Black Country common sense?

I am old enough to remember when The Black Country was a powerhouse of industry. The different companies employed thousands of workers. The Black Country made things and the breweries kept the beer flowing.

Who owned it all though? Not the workers, they were on the scrap heap as soon as someone would do it cheaper. The posh people in suits provided the investment and had no loyalty to anyone. They got richer by exploitation.

The wealth of the Black Country was built on coal, the mineral rights were owned by the Earl of Dudley. How did he obtain the rights? He was probably granted them and his lands by the King for supporting some war.

The aristocracy held all the power and the money and so ordinary people just had to live in hovels in the Black Country and work for a pittance.

The toffs are now in government and people are feeling exploited again. Both Cameron and Osborne went to Oxford and were members of the notorious Bullingdon Club, as was Boris Johnson. Ed Miliband also went to Oxford and the London School of Economics. Duncan Smith was a university drop out, we’re surprised he got in at all. His claim to fame was for writing a book called the Devil’s Tune, which seems appropriate. A critic described it as “Really, it’s terrible … Terrible, terrible, terrible.”

The problem is with privilege being passed down and their assertion that they are somehow special and people on council estates are subhuman is that eventually people wake up to them. They are telling us that the country is in debt and can’t afford the repayments, yet they can just print money if they want to.

I can’t think of one advantage to building HS2. It seems London is being reserved for the rich and poor people will be required to travel there daily to serve their every needs. The government is also spending 15 billions on a cross London tube line, then there is the replacement for Trident.

Meanwhile the Black Country seems to get worse. Would a Labour government do any better under Ed Miliband’s leadership? I doubt it. Look around the Black Country, we have kerbs sticking out into the roads, mini roundabouts and traffic chaos everywhere. Labour can’t even keep traffic moving. The local Labour councils have been empire building. The town clerk we had years ago did a good job, now we need a chief executive on 140K a year.

That’s another problem, paying people way too much for doing way too little. Does the CEO of Camelot deserve a million a year for running the lottery? Did Paxman deserve a similar fee for appearing on television? The whole banking and financial industry is corrupt with million pound bonuses for wrecking the economy. Lehman brothers went bust. So what? How could that crash the world economy? It was corrupt with ponzi schemes, interest rate fixing and double dealing. Have they fixed it? Is it regulated properly now? It doesn’t seem to be, they are still getting million pound pay-outs in the City for shuffling paper, while the posh boys plan another attack on the poor.

I think it could be time for some Black Country common sense, but the posh boys won’t listen to us. They think they’re special and so will carry on regardless.

What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comments box. You can also follow me on Twitter.

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