Two sides of a bad coin

I live with the Hackney Winter Night Shelter. As a result of this I am fed, clothed and well looked after.

When we are at a shelter that can't fit us all in (there are twenty five of us in all) nearly half of the men are taxied over to another church where they will sleep and have their breakfast. So one night last week some of us piled into two taxis and drove across Hackney to the church that would provide us all with a bed for the night and breakfast in the morning.

So we all filed in to a warm cup of tea and biscuits before we turned in. As we were going in at a rear door to the church we walked past  a young woman who was trying to get comfy for the night.

She was a bit bolshie at first when she found out who we were, Let's face it you would be resentful of people who were getting a better deal than you. "You don't look very homeless to me,"

So over the course of a couple or three cigarettes I got to know more of her story.

• How she'd lived in Hackney her whole life.
• How she had a full-time job around the corner in a cafe and was struggling to keep it given her current plight. You try doing a customer service job after next-to-no sleep and no access to a bathroom!
• How she didn't have a phone.
• How when she had gone to the Homeless Person's Unit they had said to her: "I could refer you to the Night Shelter but that's full of junkies and alcoholics and they would probably just rob you."

I immediately assured her that this wasn't the case and that in the time I had been there I hadn't even seen arguments over cigarettes.

So after our final cigarette together as I went in to my warm bed, I told her I would speak to the Hackney Winter Night Shelter people to see what they could do. I also said I would report her situation to the street rescue people; Streetlink. I assure you I asked this woman if all of this was OK with her and didn't just go blundering in, do-gooding!

So I phoned in to the street rescue people and told them of this woman's situation, who she was, where she was, what time she gets there, that kind of stuff.

I also emailed the Hackney Winter Night Shelter people who explained that the woman would need a referral from their various agencies before she could get in. I then dropped a note (in a sealed envelope) in to the woman's cafe to let her know what I had done with some contact numbers on it.

Where I left it with the street rescue people was that they would ring me if they made contact and got this woman housed. As yet I have heard nothing, I hope she is alright.

I'm alright, as I said I'm well looked after and I've got people speaking to Hackney council on my behalf and optimistic that something will get sorted out.

Update: I had an email this weekend from Streetlink; they have been out to look for this woman several times and drawn a blank. As I said, I do hope that she is alright

The Living Wage, Premiership football and the Church of England

So there has been a little bit of a hoo-ha lately about football clubs in the Premier league not paying the Living Wage. The Premier League has just secured its biggest TV deal in its history of £5.14 billion pounds. This represents a 70 per cent increase in their TV income.

The chief executive of  the Premier League in England, Richard Scudamore, who has been in the job since 1999, and who we can assume is paid rather better than the Living Wage, has come out with some rather memorable comments. One of his remarks was that it is not the clubs' responsibility to pay the living wage, is he implying that although the Premier League is awash with money they have no moral responsibility to their employees who are not on thousands and thousands of pounds a week? He has also gone on record as saying that "the Premier League is not a charity", you couldn't make this stuff up!

It should be noted here that Chelsea FC was the first Premier League club to pay the Living Wage, West Ham United followed suit in February this year. Luton Town became the first Football League club to adopt this, shortly after Chelsea took their step in December of last year.

What interests me more though is a report that came out yesterday from the Trades Union Congress (TUC). This report shows that one in five, (20%) of jobs overall in the UK pay less than the living wage! Monday 16 February until Sunday 1 March the TUC have named Fair Pay Fortnight. Currently the Living Wage is £9.15 for London and £7.85 for the rest of the UK

Among those who are not paying the Living Wage is the Church of England no less. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Justin Welby admitted that this was an embarrassment. His own cathedral in Canterbury is guilty of this, currently advertising kiosk assistant jobs paying more than a pound an hour less than the National Minimum Wage. More than two and a half years ago the church's General Synod voted almost unanimously to pay its staff the Living Wage, maybe they got distracted by loftier matters? Clearly the Church of England are not the only culprits here as the TUC have indicated in their report, This was one of the things that Frances O'Grady (the General Secretary of the TUC) had to say:

 “Extending the living wage is a vital step towards tackling the growing problem of in-work poverty across Britain." Ms O'Grady goes further:

“Working families have experienced the biggest squeeze on their living standards since Victorian times, and these living wage figures show that women are disproportionately affected. Pay has been squeezed at all levels below the boardroom, and the government’s mantra about ‘making work pay’ is completely out of touch with reality."

This is what Rachel Reeves who is the Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions had to say to the Huffington Post:  "It makes good business sense. Thanks to the efforts of campaigners, over a thousand companies now pay the living wage, including 21 FTSE 100 companies - big brands like Barclays, Aviva and ITV."

"By paying the living wage their staff are afforded the dignity that should come with a days' work." 

An update:

I read in last night's Evening Standard that nearly 100 000 social care workers are paid less than the Living Wage. This stems from a report conducted by the Resolution Foundation who are described as an independent think tank concerned with the living standards for low to middle income families. This study found that the typical wage for a care job paid £8.00 an hour during 2013 - 2014. The London living wage during that period went up from £8.55 to £8.80 and is now £9.15.

