A couple of years back it became apparent that, while adults are big consumers of music which in past decades would have remained the preserve of teenagers and even MPs felt obliged to list their favourite pop artists, there was a demand for pop music to be played that people in their late 30s, 40s and even 50s remembered from when they were that bit younger. This was seen on television with the popularity of 'Top of the Pops 2' and on numerous radio stations with programmes, often on a Sunday, presumably to appeal to listeners in that age bracket at home with their families, featuring music from the punk era and the 1980s. The persistent nostalgia for the 1980s and the parallels between the economic and political situations of that time (especially in the UK) and now have only contributed further to this trend. Of course, there are songs that have never really gone away, but with the extent of this programming on radio with numerous 'golden hour' or 'time tunnel' programmes too, many forgotten gems are being thrust back into our memories.
One song that I heard probably for the first time in 20 years was 'Walls Come Tumbling Down' (1985) by The Style Council. The Style Council lasted 1983-9, having 16 Top 40 hits but no No.1s. Interestingly they combined a somewhat at times overly polished, self-consciously snappy image with songs that were either almost like easy-listening, notably, 'Long Hot Summer' (1983), almost 'power' pop songs like 'Shout To The Top' (1984) to those like 'Walls Come Tumbling Down' which were very political. The most prominent member of the group was Paul Weller (1958-) who also wrote 'Walls Come Tumbling Down'. By the time he did, he was already very successful from his career with The Jam (1972-82; recording from 1977; 18 Top 40 hits including No. 1s in the UK) who had had a Mod style with a support for Britishness but also often challenging lyrics to social and political issues. The strength of many of their songs was carried on into some of The Style Council's work with almost classic styling that seemed to refer back to music of the 1960s referenced by The Jam's style. Saying this, the 'Sound Affects' (1980) album had almost psychaedelic elements, almost as if, like The Beatles, The Jam had evolved into this phase. The politics of The Style Council was far more apparent than even in songs like 'Eton Rifles' (1979) and 'Town Called Malice' (1982). I have been tempted however, to write how relevant I feel those songs remain recalling 1980s problems now we face so many of them again in the 2010s.
Anyway, in The Style Council, Paul Weller's left-wing political stance, presumably shared with band members Mick Talbot (keyboard, co-founder), Dee C. Lee (vocals; Weller's wife 1988-94) and Steve White (drums), became more apparent. Weller was involved with both The Council Collective in December 1984 a band which raised funds for the striking coal miners and then in Red Wedge (1985-90) an umbrella organisation led by Weller, Billy Bragg and Jimmy Sommerville which aimed to raise awareness and funds through concerts to help prevent the Conservatives winning their third consecutive election victory at the 1987 election, a task at which they failed. Weller is rather resentful of this period feeling he concentrated too much on the politics rather than the music, possibly contributing to the decline in popularity of The Style Council, tensions with record companies and its break-up. However, in my eyes and I am sure of many others who lived through the 1980s we were grateful that they put in the effort to produce something that challenged the enduring Thatcher regime and provided music which was more than simply consumerist, peddling and reinforcing the anti-social trends of the Thatcherite greed era.
Weller has continued to have a very successful musical career and though he may be uneasy with some of the activities he was involved with in the past, he retains immense credibility both musically and for his political record. I would be very happy if someone re-released or covered this now. Given the kind of semi-folk revival led by people like Mumford and Sons, perhaps there are groups/individuals out there who could release something like this. I do not know enough about their politics to know if it would appeal and perhaps these days record companies are far too much part of the exploitative sector of society to even countenance allowing a song like this back to see the light of day.
Unlike some of the political tracks of the 1980s, this one is more timeless. If you do not know 'Number 10' refers to 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the prime minister. These days were are used to songs having expletives that have to be bleeped or tuned out, but for the opening line to feature the word 'crap' which was coming into usage in the UK (from the USA) at the time, it was a forceful startling opening. I guess if you recorded it these days the references to 'colour TV' and 'video machine' and certainly to 'H.P.', i.e. hire purchase, a way of buying items on credit which was pretty dated even by the 1980s, would have to be revised, but I am sure you could get DVD, smart phone and credit card in there somewhere. The sentiments about consumerism remain as valid, how it has become the 'opiate of the people' in the UK in particular. The point about dangling jobs 'like a donkey's carrot' is certainly applicable in 2011 as is 'they take the profits/you take the blame': it could have been written specifically to refer to the banking crisis. Similarly the attempts by government and employers to provoke division among ordinary people by designating some as 'undeserving' or 'scroungers' continues to be a policy.
