Stop Press

I need to stop grumbling about 'the press'.

An odd observation perhaps from a writer of 'counter-propaganda' on the day the Sun leads with a story about a woman allegedly blaming her obesity on over-generous benefits funding her take-away habit (truly Goebbels would blush at the antics of the Murdoch press!) but there are reasons to be cheerful this week.

After having a good moan in the 'Sour Grapes' post about how benefits experts never get their voices heard, I managed two separate mentions - with quotes - in the Sentinel (our local paper) and a reprise of one of the stories (a demonstration outside the Atos assessment centre) made the Mirror.  Sadly the photographer for the other story thought taking a portrait shot of a group with a fish-eye lens was a good plan and the resulting photo gives me a bigger head and scarier teeth than the 'Glenda the Lender' shark costume being modelled by a colleague at my side!

While at the Atos demo, I managed to get a few words with the local BBC political reporter and having agreed to do a longer interview by 'phone that evening, was subsequently called and asked to rearrange that to 7am the next morning in the studio.  'When was that again?' I asked, hoping I'd misheard him.

'7am'

It's still dark up here at 7am - isn't it?

You know that notorious George Osborne jibe about the people whose curtains are still drawn when you go off to work?  Those curtains are mine!  Luckily, I work quite flexible hours and as inspiration often strikes late in the evening, it's just as well I can get ready to go out according to Sally Archer's timeframe and come in to work at 9.30am. 

Actually it is light at seven by this time of year, as I found out on Thursday.  And they make fairly decent tea at Radio Stoke.  They even made the estimated £50 million of unclaimed benefits in the city their top news story for a little while.  But they don't warn you in advance that all they're after is a couple of minutes of chat and ideas to get a few people phoning in and that the crib sheet with all the benefit rates won't be needed, and you won't have time to explain why claiming Carers Allowance even if you won't be paid it makes sense.  And you certainly won't have time to do the severe disability premium!

I also discovered that 7.15 on a drizzly morning was a bad time to find that my CAB staff pass wouldn't let me into the building before 8am - luckily our caretaker did (despite claiming to be a Portsmouth supporter).

What I failed to do, being a benefits specialist rather than a politician or celebrity, was to plug my book.  I had an open goal to shoot at too.  Asked a 'curved ball' question about what I would do if I had a clean slate and could start again with the benefits system, I trod water for a few moments discussing the difficulty of addressing people's complicated lives without an equally complicated benefits system, and when pushed for an answer plumped for a non means-tested Basic Income for all - 'like retirement pension, but for all ages'.  Wrong answer!  The practiced celeb/politician would have seized the opportunity to explain that their deliberations on the subject could be found in their latest publication, priced £20.99 and available from all good bookshops.

Limited Capability won't be £20.99, by the way.  It should be under a tenner even at nearly 600 pages!

So that was a missed opportunity and sadly the media in my old home town (the Daily Echo and BBC Radio Solent) don't seem to have appreciated the PR copies of Severe Discomfort I sent to them a couple of weeks ago as nobody has been in touch.  But one of the PR books made a happier landing - on a desk at my Union's head office - and I was invited to do a blog about the book for them, which you can read here:
http://www.uniteforoursociety.org/blog/entry/the-other-side-of-benefits-street/

Let's hope that'll keep the biscuits coming in!