Being unemployed is a very easy word to say but hard situation to be in. It’s a state of living that no one wants to be in but a lot of people are.
I’ve been unemployed for about a year and a half. I have been looking for jobs everywhere but there are none to be seen. Well, I am a student so it doesn’t really matter. On the plus side I do get the odd £30 a week from Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA), which this government is trying to get rid of.
But if you look at the surrounding parts of my life, not having a job is just the beginning of my desperate need of help. My mum is currently raising six children in a three-and-a-half bedroom house, and when I say three-and-a-half I mean the fourth bedroom is not even big enough to fit a single bed. On top of that she also attends college three days a week from 9am till 2pm, so a job is out of the question.
My step dad is 60 and retired, but wants to work again so in the near future he can start his own business; however the irony is that when my mum’s gone to college he has to baby-sit.
My aunty works Monday till Friday as a dinner lady but she doesn’t make nearly enough to help her with bills and to look after her 7 year old son.
I’ve got a set budget that I spend every week. As follows:
EMA payday- remember, EMA does not always come at a set date and it is not 100% that I will get it every week.
· Bus pass - £6.50
· Contribute to electric meter - £7
· Credit on my phone - £5
· Money that I save - £5
· Toiletries (deodorant and soap) - £3
· Cigarettes - £3
PROFIT-50p, LOSS-£29.50
So do you still think being unemployed is easy to say when you only live on 50p? Somehow I am still living. Sometimes I think of dealing on the other hand of the law but I don’t think I would be good role model to the younger generation in my family.
Being me is a way of life. Being me is being broke and angry. Being me is having to walk from Walthamstow to Clapton when you don’t have enough money on your Oyster (transport for London bus passes). BEING ME IS BEING UNEMPLOYED.
Wednesday, 22 December 2010
Thursday, 9 December 2010
Bah, Humbug!
Christmas is undoubtedly the time of year when it is easiest to feel inadequate and shittiest about yourself if you are unemployed.Bear in mind I'm not a parent so it's not even a question of letting down sad-eyed children on the big day.
I'm a bit of an atheist so the religious aspect of the day kind of passes me by.
My big sister has got loads of children, some of whom are grown-up with children of their own. Her old man is a trained chef (although he no longer works as one). So, as I'm sure you can imagine, they have all the right ingredients for a proper Christmas.
Absolute pandemonium Christmas Day morning; children of all ages running to-and-fro, making all manner of noise. A big Christmas lunch. Lots of TV. Enough children around all day long to ensure lots of bickering and falling out. The whole nine yards. An ideal Christmas Day.
I know this because I've been up to visit for Christmas in the past. It's guaranteed chaos but it is also guaranteed to be a good time.
But I won't be going this year. It costs nigh-on sixty quid to travel up there, and that's using National Express, to travel out of London. This is without buying any presents. I'm a great uncle six times over, so that's six little kiddies who wouldn't understand. So I'll keep away, feeling inadequate.
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Moving on up
Starting the 13-week program, I wasn’t sure what to expect. My first thought was this would be a waste of my time. It was going to be like the jobcentre. Walking into a room full of people with gloomy faces and downbeat attitudes, I thought this was a depressing atmosphere. I just felt like I wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere but here.
After the first four or five weeks on the programme I met the placement officer. I was told that after being on the programme for a while I would be sent on work experience. The placement officer was really nice and supportive. When I said I wanted to be a writer I wasn’t put down like I was at the job centre or told I wouldn’t make it.
The placement officer referred me to Poached Creative (a writing and design company for charities and the social sector). She told me that if I worked hard a lot of positives would come from this opportunity.
I joined as a trainee at Poached Creative. I was there two days a week. I actually got a taste of what it was like to be a writer in a working environment. It was so much better than sitting in a room full of computers and job searching all day, which I had to do for the three other days of the week.
I feIt I was, for once, moving forward in my life. Learning new things about the creative industry, picking up new skills. This was a whole new experience for me. The people at Poached Creative were very positive and supportive. I felt that this would be a chance to really show what I have to offer.
It was getting frustrating, sending out dozens of CVs to employers. Not hearing anything back. Here I was actually learning new things and getting a taste of the real working environment.
Coming to the end of my six-week training programme, I got offered a job at Poached Creative as a junior writer. At first it took me a while to get my head around it. I didn’t expect to get a job out of it.
After a couple of days I got back to them. This would be my first ever job; I’d be doing what I wanted for a long time. I was excited. I eventually got back to Poached Creative and took the job. For me a job offer like this doesn’t come every day. I’d be crazy to turn this offer down and I would regret this later.
Thursday, 2 December 2010
Cockroaches!
I have got false teeth - only three at the front, a result of an accident on a pushbike. Night-time I put them to soak in water, in a little yoghurt pot on the side. This is on the dentist's advice to stop them from becoming brittle. The other morning I went to take them out of the pot only to find a cockroach floating in the pot right next to my false teeth, gross!
These things get everywhere. There was the time I was at college and I saw this big, shiny, brown, cockroach scurry across the carpet. I pointed this out and one of my fellow students shrieked. It was only on the lunchbreak that I realised I'd probably brought the thing along in my bag.
I have lived in London very nearly 26 years and in that time have had 11 addresses. That doesn't sound too bad, except on closer reflection four of those addresses lasted 22 years which means seven of those addresses lasted four years.
As I'm sure you can imagine these have varied hugely in quality. Of those 11 addresses, there's only been two premises that have had cockroaches. I think we all know that they say that cockroaches would survive a nuclear war.
Where I live now and have been for five years, is infested with cockroaches and I can hardly blame the landlord. Regular as clockwork, the bloke from the pest control people comes round and sprays some chemical gunk under the sink in my room and he visits every single room in the entire building.
The thing I wanted to mention is we get used to what life serves us up, we become inured, we become immune. This isn't right. But it is what you become accustomed to, so even though I now know more than I want to know about the life of a cockroach: I have seen them mate, I know how big their eggs are, I know the places in my room where they like to congregate, I even know that on occasion they will bite humans, I just shrug and put up with it.
People don't choose to live second class lives, but they come to understand sometimes they have no other option.
These things get everywhere. There was the time I was at college and I saw this big, shiny, brown, cockroach scurry across the carpet. I pointed this out and one of my fellow students shrieked. It was only on the lunchbreak that I realised I'd probably brought the thing along in my bag.
I have lived in London very nearly 26 years and in that time have had 11 addresses. That doesn't sound too bad, except on closer reflection four of those addresses lasted 22 years which means seven of those addresses lasted four years.
As I'm sure you can imagine these have varied hugely in quality. Of those 11 addresses, there's only been two premises that have had cockroaches. I think we all know that they say that cockroaches would survive a nuclear war.
Where I live now and have been for five years, is infested with cockroaches and I can hardly blame the landlord. Regular as clockwork, the bloke from the pest control people comes round and sprays some chemical gunk under the sink in my room and he visits every single room in the entire building.
The thing I wanted to mention is we get used to what life serves us up, we become inured, we become immune. This isn't right. But it is what you become accustomed to, so even though I now know more than I want to know about the life of a cockroach: I have seen them mate, I know how big their eggs are, I know the places in my room where they like to congregate, I even know that on occasion they will bite humans, I just shrug and put up with it.
People don't choose to live second class lives, but they come to understand sometimes they have no other option.
Thursday, 25 November 2010
Money, money, money
My fortnightly outgoings:
£50.00 - rent surcharge.
£22.50 - fags (3x£7.50, 2 ounce packets of rolling tobacco, duty free).
£10.00 - Money owed to my friend round the corner. (Nine times out of ten I owe my mate money).
£2.00 - Rizlas and filters.
£5.00 - phone.
Total spend - £89.50.
Given my fortnightly payment for jobseeker's allowance (JSA) comes to £130, the balance to last me two weeks is £40.50, this works out at slightly less than £3.00 per day.
I'm not angling for your sympathy here. You can call me scrounger, you can call me a lifestyle benefit claimant. You can think what you want. You can think I lie in bed til lunchtime every day and then get up and watch Neighbours. You can think I belong on the Jeremy Kyle Show. You can think I smoke too much. You can think what you want.
This is not a lifestyle choice, this is not enough.
£3 per day - how much pocket money do teenagers get?
As our cousins across the pond would say, you do the math.
£50.00 - rent surcharge.
£22.50 - fags (3x£7.50, 2 ounce packets of rolling tobacco, duty free).
£10.00 - Money owed to my friend round the corner. (Nine times out of ten I owe my mate money).
£2.00 - Rizlas and filters.
£5.00 - phone.
Total spend - £89.50.
Given my fortnightly payment for jobseeker's allowance (JSA) comes to £130, the balance to last me two weeks is £40.50, this works out at slightly less than £3.00 per day.
I'm not angling for your sympathy here. You can call me scrounger, you can call me a lifestyle benefit claimant. You can think what you want. You can think I lie in bed til lunchtime every day and then get up and watch Neighbours. You can think I belong on the Jeremy Kyle Show. You can think I smoke too much. You can think what you want.
This is not a lifestyle choice, this is not enough.
£3 per day - how much pocket money do teenagers get?
As our cousins across the pond would say, you do the math.
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Time management skills
I think most of us realise that you mess the dole office around at your peril. For instance, if you don't sign on when they've asked you to, you run a serious risk of not getting your money. This is hardly surprising and it's guaranteed to take much grovelling and a kosher excuse to ensure that you do get your money, albeit a few days late. I guess that this isn't especially onerous, after all they only ask you to turn up once every two weeks!I sign on on a Monday at three-ish, which is hardly a struggle. A couple of months back they were asking me to sign on at 9.30am and travelling at that time of day is just.....worse. It's swings and roundabouts though; now, mid-afternoon, I always catch the schoolchildren and loud teenagers, who I find a little scary. The girls strike me as louder and scarier.
So, up and out the next day quite early (quite early for the unemployed - as you know we have quite leisurely mornings) to walk to the dole office. I was walking due to the fact I can no longer catch the "free bus" because London Buses have discontinued the bendy bus on that route. This has inevitably led to a fitter local populace.
At the dole office I queue up, give my name and NI number and tell them about the appointment. "No sorry, Mr. ......no appointment for you here on my list." I knew that the woman who rang me the day before hadn't done so for her own entertainment and knew the consequences for missing an appointment meant that they would bugger up my claim and I'd not get the money due next week. "Could you please check on the system for me?" I asked. Much huffing and puffing and then the receptionist bod nipped behind the screen to ask one of her colleagues to look me up on the computer.
Then the landlord rings me up. I live in a bed and breakfast that has two managers; a kind of good cop, bad cop arrangement. This was bad cop in his usual shouty mode. Everyone who lives in the bed and breakfast pays a surcharge, if you're on jobseeker's allowance this is 40 per cent of your money. I always pay the day or the day after I get my money. I tried to assure Mr Shouty that I had done this, as usual, then explained where I was, he shouts that I must come back when I have finished at the dole.
