Today's Dickens celebrations, including the news that Jeremy Hunt gave out copies of Dickens' books at today's Cabinet meeting, have got me thinking about the world he portrayed, and how far we have come since then, especially for the poor, sick and vulnerable.
As I've discussed before, there are a number of challenges having a disabled family member, and we have often reminded our children how different things would have been for my daughter if she'd been born in earlier centuries.
We come from hearty stock, and most of our ancestors appear to have lived to a ripe old age (although one can't be certain how many babies never made it as far as civil registration - long gaps between birthdates indicate there were some stillbirths.) When I went into labour, my daughter's umbilical cord was wrapped round her neck. After 3 full days in labour and still no progression, despite lots of medical intervention and inducement, she was born by emergency C-section. The chances of a successful outcome for baby or mother under these circumstances in Dickens' time would have been pretty low. Thanks to the NHS, we got all the help we needed in a well-equipped hospital.
Epilepsy. Nasty condition, and can still be fatal, but thanks to modern medicine it can usually be controlled, even to the point of brain surgery in extreme cases. None of this was available in Dickens' time. It is extremely likely, therefore, that my daughter would not have survived the prolonged seizures she had at 6 months old. It was phenobarbital (1902) and carbamazapine (1965) which helped stabilise her condition.
Similarly, her Sturge Weber Syndrome (first identified 1879) would not have been noticed as a potentially serious health problem. Instead of losing the sight in one eye, she could well have lost both, as there would have been no healthcare to monitor her sight (every 3 months, from birth).
Of course, an early death would have precluded having to address her autism (a condition which was still a hundred years away from being identified when Dickens was writing). For all those people who say "Why have autism rates risen so much recently?" the answer is, in the main, better diagnosis. In the past, such children would have just been classified as 'simple' and, in an age where a child was effectively an economic unit, a burden on a poor family. High infant mortality would have prevented many such children reaching adulthood, as disease and poor conditions took their toll on those least able to fend for themselves.
So, all in all, better to be born in the 20th century.
The 21st, however, is looking decidedly less rosy, as attitudes towards those who are "different" are becoming more hostile. Dickens wrote of the appalling social conditions and inequality he saw in Victorian Britain as a warning. His writing inspired social change. Maybe Jeremy Hunt's gifts to his colleagues should come with an inscription that reminds them that these are works of social commentary on a society riven with inequality....
....and are not an instruction manual.
Tuesday, 7 February 2012
Monday, 6 February 2012
Let Them Eat Cake: #5633 in a Regular Series.
Here we go again.....
Maria Miller, the Under-Secretary of State for Not Having a Clue says there is "no shortage of jobs"
Let's leave for the moment that fact that there IS a shortage of jobs (400,000 jobs for 2.96m unemployed is "a shortage" - you'd think, having studied Economics at the LSE, she'd have grasped this). Her assertion that it is down to people's lack of "appetite for the jobs on offer" is insulting to all jobseekers, but especially so for the disabled (or those who care for them) who want to work, but can't.
Many disabled people do work and most want to, if they are able. It is not that their 'skills' do not match; it is the access to and flexibility of these jobs which determine whether disabled people can take them, and too often there is still a mis-match here. Every time you've whinged about the attention a colleague is getting as he's measured for a specialised office chair due to a severe back problem, consider how much more you'd resent him if he gave up work and relied on disability benefits? It's simply not true that disabled people don't want to work. And have you noticed how 'flexible' working almost always means flexibility for the employer rather than the employee? "Can you fit with these odd work patterns? Then welcome!"
She's right on one thing - it's not just about the jobseeker, but also their family, and this is particularly important for disabled people, whose families are already disproportionately affected, and where family cohesion is tricky even without the demands of a low-paid, long-hours job.
Regular readers of this blog (and my Twitter followers) will already know how challenging caring for a teenager with Autistic Spectrum Disorder can be. This didn't evolved in a vacuum, though. When she was born, we were much more preoccupied with the diagnosis of Sturge Weber Syndrome, the prognosis for which was very variable and generally not good. Despite this we tried to lead as normal life as possible; I returned to full time work when she was six months old, despite her epilepsy, which manifested at the same time. We were advised at the time to apply for DLA for her, but we resisted, as we didn't feel that the demands on us where any greater than any other child of her age. By the age of three, and within days of starting school, it became clear that there were some fairly major behavioural issues to be addressed (not unknown with SWS). We, and school, struggled for several years to deal with this, and despite her statement and 100% (at one point 200%!) 1:1 support, it was touch and go whether we could keep her in school. Multiple exclusions, regular calls at work for one crisis or another, it was exhausting and demoralising. Her additional ASD diagnosis came in Y3, which helped a little, as we at least knew what we were dealing with and could try and devise strategies to help her. Throughout this time, we both continued to work - we were lucky in having understanding employers (we were also both conscientious and good at our jobs, which helped) and good after-school/holiday provision. Even with support, though, it was very difficult, and took its toll on us emotionally. Still we didn't claim DLA, despite advice from doctors that we should.
Oh. And did I mention the glaucoma and detached retina, which claimed the sight in one eye just before her 11th birthday? We carried on working through the operations, radiotherapy, 60-mile rounds trips to hospital, going cap-in-hand for special leave when we had exhausted both annual leave entitlements.
Just before she was due to transfer to secondary school, I was made voluntarily redundant from my outsourced, former local authority job. We decided that as school transition was likely to be traumatic, it made sense to live off my severance money to allow me to be available to help her. And so it's proved. I stretched the severance as far as I could, and then - finally - persuaded my partner that we really should claim the DLA to which we had probably been entitled for 13 years. As the claim was approved immediately, without recourse to appeals/tribunals, I assume I was right on this.
Adolescence isn't easy at the best of times and the additional anxiety and confusion it causes for those on the spectrum is unimaginable to the neurotypical. It would be nonsensical to try and return to full-time work for the next couple of years - she is, if anything, coping less well than she did in Y7, and it is vital that we keep her in school and (hopefully) get her some GCSEs (not the full EBacc - sorry Michael!!) if she is to have any chance of meaningful employment. As it is, her prospects are pretty bleak.
