Are There No Workhouses?

Today, I read a thread on twitter likening workhouses to gulags. Quite aside from doing a grave disservice to the millions who died in actual gulags in Communist Russia, the person who wrote the thread seemed to have absolutely no idea how the workhouse system in England actually... worked. And then you have nobjockeys like that cartoon prick Rees-Mogg saying we should bring back workhouses, which is a terribly short sighted idea, which I will come back to in hot minute.

So, let me enlighten you, because the Victorian poor are, quite literally, my specialist subject.

The 1601 Act for the Relief of the Poor was designed to echo Protestant culture of taking care of the less fortunate that spread across Europe in the 16th century. Essentially, the people who could afford it gave money to the church, who kept it in a giant chest in the church (the 'community chest', see also: Monopoly) and handed it out to the deserving poor. This meant the church got to decide who was deserving - vagrants (meaning anyone who wasn't normally resident in the parish) got short shrift. Most places also later built a workhouse to house people who needed it. They were usually quite small. To give a couple of local examples: Werrington workhouse was one of the thatched cottages near the village post office, and the one in Empingham was the house called The Wilderness. Cities had correspondingly larger workhouses. People could only claim relief from their home parish, under something called 'settlement'. You could acquire settlement by being born in a parish, marrying a man born in another parish and then moving there, or by working for more than a full year in the same parish before applying. This is part of the reason people didn't move around much in ye olden times - they risked losing their settlement, and thus any right to relief. 

By the 1800s, parish relief rates, a local tax payable by landowners and freemen, were getting out of hand. The data showed massive regional variation in how much people paid, to support a massively variable poor population. Something needed to be done, and the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act was introduced. This law was harsh, make no mistake. It was supposed to offer immediate incarceration in the workhouse to any able-bodied person approaching the parish for relief. It was meant to be a deterrent. New workhouses were built to consolidate all the small ones in the area: huge, prison-like edifices popped up in every registration district.  They usually included an infirmary, and separated inmates into men and women. The new workhouses were run by the Board of Guardians, which replaced the parish as the administrative unit. They usually comprised local government figures, a few doctors and perhaps some of the local clergy. The settlement rules remained in force, and the Board were quite happy to pay to send petitioners back to their home workhouse if they could not prove settlement. 

Theoretically, the Board were only supposed to offer the workhouse (or in-relief) to poor people, but they were never so rigid in practice. How could they have been? Following a poor harvest, entire agricultural communities would require workhouse beds. Even the largest workhouses couldn't accommodate everyone. So, they bent the rules and gave people out-relief, depending on need. This wasn't necessarily money - they could give out fuel, flour, potatoes. A great many old people remained in their homes until death thanks to out-relief. Should you engage in family history and discover someone living on 'parish relief', that is what it refers to. Sometimes, this relief was given in exchange for maintaining the roads. Widows were also commonly given out-relief, to prevent their children being taken into the workhouse. If a whole family sought help, it was not uncommon for the Guardians to admit the husband, and give the wife and children out-relief to keep them at home (and therefore, together). 

The humanity of the Guardians depended very much on the area and its needs, but I have found many more examples of benevolence than of cruelty. 

If you wanted relief, you had to go before the Guardians - the worst kind of job interview format you can think of. You had to demonstrate your right to settlement, your reasons for asking for help, and do so with enough humility to make them want to help you. 

If you ended up in the workhouse, it was dehumanising. You were issued with a uniform, separated from your spouse and children (if they came in with you), and expected to work. The idea was to make the workhouse so horrible that nobody would choose to go there, thus saving money. But the very SIZE of the new workhouses demonstrated that the government were under no illusions about how this was going to work. 

There were several food scandals in the early days of the workhouse, with people being fed starvation diets. These scandals were incredibly damaging to the reputation of the new Poor Law, mainly because the rich didn't want the blood of the poor on their hands. The Poor Law Board was implemented after the above scandal, to act as a sort of Care Quality Commission for workhouse safety. 