The whole song certainly could be a rallying cry for those students who protested and those who rioted earlier this year. I fear even more than in the 1980s when there were still memories of student protests of the 1960s and trade union ones of the 1970s, now people assume that protest is simply criminal, a perception almost the entire media and certainly all political parties put effort in portraying it as. To adopt such a passive attitude is to let them abuse you without even a fight. Anyway, for anyone who has never heard the lyrics of 'Walls Come Tumbling Down' or for those who like me, they had become a distant memory, here they are for perusal and discussion. However, I do suggest that you listen to the original if not least to hear Paul Weller really belt it out ably assisted by Dee C. Lee.
'Walls Come Tumbling Down' - The Style Council
You don’t have to take this crap
You don’t have to sit back and relax
You can actually try changing it.
I know we’ve always been taught to rely
Upon those in authority -
But you never know, until you try,
How things just might be,
If we came together so strongly.
Are you going try to make this work
Or spend your days down in the dirt?
You see things can change -
Yes and walls can come tumbling down!
Governments crack and systems fall
’cause unity is powerful -
Lights go out - walls come tumbling down!
The competition is a colour TV
We’re on still pause with the video machine
That keep you slave to the H.P.
Until the unity is threatend by
Those who have and who have not -
Those who are with and those who are without
And dangle jobs like a donkey’s carrot -
Until you don’t know where you are.
Are you going to realise
The class war’s real and not mythologized?
And like Jericho - you see, walls can come tumbling down!
Are you going to be threatened by
The public enemy at Number 10?
Those who play the power game:
They take the profits - you take the blame.
When they tell you there’s no rise in pay
Are you goning to try and make this work
Or spend your days down in the dirt?
You see things can change -
Yes and walls can come tumbling down!
P.P.
I must say I am sometimes heartened by what I can find on the internet. Surprisingly I have found the lyrics to 'Soul Deep' the only single released by The Council Collective, you can even find footage of their performance of it on 'Top of the Pops' which seems pretty incredible now given how the striking miners were being condemned as the 'enemy within' at the times and civil liberties were being flouted in an attempt to break the strike. I include it here for interest's sake. I do wonder if you would ever see anything similar performed on a television pop show (not that there are many left) these days; certainly I doubt it would ever appear on SkyTV given the Murdoch connection. The reference to death I presume, refers to expenditure at the time on cruise and trident nuclear missiles. The TUC is the Trades Union Congress, the umbrella body for British trade unions which was ambivalent towards the strike given that an official secret ballot for strike action had never been held. It is as critical of the Labour Movement as it is of the Conservative government. There is also reference to the North-South Divide in British society, more apparent than ever in the 1980s. The reference to oppression by employers
'Soul Deep' - The Council Collective
Getcha mining soul deep - with a lesson in history
There's people fighting for their communities
Don't say this struggle - does not involve you.
If you're from the working class, this is your struggle too.
If they spent more on life as they do on death,
We might find the money to make industry progress.
There's mud in the waters - there's lies upon the page;
There's blood on the hillsides and they're not getting paid.
There's brother 'gainst brother - there's fathers against sons
But as for solidarity, I don't see none.
(Let's change that - let's fight back)
Going on 10 months now - will it take another 10?
Living on the breadline - with what some people send.
Just where is the backing from the TUC?
If we aren't united there can only be defeat.
Think of all those brave men - women and children alike,
Who built the unions so others might survive
In better conditions - than abject misery
Not supporting the miners - betrays that legacy
There's brother 'gainst brother - there's fathers against sons:
Let's change that - let's fight back!
Up North the temperature's rising;
Down South she's wine and dining.
