Thursday 22 December 2011

Sofa Surfer

In My Shoes attended the launch of a short film, Sofa Surfer, at BOXPARK yesterday.

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

This year is the 40th year that Crisis at Christmas has taken place in London. 40 years!

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


Labour MP Heidi Alexander’s campaign to have gang related videos removed from the internet might seem noble and just to some but for me it leaves two questions that I often ask myself concerning MPs.
1)      Do they hate and try to destroy everything in this world that does not fit into their pretty picture of how they would like the world to be?
2)      Are their actions motivated merely by the potential for votes and looking good in front of their constituents?
The motivation of the second seems to be even stronger than the unpleasant first.
Ms Alexander told MPs: "I am appalled by the proliferation of online videos which glorify gangs and serious youth violence. Police, by the courts and ISPs, need to be given explicit powers to get these videos taken down or access to them blocked.”
She is entitled to dislike the videos as much as she chooses. However her dislike of the videos is not in my eyes reason enough to change legislation to lead to the ban on the videos. I can only seee the justification for that type of interference if evidence is provided to show that the videos cause harm.
Ms Alexander claims "They lead to increased numbers of young people in our cities who feel they need to carry a knife for protection and they terrify any ordinary human being who watches them."
I would like to know where she got her evidence that these videos lead to children being more likely to carry a knife for protection. The idea that they terrify ordinary people who watch them is not something I can see as a possible justification because ordinary people are not forced at gunpoint to watch.   
"It seems to me that the popularity and accessibility of the internet means it is inevitably one of the ways through which young people get caught up in the madness of youth violence.”
In the above statement she makes it plain that it is in her opinion that the internet influences children to get involved in youth violence. I do not believe that in a democratic society, or any other society, one person’s opinion should be enough to change legislation.
"These videos frighten me and they frighten young people too.”
Neither she nor the young people are forced to watch. Visions of fighting in Syria, Egypt or on the local high street that are shown on the television might frighten some people.
"Every one of us here today knows that carrying a knife is wrong. Some of us will also know if a young person carries a knife it is probably as likely to end up injuring them as anyone else. We also know that many young people carry knives out of fear - they may not start out to stab someone but as we all know, too often that becomes the tragic reality.”
I find that statement hard to deny but I do not see that carrying knives is necessarily influenced by the videos she wishes to ban.
"For many, the everyday fear of gangs and what they can do is far greater than the fear of getting caught and going to prison. Don't we owe it to the young people who are viewing this stuff online to make them feel safer?"
I ask myself why young people would choose to watch videos that frighten them. No statistics are produced to support the idea that removing the videos will make young people feel safer. Not even a single case study.
This article was not designed to defend the videos that she wishes to ban. It is designed to highlight the two charcteristics that I see and dislike in politicians that I mentioned above. Her words and actions seem to be geared towards appeasing the adults who will vote for her. She also has a wish to see something banned that she is frightened of.

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.
The vast majority of the videos under attack happen to be music videos. The vast majority of people who watch the videos are children who are into that type of music. If they were of voting age and made the majority of her constituents I am not so sure that she would be so quick to join a fight that will be in effect a battle against the music that the majority of her voters love.

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.”?
I am not saying that she necessarily has it wrong. I would just like to see some evidence.
Ms Alexander’s Internet Regulation (Material Inciting Gang Violence) Bill will gain a second reading in March 2012.

Tuesday 1 November 2011

Recession, what recession?

"We are all in this together" is the often repeated government mantra that I'm sure we're all sick of hearing. Well clearly this isn't the case, as we all full well know.

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...

These words come from the title track of an album, Trouble Man, by Marvin Gaye in 1972, a soundtrack to the blaxpoitation film and are preceded by the words: "there's only three things that's for sure," maybe he didn't have tax havens in mind, which is what I want to bang on about today, but I'm hoping I got your attention. I guess none of us like paying taxes, but they are a fact of life, the dictionary describes tax as "a compulsory contribution to state revenue", it's the price we all pay to be part of society.