Upsides and downsides of living in the night shelter

Living in a night shelter is no picnic. You are probably not in the most robust place, mentally when you arrive. You have to immediately get used to mixing with twenty five strangers, eating your meals with them, at night you have to accustom yourself to sharing the room where you sleep with them. The numbers you share the room with at night varies, women are partitioned off from the men and depending on the numbers and space available some of the people are taxied off to sleep in other churches.

There are some huge upsides:

• you are warm and dry and inside.
• you have a hot meal in the evening.
• you have a breakfast in the morning, cooked if you want it.
• you have access to clean clothes should you be short of them.

So what are the drawbacks?

• they kick you out at eight o'clock in the morning. This is so the church can get on with all the other things it usually does. (there are very few free places open at eight o'clock in the morning that are warm and dry) A cup of tea costs 80p in Hackney and the libraries don't open until nine. Some people just head for the nearest bookie.
• There tends to be a lot of travelling about - to the different churches and to where you spend your day. Almost everyone walks everywhere. 

Please don't get me wrong, everyone I have spoken to is grateful for all the help and the shelter that they get. The service they get is excellent, well thought through, highly organised, caring and sympathetic. We all know that we are lucky and that there is a waiting list to get on the scheme.

One observation I do have is that it is the churches that provide this service, this need is met by churches; housing the needy and the poor, those who are down on their luck. This has been the case for hundreds of years.

David Cameron, when he came to power, banged on about the Big Society, it was one of his buzz phrases. Surely he must have known that it was there all along?

My new found shabbiness

Three and a half weeks ago I lost my place to live in a hostel for the homeless in North East London. I was given an hour to gather what could, I left carrying three small bags and the clothes I stood up in.

I've had a lot of adjustments to make since then, I spent some time sofa surfing and now I'm part of the set up at Hackney Winter Night Shelter, This is where I have been for a little over two weeks. A whole new bunch of people to get to know/get used to. There are twenty five of us in total but the personnel change here and there as two or three have moved on. The big adjustment has been no peace and quiet, nowhere to sit and gawp out of the window for twenty minutes doing nothing at all.

Since then I have acquired one or two other bits and pieces; shoes, a coat, tee shirt. I still feel like a tramp. I seem to be dressed in an odd assortment of ill-fitting clothes all of the time, every day. Up until a few days ago I was shuffling around in a pair of boots that were two sizes too big. The jeans I'm currently wearing are baggy and the waist size is four inches bigger than I would ordinarily wear.

Not too much to complain about, it is just that I am not usually this scruffy!

What in my shoes did next

So on the Thursday before Christmas we had our staff party for the office, this was after a day of training in South London. I then returned to my hostel

Then these things happened:

• I threatened another resident in my hostel. (he had been beating up on his girlfriend for months) What I did was stupid and criminal, it wasn't big, it wasn't clever, and I should have just rang the old bill and kept my big nose out of it.
• On the Saturday I went to court and was represented by the duty solicitor. Prior to me being up before the magistrate the duty solicitor advised me that the magistrate could be a bit harsh. He actually used the C word when describing him.
• I pleaded guilty immediately.
• I was then remanded into custody for three weeks to a prison in South East London and told I would need to appear in court at the end of January for sentencing.
• After my three weeks I went back to court and got bailed.
• I returned to my hostel and was told I had an hour to gather my things as I couldn't possibly stay at the hostel. No alternatives were considered.
• I then spent ten days sofa surfing and wearing out my welcome with people I had considered long standing friends.
• After being on a waiting list for five days I was invited to join the Hackney Winter Night Shelter.
• I have been staying with them for ten nights, they rotate around some of the churches in Hackney and we stay at a different church each night.
• The winter night shelter is run like a military operation, the people are kind and polite and we are well looked after.

So not a very auspicious start to the New Year.

I shall talk at more length about these things in the near future, for the time being I thought an updte would suffice. Watch this space

A very modern exodus - a local housing scandal

It took Hitler's Luftwaffe to provoke the last great exodus of people from London. First went the children, evacuated en masse to the care of strangers in the countryside, and then after the war whole families were relocated from the rubble of the Blitz to the post-modern New Towns of Britain's brave new world.

Fast-forward seventy years, and a new displacement is underway. But in 2014, people are being driven from their homes and communities not by bombs from the air but by the process of gentrification and the callous indifference of London's housing market.

Today's high-profile case is that of the New Era housing estate in Hoxton, which houses over 90 families at below-market rate rents. Earlier this year, the estate was bought by American property management company Westbrook Partners, who announced their intention to serve notice to the tenants, refurbish the flats and let them at market prices.

The Guardian contrasts the philanthropic spirit that conceived the New Era estate with the vulture capitalism that now threatens to tear it down:

Built by a charitable trust in the 1930s in order to offer working-class residents affordable private rented accommodation. Even when the blocks were sold this spring, residents say they were assured that the old tenets would apply. Within weeks, new owners told them that rents would rise to market values: spiralling from £600 a month for a two-bed flat to something closer to £2,400. That was meant to happen by summer 2016. After [Conservative MP Richard] Benyon’s firm pulled out of the deal last week, residents were told that Westbrook would accelerate the process.