We can't afford to let the government win:
It means death to the trade unions
And the cash it costs to close 'em
Is better spent trying to keep 'em open.
Try to feel the pain in those seeds planted
Now are the things that we take for granted
Like the power to strike if we don't agree
With the bosses that make those policies
That keep us down and keep us dumb
So don't settle for less than the Number One!
Showing posts with label Thatcherism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thatcherism. Show all posts
Sunday, 7 August 2011
Friday, 14 May 2010
The Dark Days Return
When Margaret Thatcher was kicked from office as prime minister by her own party in 1990, I really hoped that we would have seen the last of the nasty, selfish, hopeless days that we had seen when she came to power in 1979. Throughout that period and as a direct result of her policies, Britain faced the highest unemployment it had ever seen, many industries disappeared and many people lived in poverty and others lost their homes. Society became sharply divided and this was expressed by the numerous riots the UK experienced in the early 1980s. Public service deteriorated as local authorities were compelled to take the lowest bidders for any service and they achieved this by paying poor wages; public bodies like utilities were broken off and sold off to the great benefit of speculators and already wealthy business people. The rights of the individual were seriously eroded and it took almost another decade to even get some of these back.
Of course, after Thatcher we had seven years of John Major. Whilst also a Conservative he did not pursue the assiduous campaign to undermine the UK. He did not deny that society existed in the way Thatcher had done and for much of the time he had too small a majority to introduce forceful policies, though railways were privatised much to the detriment of the British economy and society. Some of us hoped that he would fall in 1992, the last time the UK ever had a chance for a Socialist government, but through scare tactics and electoral irregularities the Conservatives remained in power until replaced by the Christian Democrat, New Labour Party which came to power in 1997. Of course, by then the 'centre' of British politics had moved far to the right of where it had been in 1975 and now privatised utilities, even an independent Bank of England were seen as acceptable. New Labour did introduce the minimum wage and signed up to the Social Chapter provided by the European Union but its other policies such as electoral reform and removal of the unelected House of Lords were soon dropped.
Now we have a coalition government, but as William Hague, the new Foreign Secretary noted, the 'bulk' of the Conservative election manifesto will be put into effect. Tactical voters like myself who voted for the local Liberal Democrat candidate they thought might keep the Conservatives out of a seat now feel utterly stupid. Effectively anyone wanting progressive approaches has no voice in this country. Of course, that is precisely what the wealthy like Lord Ashcroft and other corrupt ultra-rich want. The election of New Labour in 1997 was no restoration of democracy, given the deals Tony Blair had to make to get into power, it, in fact marked a further step in the erosion of the influence of ordinary people on politics. With David Cameron in charge control of politics and the economy is now more blatantly in the hands of the elites than it has probably been since Sir Alec Douglas-Home, a former lord, left office in 1964. Cameron is far less 'ordinary' than even Margaret Thatcher. Fortunately a number of his 'babes', young, glamorous, privileged candidates parachuted into constituencies did not get elected, but there are are tens of MPs who owe their position to Cameron and will follow him devotedly the way Blair was able to build a large coterie of devotee MPs around him when he came to power in 1997.
Even with my fear of the Cameron government I was startled at how fast he has moved to further damage democracy, by moving to 5-year fixed term parliaments and making the dissolution of parliament require a 55% majority rather than a 1 vote majority. Yes, of course, this brings stability in the way that a dictatorship brings stability by doing away with those tiresome things called elections. It is interesting that even Conservative MPs are opposing this step, barely days into Cameron's government. I just pray they give him a hard time over this threat to our polity. Cameron seems to combine all the worst of Tony Blair with the worst of Margaret Thatcher. This means not only will he pursue policies that will put millions of us out of work and hundreds of thousands to lose their houses, but he will expect thanks for all the suffering he is putting us through and like Blair be surprised when we complain about what he has done.