By this time the woman who has looked me up on the computer is standing there. I explain the nature of the phone call to assure her I wasn't being rude. "Sorry Mr. ...... I can find nothing about an appointment, what was it about?" Obviously I feel a lemon because I can't tell her (I wasn't paying attention on the phone the day before). I mumble that I'm not too sure, look suitably sheepish and ask if I can have a receipt to say that I have visited the office for this appointment that now doesn't appear to exist. I am asked to wait and the woman goes back to her computer. A quarter of an hour goes by and the woman returns. "Sorry sir I can find no record of an appointment so I can't really give you a receipt, you could ask at reception."
I rejoin the queue, (at the back) it is now nearly 10.30. At 10.50 I patiently explain my situation all over again to the same woman I had spoken to at 9.25 and point out the last thing I want to do is mess up my claim and stress that this would be inconvenient for everyone as it would involve new appointments. The receptionist sighs deeply and says she'll see what she can do and disappears round the screen to speak to her colleague again. I go and sit down and wait, again. After another quarter of an hour this woman comes back with a slip of paper - my precious receipt. I tell her thanks very much and am apologetic for giving her extra work to do. I get out at 11.35. Something that should've taken maybe twenty minutes at most has taken over two hours and I have managed to piss off two of their staff.
All of this is normal for the dole office. If they were in any other line of business, they'd go bust within three months or sooner, and we'd all take our business elsewhere. Except we can't. We're a captive audience, to staggering levels of inefficiency and piss-poor organisation.
So I get back to the bed and breakfast and Mr Shouty says: "Sorry, I was reading the wrong line in the book, you're OK with your rent." I trudge upstairs and sit down, it's 12.15. What a complete waste of everybody's time. I'm worn out. Next Monday I sign on as per with my little receipt tucked inside my signing book. Nobody says a word about the appointment that never was.
Thursday, 28 October 2010
Life in the hostel
"There hasn't been a murder here for ages."
John (not his real name), who has lived here a good while longer than I have, trots this phrase out like he's talking about the weather. It's true, there's been the odd dead body but nobody got murdered. I've been here five years and a bit and I know of four corpses found on the premises, but no murders.
John has got huge muscly arms and tattoos all the way up his neck, as well as all the other places you'd expect. He looks like he could snap you in two. As far as I know, he hasn't killed anybody but there are people here who have. All sorts live here. I often read about ne'er do wells who share my address: in the weekly local paper, every Thursday, in the library over the road. This sometimes involves selling crack, or stabbing someone but there have been folk who have committed sex crimes.
Mostly there are three ways of coming to live here; just out of nick, just out of the local loony bin, or knocked back by the council. There are other folk; the very recently separated, even the odd tourist. I'm sure that statistically it shortens your life expectancy, living here.
I always said I'd stay here because it was a sure fire way of getting moved into social housing. I guess I can kiss that one goodbye now, thanks to our all-singing, all-dancing coalition Government.
There are 33 boroughs in London and I suppose there are places just like the place I live in, in every borough. The people that run my place have another one in the market, less than half-a-mile away, that's much, much worse than where I live. More junkies, more cockroaches, more grief generally, to the extent that if things go a bit wrong here, but not wrong enough for them to kick you out, they threaten you: "Any more trouble out of you and we'll move you to the market!"
It works both ways, the people in the market get told that if they keep their nose clean and up to date with their rent, (surcharge) "we might let you move over to ..............road."
There are umpteen stories I could tell you about this place, but let's leave that to another day.
John (not his real name), who has lived here a good while longer than I have, trots this phrase out like he's talking about the weather. It's true, there's been the odd dead body but nobody got murdered. I've been here five years and a bit and I know of four corpses found on the premises, but no murders.
John has got huge muscly arms and tattoos all the way up his neck, as well as all the other places you'd expect. He looks like he could snap you in two. As far as I know, he hasn't killed anybody but there are people here who have. All sorts live here. I often read about ne'er do wells who share my address: in the weekly local paper, every Thursday, in the library over the road. This sometimes involves selling crack, or stabbing someone but there have been folk who have committed sex crimes.
Mostly there are three ways of coming to live here; just out of nick, just out of the local loony bin, or knocked back by the council. There are other folk; the very recently separated, even the odd tourist. I'm sure that statistically it shortens your life expectancy, living here.
I always said I'd stay here because it was a sure fire way of getting moved into social housing. I guess I can kiss that one goodbye now, thanks to our all-singing, all-dancing coalition Government.
There are 33 boroughs in London and I suppose there are places just like the place I live in, in every borough. The people that run my place have another one in the market, less than half-a-mile away, that's much, much worse than where I live. More junkies, more cockroaches, more grief generally, to the extent that if things go a bit wrong here, but not wrong enough for them to kick you out, they threaten you: "Any more trouble out of you and we'll move you to the market!"
It works both ways, the people in the market get told that if they keep their nose clean and up to date with their rent, (surcharge) "we might let you move over to ..............road."
There are umpteen stories I could tell you about this place, but let's leave that to another day.
Thursday, 21 October 2010
"Back from the brink" or should that be over the precipice?
The headline quote is from George Osborne and apologies for the cheap pun but it was a gift.
So we had the Comprehensive Spending Review yesterday which, to you and I, is known as "the cuts". We are going to have at least four years of these cuts.
This prospect makes me think of the eighties. I reached working age in 1982, I remember the eighties well. England was a miserable place. In large swathes of the country, thousands of people were out of work. It seemed that wherever you went you always found loads of places boarded up and shut down. Life struck me as bleak throughout most of that time. I'm worried these cuts will be worse.
I'm not planning to write an exhaustive study of what played out Wednesday 20 September. If you wish to read such a thing I'm sure you know where you can find it. But I want to comment on what I saw and heard and some of the implications I think it may have for those in receipt of benefit.
The cuts to the welfare budget have gone up twice since George Osborne's emergency budget in June. If you remember, he said he was going to cut £11 billion. On 9 September he announced a further £4 billion, by yesterday he announced in the Commons the total cuts to the welfare budget had risen to a total of £18 billion. Of this £18 billion, £2.5 billion is the cuts in child benefit announced a couple of weeks ago.
The contrast in the reactions to these different cuts has been startling:
It is so difficult to find hard information right now. This will only appear over the coming weeks. I think a whole lot of people will be in for an almighty shock come next April. Here are just four shocks I noticed.
1. Anybody who is on long-term sick pay will lose a third of their money and be moved onto Job Seekers Allowance after twelve months.
2. My local MP, Meg Hillier, says anybody on Housing Benefit will see it cut by 10% after twelve months. There are a lot of worried people talking in the press about people being forced to move further out of London to cheaper areas.
3. Another implication for Housing Benefit claimants is that single people under the age of 35 won't be able to claim Housing Benefit for anything other than shared housing. So, if you work as a civil servant, are 30 years old, and live in social housing and the Government puts you out of work - for instance - is the Government saying you're going to lose your flat?
4. Future social housing tenants will be asked to pay rents at a rate of 80% of private rents in the area. Tessa Jowell, a South London MP, said on BBC London TV news (Oct 20), "This is the end of social Housing in London."
The implications of these vicious cuts are huge and very frightening for so many on benefits. None of us can know for sure what the ramifications will be.
Yesterday there was no mention of the VAT increase coming in January. Nor was much made of local government cuts. The suggestion yesterday was that these would come in as 26% over four years. This works out as 6.5% annually, so that's more cuts we will suffer.
The one cheery fact I learnt yesterday was that these cuts are the worst cuts since 1976, not since the second world war as had earlier been believed.
So we had the Comprehensive Spending Review yesterday which, to you and I, is known as "the cuts". We are going to have at least four years of these cuts.
This prospect makes me think of the eighties. I reached working age in 1982, I remember the eighties well. England was a miserable place. In large swathes of the country, thousands of people were out of work. It seemed that wherever you went you always found loads of places boarded up and shut down. Life struck me as bleak throughout most of that time. I'm worried these cuts will be worse.
I'm not planning to write an exhaustive study of what played out Wednesday 20 September. If you wish to read such a thing I'm sure you know where you can find it. But I want to comment on what I saw and heard and some of the implications I think it may have for those in receipt of benefit.
The cuts to the welfare budget have gone up twice since George Osborne's emergency budget in June. If you remember, he said he was going to cut £11 billion. On 9 September he announced a further £4 billion, by yesterday he announced in the Commons the total cuts to the welfare budget had risen to a total of £18 billion. Of this £18 billion, £2.5 billion is the cuts in child benefit announced a couple of weeks ago.
The contrast in the reactions to these different cuts has been startling:
- Take £2.5 billion in Child Benefit off some fairly well-off folk (one parent earning over £44k). Reaction: General uproar in the House, lots of disapproving muttering in the press.
- Take £15.5 billion of the poor, disabled and the out of work. Reaction: no-one bats an eyelid.
It is so difficult to find hard information right now. This will only appear over the coming weeks. I think a whole lot of people will be in for an almighty shock come next April. Here are just four shocks I noticed.
1. Anybody who is on long-term sick pay will lose a third of their money and be moved onto Job Seekers Allowance after twelve months.
2. My local MP, Meg Hillier, says anybody on Housing Benefit will see it cut by 10% after twelve months. There are a lot of worried people talking in the press about people being forced to move further out of London to cheaper areas.
3. Another implication for Housing Benefit claimants is that single people under the age of 35 won't be able to claim Housing Benefit for anything other than shared housing. So, if you work as a civil servant, are 30 years old, and live in social housing and the Government puts you out of work - for instance - is the Government saying you're going to lose your flat?
4. Future social housing tenants will be asked to pay rents at a rate of 80% of private rents in the area. Tessa Jowell, a South London MP, said on BBC London TV news (Oct 20), "This is the end of social Housing in London."
The implications of these vicious cuts are huge and very frightening for so many on benefits. None of us can know for sure what the ramifications will be.
Yesterday there was no mention of the VAT increase coming in January. Nor was much made of local government cuts. The suggestion yesterday was that these would come in as 26% over four years. This works out as 6.5% annually, so that's more cuts we will suffer.
The one cheery fact I learnt yesterday was that these cuts are the worst cuts since 1976, not since the second world war as had earlier been believed.
Thursday, 7 October 2010
Future Jobs Fund and the careless adviser
One of the things I hate is I can only access the FJF jobs through my adviser. This means I can't access them through the Internet or though the jobcentre's job search machines. There are times when I go to the jobcentre to see my adviser to get an update on jobs and I'm told “We don’t have any jobs for you this week. See you next time.” They don’t care about their clients.
I want an alternative way to access available FJF jobs other than through my jobcentre adviser who rarely updates me. My adviser gets frustrated when I take my time going through the vacancy list. There is no rush. I made myself crystal clear about the jobs that interest me, yet I’m being forwarded for jobs that my adviser wants me to do.
Sometimes I get an interview. The interviewer expects me to have some company knowledge. This is when I have asked my adviser for additional information about the company and the sort of the questions I may get asked at the interview. Didn’t get anything back. From my point of view it seems that my jobcentre adviser doesn’t want to do the job. It’s like they love seeing me back there at the jobcentre week in, week out.
In May 2010 they began to cut the FJF programme from a couple of organisations and the number is increasing. According to statistics this was the most progressive employment scheme in the generation. This offers people from the ages of 18-24 a chance for a real job in a real working environment.
My brother who is 19 years old currently has a job which is an FJF job is a community arts worker. He tells me he enjoys his work, meeting new people and learning tons of new things everyday. Also adding "it's difficult enough as it is for people my age to find work, stopping the FJF programme just makes it harder for young people to get into employment."