And as for me? Today she said "Why don't you get a job?", seemingly oblivious of the amount of time I expend simply trying to get her to comply with everyday tasks. A lack of empathy, sure, but then, she is on the spectrum. What's the excuse of the general public or their cheerleader Maria Miller?
It is not the skills I lack, Ms Miller. It is the availability of work which I can mould around the needs of my child. I spent ten years trying to juggle work and caring, and I sometimes wonder if I didn't put work before family too often (after all, my employers were paying me and I had entered into a contract with them). Here's what I need to be able to work and care:
Term-time only - Holiday childcare for secondary-aged children is patchy, expensive and of varying quality. Sports camps are not viable, as they require co-operative working in groups, and are frequently noisy. If she struggles in school, where staff and pupils know her, there is little chance of her coping with strange faces and (possibly) unsympathetic peers. There are some schemes for disabled children, but I'm wary of this compartmentalisation and anyway, funding for these is being squeezed. Apart from any other considerations, she finds school mentally exhausting and she needs (as do most teenagers, actually) to use the holidays to recharge her batteries.
Truly flexible - and no, I don't mean the night shift in a 24hr supermarket. Something home-based, so I can work through the good days (rare) where I get no interruptions, yet be able to drop everything and deal with a crisis. I'm keen and willing to work, but cannot currently commit to standard hours or travelling. With 20+ years' admin/managerial experience, there should be something I could do from home (which, we're told, is the way of the future), but I've not been able to find anything so far.
Security - the one thing you really can't do where ASD is concerned is introduce uncertainty. Any job I do will need to be sufficiently ordered that it doesn't present too many fluctuations. For that reason, self-employment isn't really a good option. Trying to build a business simply isn't compatible with caring for someone on the spectrum (especially if, like me, you are profoundly non-entrepreneurial). I know, I had a go at it, with spectacularly little success. Given how many businesses fail anyway, and given the dire economic climate of the next few years, you really need to give it your full attention, something you cannot do if you are a carer.
I may be the primary carer, but it's a family enterprise. My partner, after a full day's work, is there to take some of the strain when he gets home, and my younger child accepts that she will be subject to a level of neglect which other children could not comprehend. Her needs are not even taken into account in the DLA application process, although she is massively affected by her sister's condition. To keep the family together (and therefore avoid additional strains on the welfare budget) I need to ensure that I'm there for all of them and when they need me. After all, we want to discourage family breakdown, don't we?
I don't expect to be able to command anything like the salary I did before (which, I hasten to add, was still only just about the national average after 22 years), but we took a 50% cut to the household income to care for our child, so you can't say we didn't make sacrifices. We saved the country 13 years' worth of DLA payments, by meeting the additional costs of my daughter's disability ourselves, despite modest incomes (and yes, I am looking at you, David Cameron). At present, I'm doing a full-time job for £55pw - no 20 days' annual leave entitlement, no opportunities for promotion, no trade union (although plenty of moral support from my fellow Twitter ASD friends). It's long-hours, I'm subject to regular verbal (and sometimes physical) abuse, and I have no recourse to any protest. We're working, but there is no money for much beyond mortgage, food and utilities. Our sofa needs replacing (the arm has split and the foam is spilling out), the carpets are nearly 20 years old and are getting dangerously threadbare; the recent wet weather has exposed weaknesses in the pointing on the front wall,which is allowing moisture to seep in. None of these will be addressed any time soon.
Now, I'm sure she will claim that she is talking generally about unemployed people , but she is the Minister for Disabled People, and so most people will assume that she is talking about the disabled seeking work. Yet another neat little smear tactic. Seemingly, Miller doesn't make the connection between getting (and retaining) a job and the impediments to that which the Welfare 'Reform" Bill creates. Almost everything she says could be justified if the WRB wasn't undermining disabled people's ability to retain their jobs.
"Every family should be a working family" says Ms Miller. Well, we are, and I am. I find the sneering assertion that I have "no appetite" to work deeply offensive.
Maria Miller, the Under-Secretary of State for Not Having a Clue says there is "no shortage of jobs"
Let's leave for the moment that fact that there IS a shortage of jobs (400,000 jobs for 2.96m unemployed is "a shortage" - you'd think, having studied Economics at the LSE, she'd have grasped this). Her assertion that it is down to people's lack of "appetite for the jobs on offer" is insulting to all jobseekers, but especially so for the disabled (or those who care for them) who want to work, but can't.
Many disabled people do work and most want to, if they are able. It is not that their 'skills' do not match; it is the access to and flexibility of these jobs which determine whether disabled people can take them, and too often there is still a mis-match here. Every time you've whinged about the attention a colleague is getting as he's measured for a specialised office chair due to a severe back problem, consider how much more you'd resent him if he gave up work and relied on disability benefits? It's simply not true that disabled people don't want to work. And have you noticed how 'flexible' working almost always means flexibility for the employer rather than the employee? "Can you fit with these odd work patterns? Then welcome!"
She's right on one thing - it's not just about the jobseeker, but also their family, and this is particularly important for disabled people, whose families are already disproportionately affected, and where family cohesion is tricky even without the demands of a low-paid, long-hours job.
Regular readers of this blog (and my Twitter followers) will already know how challenging caring for a teenager with Autistic Spectrum Disorder can be. This didn't evolved in a vacuum, though. When she was born, we were much more preoccupied with the diagnosis of Sturge Weber Syndrome, the prognosis for which was very variable and generally not good. Despite this we tried to lead as normal life as possible; I returned to full time work when she was six months old, despite her epilepsy, which manifested at the same time. We were advised at the time to apply for DLA for her, but we resisted, as we didn't feel that the demands on us where any greater than any other child of her age. By the age of three, and within days of starting school, it became clear that there were some fairly major behavioural issues to be addressed (not unknown with SWS). We, and school, struggled for several years to deal with this, and despite her statement and 100% (at one point 200%!) 1:1 support, it was touch and go whether we could keep her in school. Multiple exclusions, regular calls at work for one crisis or another, it was exhausting and demoralising. Her additional ASD diagnosis came in Y3, which helped a little, as we at least knew what we were dealing with and could try and devise strategies to help her. Throughout this time, we both continued to work - we were lucky in having understanding employers (we were also both conscientious and good at our jobs, which helped) and good after-school/holiday provision. Even with support, though, it was very difficult, and took its toll on us emotionally. Still we didn't claim DLA, despite advice from doctors that we should.
