Today is going to be a blog full of pain.
Today is a blog of screaming anguish.
Today is a blog of anger. Real gut-churning rage.
Today, H met an old friend from council days.
O is a man who has conducted himself always with dignity and extended friendship and kindness to everyone. He is a good man, an ordinary man.
He was made redundant today.
He wasn't given much for so many years of service. He wasn't given anything actually. He was told to leave after a meeting, all of his work is in places he knows, but nobody has asked him where his files are.
We know from this that his projects - seeming so important at the time - are to be abandoned. So he cannot even congratulate himself that he left with a loincloth of dignity, that he left with the thought that something he had given to others will help them. He cannot think that what he ever did there mattered to anyone.
His manager has gone too, having been promised a new job in the new stream-lined council - a more monied post - in the poor new council. The hit squad of bullies who were managers of people who had worked for that council are chortling today because they are accomplishing their most cherished dreams. They are getting rid of the folk who had grafted there for years. Getting rid of the 'old'. The 'old' who worked, who knew the value of a day's work for a day's wage, who cared about the people in the borough that they served.
No golden handshakes for O. No ugly clock to stand on his mantel. No fond farewells from colleagues. Nothing but emptiness for him. Shock in his kind eyes. Bewilderment. Hurt. A deep, deep pain that won't be soothed any time soon.
The ex-manager has been trying to rid the department of the 'underlings' and now he's done it. Thanks to the Coalition government.
Thanks to them, the bullies have got their way; they are happy tonight, secure in the knowledge that they have hurt a decent man, decent men and ordinary women. Families. Folk.
In the days of work, the manager-bully would never have a meeting with his underlings. He'd email them. Even though he sat five yards away. He'd use technology to distance himself from the people he was supposed to guide. Why was he a manager? Someone so useless at managing.
Why was he a manager?
Why has he been promised a job after the re-structuring?
Why are the senior staff with the big salaries staying? Why are they allowed to stay on? Haven't they done enough? Isn't it time to let them go with shock in their eyes? With no handshake, no provision for the future, no hope of another job when you're half way through your fifties because there are millions of young ones to do what needs doing and you're scrappage.
Is it all starting again? Those who are privileged ridding themselves of others who are not. Those who have much starting to kick to death - and they will cause death - those who have little.
Do we have to endure this kind of world?
Do we have to put up with it?
Do our children?
Today in Parliament, all those new people who were elected recently have been giving their maiden speeches. What they said is largely irrelevant. For what will they do to stem the pain? Will they speak for the ordinary people? The ones in shock from being scythed away from something they have known for so long, that gave them an importance of a small type? Will they change anything? In that most indifferent of chambers.
'"On reducing the deficit, Mr Dromey, a former deputy general secretary of the Unite Union, declared: "I will resist any notion of asking those who are least able to bear the burden to pay the price of the misdeeds of the bankers."
He also warned that cuts to university funding would deprive "young working-class kids" from his constituency "of the chance to become the first in their family to go to university". '
How strange it is that Harriet Harmon's husband has to be the one to say what we little people are thinking, to care what we ordinary folk are feeling, the dread we are experiencing, the bleak, black pain...
The quote is from http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/comment/newsid_8734000/8734105.stm
A website called democracy live. Ironic.
'I will resist any notion of asking those who are least able to bear the burden to pay the price of the misdeeds of the bankers.'
We have to band together - we have to commune - we have to protect not just our children, but each other - we have to stop punishing the innocents for the guilty - we have to open our sleeping eyes WIDE - we have to think of money as serving US not US serving money - we have to ask if men who are staggeringly rich SHOULD have the job of 'rescuing' this silly country - we have to think, and grow, and know, and change and wake up and never ever ever be fooled again.
Are we awake yet?
Showing posts with label vulnerable people. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vulnerable people. Show all posts
Friday, 2 July 2010
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Go on, humiliate me some more!
Blog entries: Two for one every Wednesday.
Courtesy of some magnificent classical music - Marriage of Figaro at the moment of typing - I'm posting this because my flabber is truly gasted. (Wonderful word, isn't it? Flabbergasted). And it takes a lot to gast my flabber these days.
"Ah!" you cry. "Is it due to the leaked secret promise of the absolutely unfabulous conflagration of lying pile of steaming... er the Badman-led Review of Home Education in which he most probably will reveal his utter contempt of anyone who eschews school appearing tomorrow in every newspaper that can declare all home educators to be lying, Satan-following, child chastising, odd-balls who should be locked away from their children forthwith?
"No", I reply. "It's this." Filched from the Liberty website to whom all thanks and what not.
'Yvette Cooper urged to dump James Purnell’s drug tests for the unemployed
08 Jun 2009
Liberty is today joining forces with the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the National AIDS Trust to call on Yvette Cooper, the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, to reverse James Purnell’s policy of submitting benefit claimants to compulsory drug and alcohol tests.