Those who have not worked before or getting back into employment have a chance to train and also put something more on their CV and they are taking that away.
Thursday, 30 September 2010
What people really think of the dole
Over the past four and a half months I have posted 10 or 11 blogs. What I was wondering the other day was, am I coming at this subject from the right angle or am I being unreasonable? I wanted to know if I was being fair about my dealings with the people at the dole office. Or was I just whingeing and feeling sorry for myself and thinking that they're not very nice to me? So, in order to find out what others think about having to sign on, and how they are treated by the staff at the Jobcentre, I decided to do a survey. Now obviously I'm not IPSOS-MORI or YouGov and what I did was hardly scientific but I was interested in other people's points of view.
I set out with three fairly open questions and asked people to participate in my "survey" as they left the dole office. There are three offices where I live, (there's a lot of people out of work and unemployment is higher than the national average) and I decided to divide my time between two of them. I wasn't daft enough to stand outside the dole office where I sign on with a notepad, as that seemed to be inviting trouble if anyone had got an inkling of what I was up to.
I was very conscious of the need to be fair minded. I'm not sure if it's part of our national attitude but there were quite a few people who were just not interested in answering any questions at all.
So these were my 3 questions and some of the responses from the public:
A - Do you think the Jobcentre helps you?
"Sometimes, sometimes not, seems to depend on their mood."
"No, they're just going through the motions."
"No they see you as an inconvenience."
"Up to a point, but not as much as they say they are going to."
"No they're rude. They're stuck up."
B - Do you have any experiences, positive or negative that you think other people should know about?
"They can be a bit irritating, they don't do what they say they they're gonna do, they lose things, you need a receipt for EVERYTHING, they try to make YOU at fault for being slack and losing things."
"They love to claim you haven't done x, y or z."
"Bane of my life. Pain in the arse. How many times have you been in there and they're chatting away, going for a fag break together, sorting out their social life and completely ignoring you."
"Their resources have got better and their staff are better as well, less idiots. People don't shout as much."
"There isn't fucking nothing positive about that place except they're not as bad as they have been."
"Lots of pointless bureaucracy. Lots of window dressing and ticking boxes."
C - How do you feel about coming here?
"You have to just remember your manners though they don't have none."
"You have to so you just put up with it. None of them can tell the fucking time."
"They love to make you feel like you're less than them. Shit I'd be ashamed to have that job - wouldn't do it, would you?"
"No fun, but they're giving you sixty-five quid a week."
"They won't get you a job, they're rude and they lose stuff."
"Not happy, the right hand don't know what the left hand is doing."
"It's the grade of people they use, they love making you feel small."
"Don't do this, don't do that. One time they gave me a mop test! They made miss a course over a bus pass - two minutes of their time was too difficult!"
"It's fucking humiliating."
So what conclusions was I able to come to?
That the Jobcentre were spectacularly inefficient even though their job shouldn't be difficult.
At every given opportunity the staff would try to make you feel bad about yourself.
They would always try to avoid responsibility and pass the buck.
The staff seemed to have rudeness built-in as their default position when dealing with members of the public.
I must stress that some people were quite relaxed and said that the way they were treated by the dole was fine.
All of this I found strangely reassuring, it seemed to mean that I hadn't been banging on unnecessarily and broadly speaking I'd been right. One last thing I learnt was that there isn't a swear word in the English language that I didn't know, but they seem to be in more common usage than I'd first thought!
Now I realise that the staff at the Jobcentre are under pressure and don't have an easy time of things and there are lots of boxes for them to tick, etc. I hope one thing my survey demonstrates is that the service they provide falls some way short of what one might reasonably expect from a Government agency.
I set out with three fairly open questions and asked people to participate in my "survey" as they left the dole office. There are three offices where I live, (there's a lot of people out of work and unemployment is higher than the national average) and I decided to divide my time between two of them. I wasn't daft enough to stand outside the dole office where I sign on with a notepad, as that seemed to be inviting trouble if anyone had got an inkling of what I was up to.
I was very conscious of the need to be fair minded. I'm not sure if it's part of our national attitude but there were quite a few people who were just not interested in answering any questions at all.
So these were my 3 questions and some of the responses from the public:
A - Do you think the Jobcentre helps you?
"Sometimes, sometimes not, seems to depend on their mood."
"No, they're just going through the motions."
"No they see you as an inconvenience."
"Up to a point, but not as much as they say they are going to."
"No they're rude. They're stuck up."
B - Do you have any experiences, positive or negative that you think other people should know about?
"They can be a bit irritating, they don't do what they say they they're gonna do, they lose things, you need a receipt for EVERYTHING, they try to make YOU at fault for being slack and losing things."
"They love to claim you haven't done x, y or z."
"Bane of my life. Pain in the arse. How many times have you been in there and they're chatting away, going for a fag break together, sorting out their social life and completely ignoring you."
"Their resources have got better and their staff are better as well, less idiots. People don't shout as much."
"There isn't fucking nothing positive about that place except they're not as bad as they have been."
"Lots of pointless bureaucracy. Lots of window dressing and ticking boxes."
C - How do you feel about coming here?
"You have to just remember your manners though they don't have none."
"You have to so you just put up with it. None of them can tell the fucking time."
"They love to make you feel like you're less than them. Shit I'd be ashamed to have that job - wouldn't do it, would you?"
"No fun, but they're giving you sixty-five quid a week."
"They won't get you a job, they're rude and they lose stuff."
"Not happy, the right hand don't know what the left hand is doing."
"It's the grade of people they use, they love making you feel small."
"Don't do this, don't do that. One time they gave me a mop test! They made miss a course over a bus pass - two minutes of their time was too difficult!"
"It's fucking humiliating."
So what conclusions was I able to come to?
That the Jobcentre were spectacularly inefficient even though their job shouldn't be difficult.
At every given opportunity the staff would try to make you feel bad about yourself.
They would always try to avoid responsibility and pass the buck.
The staff seemed to have rudeness built-in as their default position when dealing with members of the public.
I must stress that some people were quite relaxed and said that the way they were treated by the dole was fine.
All of this I found strangely reassuring, it seemed to mean that I hadn't been banging on unnecessarily and broadly speaking I'd been right. One last thing I learnt was that there isn't a swear word in the English language that I didn't know, but they seem to be in more common usage than I'd first thought!
Now I realise that the staff at the Jobcentre are under pressure and don't have an easy time of things and there are lots of boxes for them to tick, etc. I hope one thing my survey demonstrates is that the service they provide falls some way short of what one might reasonably expect from a Government agency.
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Labour Party - leadership news
With thanks to Martin Rowson and the Guardian for the cartoon.
It quite probably won't make a jot of difference to the jobless nor to the looming cuts in benefits, but the Labour Party have elected a new leader.
My fervent hope is now the 4 (yes 4!) months of politicking within the Labour Party is over, that Ed Miliband and his new shadow cabinet can get their act together.
Let's face it, the coalition Government have been allowed to steamroller ahead almost unopposed in the House of Commons. Since the June Budget the coalition have been able to reel off a great big list of ALL these cuts they claim they need to make in order to save the nation. It seems there has been barely a peep of protest with the Commons.
I can only conclude that this is because the Labour Party have been looking elsewhere. They have been deciding who is going to lead the opposition. So while the Government has been lining up these huge cuts the so-called opposition has been navel-gazing.
So the very first thing I would like to have seen Ed Miliband and his new shadow cabinet do was to start to build a coherent, credible opposition to these vicious cuts. That would mean coming up with credible alternatives. I saw him interviewed by Paxman on Newsnight the day their conference finished, he failed to mention the Welfare State.
Right now I feel that the poorest and most vulnerable in the UK are crying out for someone to speak up loudly on their behalf. Cuts in benefits is State bullying of those least able to speak up for themselves.
Whatever happens come October 20, I'll probably be OK. (Depends how the Housing Benefit cap pans out.) I'm single and unemployed and I'm used to being skint and bitched at by the DWP. I've only got myself to look out for. But there are an awful lot of people who have more responsibility than me and are going to bear the brunt of this much more than I will.
Thursday, 23 September 2010
Where do I go from here?
You see they give you up to six months to find a job before they refer you to New Deal. This aims to help you find work, giving you advice, training, and work experience. The benefits of this scheme are to give you more confidence and obtain new skills that employers are seeking. I had to visit my job centre adviser every week. We would try and search for jobs that would be of interest to me through FJF (Future Jobs Fund) but didn’t have any luck.
I was put on a 13-week programme by the job centre adviser. The programme starts from 9:30am to 4:30pm five days a week. They enhance job search skills, improve on your interview techniques, build your confidence and help you find employment I was told.
The first week when I began the programme, I sat at the computer and searched for jobs, which I thought was pointless because this wasn’t any different from what I was doing at home. This is a depressing environment for me and for everybody else I met there. Most of them were just sat at a table waiting for the clock to hit 4:30pm as they felt it was a waste of time being there. The facilities were not that great; the centre is always short staffed so the adviser available couldn’t see all the clients, meaning some were left out. At times we did some sessions such as watching a DVD about interview skills, improving your CV and cover letter and confidence building sessions. I had a lot of help with the content and layout of my CV; also learnt how employers examine CVs, which was very useful.
I do think it’s not in fact necessary to attend the centre five days a week. It’s like I’m being trapped from 9:30am to 4:30pm. There is very little to do there, hardly any attempt to help me find work. But at least I have a reason to wake up in the morning. I'm currently on a work placement at Poached Creative and I'm just glad to be able to do something I have wanted for a really long time. Who knows where it may lead from here?
Thursday, 16 September 2010
The cuts....
Well, we all knew it was coming sooner or later; news on the cuts. We get the full picture on 20 October. Details have been flowing out since the June budget, definite Government plans, so we've been told. These, and then non-stop speculation and conjecture from the written press and broadcast media outlets.
I've been expecting grim news for ages but that didn't stop me being furious on seeing George Osborne's pasty face on the BBC six o'clock news Thursday evening (9 September). He was telling us about an extra £4 billion in cuts to the welfare budget - I was seething. And then there's the look of utter distaste on his face as he patiently explains to the interviewer (Nick Robinson) why this situation just "cannot be allowed to continue". Apparently, he didn't even have the good manners to inform Ian Duncan Smith of what he was going to say. (Bear in mind that it's Duncan Smith's department that his latest announcement affects.)
He's making £4 billion in further cuts to welfare, in addition to the £11 billion announced in the June Budget. These are huge sums of money to cut from the poorest sector of our society.
The dole office always gives you a sheet of A4 saying "we have worked out how much money the law says you need to live on" so how come we all of a sudden need less? Is this bloke for real? How would some millionaire posh-boy have the faintest idea what it's like to get by on benefit? And then he's got the brass neck to say we're making a lifestyle choice!
Sure I can credit that some people will steer clear of shitty jobs being paid the minimum wage - it's a living wage that people need. In London the minimum wage is £5.80 per hour. The Living Wage Campaign have suggested £7.85. This has been set by the Greater London Authority. Were one to work a 40-hour week, the difference that makes to one's weekly pay is £82 gross.
