Thursday, 22 December 2011
Sofa Surfer
Watch the trailer
Sofa Surfer Trailer from Gaelle Tavernier on Vimeo.
Add your voice to the campaign on www.sofasurferfilm.com
40 years of Crisis
Crisis at Christmas provide food, shelter, somewhere to sleep and all manner of services for the homeless and the needy for many, many people at a crucial time of the year.
I thought this might be a good time to consider the question of homelessness and to give you a few facts. Homelessness isn't just the man outside the tube asking for money, it can take different forms. There are those who live in hostels and other kinds of temporary accomodation. It also includes those who are sofa surfing; sleeping on friends' and relatives' sofas in the front room.
Now for some facts, in 2010 Crisis at Christmas used nine centres:
- Nearly 3000 people visited
- 500 people slept in one of the crisis centres
- 670 people had healthcare appointments
- 290 people saw the dentist
- 242 people saw the optician
- 231 people saw the podiatrist
In total Crisis served 25,000 meals.
In order to provide all of this Crisis at Christmas needed 8000 volunteers.
Shelter told us this week that this Christmas morning 70,000 children will wake up in temporary accomodation.
According to Government figures, the number of households declared homeless so far this year is up by 13 per cent from the same period last year. (Left Foot Forward blog provides some useful context).
In the news just this week from a study by the University of Sheffield commisioned by Crisis: Homeless people die 30 years younger than the national average. The report included people living in hostels as well as those living on the streets. Drug and alcohol abuse account for a third of deaths among homeless people.
Leslie Morphy, the Chief executive of Crisis commented: "It is shocking, but not surprising that homeless people are dying much younger than the general population."
The same report found that homeless people are nine times more likely to commit suicide.
One in a hundred young people experience some form of homelessness each year. That means that 80,000 young experience homelessness each year often through no fault of their own.
Crisis estimates there are 400,000 hidden homeless in the UK, of these it is thought 250,000 are under 25.
I'm not going to make any comment, I have just brought these facts to your attention and will leave you to draw your own conclusions.
Wednesday, 23 November 2011
Youth crime and internet videos
I have no concern for her fears. I am more concerned about the children that I consider her to be attacking and dressing it up to look like she is helping them.
Politicians have a habit of apologising when their voters go against them. How many times have you heard a defeated politician say that “I am sorry. We got it wrong.”?
Tuesday, 1 November 2011
Recession, what recession?
This certainly doesn't apply if you work in the boardroom of one of the FTSE 100 companies. Last Friday one of the headline news stories told us just how far from the truth this really is. According to Reuters, the news agency who commissioned the report: "FTSE 100 bosses' pay leaps, outpaces share gains."
Now these companies are not called blue-chip for nothing, it stands to reason that they are going to be high performing and that they are going to weather a recession perhaps better than most. But average pay increases of 49%? It certainly isn't a question of performance related pay - in the same period that the report was talking about, (April2010 t0 the end of March 2011) the FTSE 100 index rose by just 3%.
For public sector workers, almost all of them have had their pay frozen. For people in the private sector, who aren't on the board that is, average pay settlements are running at 2.6%.
These eye-watering increases in remuneration take the average pay for a director of a FTSE 100 company to just short of £2.7 million.
And the reaction of the Prime Minister? He said the report was "concerning,"
Wednesday, 12 October 2011
Taxes, death and trouble...
Do you ever listen to the financial news early in the morning? You're laying there in bed, not quite awake but you think you should pay attention in case it's something important. Then they introduce someone, sometimes with a double-barrelled name, who might be a market analyst, or something else that you're not entirely sure what they do, who proceeds to tell you what's happening in the world of finance. Even on the days you do pay attention you're always left with the feeling you don't quite understand.
Well that's the case with me but I caught some financial news just the other day that I understood only too well. I was having my tea and caught the back end of the Channel 4 news. The lead in to this bulletin that left me open-mouthed was: "98 of the FTSE 100 companies use tax havens." The FTSE 100 Index is a list of the top one hundred most valuable companies registered on the London Stock Exchange. This item stemmed from a report compiled by ActionAid , who were founded in 1972 as a child sponsorship charity that works in over 40 countries.
Before I go on to talk about what this report says, I must just say that what these companies and multinationals are up to is LEGAL. In fact this government is currently considering relaxing the UK anti tax haven rules, which according to Treasury estimates, will mean a tax break of some £840 million for the multinationals that use tax havens.
Definitions according to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary:
tax evasion. n. illegal non-payment or underpayment of tax.
tax avoidance. n. the arrangement of one's financial affairs to minimize tax liability within the law.
So that means what these 98 companies are doing falls into the second category. What ActionAid are claiming is that the FTSE 100, the UK's most valuable companies, suffer from an "addiction" to tax havens; tax avoidance. Between them, the FTSE 100 companies have 34 216 subsidaries, of which almost 25%; 8492, are in tax havens.