In a joint letter to the new Secretary of State, the heads of these three organisations urge her to drop provisions from the Welfare Reform Bill that would force people on job-seekers benefit to disclose private information about their drug and alcohol use. Anyone who refuses or fails to comply would face invasive drug and alcohol tests or lose their benefit payments. Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty, said: “Degrading poor people in the middle of a recession is no way for Labour to rediscover its soul or its vote. The smooth assassin may have thought it acceptable to force unemployed parents to choose between their dignity and feeding their kids. Surely Yvette Cooper knows better.” The provisions in question – Clause 9, Schedule 3 of the Welfare Reform Bill – are due to be debated in the House of Lords tomorrow. Under this proposed legislation, someone claiming jobseekers allowance could have their benefit taken away if they are dependent on or “have a propensity to misuse” drugs or alcohol. Contact: Mairi Clare Rodgers on 020 7378 3656 or 07973831128 Notes to Editors 1. Yvette Cooper is a former Human Rights Minister who was appointed Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in last week’s Cabinet reshuffle. She takes over from James Purnell who oversaw the drafting of the Welfare Reform Bill. 2. Liberty’s joint briefing with the Royal College of Psychiatrists is available here: http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/pdfs/policy-09/joint-cte-stage-briefing-welfarereform-lords.pdf '
Unemployed? We'll test you for drug misuse. Then what? When you find Clarence misusing drugs because he had a bloody awful childhood that he can't forget except through ingesting a few dodgy substances and now is addicted, will you then STOP his benefits? Because he's SO ready to get and keep a job, isn't he now? Or what will you do with Mary Beth whose partner has waltzed off with her best friend, and she's relying on the odd drop of the hard stuff to stop her personality disappearing into a black hole for the kids' sake? Vulnerable people are not always child-shaped, you know.
These people are unemployed - apparently not a misfortune or a choice in this society. Unemployment is a CRIME.
So you see a poor unemployed geezer lying still in the middle of the road, do you pass by, dear politicians? Or would you pick him up, drape your suit jacket around his sagging shoulders, take him home, gently put salve on his cuts and bruises, brew him up some nice strong tea and place in front of him half of your whopping great dinner...?
Of course you wouldn't. You'd go straight over and put the boot in.
Courtesy of some magnificent classical music - Marriage of Figaro at the moment of typing - I'm posting this because my flabber is truly gasted. (Wonderful word, isn't it? Flabbergasted). And it takes a lot to gast my flabber these days.
"Ah!" you cry. "Is it due to the leaked secret promise of the absolutely unfabulous conflagration of lying pile of steaming... er the Badman-led Review of Home Education in which he most probably will reveal his utter contempt of anyone who eschews school appearing tomorrow in every newspaper that can declare all home educators to be lying, Satan-following, child chastising, odd-balls who should be locked away from their children forthwith?
"No", I reply. "It's this." Filched from the Liberty website to whom all thanks and what not.
'Yvette Cooper urged to dump James Purnell’s drug tests for the unemployed
08 Jun 2009
Liberty is today joining forces with the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the National AIDS Trust to call on Yvette Cooper, the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, to reverse James Purnell’s policy of submitting benefit claimants to compulsory drug and alcohol tests.
In a joint letter to the new Secretary of State, the heads of these three organisations urge her to drop provisions from the Welfare Reform Bill that would force people on job-seekers benefit to disclose private information about their drug and alcohol use. Anyone who refuses or fails to comply would face invasive drug and alcohol tests or lose their benefit payments. Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty, said: “Degrading poor people in the middle of a recession is no way for Labour to rediscover its soul or its vote. The smooth assassin may have thought it acceptable to force unemployed parents to choose between their dignity and feeding their kids. Surely Yvette Cooper knows better.” The provisions in question – Clause 9, Schedule 3 of the Welfare Reform Bill – are due to be debated in the House of Lords tomorrow. Under this proposed legislation, someone claiming jobseekers allowance could have their benefit taken away if they are dependent on or “have a propensity to misuse” drugs or alcohol. Contact: Mairi Clare Rodgers on 020 7378 3656 or 07973831128 Notes to Editors 1. Yvette Cooper is a former Human Rights Minister who was appointed Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in last week’s Cabinet reshuffle. She takes over from James Purnell who oversaw the drafting of the Welfare Reform Bill. 2. Liberty’s joint briefing with the Royal College of Psychiatrists is available here: http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/pdfs/policy-09/joint-cte-stage-briefing-welfarereform-lords.pdf '
Unemployed? We'll test you for drug misuse. Then what? When you find Clarence misusing drugs because he had a bloody awful childhood that he can't forget except through ingesting a few dodgy substances and now is addicted, will you then STOP his benefits? Because he's SO ready to get and keep a job, isn't he now? Or what will you do with Mary Beth whose partner has waltzed off with her best friend, and she's relying on the odd drop of the hard stuff to stop her personality disappearing into a black hole for the kids' sake? Vulnerable people are not always child-shaped, you know.
These people are unemployed - apparently not a misfortune or a choice in this society. Unemployment is a CRIME.
So you see a poor unemployed geezer lying still in the middle of the road, do you pass by, dear politicians? Or would you pick him up, drape your suit jacket around his sagging shoulders, take him home, gently put salve on his cuts and bruises, brew him up some nice strong tea and place in front of him half of your whopping great dinner...?
Of course you wouldn't. You'd go straight over and put the boot in.
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