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

Being unemployed can produce negative feelings related to low self esteem. These could come from things like not feeling like a fully contributing member of society, not being able to afford to do things other people can and not being able to give to others as you might like. These feelings could make you feel like an inadequate parent, sibling, child, (neither being mutually exclusive) or however you may relate to another. In some cases these negative feelings can be severe enough to contribute to the development of clinical depression. The Royal College of Psychiatrist’s report that “research has shown that up to 1 in 7 men who become unemployed will develop a depressive illness in the next 6 months.”

Being depressed can lead to feeling angry that things are going so wrong for us and being angry about the seeming hopelessness of the situation. From experience I can say that although being depressed can lead to feelings of anger your negative feelings do not need to be so severe to feel angry. The same thoughts that lead to feelings of low self esteem do at times lead to a feeling of anger and resentment about the situation.

I would not be surprised if this type of anger contributed to the riots that occurred in August. The Guardian newspaper claims that “Researchers found that in almost all of the worst-affected areas, youth unemployment and child poverty were significantly higher than the national average…”

Government and society’s negative attitude towards unemployed.
These negative feelings that accompany unemployment can be reinforced by the negative attitudes that the general public and government appear to express towards the unemployed.

There seems to be general opinion that people often choose to be unemployed. This idea can be reached when hearing often used comments such as “those lazy scroungers” and “…living off our hard earned taxes”. This idea that some people choose to receive benefits rather then work for a living seems to be reinforced by Alistair Darling’s initiative to pay incapacity benefits for a fixed period only. At the end of that period, if the claimant wishes to continue to receive the benefit, they would need to be reassessed and make a fresh claim to ensure that they are still entitled to the benefit and are not simply scamming the benefits system.

David Cameron says we will help the deserving but come down hard on the work-shy, again suggesting that there is a hardcore that chooses to not work.

I find it impossible to tell when government policies concerning us long-term unemployed are guided by the disapproval of the voters and when the attitude of the public is fuelled by the rhetoric of the government. It is my opinion that they feed each other. At times government policy and public opinion seem geared towards punishing those on benefits.

A drive to punish benefit claimants
The government is considering cutting the benefits of parents of children who regularly truant. They do not say what punishment they would mete out to the parents of children who constantly play truant but are not on benefits.

This idea of cutting the benefits of the parent is coming from the government of a country that is signed up to the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child. Each nation that has signed up to the convention is obligated to do their best to meet each convention, one of which is to take steps to end child poverty. It is curious that even though under an obligation to end child poverty the government is still prepared to speak of policies that will obviously increase the poverty of the children of some those who are claiming state benefits.

The apparent desire of the government to punish those on benefits seems to be echoed by the public. More than 100, 000 people signed a petition to have the state benefits of those found guilty of rioting cut. The works and pensions Secretary Ian Duncan Smith is considering cutting the benefits of anybody who is sent to prison for rioting. There is no talk of what will happen if that person happens to not be on benefits. Perhaps the public and the government are saying that it is only people who are on benefits that riot or they are saying that they will give preferential treatment to those who are able to keep themselves away from state benefits.

Request for a change of attitudes
Considering that there has been so much talk about rioters and their benefits it would be interesting to know how many rioters were actually on benefits. If the vast majority were on benefits it would be interesting to know how much society’s attitudes towards them had lead to anger that might have contributed to the development of the riots. I believe it would be safe to say that the majority of rioters did not know the man whose shooting lead to the original riot.

There must be some way to channel these emotions so they can become productive and not destructive. A change in society’s attitudes might help to cut down the possible incidences of anger and other negative emotions and the undesirable consequences that might come with them. I consider it to be better to focus on the solutions to unemployment than to point a finger at the unemployed. I do understand that there will be those who will wish to keep pointing a finger, because it helps them to feel better about themselves. I believe that it is better to search for a cure for the illness (metaphorically speaking) than to simply criticise the illness and those who suffer from it.

Tuesday 13 September 2011

Welfare to work - the new way, with the new government

I've spoken about the Government's much trumpeted Work Programme before, well the other day it was my turn. That's to say, I was asked to turn up for an interview with a training provider.

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?

So I was blagging about Epictetus the last time I contributed to this blog. I'm not exactly a scholar of the ancient Greek philosophers, but I once saw this quote by Epictetus which has stuck in my head since: "No man is free who is not master of himself."

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?

(No it's not me) I was watching the late night news, Bank Holiday Monday on the BBC, and there was one item on the local bulletin which really stood out. It was only a snippet, but it really struck a chord with me.

