For the 'Do-gooders'

I would have been fifteen when I made up my mind that capital punishment was a 'bad thing'.  It happened quite suddenly at the end of a house assembly at secondary school, in which a fellow pupil and I had been chosen to debate the whether it was right or wrong.  I had never really given the subject much thought although both of my parents thought it should never have been abolished - which it finally had, about ten years earlier.


I let my opposite number pick her side first - she picked 'against' so I got 'for' by default.  Our house-master, who I will call 'Mr Curry', although that wasn't his name, primed us both with arguments and evidence to support our cases.  From the start, I felt that he gave my opponent more and better ammunition, including details of the Derek Bentley case.  I started to wonder if I had ended up on the wrong side.

On assembly day morning, my classmate and I delivered our little speeches to the bored hordes of our house with all the awkwardness self-consciousness you might expect from a couple of fifteen-year-old girls and absolutely no rhetorical skill whatsoever.  Mr Curry thanked us both and sent us back to our seats where I waited to hear him give a better explanation of why capital punishment was wrong.

He didn't.  Instead, quite unexpectedly, he launched into an emotive argument about why it was right and just, focusing on how he would feel if anyone killed someone close to him, especially his own young children, and how he would want that person dead.  I waited for him to qualify that with an observation that law shouldn't be made on the basis of raw gut instinct, except he seemed very much of the opinion that it should.  There was no attempt to present a properly balanced, reasoned argument; no comparison of murder or violent crime rates in countries with or without.  There wasn't even a feeble, faith-based 'Eye for an Eye' attempt to do so.  It was an ugly appeal to embrace revenge.  Coming from a teacher, it seemed completely wrong and shocking.  I expected adults in positions of responsibility to present logical arguments supported by solid facts or moral ones exhorting us to be better humans.  Naively, perhaps, I still do. 

Back in the 1970s, our politicians were passing anti-discrimination and equality laws which put them well ahead of public opinion, just as their predecessors had been when they abolished Capital Punishment - and corporal punishment in our schools - despite being derided as 'do-gooders'.  Fortunately for many innocent people wrongly convicted since, and many guilty ones willing and able to rehabilitate, MPs in the 1960s didn't wait on the whims of focus groups.  They argued and legislated out of conviction.  MPs still do, of course; the introduction of Civil Partnerships and, more recently Equal Marriage, being cases in point.  However, there are also times when principles are sacrificed to perceived political expediency; the Labour Party I joined in 1987 jettisoned so many that, even before the Iraq War, I had left it.

As campaigning in the EU referendum restarts after the respectful pause to remember murdered MP Jo Cox, I can't help but be reminded of that 1970s morning assembly.  Too much of the campaign has looked and sounded like Mr Curry's ranting.  With staggering hypocrisy, the usual suspects in the right-wing press filled their front pages with tributes to Jo Cox, nudging their anti-immigrant stories to the inside pages and muzzling Katie Hopkins and Richard Littlejohn for a moment, lest one of their bile-filled rants against 'lefty do-gooders' spoil the mood.  They will have every intention of resuming normal service as soon as possible but, perhaps as a tribute to Jo Cox, perhaps for the victims of the Orlando shootings, or simply to show that we are better than our capacity to hate, we must tell them we want better.  If you see hate speech against anyone lurking in the comments column of your local paper, on social media, in your workplace or down the pub, don't collude with it, call it out.  Support your local 'do-gooders' - better still, be one.

A watched pot never boils...

Biscuits are back on the menu!

I've posted previously about both my ineptitude at marketing and my general awkwardness when it comes to self-promotion, so I should probably celebrate the fact that I seem to sell or give away more books when I don't try to promote them that when I do.  I seem almost to have a knack for 'anti-marketing'.  Events this weekend have made the point rather dramatically.


I've been away from home and regular Internet access for a few days which, as luck would have it, coincided with the 'first Friday' (and Saturday and Sunday) when the first episodes of the 'welfare rights lit' stories are free to download, and also with a 'Grand Union' giveaway to coincide with the Etruria Boat Festival.  I managed a few tweets from work lunchtime Friday that 'Severe Discomfort' was free and a couple of friends kindly shared the usual Facebook/Amazon link but, otherwise, marketing was even less organised than usual.  So you can probably imagine my surprise, when checking sales figures on my return home, to find that on Saturday - the day after a 'Severe Discomfort' freebie day which shifted only single figures - more than thirty people decided to actually buy the book.  Hardly a level of sales to make the best-sellers lists but, for a three-year-old self-published novel in an obscure genre that can go weeks without a single paid download, that's both quite encouraging and completely inexplicable.  I hadn't even linked my tweets from the day before to topical hashtags so, even if #universalbasicincome or #don'tbelievetheDailyMail were trending, it wouldn't have helped.