Banks and the banking sector are making some of the heaviest use of tax havens. The "big four" (ie Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds TSB and the RBS group - which includes the Natwest and RBS) banks have a total of 1649 tax haven companies between them. However the biggest tax haven user on the FTSE 100 index is the advertising company WPP, who describe themselves on the homepage of their website as " a world leader in marketing communications". WPP has 611 tax haven subsidaries.
So it would seem everybody's at it and nobody bats an eyelid. In Jersey there are 600 FTSE 100 subsidiary companies, 400 in the Cayman Islands and 300 in Luxembourg.
In 2010 Corporation Tax was 28%, Chancellor George Osborne cut this by 2% in April 2011 and will cut it annually by 1% which will mean it will be 23% by 2014. Myself I don't really have a problem with big corporations, banks, including the "big four", WPP, whoever, paying tax. According to HM Revenues and Customs, one is only liable to the main rate of Corporation Tax when profits are at a rate exceeding £1.5 million. Like I said earlier it's the price we all pay to be part of society, particularly so one would think, when that is the society that you trade with.
Friday, 30 September 2011
The Angry Unemployed
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
Welfare to work - the new way, with the new government
I was quite worried about this, having been through something very similar before: treated like I was a six year old, harried, badgered, and patronised by a government-appointed bunch of idiots who would have trouble walking an old lady across the road, never mind helping the long term unemployed to return to the world of work.
So I duly turned up at the appointed time, wondering quite what to expect. I had been assured by the dole office that I'd be able to continue with my voluntary work. This was after my adviser had consulted one of her superiors and they had deemed it "worthwhile experience". (their words not mine) So there I was, bang on time for my initial assessment armed with my CV and three jobs I was interested in, as requested and there was my personal adviser, suited and booted, all welcoming, so far so good.
Over the next fifty minutes he proceeded to bore me almost to tears. His need to record the most basic information took an age and then he proceeded to witter on about all the things he would be able to do for me. He then explained at great length the intricacies of how his company would be getting paid by the government. (As if I could give a stuff) One of the last things he covered was my CV. He said: "Don't worry about this, I'll re-do this for you for when you come in next time."
I'm not worried in the slightest about my CV, it's not bang-up to date, but it's quite well put together and says pretty much what I want it to say, on top of which if I wanted to improve it, he doesn't spring to mind as the first person I'd go to for advice. Relieved that the whole thing was over and done with at least for a fortnight, I trudged off thinking same-old, same-old and thinking that I'd have to put up with that sanctimonious tosser for goodness knows how long.
So that's kind of what I think but there's been plenty of other people with something to say on the subject. Take the Social Market Foundation for instance; this is the think tank who are widely regarded as being behind the idea of the Work Programme in the first place. On their home page of their website the very first item reads: "The Government's flagship back to work programme at risk of financial collapse, says think tank." They go on to say: "over 90% of Work Programme providers will be at risk of having their contracts terminated by DWP even by year three of the scheme," The SMF don't mince their words: "it is no great surprise that a department led by Iain Duncan Smith (Secretary of State for Work and Pensions) and Lord Freud (Minister for Welfare Reform) managed to introduce a multi-billion pound jobs programme funded on the basis of wishful thinking and over optimistic predictions."
Chris Grayling, the Employment Minister within the DWP describes the Work Programme as "revolutionary", the Government publicity is similarly upbeat: "the centrepiece of the most sweeping welfare reform for 60 years, restoring the system to its founding principles, the most ambitious back to work programme this country has ever seen." The Home Editor for the BBC, Mark Easton is more circumspect: "it will be in the fine print of the contracts that the grand claims for the Work Programme will be decided."
Suffice to say it isn't only me that has doubts about the Government's Work Progamme, I'll leave the last word, for now, to someone who I suspect knows quite a lot about this matter; Kirsty McHugh who is the chief executive of the Employment Related Services Association. "But what about the economy? Where are the jobs going to come from?"
Wednesday, 31 August 2011
Self mastery in the face of whatever?
Every once in a while I stop and ask: am I a free man? Am I a master of myself, especially while I'm dependent on state benefits and not earning money? Surely, there are times when adversity hits us hard and we may need friends, family or a social safety net to support us for a while. Then there are vulnerable people who need all the help they can get. This makes for a compassionate society.
The wisdom and views of Epictetus fascinate me and give me a benchmark against which to check myself from time to time. And some of his quotes put a bit of steel in my backbone!
You see, ole Epictetus was an ancient Greek philosopher who belonged to the Stoic school. The Stoics believed in cultivating inner strength, in the face of adversity. To Epictetus and the Greek stoics, external events are determined by fate and are thus beyond our control, but we can accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. Individuals can reflect on what happens to them and around them, and control their actions and lives through rigorous self-discipline. Suffering comes from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power.