It's just a fallacy that the feckless workshy have somehow bankrupted the country so therefore we must somehow claw back the money from them to prevent them making this "lifestyle choice".
So what's the Treasury doing to save money? I read in the Standard that they're getting smaller desks, so that they can squeeze more staff in - genius. "This is typical of the sort of savings we are looking for in other departments," a Treasury source told the London paper. In the same paper Nick Clegg further reassures us (Thurs 9-9) there is "no sword of Damocles that's going to come down straight away". This remains to be seen.
On the morning of 10 September it seems there were a few dissenting voices emerging after Mr Osbourne's appearance on the previous evening's news. The DWP said no agreement had been reached. In fact, Ian Duncan Smith was quoted on Newsnight on 15 September as saying he did not recognise the £4 billion cuts. Three Liberal-Democrat MPs crawled out of the woodwork vowing to vote against them and Bob Russell went on record as saying the Chancellor "was unethical". He went on, "it would be ethical to show an equal determination to tackle the cheats who avoid and evade tax".
This all seems a little late in the day, the saying; if you lay down with dogs you get up with fleas seems apt. George Osborne was unrepentant; "the welfare system is broken, we have to accept the welfare bill has got completely out of control."
Now, this statement baffles me. This man clearly has no idea how one goes about claiming benefits. He cannot know how many conditions one has to fulfil and prove umpteen times over to receive any benefit at all. I fail to understand how, when the rules are so stringent for every benefit one applies for, how it can get out of control.
Perhaps the figures are a little unpalatable to the Chancellor, but getting money out of the state in the form of benefits that one is entitled to is no mean feat. I think Mr Money-Bags Osborne should choose his words more carefully. Perhaps the phrase should have been: look this Government really doesn't like giving the state's money to the poor and needy and picking on them is a whole lot easier than getting big business to pay the tax that they owe us when they've got accountants and lawyers and stuff.
Google - a company so huge it has become a verb in the English language - doesn't like paying tax in England. They quite legitimately have managed to base their head office in Dublin specifically for the purpose of avoiding paying tax to the British Government. But I haven't heard George Osbourne on the telly telling us the tax system is broken. Vodafone, another company so proud about its connection to this country they used to sponsor both the English rugby union and cricket national sides, apparently owes £6 billion in tax. Question Time (23rd September) queried what Vince Cable was going to do about this.
The very morning that George Osborne was sticking the boot in to the poor, and the sick, and the elderly - again - there was someone on the Today Programme talking about tax. This person, who requested anonymity, worked for HM Revenues and Customs and was begging the Government to resource their department so that it would be able to do its job. Ie, to collect the tax, maybe not all, but so much more than they were able to at present. They iterated what I have said in my previous blog; that estimates of uncollected tax were upwards of £30 billion. And George Osborne wants £15 billion off the poorest! I only got an O level in Maths in 1981 so perhaps that's why none of this adds up to me.
I'm old enough, and perhaps old school enough, to believe in big government. I'm happy for the public sector to employ lots of taxpayers. It's an illusion that the private sector, (the Tories' beloved free market) is going to fill this upcoming gap in employment figures that will be directly caused by these "essential" cuts. (Let's face it, it's a moot point as to how much and how soon). And it's crass pronouncements like those from the Chancellor that inevitably raise class hackles.
I've been expecting grim news for ages but that didn't stop me being furious on seeing George Osborne's pasty face on the BBC six o'clock news Thursday evening (9 September). He was telling us about an extra £4 billion in cuts to the welfare budget - I was seething. And then there's the look of utter distaste on his face as he patiently explains to the interviewer (Nick Robinson) why this situation just "cannot be allowed to continue". Apparently, he didn't even have the good manners to inform Ian Duncan Smith of what he was going to say. (Bear in mind that it's Duncan Smith's department that his latest announcement affects.)
He's making £4 billion in further cuts to welfare, in addition to the £11 billion announced in the June Budget. These are huge sums of money to cut from the poorest sector of our society.
The dole office always gives you a sheet of A4 saying "we have worked out how much money the law says you need to live on" so how come we all of a sudden need less? Is this bloke for real? How would some millionaire posh-boy have the faintest idea what it's like to get by on benefit? And then he's got the brass neck to say we're making a lifestyle choice!
Sure I can credit that some people will steer clear of shitty jobs being paid the minimum wage - it's a living wage that people need. In London the minimum wage is £5.80 per hour. The Living Wage Campaign have suggested £7.85. This has been set by the Greater London Authority. Were one to work a 40-hour week, the difference that makes to one's weekly pay is £82 gross.
It's just a fallacy that the feckless workshy have somehow bankrupted the country so therefore we must somehow claw back the money from them to prevent them making this "lifestyle choice".
So what's the Treasury doing to save money? I read in the Standard that they're getting smaller desks, so that they can squeeze more staff in - genius. "This is typical of the sort of savings we are looking for in other departments," a Treasury source told the London paper. In the same paper Nick Clegg further reassures us (Thurs 9-9) there is "no sword of Damocles that's going to come down straight away". This remains to be seen.
On the morning of 10 September it seems there were a few dissenting voices emerging after Mr Osbourne's appearance on the previous evening's news. The DWP said no agreement had been reached. In fact, Ian Duncan Smith was quoted on Newsnight on 15 September as saying he did not recognise the £4 billion cuts. Three Liberal-Democrat MPs crawled out of the woodwork vowing to vote against them and Bob Russell went on record as saying the Chancellor "was unethical". He went on, "it would be ethical to show an equal determination to tackle the cheats who avoid and evade tax".
This all seems a little late in the day, the saying; if you lay down with dogs you get up with fleas seems apt. George Osborne was unrepentant; "the welfare system is broken, we have to accept the welfare bill has got completely out of control."
Now, this statement baffles me. This man clearly has no idea how one goes about claiming benefits. He cannot know how many conditions one has to fulfil and prove umpteen times over to receive any benefit at all. I fail to understand how, when the rules are so stringent for every benefit one applies for, how it can get out of control.
Perhaps the figures are a little unpalatable to the Chancellor, but getting money out of the state in the form of benefits that one is entitled to is no mean feat. I think Mr Money-Bags Osborne should choose his words more carefully. Perhaps the phrase should have been: look this Government really doesn't like giving the state's money to the poor and needy and picking on them is a whole lot easier than getting big business to pay the tax that they owe us when they've got accountants and lawyers and stuff.
Google - a company so huge it has become a verb in the English language - doesn't like paying tax in England. They quite legitimately have managed to base their head office in Dublin specifically for the purpose of avoiding paying tax to the British Government. But I haven't heard George Osbourne on the telly telling us the tax system is broken. Vodafone, another company so proud about its connection to this country they used to sponsor both the English rugby union and cricket national sides, apparently owes £6 billion in tax. Question Time (23rd September) queried what Vince Cable was going to do about this.
The very morning that George Osborne was sticking the boot in to the poor, and the sick, and the elderly - again - there was someone on the Today Programme talking about tax. This person, who requested anonymity, worked for HM Revenues and Customs and was begging the Government to resource their department so that it would be able to do its job. Ie, to collect the tax, maybe not all, but so much more than they were able to at present. They iterated what I have said in my previous blog; that estimates of uncollected tax were upwards of £30 billion. And George Osborne wants £15 billion off the poorest! I only got an O level in Maths in 1981 so perhaps that's why none of this adds up to me.
I'm old enough, and perhaps old school enough, to believe in big government. I'm happy for the public sector to employ lots of taxpayers. It's an illusion that the private sector, (the Tories' beloved free market) is going to fill this upcoming gap in employment figures that will be directly caused by these "essential" cuts. (Let's face it, it's a moot point as to how much and how soon). And it's crass pronouncements like those from the Chancellor that inevitably raise class hackles.
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
What's the difference between a scrounger and a benefit cheat?
I ask this question because the other day (Thursday 12 August) the Sun ran a "campaign" to get members of, what they usually term, the Great British Public to grass-up people who they suspected of falsely claiming benefit. Now I don't know if this is an example of the silly-season that traditionally runs in the British press at this time of the year but knowing the Sun as I do (a notoriously hate-filled rag) I suspect not.
There was a follow-up piece that evening on Newsnight. Now, I would hazard a guess that most of us would regard Newsnight as perhaps a more reliable source of journalistic information than the Sun. It must be said, I do quite like their football coverage and I understand their racing coverage is excellent - I couldn't really comment as I know next-to-nothing about the gee-gees.
So let's return to Newsnight. There is £5.2 billion wrongly paid out in benefit. Of that amount £1.5 billion is attributed to fraud. Now I can quite credit that £3.7 billion is wrongly paid out in benefit by the DWP. I think we all know they couldn't organize a proverbial piss-up....One of the more startling figures that was brought up that evening was the fact that there are £16 billion of benefits that go unclaimed! We've all heard about the little old lady who doesn't know what she's entitled to claim for and people who are too proud to ask for Government hand-outs, but £16 billion?
The Con-Dem coalition government (or whatever they are called, I never quite know how to refer to them) glibly claim, at every available opportunity, that what they are trying to do is sort out the appalling financial mess Labour left behind. Now I have no party-political axe to grind here, nor am I an economist in my spare time, but I was under the impression that the responsibility for this world-wide financial crisis lay, by and large, with the bankers. That is to say the roots of this recession lay in the shady dealings of the financial sector. In what Nick Clegg called in his article at the weekend (15 August-Observer) "reckless irresponsibility". You have to read deep into his Observer article to see his acknowledgement of this, get him on the telly and it's all Labour's fault. All over the planet an unfettered financial services industry have landed us all in an almighty mess, world-wide.
So how come, in order to rectify the situation, we start off by kicking the poor and then go on to slash services that huge numbers of the general public need and use? Mr Clegg put in the Observer: "this government doesn't expect anyone to reach their verdict after 100 days. We expect to be judged on what we have achieved in five years. That should be a relief." Well, all I can say is that after 100 days this government has scared the living daylights out of many, and that hardly counts as relief.
We cannot know for certain where the axe will fall because we have to wait until 20 October for the results of George Osborne's considerations. There's been enough signposting for us to know that all manner of things are on the list and some things have already fallen by the wayside.
This government seems to be lining up traditional old Tory targets, for starters what they call big government and the arts and then there's the poor and benefit cheats and scroungers, none of whom can be held responsible for the current mess. All this is being done with the active collusion of the Liberal Democrats, who should be ashamed of themselves as the people being lined up for cuts are people they have traditionally stuck up for in the past. One sniff of government and the Liberal Democrats seem to forget their principles. So as I say the government seems quite happy to pick on the poor and the jobless. I've heard no mention of taxation apart from vague noises about a banking tax which seems a sop when you consider that by their own admission HM Revenue and Customs readily acknowledge that there is £40 billion tax that goes unpaid.
While all this is going on what is the Opposition up to? Well instead of building some kind of coherent opposition to these vicious cuts, the Labour Party have been all wrapped up in their internal bickering over who they are going to elect as their new leader.
There was a follow-up piece that evening on Newsnight. Now, I would hazard a guess that most of us would regard Newsnight as perhaps a more reliable source of journalistic information than the Sun. It must be said, I do quite like their football coverage and I understand their racing coverage is excellent - I couldn't really comment as I know next-to-nothing about the gee-gees.
