Kick the weak – the resurgent ethos of Britain

It strikes me that lots of people in Britain harbour an indignation that poisons civic life – they are all misty eyed for days of empire.

Not the modern financial services empire that insidiously makes London a hub of neoliberal iniquity – but the boots-on-the-ground-gunboat-diplomacy-them-fuzzie-wuzzies-don’t-like-it-up-’em-they-should-be grateful- we-gave-’em-cricket-and-train-stations kind.

Very few now have a direct memory of what imperialistic conquest really means – but history tells us that at core it involves kicking the weak and stealing their stuff, an opt motto for modern Britain which seems to have rediscovered its mojo for what Ken Loach calls “conscious cruelty” – poverty used as a political weapon.

Life in Britain was so much better before we discovered this troubling notion of caring about people’s health and wellbeing. Have people forgotten how marvellous things were for the British working class in the days of empire? How whizzo it was before the advent of trade unions, health and safety legislation, the welfare state, the NHS, the Suffragettes and meddlesome do-gooders with their ‘human rights’. 

Somewhere out there, within our grasp, is a golden land that exists somewhere between a Hovis Ad, Downton Abbey and servants meekly scrubbing fireside grates. 

Of course glorious Britannia doesn’t have an empire anymore – but if you can’t kick sand in the faces of people overseas then at least we can stick the boot in here at home.

Just as it was in the good old days, an empire needs a cowed and grateful populace for factories, mines and weapons manufacturing. Perhaps it’s not surprising that one of the few remaining boom export industries in Britain is armaments – where we are a world leader exporting to anyone, no questions asked.

As much as red telephone boxes, pink bits on the world map, public school boys and country estates – stomping on the faces of the poor is a vital ingredient of post empire nostalgia.

We may have foolishly handed back distant lands to undeserving Johnny Foreigners but they can’t stop us from urinating on homeless Brits and sending terminal cancer patients letters saying they aren’t disabled enough to deserve support.

Perhaps if we drive a million more people to food banks, have even more child poverty and bring back grammar schools, we can truly restore our national pride?

On this basis, one of the richest nations on earth cannot afford libraries, an affordable railway network, care for the elderly  or a basic safety net for its citizens. Such things are an unwelcome reminder of a more nuanced world that Britain seems determined to escape from.

Of all the meddlesome reminders of the nanny state, it’s the NHS which remains a mote in the eye of Britain’s ruling class. How can the lower orders be appropriately meek when they are getting quality health care as if their lives mattered? The NHS was a shining example of how cooperation works better than aggression – so it has to go.

Happily for comfortably secure subscribers to private health care insurance, the NHS is being torn apart using the faithful Trojan Horse of neoliberal market ‘reforms’ – a useful poison against any collective endeavour for the common good.

Just so readers of Sodium Haze can do their bit and return Britain to halcyon days of picturesque Victorian poverty, here is a cut-out-and-keep guide for people to abuse and kick in the street.

Junior Doctors

Nurses

Doctors

Disabled People

Unemployed People

Sick People

Poor People who work

People renting houses

Old People

Teachers

Refugees

Immigrants

Social Workers

Muslims

Young People (if they show any initiative about caring about anything)

In addition, we must assert our right to trash the environment and give up our human rights. In this way we take back control from meddling EU autocrats.

So get to it people: tip a disabled person out of their wheelchair on to the street, give ’em a kick while you’re at it and shout (so everyone can hear) that they should stop being a burden on society.

Invite the homeless to do a twirl.

Next time you see a haggard junior doctor – let them know how unwelcome their hard left thuggery really is.

We cannot expect the heroic efforts of media portals like The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, The Sun, The BBC, Benefits Street and Channel 5 to do all the work for us. If we are to get back to a society where we can give the weak the enjoyable kicking they all deserve, then we must all do our bit.

Remember the example of David Cameron. Here was a British prime minister of the old school: a shining example of exactly the kind of callous bullying braggart that English public schools have been supplying the empire with for centuries.

We should all heed his now eerily prophetic words while we lace up our boots: words which Theresa May and her merry band of sociopaths are tirelessly making real in Brexit Britain.

“We are all in it together”

The wealthy can afford to smirk – perhaps the rest of us might pause for thought….

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