I hope that my expectations do not come true. I hope the Liberal Democrats and even Conservative backbench MPs can rein in Cameron's Frankenstein's monster of New Labour media manipulation, Thatcherite economic policies and an elitist focus on carrying out policies that benefit the already highly privileged. However, what I see at least is a return to the 1980s with mass unemployment and as a result social discontent leading to increased racism and rioting. I hate to think of how many wasted years we have ahead of us in which the average person is going to have to battle week after week just to keep a job and somewhere to live. People have analysed how much the people born just before and during the Thatcher period have suffered throughout their lives. I really pity the children of today who from this week onward will have their lives blighted as education and health funding is slashed. In the course of a day, the opportunities of millions were closed down. From now it will be the privileged who get the job, who get that place at university, not the average young person who will be marched into whatever schemes Cameron and his lackeys think up, notably the military-style national service for 16-year olds that he has already promised on numerous posters. Cameron seems to have been raiding Mussolini's handbook for policies. I can only hope that the day will come when I am among the crowd cheering as Cameron is strung up by his feet in Westminster. In the meantime we have to mourn yet another lost generation blighted by economic and social policies aimed at benefiting the very rich and in particular enabling them to deny opportunities and exploit the average person in the UK.
Emigrate now. How many people wished they had left Nazi Germany sooner? Leave now before the UK is turned into an utter wasteland populated by a bullied people struggling just to survive as the privileged literally lord it over them as we take step after step to an authoritarian regime.
Of course, after Thatcher we had seven years of John Major. Whilst also a Conservative he did not pursue the assiduous campaign to undermine the UK. He did not deny that society existed in the way Thatcher had done and for much of the time he had too small a majority to introduce forceful policies, though railways were privatised much to the detriment of the British economy and society. Some of us hoped that he would fall in 1992, the last time the UK ever had a chance for a Socialist government, but through scare tactics and electoral irregularities the Conservatives remained in power until replaced by the Christian Democrat, New Labour Party which came to power in 1997. Of course, by then the 'centre' of British politics had moved far to the right of where it had been in 1975 and now privatised utilities, even an independent Bank of England were seen as acceptable. New Labour did introduce the minimum wage and signed up to the Social Chapter provided by the European Union but its other policies such as electoral reform and removal of the unelected House of Lords were soon dropped.
Now we have a coalition government, but as William Hague, the new Foreign Secretary noted, the 'bulk' of the Conservative election manifesto will be put into effect. Tactical voters like myself who voted for the local Liberal Democrat candidate they thought might keep the Conservatives out of a seat now feel utterly stupid. Effectively anyone wanting progressive approaches has no voice in this country. Of course, that is precisely what the wealthy like Lord Ashcroft and other corrupt ultra-rich want. The election of New Labour in 1997 was no restoration of democracy, given the deals Tony Blair had to make to get into power, it, in fact marked a further step in the erosion of the influence of ordinary people on politics. With David Cameron in charge control of politics and the economy is now more blatantly in the hands of the elites than it has probably been since Sir Alec Douglas-Home, a former lord, left office in 1964. Cameron is far less 'ordinary' than even Margaret Thatcher. Fortunately a number of his 'babes', young, glamorous, privileged candidates parachuted into constituencies did not get elected, but there are are tens of MPs who owe their position to Cameron and will follow him devotedly the way Blair was able to build a large coterie of devotee MPs around him when he came to power in 1997.
Even with my fear of the Cameron government I was startled at how fast he has moved to further damage democracy, by moving to 5-year fixed term parliaments and making the dissolution of parliament require a 55% majority rather than a 1 vote majority. Yes, of course, this brings stability in the way that a dictatorship brings stability by doing away with those tiresome things called elections. It is interesting that even Conservative MPs are opposing this step, barely days into Cameron's government. I just pray they give him a hard time over this threat to our polity. Cameron seems to combine all the worst of Tony Blair with the worst of Margaret Thatcher. This means not only will he pursue policies that will put millions of us out of work and hundreds of thousands to lose their houses, but he will expect thanks for all the suffering he is putting us through and like Blair be surprised when we complain about what he has done.
