supports company workers housing benefit. Not surprisingly there was uproar about this and in some cases, unusual sources with Conservative politicians Like Boris Johnson the current London Mayor Immediately described it as "a Kosovo Style Genocide which would condemn the poor to the outskirts of London or beyond".

  Additionally Tory MP's from satellite constituencies to London realised that such a move would flood their own communities with displaced citizens which would overwhelm their communities resources.

   The Coalition Government continues with its 'Reforms' which will impact on every aspect of life in Britain. The National Health Service is facing cuts at the same time as a reformation of the way the system works which is more suited to the U.S. style privatised health system. Doctors will not only treat patients however will also be responsible for contracting out and paying for specialist services which local health authorities usually run. 

  Some think the cost of this realignment is resource intensive at times of cuts to the health service. The morals behind these cuts are mind boggling however the glimpse into David Cameron's Morals through his actions has been breathtakingly lacking in recent months. 

  He for example has recently visited Munich Germany to deliver a speech about Multi Culturalism failing in Britain. It was not lost by many in Britain that he chose the platform outside Britain in a historically relevant geographical location and the fact he chose the same day as the English Defence Leagues' (a racist hate organisation) biggest rally of the year. 

  Recent revolutions and mass demonstrations across the Middle East in Libia, Tunisia, Egypt, and Bahrain has laid bare to the world the corrupt dictatorships which for many decades have been supported buy the United States and United Kingdom. The Brutal Egyptian Dictator has a firm grip over the citizens with a police state apparatus supported by £1.5 billion in donations form the U.S. Government a year. It was also heavily armed by UK companies whilst it went about oppressing freedoms and workers rights jailing thousands often for years without trial. 

  It also towed the line of its UN rule breaking northern neighbour Israel by keeping the Raffa Crossing to Gaza Palestine closed starving its citizens of trade, income and necessary life goods. Britains' new best friend Col Gaddafi of Libia last week ordered fighter jets to attack demonstrators with two refusing to carry out orders and flying to Malta to claim asylum. 

  With British Oil contracts secured, reportedly through the release of the the Lockerbie Bomber from a Scottish prison. This man who has terminal cancer and has so far alluded death, after his release from custody on compassionate grounds.

  With British armoured personal carriers deliberately running down people in the streets in Libia's capital and British Tear Gas burning the eyes of protesters in the middle east, David Cameron thought it wise this week to tour the middle east with no less than 8 British arms manufacturers including BAE Systems to sell military arms such as tear gas, shotguns, sniper rifles, howitzer artillery guns and machine guns and other light weapons.

  They were all on their way to the giant arms bazaar, IDEX, being held in Abu Dhabi. The Prime Minister's Eton created moral compass, even allowed him to do a walk through Tahir Square in Cairo without seeing the appalling irony in his actions. When challenged he stated that democracies have the right to defend themselves.

  Egypt has not had elections during the Dictatorship of Hussain Mubarak and Cameron said, "I simply don't understand how you can't understand how democracies have a right to defend themselves," adding that anyone not holding that view was at "odds with reality". What reality Cameron is in touch with is the £7.5 billion in arms the UK exports to the region each year, despite an increasingly appalled and concerned public back home. The Condem government of millionaires also have shown hypocrisy and deceitful corruption towards the people of Britain.

  David Cameron has appointed tax shy billionaire Phillip Green to manage where the cuts fall. With childcare, Youth Services, The NHS, Housing Benifit, schools the Police and many other areas now in decline due to his directional axe, many in the UK have been keen to point out that he owns several of the UK's largest High Street Chain Stores.

  Phillip Green owns clothing store Top Shop, British Home Stores and many others. He also once paid his wife a £1.2 Billion salary for one year. She however lives in Monaco and as such the British Tax Payer missed out on £400 Million in Taxes which would have otherwise have been paid. This all in the light of the MP's Expenses scandal where MP's were caught claiming millions in illegal claims at tax payers expense for which some are now facing the courts. 

  The head of the Conservative Party Lord Ashcroft is a non domicile resident of the UK. As such his company registered in the Camon Islands, pays no tax. Prior to the Tories being elected he promised to start paying taxes in his native Britain. He still has not done what he said he would do claiming that his company in the Islands is solely set up to raise charities. 

  Notably BBC reporters spoke with every charity on the island, of which none of them has seen any of the £58 million his company made last year. The UN gives the Camon Islands aid money as it is so poor instructing the Camon Islands to start taxing its residents. Many homes on the islands are empty shells acting as residential addresses for the rich. 

  The Coalition Government also protected its tax dodging leader Lord Ashcroft by paying the Camon Islands Government with UK taxpayer money, to not tax its residents. 

  Since the Bankers Bailout where the UK taxpayer gave 1.2 trillion to the banks or 1200 billion last year over half of the 900 or so hedge funds registered on the Camon Islands have turned up from London. The island is the money haven of the super rich where none of them want to contribute to their own native societies or that of the island. 

  The Chancellor of the exchequer who sets the Budget also gave Vodaphone a 6 billion release from taxes owed. A massive movement of resistance has grown from grass roots actions and this has seen actions to occupy stores and banks throughout the UK. UK UNCUT now operate all over the country and have been keen to link the cuts and tax avoiders of the elite to their campaigns.

  Barclays bank who recently was exposed for paying only 113 million in tax which represented about 1% of its income. It also made profits of 11.6 billion and paid 1.5 billion in bonuses. This is completely unpalatable to ordinary folk in the UK many of who are now losing their jobs. 

  This weekend some 50 branches of Barclays were occupied by protesters who decided to run their own services such as childcare centre from the bank's branches. Schools and universities all inside the branches of Barclays sprung up run by ordinary people in disgust at their uncaring practices of tax avoidance. 

  The giant of the Trade Unions Council is awakening. A national demonstration is called for the 26th of March. A broader and more angry and sophisticated protest movement is mobilising to take on the ruling class and challenge the free for all they are enjoying at our expense. There is arguably no need for cuts in services, if the priorities of ending war, taxing the rich properly and stopping the replacement of the Trident Nuclear Missile System (£87 billion) and the submarines to carry Trident (£200 billion) were all implemented.

  The rich need to pay their fair share of tax and notably the next wikileaks will feature the Swiss Bank accounts which were leaked by Swiss banker who states he was morally compelled to do so as these accounts totaled 12 trillion dollars hidden from taxes by the richest people on the planet, who scandalously do not support the communities they live in. 

  The mood in Britain is changing. Openly people are preparing to take action. It fills the conversations people are having in the workplace. People are organising and preparing to resist this cruel attack on the society that the welfare state created all those years ago. 

  People understand that it is our generations time to defend the gift given to society by our forefathers who won these concession from the ruling elite. David Cameron's moral compass and values are not fit for purpose and just like Gaddafi and Mubarak we must ensure that all of their departures, also include those who formed part of their regimes and the ruling elite who have avoided paying their fair share. 

  British activists have made links with activists from all over the world and on the 26th March 2011 when they March no doubt this will also include those activists coming to London to show the growing solidarity which is growing amongst working class people from all over the world and tell them to fuck off back to Eton. 

Paul Hanes

Fourman Films

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