The Board of Guardians, and workhouses, also served several other functions that rarely get referenced in general discourse. They provided residential care for the disabled, saving them from life in an asylum. They provided maternity services for unmarried women and those too poor to afford even basic private maternity cover. They issued medical orders to allow the poor to get medicine for free from the dispensary, and hospital admissions. They took the fathers of illegitimate children to court for maintenance on behalf of the mothers. They designed and built the first children's homes, and developed formal foster care. Now, none of this was done for solely benevolent reasons (child maintenance, for example, stopped them having to fund illegitimate children) or to anything approaching a modern standard of good practice, but in an era before the welfare state, the Poor Law WAS the welfare state. 

In 1909, pensions were brought in for the first time for those who hadn't needed relief within the last five years. This was extended to universal provision in 1911, and marked the beginning of the slow end of workhouses. They still offered beds to tramps (read The Spike by George Orwell for a brilliant account of what being a tramp meant in those days), still offered maternity services for the unmarried (which was a source of immense shame in most areas), still offered inpatient care to disabled people, but essentially became hospitals. Peterborough workhouse morphed into Peterborough District Hospital over a number of years. Bourne workhouse became St Peter's Hospital, a residential home for disabled children and adults. The majority of remaining workhouses became Public Assistance Institutions in the 1930s, being subsumed into the NHS on inception, and most workhouse sites remain NHS-owned - one of Stamford's, for example, is an ambulance centre and residential service. Yes, affluent Stamford had two workhouses, housing 450 people, with a separate children's home. 

So why did they stop? Who decided workhouses were a bad idea, and why? For the same reason the government decide anything: cost. It is not cheap to maintain buildings designed to house hundreds of people. It is not cheap to hire the staff - all workhouses had a master, a matron (usually the master's wife) and various medical staff. Cleaning etc. was done by the inmates, but these inmates needed to be fed. After the workhouse scandals of the early Poor Law reform, they needed to be fed so they wouldn't die. It is much cheaper to keep people in their own shitty homes than to pay for them to be housed in government-run buildings, with accompanying government standards, however appalling those standards are from the modern perspective. 

And that remains the reason why reinstating workhouses would be a fucking terrible idea, morally, fiscally, practically. If you use  people who are currently in receipt of not-in-work benefits as your basic admission criteria, you have a minimum inmate population of eight hundred and ninety THOUSAND, not including spouses/children. So now you have to build workhouses to house those 890000 people, their partners and children, including adequate heating, electrics, food, water, medical care, ensuring the housing complies with individual access needs for the myriad disabled people. You have to pay for staff, and their training, and a Workhouse Quality Commission. Workhouses are not prisons - the inmates have done nothing wrong aside from not being in work - so you better have adequate facilities. The compensation market for wrongful practice would make an absolute fortune. 

Would that cost the government less than £70 per person per week? Would it fuck. Paying people their benefits directly absolves the government of responsibility if that person ends up in shit housing, with no electric, no medicine and no help. Put them in the workhouse, and the government better fucking deliver. 

Here endeth the lesson.

Further reading: 

The Solidarities of Strangers: The English Poor Laws and the People, 1700-1948, Lynn Hollen Lees

The Evolution of the British Welfare State: A History of Social Policy since the Industrial Revolution, Derek Fraser

The website www.workhouses.org offers a comprehensive catalogue of workhouses, children's homes and other institutions in England, often with pictures and maps.

Stewart Jackson: Redux

It's election time once more! Last time, despite my pleas, Peterborough foolishly elected Stewart Jackson as MP once more by a scant 1950 votes. And, as his leaflet dropped on our doormat the other day, let's take a look at the Life and Lies of Stewart Jackson.

So, the front page. Stewart Jackson stands with Theresa May, as you'd expect really, considering he's a Tory. He's hardly going to claim he hates the bitch and would make a much better PM. There's also a photo of him beaming in front of Peterborough guildhall and supporting a bee protection charity. That's ironic since he's consistently voted against climate change protection measures.

Within the leaflet, he marks out the work he's done for the area, like blocking the solar energy farm that was going to be built on Newborough fen; raising a petition about Werrington freight line  - he doesn't mention it submitted before GE2015, went unanswered, and the plans went to the secretary of state three months ago - and trying to improve the A47, which is underway, notably with the FUCKING AWFUL traffic lights at Wansford A1 junction. Such a trooper. In fairness to Stewart Jackson, he does write to the cabinet with questions pertaining to Peterborough (most of which already have answers available in the public domain), and voted in around 85% of all votes. He pushed for Brexit, which is no surprise, and he's even curbed his expenses a little. He's very proud of Peterborough's low unemployment rates. He also claims that the NHS is his top local priority, which is an absolute joke considering his voting history.

