Nagasaki 1945

On 9 August 1945, the atomic bomb ‘Fat Man’ was detonated over the city of Nagasaki, resulting in the complete devastation of the city, just as had been achieved three days earlier when ‘Little Boy’ left the same carnage at Hiroshima.

I received an email recently that drew my attention to the ways in which two very different cultures have evolved during the intervening six decades.

Nagasaki 1945

Nagasaki 2009

Hiroshima 1945

Hiroshima 2009

Detroit 2009

The email referred to US Government welfare programs which had caused more long-term destruction than the atom bomb but, as a Brit, it is not for me to comment. I can only compare similar problems in my own land where our culture seems to be to expect something for nothing and, instead of using welfare as a support in times of need, too many people just decide to use it because they’re too idle to get off the couch and go to work.

The result is that the new Tory Government will be making cuts left, right and centre to address the huge deficit that has accumulated through bailing out our banking system. However, these will be made without actually properly assessing the impact of the shortfall in funds. Whilst hospitals will go under-funded, the bankers will still get their bonuses. Immigrants and young people will be encouraged to claim state benefits rather than get a job, whilst the disabled will have their carer funding slashed.

We are so lucky to have a National Health Service and the safety net of our Welfare State if times get rough but it is a system that is being abused at so many levels.

I know from personal experience of the trials of the Job Centre, a misnomer of epic proportions. There are no jobs on offer, little careers advice being given, just a lot of forms being completed. All that matters is trying to smooth the statistics, taking people from one over-burdened, politically vulnerable list and putting them on another. And, in the meantime, our staple British companies are being allowed to outsource jobs overseas because it is cheaper and they can make more profit to pay dividends to shareholders. With no concern about the additional burden of any redundancies on our already over-stretched unemployment fund. And how they will squawk if they are penalised through further taxation.

The Cadbury brothers must have been spinning in their graves at the recent shenanigans there. They built a company and a whole way of life to employ, assist and sustain the local populace. It was a complete package of care for their labour force – charity begins at home as they say.

It’s not that I’m against capitalism, I was one of Thatcher’s children and enjoyed the benefits of my free shares when my building society was privatised but the focus seems to have moved away from looking after our own in favour of lining the fleeces of already fat cats.

And people who, after paying their National Insurance stamp for years, but now find themselves unemployed are using their savings to exist because they do not think that they fit the criteria that entitles them to receive Benefits.

But, worse, teenagers who take on a job at minimum wage to gain experience in the employment field find themselves liable for full Council Tax whereas if they sign on for a Jobseeker’s Allowance, they can stay in bed all day, get paid and be exempt from this ‘adult’ tax. Where is the incentive to ‘get on your bike’ as Norman Tebbitt would have said…

Something has gone wholly awry with the way ‘Benefits’ are organised, but there seems to be no way of sorting the problem if those in charge come from privileged backgrounds where they have never had to even balance their own personal finances.

For the rest of us big boys and girls, there is no wealthy family waiting in the wings to bail us out if we don’t get it right.

And the same now applies to us as a country… but our politicians just don’t seem to get it.