Youngsters who won’t get a job still expect police to protect them but don’t contribute – my patience is wearing thin
IN the last few weeks, we’ve been told that there are now 2.7million adults in Britain who claim they are too ill to work.
That’s a huge number and speaking a few days back, Rishi Sunak said that very obviously, “something has gone wrong”. But what?
Of course, some of these people will be properly sick. But a huge number say they can’t work because they have mental health issues, or stress or anxiety or long Covid. Or whiplash. Which is another word for “insurance fraud”.
I see this with my own eyes. I know countless young people who simply will not get a job. They think that it’s ridiculous to get up early every morning so they can spend all day being told what to do.
It’s much easier, in their minds, to crash on a friend’s sofa, spend all day swiping away at their phone and then visit the doctor once a month to say they can’t work because they have mental health issues about space aliens.
And as the doctor is too busy to look into this claim, he just signs a form saying they can have sickness benefits. And off they go to enjoy a bit more state-sponsored fecklessness.
Now there are those who say we should sympathise with this lost generation and give them some soup. But my patience, I must admit, is starting to wear thin.
Throwing money around like confetti
If you were marooned on a desert island with a group of people, it’s fair to assume that each day, everyone would have to do jobs. Someone would go fishing. Someone would collect wood for the fire. Someone would clean the camp. And so on.
But what if one person decided not to do any of that? What if he said he preferred to lie in the sun all day? How long would it be before the rest of the group tied rocks to his legs and chucked him in the sea?
That’s where I’m at now.
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I know what’s caused all the slovenliness.
In the olden days, we always thought that if something went wrong, we’d have to sort it out for ourselves.
They want street lights and hospitals and schools and water without turds in it. But they will not contribute. They think that’s someone else’s job.
That’s why many of us put something away for a rainy day.
But then along came the 2008 financial crisis, and the banks didn’t have to sort it out for themselves. The world’s governments sorted it out for them and bailed them out.
Then during Covid, they bailed us all out with free cash for staying at home. They were throwing money around like confetti.
As a result of these two things, lazy people got it into their heads that no matter what happened, the Government would always be there with a blanket, and free hi-vis jacket to wear on the next protest march
These people expect the police to come round when they’re stabbed. They expect to have an army to protect their “human rights”. They expect money from the Government.
They want street lights and hospitals and schools and water without turds in it.
But they will not contribute. They think that’s someone else’s job.
But despite what they might think, it isn’t.
Modern ships lack decks appeal
THIS week the Queen Anne, Cunard’s newest cruise ship, arrived in UK waters having been built at a cost of around £500million in Venice.
It’s the company’s 249th boat. And by far and away the ugliest. It looks like a Third World airport hotel sitting on top of a businessman’s show-off soap dish.
Whatever happened to the cruise liners of old? Those majestic and super-fast pencil-sharp leviathans that used to blast across the Atlantic at 30 knots?
Titanic was one, obviously, but there were others too. The Mauretania . The SS United States. The Normandie. These were great ships. Symphonies of steam and mahogany and grace.
And a far cry from the liners of today, which are limited by environmental legislation and economic pressure to potter along at a snail’s pace while the guests mill around in a blizzard of plastic, giving one another chlamydia.
And then arriving at all the world’s beauty spots to ruin the view for everyone else.
Whole New-ey quest
EVER since he announced he would be leaving his job as chief engineer at Red Bull Racing, everyone has been wondering which team Adrian Newey might join.
It’s a big question. It was a Newey-designed car that took Nigel Mansell to the world championship in 1992 and Alain Prost in 1993.
In the late Nineties, McLaren dominated using Newey’s cars, so it was obvious when he switched to Red Bull in 2006 what would happen next. And indeed it did.
The simple fact of the matter is this. If Adrian Newey designed your car, there’s a very good chance you’ll win.
So where will he go next? Some say he will join Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari. Others reckon he’ll end up with Max Verstappen at Mercedes.
But there’s another possibility. Late last year, Newey started work on a new sailing boat.
And as he’s now 65 years old, who knows?
He might just decide to bugger off and spend the autumn of his years sailing round the world on that.
Cruel joke
THERE’S an awful lot of very big stories in the news at the moment.
We’ve had the local elections. There are still rumblings about Angela Rayner’s house. Knife crime in London is spiralling out of control. War continues to rage in both Ukraine and Gaza.
And soon we will be asked which party we want to lead us for the next five years. One that is useless by accident or one that is useless on purpose.
And yet, the story that’s kept me awake most of all was about twins who are quite literally joined at the hip. They have two heads, two brains, two hearts and two arms, but only one vagina.
And it’s emerged that one of them is straight and the other is gay.
I’ve often wondered if God might be pretty cruel. And when I read about these poor girls, I’m afraid I decided that yes, he is.
IF you were to ask me to name the best thing I own, it would be my dogs.
But running them a very close second are my new binoculars.
They are made by a company called Swarovski and what makes them so brilliant is that you point them at a bird, press a button and they tell you what the bird is.
This is having a dramatic effect on how I spend my days. Yesterday, I was supposed to sex split my weaners, put the cows out, fit the goats with electronic collars and drill a field with GS4.
But all I actually did was sit in the garden all day going, “It’s a moorhen!!!!!”
Never heard of Tay
ALL week, people have been saying that Taylor Swift’s new album received far too much free publicity on the BBC.
It’s not just the BBC, though. Everyone is talking about Taylor Swift. And as a result, I know what outfits she favours. I know what pubs she likes.
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I know where she’s from. And I know she seems to enjoy the company of British men.
But I can put my hand on my heart and say I’ve never knowingly heard a single one of her songs.