Oh. And did I mention the glaucoma and detached retina, which claimed the sight in one eye just before her 11th birthday? We carried on working through the operations, radiotherapy, 60-mile rounds trips to hospital, going cap-in-hand for special leave when we had exhausted both annual leave entitlements.
Just before she was due to transfer to secondary school, I was made voluntarily redundant from my outsourced, former local authority job. We decided that as school transition was likely to be traumatic, it made sense to live off my severance money to allow me to be available to help her. And so it's proved. I stretched the severance as far as I could, and then - finally - persuaded my partner that we really should claim the DLA to which we had probably been entitled for 13 years. As the claim was approved immediately, without recourse to appeals/tribunals, I assume I was right on this.
Adolescence isn't easy at the best of times and the additional anxiety and confusion it causes for those on the spectrum is unimaginable to the neurotypical. It would be nonsensical to try and return to full-time work for the next couple of years - she is, if anything, coping less well than she did in Y7, and it is vital that we keep her in school and (hopefully) get her some GCSEs (not the full EBacc - sorry Michael!!) if she is to have any chance of meaningful employment. As it is, her prospects are pretty bleak.
And as for me? Today she said "Why don't you get a job?", seemingly oblivious of the amount of time I expend simply trying to get her to comply with everyday tasks. A lack of empathy, sure, but then, she is on the spectrum. What's the excuse of the general public or their cheerleader Maria Miller?
It is not the skills I lack, Ms Miller. It is the availability of work which I can mould around the needs of my child. I spent ten years trying to juggle work and caring, and I sometimes wonder if I didn't put work before family too often (after all, my employers were paying me and I had entered into a contract with them). Here's what I need to be able to work and care:
Term-time only - Holiday childcare for secondary-aged children is patchy, expensive and of varying quality. Sports camps are not viable, as they require co-operative working in groups, and are frequently noisy. If she struggles in school, where staff and pupils know her, there is little chance of her coping with strange faces and (possibly) unsympathetic peers. There are some schemes for disabled children, but I'm wary of this compartmentalisation and anyway, funding for these is being squeezed. Apart from any other considerations, she finds school mentally exhausting and she needs (as do most teenagers, actually) to use the holidays to recharge her batteries.
Truly flexible - and no, I don't mean the night shift in a 24hr supermarket. Something home-based, so I can work through the good days (rare) where I get no interruptions, yet be able to drop everything and deal with a crisis. I'm keen and willing to work, but cannot currently commit to standard hours or travelling. With 20+ years' admin/managerial experience, there should be something I could do from home (which, we're told, is the way of the future), but I've not been able to find anything so far.
Security - the one thing you really can't do where ASD is concerned is introduce uncertainty. Any job I do will need to be sufficiently ordered that it doesn't present too many fluctuations. For that reason, self-employment isn't really a good option. Trying to build a business simply isn't compatible with caring for someone on the spectrum (especially if, like me, you are profoundly non-entrepreneurial). I know, I had a go at it, with spectacularly little success. Given how many businesses fail anyway, and given the dire economic climate of the next few years, you really need to give it your full attention, something you cannot do if you are a carer.
I may be the primary carer, but it's a family enterprise. My partner, after a full day's work, is there to take some of the strain when he gets home, and my younger child accepts that she will be subject to a level of neglect which other children could not comprehend. Her needs are not even taken into account in the DLA application process, although she is massively affected by her sister's condition. To keep the family together (and therefore avoid additional strains on the welfare budget) I need to ensure that I'm there for all of them and when they need me. After all, we want to discourage family breakdown, don't we?
I don't expect to be able to command anything like the salary I did before (which, I hasten to add, was still only just about the national average after 22 years), but we took a 50% cut to the household income to care for our child, so you can't say we didn't make sacrifices. We saved the country 13 years' worth of DLA payments, by meeting the additional costs of my daughter's disability ourselves, despite modest incomes (and yes, I am looking at you, David Cameron). At present, I'm doing a full-time job for £55pw - no 20 days' annual leave entitlement, no opportunities for promotion, no trade union (although plenty of moral support from my fellow Twitter ASD friends). It's long-hours, I'm subject to regular verbal (and sometimes physical) abuse, and I have no recourse to any protest. We're working, but there is no money for much beyond mortgage, food and utilities. Our sofa needs replacing (the arm has split and the foam is spilling out), the carpets are nearly 20 years old and are getting dangerously threadbare; the recent wet weather has exposed weaknesses in the pointing on the front wall,which is allowing moisture to seep in. None of these will be addressed any time soon.
Now, I'm sure she will claim that she is talking generally about unemployed people , but she is the Minister for Disabled People, and so most people will assume that she is talking about the disabled seeking work. Yet another neat little smear tactic. Seemingly, Miller doesn't make the connection between getting (and retaining) a job and the impediments to that which the Welfare 'Reform" Bill creates. Almost everything she says could be justified if the WRB wasn't undermining disabled people's ability to retain their jobs.
"Every family should be a working family" says Ms Miller. Well, we are, and I am. I find the sneering assertion that I have "no appetite" to work deeply offensive.
Thursday, 2 February 2012
Why I Won't be Joining You for a Drink...
Dear Dad
I know you and mum have always voted Conservative (I don't think I ever met a Labour voter while I was growing up), and that we have, over the years, had our disagreements about politics. I also suspect you wonder where you went wrong with me - and no, it wasn't
a) taking Sociology O level
b) moving to Manchester;
c) falling in love with a socialist
that made me reject your politics. It was:
a) working for 6 years for a Tory council (including during the Miners' Strike)
b) getting away from the Home Counties and seeing how the rest of Britain fared under them
c) working for an inner city local authority
You may not have noticed it, but I had moved to the left before I left Maidstone. I was one of only 4 people of my acquaintance who admitted to voting Labour or Alliance (for tactical voting purposes) in '87. Presumably everyone else thought Anne Widdicombe was a better bet?