But what seemed like a hopeless case of the little people versus corporate might has now started to attract attention, with a change.org petition approaching 300,000 signatures in a matter of weeks, and Revolution author Russell Brand lending his support to the cause. Boris Johnson has also pledged to investigate, though it is difficult to see the Mayor of London making a significant intervention.

It must be acknowledged that the New Era residents have not always exerted themselves to enlist the support of the casual observer. Hyperbolic claims about being made "homeless by Christmas" ignore the alternative of moving out of the borough, and the suggestion that the Tower of London poppy display represented people who had given their lives for the sacred cause of socialised housing was opportunistic and crass. And in their indignation at the prospect of being forced to leave Hoxton, the campaigners also forget that there are many Britons who, by accident of birth, grew up outside London and never had the opportunity to enjoy subsidised housing in the heart of the world's greatest city in the first place.

But setting aside the human frailties exhibited in the New Era campaign, the remorseless and seemingly unstoppable process of gentrification and displacement raises difficult questions that now require urgent thought. Are we willing to accept the increasing homogenisation of inner London as a place for the one percent and the upper middle classes? How will we bear the social costs of an increasingly stratified city, where citizens are increasingly unlikely to work, rest, play - and so learn to empathise - with other people of differing financial circumstances? At what point is the marginal benefit of another luxury apartment building or soulless shopping precinct outweighed by the cost in human misery of uprooting entire communities from their homes?

There are no easy answers to any of these questions. Some purists would argue that the market must be left to function unmolested, the fate of the working poor be damned. Others, such as Russell Brand, would wave a magic wand every time the "American corporations" or other bogeymen of the left try to move in, always siding with the local residents but harming London's competitiveness in the process. Neither stance is helpful. And in the absence of a national or city-wide conversation on this thorny issue, the residents groups and development corporations go to battle alone.

This would seem to put the New Era residents at a distinct disadvantage, playing David to Westbrook Partners' Goliath. But people power has already achieved one important victory, forcing Westbrook’s collaborator Benyon Estates to withdraw from their involvement in the estate due to negative publicity. Westbrook themselves will prove a more difficult nut to crack – based in America, they have little cause to fear reputational or political damage inflicted thousands of miles away. But the New Era campaigners are gearing up for a fight nonetheless, seeking international solidarity by pointing out that Westbrook’s principle shareholders are the pension funds of low-paid public sector workers in America.

In truth, we all have a stake in this fight, whether we are homeowners or renters, urban dwellers or country folk. Every day, we bear witness to the immovable forces of globalisation and capitalism which are dramatically reshaping our world, and which our leaders frequently seem impotent to control. These forces may not be coming for our homes, our jobs, our own livelihoods – yet. But when they do, who will fight for us tomorrow if we fail to stand up for those like the New Era residents, who need our support today?

Samuel Hooper is a freelance journalist. He blogs at SemiPartisanSam.com and can be found on Twitter @SamHooper.

Starbucks are at it again

The European Commission, the Brussels bit, have accused the government of the Netherlands and everybody's favourite multinational, tax-avoiding coffee chain - Starbucks, of cooking up some  cosy deal so the coffee shop pays  a very low rate of tax! This apparently is called a sweetheart deal.

So the Commission has launched an official investigation into the tax affairs of Starbucks, Apple and the car people Fiat.

These huge corporations are utterly shameless - they devote so much energy to dreaming up schemes that allow them to pay the smallest amount of tax they can possibly get away with, without the accounts department landing up in jail.

And then  they are so blasé about the whole bloody thing, I suppose it's just a disgraceful mindset they all pick up at accountancy college.

Now no one likes paying tax  but we all do: income tax, VAT, National Insurance, fuel tax, council tax.

So imagine you rang up HMRC (the taxman) one day and said: "I'd like to renegotiate how much tax I pay, this PAYE system is a bit harsh."

What do you think they would say?

That is exactly what corporations do - they NEGOTIATE with governments all over Europe over how much tax they are willing to pay. The Oxford English Dictionary defines tax thus: n. 1 a compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on personal income and business profits  or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions. Now what's wrong with that? I think the key word there is compulsory.

There are other countries that the European Commission are interested in investigating; Cyprus, Ireland, Gibraltar, Luxembourg and Malta.

Who cares about mental health?

The mental health charity Mind issued a report this week on the quality of mental health prevention care in England. This report arose from a freedom of information request they submitted to all the 152 local authorities in England. Of these, 86 authorities complied and responded.

It was during the NHS reforms of April 2013 that responsibility for mental health care was moved from local Primary Care Trusts to local authorities.

The report concluded that on average just 1.4 per cent of public health budgets are spent on mental health care! Now you don't need to have a medical background to realise that this is woefully inadequate. Some areas don't even plan to spend a single penny on mental ill-health prevention.

According to the Time to Change campaign, which is a national movement to end mental health discrimination and stigma led by the Rethink Mental Illness and Mind charities; One in four of us will experience a mental health problem in any given year.

That 1.4 percent of public health spending equates to a total of £40 million annually,So compare that figure to these annual spending amounts:

• £76 million on increasing physical activity
• £160 million on anti-smoking initiatives
• £671 on sexual health initiatives

The cost of mental ill-health to the nation is vast - it is estimated that mental health difficulties cost England approximately £100 billion annually. This is through lost working days, benefits, lost tax revenues and the cost of treatment.

