They're back!

The original 'welfare rights lit' stories

A couple of days ago I saw a photograph of an alleged UKIP leaflet on Facebook which read:

"We could likely remove six million cars from the road if benefits claimants were not driving.  Why do they have the privilege to spend the tax payers hard earned money on a car, when those in work are struggling to keep their own car on the road?  These people really could catch a bus!"


That had to be a hoax - didn't it?  Well no, actually - it really had been put out by Leicestershire UKIP Councillor and prospective parliamentary candidate Lynton Yates!

That's just the latest and most extreme sign of how 'benefits bashing' is seen to be a vote winner.  While it has been encouraging to see some good articles and proper debate around the impact of 'welfare reform' on income inequality and the misery of sanctions, especially in the good old Guardian (who can consider themselves forgiven for overlooking Severe Discomfort as a potential 'self-published book of the month' last autumn - though it would have helped the cause mightily), on the other side of the propaganda war Channel 5 are churning out ever more outlandish 'Big Fat Benefits...' freak-shows and advertising for benefit fraud tip-offs for a new show, while Channel 4 are lining up a new series of Benefits Street for the spring.

It must therefore be time for the Walker family and their allies at the Solent Welfare Rights Project to step forward to do battle again.  The first part of a new serial - 'Claimant Commitment' - is out now and free to download this weekend.  You should find it here


It's a coincidence - and not a happy one - that as the focus of this story shifts to the Project's local Jobcentre and the reign of terror instigated by a ferocious new manager, in reality Southampton finds itself named as a sanctions hot-spot second only to Derby, with over 9% of JSA claimants having their benefits cut.

Spooky!

The team also brace themselves for the Bedroom Tax, get involved with their local Foodbank and face up to life after Legal Aid. How will it all end?

I wish I knew! 

The Spirit of '84

 