I had a Google about to see if there had been some unexpected kindly review or reference, or even a slating from the Daily Mail Book Club (a truly terrifying concept in itself), but I've seen nothing to explain this little flurry of sales.  I can only hope that some of them turn into reviews and recommendations.  At least Stoke-on-Trent CAB's beleaguered staff can look forward to biscuits for what remains of my current contract, after a few months of relative drought.  Since that's possibly as close as six weeks away, success as a writer would be both welcome and well-timed, though I'm not relying on this trend to continue or planning to give up the day job - not if the Big Lottery gives us a reprieve, at any rate.


While not remaining at such dizzy heights, sales of 'Severe Discomfort' are now at 45 for the month, about 44 more than average, after just six days.  Quick readers amongst them can grab 'Continual Supervision' free of charge this Friday.  I should probably be generous and tweet this fact widely, even if it has a detrimental effect on the 'Beverage Fund'.  Either way, I shall be shopping for treats for my colleagues tomorrow!

I, Lyn Walker...?

It's hard to describe just how excited I am that a film about a bloke wrongly found fit for work and struggling with the bureaucratic demands of the DWP has won the Palme d'Or at Cannes this year.  Ken Loach kicking the arse - and conscience - of the Establishment, 50 years on from Cathy Come Home, really couldn't come soon enough.  I could be be sulky and say that there's probably nothing in "I, Daniel Blake" that I haven't been writing about for almost five years, but that's to miss the point.  Without a massive lucky break, as an unknown writer I was never going to do much more than preach to the converted and make a few people stop and think - Ken Loach's movie might just convert mass public opinion and change Government policy.


If it doesn't, things will continue to get harder for benefit claimants.  As if the current sanctions regime isn't cruel enough, under Universal Credit sanctions can become twice as punishing, with 'hardship payments' now loans and recoverable at the same rapid pace from regular monthly payments as overpayments due to fraud.  'In-work conditionality' extends the relentless pressure to search for work on pain of sanctions to our lowest- paid, part-time workers, recently cynically repackaged as an inducement to help them 'progress' in their careers.  The lower 'Benefit Cap' will mean that most jobless families with three or more children will receive too little housing benefit to cover their rent, even in areas where housing costs are cheapest.  And benefits for disabled people continue to be cut too, both by changes to the law and through what sometimes appear to be deliberately vindictive medical assessments.


Worst of all, the DWP management appears to learn nothing from human tragedies.  Having spent much of last week looking through the heavily redacted internal enquiries prompted by benefit change-related deaths, I didn't expect to find identical mistakes still being made in a recent set of appeal papers - but they are.  Decision-makers are still overlooking basic legislation, failing to consider medical evidence from previous claims, failing to request additional medical evidence where contractors' assessments are inadequate or contradictory.  It is only a matter of time before this claims more vulnerable victims.


I would love to leave my fictional characters where I left them at the end of 'Claimant Commitment' and concentrate on narrowboat thrillers for a while, and I shall, for now.  But, if they were real claimants, at some point quite soon they would have to grapple with PIP, Universal Credit and further WCAs, with a new contractor using the same staff and software as Atos. 


Perhaps someone could persuade Ken Loach to put his retirement plans on hold so we can make a mini-series?


Severe Discomfort is currently free to download for Kindle on the first and fifth Friday of every month and the rest of the 'Social Insecurity' series to a regular timetable.

Amicus Curiae (or 'Would the real Tom Appleby please stand up?')

I unexpectedly found myself wearing my 'tribunal suit' yesterday, appropriately (if accidentally) accessorised with a ladder up the left leg of my tights in proper Sally Archer style.  I don't rep for the CAB in my current role and it must be at least five years since I was last at our local venue; I was stepping into the breach as a favour for another organisation and, to be totally honest, grabbing an opportunity to see a PIP appeal in action. Confidentiality demands that I share no more details and anyway, I don't know the result, though I'm cautiously optimistic.

