Okay, I have figured out my Robocop metaphor conundrum, and I am reasonably certain that what I was working towards when equating the UK's welfare system with the prison system was establishing that even at its most childish and anodyne, the Robocop franchise was still capable of tackling subjects that would remain relevant even in the crazy world of the future we call 2019, as there is legitimately an episode of the 1990s Robocop tv series in which the lead character deals with the fallout of the establishment of Universal Credit as an alternative to existing benefits. No, really.
They don't call it Universal Credit, obviously, because Sweet Christmas you guys the writers of Robocop weren't actually looking through time itself and using this ability to write episodes of a children's tv show, within the fiction it is called "Webcare", but otherwise things are absolutely identical to what has happened in reality: a sanctimonious, slimy shitheel character representing the worst in humanity and an obvious parody of fascist capitalism hiding behind an unconvincing facade of self-righteousness takes bribes to implement a replacement for the regular system of benefits that already exists, but it's all a ploy to control the poor by forcing them into debt through an obstructive application process overseen by third party contractors who are rewarded for withholding benefits to which people are legally entitled via a regime of sanctions which actively prevents them from finding jobs, and eventually the disgusting, slimy subhuman piece of trash behind this is taken to court to force him to act within the law, so he simply has the law changed to protect himself from prosecution, all the while being protected from exposure by a corporate-controlled media whose clumsy attempts at deflecting blame are just about believable for a television show aimed at 8 year olds, and amazingly, this is also what happens in the episode of Robocop called "Provision 22".
Would this have actually helped my clumsy blog post about Robocop comics from the 1990s? In retrospect, probably not, but dedicating brain space to figuring out where I was going added a dash of mystery and excitement to an otherwise drab couple of weeks, and now it's over I don't know how I'll ever get that sweet rush back again.
I did like the episode ending essentially being where an old white guy swoops in and declares a return to the shitty old welfare system and everyone hails him as a hero, which was probably quite black and funny in 1992 but in 2019 is probably the absolute best outcome to events that we in the UK can actually hope for.
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