War among the underclasses
Written by: one-eyed Jack
Britain has always been associated with class structure. In not so distant times past there was the working class, the middle class and the upper class. But now an emerging sub-culture is fighting amongst itself to lay claim to the identity of the lowest of them all: the ‘underclass’.
The underclass is not associated in any way with race or religion, age or gender, and it would be a mistake to label anyone simply living in poverty as a rightful member. Instead it is determined to disassociate itself from the rest of society by way of its dress code, attitude and unwillingness to work. There are several tribes laying claim to being at the top of the bottom, but who are the competing factions?
Most populous of all are the Welbennies, or those living permanently on welfare benefits. To fully qualify as a Welbenny, you must never have worked at any time in your life and therefore age is a strong factor in assessing the street cred of an individual. To be of the highest social standing you should ideally be an unmarried mother of as many children as possible, kudos given if each child has a different father. The actual number of Welbennies in Britain is not known with any degree of accuracy but by 2020 it is expected that they will overtake the over-65s as the largest demographic social group in the country.
Competing with the Welbennies are the Disbennies, or those on disability benefits but who have no disability at all. These are the people who live a life of cheating the welfare state system by claiming to have an illness or condition that prevents them from working. Most have, to be fair, worked at some time in their lives, so their contribution to society could be said to have been, at least at one point, of greater benefit than the Welbennies. However the Disbennies strongly refute this, claiming that they are liars and cheats as opposed to just plain lazy. For this reason they reckon they should head the underclass.
Then we have the chavs, but this is where things get a little confusing because although very few chavs have a job, some are on the dole and some are fraudulently claiming disability benefits - and the really smart ones are claiming both. Chavs tend to have fewer children however, and a large proportion have none at all due to fertility malfunctions and incest.
Keen to lay claim to the king of the underclass are the ASBOs, although due to age restrictions (usually no older than 19) their threat is regarded as limited. But again, some compensate for this by being an ASBOchav, or even an ASBOchav-Welbenny - and these sub-social groups are rapidly rising in number. Problems develop however when an 18-year old female ASBOchav on benefits with four or more children is taken into custody for breach of her ASBO, because the children will invariably be taken into foster care and the woman’s benefits will be substantially reduced upon her release - so she will be under pressure to re-breed as soon as possible in order to climb up to the bottom of the social ladder again.
You don’t need to shop at Lidl to be a Pikey, but obviously it helps. Pikey is not a racial group, the term is used to describe anyone who lives in a caravan or shares the same values and ‘culture’ of ‘the travelling community’, and whose main sources of income are as follows:
Stealing cars, flogging roses in pubs for ‘children’s’ charities’, nicking lead off roofs, burgling garden sheds, blagging entry to old peoples house to rob them, doing dodgy tarmac jobs (‘we’ve got some black stuff left over from a job up the road’), sometimes with mint imperials used as a substitute for white chippings, or, reportedly, using snow to lay slabs on when the sand ran out, stealing your bollocks if they weren’t in a bag and anything else that’s not nailed down and anything that is nailed down but will fit in the back of an untaxed Transit when nobody’s looking.
Characterised by lurchers on a string, a unintelligible language that ‘isn’t English, it isn’t Irish, it’s just Pikey’ (source: Film: Snatch), a penchant for hare coursing, ketamine, lighter fuel, fighting in pubs and shopping at Lidl. A major threat to the chavs, without a doubt.
Fringe groups such as Emos remain a very small threat to the overwhelmingly dominant Welbennies and others. An Emo Bitch (natural enemy of a chav) follows the emo fashion, music etc. and will complain about how hard her well-off suburban life is and how people are so mean to her about her style when she will turn around and abuse anyone who isn’t emo or who she deems to be an emo wannabe. Someone who dresses emo-like (multiple badges) then claims they aren’t will start a fight over how they aren’t emo. She says things like ‘ZOMG!!! You’re such a poser!’ and ‘Someone called me an Emo. And I mean I’m SO not emo.’ The obvious problem with emos is that they tend to have at least one working parent, and (the biggest flaw) their parents are often actually married.
Of course, alcohol plays a part in any war between social groups such as these, and activities such as binge-drinking and (if possible) repeated puking marks an individual out as a strong character laying claim to underclass qualification - provided he or she is unemployed and if possible a single mother. Use of a knife - particularly stabbing someone to death - is regarded as pointless and makes no contribution to the development of a given underclass as the perpetrator usually goes to prison, and while that does cost the State money in a sense, it does not carry the respect of claiming unemployment or disability benefit. Murder is therefore not recommended, despite this being a war, and violence is best limited to grievous bodily harm.