So let's return to Newsnight. There is £5.2 billion wrongly paid out in benefit. Of that amount £1.5 billion is attributed to fraud. Now I can quite credit that £3.7 billion is wrongly paid out in benefit by the DWP. I think we all know they couldn't organize a proverbial piss-up....One of the more startling figures that was brought up that evening was the fact that there are £16 billion of benefits that go unclaimed! We've all heard about the little old lady who doesn't know what she's entitled to claim for and people who are too proud to ask for Government hand-outs, but £16 billion?
The Con-Dem coalition government (or whatever they are called, I never quite know how to refer to them) glibly claim, at every available opportunity, that what they are trying to do is sort out the appalling financial mess Labour left behind. Now I have no party-political axe to grind here, nor am I an economist in my spare time, but I was under the impression that the responsibility for this world-wide financial crisis lay, by and large, with the bankers. That is to say the roots of this recession lay in the shady dealings of the financial sector. In what Nick Clegg called in his article at the weekend (15 August-Observer) "reckless irresponsibility". You have to read deep into his Observer article to see his acknowledgement of this, get him on the telly and it's all Labour's fault. All over the planet an unfettered financial services industry have landed us all in an almighty mess, world-wide.
So how come, in order to rectify the situation, we start off by kicking the poor and then go on to slash services that huge numbers of the general public need and use? Mr Clegg put in the Observer: "this government doesn't expect anyone to reach their verdict after 100 days. We expect to be judged on what we have achieved in five years. That should be a relief." Well, all I can say is that after 100 days this government has scared the living daylights out of many, and that hardly counts as relief.
We cannot know for certain where the axe will fall because we have to wait until 20 October for the results of George Osborne's considerations. There's been enough signposting for us to know that all manner of things are on the list and some things have already fallen by the wayside.
This government seems to be lining up traditional old Tory targets, for starters what they call big government and the arts and then there's the poor and benefit cheats and scroungers, none of whom can be held responsible for the current mess. All this is being done with the active collusion of the Liberal Democrats, who should be ashamed of themselves as the people being lined up for cuts are people they have traditionally stuck up for in the past. One sniff of government and the Liberal Democrats seem to forget their principles. So as I say the government seems quite happy to pick on the poor and the jobless. I've heard no mention of taxation apart from vague noises about a banking tax which seems a sop when you consider that by their own admission HM Revenue and Customs readily acknowledge that there is £40 billion tax that goes unpaid.
While all this is going on what is the Opposition up to? Well instead of building some kind of coherent opposition to these vicious cuts, the Labour Party have been all wrapped up in their internal bickering over who they are going to elect as their new leader.
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Have I become unemployable?
Sometimes I wonder about this. Nowadays I'm nowhere near as fussy as I used to be about the kind of work I apply for although there are areas of work I just don't consider, which must be true for us all. I cannot drive and don't consider doing anything that would be especially arduous physically. This is due to my age and the fact I'm hardly in good shape - I've never been what might be called fit.
Other than these considerations, right now I'm pretty open-minded about any options that might be open to me. I have a 20-plus year work history and although I don't have a trade, nor a degree, I do have recognisable skills. My strength, I guess, is dealing with people. The majority of my work background is in public service or the service industry.
The times I've not been working I've not sat at home watching daytime TV and I can clearly demonstrate this. I've been able to do several short courses over the past three years and have been involved in part-time voluntary work for six years and more.
I'm articulate and presentable (I can do collar and tie and I scrub up alright). I apply for all sorts of things, yet seem to get nowhere.
I've not done any paid work for over five years and it is this, I assume, that proves to be the sticking point. For 12 months of that time I did concentrate on getting myself healthy after a head injury. Otherwise, I've been reasonably active in looking for work, to no avail.
As a result of all this I guess you could say I've joined the underclass - that big swathe of the long-term unemployed who muddle by at the fringes of society. I know it's one of those tabloid phrases but it's not a figment of their fevered imaginations. There are huge numbers of people who struggle to get by who generally, through no fault of their own, have to exist on the miserly sums of money the state deems appropriate to give them in one form of state aid or another.
As a nation we seem to be in denial that these people exist. Or if, indeed, we acknowledge that these folk are out there, first we demonize them, then blithely assume that the traditional ways back into employment are enough for them to rejoin mainstream society. This is just short-sighted and downright naive.
Let's face it, any support on offer from the Jobcentre is minimal or takes the form of one-size-fits-all so-called training; courses run by agencies whose raison d'etre is to milk money from Jobcentre-Plus. Mickey-Mouse training - how to write a CV, Health and Safety, the Power of Positive Thinking, that kind of thing. Give people access to a computer and Bob's your uncle, whack in a bill to Jobcentre-Plus for a "class" of twenty and you're laughing. Sure, use of a free computer is helpful but this is by no means any kind of solution!
The alternative, getting to know the jobseeker, helping them target their jobhunting, or to access appropriate training, introducing them to possible employers, opening doors usually firmly shut to them, is costly and time-consuming and therefore a non-starter. It's there in theory, in reality it's a charade, an empty aspiration.
They say you get de-skilled if you're out of work - this is undoubtably true even if it is couched in a rather clumsy modern phrase. At the very least, one loses the discipline of maintaining attendance at the workplace.
So one is compelled to exist in a slightly otherworldly place; economically impotent, part of the society one belongs to but only on the periphery.
Other than these considerations, right now I'm pretty open-minded about any options that might be open to me. I have a 20-plus year work history and although I don't have a trade, nor a degree, I do have recognisable skills. My strength, I guess, is dealing with people. The majority of my work background is in public service or the service industry.
The times I've not been working I've not sat at home watching daytime TV and I can clearly demonstrate this. I've been able to do several short courses over the past three years and have been involved in part-time voluntary work for six years and more.
I'm articulate and presentable (I can do collar and tie and I scrub up alright). I apply for all sorts of things, yet seem to get nowhere.
I've not done any paid work for over five years and it is this, I assume, that proves to be the sticking point. For 12 months of that time I did concentrate on getting myself healthy after a head injury. Otherwise, I've been reasonably active in looking for work, to no avail.
As a result of all this I guess you could say I've joined the underclass - that big swathe of the long-term unemployed who muddle by at the fringes of society. I know it's one of those tabloid phrases but it's not a figment of their fevered imaginations. There are huge numbers of people who struggle to get by who generally, through no fault of their own, have to exist on the miserly sums of money the state deems appropriate to give them in one form of state aid or another.
As a nation we seem to be in denial that these people exist. Or if, indeed, we acknowledge that these folk are out there, first we demonize them, then blithely assume that the traditional ways back into employment are enough for them to rejoin mainstream society. This is just short-sighted and downright naive.
Let's face it, any support on offer from the Jobcentre is minimal or takes the form of one-size-fits-all so-called training; courses run by agencies whose raison d'etre is to milk money from Jobcentre-Plus. Mickey-Mouse training - how to write a CV, Health and Safety, the Power of Positive Thinking, that kind of thing. Give people access to a computer and Bob's your uncle, whack in a bill to Jobcentre-Plus for a "class" of twenty and you're laughing. Sure, use of a free computer is helpful but this is by no means any kind of solution!
The alternative, getting to know the jobseeker, helping them target their jobhunting, or to access appropriate training, introducing them to possible employers, opening doors usually firmly shut to them, is costly and time-consuming and therefore a non-starter. It's there in theory, in reality it's a charade, an empty aspiration.
They say you get de-skilled if you're out of work - this is undoubtably true even if it is couched in a rather clumsy modern phrase. At the very least, one loses the discipline of maintaining attendance at the workplace.
So one is compelled to exist in a slightly otherworldly place; economically impotent, part of the society one belongs to but only on the periphery.
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
How do you find yourself homeless?
How on earth did I become homeless in the first place? Even now several years after the event I look back slightly bemused that it ever happened. In retrospect it was a coming together of circumstances that led me to not having somewhere to live. I went from a settled, secure situation to a very precarious one in quite a short period of time.
The homelessness industry says you're only ever two or three pay cheques away from becoming homeless. There are different ways of getting there. The end result is the same. Its the path you take to get there that varies.
I've lived in London 25 years and in that time I have only spent 4 nights without a roof over my head. I was working and it was the middle of summer. I visited the swimming pool early in the morning and then went to work. At night I slept in a big wooden Wendy House in Highgate Wood. I stored my sleeping bag and clothes in a locker at the pool. It was a silly domestic argument that led to it. That and my pig-headedness. It was hardly destitution and I rejoined the housed population immediately afterwards.
Anyhow that was all along time ago, fast forward to a few years ago when I did become homeless in a much more real and enduring way. I had my own little flat. I lived there five years, I'd made it my own. It was the first time I'd ever lived in public sector housing and I'd anticipated being there for some time. I did all the things you do; decorated, put up shelves, furnished it, got it just so it suited me. Like I say, I made it my own little home.
Then the Housing Benefit went wrong - not unusual where I live, the money was paid direct to the landlord. So then it went to court. In fact it went to court 5 times in 9 months - I managed to get the housing benefit department to turn up on one solitary occasion. As far as I can tell I did everything I was supposed to do. The housing benefit people seemed to act in slow motion as if it wasn't going to amount to anything. Except 9 months at £65 a week mounts up and this was all on top of arrears of £500 to start with, by my reckoning that's a lot of any body's money! The magistrate ran out of patience. I remember my last visit to the HB office; "We can't guarantee we'll be able to get to court Mr..........but don't worry we'll write to you." " Write to me?" I exclaimed, "Where? I'll be sleeping in the park!" So as I said the magistrate ran out of patience and served a notice to quit.
I spent 6 months living in a squat, was assaulted, spent 10 weeks in a hospital and came out to live under the council's care in emergency accommodation, which they withdrew after 6 weeks. I wasn't "in priority need" so they said, so I moved to where I live today in a Bed and Breakfast.
It's not a bad place to live except I share my front door with 120 others. There's a roof over my head, hot water, electricity and my own room. I can touch both sides of my room if I stand next to my bed with my arms outstretched. There are 4 types of people who live here: folk like me who've been knocked back by the council, people just out of nick and people just out of the local psychiatric unit. Lastly there's a handful of transient types and the odd tourist.
Forty per cent of my benefit money is given over to the landlord as a surcharge to cover electric, hot water and heating. You also get a basic breakfast; 2 sausages, beans, toast and a fried egg.
So I have somewhere to live, I'm not sleeping in the park, or on the streets so I'm a lot better off than some. To you it might not seem too bad and I guess it's OK when you get your head round it, but it's not my home. The last thing I want to mention is that you don't need an awful lot to go wrong to find yourself without a home.
The homelessness industry says you're only ever two or three pay cheques away from becoming homeless. There are different ways of getting there. The end result is the same. Its the path you take to get there that varies.
I've lived in London 25 years and in that time I have only spent 4 nights without a roof over my head. I was working and it was the middle of summer. I visited the swimming pool early in the morning and then went to work. At night I slept in a big wooden Wendy House in Highgate Wood. I stored my sleeping bag and clothes in a locker at the pool. It was a silly domestic argument that led to it. That and my pig-headedness. It was hardly destitution and I rejoined the housed population immediately afterwards.
