REAL LIFE ON THE DOLE : PART 4

My shoes are falling apart. As I have just one pair they get heavy use as I walk a good deal. The problem will be buying a new pair. Someone once said you can tell much about a person from the state of their shoes, mine are a pair of Clarks bought for a reduced price that are now splitting apart, uppers from sole, very much as I am.

Being on the dole is being in a condition of constant anxiety. There is plenty of time but it is often spent in a condition of paralysis brought on by a fear of expending money. All your activities are highly limited, your confidence undermined, your sense of exclusion emphasised. You are constantly aware that you cannot afford anything. Every phone call or letter is dreaded, as it will almost always be a demand for payment. It is a form of social suppression and control by economic means.

To repeat : the current level of benefit given to an adult citizen in this country is totally inadequate. It does not meet the terms of the EC Joint Report on Social Exclusion 2002 to which this Government is a signatory to ‘guarantee an adequate income and resources to live in human dignity…and participate in society as full members.’

To buy a new pair of shoes I will be relying on the possible sale of some LP’s from my record collection. Fortunately some of these have become ’collectable’ but they are a finite number. But is it right that these have to be sold to keep shoes on my feet ?

Like a minimum wage, which was eventually enacted despite the howls of protest from various ’ Captains of industry ’ and the opposition of the Conservative Party, there is a strong case for a basic minimum income below which no citizen should have to live.

In France where the benefit system is considerably more generous, there have been riots in consequence of social exclusion and poverty. A sort of manifesto has been recently published ’The Coming Insurrection’ by The Invisible Committee which provocatively challenges the blindly accepted mantras of work being the only way to take part in society. There never has been nor will there ever be paid work for all I contend, and furthermore the very term is no longer meaningful. What do we mean by work ? The highest paid jobs are the preserve of those who manipulate elaborate financial schemes and do not make anything useful in the real world. Yet there is a continual assumption that ' real jobs ' are created by their machinations. First, that implies that what they do to make money is not real, and indeed it appears to be some black art which is given pseudo-religious reverence. Listen to the solemn intoning of the stock exchange figures at the end of the BBC Radio 4 news every day, as if it underpins all else and has some ultimate almost holy significance.

Second, where are these real jobs that an outfit like Goldman Sachs, who continue to reward themselves obscenely for their unreal jobs, magically created ? Once their extravagant hidden HQ had been built, on the former site of The Daily Telegraph in the late 1980’s, other than ensuring the local Starbucks stays in business can anyone show me how one new ‘real job’ has come about through their arcane practices and fanatical devotion to appropriating enormous amounts of money into their wallets ?

What does the ‘City’ do exactly ? What is it ? It is not a single entity, although always referred to as if it is, it is not an elected Government, why is this thing called ‘The City’ always given such importance ? Share prices and currency exchange values are given at the end of every BBC news bulletin, like a holy incantation. Relative currency and share prices are of interest only to those who make their money from dealing in same, why are they cited as if they underpin society as some underlying given with vital significance for all ?

Even the Corporation, the more tangible organisation that provides the services and facilitates the financial ‘City’ is a very strange animal. No more than a couple of thousand people live in the square mile, not that it is square, nor indeed is a square mile ever used as a unit of area elsewhere, and it takes in a huge amount in business rates with but what does it do ? Granted the streets are the cleanest in London, the sewers in good order, there is the Barbican Centre, where I sit writing this, although for many years the library was only accessible for those who lived or worked in the City. And it doesn’t keep Tribune but it does keep Vogue.

There has always seemed to be a vacuum at the heart of the City of London, no discernable purpose, no guiding principle other than its own material preservation and the maintenance of its power. Its obsessive care of the fabric of its buildings, its boundaries, its bollards, its pavements ( recently all chewing gum was meticulously removed ) is symptomatic of a deep commitment to utilitarianism, a disregard of the society and citizens it is supposed to serve.

It is notable how in Italy, for example, cities have Communales as their local Government, here we have Authorities, and, in the particular case of the City, a Corporation, which is, of course, a term for a business.

Getting back to some facts about how the ridiculously complex and inadequate benefits system operates in this country. If I do earn some money only the first £5.00 is disregarded, anything over that is deducted from your basic benefit. Thus if I was paid £25 for writing this I would be £5 better off. This is how a means tested system operates. It is absurd and encourages non compliance.

Yet there is an incentive deal available for employers called, incredibly, a ‘Self Marketing Voucher.’ This gives an employer £500 if they trail you for a job and a further £500 if you are still there in six months. This bribe goes direct to the employer if they ’ create ’ a job while you continue to try and survive on £64.50 a week while working full time. This is crazy. Why cant that £500 be given to the person who needs it the most : the claimant. £500 seems like a fortune when you are on the dole and if £1000 can be found to give to an employer who does not have to pay you anything and does not have to offer a paid position after six months why cant it be found for the claimant ?

I have been unemployed before, in the early Eighties and the early Nineties, two other periods of deep recession. It was just about possible to manage on the level of benefits in those periods. It is impossible now.

It disturbs me to continually hear the assumptions and accusations that are made about those claiming legitimate benefits. There are millions of unemployed people, the percentage that defraud the system is tiny, the vast majority are trying to exist on £60.40 or less a week. It is remarkable how little complaint is heard in the mainstream media.

It is badly misguided and dangerous for this or a future Conservative Government, and they seem identically minded on this, to tinker with the basic entitlement and make it conditional. It is already at a scandalously low level and completely inadequate. To introduce some form of work for this already inadequate provision and to perhaps remove it from those not prepared to submit to these coercions would be a further step away from the principle of a form of social security. I for one will refuse to work for a benefit that does not come anywhere near the minimum wage.

It is rather a Minimum Income that should be introduced by any progressive and civilised Government.

This gradual undermining of the principle of social security and the avowed aim of social inclusion to which this country is committed at European level will further stress the already fragmented society and add the to the sense of injustice I and many others already feel. It will give more credence to extremism from both Left and Right wing groups and could lead to civil unrest on a considerable scale.

To quote Geoffrey Wheatcroft ’ Blaire did not destroy Socialism, he did destroy two older traditions that had long nourished Labour : the liberal and the radical. I concur, Socialism is an idea, a philosophy it cannot be destroyed.

This has to be the time for these radical traditions to be revived. For the Labour Party to stop doing the Conservative’s work for them and instead introduce a simple, universal minimum income entitlement which would be a very important step toward making this country less unequal, less socially stressed, more fair and more civilised.

Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you

Ye are many , they are few.

The Mask of Anarchy

XCI

P B Shelly