Epictetus started life as a slave. As a youth he found a passion for philosophy, studied under a Stoic master and eventually became a teacher of philosophy himself. Thus a lot of his teachings were derived from the school of hard knocks. He taught that: “People are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things. Death, for instance, is not terrible … the terror consists in our notion of death that it is terrible.”
Training, self-discipline, practice, acquiring wisdom … these are the tools that the Stoics suggested for acquiring self-mastery. I think we need a good dose of that in modern times as in ancient times. Some things don’t change.
Of course, the real test in life comes down to how one behaves in the face of real challenges. For example, in the recent looting and rioting in London and other parts of the country, there were people who went out to rightfully protest against what they saw as an injustice, some went out to loot and pillage, some went to watch the looting, and some people to clean up afterwards. Epictetus would have had a stern word with those who thought they could use the excuse of anger or dispossession as excuse or reason to loot and wreak havoc in their own communities.
As I'm writing this blog now, I'm having an interesting challenge with the benefits system. My Job Centre sent me a 13-week work experience program which I went through with diligence and even got A* from my advisers. Even though it didn't lead to a job right away, the program has given me invaluable experience and put me on a road of going back to work – for which I'm most appreciative.
But next came the surprise: instead of transitioning me back to benefits, I got multiple letters telling me my JSA had been stopped and that my housing benefit had been suspended. Now I had to go through the whole rigmarole of re-applications even though my situation was perfectly known by the Benefits Office. Why put people through this excruciating process? Did some bureaucrat deliberately formulate the rules to cause the maximum inconvenience and discomfort to benefit claimants – in the hope that some of them will fall out of the system? When I spoke to Housing Benefit staff, I was told: "Oh we get this all the time. It may take a couple of weeks for your re-application to be sorted". Even with a good dose of Epictetus, one needs more than a strong stomach on these occasions to maintain one’s cool.
But there you go: who said life is a cake walk. I'm told that we grow by the stuff that challenge us, not the fun stuff. I do agree with Epictetus when he says: "The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things." Other than that, they or circumstances and have got you by the neck!
By Ready Ready, guest contributor
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
So what's it like when you do get a job?
There was a short piece about a mother from East Ham who had just landed herself a job. This in itself isn't news, but this woman's reaction was, she was so clearly overjoyed. The job was at the new Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, east London.They have built a new shopping centre in Stratford right next door to the Olympic Park. This shopping centre will employ 10 000 people, as and when it's fully up and running. (I did send off CVs to several retail chains, but not a word back.) Anyway this woman had got herself a job in the staff canteen at John Lewis.
I don't know this woman, she seemed just like your average mother of teenagers. It was a delight to see her reaction that to most of us would seem like fairly mundane news. Her delight was something I entirely understood. It wasn't the job of her dreams but it was A JOB. She'd been out of work for three years and even her son had known she was depressed. Let's face it - teenage boys are not the most sensitive.
When she was interviewed this woman, Tina, told of her reaction when she received the letter with the news. The first thing she did was to pass the letter to her son to get him to read it back to her and to tell her what it said, and then she got him to read it to her again, and again just to check.
So Tina's first reaction was one of disbelief. To me this is completely understandable: you wonder if you'll ever work again, you make so many phone calls, you send out so many CVs ... on the phone the usual reaction is; "sorry the post has gone," or "sorry you haven't got the experience we're looking for". As for CVs, you very rarely get any acknowledgement that you have shown any interest.
So all I have to say is well done to this woman Tina and thank you for brightening up my week end.
Monday, 22 August 2011
Crime and Punishment
On Monday 22 August, the Metropolitan Police said they thought that 30 000 people had been involved in the recent troubles. 3296 offences have been reported, including 162 arson offences, 48 cases of serious wounding and 80 cases of assault with injury. So far there have been 1875 arrests and 1070 people have been charged.
Now I'm not for a moment suggesting these people shouldn't get punished for their wrongdoing. But is the response of the judiciary proportionate? David Cameron approves, last week he said; "they have decided to send a tough message and it's very good that the courts feel able to do that." So many people are getting remanded in custody, and so many people are being jailed for what seem fairly trivial offences. And whose benefit are we doing this for? To teach people a lesson? Or are we just doing this to make the British public feel better? It costs 40 thousand pounds a year to keep a male prisoner inside. On top of which the prisons have never been so full and they're well nigh fit to burst.
