Underclass

[cromwell]

Wakefield is quite a small city. Like other small cities and towns it has been affected by the recession and by the crisis in the High Street; chain stores closing and being replaced by pound stores and charity shops.

But there is a more subtle deterioration as well; in the people. I might have struck Wakey on a bad day, but the last time I went in I saw four young people, two of whom were young women pushing buggies. I'll be honest. They were fat, ugly, poorly dressed, foul mouthed and stupid. One young woman was calling her companion a F****** C*** at the top of her voice, in front of her own child as well as everybody else.

This is besides the usual baseball cap wearing unemployable chavs. The most memorable though, were a few dead-eyed, fixed-expression on their face people. If the zombies rise one day around here, I thought, you'd be hard pushed to tell the difference.

I don't know, I just think that there seems to be more and more people who need to be provided for by everyone else because they are absolutely unemployable. These aren't people who have worked and been made redundant; they've never worked. They have to be fed, housed, given medical treatment, clothed and none of them will work, or can work because no employer in their right mind would give them a job. And they breed. More kids = more benefit money = an even bigger problem 20 years down the line..

I can't see how we can make this situation better, and it worries me. Maybe I worry too much!

[Rodo]

No you don't worry too much. Very worrying and very widespread now.

[Workingman]

Maybe I worry too much!

No you don't. You are right to worry, I do.

I am one of the underclass. I am too old and too ill to ever work again, well not in anything I am qualified for, I know it and the State knows it - I am looking and do try to find work, but it is impossible. However, I am not a serial single father or mother, but I am placed in the same group as them by the people and the authorities. I am a prime target for 'culling' or having my miserable benefits cut - even though I paid in for 35 - 40 years. I am probably one of those zombie like creatures you saw in Wakey town centre - I see plenty of us in Leeds.

The other side of the coin is somewhat different. If you have never paid anything in, and if you have no intention of doing anything but take out, you are feted and given more. Get pregnant: Have a house, here's some furniture, have a TV and an X-box for the kids - it's all free, you deserve it. Dad(s)? They can't help you, they are probably on benefits too. So we have to support them as well.

Until we break that mould we are done for. Will the politicos do it? Not a chance!

[cromwell]

Frank, your generation worked. This lot don't; the zombies were about early thirties I'd say; maybe they were "on" something.

This is the crux though:

If you have never paid anything in, and if you have no intention of doing anything but take out, you are feted and given more. Get pregnant: Have a house, here's some furniture, have a TV and an X-box for the kids - it's all free, you deserve it. Dad(s)? They can't help you, they are probably on benefits too. So we have to support them as well.

Until we break that mould we are done for. Will the politicos do it? Not a chance!

Well, it has to be broken some time.

[Workingman]

Well, it has to be broken some time.

It won't ever be, Cromwell.

We are not allowed to criticise, especially lifestyles, any more. We can bitch and moan about them, but to officially criticise would be suicide for any politicain. For that reason no political party will ever do anything.

[shazsha]

I would be classed by certain parts of the media as the underclass.

I'm on benefits, live on a council estate, am rather overweight and no great beauty-I've even been known to swear!

However I chose not to have children, have worked voluntarily on community councils and have and use manners so I suppose I have some redeeming qualities!

Seriously though I do know what you're getting at Cromwell- I was in another area of the city yesterday and had to comment on some of the natives. Two fine specimens were well overweight, wearing pyjamas that were obviously two sizes too small, smoking over their children's prams whilst carrying on a conversation peppered liberally with the f & c words and running their fingers through their greasy hair. just looking at them you knew their little ones wouldn't have much chance in life.

[Suff]

WM, Cromwell, I know where you are coming from.

My middle daughter is single (again), has two children by two different fathers and spent 10 years of her life in frivolous pursuit of nothing more than benefits and pleasing herself (except that the kids were well looked after).

There the similarity ends. She's good looking, thin and whilst she can swear (can't we all), doesn't use it in public. She's been married once (to a dick) and the first child was a young mistake when she was 17, something she took responsibility for.

Now she's studying hard and trying to turn her life around. But she has a kidney disorder where she has less than one kidney function which makes it impossible for her to hold down any job for an employer where she has to be there 9-5, 5 days a week.

However she is also one of the targeted groups like WM where they are trying to remove benefits and support from her.

It's a mess and really needs to be sorted out but one thing you can guarantee. They will punish those who help themselves and cosset those who don't.....

[Workingman]

Suff, your daughter is another one of those caught in the trap.

She could work, given the support, but the support and the jobs are not there. Which employer is going to employ her when there are millions of unemployed, or immigrants prepared to do it for less - no questions asked?

She, however, is stuck here, the migrant can go home if things don't work out,

A mess? You bet it is,

[cromwell]

just looking at them you knew their little ones wouldn't have much chance in life.

Very true; and very, very sad.

[Kaz]

It's the same in every city centre these days Cromwell, a few years ago it shocked me and made me sad but now I don't really notice it.........they are just 'there'

I come from the very lowest echelons of society, my dad was a labourer who left school at barely 14, ditto my mum, we grew up in a council house, no car, no phone...........BUT they were decent parents, took us on holidays (god knows how they afforded them) and both J and I were bright so did well at school and moved on from our background........

I've had an unusual adult life I think in that I have lived in a big house with flash car with my first husband, then was plunged back into poverty when we split, living with my parents back in that council house, on benefits, then in a council flat with my eldest with hardly a penny, still on benefits, then remarried and things improved again. I've been the benefit scrounger and the middle class housewife I've lived both sides of the coin...........I try not to judge people on what they have, but on their behaviour, and try to take people as I find them...................