Today is, according to an energy drinks company, Blue Monday. Usually, thanks to Sky Travel creating the notion of the most depressing day of the year, its a few weeks from now when the faded memories of Christmas combine with the stark misery of January, but this year, it’s earlier. It could be that Upbeat realised that everyone has pretty much sobered up and returned to work today and are now more in need of a caffeinated sugar drink that is no doubt the colour of an alien’s sick, than they will be once they’ve assimilated to reality mid month. Or, by some incredible psychic ability, it could be because they knew the Chancellor of the Exchequer – Just William if he’d read the Necronimicon – George Osborne, would announce that £25bn more cuts would be needed after the election and £12bn of those would be from welfare. Blue Monday it appears, means it’s the day for the Conservatives to tell you just how they’ll be ruining the rest of your year. Year. Hopefully not years.
On BBC News this evening – a purveyor of news that is apparently too left wing if you are right wing or too right wing if you are left wing – they interviewed a ‘man on the street’ about the cuts proposal and he responded with ‘well, we’ve all got to take a hit till the deficit is reduced haven’t we?’ It concerns me that this is still the mind set of so many people in the UK. There are billions (I exaggerate) of reports stating that growth has been much slower than Osborne and the government promised, that austerity isn’t helping this growth, that actually our GDP is still pretty amazing compared to some parts of the world and generally this is all bollocks and can the general public please stop suffering now? And by ‘general public’ I mean, as Osborne hinted, the hardworking people not those scroungers on benefits. Which of course, many people are both thanks to rising costs of living and wage cuts. I mean those ‘immigrants’ who are coming over here and costing the NHS and public services by contributing more tax to the UK than most multi-national corporations that have workplaces here. I mean the under 25’s who Osborne proposes to cut housing benefits for which, with rising youth unemployment will be more in need of benefits than any other generation. But hey that’s ok, because young people can handle the cold and outdoors better, can’t they?
I could write a long long list and link to you to a lot of articles about the devastating effects that these measures have had on all of them. But if you don’t care you won’t read them. If you think I’m just a ‘mad lefty’ or something then you’ll dismiss the articles because they don’t come from a proper right wing source like ‘Mein Kampf’ or something and ignore them and for those on the left wing will tell me some of the sources are wrong to read because one word they used is prejudiced against people that have their hair in a certain way or something equally as trivial. Regardless of where you stand, we live in a world of karaoke opinions, where there is so much information that mostly, you’ll just believe what you believe regardless of what you read. So I’m not linking to any. Use google and check if I’m lying.
I’m now officially tired of trying to prove how awful things are to people. Earlier, as I am wont to do, I wrote a sarcastic reply to a tweet from George Osborne, suggesting that by going back to square one we’d be returning to pre-current government before they’d ruin things, so we should head there now. I received a response from someone saying ‘but then we’d be in the bloody mess Brown left us in.’ It’s odd that that is still the only alternative in people’s minds and there is still the desperate need to hammer this home to people. ‘Don’t forget! The last government were shit as well! So there!’ Yes. And? That doesn’t make this government better. You can’t get away with doing awful things because someone else has done them first. If you witness someone spray painting a bus stop, you can’t just set fire to it, complaining that someone else ruined it already. There are no excuses anymore. We’ve had 4 years of persecuting most of the general population. With changes to tenant’s rights, legal aid, benefit caps, the NHS and along with a vicious intent to leave the EU Court Of Human Rights the chance to challenge this persecution is diminishing.
But then, I suppose, you look into all that and things do look bleak. So maybe it’s best just to believe what’s written down in the places you favour reading, drink a fuckton of grim energy drink and let things head their course.
Sorry, that was much angrier than it meant to be. I will now go and lie down and wait for Mauve Tuesday or whatever its called. Hopefully promoted a hot chocolate company or some equivalent.
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I’m doing my first ever UK tour in 2014, starting end of January. All dates and most ticket links are up at my website: https://www.tiernandouieb.co.uk. Please spread the word and come along as if you’re not there, it’ll be rubbish. It’ll just be me in a room and if I can’t get 3G I’ll be really bored. The very funny Chris Coltrane is supporting me on some dates and the brilliant Keith Farnan is doing a double header with me on others.
