The story about a family of benefits’ recipients buying £4 tickets for the Tower of London, rather than the £111 charged to non-welfare claimants, marks a return to the Eliza Doolittle school of social engineering. If we just show the peasant underclass how the other half live, perhaps they’ll all start behaving. In many ways, the ruling elites should be thrilled that 106,000 benefits claimants used the special £1 tickets last year to visit Historic Royal Palace properties and 300,000 to visit London Zoo. (Figures, however are not available for Westminster Abbey or St. Pauls. I have a feeling the up take might not be quite as enthusiastic.) There will be a spreadsheet somewhere detailing how many ‘vulnerable children’ or ‘socio-economically deprived’ were reached with this latest noblesse oblige endeavour.
The obvious two-tier injustice of this system (and others) has been much commented upon. I believe we should be less concerned about the occasional ‘treat’ (if ‘family days out are ever anything less than excruciating misery), and rather more about the culturally arid conditions in which the benefits class live for the majority of the year. And if that sounds condescending then I apologise, but not as condescending as the suggestion that a visit to the Cutty Sark will in any meaningful way improve the benefits’ class of almost 10 million people.
The question of how to help the benefits class / deserving / undeserving poor, break free of their social and intellectual confines is one that is not new. From Lady Bountiful, Toynbee Hall, the 19th century Children’s Country Holiday’s Fund to the most recent cheap tickets to visitor attractions, it has long been posited that with exposure to education, culture and fresh air, the underclass would reform themselves into more competent people.
It’s a compelling idea and one that is shared by people across the political spectrum. James Graham, the brilliant playwright of This House and Dear England, funded over 5,000 Nottinghamshire state school children to his latest extraordinary play Punch. He was interviewed by Radio Four’s Nick Robinson and swallowed back tears when he spoke about the sheer unfairness of certain segments of society not watching theatre and his admirable attempts to help them do so.
Alas, what Graham misses, and what the bitterness about cheap day tickets misses, is the fact that ‘culture’ in all forms is wholly absent from great swathes of the population for the majority of their lives. A trip to the theatre or a discounted Eden Project is not going to change that. It is this everyday absence that should anger. Art, music, philosophy, the theatre, history, literature, beauty, poetry, the glories of the countryside, of attempting to dissolve time and capture the human condition and creation, in song, or on canvas or with words – are endeavours that do not touch the lives of millions of people in Britain today. It is difficult to convey to the intellectually lively readership of the Daily Sceptic, the anti-cultural milieux in which the benefits class live. I work with such people and do.
Again apologies for the Lady Bountiful patronising tone here, but in my professional capacity I have come to have a thorough understanding of what passes for interests for a large number of people on benefits. These include: nail art, bronzer, eyelashes, energy drinks, branded clothing, trainers, watching football, taper fades, new vape flavours, the best vendor for black market cigarettes, tattoo art, gaming, scrolling, Ozempic, watching series and new iPhones. The majority of homes I visit to support uneducated children, are entirely bereft of books or other reading material. My great-grandfather was for a while, after fighting throughout the Great War, an unemployed member of this class. Times were different then; he sang in the church choir, went on bike rides in the countryside, was a member of the lending library, played football. Over 100 years ago, the means were there to combine poverty with a cultural participation in communal life and heritage beyond his immediate grim circumstances.
Today, the world as experienced by the modern equivalents of my workless great-grandfather is narrower and lived through screens within small walls. Being ‘entertained’ is sovereign and, if streaming services become dull, then drama amongst friends, family and neighbours is created instead. The number of times I’ve visited homes and been deluged with long stories about minor events that have caused all sorts of ‘shit-talking’: a parcel not delivered, a dog barking at another dog, someone looking.
Numerous families I’ve worked with have refused visits to art galleries or museums, woodlands or antique shops saying “they’re boring”. And perhaps indeed they are. What I, a now socially elevated middle-class square, take as universally appealing endeavours: beautiful art, interesting ideas, heart-stopping landscapes, are viewed by many others as “dogshit”.
Now the question of course is, does this matter? Why the hurry to encourage the benefits class to visit sites of cultural enrichment and then complain when they take advantage of cheap tickets to York Castle Museum? If it was the case, as in Titanic, where the third class are having a swell time dancing and singing, compared with the stolid emptiness of the upper decks, then fine. But this is not happening. I’ve yet to meet one person from a family on benefits who sings with others, plays an instrument, who dances.
Longitudinal evidence from the DWP and ONS reveals the unsurprising news that benefits claimants have notably higher rates of ill health, elevated mortality risk and deeper and persistent poverty compared to the general population. Nine million adults are on anti-depressants, with the benefits class twice as likely to receive prescriptions than other groups. The Sutton Trust reports on the 21st-century decline in social mobility. It is well reported but largely ignored that white boys on free school meals (i.e., the sons of the benefits class) have the worst educational outcomes of all socio-economic groups.
I see every day with my work the personal result of a culturally denuded interior life for children: despair, purposelessness, self-harm, over-eating, an attraction to confected groups providing empty meaning.
None of this will be solved busing in children to watch West End theatre, or letting families have cheaper tickets to RHS Wisley. If we want those at the bottom of society to lead flourishing lives – which I dedicate my working life to supporting – and to share in the glories of our heritage, then what is required is the weaving in, and the participating of culture, into everyday life. The return of daily singing assemblies throughout school, edtech-free classrooms, story-led rather than data-led reading, more intellectually and practically nourishing curriculums, narrative history lessons, practical art, music, dance and drama lessons in every school and community, a massive limitation on smartphone use for children and, yes, youth clubs. And for the adults: jobs.