Anyhow that was all along time ago, fast forward to a few years ago when I did become homeless in a much more real and enduring way. I had my own little flat. I lived there five years, I'd made it my own. It was the first time I'd ever lived in public sector housing and I'd anticipated being there for some time. I did all the things you do; decorated, put up shelves, furnished it, got it just so it suited me. Like I say, I made it my own little home.
Then the Housing Benefit went wrong - not unusual where I live, the money was paid direct to the landlord. So then it went to court. In fact it went to court 5 times in 9 months - I managed to get the housing benefit department to turn up on one solitary occasion. As far as I can tell I did everything I was supposed to do. The housing benefit people seemed to act in slow motion as if it wasn't going to amount to anything. Except 9 months at £65 a week mounts up and this was all on top of arrears of £500 to start with, by my reckoning that's a lot of any body's money! The magistrate ran out of patience. I remember my last visit to the HB office; "We can't guarantee we'll be able to get to court Mr..........but don't worry we'll write to you." " Write to me?" I exclaimed, "Where? I'll be sleeping in the park!" So as I said the magistrate ran out of patience and served a notice to quit.
I spent 6 months living in a squat, was assaulted, spent 10 weeks in a hospital and came out to live under the council's care in emergency accommodation, which they withdrew after 6 weeks. I wasn't "in priority need" so they said, so I moved to where I live today in a Bed and Breakfast.
It's not a bad place to live except I share my front door with 120 others. There's a roof over my head, hot water, electricity and my own room. I can touch both sides of my room if I stand next to my bed with my arms outstretched. There are 4 types of people who live here: folk like me who've been knocked back by the council, people just out of nick and people just out of the local psychiatric unit. Lastly there's a handful of transient types and the odd tourist.
Forty per cent of my benefit money is given over to the landlord as a surcharge to cover electric, hot water and heating. You also get a basic breakfast; 2 sausages, beans, toast and a fried egg.
So I have somewhere to live, I'm not sleeping in the park, or on the streets so I'm a lot better off than some. To you it might not seem too bad and I guess it's OK when you get your head round it, but it's not my home. The last thing I want to mention is that you don't need an awful lot to go wrong to find yourself without a home.
Wednesday, 23 June 2010
Handouts and soup kitchens
I vividly remember the first time I ever visited a soup kitchen. I had not long been laid off from a job I really liked - company restructuring or somesuch meant they couldn't keep me on. So, a low point and no job and for whatever reason (I can't remember now), temporarily no benefit. I knew, more or less, where this church was that was giving out this handout but I truly didn't know what to expect.
I remember walking along the main road nervous, with so many questions. Did I look the part? Would I have to prove I was homeless? I wasn't. How did these things work? Was I going to have to queue up and then be given some food? What were the other people going to be like? My experience of homelessness was forlorn individuals sat in the underpass that leads to the tube with cardboard signs asking for money, written on the sign in marker pen.
Then there was the embarrassment - I couldn't for the life of me think of a time I'd asked for charity. Here I was, a middle-aged man begging - almost - for a meal. I was ashamed of myself.
As it was, it was fine: busy and welcoming, friendly even, everyone seemed relaxed. It was a little bit like a restaurant. Tables laid, you sat down and a meal was brought to you, course by course. The thing that struck me most was that all the punters - for want of a better term - were treated with the utmost courtesy and respect.
Inevitably there is a social side to such places. People who go are perhaps understandably cagey but personal stuff trickles through. Due to the fact that I liked this place I continued to go even though I couldn't claim to be in desperate need.
I've got to know (to varying degrees) many people who use this soup kitchen. People share stories about themselves, the day-to-day bits and pieces. I've made friends with some folk, even found real mates.
The place I'm talking about is used by a surprisingly large number of people from all manner of backgrounds and age groups. Each person who goes along has their own reasons.
There are dozens of stories I could tell you about his place, there's all manner of weird and wonderful people who go there.
There are two ladies of mature years who turn up without fail. Then they complain about it incessantly; the food, the other people who use it, non-stop moaning - they are always there nonetheless.
The place also has its own resident photographer: there's this one chap who comes along, an avid photographer and a charming fellow who always has a camera round his neck. He snaps everyone; volunteers and the other users of the soup kitchen. A selection of his photos cover a noticeboard in the hall and the place always uses his photos in their publicity and newsletters.
A tacit support network can develop. One example that springs to mind is an elderly disabled woman who uses one of those walking frames with wheels - anyway she took a fall and was hospitalized. When she came out she'd broken her wrist, couldn't use the rollator and the NHS couldn't provide a wheelchair although they did send a nurse every morning (that she didn't really want). It was people from the soup kitchen who managed to get her a wheelchair and helped her around North London for the next few weeks so she could carry on with her life.
But the most poignant example of the care that people show for one another concerns one of the users who passed away. A chap who was in his sixties and of poor health. He'd lived outside for more years than any of us could remember. At his memorial service there were a lot of people from the soup kitchen, staff and volunteers past and present and many of the users. The soup kitchen made up more than fifty per cent of the people paying their respects.
OK, I'm certain that not every soup kitchen up and down the land is like this but I'm sure that most have some of these elements. A welcome, good food, togetherness and support. These surely are some of the ingredients that make up what makes a community, which is an oft overused phrase.
I remember walking along the main road nervous, with so many questions. Did I look the part? Would I have to prove I was homeless? I wasn't. How did these things work? Was I going to have to queue up and then be given some food? What were the other people going to be like? My experience of homelessness was forlorn individuals sat in the underpass that leads to the tube with cardboard signs asking for money, written on the sign in marker pen.
Then there was the embarrassment - I couldn't for the life of me think of a time I'd asked for charity. Here I was, a middle-aged man begging - almost - for a meal. I was ashamed of myself.
As it was, it was fine: busy and welcoming, friendly even, everyone seemed relaxed. It was a little bit like a restaurant. Tables laid, you sat down and a meal was brought to you, course by course. The thing that struck me most was that all the punters - for want of a better term - were treated with the utmost courtesy and respect.
Inevitably there is a social side to such places. People who go are perhaps understandably cagey but personal stuff trickles through. Due to the fact that I liked this place I continued to go even though I couldn't claim to be in desperate need.
I've got to know (to varying degrees) many people who use this soup kitchen. People share stories about themselves, the day-to-day bits and pieces. I've made friends with some folk, even found real mates.
The place I'm talking about is used by a surprisingly large number of people from all manner of backgrounds and age groups. Each person who goes along has their own reasons.
There are dozens of stories I could tell you about his place, there's all manner of weird and wonderful people who go there.
There are two ladies of mature years who turn up without fail. Then they complain about it incessantly; the food, the other people who use it, non-stop moaning - they are always there nonetheless.
The place also has its own resident photographer: there's this one chap who comes along, an avid photographer and a charming fellow who always has a camera round his neck. He snaps everyone; volunteers and the other users of the soup kitchen. A selection of his photos cover a noticeboard in the hall and the place always uses his photos in their publicity and newsletters.
A tacit support network can develop. One example that springs to mind is an elderly disabled woman who uses one of those walking frames with wheels - anyway she took a fall and was hospitalized. When she came out she'd broken her wrist, couldn't use the rollator and the NHS couldn't provide a wheelchair although they did send a nurse every morning (that she didn't really want). It was people from the soup kitchen who managed to get her a wheelchair and helped her around North London for the next few weeks so she could carry on with her life.
But the most poignant example of the care that people show for one another concerns one of the users who passed away. A chap who was in his sixties and of poor health. He'd lived outside for more years than any of us could remember. At his memorial service there were a lot of people from the soup kitchen, staff and volunteers past and present and many of the users. The soup kitchen made up more than fifty per cent of the people paying their respects.
OK, I'm certain that not every soup kitchen up and down the land is like this but I'm sure that most have some of these elements. A welcome, good food, togetherness and support. These surely are some of the ingredients that make up what makes a community, which is an oft overused phrase.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
The patron saint of the unemployed
A funny thing happened to me down the dole office the other day. The person I was seeing listened to, and heard, every word I said and was clearly engaged in our short meeting. She was unfailingly polite the whole time, didn't chat to any of her colleagues about her children, what she was doing that evening or where she was going on holiday. Didn't even mention her lunch.
When she asked me questions, they were pertinent to the scant information they hold on the screen about me. As opposed to the usual, "Well why won't you consider being a traffic warden Mr So-andSo?" (Do you mean why don't I want to walk 20-plus miles a day getting verbally abused throughout the course of my shift with the very real risk of assault?) Her suggestions were helpful "have you thought about..." and polite.
Now, I know these people don't have the most enviable job and they have to put up with a fair amount of crap from a bunch of unco-operative and surly people. However there are large numbers of us who push through the doors of the local job centre who, although we feel degraded by the whole experience, are polite, punctual and struggle to remain motivated in spite of our joblessness.
You see, I've always thought there's a special part of the training that the dole office provides that's called Three Days Intensive Training in the Art of Downright Rudeness including two extra modules in how to ignore members of the public and coming across as aloof.
When she asked me questions, they were pertinent to the scant information they hold on the screen about me. As opposed to the usual, "Well why won't you consider being a traffic warden Mr So-andSo?" (Do you mean why don't I want to walk 20-plus miles a day getting verbally abused throughout the course of my shift with the very real risk of assault?) Her suggestions were helpful "have you thought about..." and polite.
Now, I know these people don't have the most enviable job and they have to put up with a fair amount of crap from a bunch of unco-operative and surly people. However there are large numbers of us who push through the doors of the local job centre who, although we feel degraded by the whole experience, are polite, punctual and struggle to remain motivated in spite of our joblessness.
You see, I've always thought there's a special part of the training that the dole office provides that's called Three Days Intensive Training in the Art of Downright Rudeness including two extra modules in how to ignore members of the public and coming across as aloof.
Anyway, I got myself signed on and trotted out my usual question at that point: "So is everything OK with my claim then?" This woman didn't even sigh, she just tapped away at her keyboard. "Sorry to ask," I said.
On hearing her reply I nearly fell off the chair."Look," she said. "If I had to live on £65 a week I'd want to know if it was darn well going to turn up!"
This woman should be made the patron saint of the unemployed.
As if the experience of going into these places isn't bad enough, the convoluted system they use is specifically designed to confuse even the most clear thinking individual, chock-full of arcane and seemingly contradictory rules. I swear Dr Who would find it a test of his intellect to sign on. Obviously he's a Time-Lord so he doesn't have to, but I'm sure you see my point.
Then, then the Government has the gall to ensure that these places are staffed, almost exclusively, by some of the most wilfully obtuse people on God's Green Earth! If you feel you're being treated badly or you think they're being rude and have the temerity to query this (no swearing please, this is the dole office), invariably the response is: "Sorry, not my fault. It's the rules."
The recent incident I've recounted tells me it doesn't have to be like that. At my recent appointment the woman concerned was able to tick her boxes, meet her targets and treat me like a fellow human being - all at the same time.
Tuesday, 25 May 2010
MPs and Expenses
I sat bolt upright in bed the other morning when I heard on Radio 4 that the new intake of Westminster MPs were complaining they were being "treated like benefit claimants " under the new expenses regime.