I hope that my expectations do not come true. I hope the Liberal Democrats and even Conservative backbench MPs can rein in Cameron's Frankenstein's monster of New Labour media manipulation, Thatcherite economic policies and an elitist focus on carrying out policies that benefit the already highly privileged. However, what I see at least is a return to the 1980s with mass unemployment and as a result social discontent leading to increased racism and rioting. I hate to think of how many wasted years we have ahead of us in which the average person is going to have to battle week after week just to keep a job and somewhere to live. People have analysed how much the people born just before and during the Thatcher period have suffered throughout their lives. I really pity the children of today who from this week onward will have their lives blighted as education and health funding is slashed. In the course of a day, the opportunities of millions were closed down. From now it will be the privileged who get the job, who get that place at university, not the average young person who will be marched into whatever schemes Cameron and his lackeys think up, notably the military-style national service for 16-year olds that he has already promised on numerous posters. Cameron seems to have been raiding Mussolini's handbook for policies. I can only hope that the day will come when I am among the crowd cheering as Cameron is strung up by his feet in Westminster. In the meantime we have to mourn yet another lost generation blighted by economic and social policies aimed at benefiting the very rich and in particular enabling them to deny opportunities and exploit the average person in the UK.
Emigrate now. How many people wished they had left Nazi Germany sooner? Leave now before the UK is turned into an utter wasteland populated by a bullied people struggling just to survive as the privileged literally lord it over them as we take step after step to an authoritarian regime.
Monday, 3 August 2009
The New Face of 'Signing On'
To some degree despite my interest in a range of issues, this blog, like most, has also reflected developments in my life. It has had stuff about mean landlords and greedy councils and the travails of the employer who made me redundant on Friday. It has shown my continued failure at interviews and the poor way so many of them are organised anyway. Now, today I am officially unemployed for the first time since the Summer of 1993. I was interested to see how claiming unemployment benefit, now termed the Jobseekers' Allowance has changed. After being unemployed I actually ended up working in a job centre for over a year so saw the process from two sides. I left just as the final step of the evolution was proceeding. Even in the early 1990s job centres were different places to what was then called the DSS (Department of Social Security) offices where the 13 other benefits aside from unemployment benefit, were claimed. The job centre was open plan and had carpets; the DSS had bleak rooms with furniture fixed to the floor and staff behind thick glass.
I went to my local job centre today and found it similar to the one I had stopped working in 1994. The technology has advanced, there are touch screens to access things. You are welcomed at the door as if going into a branch of Pizza Hut. Then I found out that you do not make a claim, as the process is still known, physically, you have to telephone first and go through a 40-minute interview. I actually found this easier than tackling someone face-to-face, though I have that element later this week. The face-to-face interview is only for me to confirm that what has been written about me is accurate and for me to bring evidence for what I am saying. Unsurprisingly given the populist concern about immigrants and employment in the UK, there were lots of questions about my nationality, despite the fact they took my National Insurance number at the start. So, the experience was very much like it would be in any other service sector location, if I went to a chain restaurant or my building society. I suppose that should be unsurprising. Of course, a lot of it is not about appealing to claimants, but to employers. Employers tended to view job centres as places where the failures went and a location that they were unlikely to find suitable candidates. Low-paying employers, conversely, saw it as a location where they could pick up cheap workers. I remember the restaurant chain Fatty Arbuckles complaining in 1993 because it had had only 4 applicants for posts in its restaurant in the town where I worked. They went on the local radio station whining that locals were lazy and preferred to 'scrounge' than work, despite the highish level of unemployment with the early 1990s recession just coming to an end. The rate of pay they were offering was £2.14 per hour (worth about £3.14 now compared to the minimum wage of £5.73 per hour) and you would have had to work an hour to cover your bus fare in from many of the villages. So, job centres evolved to look more like employment agencies. I noted the other day that a high-level company I applied for asked if I had seen the vacancy at a job centre (or Job Centre Plus) to give it, its full title, which to me suggested that they had succeeded in winning over employers.
