Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Abandoned Brits

I've got to be honest and say that I don't have a lot of sympathy for the estimated 150,000 British people stranded in various parts of the world by the flight ban.

People who take holidays at Easter in places such as Florida, Lanzarote, Thailand and Australia tend to be fairly well to do people - what we would have called the upper middle class twenty years ago or so. They have credit cards with which they can pay for hotels, ferries, train tickets, buses, hire cars and food and in most cases they will have insurance through which they can recoup most if not all of those costs.

Consequently, I'm a bit fed up hearing about these "abandoned" Brits abroad. Nobody forced them to fly to far off places and everyone who does that does it knowing full well that it only take a French or Spanish air traffic controller strike to leave them stranded in some foreign airport for days.

I'm more concerned about the abandoned Brits in council estates plagued by feral youth, crime, drugs and anti-social behaviour.

I'm more concerned about the abandoned Brits jettisoned from their jobs because of unfair foreign competition, cheap immigrant workers or because the foreign owner of their factory has decided close it down and move production to Malaysia.

I'm more concerned about the abandoned Brits whose children struggle to get any sort of education in schools without discipline, where bullying is rife and where a small clique of disruptive pupils hold sway over the majority who just want to learn.

I'm more concerned about the abandoned Brits in hospital corridors and cupboards left to die in squalor and indignity - unfed, unwashed and unwanted - while hospital chief executives enjoy bumper pay rises and protected pensions.

There are millions of abandoned Brits up and down this country who are far more deserving of attention, help and consideration and are left to struggle through no fault of their own than a relatively small number of affluent jet setters who wouldn't know real hardship if it bit them on the backside. The real abandoned Brits are left to fend for themselves with little hope of rescue from the problems that blight their lives - crime, drugs, unemployment, immigration, rubbish schools, lousy hospitals and so on and so forth.

They are the abandoned Brits we ought to worry about.

8 comments:

Ozzie from Perth said...

What a load of rubbish - my mother has saved for nearly two years to afford the cost of flight from the UK to see her son for the first time in 15 years. She has two grandchildren who she had never seen before and after two glorious week she was on her way back home, but is now stranded in Singapore.

She does not have the money for hotels and such and is sleepin at the airport. She is 74 years old.

We are doing our best to keep her supplied with money but we are no millionaires either.

So this load of socialist garbage is most hurtful. What wrong with you Brits, must everyone who has worked hard and saved or managed to achieve something slightly more that you think they deserve be castigated as being a toff.

I have never been so glad to be an Australian in my life.

Antisthenes said...

I have no sympathy with any Brit and I am a Brit ever since they decided that their pay did not have to reflect their worth. That they wanted the state to take responsibility for their actions and to bail them out when times were bad because they had not taken the precaution of making provision for that eventuality themselves.

I could go on for ever but I will leave it at this point in the sound knowledge that all that is about to change.

Stan said...

I'm sorry to hear that your mother is one of those stranded, Ozzie - but my point stands. Your mother is an exception rather than the rule and the vast majority of those who are stranded are not suffering any particular hardship.

I'm also sorry that you think this "garbage" is socialist. Maybe it is, but it wasn't intended to be - my point was that there are millions of people in Britain who are even more abandoned by the political - and largely socialist - elite to lives of real hardship and desperation. I'm not talking about the idle and feckless who choose to live their lives on benefits and dependency, but the silent majority who try to make the best of things and make no call or claim on the state, but when they need to - when they need the police or health care - they are denied these basic services.

It's not socialist to expect the state to provide the basic services for which we pay our taxes - that is the contract between the people and the state.

The Brits stranded abroad have different contracts with airlines, tour operators and insurance companies (or should do) which will ensure that they get the help they need - the abandoned Brits in this nation do not unless they have the wealth to pay for these separately - as most of the liberal elite do.

Larry said...

Ozzie

I can assure you that Stan is no socialist; he believes in PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.

There, I said it.

bernard said...

Stan -

You could apply your worthy 'compare & contrast' analogy with just about anything on offer in politics these days.
Most of those stranded airline travelers would have cursed their bad luck at getting caught like this, but when confronted with a TV camera/microphone asking them to be angry...some of them duly oblige. (15 mins of fame etc)
Best not to watch the tele at all, and believe in the great majority of stoical Brits who just got on with it, with little fuss.

William Gruff said...

Sometimes, Stan, you put yourself across as the sort of 'knee-jerk' 'leftie' that turned me off the Labour Party, of which I was once an active member and branch official.

Would you care to cite your sources for your assertion that 'the vast majority of those who are stranded are not suffering any particular hardship'?

Stan said...

Hello WG - common sense tells me they aren't suffering any serious hardship. People who fly off to foreign climes at Easter (one of the most expensive times to fly) are generally not short of a bob or two.

Being stuck in an airport isn't fun - but you have cafes and shops to keep you fed and watered and you have security to protect you from being mugged, intimitated, threatened or assaulted.

I was once "stuck" in Majorca for six months with no money and sleeping rough half the time - and even that can hardly be described as "hardship" compared to those who live their lives on council estates blighted by crime, run by feral youths with no fear or respect for the law and with a police force who barely bother to hide their indifference.

As I said to Ozzie and in the post, there are thousands of families and millions of British people who are far more "abandoned" than these Brits stranded abroad. They have been abandoned by the government, the local councils, the police and all authority - but no one gives a damn about them.

And no - I'm not talking about the idle , feckless welfare dependents - just ordinary folk who want to live their lives as the rest of us do.

They want work - but the government has abandoned them to unfair foreign competition and asset strippers.

They want good schools for their kids - but the authorities have abandoned them to mass immigration and schools cluttered with kids who can't even speak English.

They want a police force that comes when they are needed, but the police force have abandoned them and prefer to skulk in their stations and cars and pursue car drivers and folk who infringe the rules of "political correctness".

They want to be able to go out at night and have a quiet drink or meal, but their councils have abandoned them and allowed the streets to become havens for criminals and drunken youths on the rampage.

Then you have the old people abandoned to a care system that penalises those who lived lives of responsibility and thrift while showering the frivolous and irresponsible with benefits.

There are the soldiers who are abandoned to fight far off wars without the right equipment, rubbish patrol vehicles and insufficient close air support.

There are the hard working men and women running small businesses struggling to survive because the big businesses don't pay their bills on time and the banks - recently bailed out with billions of pounds of taxpayers money - won't give them the overdrafts or loans they need to see them through.

These are the people who have really been abandoned - and there are millions of them up and down this country. Many of them have little or no hope and some of them (such as Fiona Pilkington) take their own lives. That's real hardship. Having to make do with an overpriced croissant and a cup of coffee for breakfast in some airport lounge isn't.

You might call it "knee jerk" leftism, but I prefer to think of it as simply wanting a government that does what a government is supposed to do. I want a government that will manage the country for the benefit of the majority instead of a government that concentrates all its efforts into supporting small self interested minority groups.

150,000 Brits who can't get home from their expensive foreign holidays at Easter is a small self interested minority group.

Anonymous said...

Bloody hell "the truth". I never thought I would hear it in my lifetime.