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

So the UK has another of those moral panics it does so well. This time it's all about feral hoodies with absent fathers and unbridled lawlessness that's been sweeping the nation. Yep, that's right I'm talking about the rioting and the looting again. For my earlier thoughts see London's burning.

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













  1. Single bed

  2. Sink

  3. Chair - like you would get at a kitchen counter

  4. Kitchen counter ( there is a kitchen cupboard on the wall above this)

  5. Wardrobe

  6. 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

I had the chance yesterday evening to witness one of these street riots live (a ten minute walk away). There were two police helicopters in the air, and the whole neighbourhood was talking of nothing else.

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.

So what on earth is happening? "It's just criminality" is the quote so frequently trotted out. Well murder is just criminality for crying out loud. It's a phrase that means anything you want it to mean, but is guaranteed to garner popular headlines and popular support from an outraged if mystified public. This doesn't constitute informed opinion. For further thoughts on this, read Penny Red's blog.

Yesterday I had next to no sympathy for what these people were up to on account of the fact that they didn't seem to know what they wanted and were robbing phone shops and, for instance, Footlocker. I felt that in Tottenham last Saturday they had hijacked a grieving family's protest.

These people don't need a manifesto and, clearly, to take to the streets in such numbers and wreak havoc in the way that they have been, requires motivation a little stronger than the desire for a new Blackberry.

The Metropolitan Police have described the events of Monday as "the worst disorder in current memory". Condemnation is easy to muster. It is thirty years since we've seen riots on the streets anything like this (yes I do remember) and they were just not on this scale.

I'm old school enough to have marched in support of the miners. I've stood and shouted outside the House of Commons in support of, or against, one cause or another. Years ago I was part of a group who occupied the headquarters of the old National Graphical Association overnight in protest at Mrs Thatcher's attempt to abolish it. (The NGA was an old print union.)

But isn't this almost a new form of civil unrest? This is some kind of political statement. It might not seem like it and most of those taking part would be hard pushed to define precisely what it was. Partly, they are doing it because they can.

Thursday 21 July 2011

The art of looking

It's quite an art to know how to look at anything when you've been unemployed for a while. Especially anything that relates to job seeking, or people giving you advice as to where to look and what options you might consider. Opinions are free and everyone has loads of them, especially if somebody else has to bear the consequences.

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

As we all know by now Rupert Murdoch's News of the Screws is no more.

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



Reports in last Monday's London Evening Standard and on the BBC's London evening news bulletin both spoke of the rise in street homelessness. I must say this didn't surprise me in the least, I see it as an inevitable consequence of the government's policies.






Chancellor George Osborne announced his Comprehensive Spending Review in October last year and in April this year local councils set new budgets, all involving cuts. These things always take time for the effects to filter through. As I'm sure we're all aware, people are consistently being put out of work due to the current economic climate. It is often said by those who work in the homelessness "industry" that we are all only two or three pay cheques away from homelessness.




So according to these reports, in just 12 months street homelessness in London has risen by 8%. Now these numbers aren't too dramatic, and in London the figure for 2011 so far stands at 3975. The worrying aspect of this was that 60% of these people were new to the street. This is according to Howard Sinclair who is CEO of Broadway, who are one of the organisations involved in what is esssentially an initiative led by the Mayor of London; No Second Night Out. Boris Johnson announced the scheme to loud fanfare in December 2010 claiming he was aiming to end street homelessness by December 2012.




So, in ten weeks, No Second Night Out has taken 135 people off the streets of London and this undoubtably has to be applauded. What concerns me is the fact that there is a need for such things in the first place. Street homelessness, to me, should be something that shames us a nation. I realise that there are a multitude of reasons as to why such things happen, I also realise that there are people who prefer to be on the streets for their own reasons, reasons I wouldn't pretend to understand. These people are in a minority but they prefer to live at the margins of society.






The people I'm most concerned about are those finding themselves homeless due to the cuts happening in the UK right now. I can only presume that over the coming months these numbers are going to grow. Street homelessness increasing by 8% doesn't sound like much but what are the statistics going to say in six months? Twelve months?