Another thing which I'm having trouble getting my head around is the notion that people who are convicted should lose their benefits and even lose their right to public housing! This is just bonkers. Nothing has been decided for sure yet but the idea seems immensely popular, especially with the general public to the extent that an on-line petition in favour, is gathering pace and has reached the numbers required to enable MPs to table it for debate it in the House. MPs reconvene sometime in early October. That's another thing I don't understand, I thought we did away with the idea of mob rule years ago? This idea that anyone with a bee in their bonnet can start an e-petition and persuade the government to debate it doesn't strike me as an extension of democracy, it smacks of a charter for all manner of odd-balls, extremists and assorted loonies to get their voices more widely heard.
I think most of us would agree that those who took part in the rioting and looting were people who live out their lives at the edges of society. Many unemployed, young, poor people took part in these disturbances. The Education Maintenance Allowance has gone, the Future Jobs Fund which had helped fund 100 000 jobs for young people since its introduction in 2009 went in March this year. Pretty much every social commentator you listen to or read will tell you that life for the majority of young people is grim right now and not about to get better anytime soon. If you want to a hear things from a young persons perspective please read YH World.
To think about taking away benefits and even housing from people who live on the periphery of society strikes me as utter madness. Then what happens? The people who are affected by these proposals, their quality of life will suffer, they will be further marginalised, they will undoubtably go on to commit further crime, their sense of social exclusion will intensify, it's a recipe for disaster.
Michael White of the Guardian (perhaps I'm showing my colours there) wrote in a blog of his last week: "It's the latest manifestation of an old problem. We all want to punish the seriously bad guys, but sometimes it's easier to make an example of the idiots."
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
This is my world
- Single bed
- Sink
- Chair - like you would get at a kitchen counter
- Kitchen counter ( there is a kitchen cupboard on the wall above this)
- Wardrobe
- Bookshelf
This is my world, this is where I am when I am in. The room is 15 foot 10 inches long and 5 foot 10 inches wide. If I stand next to the bed and stretch out my arms I can touch both walls. I have lived here for six years and one month. This is where I eat, sleep, listen to the radio, watch TV and read. If I eat when I am here, I have a big tray which I rest on the bed. If I want to watch the telly I get it out of the bottom of the wardrobe and put that on the bed too.
I don't regard this place as my home - it's just where I live.
Tuesday, 9 August 2011
London's burning
The air of excitement was palpable. I shrugged my middle-aged shoulders and thought well, I'll see it better on the telly, and trudged off to where I live.
Thursday, 21 July 2011
The art of looking
When you've applied for lots of jobs and not succeeded, that begins to chip at your self-confidence and hopes. You begin to become unsure of what you can actually do. It’s OK to keep a foot in voluntary work but you begin to think, they'll take anyone, won't they? The little voice in the head can get busy concocting all kinds of scenarios.
My friend John who is middle-aged, just like me, likes to believe he’s a realist: “Look at the facts,” he says. “Our skills are getting out of date with all this computer stuff. Nobody wants us for anything, apart from stocking up supermarket shelves.” And since he doesn’t want to stock supermarket shelves, John has concluded he’ll never work again.
I find that outlook rather pessimistic. I don’t want to believe my friend could be right. But I look at jobs on some job websites and despair (not just for myself) when I notice there are three hundred applicants for pokey little jobs that pay under £20,000 a year. I look at the Third Sector jobs site: I find myself hopeful that there are jobs for which I have the exact skill set, even when I get nada response to my applications.
I guess I’m keen to keep walking the fine line between realism and hope, while taking care not to descend into pessimism. Or worse, cynicism. I hang in there. I don't let the snipers kill off my hopes. I’m sure it’s better than looking backwards – to the good old days or how things have never worked out. Or looking around to notice evidence of the bad economy and the media and politicians arguing about where we’re at.
It takes something to master the art of looking and not letting oneself be pulled down by what one sees. Do you want to know my secret? I’ve picked a lesson or two from Epictetus. Epi … who? I hear you ask. I’ll tell you more the next time!
by Ready Ready, guest contributor
Wednesday, 13 July 2011
News of the World RIP
Now I don't for a moment wish to underestimate the enormity of what they have done, nor how repulsive their actions have been, not to mention the illegality and just how immorally they have behaved for far too long. Even News International are telling us there is more (and we can only presume, worse) to come.
I'm not going to do the outrage, I'm not going to explain the significance of it all, shit you can get all the stern disapproval elsewhere, about the collapse of society as we know it.
News of the World has been part of my life since I started to read it agog as a paperboy in the late 1970's. Even before that 13 year old boy became a reader, (and I admit, a fan) I had a vague sense of its national importance. Looking at the front cover on a Sunday morning is like looking at those smutty postcards at the seaside. You know, the "ooh-er missus" type of thing.