His voting record remains a catalogue of misery for anyone who isn't an older, healthy, white, heterosexual, salaried, homeowning British citizen.
He has consistently voted against gay rights, race laws, benefits being raised in line with inflation, and increasing jobs for young people. He has voted for the bedroom tax, for restricting disability benefit, for restricting disability benefit to those who have been disabled from birth/youth. He has voted against limiting letting fees for tenants. He has voted against people with cancer receiving extended ESA, He voted for the tuition fees raise, for the academy system, and for the various bills undermining the NHS. He has voted against ID cards, but for mass data retention (the Snooper's charter). He voted against a right to remain for EU citizens. He has voted against special provision for military families in the welfare system. He has voted against slowing the rise of rail fares. He has voted against nationalisation of public transport.
Of course he has, he's a Tory.


The rest of the leaflet is given over to the words of The Great Leader Theresa May. Theresa swears she has set out a clear approach to Brexit, which...has she? Really? She says she has a strong negotiating hand. The Tories have been openly mocked by the rest of the EU and Theresa May has demonstrated that she couldn't successfully negotiate a child's bedtime. We have nothing to negotiate with, except tax haven status,
And then, in a rehash of the last election, we are told our election choice is Strong and Stable Leadership in the National Interest OR A COALITION OF CHAOS with Jeremy Corbyn and Tim Farron. DO YOU MEAN TO TELL ME, CONSERVATIVES, THAT A COALITION GOVERNMENT WITH THE LIB DEMS IS A BAD IDEA???

The leaflet then tells us that Trump winning was a shock, even though Theresa May fell over herself to rush over there and hold his grubby, orange mitt. Brexit was a shock, even though the Tories definitely wanted it and it's gonna be amazing, honest guv. And Corbyn winning two leadership elections was a shock.

Maybe Britain is fed up of your lying bullshit about caring, Theresa. Maybe hardworking British families, who are also apparently irresponsible benefit scroungers, have had enough of your shit, of your punishing the economically weak for the faults of the strong, of being told if they would JUST WORK HARDER, they too could be RICH. Maybe normal British people fancy someone with a bit of integrity, someone who is decent, who inspires faith in the politically inactive. Someone who hasn't promised on national TV to NUKE THE WORLD, you fucking bloodthirsty maniac. Maybe the national debt going from five hundred billion pounds under Gordon Brown to a staggering ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY BILLION POUNDS in just SEVEN YEARS of Conservative government doesn't inspire a lot of confidence about your FUCKING ECONOMIC NOUS, which has always been the Tory selling point.

People are dying under this government, unnecessarily. The NHS is being stealthily dismantled, as is the social care contract. We go headlong into Brexit, fronted by a vindictive racist who couldn't lead herself out of a paper bag; who thinks you will vote Tory because you think they're a safe pair of hands. They aren't.


All voting information from They Work For You. Economic information from UK Public Spending. Leaflet published by Matthew Dalton on behalf of Stewart Jackson. Vitriol my own. 

Privilege

The thing that pisses me off most about Tories (and there are a lot of things that piss me off about the Conservative party, but I'm talking about Tory voters) is their fast belief that anyone, ANYONE, who works hard enough can succeed, and a lack of success is an individual's fault. In summary, poor people are poor because they have failed as a person, on some level. Rich people are rich because they are inherently better.

I mean, it's bollocks. You don't need a sociology degree to know it's bollocks, AND YET it forms the background of so many Tory policies. There is an a total lack of insight into how society works. When we are born, we are effectively a blank slate. What we are born into affects every aspect of our development and future.

If your parents are better off, they might be able to pay for your driving lessons, buy your first (and subsequent) car, pay your student living fees, house you while you save for a mortgage, lend or gift you money for your mortgage. And all these things are taken for granted by you, the privileged one, as enjoying the rights afforded to you by birth.

On the other hand, if your parents have little spare money, you might not learn to drive, or go to uni. This might severely restrict your ability to get a job, particularly in deprived areas. Your parents might be keen for you to move out because they can't afford to house you anymore. You might end up paying a rent that takes up most of your income, leaving you no spare cash to save for a mortgage. And this, according to the Conservative party, is your fault. You should have tried harder.

