Fox (n): carnivore of genus vulpes; crafty person; scavenger; (vb) to confuse; -ed (adj): to be drunk.
Broadband from £5.99 a month with an included wireless router when you sign up to Plusnet - terms apply

Monday, 8 October 2012

Scrounge (vb.): To borrow and not return.

ALLOW me to tell you about a family of scroungers.

Brenda is the 86-year-old matriarch, and the only job she's done which most of us would recognise as such lasted less than six months and was 67 years ago.

Since then, Brenda has lived off the state. She has holidayed on the state, raised her children on the state, lived in homes provided by the state, and spent the state's money on the best food and wine. She has more than one massive flat-screen telly.

She insists on spending the state's money on a pack of savage dogs, which are fed on fine cuts of rabbit and beef, hand-made scones, and are known to attack their owners, visitors, and other animals.

Brenda's never had a driving licence, but drives anyway. She has a new dress most days. She gambles on the horses. She avoids inheritance tax and has only paid income tax for the past ten years.

She's married to a Greek called Phil who used to have a job, but gave it up to join her life of leisure. Between them they've had four children, and do not appear to have considered abortion despite having pronounced views about population control among brown people.

Their eldest son, Charlie, went to sea for a few years then threw himself into living off the state. He had a busy romantic life, and eventually married an 18-year-old who was utterly miserable and ended up running off with the son of an Egyptian grocer and being killed by a drunk driver.

Charlie married a woman he had an affair with throughout all that, and spends most of his time these days avoiding gout and spending the state's money on a market gardening project which he creams a healthy profit from.

His two sons were signed up by the armed forces - military recruiters tend to concentrate on those bits of the country where there's little work or industry - and while one has married (she's unemployed, of course) the other is an ASBO waiting to happen.

Brenda's second child is the nicest of the lot, but has never worked a day in her life. Annie spent the state's money on a series of pony-riding contests, married and divorced a shagabout, dropped two children, has been hauled to court three times for speeding and owning a dangerous dog, and was once victim of an attempted kidnap and murder which saw four men shot.

Annie looks busy for four days a week on average, and spends far too much money on Elnett.

Then there's the second boy, Andy. He was a sailor for 22 years but isn't too bright, married someone equally thick, spawned two children and these days spends his time pretending to be working for the state even though the state has asked him nicely not to. He's been seen in the company of sex offenders and their victims, as well as young women best described as 'of no fixed income' and men who are a bit nasty.

The fourth sprog, Eddie, couldn't make it in the military, preferring a life on the stage. Unfortunately he was just as rubbish at that as he was at militarising, and after a brief and humiliating foray into running his own firm he jacked it all in to concentrate on living off the state along with his wife, who once frolicked with Chris Tarrant.

There is no need to worry, though. The Government is about to put a stop to all of that.

Two ministers today wrote: "In order to give people back their hope, aspiration and self respect we are sending a clear message: it is no longer OK to opt out of a life of work. That choice is no longer on offer. We are ending the something for nothing culture."

People under 25 who've never had a job won't be allowed to have a home paid for by the state, so that's Andy's girls out on the street.

Benefit handouts are going to be capped at £26,000 a year, which will leave Brenda with roughly £138million to find if she wishes to keep her houses, cars, dresses, horses, Ladbroke's account and the armed guards she and her sprawling family of layabouts seem to require.

If you've never had a job you won't have any help with your housing costs, so Annie will be reliant for her pony and hairspray costs upon the state-paid pension of her 57-year-old husband who took early retirement two years ago.

People who have "too many" children could lose the right to claim welfare, and while it is not known precisely how many is too many, in Brenda's case it's at least three and possibly four.

The government has announced plans to cut £10bn from its welfare budget, which if we cut them loose from the state this one family alone could pay back in 72 years and probably a lot sooner if you take the market gardening into account.

There are even plans to restrict access to European immigrants who "abuse the rules" of our welfare state, which could see all of Brenda and her brood deported back to Germany or Greece, neither of which are very welcoming to members of their bloodline.

Meanwhile Brenda claims to be in fuel poverty and says she needs help with the heating bill, but it's not all bad because the council tax on her 240-bed palace has been frozen at the normal rate paid for a two-bed terrace.

Which is all very silly; of course it is. If anyone were to point out to Gideon and IBS their plans to punish skivers would, logically, also need to be applied to the Royal Family they'd say you were being ridiculous.

And they'd be right, because if they mean you were a laughable object of derision and mockery they would be accurately describing exactly how they feel about you. Their world is one of them and us, and if you're not with us then you must be one of them.

Us lot pay our taxes, which come and find us no matter how much we'd like to avoid them. Us lot have children both planned and accidental, we work or we try to, we have to save up for a flat-screen, we have well-behaved pets, we stay clear of sex offenders and us lot don't go around showering honours on the likes of Jimmy Savile.

The problem with the people running the country isn't their politics, or their upbringing, or their obsession with what they inherit.

It's the fact that, as far as they're concerned, the world would be a better place if everyone was like them.

Which would mean that us lot would all have to dodge tax, lie, dissemble, cheat, double-speak, reduce our not-proper-jobs to four days a week, have 31 weeks holiday a year, apportion blame, argue with the EU, get into bed with dictators and tyrants, seize control of women's ovaries and live off the taxpayer, who, by logical deduction, would be reduced to one poor sod who'd have to fund the whole thing.

It's them who skive rather than strive; it's them who scrounge and lounge; it's them who take something with no intention of returning it.

There's little we peasants can do but I'd feel a lot better about it if I didn't think what they were taking was the flipping piss.

"Maybe they'll throw it back in a minute."