You might be wondering what on earth this has got to do with the unemployed and the benefit culture which is what I profess to bang on about? Well for starters there's the two hundred journalists who lost their jobs over the weekend. I must admit that they finished their last shift with some dignity, all leaving work together. I'm old enough to remember the huge fuss when Rupert Murdoch moved his News International set-up; lock, stock and barrel from Fleet Street, or thereabouts, to Wapping. This was 1986 when union bashing was very much in vogue.
I'm reasonably certain that it was journalists who worked for Murdoch who invented the phrase benefit scroungers, this alone speaks volumes about News of the World and their outlook, and I don't doubt their boss, Rupert Murdoch. I really feel that we have lost a piece of what can only be described as a part of the British establishment.
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Street homeless numbers are going up but Mayor Boris is doing his bit
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Readying myself to get back to work
Some of my findings have been shocking: first of all, I didn’t know so much of my confidence has been eroded over the four year I’ve been unemployed. In my first week at this training scheme, we played a variation of Dragon’s Den in which I was a job applicant and fellow trainees role-played the parts of prospective employers and interviewers at job agencies. At the first mock interview with my fellow trainees – I was shocked to see how nervous I was. I was all over the place, inarticulate like a child and clutching at anything like the proverbial drowning man! I couldn’t believe I was the same person who had been on interview panels to select employees for my organisation in the past. Little did I know that my experience had faded away and that I now need to retrain myself on how to handle job interviews.
The second thing that shocked me was getting how my daily disciplines and routines have been impacted by the long period of unemployment. I know folks who don’t like to get out of bed before midday … but that’s not me. I don’t have my son’s teenage thing of sleeping most of the day and being up most of the night. Actually, I like to get up at dawn and catch the dew on early morning walks or runs.
I realise I’ve now gone beyond the 9 to 5 and similar just show-up routines of certain organisations. I’ll do 12 hours of work straight when I have to get on with a project; I’ ll work weekends when I have to; I work long hours into the night when I have to deliver results by a deadline. But when I have to go and sit in an office for 6 hours and do what can be done in an hour or two in the name of a training scheme, something in me screams against the “system”. My challenge then is finding a work role that will focus on producing results, rather than conforming to old-style workplace routines that I hear are still rife in some places.
Now to my third insight: I’m finding it’s not easy to draw the line between being principled and being practical. From the do-goodie perspective, a training scheme to help me back into work may be just what I need … but it irks me to think there are people … officialdom, really … who want to move me from one set of statistics to another set of statistics without addressing my real needs and concerns. Even though I’m still unemployed, government statistics got improved by one person last month - by moving me from being in receipt of Job Seekers Allowance to being a Job Trainee receiving a training allowance.
I know I’m not one of the “I’ll do anything” brigade: I’m looking for a position where I can make a contribution and, at the same time, feel fulfilled to be using and developing my skills. I have no problem with motivation – it’s no big deal to show up on time and do above average work when I go to various volunteer jobs I do. But when somebody tries to fit me into a cookie-cutter pattern, something is provoked … a part of me just doesn’t want to do it! I question my own motivation though: am I being rebellious for the sake of rebellion or do I just shut up and be grateful for whatever comes my way?
I’ve been getting ready to move on for a long time. But now that I’m on the road, if feels like I’ve got concrete shoes on my feet and there are only muddy paths ahead of me. No one told me of these angles of being unemployed.
(Ready Ready, a guest contributor to this blog, is well educated with years of experience in the workplace. After four years of unemployment he's ready to move on, but how?)
Monday, 13 June 2011
The Government's latest wheeze
The Government is calling its Work Programme "revolutionary". Chris Gayling, the Employment Minister said it was: "revolutionary in the way it tailors support to jobseekers' individual needs and pays organisations primarily for getting people into sustained employment."
This doesn't sound revolutionary to me in the slightest, it sounds like the same old bullshit we've all heard before.
Another element of this Work Programme that the Government were boasting about when they announced it, was their hands-off approach to the companies they were asking to put it into practice. The Government calls it "a black-box approach". This apparently translates into; do whatever it takes and we're not going to interfere.
This is MY big worry, these contractors are being given carte blanche to get people into work. As every person who signs on knows, when you are offered work you are obliged to take it (however unsuitable it may be or however unsuited you may be in terms of being able to carry out the work.)
Mark Easton, the BBC's Home Affairs editor remarked: "concerns are that contractors might pressurise vulnerable people into taking unsuitable jobs." Surely we're not just talking about vulnerable people taking unsuitable jobs.
On the day the Government announced their Work Programme, Elizabeth Smythe of Randstad, who are a huge international staffing and recruitment consultancy wrote: "Payment by results has led some commentators to speculate that it might pressurise the approved providers to force claimants into unsuitable jobs."
Now, bear in mind the incentive for getting people into work for these contractors is £4k up to nearly £14k depending on who the jobseeker is.