Despite our differences (and despite our family discussions sometimes resembling Til Death Us Do Part) we've always managed to agree to disagree. I know you're not comfortable in the north and don't really understand the culture (you think I don't notice that you get twitchy once you hit the M6?), but it's my spiritual home. I came here nearly 25 years ago, and it has felt like 'home' from Day 1. I guess we'll just chalk that up to us being different as well. You brought us up to take an interest in politics and the world around us, and to think for ourselves. Mum always reminded us that women fought and died to get us the vote and that simpering about "not understanding politics" was simply not on. That we eventually came to different conclusion proves that you both did your job as parents, and produced free-thinking individuals who took their politics seriously.
Of course, I should have been ripe New Labour fodder - left-leaning offspring of Tory parents (just like Tony Blair!), but the New Labour project didn't do much for me. Too relaxed about the filthy rich, too keen on bringing the private sector in (has it ever produced a better, cheaper public service? No.). But the nation became, for 13 years at least, a little less nasty, a little less judgemental, a little less selfish.
Which brings me to the Coalition
And the Welfare Reform Bill.
Of all the ideologically-driven dismantling of the State that this shower are heaping on us, this really is the most venal.
http://networkedblogs.com/ttfa3
This, dad, is a beautifully-written piece by a disability campaigner who has been trying desperately to prevent the atrocity played out in the House of Commons yesterday.
UPDATE: In the 4 years since this was published, things have moved on. We now have an even more hateful government than the coalition, for a start. I have occasionally had a drink in the Con Club with my folks (as their advancing age limited their desire to go further afield). Dad has recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer, but we have managed to get him back to the Club for a drink before the morphine makes that kind of expedition impossible. It was a lovely session, with the whole family there (and possibly a record for the number of Socialists present - 4!).
Everything else I've said about the Tories remains valid.
I know you and mum have always voted Conservative (I don't think I ever met a Labour voter while I was growing up), and that we have, over the years, had our disagreements about politics. I also suspect you wonder where you went wrong with me - and no, it wasn't
a) taking Sociology O level
b) moving to Manchester;
c) falling in love with a socialist
that made me reject your politics. It was:
a) working for 6 years for a Tory council (including during the Miners' Strike)
b) getting away from the Home Counties and seeing how the rest of Britain fared under them
c) working for an inner city local authority
You may not have noticed it, but I had moved to the left before I left Maidstone. I was one of only 4 people of my acquaintance who admitted to voting Labour or Alliance (for tactical voting purposes) in '87. Presumably everyone else thought Anne Widdicombe was a better bet?
Despite our differences (and despite our family discussions sometimes resembling Til Death Us Do Part) we've always managed to agree to disagree. I know you're not comfortable in the north and don't really understand the culture (you think I don't notice that you get twitchy once you hit the M6?), but it's my spiritual home. I came here nearly 25 years ago, and it has felt like 'home' from Day 1. I guess we'll just chalk that up to us being different as well. You brought us up to take an interest in politics and the world around us, and to think for ourselves. Mum always reminded us that women fought and died to get us the vote and that simpering about "not understanding politics" was simply not on. That we eventually came to different conclusion proves that you both did your job as parents, and produced free-thinking individuals who took their politics seriously.
Of course, I should have been ripe New Labour fodder - left-leaning offspring of Tory parents (just like Tony Blair!), but the New Labour project didn't do much for me. Too relaxed about the filthy rich, too keen on bringing the private sector in (has it ever produced a better, cheaper public service? No.). But the nation became, for 13 years at least, a little less nasty, a little less judgemental, a little less selfish.
Which brings me to the Coalition
And the Welfare Reform Bill.
Of all the ideologically-driven dismantling of the State that this shower are heaping on us, this really is the most venal.
http://networkedblogs.com/ttfa3
This, dad, is a beautifully-written piece by a disability campaigner who has been trying desperately to prevent the atrocity played out in the House of Commons yesterday.
She and others have put their own health at serious risk to do this on behalf of people like Sally and Megan (Sue Marsh was rushed to hospital last week, when the campaigning made her critically ill).
Corporate and personal tax avoidance/evasion accounts for far more than this legislation will save, so it will have a neglible effect on deficit-reduction. It's just an act of spite by an un-mandated coalition of those who couldn't get elected and those who came a poor third. None of these 'reforms' were in any party's manifesto and some of the provisions were actively voted against by the Liberal Democrats at their conference and yet their MPs meekly followed the Tories through the lobby to condemn thousands of the most vulnerable in our society to poverty, isolation and dependence on crumbs of goodwill.
This has nothing to do with "fairness" or "ordinary, hard-working families" (many of whom will actually be clobbered by the changes to Housing Benefit in an unregulated private rental market). When they realised they couldn't win by fair means (by, say, getting their facts straight), they resorted to lying and cheating. The BBC, which you frequently tell me is so left wing? Currently running programmes like "Saints and Scroungers" (ooh, look, Dominic has his cross face on! And look - let's see who "deserves" support!), cementing the impression that fraud is rife (the fraud rate for DLA is 0.5% of total budget), and running news items about families with 7 children. The press and TV has been complicit on doing the Coalition's dirty work for it, by drip-feeding the impression that anyone who receives money from the state is a 'scrounger' (MP's expenses, anyone?). And it's working. Most "normal" people (to use IDS's charming phrase to distinguish them from disabled people) think "Look, they've got a telly. I don't have a telly like that. Why should they have a telly?"
The principle of "anyone who's got something I haven't" determining "unfairness" is becoming entrenched in public life. Just as white supremacists in the Southern US convinced poor whites (whose only 'superiority' came from pigmentation) that black people were out to get their jobs/wives, etc, so the Coalition of Millionaires is convincing people on low incomes that the shit wages they get paid by firms making millions and shunting profits offshore, allowing HM Govt to subsidise their low wages with tax credits, are OK, and that somehow those with no work are somehow getting one over on them. It's not that benefits are too high, it's that wages (for most of us) are pathetically low. Persuading the "dumped-on bottom" to vote against their own best interests is a neat piece of sleight of hand.