I had wondered whether there might be a Presenting Officer in attendance, since the rep who had asked me to help out with this case had encountered one at another recent PIP appeal.  This was unusual as POs tend only to appear for especially contentious cases, although there was a recent DWP announcement of  extra funding to provide them specifically for PIP appeals.  Understandably, reaction from the broader welfare rights lobby was hostile - this article from the excellent Dr Frances Ryan encapsulating the general sense of unfairness.

I'm inclined to share this concern although, if these new Presenting Officers adopted the ethos once prevalent in the role, they could be more of a help than a hindrance to unrepresented appellants, denied properly-trained advocates by cuts to Legal Aid and advice service budgets.  Although it suits my stories to (minor spoiler) cast PO Tom Appleby as one of the DWP 'good guys' it involved no great leap of the imagination for me to do so.  When I first started representing at appeals in the later 1980s, POs weren't simply the DWP's man (or woman) at the table.  Their role was to be a 'friend of the Tribunal' and they could - and often did - speak up for the appellant's case.


In response to a comment I made on Dr Ryan's article that POs could be a force for good but I feared the new intake might be cut from rather different cloth than their predecessors, I was pleased to see the following:


"I was a PO in the 80s and my training stressed that the role was one of amicus curiae. I would review the papers for every case and if I was confident the law had been applied incorrectly to the facts I would tell the tribunal so, referring them to the appropriate law, including case law if necessary. If there was time I would speak to the original decision maker and ask them to revise their decision to save time. That's what POs were supposed to do. I'd probably be sacked for it these days."


The writer's nom de plume xck33l gives no clue as to his/her home town or gender but I couldn't help imagining that it might be a softly-spoken Yorkshireman.  Or, alternatively, a well-spoken protocol droid.


If the new breed of POs are to bring consistency and fairness to PIP hearings, it is vital that they be allowed to exercise the freedom and integrity of the old guard of POs and not be fettered by targets for tribunal 'wins'.  On those terms, it would actually be rather a good job for some of the many benefits specialists thrown out of work by the loss of Legal Aid - as long as they could stay one step ahead of the Social Justice Ambassadors, of course! 

Flower Power?

I'd love to be more like my 'strong female characters'; full of confidence and never afraid to face up to a challenge.  Unfortunately, I'm not really like that at all, especially when it comes to competitions.

Take the next 6x6 Reading Cafe, for instance.  Entries are now invited for the summer event on the theme of 'Blossomings'. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog would be forgiven for thinking that, for someone with my background, this should be the short-story scribbler's equivalent of a well-attended home fixture against already relegated opposition with no travelling support.  When I'm not doing the current day job (or the half of it I'm currently sharing with a colleague, while we wait to see what becomes of a vital funding bid) I'm not just a writer of 'welfare rights lit' and 4mph thrillers - I'm a gardener too!  So a six minute shortie with a hint of the horticultural would be right up my street - or garden path.

But it ain't so. I do have the germ of an idea for a story where plants play a part (and no, it doesn't start with a guy waking up in hospital with bandaged eyes, concerned that a day he knows is Wednesday sounds like a Sunday) but it needs more than six minutes to tell it well, has the potential to be a plot twist in a Daphne Randall mystery and doesn't really fit the 'Blossomings' brief.

Of course, to a truly creative writer, the 'blossoming' concept may have no floral connotations at all.  There are various episodes in the 'welfare rights lit' stories where characters might be said to 'blossom', both in their personal and professional lives.  I could, perhaps, try to rewrite one of Sally Archer's key Social Security tribunals, neither of which currently happens from her perspective nor is a major spoiler for the rest of the Severe Discomfort/Continual Supervision story.  It's an appealing prospect.  I like writing Sally - a much younger, even geekier, slightly taller and funnier version of me who, being a Hampshire lass, speaks like me too.  No more trying to inject a hint of Geordie into the reported speech, the inevitable pitfall last time around of picking a Daphne episode! 

On the other hand, there's something slightly lazy about sticking with tried and tested characters when the opportunity is there to find a new voice or experiment with an unfamiliar genre.  I have until 30th April to get my act together, so there is time yet for inspiration to strike, especially with most of my seed potatoes still to plant.