Even things like having parents available for free childcare can massively affect your career trajectory and income potential. And these are not conditions that most individuals choose, they are accidents of birth.

It was different when my parents were young, and you could get a 100% mortgage by just asking, and business loans were a thing, and university was free, and jobs didn't require you to have a degree and three years experience just to work in retail. It was different when their parents were young, in the immediate postwar era when the welfare state was born. But in the current economic climate, it is bloody difficult to get going into adulthood without some financial backing.
And so you get a cycle of poverty. Poor parents have poor children who become poor parents who have poor children. The Tories are trying to stop this by stopping the poor reproducing (and just for the record, THIS GOVERNMENT THINKS YOU ARE POOR IF YOU EARN LESS THAN £35k P.A SO WIPE THAT SMUG SMILE OFF YOUR FACE) but ultimately, you have to invest in people to make them thrive. You would think the Tories would know this - they know you have to invest in a business to make it succeed. But no.

But when Jeremy Corbyn starts talking about investing in normal people, in redirecting wealth, the Tories throw up their arms in despair, crying Marxism and trying to re-institute fox hunting. Fox hunting - a sport that occupies a few hundred people at a time, each paying a massive subscription, exclusive by definition - is far more important than dealing with any form of social inequality, because the Tories simply fail to acknowledge that it exists.

Tax Credits

So, I signed the petition to repeal the 'rape clause' that forms part of the tax credit policy now. And today, I received a government response which amounted to "you should have complained about this eighteen months ago, tough shit". But one paragraph absolutely INCENSED me:

LET US PARSE THIS STATEMENT

"Families supporting themselves solely through work" are either not claiming the tax credits they are entitled to, or earning more than the income threshold (£25000 for one child, £35000 for two). Look at those thresholds: they are Quite High particularly as the average annual income is £27000. The vast majority of working class families qualify for tax credits. Remember the 'hardworking families" trope? That's them.

"do not see their incomes rise automatically when they have more children". No, but by earning more than the income thresholds for tax credits, they already have a considerable scope for a much higher income. Two children on £35000 a year is very different to two children on £45000 a year. There are always people who fall into the cracks of being just over the threshold, but frankly if you struggle on £36k p.a. with two children (as one who has been doing so on much less for years) learn to budget better. A great deal of necessary public sector jobs have low and locked in salaries - an MAU staff nurse in Peterborough can expect a starting salary of between £22 and £24k; a newly qualified teacher's income is capped at £22k in their first year - which automatically classifies them as both poor and according to this government, an idiot with no idea how to control their fertility unless you threaten them financially.

"The policy encourages families who receive benefits or tax credits to make the same financial decisions about the number of children they can afford to support as those families who support themselves solely through work"

WHERE TO FUCKING BEGIN? The fucking PATRONISING language - "we ENCOURAGE the IDIOT POOR PEOPLE to STOP BREEDING". The whole idea that Only Rich People are sensible enough and rich enough to have more than two children. The idea that people have children for tax credits - yes, the difficult pregnancy, birth and eternity of care I invested in my third child is definitely worth the £50 extra a week. And separating those who claim tax credits - 4.43 million households out of approximately 18 million in the UK at the last ONS count - from those who don't need to as though that is a fair and just way of dividing the nation's fertility choice. Previously, those who were on income support or JSA were the Undeserving Poor of the nation. Now, apparently, it's to be extended to anyone on a low income regardless of how much they work or what classification of job they have.

"while protecting the vulnerable by retaining extra support for families with disabled children." DON'T MAKE ME FUCKING LAUGH. I have a disabled child, and believe me, I had to TAKE THE DEPARTMENT OF WORK AND PENSIONS TO COURT AND THEN THREATEN TO DO IT AGAIN to get them to pay the money rightfully owed to my disabled child. They don't give a single solitary fuck about disabled children.

None of this stops me or anyone else from having thirty two children if I want to, but the fact is that most low income households have included tax credits as part of their forecast income when deciding to have more children, and now they will have to stop doing that. There is an uncomfortable element of eugenics inherent in this policy that reminds me of the Victorian era when it was widely believed that poverty and poor moral behaviour were genetically linked. Stop the poor people having loads of kids and maybe there won't be any more poor people to worry about! Never mind fixing the causes of poverty and social inequality, just financially sterilise them!