It was eight years ago; October 2008, that David Cameron came out with his famous quote: "the NHS is safe in my hands,"

Surely mental health care in England is worth more attention and money than this?

Cameron forgives Freudian slip

So now we know what Lord Freud really thinks of people with disabilities. Lord Freud is the Welfare Reform minister. He addressed a fringe meeting at the Tory Conference. This gave him the opportunity to explain to his audience what kind of reforms he had in mind for people with disabilities: in an answer to a question he agreed that some people with disabilities were "not worth" the minimum wage and should be paid £2 an hour.

Less than 24 hours later some lackey composed, on his behalf, a fulsome apology. This was on the orders of David Cameron. Dame Anne Begg MP who herself uses a wheelchair said he should "consider his position". If Cameron had any gumption he'd have kicked him out of the Cabinet straight away!

Baron Freud has got form for this - being a completely tactless, rich bastard. He was the man who originally coined the phrase "lifestyle benefit claimant",  he has also denied any link between cuts and people using a growing number of food banks.

Try telling that to the Trussell Trust who have launched over 400 food banks. They have seen an almost three-fold increase in the numbers using them in the twelve months from 2012-13 to 2013-14. This total was over 900 000 people. Chris Mould the Chairman of the Trussell Trust describes these figures as "the tip of the iceberg".

Then you've got Cameron boasting in the Commons about the lowest unemployment since 2008. Now that's all very well but this information comes with a caveat: everybody knows their living standards have declined; energy prices are sky high, a report by Which this week tell us that energy costs have risen by an average of £410 in ten years, that is 52 per cent over and above inflation. Then there are pay freezes for the public sector workers, On Monday this week there was  public sector workers strike for 24 hours in protest at this. This resulted in 200 000 PCS (Public and Commercial Services Union) workers demonstrating nationwide.

So the unemployment figures have gone down but this is illusory when you consider the numbers working part-time, zero hours contracts...

If we were to believe David Cameron everything here in the garden here at UK PLC is rosy, George Osborne is a fantastic Chancellor.

Then there is the Child Poverty Map published this week by the End Child Poverty campaign, this is published annually. On this map you can see the areas most blighted. It is broken down into Parliamentary constituencies, then in to wards for better focus. Ten of most deprived constituencies are in London.

The aim of the End Child Poverty campaign is to eradicate child poverty by 2020 this is something often trumpeted by David Cameron. However it seems this government is failing. The Institute of Fiscal Studies who are an independent research institute, have warned the government that by the time of the General Election in May 2015 the numbers of children classified as living in poverty will have risen by 400 000. They go further; they calculate that by 2020 the figure will have increased by 1 million.

David Holmes of the End Child Poverty Group said: "We are concerned that this draft strategy as it stands, falls short of what is required to guarantee a reduction in child poverty and is just not radical enough to meet the goal of ending child poverty. Tackling child poverty requires bold action across wider society, for example to tackle low pay, unaffordable rents and crippling childcare costs."

I don't think this is anything for Mr Cameron to brag about.

Lies, posturing, defections, elections and resignations

So it is the conference season again, oh joy.

The Labour conference passed by with little comment apart from the fact Ed Milliband forgot his lines and subsequently didn't mention the deficit.

We had better luck with the Tory one which kicked off in much more interesting way, two weekend's ago. First of all we had an MP who nobody had ever heard of - Brooks Newmark, the 56 year old MP for Braintree in Essex. He resigned when it emerged that he had sent a 21 year old Tory public relations "girl" a picture of himself, which was described as "explicit" in the press. I haven't seen this picture myself but he is apparently only wearing the top half of his pyjamas! For this he will go down as a sad episode in Tory history, his wife and his five children haven't said what they think.

In a further irony, Mr Newmark was the Minister for Civil Society who were campaigning to get more women involved in politics.

I tell a lie, we have heard of him, he's the pillock who agreed when asked a question: "that charities should stick to their knitting and stay out of politics".

It used to be said that the Tories were always involved in sex scandals and the Labour Party scandals always involved money. The situation clearly isn't that black and white nowadays.

Then there was another defection to UKIP.

I remember the referendum in 1975 to join what was then called the Common Market and the Tories have been arguing bitterly about it ever since, that's nearly 40 years!

Nigel Farage knows this - he's older than me and he's been playing on this ever since he was one of the founding members of UKIP in September 1993.

I don't think I know any Tories but I can only think this is their standard Pavlovian response to Johnny Foreigner and the fact that the EU costs an absolute fortune. Let's face it we all know that whole chunks of EU infrastructure that are a profligate waste of money.

It would be utter madness to come out of the EU - it may cost an arm and a leg to run and wastes money hand over fist but the UK and the EU are gigantic trading partners. The most recent figures I can find on the HMRC website are for the month of July 2014. We, the UK, imported goods from EU to the tune of £19.6 billion for that month. We sold goods to EU countries to the tune of £12.3 billion for that month. Although these figures fluctuate they have remained consistent for the last 18 months. OK so there is a trade deficit but whichever way you look at it these figures amount to an awful lot of jobs on both sides of the English Channel.