If I do get an idea, it will have to be an exceptionally good one and will need executing to a very high standard to earn a place.  I was proud to be selected to take part in the spring event and delighted that the slimmed-down version of Pots and Locks was so well-received by an audience which included some extremely accomplished local writers.  It was also a confidence-booster after my unsuccessful efforts for the S-o-T Literary Festival competition, which is coming up soon - might it be third time lucky?  Do I care enough to find out when they put Kirsty Allsop above Professor Mary Beard in the billing?  We'll have to see...

I haven't yet been brave enough to join the Wednesday evening gathering of the Renegade Writers, despite loving the group's name and feeling flattered at the invitation, though I should, both to listen to other writers and, in due course, get encouragement to raise my own game.

Maybe once the taters are all in...

.

Nobody likes a Show-off!

Last week's Special Offer!

Probably for spring-cleaning the warehouse reasons, last week Amazon briefly discounted Grand Union to the point where it would have been cheaper for me to order from them rather than direct from my printers/publishers.  Being a stubborn old lefty, I still didn't and, while I usually direct people to Amazon only for the free Kindle downloads and encourage them to buy paperbacks from real, tax-paying bookshops, I shared the link for this offer as widely as I dared, partly in the hope that a flurry of simultaneous purchases would plunge the notorious tax-dodgers into financial ruin and partly to bolster the Stoke CAB biscuit fund.

Neither happened, not least because I was still rather timid with my marketing, even with the new medium of Twitter to experiment with (#stillnotreallygotaclue).  I know it's silly but I have never been able to shake the feeling that there is something slightly vulgar about plugging your own books.  Of course that's a ridiculous position to take when you're self-published as no-one else is going to do it for you, except a few very good friends - and thanks as ever to all who have shared links and publicly reviewed my endeavours. 

Although I've recently had a couple of opportunities to read extracts of my work - including this one at a local International Women's Day event - I'm still no better at doing a book plug than I was a couple of years ago, when a friend actually shouted "plug your book!" at me as I sat on the panel of a People's Assembly debate on benefit cuts.  I did, a bit, but felt bad about it as I was only there as a late sub for our local CAB Chief Exec.  Similarly, I brought some spare Grand Union copies with me to IWD but was too shy to get them out of the bag and wave them under people's noses.  Despite a major purpose of writing at all being to change people's minds about benefit cuts, it still feels cheap to spot a Twitter trend on the subject and 'hashtag' a link to a blog post or one of the books.  I suspect my childhood as a tall, clumsy girl and a bit of a clever-clogs, simultaneously encouraged to do well but reminded not to be a 'show-off', accounts for at least some of this reticence.

I'm sure I'm not alone.  A local author I'm privileged to know has been asked by his publisher to host an on-line launch party for his latest collection of dark fiction short stories and his latest blog on the subject betrays a hint of reluctance.  Dan writes for a living - it is his proper job, rather than a form of non-violent, biscuit-generating revolution - and he's steadily building himself a sound reputation on both the printed page and the stage.  He promotes his work honestly, modestly and directly, with generous and courteous words for everyone who supports and encourages him and, because of this, I'll happily spread the word about his writing despite the fact that I'm generally too much of a wuss to read many of his stories myself!


By contrast, the way some people market their work makes my skin crawl.  It puts me off even picking their book up for a quick browse while I'm sheltering from the lunchtime rain in Waterstone's or queuing at the till in Sainsbury's, let alone actually buying the damned thing. Taking a recent high-profile example, and setting aside the details of the case, who could fail to be utterly repulsed by ex MP Harvey Proctor's shameless plugging of his released-that-very-day book during interviews on Channel 4 News and Newsnight, concerning the 'Operation Midland' investigations into alleged child sex abuse in the highest echelons of the Establishment?  Even if the guy is completely guiltless and has suffered greatly from having such heinous crimes ascribed to him, in which case he would be deserving of pity and compassion despite being a Tory, the manner in which he attempted to flog the book on air was tawdry in the extreme. 

It happens time and again, though: someone gets onto The Today Programme or similar in their capacity as an alleged authority on a topical issue and, before you know it, there's a shameless, unsolicited plug for their latest book thrown into the debate.  I'd be inclined to forgive a relative unknown snatching at their one chance but the majority are already well-connected enough to have access the broadsheets' literary reviews and magazines, or Radio 4's own book review shows, without displacing a less mercenary 'expert' from the news programme. 

