Letter was an affront to senses
Friday 13th March 2009, 10:20AM GMT.
LETTER: “The financial crisis has failed to affect me”, who is this individual who is also teaching their children to do the same?
I was made redundant a short while ago and my self-esteem has hit rock bottom. I am 43 years old, and I have a wife and two children.
My mortgage is still being paid by me, my council tax is being paid by me so are utility, food and other bills. I have never claimed a penny in social benefits, yet people like this abuse the system and can get away with it.
I have a disabled son who we take care of ourselves and a 10-year-old daughter who never goes without because I have never been out of work.
With the economic crisis said to be deepening and no sign of work in the near future, what chance have the good, hardworking people of this once great nation got when the person who wrote that mindless drivel is allowed to get away with screwing the system?
This person seems to revel in the fact that she has never worked and rubbing decent people’s noses in it.
Ian Spencer
Stirchley Park
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Ian, I think the original letter was nothing more than propaganda, designed to to stir up indignation against mis-users of benefits (which was a stupid errand – nobody likes them anyway, it’s a bit like writing a letter saying ‘Murderers are Bad’) and a bit of political mis-direction (Gordon Brown can hardly be held responsible for everything that’s wrong with the Welfare State – if he is, then you could include Atlee, Macmillan, Wilson, Thatcher, Major, Blair to name but a few of the guilty who’ve been at the helm since it’s inception – and yes there’s been scroungers since the time there’s been anything to scrounge!). The clues to it’s intent were is it’s off-hand, and I’m paraphrasing, ‘Money magically lands in my purse and I’ve never bothered to wonder how’ line and the ‘Cheers Gordon’ sign off.
To that end, you could say it had the effect they (the writer) were after – it managed to get a lot of peoples back’s up, both those who saw it for what it was and those who dislike scroungers (i.e. everybody).
Like yourself I’ve worked all my life, paid my taxes and taken nowt out – I consider I have the choice of giving myself a coronary as my blood boils or perhaps more sensibly for my well-being make do with the endless stream of idiots at the helm and make the most of it (which, funnily enough is exactly what the scroungers are doing!)
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I could not agree more with Ian’s viewpoint.
Perhaps the person who wrote the original letter sould be named and shamed – they are a disgrace and to blatently gloat of their “achievements” in the current economic climate is shocking.
Hard working, tax paying people suffer when they find they have to fall back on the state should they lose their job. People who have never paid a penny into the system seem to get the most out ! And some are pround of the fact.
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The popular consensus was that it is a piece of fiction.
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Fiction , people realy need to take a step back and think is this real and realy happening ? is it heck it is daily mail rubbish.
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Lighten Up for heavens sake! ……. that letter was a piece of satire! ……… one of the most popular way of criticising any thing is to throw sarcasm or satire at it! …… Monty Python did it all the time!……… seems to work! ……
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Well done woolibuga, you are about the only one that has got any sense. It seems that it was a bit beyond those that profess to be bright sparks. They obviously didn’t watch Monty Python, That Was the Week That Was etc or the other subtle satirical programmes.
As for those who think it’s contents were fantasy or fiction – they obviously don’t live in this country or on this planet.
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That’s the way! Pour scorn on the unfortunate Ian Spencer for not getting the ‘joke’ why dontcha! Nice One !
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to be honest it hasnt effected me, sure my house is less valuable, but im not selling it will go up and my income just went up as i got a promotion at work, im sure its tough for some, but we should remain positive, high street sales are still going strong and i think we will recover in a year or so, i feel for people who are doing badly but many of us barely notice this crunch because we werent over debted before hand
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What a shame that this excellent and comedic piece of writing has not been recognised for wghat it was. It is a sad fact that the average IQ is 100 and that people will take everything and anything that is said literally and only at face value. In a recent training programme we talked about not leaving issues to fester and that they should be dealt with. We talked about taking the garbage out each night. About an hour later one of the candidates came to me and began a complete verbal assault challenging me that my partner was the one who was taking our dustbins out every evening whilst I was presumably sitting watching TV. It took a whilke for nme to understand what the hell she was talking about.
This letter is a satirical joke and nothing more. Please stop people from making fools of themselves by responding to it as though it were real.
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