So let's imagine you are coerced into taking a job you aren't suitable for, you stuff it up and they sack you and that's it. You can kiss your benefit goodbye for up to 26 weeks - that's six months! There is no way in the world they will let you sign back on. No JSA...no housing benefit. No landlord is going to give you six months grace until you can sign back on.
So you take a job you can't really do, lose it, lose any chance of signing back on, lose your housing benefit and you end up homeless. Now, I can see that happening. How many times it will happen who can tell?
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
Locked On, Radio Podcasts
The mission is to improve the access homeless and vulnerable people have to mainstream music, arts and popular culture. All the Camden Calling artists are unsigned and have had their own experiences of homelessness and other issues which are told through their songs which are planned, promoted and produced by themselves.
There will be music from Camden Calling (it was a difficult but enjoyable task researching bands and listening to a lot of music to find a song that mirrors the sentiments of why are we here) and some banter between musicians, interviews, music news and what is generally going on.
To create a buzz about the shows a blog is being maintained with photos and videos from all involved as well as links to the Facebook and Twitter groups for people to follow. I am anxious to see the created shows, as I have written some of the material and would like to see the stories unfold and come to life. Based on the public responses so far, we are hopeful that it will be well received.
I finally feel a sense of belonging, I have a group friends who share a passion for creating and performing shows for people to enjoy.
Camden Calling is a social enterprise run collectively with homeless and ex-homeless people who put their problems aside to host live music events for a mainstream audience. Locked On is being produced with Endell St Studios.
Tuesday, 26 April 2011
The "fairness" poll
2407 adults were polled on-line in early March. "The figures have been weighted and are representative of all British adults." I think this is shorthand for them saying they have some extremely convoluted scientific way of making the opinions of two and a half thousand people representative of those of the British populace. Perhaps it involves logarithms?
These were some of the attitudes expressed:
- Benefits are too generous or easy to claim 33%
- There are not enough jobs available 20%
- They do not have the skills necessary 16%
- Rewards from working are too small 14%
- They are lazy or lacking in willpower 12%
- Don't know 5%
There was all manner of dreadful opinions in this survey, there was that old chestnut which is the statement that "some people who are poor are much more deserving than other people who are poor." 71% of the people polled agreed with this sentiment.
Then there's the subject of workfare, the notion that the unemployed should work for their Government handout. Now in this poll, 80% of those polled felt that: "people who have been out of work for twelve months or more, who are physically and mentally capable of undertaking a job, should be required to do community work in return for their state benefits."
Now IN THEORY I have no problem with this idea, I have no objection at all to me doing something useful for the community, in order to work for the money that the state gives me to put a roof over my head and money to live on. I think it's often referred to "as putting something back" and God knows, if there's one group of people who could do with putting something back, it has to be the unemployed. I think we all know that irrespective of what the Sun says about feckless scroungers, the unemployed may well be perpetually skint, but in the main they have, broadly speaking a fairly easy time of things.
Then there's the rub, this would have to be organised, and this job would fall to the same people who we sign on with every fortnight. The task of getting two and a half million people to contact the DWP once a fortnight to declare themselves without a job and subsequently pay them some money is something the civil service finds onerously problematic to organise without making countless mistakes.
So how on earth are they going to cope with organising things for, let's say, a million unemployed to do community work and keep track of what is going on? What about all those people who are currently doing this work as their (paid) job? All the people who currently pick up litter, run coffee mornings for the elderly, act as lollipop people, whatever is considered useful for the long-term unemployed to spend their time doing. This strikes me as one of those things that hasn't quite been thought through properly.
To me, I don't see anything wrong with people doing some kind of community work in order to get their benefits. As long as other people aren't losing their jobs as a result and as long as the government isn't getting their Big Society on the cheap.
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
Sick of this
Nothing's happening, it's all the same as it always is. The main thing that's the same as it always is, is that I'm always skint, always flat broke.
So, what to do...
Perhaps I should try harder to get some work, look harder, look more places, put in more applications.
By implication this must mean I'm not doing enough, surely? Believe me I'm doing loads, the previous paragraph is borne out of frustration.
The vast majority of people I apply to haven't even got the basic courtesy to acknowledge that I've sent the CV that they requested. I remember a few weeks back being so chuffed that a woman rang me up to give me a knock back that the next time I had to sign on I told the person signing me on.
So I guess that makes me what is commonly referred to as a lifestyle benefit claimant. This further implies that one can be a benefit claimant and have a lifestyle - I assure you, this isn't possible!
There is this popular myth that people choose to claim benefit as opposed to looking for work because the state subsidises some kind of lavish standard of living that people have no interest in seeking work. This is clearly because we're all living the life of Riley. This is another myth.
I'm not living in the lap of luxury courtesy of the state, I don't sleep all morning and then get up to watch Neighbours, I haven't got a plasma TV.