So the other bit of news that came out the weekend of the Tory conference was that a Tory MP defected to UKIP, this is another MP we've never heard of; Mark Reckless, He is well known as a Eurosceptic. After his defection to UKIP, this poor soul has had to move himself and his family; he is married and has two children, to a secret location. According to Nigel Farage "this is because he has been subjected to really unpleasant, nasty, abuse."

As far as I can tell, or it's maybe just wishful thinking on my part but is the Tory Party in trouble? Eight Tory MPs who got elected in 2010 have already indicated that they will not be standing in next year's election. Louise Mensch has buggered off to America, to write and look after her family. She was also elected in 2010. Boris has already started jostling to place himself in an ideal position to stand to be the next leader of the Conservative Party. UKIP are on the way up and will damage the Tories more than the Labour Party, although I think  they will make inroads into both.

My thanks go to my friend Suzanne Cowling who pointed out to me that it was Brooks Newmark who made the snide remark about charities.

Mental Health England- A Car Crash

Mental Health in England is a car crash, according to the outgoing president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Prof Sue Bailey said that the mental health services are in crisis, she also accused the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt MP of lacking the basic understanding of mental health.

Mr Hunt rejected this, saying; he had made it a priority and that he visited the front line of the NHS most weeks and pledged £450 million in funds.

I don’t know whether Mr Hunt lacks the basic understanding of mental health or not. However, you would expect a health secretary to have studied medicine, or at least worked in the medical field. Nothing in Mr Hunt’s impressive resume suggests that he has ever rubbed shoulders with a mental health patient, at least in a professional manner.

Mr Hunt majored in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, perhaps, that explains why he justified his position by referring to the funds pledged.

Funds are essential to tackle the mental health catastrophe facing us as a nation. However, it is a drop in the ocean of the list of requirements to establish a mental health system which can withstand the test of time.

I am sure that Mr Hunt is aware of the fact that the most common forms of mental illness are mixed anxiety and depression; with one in four of us likely to develop some form of the illness in their life time, and with 9% meeting the criteria for diagnosis according to the Office of National Statistics.

In most cases the depression or anxiety was triggered by external factors rather than biological or internal factors. To help these people, in addition to the money and the facilities, they need further help which money could not buy; they need empathy, care and love, these poor people lost their sense of purpose and are in desperate need of a leader figure to remind them of their true value as members of the society; that could have a more lasting effect than tons of medicine and equipment shipped from China, when they have had a rough day of therapy and unemployment, the last thing they want to come back home to is a Minister calling them scroungers.

Arguably love and empathy are usually provided by family, friends or partners. Or is it? Love could be provided through many mediums such as religion, art, music etc.

Fortunately the awareness among charities and social enterprises and non-governmental organizations is at its highest levels, each year the Mental Health Foundation supports a mental health week which aims at raising awareness, the last event was held 12-17 May and focused on anxiety, and the next event is expected to focus on relationships.

What is Beauty the Exhibition is another illustration of how concerned local communities are, endeavouring to spread the love through art, film, poetry and painting. And a forum aiming at establishing “what beauty means to each and every one of us”, perhaps, discover a universal meaning for beauty in the process.

The Exhibition is expected to be held in Hackney on 22 July, and is sponsored by Poached Creative and Mediorite; the exhibition is in support of a petition to properly fund mental health services.

On the other hand; and In Mr Hunt’s defence, the first thing the current coalition government did after removing Labour from power was to publish a new health strategy for England in 2011 aiming at improving the quality of care and reducing the number of patients.

 The strategy seemed fine on paper and was widely welcomed. However, in reality it was faced by many setbacks; the economic recession had its bearing on the strategy; it led to significant extra pressure on parts of the population (fear of debt or losing a house or a job and so forth) which consequently led to a dramatic increase in the number of reported mental health problems; normally about half people with common mental health problems are no longer affected after eighteen month. However poor people, the long term sick and unemployed people, are more likely to be affected; the economic climate provided all the previous ingredients, which in turn provided the recipe for disaster.

  Furthermore, the mental health problem is as old as mankind. It wasn’t until recently that it has been acknowledged and steps taken to address it.

 In all fairness, it is only under New Labour that this country had a half functioning Mental Health Authority, prior to the Second World War, persons with mental illness symptoms were treated through confinement, in the period also known as the asylum era.1959 saw the introduction of the land mark Mental Health Act, followed up by advances in psychiatry and drug treatment, and greater emphasis on human rights accompanied by advances in social science and institutionalisation theory.

Generally most people with mental illnesses received no organised systemic care until the 19^th century, care was basic and comprised of basic sedative drugs and bathes in various shapes and forms to calm the patient down. Therefore, it could be argued that the mental health system in this country has not yet truly and fully evolved, which makes the responsibility placed on Mr Hunt and the NHS the greater.

Prof Sue Bailey, a consultant child and adolescent forensic psychiatrist in Manchester, will be replaced by Sir Simon Wessely as president of the royal college.