But for a whole host of women, this family cap is going to be a real fucking issue. You see, it is applied to children born after 7th April 2017 and to "any new claims". So, if your circumstances change in the near future, and you suddenly find yourself applying for tax credits for the first time, little Imogen the Third Child won't be counted. If your partner moves in, or out, that counts as a new claim, so you may be absolutely fine now as a single parent of four, but if your boyfriend moves in, you will suddenly find two of your children are apparently not eating all your food, requiring clothes, using energy etc.

My situation six years ago was nothing uncommon - boy meets girl, boy marries girl, boy impregnates girl, boy fucks off without a backward glance. I only had two children when I was dumped, but had it been another two years down the line, it could have been three. We could have easily afforded three children - indeed, we both now have three children - but I cannot stress enough how terrifying it was to suddenly lose 4/5s of my household income. My monthly wage didn't cover the mortgage, nevermind anything else. I relied on tax credits. Nobody should have children they cannot afford, but having children when you can afford them does not act as insurance against any financial or personal misfortune in the future. Women with more than two children in abusive relationships will have to think long and hard over whether they can afford to leave their partner.The Tories have also cut bereavement benefits, so if your husband or wife dies leaving you with more than two children, you are doubly fucked.

It will be women who suffer the most through this tax credit amendment. Two million lone parent households exist in the UK - that's just under half of all tax credit claims - and 91% of them are headed by women. Not only do women suffer the brunt of single parenting, they also have this fucking rape clause bullshit to overcome, where their third child only gets benefit if they are a product of rape. Never mind marital rape, never mind the ethics of being obliged to report your rape just to secure a little extra money, what sort of fucking government decides the only reason a poor woman might have more than two children is because she was raped?

It is a toxic, classist, eugenic and misogynist amendment and I loathe it and the party that instituted it with all my heart and soul.

Fascism

Yes, I said it. Fascism. Not the alt-right. What the fuck does that mean? The alternative to what? It's not an alternative to standard conservative right-wing politics, it is going further than it. It is fascism. I wish we could ctrl-alt-del that term out of existence. People dislike the term fascism, you see. For some reason, can't think why, it reminds people of Hitler, and no political movement likes to be associated with Hitler even when he should be their idol. Hitler is so internationally reviled across the West that identifying with him is a bit of a faux pas. So, they call themselves the alt-right, and they act all affronted when you call them fascists, or snerk about Godwin's Law, and somehow they go on.

The greatest divisions in society are religion, ethnicity, and perhaps most importantly, class. Everyone likes to think they are a slightly higher class than they are, to give them a comfortable feeling of superiority. This can manifest in many different ways - from doing the odd shop at Marks and Spencer,  to trying to get children into the better schools, to judging single parents, to generally hating immigrant workers. Fascism loves it. Fascism wants everyone in their place, and holds a hand out to the aggrieved and lacking in social mobility, and it says "This is all their fault". They can be the poor, the sick, the foreign, those of different faith. This is what Hitler excelled at - he told Germany that it's severe economic distress was not caused by poor government and war reparations, but by Jews, disabled people and gypsies. Switch out Jews for Muslims and gypsies for Eastern Europeans, and doesn't that sound familiar to UKIP and others rhetoric?

We have struggled economically as a nation since the banking collapses of 2009 onward, although our economy is one of the strongest in the world. We bailed out the foolish banks with public money. Ever since, we have been suffering under austerity budgets that cut and cut and cut. It is not the rich who particularly feel the brunt of this, because they are protected both by status and wealth. It is the Average Joe. It is you. It is me.
The NHS, an institution founded on socialism and the need to reward a ravaged nation with security, has been cut and cut and cut since the banking collapse. The Conservative government are destroying it, on purpose, because it is absolutely contrary to their ideology. But the news stories are about requiring passports at point of treatment to prevent health tourism. The people believe that the NHS is failing because of overdemand, not underbudgeting. The people believe that it is immigrants taking the NHS away, not a concentrated effort by the incumbent government to rid themselves of an outdated, unwieldy and expensive edifice. And 'the people' buy into this, because they aren't immigrants. They might go to the doctors every time they have a sniffle. They might have four months worth of unused medication in a cupboard for a rainy day. They might go to A+E after yet another punch up on a Friday night. But it's those damn immigrants ruining the NHS.
By the same logic, that idiot woman on Question Time who voted Conservative and was shocked when her benefits were cut. Surely only OTHER PEOPLE will suffer from cuts? The undeserving poor? The foreign? Not...normal people? Not, to quote the government's favourite phrase, hardworking people? Our government has no issue with insidiously implicating that the Others are to blame for all its problems, be they the chronically sick, the chronically underemployed. Muslims, immigrants or refugees.

