A letter a day to number 10. No 1,041
Saturday 28 March 2015.
Dear Mr Cameron,
I had a rather special letter yesterday with two envelope panes, one showing the address but the other spanning the width of the envelope announcing “You are hereby given official notice”. It was from TV licensing.
The last time I had a visit from TV licensing I told the guy he wasn’t coming in my home and nor was I going to answer any of his questions. I asked him if he was aware of that in this country we are innocent until proven guilty, he said he was. I informed him that what that means is that I do not have to prove I am innocent the onus is on my accuser to prove my guilt with credible evidence in a court of law, not to come knocking on my door bothering me to provide the evidence for him. He left.
This raises a growing problem in this country, one that is being led by your government; guilt by aspersion, rumour, opinion and propaganda. When George Osborne said, “Where is the fairness, we ask, for the shift-worker, leaving home in the dark hours of the early morning, who looks up at the closed blinds of their next door neighbour sleeping off a life on benefits?” He was casting aspersions, garnering and seeding suspicion and hate by planting the assumption of guilt via a conference speech to inflame public opinion.
Every time any of you talk about hard working people or strivers, you are being pejorative, expressing contempt for anyone who isn’t hard working or striving, but because there is no measure of who is or isn’t hard working or striving everyone is under suspicion, everyone is guilty until proven innocent, but innocence doesn’t get a chance. Is it any wonder then that people look for a category or group at whom they can readily point the finger of guilt? At least that’s what cowards do to deflect the shadow of doubt away from themselves instead of challenging the hate mongers in parliament, the media and amongst the public.
When Iain Duncan Smith declares he will get tough with benefit cheats, vowing they will not get away with swindling taxpayers out of any more money, he’s actually talking about a tiny minority of people yet casting the shadow of guilt over everyone in receipt of benefits. The filthy man is even targeting disabled people with ESA sanctions rising 334% between December 2012 and December 2013 according to his own departments statistics.
Disability hate crime has risen 213% since 2007/08 according to figures from the Crown Prosecution Service; a gullible and fearing public picks a ready target acting as judge and jury and dispensing punishment for crimes that exist only in their own addled minds, but fed by you and your government and the media. Innocent until proven guilty is the bedrock of law, and yet what a good job you’ve done in undermining that.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/549316/Iain-Duncan-Smith-says-benefit-system-is-abuse-by-criminals
http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/2767-new-dwp-statistics-show-a-334-increase-in-esa-sanctions
http://www.welfareweekly.com/disability-hate-crime-fuelled-by-propaganda/
Fear and Loathing in Great Britain 