Claiming Job Seekers Allowance isn't a lifestyle choice, it isn't a choice at all.
I live a dull life on very little money. I walk almost everywhere. I'm not whingeing but it hacks me right off that the public (and Radio 5 Live) have so many misconceptions about the unemployed. To hear them talk, the hard working British public pay their taxes to keep the job-shy in clover.
Friday, 25 March 2011
The cuts - a look at some alternatives
It Cuts Both Ways...The Alternatives from Oonagh Cousins on Vimeo.
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
The government cuts
The cuts are absolutely ridiculous; they seem to be killing off young people when they are the future of the society. This is what, I think, the government doesn’t seem to realize.
My brother is due to begin university in September. He will be studying English Literature; his mind is set on going to university this year. To some extent I’m worried about the amount of debt he will be in at the end of his degree. Will there even be enough jobs available for university graduates?
I’m still considering going university, there is a lot I’d like to learn and there is no social life like university. But I have always been put off by the tuition fees – even before they put up the fees. I find university life rather interesting and it’s quite heart-breaking that I may have to forget about going to university all together because I’ll be drowning in debt by the time I graduate.
I know a few people that have dropped out of college because of the EMA (Education Maintenance Allowance) cuts and also the rise of tuition fees, they feel that it isn’t worth going to university and getting themselves in larges sums of debt. I know many young people were only attending college because of EMA but I suppose they could have come up with a better alternative rather than calling the whole thing to a close.
What I’m mostly upset about is them getting rid of the FJF Future Jobs Fund. My brother got his first job through the Future Jobs Fund and although the contract was only for 6 months, he got the skills and experience he needed that will attract potential employers. Now it is going to be tougher than it was before for young people with little or no experience to find employment. This is what happens when the government tries to fix something that isn’t broken. They are supposed to be creating more opportunities not taking them away.
Just because of the government, people should not give up on their dreams; there are other options than just going to university. This is the chance for people to think and be more aware about what is out there. There are apprenticeships where it is possible to earn money while gaining essential skills required in a working environment and I’m sure there are more choices out there.
Despite the government, my family still remain optimistic and believe that something better will come along. There is always an option. The cuts have made me think about how much we take for granted.
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Me and My Unemployed Self
I, like most people, absolutely loved the idea of not having to work, staying at home and watching daytime TV. I quite enjoyed the idea of staying up late and waking up at some time in the afternoon. But that didn't last long because eventually my friends and people I knew all started to get jobs. They quickly took a dim view of the unemployed, and as I had been part of that club for some time, in their eyes I was dossing and becoming a scrounger. I was constantly getting pissed off with the same old spiel that came out of their mouths that I could recite it word for word. I became bored and regularly ended up sitting at home on my own watching crap TV.
Until my dad told me about it, I didn't even know that the job centre existed! That I could sign a piece of paper and the government would give me some money! I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to get some money for sitting on my backside. I thought I'd won the lottery. In the beginning it was great, just sign your name and get over £100 a fortnight! I could buy my tobacco, go out, buy games, it felt good. I had money!
But when you break it down and work it out, it's not nearly enough for you to live on. The government clearly have no idea what they are talking about. They worked it out wrongly at some stage. What if they had to live on £60 a week could they? What would they say then?
There is a requirement that the adviser matches a job to you. Now, you have to apply for these jobs even if you are neither qualified nor experienced. If you don't, then your benefits are stopped. This is something which all staff at job centres are pre-programmed to utter.
I soon had an internal battle of whether I could put up with the rigmarole of going to the job centre and having to put up with all the aggro just to get some money.
After some time you get promoted, the worst promotion ever, to "New Deal". It's centred around looking in newspapers, the Internet or using the phone to call employers whilst sitting in a room full of people tired and pissed off. Fail to attend, then - yep - your benefits get stopped. The only beneficial part is the chance to gain some skills from voluntary work. There are two ways out, get a job and work for your money or finish the program and start from the beginning.
These high and mighty advisers constantly shirking their responsibilities is a constant source of anger, but I still have to go through the motions or my benefits get stopped. I have been back and forth through this system so much that it felt as though that was my job. So I became trapped in this cycle of can't get a job due to lack of skills and can't learn the skills because no one is willing to teach these skills.
So, to recap, being unemployed lost its initial appeal long ago.
Thursday, 24 February 2011
So I guess this is how it's going to be....
NHS
There is a report out produced by a trade-union-funded website that goes by the name of False Economy. (False Economy are funded by, among others: Unison, the Fire Brigades Union, TUC, and the Public and Commercial Services Union.) The report is claiming that job losses within the NHS are going to be double what the Government has claimed. False Economy used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain data from NHS trusts nationwide. Their survey is incomplete because some of the NHS trusts didn't respond, and some are suggesting the final total may be higher than False Economy's estimation. False Economy predict that job losses within the NHS over the next four years, certainly including frontline staff. ie Doctors and nurses, will total 50, 000. The Government accused the report and the unions of scaremongering.