She said, she will continue to promote mental health services, but in a broader context:

"One way to make societies healthier, including mentally healthier, is to invest in the health and education of women because women play this vital role in the rearing of the next generation,"

Makeover for homeless man

Below is a link to a film that has gone viral on YouTube recently, I think it speaks for itself, check it out. As a result lots of money was donated to a homeless charity called Degage Ministries in Grand Rapids, Michigan in the US.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24943101

A civil partnership made in heaven?

This week saw the first anniversary of the Coalition government. So what are we to make of it all? Here are some of the highlights.

May

I vividly remember the day that Clegg and Cameron held that nauseous press conference in the garden at 10 Downing Street. There was a chap on the BBC London radio news in the morning of 12 May who referred to them as looking like an upmarket Ant and Dec. I could see what he meant inasmuch as there are times when you can barely tell which one is which. But then I was left wondering did he also mean that they talk drivel, aren't funny and are classed as light entertainment?

Rising star, David Laws, resigns after 17 days in the job, after allegations of financial misdemeanors. A year later he is suspended from the Commons, for seven days, for what are described as "serious breaches". This is from a man who is, in that age-old cliche, a self-made man. An ex-banker and a millionaire caught fiddling his expenses. It beggars belief, and he was being lined up to be the Chancellor's right-hand man!

June

George Osborne set out his budget. VAT increases from 17.5% to 20%. Child benefit and public sector pay are frozen. Housing benefit cuts are announced that will affect thousands. Personal tax allowances went up.

August
The Coalition passes 100 days in power. Samantha Cameron has a baby daughter.

September
The Liberal Democrats have their annual conference, which Nick Clegg comes through relatively unscathed. Telling the party faithful the Lib-Dems are doing "great things" in government and that the party should "hold its nerve" whatever criticism comes their way. As if to back him up MPs vote to scrap ID cards (which no government was going to fund) heralding it as fulfilling one of their coalition pledges.

October
This month sees George Osborne explain in detail his Comprehensive Spending Review. In June cuts to the welfare bill were said to be £11 billion. In early September he announced a further £4 billion, by the time of his Comprehensive Spending Review the total cuts to the welfare budget amounted to a total of £18 billion.

November

Student protests against tuition fees dominate the news. In the majority of cases fees are set to triple. The headquarters of the conservative party were beseiged and some gathered on the roof. An effigy of Nick Clegg was burnt.

December
Sure enough, in the commons MPs voted to raise the tuition fee cap.


January
After months of speculation about Andy Coulson's ability to be Director of Communications for David Cameron, he finally resigns. He had repeatedly denied knowledge of phone hacking in spite of being editor of the News of the World at the time it was going on. I don't think this tells us anything about the government, but to me it indicates an appalling lack of judgement on the part of the Prime Minister.


AprilThe Cabinet announces what it terms a pause, in their overhaul of the NHS. This, they say, is to consult further over the proposals for a shake-up. This is after Andrew Lansley became the first Health Minister to get a vote of no confidence from the Royal College of Nursing Conference. The whole thing strikes me as a fiasco.



May
The Liberal Democrats have a disastrous time in the local English elections and the national elections in Scotland and Wales, and what rankles them further is that the Tory vote holds up well. And to cap a bad night for Nick Clegg the referendum for AV was a resounding no.

So all things considered, what do I make of the Coalition's first year?
The way I see it the Tories spent a long time in opposition, so they had a long time to consider what they would do when they got back in power. The Lib-Dems are clearly the junior partner in this coalition and I think that shows. So the Tories have been able to pick on their long-standing bogey men; the poor, the unemployed, the disabled, these are the people who have borne the brunt of their economic policies. Sure, they inherited an economy mired in trouble, but they have chosen the direction to take the country in, all the while assuring us that their old friend, the free market will get us out of trouble.

that nice, sensitive Michael Gove...

Just over a week ago (10 September) the Education Secretary, Michael Gove was asked this question by Luciana Berger MP in the House of Commons: "What can he and his Government do to ensure no students turn up to school embarrassed because they don't have the right clothes?"

He said he had recently visited a food bank in his Surrey Heath constituency. He went on: "I appreciate that there are families who face considerable pressures. Those pressures are often the result of decisions that they have taken which mean they are not best able to manage their finances."

Ms Berger said she was "appalled" by his remarks. "People I have met are ashamed to have to turn to food banks. I vehemently disagree it is because they have mismanaged their finances." In 2012 Ms Berger who is the MP for Liverpool Wavertree, made a short film in 2012 Breadline Britain which centres around this issue.

The Trussell Trust, who run almost 400 food banks in the UK, have some statistics about the work that they do: Since April 2012 they have seen an increase in the numbers of foodbanks of 76% but a 170% increase in the numbers of people given emergency food. That number is 346 992 in 2012/13 and relates to the period up to April 2013. That is to say the figures are before the benefit changes came in.

The Trussell Trust see the main causes as the rising cost of living, static incomes, underemployment and unemployment, all things that lead to increasing numbers of people hitting a a crisis causing them to turn to the Trussell Trust.