And so fascism extends its greasy paw across Europe and the USA, promising results where centrist governments have not been seen as a success. Fascism promises that the immigrants and the Muslims will be dealt with, and the common man will rise again, and our country will be great again. Doesn't matter which country, they all promise the same thing: Take Our Country Back. Make America Great Again. Au Nom Du Peuple. Österreich Zuerst. Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Führer.

But we only have to look at the example of 1930s Germany and Italy to know what happens when Fascists are democratically elected. Democracy goes down the pan. The poor stay poor. The rich stay rich. Civil rights are eroded or dispensed with altogether. Immigrants 'disappear', but this does not magically improve working lives. Religious dissent is not tolerated, regardless of what religion is adopted nationally. The only way out of poverty is through military service. Class is not eradicated, but entrenched even further. There is no social mobility.

It vexes me when the lower social classes adopt fascism as a cause. I can understand it among the wealthy - after all, fascism was very popular in Britain prior to the outbreak of World War II, primarily because the rich missed their servants and didn't like all these upstarts being independent. But the lower social classes, and that's the majority of my readership, are deluding themselves if they think that going further right will benefit them in the slightest. Balls to the alt-right. Balls to fascism. Recognise it. Shun it.

Why?

Why am I so upset about the result?
Why aren't I applauding the Leave voters? Congratulating them on a hard won game against the odds?
Why aren't I quietly accepting defeat and moving on?

Well, for a start, some brief figures. 17 million people voted for Brexit. There are 60 million people in the UK. That's a little over a quarter. That's not a ringing national victory. That's way less half of the total electorate (46.5m). In short, there are far more people in the UK that did NOT vote to leave the EU than did.
That is irrelevant, in the grand scheme of things, because democracy requires people to exercise their right to vote or miss out. It also requires the electorate to take part in civic and political life, but as people on facebook keep pointing out, they only really care about politics for one day every few years and then it gets boring.
I don't think a re-referendum would achieve anything, mainly because a referendum is not legally binding and the government can ignore it. The government would be fucking silly to disregard it and stay in the EU regardless (although the more Boris Johnson speaks, the more it seems that is precisely what he wants to do), but they still have to begin the legal process and that is something the Great British Public will have nothing to do with. It is going to be a long, painfully drawn out process to the leave the EU. We have not left yet. We have not even begun to leave.

So, why am I personally upset? I have spent years now, particularly the last two, studying structural inequality. Before you run off, structural inequality is the reason why people living in shitty areas tend to live shorter, poorer lives than people living in better areas. It is the reason there is a nine year gap between expected lifespan in the poorest and richest boroughs of the country. It's the reason poor areas have crappy job prospects and lack amenities. I discussed all this with reference specifically to my area in this post, if you want to see how that directly affects someone.
Now, the Tories (according to their ideology) prefer to think that people make their own luck. That your circumstances of birth have nothing to do with your future potential, that you can break the glass ceiling. And I'm sure for a few people, that's true, but for the vast majority, you remain stuck in the same social and wealth sphere you are born into. Hence why politicians tend to be rich, from the south and privately educated. And this belief has led to them cutting all forms of social infrastructure over the last few years.
To give an example, covering Labour, coalition and Tory governments: in the town I grew up in, a giant housing estate was planned, with a view to doubling the town's population. They began to build it in 2002. They didn't think to provide it with a primary school for twelve years. It didn't get a supermarket until 2010. It still doesn't have a doctor's surgery, or anything you might think is essential to increasing the population of a small town by 50%, and is so far away from most amenities or adequate public transport that a car is absolutely necessary to live there. Infrastructure is no longer considered important. The selling off of schools to become academies is another sign of this: an attempt to privately fund important public amenities without any real accountability.