Here's another blog, from the excellent Sue Marsh (as above) about their tactics:
As I seem to remember you telling us as kids, life isn't fair. It's not fair that your granddaughter was born with a lifelong disability, or that your energetic, Morris-dancing, 'running two jobs and a family' daughter should be struck down with a debilitating condition in her mid-40s. But governments should be there to shield the most vulnerable from unfairness where they can, and yet the Coalition are happy to simply asset-strip the Welfare State in preparation for their mates in the US insurance industry to come in and make a killing (how likely do you think it is that Meg will be able to get medical insurance, by the way? Pre-existing and congenital conditions will usually rule you out (or they'll take your premiums and then refuse to pay out on a technicality).
You and mum have had long and productive lives, nurtured and supported by the state (rationing to keep you healthy in wartime, the NHS, secure employment, a long, comfortable retirement). You may not have had to call on unemployment benefits, or much other state support (although the Family Allowance was useful), but the State was there, indirectly, for "ordinary, hard-working families" for the whole of your adult lives.
Contrary to what Osborne (that great economic genius) would have you believe, Labour did NOT trash the economy. Certainly they made mistakes (trusting bankers to act honourably being the big one), and, even if they had, there is no excuse for the kinds of cuts the Coalition are making. No-one but an idiot believes that no cuts are necessary, but it's where you make them, and who you hurt the most, which counts. In this case, it seems to be "those least able to fight back."
I love you both and wish you both continued health - the NHS may just about survive you, but its future doesn't look promising. Whether my generation, or your granddaughters', will ever know job security, secure healthcare or retirement, is looking distinctly unlikely at the moment. The secret appears now to be "be born wealthy."
I survived the Thatcher years and thought we would never again go through anything as bad again, but how wrong I was. Having seen the depths to which the Tories and their LibDem enablers will stoop, I will (to borrow a phrase) never forget and never forgive.
And that is the reason why I won't ever be able to join you at The Conservative Club for a drink...
UPDATE: In the 4 years since this was published, things have moved on. We now have an even more hateful government than the coalition, for a start. I have occasionally had a drink in the Con Club with my folks (as their advancing age limited their desire to go further afield). Dad has recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer, but we have managed to get him back to the Club for a drink before the morphine makes that kind of expedition impossible. It was a lovely session, with the whole family there (and possibly a record for the number of Socialists present - 4!).
Everything else I've said about the Tories remains valid.
Saturday, 31 December 2011
If it's all the same to you.....
I have never much liked New Year's Eve. I think this may stem from one year I spent New Year's Eve with my parents at their local pub.
This was usually a good event - a lock-in for regulars after the itinerant revellers had staggered off to somewhere hipper (if, indeed 'hip' can really be applied to anywhere in my home town). As kids, my sister and I were allowed to stay upstairs in the landlords' flat until the time it became a private party, at which point we were allowed down into the bar and my sister demonstrated a preternatural talent as a barmaid, with a speed and accuracy on the optics which belied her tender age and stood her in good stead in adult life. This, despite levels of cigarette smoke that would would today be declared a biohazard, seemed impossibly grown-up and we loved it.
As I got older, though, I would rather have been out with friends of my own age, although my parents would never have stood for that - their view (with which I now concur) is that getting used to social drinking in a safe environment was better than being allowed out god-knows-where unsupervised. As a result, I did the usual teenage thing of grumping my way through the whole night. Midnight came and a drunk I had never met grabbed me, attempted a slobbery snog and promptly threw up over my right shoulder. That rather settled my attitude to New Year's Eve and from that point on (somewhere in the late 1970s) I've always been decidedly 'ho-hum' about the whole thing.
That's not to say that I've never celebrated it - there have been some years where spending the evening with good friends has been a delight, but that's the key - it should always be with people you know and care about. The thought of dragging myself into a crowded city centre bar just to spend the evening with a bunch of drunks simply doesn't appeal.
In recent years, the demands of kids has meant that we both stay home and watch the glittering Novemberfest that is Jools' Hootenanny. Even this seems to be subject to a law of diminishing returns, with guests who are possibly the least interesting they could muster (with honourable exceptions, of course). Over the last couple of years, the girls have joined us at midnight (they were usually still awake anyway), which does at least mean that the family is together for the turn of the year. Sometimes we get a phone call from my octogenarian parents (if they haven't given up and got an early night) and my sister's fibromyalgia now prevents her from a) drinking very much b) going out revelling c) guaranteeing to be awake at midnight - although that's not to say she won't be awake at 3am, 4am or 5am, having been dropping with fatigue at 8.30pm. We get calls from a couple of our oldest friends, after which we head for bed, seldom drunk enough to worry about a hangover in the morning.
What bugs me about New Year, though, is the continual triumph of hope over experience that has us all saying things like "let's hope it's better than the last one!". I'm essentially a fairly optimistic and practical person, hard-headed enough to sort my problems out and fight my corner when needed. This year, though, I simply cannot remember a time when I've dreaded the thought of the following twelve months more. True, we can never know what the future will bring, but of the things I know are coming our way, none of them are good. Our family income will be hit by a double whammy; my partner's pay being downgraded (he doesn't deal directly with the public, you see, so he's one of those awful "back office" types we are all supposed to deride) and frozen (again). And then there's the financial penalty we'll pay on our tax credits for our selfish lifestyle choice of having a disabled child without the foresight to ensure that she was severely disabled. The utter cruelty of a government which chooses to reduce financial support for the "not disabled enough" while simultaneously removing all other support structures is utterly breathtaking. For this reason, I won't, if it's all the same to you, be wishing anyone empty platitudes about better times ahead. For the vast majority of us, 2012 is going to be dire, and my profound wish is that we all come through it as unscathed as possible. Those of you on my Facebook Friends List and my Twitter buddies are all wonderful people and I wish the best to all of you - just don't ask me to dance around any fountains spouting rubbish about next year being fab!
My dad's usual new year greeting is "Duck! Here comes another one!" This year, more than ever, he's captured the zeitgeist.
This was usually a good event - a lock-in for regulars after the itinerant revellers had staggered off to somewhere hipper (if, indeed 'hip' can really be applied to anywhere in my home town). As kids, my sister and I were allowed to stay upstairs in the landlords' flat until the time it became a private party, at which point we were allowed down into the bar and my sister demonstrated a preternatural talent as a barmaid, with a speed and accuracy on the optics which belied her tender age and stood her in good stead in adult life. This, despite levels of cigarette smoke that would would today be declared a biohazard, seemed impossibly grown-up and we loved it.