This complaint is wrong on so many counts. The first thing this implies is that it is fine to treat the poorest in our society, ie benefit claimants, like benefit claimants.
Perhaps I'm being naive, but I'd assumed that the unemployed, the elderly, the sick and the disabled are entitled to the benefits that they claim. I tend to be of the opinion that how a society looks after its poor and its disadvantaged is some kind of barometer of how civilized it is. Surely it's a measure of its national attitude, of how much it cares about its own.
So why then is it deemed fine to treat people who are in need of support from the state so poorly? To understand this I suppose we have to fall back on the vernacular of Radio 5 or the tabloids.
I'm certain we've all read those stories of Mr So-and-So, the scrounging benefit cheat. The man who runs his son's football team two or three times a week whilst claiming untold thousands from the state. He is able to claim this money due to his crippling arthritis which patently renders him unable to work. Now I'm not for a moment suggesting these people don't exist, but I feel they are very few and far between.
They run these adverts on the telly to phone this number and grass up your neighbour as a benefit cheat. I've yet to see an ad where you can ring up the taxman and tell him you suspect your neighbour of fiddling his tax returns.
Don't get me wrong, fiddling the social is wrong. It's shabby, cheap behaviour and the state should do what it reasonably can to prevent it. But that shouldn't give the state carte blanche to treat ALL benefit claimants as badly as it does. We do hatred so well in this country and benefit scroungers are up there in our national consciousness with illegal immigrants (if you listen to Radio 5, that is).
We should be glad of our Welfare State and we should have a drastically different attitude to paying taxes. I want to live in a society that looks after its citizens. Does my attitude sound too simplistic?
Another thing I learnt this week, courtesy of Miranda Sawyer in the Mirror, is that 18 out of 23 members of the cabinet are millionaires (23 people doesn't strike me as many people to be responsible for running the country but there you go). I just hope that none of those millionaires were whingeing about being treated like benefit claimants!
Rather than MPs complaining about expenses, somebody should be complaining about the abysmal way benefit claimants are treated.
This complaint is wrong on so many counts. The first thing this implies is that it is fine to treat the poorest in our society, ie benefit claimants, like benefit claimants.
Perhaps I'm being naive, but I'd assumed that the unemployed, the elderly, the sick and the disabled are entitled to the benefits that they claim. I tend to be of the opinion that how a society looks after its poor and its disadvantaged is some kind of barometer of how civilized it is. Surely it's a measure of its national attitude, of how much it cares about its own.
So why then is it deemed fine to treat people who are in need of support from the state so poorly? To understand this I suppose we have to fall back on the vernacular of Radio 5 or the tabloids.
I'm certain we've all read those stories of Mr So-and-So, the scrounging benefit cheat. The man who runs his son's football team two or three times a week whilst claiming untold thousands from the state. He is able to claim this money due to his crippling arthritis which patently renders him unable to work. Now I'm not for a moment suggesting these people don't exist, but I feel they are very few and far between.
They run these adverts on the telly to phone this number and grass up your neighbour as a benefit cheat. I've yet to see an ad where you can ring up the taxman and tell him you suspect your neighbour of fiddling his tax returns.
Don't get me wrong, fiddling the social is wrong. It's shabby, cheap behaviour and the state should do what it reasonably can to prevent it. But that shouldn't give the state carte blanche to treat ALL benefit claimants as badly as it does. We do hatred so well in this country and benefit scroungers are up there in our national consciousness with illegal immigrants (if you listen to Radio 5, that is).
We should be glad of our Welfare State and we should have a drastically different attitude to paying taxes. I want to live in a society that looks after its citizens. Does my attitude sound too simplistic?
Another thing I learnt this week, courtesy of Miranda Sawyer in the Mirror, is that 18 out of 23 members of the cabinet are millionaires (23 people doesn't strike me as many people to be responsible for running the country but there you go). I just hope that none of those millionaires were whingeing about being treated like benefit claimants!
Rather than MPs complaining about expenses, somebody should be complaining about the abysmal way benefit claimants are treated.
Tuesday, 18 May 2010
Hamster on a wheel
I'd forgotten what it was like to be in the dole office. You see, for the last 13 weeks I've been doing something which is laughably called training (from time to time, the government sends the unemployed on training to improve their work skills).
One thing this involves is not signing on every two weeks, which is a good thing. Signing on is the ritual humiliation of queuing up and handing over a little pamphlet that has a record of one's efforts to find work. The state seems to take the view that we are all a bunch of freeloaders who are living the life of Riley and making no effort to gain employment because the state keeps us in such a luxurious lifestyle that there is no incentive to work.
I would take the view that the vast majority of us are happier people when we are working. Not doing any old job, but doing something where we feel we are useful, something that we might be quite good at and that would enable us to pay our way in the world. This would make us feel that we are part of wider society where we can buy our weekly shop, buy our children things they want or pop down the pub once or twice a week to bitch on to our friends about how crap the world is.
When you're unemployed the money that the state gives you means that doing the things I've mentioned is much harder to achieve. In fact, some of the things are out of reach. Your horizons shrink; when you are working you've always got petrol in your car or you've always got a travel pass. This means you can go places besides work. When you are on benefit you are constantly fussing about money. You don't always have a travel pass or petrol in the car so you can't just go places, see your friends, pop to the cinema, check out a shop or visit a gallery on the other side of town. Like I said your horizons shrink.
I was reminded the other day of what it's like to be in the dole office. Because of my "training" I had to do a rapid reclaim. My 15 minute appointment started 20 minutes late and took 25 minutes. No matter, well I say no matter, that's if the money comes through OK. The unemployment people have an unlimited number of ways to stuff up paying you your money.
Even when everything is in order, you've kept all your appointments, you've done all your paperwork and kept up your end of the bargain, things can always go wrong. And because you exist on so little money in the first place, when your money goes wrong it really does scupper your plans in a big way. You live your life to this two-week cycle. Things like keeping the electricity key charged, having food in the cupboard, the basics. At the end of the cycle these things run low.
In short, life for people claiming can seem like the hamster on a wheel. Run, run, running on that wheel and going nowhere, or at least where you've been before.
One thing this involves is not signing on every two weeks, which is a good thing. Signing on is the ritual humiliation of queuing up and handing over a little pamphlet that has a record of one's efforts to find work. The state seems to take the view that we are all a bunch of freeloaders who are living the life of Riley and making no effort to gain employment because the state keeps us in such a luxurious lifestyle that there is no incentive to work.
I would take the view that the vast majority of us are happier people when we are working. Not doing any old job, but doing something where we feel we are useful, something that we might be quite good at and that would enable us to pay our way in the world. This would make us feel that we are part of wider society where we can buy our weekly shop, buy our children things they want or pop down the pub once or twice a week to bitch on to our friends about how crap the world is.
When you're unemployed the money that the state gives you means that doing the things I've mentioned is much harder to achieve. In fact, some of the things are out of reach. Your horizons shrink; when you are working you've always got petrol in your car or you've always got a travel pass. This means you can go places besides work. When you are on benefit you are constantly fussing about money. You don't always have a travel pass or petrol in the car so you can't just go places, see your friends, pop to the cinema, check out a shop or visit a gallery on the other side of town. Like I said your horizons shrink.
I was reminded the other day of what it's like to be in the dole office. Because of my "training" I had to do a rapid reclaim. My 15 minute appointment started 20 minutes late and took 25 minutes. No matter, well I say no matter, that's if the money comes through OK. The unemployment people have an unlimited number of ways to stuff up paying you your money.
Even when everything is in order, you've kept all your appointments, you've done all your paperwork and kept up your end of the bargain, things can always go wrong. And because you exist on so little money in the first place, when your money goes wrong it really does scupper your plans in a big way. You live your life to this two-week cycle. Things like keeping the electricity key charged, having food in the cupboard, the basics. At the end of the cycle these things run low.
In short, life for people claiming can seem like the hamster on a wheel. Run, run, running on that wheel and going nowhere, or at least where you've been before.
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Post-election musings
This is my take on the last six days, it's not definitive, just my impressions.
Election night
They shouldn't start these election programmes so early. They should put a couple of films on and start at 2am. Instead we get the problem of political journos queuing up to flounder about on the telly trying to make some kind of informed comment. They have such little information, that whatever phrases they manage to utter sound merely fatuous.
Waste of live TV. So-called heavyweight political journalists, all over-excited and twitchy, words tumbling from their mouths, desperately searching for something pertinent to say. They are entirely missing the point that most folk watching at home don't share their anticipation and are thinking: sod this I've got to get up in the morning.
Friday
Posturing on two sides, each making tempting proposals of what appears, to my eye, some kind of phony union. Being loved-up only seemed to last half the day. By the evening, as far as I could tell political pundits were thinking it too problematic to bring off. Financial pundits were talking of political fantasies with dire, ie more dire than widely held already, consequences. So what is to be done?
For Joe Public as an uninformed outsider looking on, witnessing these protracted negotiations unfold before our eyes is tortuous and tiresome. The political class seems to be as distanced from its electorate as ever.
Let's face it, we've been hearing for three weeks or more how this election was going to be so important, perhaps even change the face of British politics, yet 24 hours later who can safely suggest who's to be our next PM?
Saturday night update
70 minutes of one-to-one talks between two of the protagonists. So that must be alright then, sounds like the makings of a new government to me!
Then you've got all these other folk, who most of us have never heard of, sticking their oar in and it's startlingly obvious they're nobodies with an axe to grind who see their chance to get their face on the evening news for 20 seconds.
And every single one of them, from Cameron, Clegg and Brown downwards, without exception, fall over themselves to tell you that they're doing ALL of this for the good of the country. The thing that leaves a nasty taste in my mouth is that they, all of them, are just nowhere near being entirely honest with the British public, their electorate. We all realise it's a delicate situation but this disingenousness is repellent. It brings to mind the phrase "economical with the truth", most recently heard during the Thatcher years.
Three and a half days in
After we've had the numbers and we seem no nearer having a new government and I'm wondering what the rest of the world must think? They and we are used to rapid change after an election. In fact they probably aren't that concerned. To me it smacks of indecision and lack of leadership. The only noises I've heard today are bear with us and we'll get there. This is hardly sufficient given the pickle we're in. Perhaps we're so unfamiliar with it we don't know how to do coalition politics.
Gordon Brown speaks
I've been waiting four days for something to actually happen. Clearly I am not aware of the behind-the-scenes machinations that led to it, but then a dignified, honourable, principled and rather awkward man made a short statement outside number 10. To my mind, Gordon Brown ignited this whole election business, thank heavens.
For someone who has been around public life for so long he just never quite got the hang of it. For that he seems to be reviled by so many. Gordon Brown strikes me as a tragic figure. Somehow I can't see him greedily hoovering up the cash on the lecture circuit - don't get me wrong' I'm sure he won't go short. A man out of his time perhaps?
I realise none of this has much to do with unemployment but I feel you would all agree events since last Thursday have been on such a grand scale so I'm hoping you'll forgive me such a digression.
Now there seems a faint air of panic. Goodness knows why anyone would want to run this country, we're mired in debt, swingeing cuts are on the cards, this year or next. So any government is guaranteed to be as popular as a national outbreak of the pox.
As soon as the dust settles on this saga I assure you I shall return to the plight of the unemployed, I like to think there's plenty I've not even touched on.