  'This is where it all started, you know.'
  Daphne Randall slipped the centre rope through a metal hoop on the quayside and held it fast as Hilary Carrington stepped gingerly from the stern onto the frosty flagstones.  Her friend was still recovering her boat legs, but remembered enough of the routine to secure the stern rope as Daphne tied off the bowline.
  'So this was the actual pottery that your mother's coach party came to?' asked Hilary.  She had heard the story many times of how old Mrs Randall stowing away on a coach at a motorway service station had brought Daphne to the Potteries, but this was her first visit to the place where the old lady was safely retrieved.
  Daphne rested her arms on the roof of her boat as her glance swept back along the canal.  There had been no ice on the water that day, only glinting sunlight and a scattering of litter as the boat she now called home had putted past and she had waved to its cheeky-faced skipper.
  'Fancy a brew, Hils?'  She had planned to show her friend the restored Victorian offices and the bottle kiln first, but the trip up from Etruria had been bitterly cold and she needed something to thaw her out.
  'Rather!'  Hilary agreed.
  Tea and snacks were no longer served in a corner of the Seconds Shop.  Instead, the glass doors of a smart new cafe overlooked the canal, facing across the water to a mural that mirrored the chintzy china for which Burleigh was famous.
  'Grab a seat by the stove, Hils and I'll get the drinks.'
  'My treat - I insist!'
  Daphne settled herself onto a leather sofa and relaxed in luxury beside a glowing stove.  Moments later, her friend landed a tray with two generous cream-crested mugs of hot chocolate and two rich chocolate brownies on the table before her.
  'I see you're not cutting down after Christmas!'
  Hilary cast herself onto the leather sofa.  'There's plenty of time for that once we get back home,' she said.  'And actually, we didn't go mad over Christmas or New Year - we were on edge waiting for the news from Skipton...'
  'So do I have to call you Grandma now?' 
  'I'd really rather you didn't!'
  Daphne chuckled.  Advancing age was always a sensitive point with Hilary.
  'There's something else to remind us we're getting old,' said Daphne, raising her eyes to the heavens and the background music.  'I well remember the first time they released Do They Know It's Christmas, and this has to be the third or fourth version now.'
  Hilary smiled thoughtfully.  'We were talking about Christmas songs and our memories of them when we had our Christmas Eve drink at work.  The others told some funny and touching stories - I did laugh at Paula's, as I know her father-in-law and he is a bit of a character.  But this was my tune, thanks to the Christmas Party you organised for the Miners' children during the strike.  I could remember it playing at the end and...'  She dabbed her eyes with her napkin.
  'Aw pet!  Don't get all upset!  I always think of it as one of the happiest memories of that year.  There wasn't a lot a bunch of students could do to help but giving the kiddies a party with jelly and ice-cream, balloons, cakes and all the other things that they'd usually take for granted at Christmas was something we could do.'
  'Except we didn't know how much work it would involve - Sandra and I must have spent days making butterfly cakes and I'd never cut up so many sandwiches in my life!'  Hilary cut her brownie into dainty squares.  'I thought we'd have a lot more helpers.'
  'We always thought everyone was on our side, didn't we?' Daphne slurped her chocolate and wiped cream from the tip of her nose.  'Mind you, a lot of the others had started going home for Christmas so we shouldn't have been surprised to find it was just the die-hards left - or should that be die-hard lefties?'
  'Buttering bread and grating cheese for the cause!' Hilary laughed.  'Hardly the stuff of proletarian revolution.'
  'I don't know.  We could have built proper barricades out of Morag's scones!'
  'Don't be unkind!'  Hilary looked pensive again.  'They all got eaten.'
  'I'm not surprised at that.  The kiddies didn't stop tearing about from the moment they arrived, except for that first twenty minutes of furious feasting, and we were run ragged keeping them entertained after that.' 
  'Where did that bouncy castle come from?  I don't think I'd ever seen one until then.  I certainly hadn't been on one before.'
  'I don't remember, Hils, but I think you trying it out was the high point of the evening for a quite few of the lads!'
  Hilary was sipping her hot chocolate and her laugher blew a few bubbles of whipped cream onto the table.  'It was your speech before the children arrived that impressed me,' she said.
  'I don't remember any speech,' said Daphne. 
  'Well, perhaps it wasn't really a speech - more of a briefing.  You told all of us helpers that we were to remember that it was a party for the children, and that while we were there for political reasons, because we wanted to support the Miners and encourage them to carry on, the children weren't coming for a lesson in political science and lectures on Socialism, but to have fun and forget the strike for a couple of hours.  "I don't wanna hear any political shit from any of yous," you said.  And then you opened the doors...'
  'And all hell broke, with a horde of bairns bearing down on the food tables as if they hadn't seen scran like it for months...'
  'Which they hadn't,' Hilary recalled.  'That's what brings a tear to my eye - that when it was time to go home, they were loading all the left-over sandwiches and cakes, and even Morag's scones, onto paper party plates and in plastic bags so they could take it away.  I'll never forget that.  I'd never seen children so desperate for food.  I never thought I would again.'
  'But we have lately, haven't we?' Daphne said. 
  'I know.  There are families without enough money for food everywhere, only this time it's sanctions, benefit cuts and zero-hours contracts to blame.  And of course the poor little children don't understand...'
  'I think you'll find those poor little children sometimes understand better than you think.'  Unexpectedly, Daphne smiled.  'You mentioning my pep-talk and the wee'uns gathering up the spare food at the end reminded me of something.  I was helping a couple of little lads, about nine or ten I suppose, to make a parcel of sandwiches, when one says to me, "I hate that Maggie Thatcher, Miss!  Do you?"  And I said, "I certainly do, boys.  But one day she'll be dead and gone and people will stop believing in her way of doing things, and we'll be here to see it, and we'll have won."  And they cheered, and carried on stacking their plates with sandwiches, until their mams came to take them home.'
  'Only it feels like she's never gone away,' Hilary sighed.  'And if anything, more people than ever seem to believe in Thatcherism.  After all, we have the two main parties squaring up for the election commited to making much the same cuts over slightly different timescales, and the ghastly UKIP, who are essentially turbo-charged Thatcherites, supposedly offering an alternative.  That doesn't feel like a victory to me.'
  'I believed what I said then Hills, and I believe it still,' Daphne asserted.  'Mark my words, pet; we'll see a change in our lifetimes.'
  'What makes you so sure?'
  'These things go in cycles, don't they?  And it's time for the tide to turn.'
  'I do hope you're right.'  Hilary gazed out of the window and across the canal.  'For the sake of the next generation.' 
  'And the one after that to.  Here's to baby Freya, Grandma!'  Daphne raised her mug in salute. 
  'Don't call me that!'
  Hilary sounded fierce, but her eyes were smiling.
  

The Boy who wouldn't be King

  Toby returned to the table with a tray of drinks.

  'Lime and lemonade for Sally, small red for Hilary...'

  'Small?' she queried.

  'Doctor's orders, H.  Sip it slowly and make it last.  I don't want to be in trouble with your other half for leading you astray.'

  'I'm sure you don't and anyway, that's his job!'

  'Don't we know it!'  Toby laughed.  'G 'n' T for Vaughan, rum and coke for Paula, rum and coke - without the rum - for Deepak, cranberry and orange J2O for Tricia, non-alcoholic pish masquerading as lager for me...  Your good health, comrades!'

  'Cheers!'  A small wave of lime and lemonade splattered the table as Sally joined in the toast.  'It's great to see you all again.  Shame they've spoilt it by playing Cliff Richard!'