What I found most surprising about the publicity surrounding Boris' No Second Night Out campaign was a woman whose plight was being highlighted. She struck me as delightfully normal. A regular woman, pretty, with a regular job, well turned out, and now I'm going to sound like a bigot, but she really didn't look like the type who'd end up homeless. She lost her job selling for a medical supplies company, couldn't pay her rent and ended up sleeping outside a Sainsburys coffee shop! The woman concerned, Ms Karin Botha, who's 36 said: " It was the most scared I've ever been."




Right now she seems to be the poster girl for the No Second Night Out campaign. Which I think can only be a good thing because so many people think it'll never happen to them. Ms Botha seems a perfect example of how it just might. We are living in difficult times and we are going to be hearing more and more stories of people ending up without a roof over their heads.


















Wednesday 15 June 2011

Readying myself to get back to work

I’ve been on a Job Centre-prescribed training scheme to help me acquire some work experience and hopefully get me back into work. It’s four weeks into the programme and it’s giving me plenty of opportunity to observe myself, to see where I’m really at with regard to my employability. And not least of all, to get real information and genuine feedback from trainers, employers and job agencies.

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

So, late last week the Government announced its Work Programme. The Government is hoping that one million people who are currently receiving one of the out-of-work benefits will be moved from what is commonly referred to as welfare dependency (an ugly phrase, if broadly accurate) into work, within two years.

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

As I sit here writing this I am reminded of "What Is Wilderness?" one of the questions that make up the topic of Why Are We Here? This is the central theme of a series of radio podcasts I'm involved with from Camden Calling Locked On Radio.

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.

Through a series of 3-5 minute comedy episodes, different aspects of our daily lives are portrayed by three people from a know-it-all to a middle ground mediator, in a variety of different scenarios, such as the swinging sixties and a gunfight in the wild west. The characters find themselves in numerous situations and overcome challenges both emotionally and mentally. The scripts are conceived and collectively written by Camden Calling members and produced by Endell St studios, who are holding casting sessions to find the voices for the characters.

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.

In order to better understand 'Why Are We Here?' - each letter represents a topic, for example the W from Why represents Wilderness, the H represents Happiness and the Y is Yearning - I decided to find out what people thought of the idea and if there was anything they would like to see in the shows. So, with a recording device I journeyed to London and asked the public what they thought of when they heard the word wilderness. Some responded, "in the middle of nowhere" and some said, "like a desert or a place where there is nothing".

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 am happy to be a part of this project because of the music and the people behind the music. When on stage they are passionate, singing or rapping about their own life experiences, issues around homelessness and other subject matter. What sets them apart from other musicians is that they are unsigned, all their material is self-produced, no involvement from a record label, and all artwork and album covers are designed, promoted and distributed by the artists themselves.

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

I'm certain I've mentioned before that sometimes I find the public's attitude to the unemployed a little disconcerting. In truth, I find some of the things I hear downright scary. Either way I was interested to see two articles in the Sunday Telegraph about the subject. The Telegraph, to my mind, is certainly on the scary side of right-wing politics but you can't be too fussy about stuff you find on the bus, so I read it nonetheless.

The first article concerned a YouGov survey about the public's attitude to the long term unemployed. This was only part of the whole survey, the survey was entitled Just Deserts? Attitudes to Fairness, Poverty and Welfare Reform. The survey was commissioned by the Policy Exchange think-tank. I've never fully understood quite what a think-tank is or does but Policy Exchange is rumoured to be David Cameron's "favourite ideas outlet" according to Janet Daley, a political commentator, columnist, and talking head for Radio 4's Moral Maze.

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

I'm sick of this, sick and fed up to the back teeth, as my father used to say. I'm just having one of those times when the repetition and futility of it all pisses you right off. What I mean is, the being without a job and seemingly getting nowhere with finding one.


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

At a time when we're told there are no alternatives, here's a movement that's exploring them. See what you think.


It Cuts Both Ways...The Alternatives from Oonagh Cousins on Vimeo.

Wednesday 23 March 2011

The government cuts

Many people feel that the government has turned their back on them due to the massive cuts. On Saturday 26 March there will be a protest against the government’s cuts. This will see the UK’s biggest single protest since the anti-Iraq war march in 2003. Many people around the country will travel to London and make their voices heard at their anger of government’s cuts. The march will begin from London’s Victoria Embankment between Waterloo and Blackfriars Bridges at 12:00pm.

