Tag: Family

48 Dirge 2: declare war

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In the years of plenty
it was easier to placate
and complicate
than simplify.
The argument for welfare reform
is not just one of affordability.
In too many cases
welfare has entrenched poverty.
Get a job tomorrow
earning between ten
and thirty thousand a year,
you’ll only take home
thirty pence out of every extra pound
after the first ten thousand.
Twenty pence
will go in income tax
eleven pence
in national insurance
thirty nine
in lost tax credits.
Our poverty trap is deep.
A strange legacy
for a government
that wanted to
make
work
pay.
The fear
of not being able to scramble
back on to the lifeboat
if you fall off
is a huge disincentive
to change your circumstances.
One in seven
working age households
is dependent on benefits
for more than half its income.
More than half
of lone parents
depend on the State
for at least half their income.
The safety net
has become a trap.
It has also created
a glut
of unemployed
unwanted
unmarriageable men.
Men who can find
neither work
nor a wife.
These men were overlooked
during a decade of prosperity
that did nothing to change their lives.
They stayed put.
In the Welsh Valleys
in Liverpool
in Glasgow
in Birmingham
Strathclyde
and Newcastle
they stayed put. While
Eastern Europeans
travelled a thousand miles
to pick up work
on construction sites in London.
Immigration
reduced the opportunities
available to
white
British
men
men
whose poor education
made them less attractive
overlooked by society,
irrelevant to employers,
unwanted by women.
The man
who has no work
or a series of short-term jobs
is a problem.
Without steady work
he will struggle
to acquire
a family.
Without a stable relationship
he is less likely to grow
into a good
family man
less likely
to raise
good
sons.
The government
must start to question
the feminisation
of education
and the workplace.
It is no solution
to say that women
don’t need men
or that men
should become
more female.
Nor is it any good
waiting for growth
to dig them
out of poverty.
These men need a chance
not a benefits system
that undermines them.
One in four mothers
is single,
more than half
live on welfare.
A lot of these women,
who can raise families on benefits
without their help,
describe
the real
fathers of their children
as ‘useless’
or worse.
The State
has helped to create
a class of jobless
serial boyfriends
who prey on single mothers
on benefits.
The men have no role.
The taxpayer has become
the father.
Poverty
and benefits;
if the Government
is going to make inroads
it will have to declare war
on both.

[The Times, 28/05/2010, Editorial: Useless, jobless men – the social blight of our age]

54 the old system

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During the 1960s
while pregnant with her
her mother took thalidomide.
She is blind in one eye,
partially deaf,
can barely walk,
barely dress herself.
She has arthritis.
In 2004 she underwent surgery
to remove a brain tumour.
She retired from her job
as a care assistant.
She was to undergo spinal surgery
late in 2013.
‘It is because of the way I have had
to manipulate my body over the years
to try and live a normal life.
Because we have to use our bodies
in different ways
what anyone else finds normal
has killed us.’
She and her late husband
were believed to be
the first thalidomide victims in Britain
to get married.
(Her carer
helps her make tea
and brushes her hair.)
In July 2012
she received a letter
saying she must go
on a training course.
Her family appealed
and the decision was overturned.
Then
in October
she was told
once again
she should not
be claiming benefits
as she could not prove
she was unfit to work.
A further appeal was rejected.
A spokesman for the Department said
‘The old system
condemned too many people
to a life on benefits
with little hope
of moving back to work.
Now
people who can work
will be given help
to find a job
while those who need unconditional support
will get it.’
She was served with court papers
and must attend a tribunal
where she will have to prove
her disabilities to a judge.

[Daily Star, 16/03/2013, Benefits hell for Thalidomide patient; Daily Mail, 15/03/2013, Blind in one eye, partially deaf and facing major spinal surgery but Thalidomide mother is still found fit to work; The Independent, 15/03/2013, Capable of ‘work-related activity’: Partially blind Thalidomide victim with brain tumour fights Atos decision to force her to attend interviews and put together CV]

56 until the money ran out

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His family only pieced together his predicament
after discovering a repossession order
in the bin.
He had lived in the house all his life.
The order,
dated 13 September 2013,
gave him ten days to leave.
He suffered from mental health problems
including agoraphobia.
He had worked
as an assistant sales manager
in the 80s but
after leaving
he failed to find further employment.
Depression
and a suicide attempt
followed;
1989, an overdose
which damaged his vision.
(He was registered as partially blind
in 1994.)
After this he never worked again.
‘He was never extravagant,
didn’t go on holiday,
never had a car,’
his sister said.
His benefits were stopped in December 2012
after an assessment
found him fit for work.
‘He couldn’t ask for help.
He didn’t want to be a burden on anyone.’
Relatives believe he lived off his savings
until the money ran out.
It was his sister who found his body,
two days before the eviction date,
hanging in his hallway.

[Stourbridge News, 26/12/2013, Disabled Kinver man killed himself after being left “almost destitute” when his state benefits were axed]