The Executive Chairman of the Trussell Trust, Chris Mould says: "The sheer volume of people who are turning to foodbanks because they can't afford food is a wake-up call to the nation that we cannot ignore the hunger on our doorstep. Politicians across the spectrum urgently need to recognise the real extent of UK food poverty and create fresh policies that better address its underlying causes. This is more important than ever as the impact of the biggest reforms to the welfare state since it began start to take effect. Since 1 April we have already seen increasing numbers of people in crisis being sent to foodbanks with nowhere else to go."

Old habits die hard

So Vodafone are at it again, that is, not paying their taxes.

According to Robert Peston, the BBC's business correspondent in: "one of the biggest deals in corporate history", Vodafone have just made themselves and their shareholders the rather tidy sum of £84 billion.

However due to the way the company is structured they will not be paying the UK government any tax revenue. This all quite legal. They are selling their 45% stake in Verizon wireless to the US telecoms group Verizon Communications. The US business is owned by a Dutch holding company. They will be paying $5 billion in tax to the US government.

So worldwide, Vodafone's shareholders are set to receive £54 billion. In the UK dividends will be to the tune of £22 billion. The shareholders will however be expected to pay tax on their dividends

Depression, Discrimination, and (no) DSS

Last year I became depressed. Really depressed. Clinically can’t-get-out-of-bed just-want-to-die depressed. So depressed I could no longer handle my job and had to go on long-term sick leave for several months.  

I got sick pay but it came nowhere near to paying my rent and living costs, but I found out I was entitled to housing benefit. Now all I needed was a letter from my live-in landlord to prove I lived there and paid rent, as I had no tenancy agreement.

The landlord refused to give me a letter. He told me that if he did he would have to pay taxes and raise everybody’s rent, and “you don’t want that, do you?” “No” I said, intimidated.

Since he wouldn't give me a letter and the rent was paid in cash, leaving no paper trail, I could not prove I paid rent and so receive housing benefit. Over the next few months I spent my life savings (around £1000) on living and rent. Most of the time I was still too depressed to get out of bed.

As my savings started to run out, I panicked and started looking for flats. All I see is

NO DSS
NO DSS
SORRY NO DSS

Some don’t say this. So I call up and ask, explaining my circumstances – and they tell me “NO DSS”.

My fragile depressed mind could not cope with this constant rejection, nor the quickly looming threat of homelessness. I had no one I could stay with.

I try a local homeless centre, who only had very limited flats in obscure places with old men. As a young woman who has had a lot of bad experiences, this does not feel safe to me. I am scared and frightened and can’t cope and just want somewhere safe to live.

Desperate, I decide to lie. I start pretending I’m still working when I call potential landlords. The first flat I see is hellish, 14 stories up in the middle of nowhere with a balcony I could see myself jumping off.  The second, however, seemed perfect. Nice room, nice area, nice kitchen. Unfortunately like the last landlord the landlady lived-in and demanded cash-in-hand. But my money was almost gone and I needed to move fast, and I was able to claim housing benefit at this address, without her knowledge.  

A few weeks after moving in she became suspicious of my presence in the house. Although I had planned to make myself scarce during the day, my depression got the better of me and I spent too many days in bed. She was heavily pregnant so she didn't work.

She pulls me aside one day and starts shouting and demands to know if I’m on DSS. I deny everything. She says if she finds out I’m on DSS she will kick me out.  She won’t tell me why she would kick me out.

Because she is a live-in-landlord it is perfectly legal for her to evict me for any reason with ‘reasonable notice’ – which can mean any time.

Being threatened with homelessness again, being watched at home and forced to be out the house eight hours a day, pretending I’m at work, with nowhere to go, no money and no one to talk to - sent me into a suicidal tailspin.

Between visit’s to A&E and the Samaritans, I applied to council housing, stating my depression made it really hard for me to live with people and I couldn't cope anymore. It took forever and was a real struggle to get together. Exhausted but victorious, I handed the application in. The sour-faced assistant told me it would take 13 weeks just to look at my application. My application had several signed statements saying I was suicidal and my housing stress was the major contributor to this. I was advised that if I wanted it any sooner than this, I would have to make myself homeless. Then they might put me in a hostel. Or something.

Needless to say I couldn't cope with making myself homeless. The council was true to their word and didn't get back for 13 weeks, by which time, thankfully I had found accommodation. A friend’s landlord took pity on me and agreed to rent out the small room to me, knowing I was on DSS and was struggling to find a place to live. I can only imagine this was because she met me as her tenant’s friend first, realised I was a decent human being and not ‘DSS scum’.

I’m now four months into my tenancy, complete with a real tenancy agreement, and I love my new flat. So a happy ending for me. But my happy ending was due to sheer luck, and the story could have turned out a lot differently. And I’m sure has turned out very differently for lots of other vulnerable people.

I am still so frustrated that it is perfectly legal to discriminate against people on housing benefit in this way. Perhaps it would not be a problem, if the government was not relying so heavily on the private sector ‘to provide’ for DSS tenants, whilst offering no incentive for doing so or penalties for not doing so. Furthermore, despite low rates of occurrence ‘benefit fraud’ is never out of the papers, but I have yet to read about the private landlords who are dodging taxes and exploiting vulnerable tenants.  

Smoke and mirrors

Evasion of tax is illegal, avoiding paying tax is not, hence the numbers of people who earn their living as accountants.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines tax as : n 1 a compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on personal income and business profits or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions.

