You may disagree

I am returning to politics, so you can look away for the moment.  It was this Chris Patton article that triggered the thought ..... Is Britain Becoming a Failed State, well the old guard are definitely stepping up to the mark and starting to defend our country from the idiots who run it. Sadly it will not be enough.

Last night I watched back to back episodes of the BBC programme 'Broke'.  It outlined the calamitous lives of people who live on the edge of their money and have no fall back.

There was the sad case of a father and son, who lived for a time in tents on the beach, until the winter gales forced them to move.  Surprisingly cheerful to the camera, what hurt  the father was going to a food bank and not being able to buy his own food for both of them, the son was 22 years old, and in a job that only offered temporary hours during the week.

Another case, a business man driving his Mercedes round London for Uber.  Now it seems to me that Uber is a parasite who lives on the backs of people taxi-ing people in their own car, taking a quarter of what they earn. This man rented with his partner in London, no money to buy a house, no pension to talk off, and at 60 years old starting to suffer from medical conditions.

There was the incredible sight of the Ferrari (cheap at £300,000) garage employing cleaners and f******  (there is no other word) arguing about the paltry sum they paid their cleaners, luckily demonstrations outside the showrooms changed the minds of their employer.

All this happens over every part of the country, the middle classes sitting sleekly in their expensive housing snug as a bug but many of the fellow countrymen (and immigrants) falter on the outside.  Was it ever thus? Housing is desperately needed, strict renting laws to protect the vulnerable, and such statements from Rees-Mogg on food banks, need to be understood that Victorian values do not run this country..

“And to have charitable support given by people voluntarily to support their fellow citizens, I think is rather uplifting and shows what a good, compassionate country we are.”

I do not see poverty in the towns round here but I have hardly looked, and in many ways poverty exists in the large towns, which draw people to them for employment.  The problem is of course that the price of everything is high, no more is it a right to have a home over your head, you have to pay the price landlords want with a flimsy contract that could see you out on the streets in a month.

I cannot see an answer, hardly have faith in the Labour Party, so socialism seems to have failed, yet the heart weeps for all those people who have not made the grade, in a country where social justice has been left to voluntary services.  As Patton says we have failed,   the Conservatives have done a bad job.