Of course, the bulk of people who claimed at job centres were never lazy. In periods of full employment in the 1960s only about 35-70,000 people remained unemployed and I imagine that if we had full employment now the figure would probably not top 150,000. The rest of people claiming want to work and try very hard to get a job. A lot of unemployment is always 'transitional' even in periods of relatively high unemployment, a lot of people are without work because they are between jobs rather than starting a long period with no work at all. Of course, the pattern varies greatly regionally, but people forget how much work is seasonal and needs workers who can move from it to something else. Of course, with the cost of living in the UK being so high compared to in neighbouring states, it is almost impossible to build up savings to tide people over this transitional phase and without unemployment benefit you would see real hardship. You see hardship as it is, no-one is going to get rich claiming benefit, despite the myths put around by lazy newspapers. No-one seems to go after the tax evaders. In my personal experience a tax dodger owes the state £4000, you would have to be claiming benefit for almost two years to come close to that level of money from the state. Somehow, if you manage to dodge taxes you are a folk hero; yet even those claiming benefit legitimately are too often still seen as pariahs.
Being unemployed does not mean you should be compelled to forget all dignity and totally abase yourself and work for pitiful wages, without rights or in poor conditions. Of course, that was the line of the Thatcherites, and I remember being told repeatedly in the late 1980s that people claiming benefits should not be permitted to have a television. There was a real strain of thinking that harked back to the sense of 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor. Benefit offices were very much like Nonconformist chapels in those days, set up to make people feel guilty for claiming anything and that they should be very grateful and humble for anything they did get; that they should give up everything of any light or pleasure in exchange for the small sums they received. I see some of this attitude amongst the public today, usually targetted at drug addicts and immigrants, but there are still the enduring myths that 'Jane Smith, she has five kids and the government pays her mortgage, she never even tries to find work'. These myths endure. Having worked in benefits offices and a tax office, I know that the state will cut off anyone getting anything they are not entitled to at a shot and will try to reclaim it immediately. Why do people think that if they are not getting a particular benefit other people are somehow getting it and far more generously than them? I suppose it is an element of human nature to always be envious, especially in Britain where moaning is a sport.
Given that we are returning to the high levels of unemployment we last saw in the 1980s, I hope people begin to realise this time, that the bulk of people who are unemployed hate the situation they are in. With companies laying off staff in their thousands, the majority of people in job centres will not be the durg addicts, but ordinary people, who given a quarter of a chance would be working. Losing your job dents your self respect. It leads to many sacrifices. This is bad enough without people telling you that you are lazy or are scrounging or stealing. There are lazy people, but as the weeks go by they become a smaller and smaller fraction of the millions out of work. Looking for a job, applying for jobs, attending interviews is time consuming and not without both financial and emotional costs. I hope that in part the approach of job centres in the late 2000s helps to normalise and certainly humanise the experience of being unemployed. People feel bad enough when without work, making them feel guilty simply reduces human dignity further and people who feel they have nothing either turn against society or turn against themselves and that is not what you need. The recession will come to an end. Despite the prophecies of the end of capitalism, it has been through worse situations than this. When it ends, do you want a workforce who have been so hammered while out of work that they have no self-respect, no initiative, no ambition? I know many employers like that, but that is one reason why we got into this mess in the first place.
No doubt, I will see how much I get made a pariah and how well I weather the burden of being unemployed. However, I must say the job centre approach prevailing currently, already is making me feel a bit better than it did back in the 1990s.
I went to my local job centre today and found it similar to the one I had stopped working in 1994. The technology has advanced, there are touch screens to access things. You are welcomed at the door as if going into a branch of Pizza Hut. Then I found out that you do not make a claim, as the process is still known, physically, you have to telephone first and go through a 40-minute interview. I actually found this easier than tackling someone face-to-face, though I have that element later this week. The face-to-face interview is only for me to confirm that what has been written about me is accurate and for me to bring evidence for what I am saying. Unsurprisingly given the populist concern about immigrants and employment in the UK, there were lots of questions about my nationality, despite the fact they took my National Insurance number at the start. So, the experience was very much like it would be in any other service sector location, if I went to a chain restaurant or my building society. I suppose that should be unsurprising. Of course, a lot of it is not about appealing to claimants, but to employers. Employers tended to view job centres as places where the failures went and a location that they were unlikely to find suitable candidates. Low-paying employers, conversely, saw it as a location where they could pick up cheap workers. I remember the restaurant chain Fatty Arbuckles complaining in 1993 because it had had only 4 applicants for posts in its restaurant in the town where I worked. They went on the local radio station whining that locals were lazy and preferred to 'scrounge' than work, despite the highish level of unemployment with the early 1990s recession just coming to an end. The rate of pay they were offering was £2.14 per hour (worth about £3.14 now compared to the minimum wage of £5.73 per hour) and you would have had to work an hour to cover your bus fare in from many of the villages. So, job centres evolved to look more like employment agencies. I noted the other day that a high-level company I applied for asked if I had seen the vacancy at a job centre (or Job Centre Plus) to give it, its full title, which to me suggested that they had succeeded in winning over employers.