I am a tax evader. I buy my fags duty free from under the counter. This is really common where I live and nearly everybody I know buys their roll ups this way.

But I am not::

• Google
• Amazon
• Starbucks
• Apple 
• Thames Water 
• Vodafone     

These multimillion pound companies avoid paying tax out of principle.

So who's criminal?

It gets worse before it gets better

I felt a bit guilty when I heard the ruling that the ESA Work Capability Assessment was unfair to people with mental health problems.

I've recently gone through the same process for depression. However - unlike the court claimants - I was lucky and spared the much-dreaded interview, and was fully successful in my claim.

Despite my experience, I wholeheartedly agree that the process is unfair on people with mental health problems. Here’s why.

I have a Masters in Social Policy, so I know a fair bit about benefits, and I did my dissertation on mental health, so I’m pretty clued up about that too. But there was no chance that I would have been able to fill out the necessary forms without an advice worker helping me over several sessions.

Fortunately I also happened to have a slew of evidence – GP notes, psychiatrist reports - from previous desperate (and failed) attempts to get appropriate housing and treatment. They were not easy to get and I found it distressing repeating ‘my story’ to stranger after stranger.

I had two advisers from separate organisations tell me that I should bring someone with me to the Work Capability Assessment interview – not for moral support, but to take notes due to regular reports of interviewers just making stuff up and ignoring evidence given.

Sorry, what? Seriously? Like the process wasn't already stressful and difficult enough, I also had to ensure I could protect myself against fraudulent reports made by the government against me. (no, paranoia is not one of my symptoms, but no prizes for guessing who would win that court case)

Luckily I was spared that misery, but that didn't stop me fretting about it for weeks.

The whole application was a complete nightmare to pull together, making my depression worse, when I just wanted to focus on pulling myself together. Getting better. So I wouldn't have to be on benefits.

Isn't that the point?

Work Capability Assessments discriminate against vulnerable claimants

So judges have ruled today in favour of two claimants with mental health problems who claimed  that the test for sickness benefit would discriminate against them. The law requires that the government should make reasonable adjustments to avoid discrimination. The judges at the Upper Tribunal ruled that the Work Capability Assessment puts people with mental illness, autism and learning difficulties at a substantial disadvantage.

Work Capability Assessment (WCA) tests, are designed to measure a person's entitlement to Employment and Support Allowance. ( ESA) They are supposed to determine whether someone is fit for work. They are run by a French company Atos on behalf of the government. They have proved controversial with the claimants being subjected to these assessments. In fact, according to the the government's Public Affairs Committee, the Department of Work and Pensions' decisions have been overturned in 38% of appeals.

Lawyers for the two individuals who won their legal challenge today argued that where the claim is from someone with a mental health problem, it should be the government's responsibility to seek additional medical evidence. Under the current system, evidence from a professional, such as a GP or a social worker,is expected to be provided by the claimants themselves. There is no obligation for the DWP to collect this evidence, even on behalf of the most vulnerable - apart from in rare cases.

Almost 20 000 people are assessed each week for ESA in England , Wales and Scotland - these are figures provide by the DWP. More than a third of these people are claiming primarily for mental health problems, meaning thousands of people each month are going through a process that puts them at a substantial disadvantage.

UK charities; Rethink Mental Illness, Mind and the National Autistic Society all intervened in the case to provide evidence based on the experiences of their members and supporters. Mind's chief executive Paul Farmer said: "The judgement is a victory, not only for the two individuals involved in this case, but for thousands of people who have experienced additional distress and anxiety because they have struggled through an assessment process which does not adequately consider the needs of those with mental health problems."

A spokesperson for the DWP said: "We disagree with today's ruling and intend to appeal."

Fiddling while Rome burns

So the country is in a mess, I think we can all agree on that. So what are the Tories doing about it? OK we all know that there is a Coalition Government but the Conservatives are the major partner, both in numbers and influence.

So instead of concerning themselves with addressing the multitude of problems our country face, the Tory party are doing what they do best; bickering among themselves about their favourite subject - Europe and the European Union, endlessly. They have been banging on about this for weeks. 

Truth be told they have been banging on about this for forty years! We joined what was then the Common Market in January 1973 and they have not stopped bickering about it since.

This week the new unemployment figures were released. The Office for National Statistics announced a small increase in unemployment to 2.52 million.

The numbers of NEETS (Young people not in employment, education or training) is just under one million. That is more than one in seven 16 to 24 year olds. This is according to the Work Foundation who go on to say: "The UK has experienced the fastest rise in youth unemployment of any country in the G8 since the start of the recession and now has the third worst levels in the OECD."

There are 660 000 people in the UK affected by the bedroom tax.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, in a report out this week: "Income inequality increased by more in the first three years of the crisis to the end of 2010 than it had in the previous twelve years." 

The report goes on: "After taxes and transfers, the richest 10 per cent of the population in OECD countries earned 9.5 times the income of the poorest 10 per cent in 2010, up from 9 times in 2007."

So are the Tory Party occupying themselves with these problems? No, they would prefer to posture and preen and endlessly discuss something that isn't going to happen until 2017 if at all!