Wednesday 7 September 2011

Baloney and trap



So - why don't I do some kinda shock jock analysis of everything that needs sorting out in the world? Well, fortunately I don't need to because I heard on the UK news that all of the trouble during the recent loot-fest was caused by "The Feral Underclass." Both the Minister of Justice and the Mayor of London have identified this group as the baddies. Dear oh dear - perhaps industry can get itself out of recession by manufacturing millions of traps baited with fashion trainers and iPods. The Mayor of St Savinien has a similar scheme to get rid of feral cats but without the iPods. But - there is a serious issue here and that sent me in search of statistics. Since I live in France I get to see the UK from afar and since I'm English I get to see France from some kinda tangent. If there's one thing to get me craving some nice anecdotal evidence, it is the pursuit of statistical answers. The distribution of Wealth in France is less equal than in the UK according to the Financial Times. (The top 10% own 61% of the wealth as opposed to 56% in the UK). These figures are a little old but they show that there is no huge difference. Youth unemployment rates are higher in France than in the UK i.e. 20% against 23.4% (First quarter of 2011).


Now, there are innumerable papers and studies and if you really wanna learn up, I recommend Eurostat Home. So - where does that get a scholastically challenged middle aged romance writer? Simple - it gets me talking to the taxi lady, the mechanic who towed my car and the truck driver who delivered our building materials. All of these guys presented themselves as absolute gentlepersons who could just as well have been schoolteachers or lawyers. In a nutshell they were "educated". The minimum wage in France is 1,365 Euros per month.($1918) and £1,085 ($1734) in the UK. Prices are higher in France so effectively there is little difference. We have class issues here in France too. So far no one has turned feral, although a few rugby players look a bit wild.


So, when I hear senior UK leaders describing tranches of the population as a "feral underclass" I really do wonder where we go from here.(Well, it has me staying in France!). We need to include everyone in the aims of our world, we need to define the nature of our societies, we need to think about the system of parallel communities that has grown up around the multi cultural experiment. And we need love enforcement. These days I kinda re-live the spirit of my childhood. All adults are looking out for all kids. The Jesuit quotation "Give me the child till it is seven and I will show you the man" has a lot of clout here. Now, I spent a good part of my life in those south London streets among the feral kids. I'll tell you something about kids. THEY ARE KIDS and we're all terrified of them very largely because an educated elite class has "expertised" the things we knew as wisdom and told us we were stupid, brutal and old fashioned. Their liberal dictatorship ordered us stand aside while they sorted out society. The intellectual overclass CRIMINALISED THE PRACTICE OF WISDOM. If you need a class enemy - that is where you start. The traps will catch the ferals.


Wow! I'm really becoming a right old cow. 


Emma thinx: Wisdom - truth in unbranded trainers.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks so much for stopping by. Always so happy to get your feedback. Emma x