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.

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.

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.

Being me

Being unemployed is a very easy word to say but hard situation to be in. It’s a state of living that no one wants to be in but a lot of people are.

I’ve been unemployed for about a year and a half. I have been looking for jobs everywhere but there are none to be seen. Well, I am a student so it doesn’t really matter. On the plus side I do get the odd £30 a week from Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA), which this government is trying to get rid of.

But if you look at the surrounding parts of my life, not having a job is just the beginning of my desperate need of help. My mum is currently raising six children in a three-and-a-half bedroom house, and when I say three-and-a-half I mean the fourth bedroom is not even big enough to fit a single bed. On top of that she also attends college three days a week from 9am till 2pm, so a job is out of the question.

My step dad is 60 and retired, but wants to work again so in the near future he can start his own business; however the irony is that when my mum’s gone to college he has to baby-sit.


My aunty works Monday till Friday as a dinner lady but she doesn’t make nearly enough to help her with bills and to look after her 7 year old son.

I’ve got a set budget that I spend every week. As follows:
EMA payday- remember, EMA does not always come at a set date and it is not 100% that I will get it every week.
· Bus pass - £6.50
· Contribute to electric meter - £7
· Credit on my phone - £5
· Money that I save - £5
· Toiletries (deodorant and soap) - £3
· Cigarettes - £3

PROFIT-50p, LOSS-£29.50

So do you still think being unemployed is easy to say when you only live on 50p? Somehow I am still living. Sometimes I think of dealing on the other hand of the law but I don’t think I would be good role model to the younger generation in my family.

Being me is a way of life. Being me is being broke and angry. Being me is having to walk from Walthamstow to Clapton when you don’t have enough money on your Oyster (transport for London bus passes). BEING ME IS BEING UNEMPLOYED.

Bah, Humbug!

Christmas is undoubtedly the time of year when it is easiest to feel inadequate and shittiest about yourself if you are unemployed.

Bear in mind I'm not a parent so it's not even a question of letting down sad-eyed children on the big day.

I'm a bit of an atheist so the religious aspect of the day kind of passes me by.

My big sister has got loads of children, some of whom are grown-up with children of their own. Her old man is a trained chef (although he no longer works as one). So, as I'm sure you can imagine, they have all the right ingredients for a proper Christmas.

Absolute pandemonium Christmas Day morning; children of all ages running to-and-fro, making all manner of noise. A big Christmas lunch. Lots of TV. Enough children around all day long to ensure lots of bickering and falling out. The whole nine yards. An ideal Christmas Day.

I know this because I've been up to visit for Christmas in the past. It's guaranteed chaos but it is also guaranteed to be a good time.

But I won't be going this year. It costs nigh-on sixty quid to travel up there, and that's using National Express, to travel out of London. This is without buying any presents. I'm a great uncle six times over, so that's six little kiddies who wouldn't understand. So I'll keep away, feeling inadequate.

Moving on up

I’m at the job centre. My adviser tells me that I'm going to be put on a 13-week programme. “This programme aims to prepare you for employment and help you find work.” Since when did I become a mind reader? I knew my adviser would say those specific words. I've been told that ever since I have been claiming jobseekers allowance but there hasn’t been any progress.

Starting the 13-week program, I wasn’t sure what to expect. My first thought was this would be a waste of my time. It was going to be like the jobcentre. Walking into a room full of people with gloomy faces and downbeat attitudes, I thought this was a depressing atmosphere. I just felt like I wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere but here.

After the first four or five weeks on the programme I met the placement officer. I was told that after being on the programme for a while I would be sent on work experience. The placement officer was really nice and supportive. When I said I wanted to be a writer I wasn’t put down like I was at the job centre or told I wouldn’t make it.

The placement officer referred me to Poached Creative (a writing and design company for charities and the social sector). She told me that if I worked hard a lot of positives would come from this opportunity.

I joined as a trainee at Poached Creative. I was there two days a week. I actually got a taste of what it was like to be a writer in a working environment. It was so much better than sitting in a room full of computers and job searching all day, which I had to do for the three other days of the week.

I feIt I was, for once, moving forward in my life. Learning new things about the creative industry, picking up new skills. This was a whole new experience for me. The people at Poached Creative were very positive and supportive. I felt that this would be a chance to really show what I have to offer.

It was getting frustrating, sending out dozens of CVs to employers. Not hearing anything back. Here I was actually learning new things and getting a taste of the real working environment.

Coming to the end of my six-week training programme, I got offered a job at Poached Creative as a junior writer. At first it took me a while to get my head around it. I didn’t expect to get a job out of it.

After a couple of days I got back to them. This would be my first ever job; I’d be doing what I wanted for a long time. I was excited. I eventually got back to Poached Creative and took the job. For me a job offer like this doesn’t come every day. I’d be crazy to turn this offer down and I would regret this later.

Cockroaches!

I have got false teeth - only three at the front, a result of an accident on a pushbike. Night-time I put them to soak in water, in a little yoghurt pot on the side. This is on the dentist's advice to stop them from becoming brittle. The other morning I went to take them out of the pot only to find a cockroach floating in the pot right next to my false teeth, gross!

These things get everywhere. There was the time I was at college and I saw this big, shiny, brown, cockroach scurry across the carpet. I pointed this out and one of my fellow students shrieked. It was only on the lunchbreak that I realised I'd probably brought the thing along in my bag.

I have lived in London very nearly 26 years and in that time have had 11 addresses. That doesn't sound too bad, except on closer reflection four of those addresses lasted 22 years which means seven of those addresses lasted four years.

As I'm sure you can imagine these have varied hugely in quality. Of those 11 addresses, there's only been two premises that have had cockroaches. I think we all know that they say that cockroaches would survive a nuclear war.

Where I live now and have been for five years, is infested with cockroaches and I can hardly blame the landlord. Regular as clockwork, the bloke from the pest control people comes round and sprays some chemical gunk under the sink in my room and he visits every single room in the entire building.

The thing I wanted to mention is we get used to what life serves us up, we become inured, we become immune. This isn't right. But it is what you become accustomed to, so even though I now know more than I want to know about the life of a cockroach: I have seen them mate, I know how big their eggs are, I know the places in my room where they like to congregate, I even know that on occasion they will bite humans, I just shrug and put up with it.

People don't choose to live second class lives, but they come to understand sometimes they have no other option.