Of course, the bulk of people who claimed at job centres were never lazy. In periods of full employment in the 1960s only about 35-70,000 people remained unemployed and I imagine that if we had full employment now the figure would probably not top 150,000. The rest of people claiming want to work and try very hard to get a job. A lot of unemployment is always 'transitional' even in periods of relatively high unemployment, a lot of people are without work because they are between jobs rather than starting a long period with no work at all. Of course, the pattern varies greatly regionally, but people forget how much work is seasonal and needs workers who can move from it to something else. Of course, with the cost of living in the UK being so high compared to in neighbouring states, it is almost impossible to build up savings to tide people over this transitional phase and without unemployment benefit you would see real hardship. You see hardship as it is, no-one is going to get rich claiming benefit, despite the myths put around by lazy newspapers. No-one seems to go after the tax evaders. In my personal experience a tax dodger owes the state £4000, you would have to be claiming benefit for almost two years to come close to that level of money from the state. Somehow, if you manage to dodge taxes you are a folk hero; yet even those claiming benefit legitimately are too often still seen as pariahs.
Being unemployed does not mean you should be compelled to forget all dignity and totally abase yourself and work for pitiful wages, without rights or in poor conditions. Of course, that was the line of the Thatcherites, and I remember being told repeatedly in the late 1980s that people claiming benefits should not be permitted to have a television. There was a real strain of thinking that harked back to the sense of 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor. Benefit offices were very much like Nonconformist chapels in those days, set up to make people feel guilty for claiming anything and that they should be very grateful and humble for anything they did get; that they should give up everything of any light or pleasure in exchange for the small sums they received. I see some of this attitude amongst the public today, usually targetted at drug addicts and immigrants, but there are still the enduring myths that 'Jane Smith, she has five kids and the government pays her mortgage, she never even tries to find work'. These myths endure. Having worked in benefits offices and a tax office, I know that the state will cut off anyone getting anything they are not entitled to at a shot and will try to reclaim it immediately. Why do people think that if they are not getting a particular benefit other people are somehow getting it and far more generously than them? I suppose it is an element of human nature to always be envious, especially in Britain where moaning is a sport.
Given that we are returning to the high levels of unemployment we last saw in the 1980s, I hope people begin to realise this time, that the bulk of people who are unemployed hate the situation they are in. With companies laying off staff in their thousands, the majority of people in job centres will not be the durg addicts, but ordinary people, who given a quarter of a chance would be working. Losing your job dents your self respect. It leads to many sacrifices. This is bad enough without people telling you that you are lazy or are scrounging or stealing. There are lazy people, but as the weeks go by they become a smaller and smaller fraction of the millions out of work. Looking for a job, applying for jobs, attending interviews is time consuming and not without both financial and emotional costs. I hope that in part the approach of job centres in the late 2000s helps to normalise and certainly humanise the experience of being unemployed. People feel bad enough when without work, making them feel guilty simply reduces human dignity further and people who feel they have nothing either turn against society or turn against themselves and that is not what you need. The recession will come to an end. Despite the prophecies of the end of capitalism, it has been through worse situations than this. When it ends, do you want a workforce who have been so hammered while out of work that they have no self-respect, no initiative, no ambition? I know many employers like that, but that is one reason why we got into this mess in the first place.
No doubt, I will see how much I get made a pariah and how well I weather the burden of being unemployed. However, I must say the job centre approach prevailing currently, already is making me feel a bit better than it did back in the 1990s.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