So, what is accountability in this context? Well, it's being socially responsible. It's admitting when you get something wrong, and trying to fix it. It's having a higher power that you have to report to when things go right and when things go wrong. In the NHS, accountability is very important because if you cock something up, people die. But in government, accountability is also extremely important because if you cock stuff up, thousands die. Perhaps not the same day. Perhaps not even the next day. But over time, life expectancies drop, national wealth drops, opportunities fall away.
I see a lack of accountability in the government farce that has followed the referendum. Cameron has resigned basically because he doesn't want to sort leaving out, despite being the one who held the referendum in the first place. Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage are both swearing up is down when it comes to promises made in the run up to the referendum. Corbyn's entire cabinet has fallen away, not wanting to face leaving the EU and blaming him for the whole thing, rather than Cameron.

The EU may be a bureaucratic nightmare, but it also provides a protective framework of legislation that aids the common man. To give an example often cited to me as a reason to leave the EU: the European Working Time Directive. Do you really want to be hired on a 70hr week contract? Do you not want to be paid for overtime, or have your overtime recognised as such? Do you think this government have any interest in protecting working rights? Our government has taken a decided slide to the right in policy of late, more right wing than even Thatcher managed. In response, Labour has also taken a rightward slide and bizarrely, UKIP and their nationalistic bordering on fascist policies, are attempting to become the party of the working classes. Politics in this country is all over the place. I don't trust them. I don't trust them. I don't trust them.
I am filled with fear about what happens when we lose the layer of accountability offered by the EU, when our democratically elected government, democratically elect to fuck the poor some more because they haven't been punished enough yet.

I see no triumph here. The EU have funded so many projects to try and reduce the inequality in our society and now it will be our government's responsibility to try and replicate that. It will be our government's responsibility to try and equal and distribute EU funding into the arts, into science, even into cancer research. And I don't trust them to do it. Our government have not had to deal with this type of organisation since the 70s, when many of them were children. It's one thing to say "We were fine before we joined the EU" but that was two generations ago and people forget.

Yes, this is a cynical and negative view, but I find it difficult to be positive in the wake of such a total government breakdown. Perhaps it will be OK. I hope so.

Next time: on ageism and voting and why judgemental youths need to check themselves before they wreck themselves

Voting

I vote. I've always voted, ever since I was old enough. My first election was 2005, when I was 20 (so long ago!). I was so excited - I don't know why, it just felt momentous! I voted Labour, because my mum told me to. I know, that's not how politics is supposed to work, but I knew fuck all about politics. My school - a very highly rated grammar school - didn't bother to teach us about the electoral system. It was vaguely alluded to in history, mainly in terms of National Socialism and the birth of Parliament back in the middle ages (the Glorious Revolution was also left out). We had one lesson, in general studies aged 17, where they told us about political parties in the UK, and a Conservative MEP came in to tell us about being an MEP once. I tried to boycott this on account of burgeoning Communist sympathy, but to no avail. DISSENT IS NOT TOLERATED IN HIGHLY RATED GRAMMAR SCHOOLS. There were no politics-linked courses available to us either at GCSE or A level. So, it's not really surprising that I was clueless.
And it's not surprising my mum told me to vote Labour either. I grew up poor. Not so poor that I was starved to death and freezing, but poor enough to rarely have new clothes, that food was spread thin, that my mum would get in a terrible state every August at the idea of fitting us all out for school again. Too poor for university. Too poor to learn to drive. That sort of poor. My parents squarely blamed our poverty on the financial crash of 1988, and Thatcher, but were culturally Labour voters anyway. My grandparents were agricultural workers on one side, and industrial workers on the other. There was, and is, no money in my family.

In the 2010 election, things had changed. I was now married, with a little boy, not poor and more independent of mind. The area I lived in was staunchly Conservative - landowners and landlords usually are - and I knew I definitely wasn't one of them. I believed in fairness, and equality. I believed that people who needed help should get help. I believed in a better future for my children, however they ended up. I voted for the Lib Dems, based on disillusionment with the lies of Tony Blair and Labour, and the faint promise of Nick Clegg to actually change things. Alas, I was wrong.

