bomb alerts and stuff

x-post

the sun is kind of tarring all people on benefits with the 'homicidal maniac' brush.

In the more biased British newspapers, it's sort of de rigeur to scrutinise the belongings of miscreants in a snidey way: a criminal or other somehow declassé person's home is always described in terms of how much it is worth (£400,000 cottage in leafy suburb), and like this case where a suspect has received £23,000 over six years, if they have received government assistance and how much. It really doesn't matter if you are a suspected bomber or the tabs' Slut Of The Week.

Reading the fine print of the benefits sums, you see that the suspect was paid these benefits for six years therefore the total for each year was a more humble £3833 or just short of £74 a week. It's not clear whether the original figure is a total of income support/JSA and housing and council tax benefits but it's below-poverty-line chump change whatever - consider there's NO WAY the journalist writing the diss is on anything less than £600 a week, for perspective's sake.

i mean it DOES actually tell you something about the bombers: getting benefits is an invasive procedure which involves the state scrutinising your life; they were in contact with state agencies over a long period; they were not funded by saudi millionaires, etc.

but the sun isn't making those points, i doubt.

no. [boggles at some of the skewed thought processes on display here.] like others (kate being particularly OTM) have said: it's a detail. it's an irony. it's a story, for fuck's sake! it's got absolutely nothing to do with the sun's editorial stance on benefits/"scroungers"/etc.

there's NO WAY the journalist writing the diss is on anything less than £600 a week

really? i think you're living in the past there: tabloid wages ain't half what they used to be.

Come on Simon - it uses 'sponged' in the sub heading.

I basically agree that it's nothing like "Benefits scroungers are like terrorists" but it is a kind of "They're taking advantage of us, we're a soft touch, we're being mocked" thing, which is the key attitude lying behind much of the right-wing media's daily output.

but there is a story here, for reasons i gave above. obviously saying so rings liberal alarm bells because 'we all know' the sun is hostile to people on benefits in general, recent immigrants in particular.

in a nutshell.

this has been government policy since 1976, dave!

i think, if i were talking about terrorists claiming benefits in any broadsheet, i might consider using the word "sponged" as well :)

i accept what dave B says about the sun's editorial line in general, but i really do not think that's the issue here. regardless of anything else the sun might have printed about the benefits system, the fact remains that this is a valid story. the issue is the irony of someone receiving subsistence money from the very system they seek to destroy.

It has been documented before how some people who match the description somewhat of the bombers (not physically, I mean what they believe in) have no interest in working even if they are able to, and their reason for claiming benefits is purely as a dubiously-reasoned statement of protest against and contempt for the system in which they live.

Maybe not the case for the recent bombers but I'd be surprised if it wasn't.

xpost - it says that the person who felt nihilistic enough to want to kill people didn't have a job, which isn't surprising. It says that we gave him piss-poor support in this, which isn't surprising, because that's what civilised states do. If the bafflement is how people can take from a system they despise, then i suggest thast in looking for reason and coherence from people who want to blow themselves and others up is a mistake.

xpost Jesus Steve, you're turning blue before our eyes!

that these people weren't given support in finding a job, and that this contributed to their nihilism, which made them ripe for recruitment -- these are big assumptions. i guess we'll have to wait for the channel 4 drama.

chicken-and-egg situation:

did their inability to find a job cause these young men to become more angry and disaffected, eventually culminating in their turning to radicalism ...

... or did they start claiming benefits because they thought, fuck it, i'm gonna be blowing myself up in a couple of years, no point getting a job?

Momus actually linked to a broadsheet site article after the 7th on the first 'Explosion...' discussion thread which highlighted the glee with which some 'anti-West/pro-bombing their civilians' people abused the benefits system whilst simultaneously 'praying' for the destruction of buildings and lives on Western soil, as retaliation. Can't be bothered to track it down myself though. Likewise there have been a few BBC shows (inc. at least one Panorama) which have highlighted the contempt for the system among those same people - but I cannot supply more precise details at this time, so you don't have to believe me if you don't want to ;)

or did they start claiming benefits because they thought, fuck it, i'm gonna be blowing myself up in a couple of years, no point getting a job?

from a tactical pov, this would be a risky move, inviting the social services in. they did this for the money, surely?

This is a little off topic but when I moved here I was what you would call an approved immigrant (spouse visa) and they put a big old stamp that said 'no recourse to public funds allowed' thing in my passport. So I thought recent immigrants were prohibited from receiving benefits. Do they just mean the asylum seekers that they don't allow to work and thus give benefits to?

I know - so what are people saying. That the useless london-based bombers got into it though unemployment and desperation but the leeds-based ones had some other reason? I dunno - it just all seems daft talk to me.

xp -- again, i don't think they took the money out of politics but because they needed it. if you were a terrorist, how much would you want to be interviewed by social services on a regualr basis?