As I got older, though, I would rather have been out with friends of my own age, although my parents would never have stood for that - their view (with which I now concur) is that getting used to social drinking in a safe environment was better than being allowed out god-knows-where unsupervised. As a result, I did the usual teenage thing of grumping my way through the whole night. Midnight came and a drunk I had never met grabbed me, attempted a slobbery snog and promptly threw up over my right shoulder. That rather settled my attitude to New Year's Eve and from that point on (somewhere in the late 1970s) I've always been decidedly 'ho-hum' about the whole thing.
That's not to say that I've never celebrated it - there have been some years where spending the evening with good friends has been a delight, but that's the key - it should always be with people you know and care about. The thought of dragging myself into a crowded city centre bar just to spend the evening with a bunch of drunks simply doesn't appeal.
In recent years, the demands of kids has meant that we both stay home and watch the glittering Novemberfest that is Jools' Hootenanny. Even this seems to be subject to a law of diminishing returns, with guests who are possibly the least interesting they could muster (with honourable exceptions, of course). Over the last couple of years, the girls have joined us at midnight (they were usually still awake anyway), which does at least mean that the family is together for the turn of the year. Sometimes we get a phone call from my octogenarian parents (if they haven't given up and got an early night) and my sister's fibromyalgia now prevents her from a) drinking very much b) going out revelling c) guaranteeing to be awake at midnight - although that's not to say she won't be awake at 3am, 4am or 5am, having been dropping with fatigue at 8.30pm. We get calls from a couple of our oldest friends, after which we head for bed, seldom drunk enough to worry about a hangover in the morning.
What bugs me about New Year, though, is the continual triumph of hope over experience that has us all saying things like "let's hope it's better than the last one!". I'm essentially a fairly optimistic and practical person, hard-headed enough to sort my problems out and fight my corner when needed. This year, though, I simply cannot remember a time when I've dreaded the thought of the following twelve months more. True, we can never know what the future will bring, but of the things I know are coming our way, none of them are good. Our family income will be hit by a double whammy; my partner's pay being downgraded (he doesn't deal directly with the public, you see, so he's one of those awful "back office" types we are all supposed to deride) and frozen (again). And then there's the financial penalty we'll pay on our tax credits for our selfish lifestyle choice of having a disabled child without the foresight to ensure that she was severely disabled. The utter cruelty of a government which chooses to reduce financial support for the "not disabled enough" while simultaneously removing all other support structures is utterly breathtaking. For this reason, I won't, if it's all the same to you, be wishing anyone empty platitudes about better times ahead. For the vast majority of us, 2012 is going to be dire, and my profound wish is that we all come through it as unscathed as possible. Those of you on my Facebook Friends List and my Twitter buddies are all wonderful people and I wish the best to all of you - just don't ask me to dance around any fountains spouting rubbish about next year being fab!
My dad's usual new year greeting is "Duck! Here comes another one!" This year, more than ever, he's captured the zeitgeist.
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
#asdmornings: When a Tweet's not long enough....
We had anticipated some problems this morning. We knew that she was not happy about doing Food Tech because she hadn't done last week's class and had therefore not made the puff pastry. The suggestion that she could take in some ready made stuff went down badly. Similarly, she's narky about not being "allowed" to do PE, despite several weeks where despite the best efforts of all concerned she has either refused to take part or has refused to leave the PE building afterwards, to a point where they have arranged alternative provision for this lesson while the school is still a building site (the logistics of getting the girls to PE currently involves leaving the premises by the front gate and walking around 2 sides of the perimeter to get to the PE Dept.).
Still, I heard her alarm go off at 6.45am and when I went in at 7am, she was awake and cheerful. "5 minutes" I said and went off to try and encourage her younger sister to engage with "morning."
By 7.30am, her mood had changed and she was refusing to get up. I warned her sister that she might have to walk up to school (it's cold but dry and not the end of the world not to have a lift), and that she'd need to be ready to leave by 8.00am.
At 7.57am, M complained that she also wanted to walk to school with her sister (despite still being in bed). Younger sister (and this is where it starts kicking off) complains that she didn't know she'd got to walk. This appears to trigger something and M then chases her down the stairs and we end up with YS locking herself in the downstairs toilet for protection, with M barring any exit therefrom. Eventually, YS ventures out and puts her blazer and winter coat on, but realises she can't put her shoes on as they're in the kitchen where M is hovering....
I try to encourage M away from her sister, but as she storms past (throwing stuff on the kitchen floor in the process) she pushes her, full strength, into the coat pegs in the hall. and heads back to her room, slamming the door and knocking more paint off the door frame as she does so.
Tears (YS's and mine) and a hug, and I bundle YS out of the house, and go into the living room to phone school to warn them that M is in meltdown and to request that they don't give YS a late mark, as she has been physically unable to leave the house before 8.15am. As I'm on the phone, I hear the merry ratchet-ing sound of the Chubb key on the outside of the living room door being locked behind me (a security measure we put in years ago when we had four break-ins in as many years, coincidentally the last time the Tories were in charge of law and order). Can hear the sound of things being thrown around, but no idea what. At this point, YS appears at the living room window. In her earlier panic, she has accidentally picked up her sister's blazer rather than her own. I negotiate, through a locked door, for M to let her sister in and exchange it for the right blazer without causing her sister any physical pain. I think I can gauge her mood from peering through the small crack in the woodwork (this one not of her creation!), but have to hope that I've called it right.
Blazer-exchange seems to go off without major injury and YS scuttles off to school. I then phone OH who, very sensibly, had left the house for work at 7.10am so he at least knows there is a problem. Offers to come home and let me out, but this seems unwise - the last thing a public sector worker needs at the moment is to be perceived as not being 100% productive. Also phone school, and we agree that it's unlikely I'll get her in, but that I will keep them posted
During the course of these conversations, M disappears upstairs, returning fully dressed for school and announces she's going to go in on foot. She then opens the front door, realises it's only just above freezing and asks for a lift. I try to phone school to warn them of this unexpected development, but can't get through, so I drive her there and phone them from the car park. I walk her to Reception, but her route to her classroom is blocked by a class of girls assembled to make the trek over to the PE building, so we lurk in the foyer until the way is clear. She then goes down to her classroom without a further murmur and appears in a perfectly good mood.
