Might be from Britain, ... but, ...
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Friday, Jul 03 2009
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Will no one stand up for Joe Average?
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John Denham, arrives at 10 Downing Street for a Cabinet Meeting
Lone supporter: John Denham has spoken in support of 'Joe Average' in light of the government's equality laws
Behold Joe Average, who stands among you every day, a hapless symbol of our topsy-turvy society.
Nobody writes or talks much about poor old Joe, even if he is the most harried and exploited person in modern British life. Look at him. What a sucker!
For Joe is Mr Ordinary, a very median guy, a decent, middleclass citizen in every way.
All his life, he has been a law-abiding, tax-paying, manners minding, passport-holding pillar of society.
He has never been overdrawn nor arrested. He has never been under suspicion nor caused anyone any trouble.
He pays his bills on time. He recycles his rubbish. He knows his place in the queue. Where has all this got him?
Absolutely nowhere. Joe is stuck in the system, sinking fast.
Yes. The Government certainly saw him coming, didn't it? Good old Harriet Harman has had Joe Average in her sights for years.
This week, even a Cabinet Minister pointed out that Miss Harman's new equality laws risk alienating middle-class voters such as Joe.
John Denham, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, suggested that Harman's beloved legislation for closing the social gap could cost the party dear in terms of support in Middle England.
He risked her wrath by rubbishing the obsessive, egalitarian approach to helping the needy that has dominated Left-wing thinking since the Minister for Women and Equality was in pop sox and pigtails.
But I wonder if even this bat squeak of rebellion is too little, too late for the future of Joe Average.
Harman's new laws will legally bind every single public authority in the country to bridge the gap between rich and poor.
Existing legislation where policies must consider race, age, gender, disability and *_*_*_*_*_*uality will be extended to - ominously - include social background.
Elsewhere, employers are to be encouraged to discriminate in favour of women and black candidates.
Of course, it is admirable that everyone should be given a fair chance, but how can it be egalitarian if one person is continually being pushed to the bottom of the pile to benefit all the others?
And, of course, that person is always middle-income, middle-class, meek-mannered Joe Average.
And things are not going to get better for him any time soon. Basically, his problem is that he is not poor enough, ethnic enough, foreign enough or female enough to qualify for help from anyone.
On the totem pole of British politics, Joe is the final carving before you hit dirt. He is the person whose needs are considered last and whose problems are discussed least.
If pips are going to squeak, you can bet that those pips will belong to him. Not for him the overblown sense of entitlement or misguided belief that the world owes him a duck house or a sheaf of state benefits.
Yet if anything bad is going to happen, it always seems to happen to Joe. Through no fault of his own. Others are spending his money for him, while his own cash is running through his fingers like sand.
Perks? There are no perks for Joe Average. Even if there was a system for him to fiddle, he would not do so, for he is a man of natural integrity.
He is not the kind of person to expect others to pay for his second home's fitted kitchen or his tree surgeon or his lush cream velour carpets. And if he wanted to use someone else's hard-earned BBC licence fee money to buy a £90 bottle of champagne for Bruce Forsyth, he would at least - at least! - have the decency to ask first.
Through no fault of his own, Joe Average's pension pot - for which he sacrificed and saved - is going up in a puff of smoke.
Most blue-chip companies now admit their final-salary schemes are 'unsustainable', while two separate studies have revealed that Britain's state pension is the worst in the Western world.
Poor old Joe! He played by the rules, and the rules bit back. Increasingly, people like him are taken for granted, treated as political ballast.
All the Government ever wants from him is a vote. They certainly don't want to hear what he has to say or attend to his needs.
So Average Joes have become the quietly seething majority, those this country is selling down the river like freshly-cut lumber. Will they remain put-upon, abused, exploited and harried for now and for ever more? Or just until the next election?