The Daily Mirror, Wednesday 23 February, helpfully provided us with the thoughts of David Cameron and the Conservatives from last year:
"It is there in black and white behind me. I'll cut the deficit not the NHS."
"We recognise its special place in society, so we will not cut the NHS."
Both of these quotes come from David Cameron in 2010, and from the Tory election manifesto:
"We're the party of the NHS. We back its funding and have vision for its future."
The General Secretary of TUC, Brendan Barber, said the research by the False Economy report, "gives the lie to government claims the NHS was safe in their hands".
Should the figures from the False Economy report turn out to be accurate the Government will no doubt be able to blame the health authority managers and trot out the familiar phrase, back office job cuts.
Child Poverty
Save the Children analysed data for local authorities from across the country and concluded that 1.6 million children are living in poverty and warned that the situation would only worsen as unemployment was set to rise. Ms Sally Copley, who is the Head of UK policy for the charity said: "It's a national scandal that 1.6 million children are growing up in severe poverty." Save the Children said their analysis showed that in 29 local authority areas, more than one in five children live in poverty. Nationwide the figure was one in seven.
We all know that benefits are frozen, food and fuel prices are increasing and VAT has returned to its full 20% rate since the end of January.
So things are getting worse and as time goes on this year they will deteriorate further for many people.
Sickness Benefit
Lastly, can I just mention what used to be known as sickness benefit. People will remember that the Government said at the time of the Comprehensive Spending Review it would review how it was evaluated. True to its word, the Government has been running pilot schemes under their new system.
One of the authors of the the review and someone who was crucial in devising the new medical assessment, Professor Paul Gregg, who is described by the Guardian (23 February) as an economist and a welfare expert, said: "the test is badly malfunctioning, the current assessment is a complete mess".
People with terminal cancer, multiple sclerosis and serious mental illness have been found fit to work. This was in one of the early roll out schemes, I must say I'm not surprised - these people couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery....
Thursday, 10 February 2011
We are all in this together....
After he hoodwinked a City headhunting firm, they put him forward to apply for a job as a deputy chief executive with this bank. He blagged his way through two interviews and Bob's your uncle. His scam only lasted a little over a month, by which time he fraudulently "earned" himself £14,500. His sentence was 100 hours of community service and 18 months probation.
Both these individuals pleaded guilty to the offences they were charged with, which in layman's terms is theft.
The first man stole from a Middle Eastern bank, the second man committed the cardinal sin of stealing from the British taxpayer. I think they both should have been locked up. But fiddling benefits is one of this country's sacred cows. Please don't misunderstand me, as I've said before fiddling benefit is cheap, shabby and just plain wrong. It's also taking the taxpayers' money.
UK Uncut's focus is unpaid tax and the effect the cuts are having on people's quality of life. The report looked at UK Uncut's protests on Oxford Street. They had protested outside flagship stores of the target shops and chains. And I think they have a point.
Wednesday, 19 January 2011
Blue Monday
The point I'm making is, as promises, they've all been broken.
Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said that the Labour lot were scaremongering when they said that the Tories would scrap it. It gets voted on today, (19th January) but it is almost a certainty to go through and they'll be abolished come the summer. Do we not want our population to be educated?
David Cameron said he was going to leave it alone. Still it's only those who have one parent earning £40k or more that will go without - a broken promise nonetheless.
The coalition said that there would be no top-down reorganisation yet even though medical bodies, the Royal College of Nursing and the British Medical Association to name but two, are advising caution, Andrew Lansley the Health Minister, is boasting about the need for wholesale reorganisation and doing away with Primary Care Trusts at one fell swoop, another broken promise. The biggest shake up of the NHS in decades.
A month before the election, David Cameron said that his plans didn't involve an increase in VAT. Another broken promise. A two-and-a-half per cent increase in tax doesn't sound like very much (OK so the VAT doesn't go on food or children's clothes) but it's going to affect everything - all of the people, all over the country.
And this Government's latest wheeze to help us all to come to terms with this pain? David Cameron is going to spend £2 million and ask the Office of National Statistics to come up with a happiness index! I don't think any of us need £2 million to point out to Mr Cameron that if the cost of living is going up, we are all likely to be less happy.
Whatever next?
It is widely predicted that alongside these public sector job losses there will be a further half a million jobs to go in the private sector over the same time period. I think we can all recognise that there is an interdependency that goes on between these two sectors. So I guess we can see unemployment figures rising but how far, who knows? For some of us, more blue Mondays are on the cards.