I am acutely aware, as I talk to members of staff and her support team, that I haven't yet had a chance to wash or clean my teeth and my hair is in need of a wash. Still, living with autism means that your sense of social embarrassment diminishes as you do what it takes to get by, and at least I'm not still in pyjamas!
Today was a fairly major version of the pre-school meltdown, but they're far from uncommon. I can never be sure what reception I will get when I go in at 7am, and it can often take 50 minutes to persuade her to get up (while trying to get the 11 year old sorted at the same time), to not wear the same shirt 3 days in a row, to have to judge how serious she is when she says, "if you make me go in I'll misbehave." Mixed in with the autism are the teenage hormones which would make life difficult anyway, but unlike the teenage hormones, there is every likelihood that a measure of this behaviour will remain into adulthood. Part of it is pure manipulation (she behaved better yesterday and was rewarded by being allowed to make peppermint creams and coconut ice for the end of term party), but once the manipulation has started, she doesn't always have the ability to stop it.
Autism is an unfairly invisible disability. Those who know her slightly, and have never encountered her in full meltdown see - quite rightly - what a lovely child she can be, but have no concept of what it's like trying to cope with the mercurial changes in temperament. They see that she is resourceful and resilient, but not that she can only do it sometimes - and there'e no predicting when she won't be able to.
Her sister, as many 11 year olds do, tends to overreact to perceived slights and unfairness. She hasn't yet learned the coping strategy of quietly ignoring the extreme provocation in the interests of self-preservation. That will come with maturity, but it's a lot to ask of her.
It's days like this where I wonder how I am ever going to find work that will enable me to combine caring with gainful employment. I'm reasonably intelligent, a good administrator, even ran a team of 30+ people at one time. At the moment, though, there is no prospect of me being able to go out to work on a full time basis. Childcare for secondary-aged children is patchy, so realistically, I'd be looking at term time only and, with the issues we face on a regular basis, it could really do with being something home-based and flexible. You're no use to an employer if you are constantly having to rush off and sort out a crisis (with my former management hat on, I know that's the case) and with employee's rights being stripped away, I don't think I'd last long in the conventional work environment, do you?
Which is why, on days like these, I so appreciate politicians and unelected 'representatives' voting to reduce the support I receive through tax credits by 50%. Makes me feel truly valued.
Wednesday, 30 November 2011
#N30
Huge love and support for all my friends and former colleagues on strike today. Yesterday's Autumn Statement proved that the coalition won't be happy until it's returned us all to the Victorian era, where support for the poor and needy is dependent on the partisan sympathy of the elite (welcome back, the "undeserving poor") and where working people have no security or protection.
I supported those in the private sector whose pensions were raided, whose schemes were shut down or made much worse; just because I wasn't immediately affected didn't mean that I sat there thinking, "I'm alright, Jack, I've got my nice public sector pension waiting for me." (which is the corrollory of some of the "Well, I haven't got a decent pension, so why should you have one?" comments I've been hearing recently).
In case no-one noticed, the public sector unions were prevented from taking action in support of you because of the "reforms" of the last Tory government. Sorry.
Today's action may be primarily about pensions, but it's about so much more. Snuck out yesterday was the abandonment of the TUPE regulations which (allegedly) offer protection to terms and conditions of public sector workers whose jobs are transferred to a private provider. Those of my former colleagues involved in the Learner Support debacle will know that the TUPE regulations aren't worth much, but they are a small buffer against exploitation.
On transfer from the council, we were denied permission to retain our local government pensions, which now sit there as deferred benefits until we're 65 - sorry, 66 - no, sorry 67......... We can do nothing to help ourselves on this one - we can't even agree to the government's terms and contribute more for longer and get less - we just have to sit tight and hope that too many current members don't pull out of the scheme and make it unsustainable.
Within a year of transferring out, I found myself demoted as part of a "restructure", the catch-all way for TUPE to be undermined. Within two years of transfer, I'd been paid off to make room for some more call centre staff (mostly unemployed graduates, with loans to pay off) on minimum wage. I relied on UNISON to make sure I didn't get ripped off as part of this process (as I had a few years earlier, when the council had ignored the fact that workplace bullying had driven me off sick and tried to instigate capability procedings against me (the bully, you might wish to note, was eventually sacked for inappropriate behaviour in a completely unrelated set of circumstances).
For these reasons, if no others, I am fully behind today's action. The union protected me when I was vulnerable, so I have a duty to support those who are still vulnerable.
If the private sector (and by this, I mean ordinary workers in the private sector, not the so-called "wealth creators) has lost out in pay/pensions, etc over the last 30 years, it's because it has become de-unionised. Like the young women who describe themselves as "post-feminist" and then decry the fact that they are still discriminated against, many people towards the end of the 20th century convinced themselves that unions were an anachronism; that we had won all the battles. In the good times, this was a persuasive argument, although in hindsight it was clearly wrong.
My great-grandfather, a master baker, was sacked for suggesting that he and his fellow workers should be paid for the extra shifts they were asked to put in to provide the Navy with bread for the fleet putting in at Dover. My (Tory) father worked all his life in the private sector, but was a member - and steward - of his staff association (GMB-linked, if I remember rightly). He knew that if you didn't have representation, you were vulnerable.
It is perfectly clear now, that the battles are far from won. The coalition is intent on wrecking civil society, and returning us to the conditions that made Dickens so "righteously indignant" (the same righteous indignation that Michael Gove, without a hint of irony, so admires!). Instead of support from the state, all but the independently wealthy will have to rely on the goodwill of charities (Job Centres are already referring people to food banks) and corporations.
Instead of being run by elected, accountable local authorities, schools will be privatised (and make no mistake, that's what academy status is) and run by unaccountable private 'sponsors', many of which seem to have a (sometimes dubious) religious background. that's bad news for those of us who do not want our children indoctrinated and who welcomed the transfer of state education provision from church to state.