Mary Gilleece is an education support worker and her name is a pseudonym.
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Welfarism is a eugenics programme which selects for the least intelligent, least able, least productive in the population, meaning that contrary to natural selection which otherwise would make them least successful at reproduction, makes them more successful to become increasingly a larger proportion of the population.
Welfarism by transferring wealth from the more intelligent, able and productive to the least, limits successful reproduction because financially more children for the former costs more and limits family size, unlike the “poor” who get more, the more they breed like rabbits.
The aim is a completely dumb population, only fit for work in the fields of their rent-seeking lords and masters, wholly compliant and beholden to them. It’s back to serfdom.
Prove I’m wrong – with your evidence that welfarism doesn’t preference the dumbest and least productive at the expense of wealth creators.
Rather than charge some people £111 and others £4, why not charge everyone £57,50?
Museums, zoos and the like should be sold to the private sector and run as businesses.
Currently the cost is socialised and bourn by the many who aren’t interested to benefit the few. Those who are interested in these things should carry the full cost.
The State’s job is to protect not to provide. It is so preoccupied with the former that it fails at the latter.
Not infrequently we’ve taken people for walks in the countryside. I’m amazed by the number who have no idea how to access footpaths, or where they might go.
They’ll turn up with white trainers on. Maybe carrying a handbag rather than a rucksack.
They’ll refuse to enter a field with cattle, horses or even sheep in it.
They’ll tell me in advance that they’re keen walkers in the countryside, but what it turns out they’ve done is to park at a beauty spot & follow a tarmac trail.
As a kid we were taught the different OS symbols for a church with a tower, or a church with a spire. We could plot a route.
The Duke of Edinburgh awards are a brilliant introduction to kids, they learn so much. I’ve always thought a version for younger kids where the parents got engaged would be good, providing they remember to close the gates after them, & not to leave their litter behind. Could the parents be trusted to do that? On second thoughts, perhaps they’re best off back on the sofa.
“They’ll refuse to enter a field with cattle, horses…”
Very wise. It’s their territory and they will defend it if they feel threatened.
Are the DS staff on strike?🧐 The lights are on but nobody appears to be home…👀
What we need is a test card.😁
Why would the underclass want to spend time on cultural activities when the Establishment has spent several decades deliberately trashing our history and culture?
Culture is language, values, morals, manners and ethics, outlook, and Law – it is not museums, zoos, ballet, opera, etc.
That’s what should be taught in civics lessons at schools – better than a trip to the zoo. Besides: no need to go to a zoo to see the animals, just watch PMQs on the Parliament Channel.
Jobs for the adults – totally agree. Massive limitation on smartphone use for children – none of your business, leave it up to the parents. Otherwise you are saying you know better than the parents. I might agree with you, but that doesn’t make it right. As for the rest, that sounds like the kind of education I would want for my children, but I am highly suspicious of any concerted attempt to change attitudes in this manner. I am blessed enough to have passions in various areas that have given me enormous pleasure, things that move me. “Culture” is one of them, sport is another. I am about to go and play tennis with glorious sunshine streaming over the common. I do this every weekday morning of the year, winter and summer. I think people who don’t get themselves out of bed and into the fresh air early in the morning to chase fuzzy yellow balls are quite odd. Compulsory morning tennis for everyone!
If people ask, I am happy to share my thoughts on my passions, otherwise I am happy for people to go their own way, and I reserve my energy for trying to “be a better… Read more »
Happy to agree with you on the getting out of bed into the early morning sunshine, tof, especially on a crisp, sunny morning like this but, the only one chasing fuzzy yellow balls is the dog!
Indeed. I expect some of the “benefits class” also enjoy walking their dogs, along with many other activities that the author may not have considered.
This makes me feel very sad. It reminds me of the quotation about most men leading lives of quiet desperation, yet that implies the awareness of something better just beyond one’s reach or capabilities. The life of the mind and the spirit in all its richness is not even a flicker on the backlit screen scrollers’ smartphones.
And yet even screen scrolling might reveal great treasures like the wonderful Ben Maton, Salisbury Organist, who breathes joy and music into remote country churches, as well as excellent Youtube Christian video makers who fill the gap left by many of today’s church leaders. “We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars.”
The leaden socialist education system has a lot to answer for but the challenge is if you can inspire the children at school you are up against the disinterested parental slobs.
The Champaign and canapés set believing the lower orders want and have the same things as them and should be corrected in their wants if they don’t.
There is also a complete lack of curiousness – a life in a vacuum. So sad.
Indeed. I don’t think this is confined to the “benefit class”.
I think the fundamental difference between people goes deeper even than “culture” or “curiousness”.
I will never tire of watching the sea, or trees, or the sunrise or the sunset, or feeling the wind, or looking at the stars. Those things are pretty much available to everyone. Did I get taught that or am I just blessed?
First of all, I was under the impression that those who need help are incapable of doing so, not morally deficient and in need of “reform”.
Secondly, you must be completely stupid if you think that cultural visits will turn lazy people, if that is the problem, into hard working productive citizens.
I won’t tire of saying that Britain is a ridiculous country.
And there is an ignorant and arrogant assumption that the unwashed want “culture” rather than watching telly, drinking cheap lager, or vandalising bus shelters.