On the 1st of April, 2013, British Society, indeed, British Politics lost all respect for the poor. This was the date in which everything changed for those who where born and brought up within the United Kingdom. Draconian benefit changes would see the poor lose their homes, and be forced out onto the streets. Indeed, what little money they were getting [state benefits] was being slashed even further. Not only that, but those who were and are claiming benefits would be stigmatized, demonized and treated lower than dogs.

Everything changed for the worst for the poor, but for the rich, it was more of what they already have, and that is money. The lack of respect for those who are low-paid, unemployed, sick, disabled [both mentally and physically], the old, and indeed the young, has reached levels that are now breaching the Human Rights Act.  

And yet the British Government, knowing full well what their policies are doing to people, despite the warnings from church leaders, council leaders and housing association managers, are going full steam ahead with their cuts. Vital money, a lifeline that those who are ill, unemployed or low-paid need, is now being clawed back by the Government. The lack of respect for the poor is breathtaking to behold, but there are very few, [if any] within, supposedly - ‘the Mother of all Parliaments’, that are speaking up for those who do not have, or who cannot speak up for themselves.

Meanwhile, while the poor are forced out onto the streets, because of the hated Bedroom Tax, [or, as the Government likes to call it, the ‘Spare Room Subsidy’] the rich, on the very same day [1st April, 2013]  receive a tax break. Again, the lack of respect, hypocrisy  and complete contempt for those who do not have, is beyond belief. The Bedroom Tax, in which a person who is deemed to have one extra bedroom than he or she needs, means 14% from their housing benefit [rent] is docked. 

If they have two spare rooms, the figure goes up to 25% being docked. This has resulted in people having to make stark choices. They either pay the shortfall in rent from their other meager benefits, they take in a lodger [which many will not do] or they move to a smaller property.

This would be fine but for one small problem, there is a major housing shortage within the UK, and so there are NO one-bedroom homes for people to move into.  People are outraged at the lack of respect and decency being shown them, and many have vowed not to pay the Bedroom Tax but to fight it every step of the way.

The reason, the Government says, that they are introducing a ‘Spare Room Subsidy’ as they like to call it, is to free up housing stock. As there are many families who are waiting to move into homes that are taken up by those who, the Government says, really do not need them.

Again, this would be fine if there were smaller homes for those who are already housed to move too. But there is not. And the hypocrisy hits home even more on two levels. 1: That the Housing Benefit Bill will continue to rise, if people find one-bedroom homes in the private sector [which simply do not exist] as rents are charged at a higher rate. And 2, while the Government bleats about the poor having one extra room then they should, they themselves possess state-owned, unoccupied two and three homes, which are paid for by…the British Taxpayer.

So, if one looks at it in another way, multimillionaire politicians who are showing breathtaking hypocrisy and a complete lack of respect for the poor, the sick, the disabled, the low-paid and unemployed, are themselves under-occupying subsidized homes, paid for by the British Taxpayer.

The hypocrisy stinks to high Heaven and there are many websites that have now been set up all castigating the complete lack of respect, lack of humanity and lack of empathy, that the Government is showing. Should rich politicians actually be preaching to those who do not have, how much ‘space’ they are ‘allowed’ within their homes? 

This is a Government that is filled to the brim with multimillionaires who seem to live within their ‘own little world’. They have absolutely no idea the drastic and dramatic effects their botched policies will have on those in real need. Or maybe they do? Because there are many who are relishing heaping more misery upon the poor.  However, they cannot possibly understand what it is like to make stark choices to either ‘eat’, or pay to stay warm. This is because they, themselves have never been in the position of being ‘poor’. Indeed, they have truly lost touch with the meaning of ‘respect’.

This is the lack of respect in Britain today and it is being played out 13 years into the 21st century. Because when the lack of respect comes from the very top of society, then to be sure, it will filter down. And so the lack of respect, generally within British Society spreads throughout the land.

If those in power cannot show an example of respect, empathy and humanity to their own citizens, what chance of finding it, within society as a whole? Those who are out of work, who are poor and sick and who claim benefits, are being ‘socially-cleansed’, and this has now become a Human Rights issue. People have already committed suicide, such is their fear of losing their homes, homes that they have lived in for maybe all of their lives. 

Politicians simply do not understand and they never will, what it is like to live on the breadline. That is ‘alien’ to them because the poor are simply ‘statistics’. Nothing but numbers on a document taking up too much space. Rich politicians now have the blood of their own citizens on their hands, and many more people will go on to take their own lives, rather than live in squalor anymore.

Sections of British Society have been castigated relentlessly, by multimillionaire ministers. And it is they who give ammunition and fuel to the right-wing media, as being ‘lazy’, ‘good-for-nothing’ ‘benefit cheats’ and so on. Well, who are the ‘real cheats’ here? Yes, those at the very top who continue to cream off the taxpayer time and again. This, despite the fact, that there are countless many poor people who are claiming benefits but working part time too - which they are allowed to do because they have declared their earnings.

Prime Minister, Cameron talks about the ‘broken society - and that he wants to mend it. Well, there are millions of people right now who do not think too kindly at all to what his policies are doing to the country. And, if civil disorder does break out again on British shores this summer, then this time the Government will have only themselves to blame. People are seething with rage and rightly so, because they are about to lose everything.

And the Government - the most right-wing there has ever been in British political history - are forcing through policies that are quite frankly, unworkable and evil. They have completely forgotten who they work for, and it seems that they have forgotten that they are only ‘tenants’ themselves, until 2015 when a General Election kicks in.

But there are many people now who are signing petitions demanding an early General Election and the dissolving of Parliament, through a vote of ‘no confidence’ in the present Government.’ The Government is simply not ‘governing’ in the best interest of the whole country, only governing in the best interests of the rich.

This is the lack of respect being played out right now within British Society. A lack of respect from the rich that sees the poor, the sick and the unemployed, the physically and mentally handicapped, demonized, attacked and castigated time and again by so-called politicians who really should know better. And so, is it any wonder that this ‘lack of respect’ should filter down to the people. People who simply have no respect whatsoever now, for those in authority, and for those who are supposed to be our leaders. Not when they can see with their own eyes, the corruption and hypocrisy being played out at the very top.