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

You may think, just as I did, that getting up at a really early time to get ready to go and work for someone you don't like is just not worthwhile, doesn't feel worthwhile and doesn't promote job satisfaction. But being unemployed is not a case of "I can stay home and do whatever I want".

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....

Well, we all knew it was going to be doom and gloom since the Comprehensive Spending Review last autumn. I've been harping on about how things are going to be crap in earlier postings. Well earlier this week a few stories have emerged that offer some pointers as to how things are starting to pan out.

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....

Ten days ago there was an article in London's Evening Standard newspaper about a fraudster who managed to con his way into a job with a city investment bank that payed £165k a year.

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.

In the Metro newspaper, Wednesday 9 February there was a story about another bloke, who was sentenced to 12 weeks in prison for scamming housing benefit to the tune of £28 grand over the course of three years.

Both these individuals pleaded guilty to the offences they were charged with, which in layman's terms is theft.

The first man's lies were discovered after a month and he fiddled half the money that the second man fiddled, who kept up his lying for more than three years.

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.

Which brings me to another thing that is also plainly wrong - not paying your tax. On Newsnight, Monday 31 January they estimated that there is £15 billion of unpaid tax in the UK. At the moment Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs is pursuing 22 companies through the courts for a total of £4.7 billion. Some are household names; Boots,Vodaphone, Barclays bank, and Topshop, to name but a few.

Later in the item they were talking about some of the protests against the cuts. Before I go further I must point out that I'm not, nor have I ever been a member of UK Uncut. This was the protest group that the report focussed on. They are one of the so-called new breed of protest movements who are now organising themselves utilising mobile phones, the internet, and social media.

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.

The basic point I'm trying to make here, is that things aren't equal, nor are they fair and some of us are suffering a lot more than others.

Wednesday 19 January 2011

Blue Monday

Depending on who you read, the most depressing day of the year is either Monday 17th or Monday 24th January. Quite how they work this out goodness knows! Suffice to say, I think for all of us it's a strange time of the year. It's the time of the year for resolutions, predictions and promises.

For this coalition Government it seems to be a time for broken promises. I don't know enough about it to list them all, but off the top of my head I can think of a handful: EMA, VAT, NHS, child benefit changes and student loans. To be fair, it was only the Lib-Dems who promised to do away with student loans. The coalition has put them up three times over!

The point I'm making is, as promises, they've all been broken.

The Education Maintenance Allowance
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?

Child Benefit
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 NHS
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.

And then there's VAT
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.

It is universally acknowledged that the cost of living is going up. I heard on the news one morning this week that Britain's rate of inflation is higher than that of Zimbabwe! The cost of food has risen, the cost of domestic fuel has risen and the cost of transport has risen. Both public transport and the cost of petrol/diesel.

But don't worry, you'll know just how unhappy you are
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?
No-one seems to disagree that there are going to be huge job losses. Half a million in the public sector are to go in the next three or four years. The Government inadvertently owned up to this at the time of the Comprehensive Spending Review in October 2010. They have not revised this prediction in the three months since. Local Government cuts will start to hit in April and that, presumably, is when job losses will begin to kick in.

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.

Wednesday 12 January 2011

Waiting lists....


I have lived where I live now for five and a half years. Six weeks before that my local council placed me on the housing waiting list. Due to fact that I am a single man and have no children I qualified to be on the list, but was not deemed to "be in priority need".

I feel I clearly understand this. It's bloody obvious that a single man in his forties is not in as MUCH need of housing as say, a single woman in her twenties with a toddler. Don't get me wrong, housing is a basic human need, we all need a roof over our heads.

I found out the other day, courtesy of Ken Livingstone in the local press, that the number of people who are on my local authority housing waiting list number 15,500. Is it any wonder that in the five-and-a-half years that I've been on that infernal list I've not heard a dicky-bird from my local council?

In the 2001 census the population of my north London borough was put at 202,824. Local estimates and surveys place a higher figure on that now. A study by the local council estimated it to be 223,171 in 2007. So I console myself with the thought that there are plenty worse off than me on that waiting list of 15,500.
Have you had similar experiences? We would like to get a picture of what it is like to be on the housing waiting list. Please post your comments below.