As regards the election there has been plenty to make me chuckle. Too much to mention here but I'll make a special mention of Lord Mandleson popping up all over the place dispensing his brand of wisdom to all and sundry like some sinister pantomime dame - priceless.
Wednesday morning, another country
So here we are, New Politics so we are told. That clearly remains to be seen.
It's new in as much as all three parties need to seriously re-evaluate where they are now and how they are going to put themselves across to their voters and the folk whose votes they didn't get. Boy do they need to reassess!
Everyone has adjustments to make, us as well, and how it all pans out has no doubt got to be worth watching.
Election night
They shouldn't start these election programmes so early. They should put a couple of films on and start at 2am. Instead we get the problem of political journos queuing up to flounder about on the telly trying to make some kind of informed comment. They have such little information, that whatever phrases they manage to utter sound merely fatuous.
Waste of live TV. So-called heavyweight political journalists, all over-excited and twitchy, words tumbling from their mouths, desperately searching for something pertinent to say. They are entirely missing the point that most folk watching at home don't share their anticipation and are thinking: sod this I've got to get up in the morning.
Friday
Posturing on two sides, each making tempting proposals of what appears, to my eye, some kind of phony union. Being loved-up only seemed to last half the day. By the evening, as far as I could tell political pundits were thinking it too problematic to bring off. Financial pundits were talking of political fantasies with dire, ie more dire than widely held already, consequences. So what is to be done?
For Joe Public as an uninformed outsider looking on, witnessing these protracted negotiations unfold before our eyes is tortuous and tiresome. The political class seems to be as distanced from its electorate as ever.
Let's face it, we've been hearing for three weeks or more how this election was going to be so important, perhaps even change the face of British politics, yet 24 hours later who can safely suggest who's to be our next PM?
Saturday night update
70 minutes of one-to-one talks between two of the protagonists. So that must be alright then, sounds like the makings of a new government to me!
Then you've got all these other folk, who most of us have never heard of, sticking their oar in and it's startlingly obvious they're nobodies with an axe to grind who see their chance to get their face on the evening news for 20 seconds.
And every single one of them, from Cameron, Clegg and Brown downwards, without exception, fall over themselves to tell you that they're doing ALL of this for the good of the country. The thing that leaves a nasty taste in my mouth is that they, all of them, are just nowhere near being entirely honest with the British public, their electorate. We all realise it's a delicate situation but this disingenousness is repellent. It brings to mind the phrase "economical with the truth", most recently heard during the Thatcher years.
Three and a half days in
After we've had the numbers and we seem no nearer having a new government and I'm wondering what the rest of the world must think? They and we are used to rapid change after an election. In fact they probably aren't that concerned. To me it smacks of indecision and lack of leadership. The only noises I've heard today are bear with us and we'll get there. This is hardly sufficient given the pickle we're in. Perhaps we're so unfamiliar with it we don't know how to do coalition politics.
Gordon Brown speaks
I've been waiting four days for something to actually happen. Clearly I am not aware of the behind-the-scenes machinations that led to it, but then a dignified, honourable, principled and rather awkward man made a short statement outside number 10. To my mind, Gordon Brown ignited this whole election business, thank heavens.
For someone who has been around public life for so long he just never quite got the hang of it. For that he seems to be reviled by so many. Gordon Brown strikes me as a tragic figure. Somehow I can't see him greedily hoovering up the cash on the lecture circuit - don't get me wrong' I'm sure he won't go short. A man out of his time perhaps?
I realise none of this has much to do with unemployment but I feel you would all agree events since last Thursday have been on such a grand scale so I'm hoping you'll forgive me such a digression.
Now there seems a faint air of panic. Goodness knows why anyone would want to run this country, we're mired in debt, swingeing cuts are on the cards, this year or next. So any government is guaranteed to be as popular as a national outbreak of the pox.
As soon as the dust settles on this saga I assure you I shall return to the plight of the unemployed, I like to think there's plenty I've not even touched on.
As regards the election there has been plenty to make me chuckle. Too much to mention here but I'll make a special mention of Lord Mandleson popping up all over the place dispensing his brand of wisdom to all and sundry like some sinister pantomime dame - priceless.
Wednesday morning, another country
So here we are, New Politics so we are told. That clearly remains to be seen.
It's new in as much as all three parties need to seriously re-evaluate where they are now and how they are going to put themselves across to their voters and the folk whose votes they didn't get. Boy do they need to reassess!
Everyone has adjustments to make, us as well, and how it all pans out has no doubt got to be worth watching.
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
The election and the unemployed
I have a simplistic, prosaic attitude to politics. Some things are right and just and sensible, some things are unfair and wrong - or just plain wrong. Most of what's suggested is muddled and fudged.
The reason my outlook is simple is I believe in things. You so rarely hear a politician telling you what they believe in.
So is any of this going to make very much difference to me? Quite probably not. Other than in general; in difficult times it's the poor and the old and the young and those who are unwell who tend to suffer the most. Plus ca change, plus la meme chose.
You hear things said over and over again, the same topics, the same sentiments. Maybe it's my age, I've been hearing the same platitudes and soundbites for thirty years.
I don't think any of us like politicians. In part it's their hubris, the suspicion that they are all freeloaders and don't do a proper job. My local MP is hardly hard up and keeps the extra-curricular earnings well topped up. Quangos and TV, as far as I know. Always ready for a quote.
It's the snide, moralistic tone of voice that grates the most and they all do it; look at me: I'm the big I am.
It's a broken society, so we're told. This is cleary tosh, it's no more broken than it was thirty years ago. It's stating the bleeding obvious to tell us that shitty things happen and people do bad things. Let's face it, we're all struggling to be good people, but boy oh boy do we try? I believe that mostly we all do.
So you end up with this huge contradiction: I believe in voting, I don't like politicians. My local MP is a hypocrite and nailed on to get in, yet belongs to a party I historically believe in. It will stick in my craw but I will take up a pencil and mark my cross.
I like local politics even less.
I don't expect it'll make a huge difference to my situation whichever of the three parties get in, if indeed it is a three horse race. At times I do get excited at the prospect of a change in the way this country does politics, other times I'm filled with the faint feeling of dread.
The reason my outlook is simple is I believe in things. You so rarely hear a politician telling you what they believe in.
So is any of this going to make very much difference to me? Quite probably not. Other than in general; in difficult times it's the poor and the old and the young and those who are unwell who tend to suffer the most. Plus ca change, plus la meme chose.
You hear things said over and over again, the same topics, the same sentiments. Maybe it's my age, I've been hearing the same platitudes and soundbites for thirty years.
I don't think any of us like politicians. In part it's their hubris, the suspicion that they are all freeloaders and don't do a proper job. My local MP is hardly hard up and keeps the extra-curricular earnings well topped up. Quangos and TV, as far as I know. Always ready for a quote.
It's the snide, moralistic tone of voice that grates the most and they all do it; look at me: I'm the big I am.
It's a broken society, so we're told. This is cleary tosh, it's no more broken than it was thirty years ago. It's stating the bleeding obvious to tell us that shitty things happen and people do bad things. Let's face it, we're all struggling to be good people, but boy oh boy do we try? I believe that mostly we all do.
So you end up with this huge contradiction: I believe in voting, I don't like politicians. My local MP is a hypocrite and nailed on to get in, yet belongs to a party I historically believe in. It will stick in my craw but I will take up a pencil and mark my cross.
I like local politics even less.
I don't expect it'll make a huge difference to my situation whichever of the three parties get in, if indeed it is a three horse race. At times I do get excited at the prospect of a change in the way this country does politics, other times I'm filled with the faint feeling of dread.
Early experiences of being on the dole
I'd become disenchanted, but after over ten years of solid work in the social care field I naively thought I'd have no problem finding work. I signed on in the meantime.
When the first money came through it took a full five minutes for me to realize the money was supposed to last TWO weeks, not one, as I had first assumed when I saw the giro. I did find work, although what followed was five years of sporadic employment, hardly any of which I liked especially. This was interspersed with periods of enforced idleness and being constantly broke.
I was a cycle courier, I ran a second hand shop, I worked for the local bus company. What was really happening was a gradual slide into full-time continuous unemployment, and when you're unemployed people just don't want to know.
You can bang in as many applications as you like, however the minute the prospective employer sees THAT gap on your CV that runs up to the present day you go onto the "not interested" pile. Maybe folk just assume you're sat at home watching daytime TV?
Then there's the rigmarole of signing on: endless form filling repeating information the system already has and blank-faced job centre staff who are trained to suspect you of trying to defraud the state. As if one would go to such extraordinary lengths, given the amount of time one has to spend in the job centre and the housing benefit office in order to obtain benefit. Benefit one is entitled to, benefit that will only cover your most basic spends, only if you are fastidious in your budgeting; writing detailed lists of all your necessities.
You give all the pertinent information to the first member of staff, you repeat it all to the person they pass you on to, they send you away so you can write all this information down on the relevant forms, you go back to the office a few days later and repeat it all over again and a member of the job centre staff will enter certain pieces of information into the computer. If all goes well you will get your money.
What this process does is, it takes up an inordinate amount of time to achieve a very simple outcome and is multiplied many hundreds of times all over the land. This generally leaves the customer - we're all customers now - feeling rubbish; left out, skint and on their own. The whole business is demoralising and dispiriting. It's not all bad, there are places out there: church groups, unemployed workers groups, places for the homeless, that very much give you the feeling that you're not on your own. I must say, there are not that many, but it's got to be worth looking.
When the first money came through it took a full five minutes for me to realize the money was supposed to last TWO weeks, not one, as I had first assumed when I saw the giro. I did find work, although what followed was five years of sporadic employment, hardly any of which I liked especially. This was interspersed with periods of enforced idleness and being constantly broke.
I was a cycle courier, I ran a second hand shop, I worked for the local bus company. What was really happening was a gradual slide into full-time continuous unemployment, and when you're unemployed people just don't want to know.
You can bang in as many applications as you like, however the minute the prospective employer sees THAT gap on your CV that runs up to the present day you go onto the "not interested" pile. Maybe folk just assume you're sat at home watching daytime TV?
Then there's the rigmarole of signing on: endless form filling repeating information the system already has and blank-faced job centre staff who are trained to suspect you of trying to defraud the state. As if one would go to such extraordinary lengths, given the amount of time one has to spend in the job centre and the housing benefit office in order to obtain benefit. Benefit one is entitled to, benefit that will only cover your most basic spends, only if you are fastidious in your budgeting; writing detailed lists of all your necessities.
You give all the pertinent information to the first member of staff, you repeat it all to the person they pass you on to, they send you away so you can write all this information down on the relevant forms, you go back to the office a few days later and repeat it all over again and a member of the job centre staff will enter certain pieces of information into the computer. If all goes well you will get your money.
What this process does is, it takes up an inordinate amount of time to achieve a very simple outcome and is multiplied many hundreds of times all over the land. This generally leaves the customer - we're all customers now - feeling rubbish; left out, skint and on their own. The whole business is demoralising and dispiriting. It's not all bad, there are places out there: church groups, unemployed workers groups, places for the homeless, that very much give you the feeling that you're not on your own. I must say, there are not that many, but it's got to be worth looking.
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