The NHS, widely found by independent studies to be one of the most cost-effective health systems in the world, is being sold off to Lansley's business associates, at anenormous cost in "restructuring"
For those who think public sectors are overpaid/lazy/do non-jobs, etc, or that it costs 'too much' to run local councils, just watch how much more it costs once council services are handed to the outsourcing corporations. And this doesn't go on wages for the staff, it goes to senior managers and shareholders. Capita is making healthy profits in the midst of the worst austerity in (almost) living memory, on the back of its multiple government contracts. And this at a time when hundreds of small (private) businesses are struggling to keep afloat (especially if they relied on council contracts for their business!).
The difference between the laissez faire economies of the industrial revolution and today, though, is that those who made enormous fortunes out of their workforce at least had some level of guilt about it and used philanthropy to redress the balance a little. Today, the multimillionaires see no reason why they should give anything back. Hell, they don't even pay the tax they're supposed to contribute! Laissez-faire, too, meant that governments, largely, did not intervene - this government is actively promoting the looting of the public sector.
So today, I am not merely supporting my colleagues in the public sector, but hoping that this action, supported by 60-70% of the public (when was the last time a public sector strike had that level of support?), will show that the people of this country are not the apathetic, unthinking consumerist drones the coalition believe and hope them to be. It is not public vs private, it is the super-rich vs the rest of us. This is looking increasingly like Class War - the rich really hate us, don't they?
Sunday, 20 November 2011
Getting Through
Having a conversation yesterday morning about the upcoming 'Austerity Christmas' we're going to have.
My eldest daughter has high-functioning autism (not an Asperger's diagnosis, but she has no learning difficulties other than the anxiety/behavioural issues which prevent her accessing the curriculum on a regular basis). She's almost 14, and capable of quite sophisticated and nuanced discussions about current affairs (apart from those times when all we can elicit from her is a torrent of expletives and slamming doors when we say something she doesn't agree with*).
We discussed with her the fact that I have given up work to ensure that she can maintain her mainstream education, which has pretty much halved the family income over the last 2 years, and that with her dad employed by a local authority, our one income has been frozen for the same period. Next year, he will also lose several thousand pounds due to a job evaluation which downgraded him because he doesn't "deal with the public", which is clearly more important than, say, collating all the data which ensures the authority draws down the correct funding (Me, I'd have thought both functions have equal value, but that's what happens when local authorities buy in to the 'service economy' model - style over substance). As a result, we told her, we will have to be a lot more careful with our expenditure.
M: "You need to get a job, mum"
Me: "I'm trying to get a job, but there aren't that many around and I can't get a job if I'm going to be called out on a regular basis because there's a crisis at school. I'm no good to an employer if I'm always having to take time off or leave work at short notice. It needs to be something that's home-based, so I can work around you, and it needs to be term-time only, as there's no viable childcare."
M: "Well, I'll start to behave, then."
Me: "But you can't always help your behaviour; it's your autism, and it's unpredictable.
[We did both work full-time during her primary school career, and it nearly broke us. Despite a family-friendly employer and remarkably supportive managers - at least before I was outsourced to the private sector - it was incredibly difficult to sustain. I came to hate Caller ID - seeing the school's number come up brought me out in a cold sweat. It still does, but at least now I don't have to go cap in hand to a boss and ask for permission to disappear - again.]
OH: "There have only been 3 days in the last 2 years when your mum hasn't been available, and on 2 of those, I've had a call from school and have had to leave work to come and take you home. Do you see why it's so difficult for mum to find a suitable job?"
She didn't. Sometimes it's like trying to have a reasoned argument with a government minister.
Hey! Maybe instead of stacking shelves in Tesco on unpaid workfare, there's a future job opportunity for her as an ATOS assessor - she has at least as much knowledge of her medical/psychological condition as they do and has the necessary rigidity of thinking. She probably has too much empathy, though.
* On re-reading this post, I think she could also have a career as a politician - that sounds very much like Cameron response.
My eldest daughter has high-functioning autism (not an Asperger's diagnosis, but she has no learning difficulties other than the anxiety/behavioural issues which prevent her accessing the curriculum on a regular basis). She's almost 14, and capable of quite sophisticated and nuanced discussions about current affairs (apart from those times when all we can elicit from her is a torrent of expletives and slamming doors when we say something she doesn't agree with*).
We discussed with her the fact that I have given up work to ensure that she can maintain her mainstream education, which has pretty much halved the family income over the last 2 years, and that with her dad employed by a local authority, our one income has been frozen for the same period. Next year, he will also lose several thousand pounds due to a job evaluation which downgraded him because he doesn't "deal with the public", which is clearly more important than, say, collating all the data which ensures the authority draws down the correct funding (Me, I'd have thought both functions have equal value, but that's what happens when local authorities buy in to the 'service economy' model - style over substance). As a result, we told her, we will have to be a lot more careful with our expenditure.
M: "You need to get a job, mum"
Me: "I'm trying to get a job, but there aren't that many around and I can't get a job if I'm going to be called out on a regular basis because there's a crisis at school. I'm no good to an employer if I'm always having to take time off or leave work at short notice. It needs to be something that's home-based, so I can work around you, and it needs to be term-time only, as there's no viable childcare."
M: "Well, I'll start to behave, then."
Me: "But you can't always help your behaviour; it's your autism, and it's unpredictable.
[We did both work full-time during her primary school career, and it nearly broke us. Despite a family-friendly employer and remarkably supportive managers - at least before I was outsourced to the private sector - it was incredibly difficult to sustain. I came to hate Caller ID - seeing the school's number come up brought me out in a cold sweat. It still does, but at least now I don't have to go cap in hand to a boss and ask for permission to disappear - again.]
OH: "There have only been 3 days in the last 2 years when your mum hasn't been available, and on 2 of those, I've had a call from school and have had to leave work to come and take you home. Do you see why it's so difficult for mum to find a suitable job?"
She didn't. Sometimes it's like trying to have a reasoned argument with a government minister.
Hey! Maybe instead of stacking shelves in Tesco on unpaid workfare, there's a future job opportunity for her as an ATOS assessor - she has at least as much knowledge of her medical/psychological condition as they do and has the necessary rigidity of thinking. She probably has too much empathy, though.
* On re-reading this post, I think she could also have a career as a politician - that sounds very much like Cameron response.
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