Heard on BBC radio news this morning:

Social breakdown in Manchester is significantly worse than in any other big English city, a survey by ex-Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith suggests.

Talk about chutzpah–my tea nearly shot out the same way it had just gone in.

Despite the bleating of those political illiterates who believe, as a matter of faith, that it does not matter whether you live on an estate in Moss Side or a maisonette in Belgravia, the starting line is the same; research indicates otherwise. It is ironic that Duncan Smith should complain of social breakdown. Notwithstanding the shrinking of the public sector and the privatisation of industry and services under the neo-liberal agenda, wealth is not ‘trickling down’–bones are not being thrown down from the table above. On the contrary, the gap between rich and poor is greater than at any time in the past 40 years–and it is increasing–and due to structural factors in modern developed capitalism, there is less social mobility (social mobility being the redistribution of inequality) today than there was in the 19th Century. We are only now beginning to experience the full social effects of neo-liberalism, a warped ideology which Duncan Smith served, when mass unemployment was used as a weapon to destroy the power of the working class–the people who actually produce wealth–which has left bosses free to gouge ever higher profits, while driving down real wages and employment conditions (eg out-sourcing to agency provided workers on the minimum wage, temporary contracts, etc). The Labour Party has been tinkering around the edges of the midden, attempting to ameliorate the worst stench excesses of the cult of Thatcherism, while evidently reluctant to challenge the status-quo–there are too many careers at stake–but make no mistake, the whole shitheap is Maggie’s work.

Remember, don’t challenge the prevailing ideology. Who knows, one day if you’re really lucky–and you wish hard enough–you might win the lottery.

We are all bourgeois now
Once there was class war
But not any longer
Because baby we are all bourgeois now
So go out and make your way in the world
We’re free to choose
We’re all free to choose
We’re all free to choose
We’re free to choose