  'This isn't as bad as that other one of his,' Tricia said.

  'I don't know.  I used to get wall-to-wall Cliff at Christmas - my mum's his number one fan.'  Sally grimaced.  'So this is a sort of Christmas memories song, but not in a good way.'

  'Strangely, the other one - Saviour's Day - is my main Christmas memory song,' announced Deepak.

  'Commiserations, dear boy!' Vaughan said sincerely.

  'You really are a young fogey, mate!' Toby added.

  'It's not that I like it...'

  'It doesn't matter if you do.  Don't let them tease you.'

  'Seriously, Hilary - I don't like the song.  But I do like the memories from school that it brings back.'

  'The back-of-the-bike-sheds sort?'

  'Really Toby!  You are the limit!'

  'Not that sort at all,' Deepak answered shyly.  'I was only eleven.'

  'That was old enough at my old school!' Paula laughed. 'But go on, Deepak - tell us your story.'

  'And tell it loud enough to drown out Cliff,' Sally encouraged.

  'It's about our school nativity play, which finished with the choir singing that song,' Deepak explained.  'We lived out at Bishop's Waltham when I was little and, as the only Asian kid in the class, for two years running I was one of the three kings.  But in the final year I stood up for myself and, rather than be a king again said I wanted a proper grown-up reading to do, like the other top stream kids.'

  'Wicked!' Tricia cried.  'As the brightest kid in class I thought I was a shoe-in for the Virgin Mary, but I ended up as a shepherd.  No such thing as colour-blind casting back then!'

  'They always picked a pretty blond girl in my school,' Hilary said.  'Which is quite illogical really, isn't it?'

  'I was always an angel because I was tall and had a loud voice,' said Sally.  'I got to order the kings and shepherds about, which was excellent, and to tell Mary she was pregnant, which made her cry .'

  'You made Mary cry?  Oh my God!'

  'I didn't mean to, Paula, but a little while before my mum told me having babies was really painful - she was trying to put me off getting involved with boys - so I decided I had better warn Mary.'

  'You must have made a pretty kick-ass angel, Sazza,' Toby laughed.  He turned to Deepak.  'But what happened to the boy who didn't want to be a king?'

  'That involves a kick-ass angel too, actually.  When I stamped my feet and refused to be the king with the gold, I was marched along to the Deputy Head's room.  I thought I was going to be in trouble but Miss Ford was really kind.  She told me that my teacher was trying to be thoughtful by not giving me a reading in case my parents were unhappy, what with us being Hindus.  "If you are sure, I think I have just the story for you," she said.  "It's the very last reading."

  'I took the sheet of paper home and practiced it in my room all week, so I knew it by heart, because I knew that being small, if I had to look down at the paper while I read, nobody would hear me.  When we practiced in the school hall I was very nervous and I got some parts wrong, so on the afternoon when all the parents were there, including mine and my grandmother too, I had the most dreadful butterflies in my tummy.  I watched the whole story unfold and when the three kings arrived, thought how much better I would have been as the Gold King than Neil Sidney.  But I had no time to dwell on that, as it was time for my reading.  Looking back now, it was only a few sentences but, as a child, it might have been Hamlet!  I can still remember them.'  Deepak raised his voice.  '"Behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, 'Rise, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there till I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.'  And he rose and took the child and his mother by night, and departed to Egypt."'

  Deepak fell silent.  The whole pub seemed hushed, except for the dying chords of Mistletoe and Wine.

  'Bravo!' Vaughan applauded.

  'Fancy you remembering that!' said Tricia.  'I think our navity play finished with the three kings bringing their gifts.'

  'If the angel was as scary as Sally, I'm not surprised Joseph did as he was told!'  Toby said.  'But I don't remember anything I had to learn at school.'

  'I had a special reason for remembering my lines,' Deepak explained.  'After the play, Miss Ford came up to me and told me I had spoken up well, and she said, "Remember, if ever anyone is ever nasty to you because your family weren't born in this country, that Our Lord was once a refugee."  I promised I would remember, even though I didn't know what a refugee was then.  When I got home, I asked my mum and dad, and they told me about coming to England as children when their parents fled from Uganda, and I told them that the same had happened to baby Jesus and asked if my grandfathers had been told what to do by angels.'

  'Had they?'

  'Apparently not, Sally.'  Deepak smiled.  'It was a crucial moment for me, learning about my heritage.  I think that was when I realised I wanted to contribute something good to this country that had given my family safety and a fresh start.'

  'But then you got a job with the DWP!' said Toby.   'And that was the end of that!' 

  Hilary cleared her throat.  'Some very good people have worked for the DWP, haven't they, Toby?' 

  'And some still do,' Deepak answered quietly.