Wednesday 10 August 2011

Hi Dave!

Apparently David Cameron was in The Dark Place today, no doubt being escorted round by that craven property millionaire Paul Uppal MP. The pair of them would have been standing literally outside my front door - how I wish I was there with the traditional chamber pot. Uppal has so far posed as though he's helping with the clean-up and met 'local businessmen'. Which seems rather off-beam. Why not try to find out why all this happened rather than gather in his plutocratic clan for mutual grooming?

Why Wolverhampton? Because there's a tiny bit of damage for them to pose next to for tomorrow's tabloid press ('PM Surveys The Damage'), without running the risk of going anywhere near a town with serious unrest. Not after Boris Johnson, Theresa May and Nick Clegg were heckled by angry crowds. Cynical? Me?

So once more, why did this happen? Because we've encouraged everyone to value themselves and others solely on the basis of what stuff they can acquire. Then we've removed from them the ability to acquire stuff. So they decided to acquire stuff in the way the businessmen and barons do: by theft. More direct theft than their social superiors, but not so different.

Ah well. I'm so square and behind the times. I even bought a stereo last week… If I'd hung on for another week I could have acquired one the way the kids do it.

Update: two years later, a local columnist quotes what I said above. Not all of it mind, not even most of it. Particularly not the political commentary, and especially not the bit where I refer to my front door. I'm not laughing from the sidelines: my block was attacked. Just so you know…

6 comments:

intelliwench said...

You might appreciate what my friend Nance has to say (to her congressman) about the U.K. unrest: http://www.maturelandscaping.com/2011/08/feral.html

I think she "gets it" - but correct me if I'm wrong!

Anonymous said...

Wrong

James said...

Agree with you about the corrosive nature of consumer capitalism. But just as we don't want to fall into the trap of confusing motive with cause neither do we want to be automatically assuming it's deprivation.

Your comparison with bankers is an apt one, both are groups of thieving scum whose actions result in harm to others. Both steal out of greed things they don't actually need. Both do it because they think they can get away with it or feel that the consequences for getting caught are laughable.

Anonymous said...

I saw Mr Uppal on the telly box. With his rolled up sleeves, shirt unbuttoned manfully and his tie long since discarded, he looked well up for some community clean up action! I wish I had an MP like him (swoon)

The Plashing Vole said...

Hi James. Yes, that's an important point: acquisitiveness and deprivation aren't tied together.

Anon (2): yes, he's a dreamboat, isn't he.

The Plashing Vole said...

Intelliwench: Nance does get it - and I thoroughly approve of writing frequently to intellectually-challenged political representatives. As you'd imagine.