Another regular trick I'm tired of is manufactured controversy.  I was reminded of how this is done when Facebook decided to pitch Maestra by LS Hilton at me a couple of days ago and I remembered seeing this article by the author, which illustrates my point perfectly.  Supposedly grumbling about British reviewers' and readers' prurience about female sexual desire and insisting it's time to be 'grown up' about it when it appears in books, her article was clearly framed to draw attention to the fact that there is explicit sex in her book and drops frequent teasing hints about it.  Serious discussion on modern feminism or poorly disguised clickbait article plugging the book to Fifty Shades fans?  You decide; I wouldn't touch it with a barge-pole!  Which reminds me, I have a narrowboating thriller sequel to write. 

The Domino Effect

Most of my 'welfare rights lit' characters are having a well-earned break while I plot and draft another '4mph thriller' for Daphne.  Readers might otherwise think it too far fetched that the same disabled couple - namely Lyn and Terry Walker, first met in 'Severe Discomfort' - keep getting hassled and reassessed; that no sooner have they sorted out one benefit appeal, than there's some new problem.

Except, of course, that is what it's like.  Take the proposed changes to the PIP assessment announced just before the budget.  You might wonder how changing the score for a couple of descriptors from 2 points to 1 could possibly impact over 600,000 disabled people and cut the PIP budget by a predicted £4 billion.

Here's one scenario:

Barry lives alone and no-one claims Carer's Allowance for looking after him, although his grown-up children take it in turns to take him shopping, do his housework and check on him.  He gets PIP at the standard rate for daily living of about £55 per week.  He scored 8 points because he needs an aid or appliance to safely and reliably prepare a meal, wash or bathe, dress/undress and use the WC. Although his gadgets weren't expensive, his PIP money helps him keep his house warm and pay 'petrol money' to his carers.

Getting PIP for daily living bumps up Barry's other benefit entitlement.  In addition to his ESA (Employment and Support Allowance), paid at the 'support' rate of about £108 per week, he gets an 'enhanced' disability premium of £15 and a 'severe disability premium' of about £62 per week.  Altogether, he's on around £240 per week.

If we reassess Barry under the planned new rules, he gets only 6 points, no PIP and no 'severe disability premium' - a cut of £117 per week, or about half of his income.

And it's not only disabled people who stand to lose.  Carers are also at risk.  Belatedly, the Government have agreed to exempt carers from the 'Benefit Cap'.  So here's Stella, a widow with four children who has been caring for her disabled sister Juno, many of whose supervision needs aren't addressed through PIP.  Because Stella spends over 35 hours a week doing so, she gets Carers Allowance and Income Support - worth about £106 per week, Child Tax Credit for the children and full Housing Benefit.

In the autumn, the Benefit Cap falls to £385 per family outside London and, if it wasn't for her carers' exemption, Stella's Housing Benefit would be cut to only £20 per week.  Stella isn't Juno 'carer' for DWP purposes if Juno doesn't get PIP, but Juno too could see her points dip below 8.  Depending on the age of her children, Stella might have to claim Jobseekers Allowance instead of IS and be full available for work, despite her caring responsibilities.  JSA is £73 per week - a cut of about £30 per week - but Stella's family would also be affected by the 'Benefit Cap' if she ceased to be a 'carer'; depending on the level of her rent, this could cost them well in excess of £100 per week.

As for our Lyn Walker, she has a dilemma.  If, like many people, she's still on DLA and waiting to be 'invited' to claim PIP, her current care needs should get her 8 'daily living' points, maybe more.  However, she would score two less if the current proposals went through.  Should she report a change of circumstances for an early assessment under the 'old' rules, or hold her fire?  If we look at all the implications of that, not only will there be spoilers for anyone not familiar with the 'Social Insecurity' series so far, I could be giving away the plot of the next 'welfare rights lit' book, though I'm already not short of material for other scenarios if Gideon and IDS are thinking of backing down. 

Severe Discomfort, the first book in the series, is usually free to download on the first and fifth Friday of every month - plus tomorrow (19th March 2016) - find the link here.  If you've already read and enjoyed it, or have helpful, constructive criticism, please leave a review!