Bury Job Centre: A Bleak Place

Opposite St. Joseph's Church (a quite beautiful building, the interior too):

Stands the Job Centre in Bury:

While in Bury recently, I popped in to see how the place might help me (yeah, especially in hindsight, this was possibly being naive):

And what a shock I got: 

A fresh-faced young man (probably in his mid-20s) just casually told me that through me having lived/ worked abroad for many years, I would have to take a "residency test" to see if I was eligible for applying for any kind of benefit or job.

What is more, when he was told that this is morally reprehensible and that I am quite obviously an ethnic Englishman, he claimed that I was being "aggressive" and that I'd "come in with an attitude" (this sounded like par for the course, left-wing, government office diatribe, of course). 

At a deeper level, the young man didn't seem to like dealing with people who can think for themselves and who can challenge what he says (critiquing is a central value of a democratic society, of course).

This is another example of what I've experienced over the past few years that appears to support a growing idea or view that in terms of repressing free speech, modern-day Britain is on a par with the likes of North Korea.