DPAC

Crippen’s ‘eat cake’ cartoon

On the auspicious day of the royal wedding many disabled people will be eating a few crumbs of cake if they can find them. As many of us cannot afford television sets we may try and view this great occasion by trying to look through someone else’s window. This is quite dangerous as we can be arrested but as many of us lost our homes it’s our only hope–and it’s worth it-disabled people love these national events, although we cannot help noticing that such events often seem to occur when our glorious country is in the grip of protests, riots, the destruction of what we used to call the welfare state and cuts to public spending. In fact, the ‘cuts’ to public services total 81 billion pounds with an additional 18 billion pounds taken from disabled peoples support.

Now originally, the welfare state was set up to support: the sick, the elderly, ‘the disabled’, children, families on low incomes and those who cannot find jobs because of spending cuts and job decimation (who are also having their support and resources taken away) but what does that matter when we have: a wedding!

New directions for the Welfare State

The welfare state came from another big event that was called the Second World War. Yes, our ancestors gave their lives, were injured and often disabled for their country, for justice and freedom for all. The Labour government of the day (Labour were quite good then) said “let’s have something that supports people: from the cradle to the grave’’. The ordinary people are worth it. We all paid a thing called national insurance, which we still pay but now it’s used to support our bankers. We built new roads, new schools, new hospitals, better housing and the life expectancy of ordinary people increased.  At that time the relative deficit for England was much higher than it is today. Yet where there is a will there is a way, and speaking of Will or William to give him his nearly full title let’s move onto the subject of the royal nuptials and what exactly the welfare state pays for today.

Today in the advanced 21^st century, the kind of arrangement that the welfare state provided for ordinary poor people is maintained for our royal family –all of the royals can expect to be supported by the tax payer from the ‘cradle to the grave’ which is truly wonderful. The notion of helping the poorest in society has moved dramatically to the notion of helping the wealthiest, this scenario also includes the bankers and city types, those who give large donations to the Tory party (of whom 22 are multi-millionaires) donator’s can also expect some form of helpful support, multi-million pound contracts or other stuff connected with undermining democracy and the so-called free market-they can also find ways to avoid paying their taxes.

The queen of England – isn’t she wonderful by the way- has an estimated fortune of £349 million. The royal cleaners are generously paid £6.45 an hour which is below the recommended wage for working in London, but they are lucky to be working for our queen aren’t they so what does it matter? The queen’s fortune consists of jewels and sparkle type things, a number of properties in England and Scotland, and a very fine stamp collection, apparently.

However, someone once told me that we: the nation, actually own all these things- that can’t be right can it? If it is, it is puzzling to me why we as a nation in the grip of deficit, facing cut backs and unable to support the sick, the elderly, ‘the disabled’, children, families on low incomes, and those who cannot find jobs because of spending cuts and job decimation: surely we just need to sell a few sparkle type things and all will be fine.  I also heard that our politicians say we have actually maxed out on our combined national credit card (?)- I don’t remember this, so it must have been a good time. Anyway this is the reason that we can’t pay for that thing the welfare state for poor people anymore.

This makes it all the more puzzling that it is us not the royal queen, who is in the international richest person’s list but whose sparkle type things and wealth we all own are paying for the royal wedding through our taxes despite having maxed out our credit card. So what will this glorious occasion –the wedding-cost?

Cost of Royal Wedding

An estimated breakdown from money saving blog breaks down the cost as follows:

Security- an estimated 20 million

Venue-cost of a prestige venue is anyone’s guess  with Charles and Camilla’s wedding bash costing 5 million and being a low key affair , we can safely say that this one will cost rather more.

Reception-estimated at 10 million

Dress- an estimated 25 million

Apparently Walmart/ ASDA have produced a helpful guide for non-royals which breaks down wedding costs to just £696.77 but with Walmart/ASDA rings at £64 as opposed to an estimated 32 million for those royal ones-guess we just got another credit card or something as this totals 87 million! It may be that this new form of welfare is more expensive than the ‘old’ type. Maybe we should tell someone, nobody seems to have noticed.

Cake Crumbs and Caviar

Disabled people hope to be feasting on cake crumbs on this glorious day. That is those of us that can survive long term without food and housing because due to this deficit/maxing out on the national credit card no one will get any help from the ‘welfare state for poor people’ anymore for such extravagant items.

Finally, let me say it is very difficult to become a royal if you are not born royal, but one way is to marry a royal and benefit from the welfare from the cradle to the grave.

This will support Kate if she gets sick, elderly, disabled, and will support her children to have the best private education, Kate does not even need to go and look for a job in the era of rising unemployment because her job will be wandering around exotic countries representing us: the nation. So we want to say well done Kate you’re supported for life as long as one of those great private companies doesn’t reinvent the guillotine that is. But why on earth would we want a revolution?

—–Debbie Jolly

Debbie Jolly