This time, everything's changed again. I'm back to being poor. The coalition has made life many times harder for anyone without privilege. I'd rather gnaw off my arm than vote for the unholy alliance of Cameron and Osborne. UKIP offer a right-wing alternative, with no immigrants and loads of money...from somewhere. The Lib Dems have some good politicians, but are no longer credible.  The Greens can wave and shriek "we're here" as much as they like, but they're not credible either. I don't know if Ed Miliband can change anything, but I like the cut of his jib. I don't care if he can't eat a bacon sandwich in a refined manner. He could stick a spoon in his ear and sing the Hokey Cokey before every meal for all I care. It's not about him, it's about the ideology. It's about fairness, equity and justice. And unseating the Nemesis.

Elections are not about certainties. They are not about fear, no matter how many times David Cameron points at the SNP, shaking and gibbering. They are full of lies and deceit and broken promises. But they are also our only hope at having a say. They are our only hope of changing anything. It is a leap of faith to make an X next to someone you've never met, and say "I hope you can represent us and that you change things for the better."

But it's all we have.

The newspapers tell us it's a waste of time to vote, that we cannot make a difference, that a landslide is impossible and a coalition is almost certain (NB: they also said this in 1997, days before a major Labour landslide), that we will all DIE if legitimately elected ministers are allowed to legally rule the country, that the NHS is definitely safe, that it's not safe, that it is safe HONEST GUV, that we cannot trust a man with a face full of sandwich to run the country, or a man who was once in the Bullingdon club, or a man who drinks more than he speaks sense, or ANY WOMEN AT ALL. The newspapers lie. The newspapers are full of more shit than the politicians. Shun the media at this difficult time.

I don't care personally who you vote for, but I hope that you vote, if you can. There is a huge swathe of people, mostly younger people, who have no idea about politics and think their lack of knowledge deprives them of the moral right to vote. There is a most excellent quiz here that tells you who you should vote for based on policies rather than a bunch of faces. You don't have to be Jeremy Paxman to have a say in how our country is run. Politics is for everyone. And the idea of everyone voting scares the living daylights out of the government, and the media. So do it.

When Right-Wing Politicians Use Religion As A Selling Point

So, Nigel Farage has justified his views that HIV immigrants should be denied treatment as a 'sensible, Christian thing to do'.
Meanwhile, in Conservative land, David Cameron is 'standing up' for the Christian faith.

It is Easter Sunday. For many of you, it means little beyond chocolate eggs, a long weekend and a chance to catch up with friends and family. Good! As with Christmas, it is something we can all enjoy, regardless of faith. However, from a Christian point of view, it's something a little deeper.  Everyone knows Jesus was crucified, and then rose again.
Here's a very rare R.E lesson from me, on Easter:

Jesus was a man. Oh he was the son of God, and supposed to be perfect, but he was also in a human body, and subject to the same cultural prejudice and conditioning as everyone else in his society. And his society was a right-wing patriarchy, where the Roman Empire was in charge, despite having little in common with normal people, and the church monopolised ethical behaviour, often hypocritically. Sound familiar?

So, Jesus was a man, but he was not like others, while also being the same as everyone else. He worked. He went to the church. He welcomed women amongst his followers, as friends. He was totally unafraid of the sick. 'Leprosy' at the time was considered similar to HIV in the 80s - you had to go and live outside civilisation if you had it. And the church decided if you had leprosy, so often you might just have particularly vicious eczema or acne. He accepted the poor, the sick, and the shunned as better and more deserving than those with money or power.
Jesus was killed, on trumped up charges because he was giving the church such a hard time and causing a lot of trouble. According to the Bible, this was a perfect sacrifice, because he had done nothing wrong. The importance of sacrifice in the most ancient religions has been lost, but you gave up something you really needed (usually food, clothing and wealth, in the form of animals) in exchange for forgiveness. Deuteronomy is full of the different sacrifices that had to be given either to thank God, or in exchange for forgiveness.
The world needed Jesus. The world killed Jesus. The world was forgiven.
Jesus rose again, proving the world was forgiven, that God was real, that God was his father.
So, on Easter Sunday, the Christians are happy because we were saved by one man's selflessness. I know, it's full of theological plotholes, but that's the message.

Now, the Christian message has been so warped and demented over time, that it's sometimes quite difficult to understand that Jesus was an example of total radical thinking and cultural overhaul. The Christian message has been co-opted by those in power to win them more power over the years, losing the inclusive, social justice imperatives that were quite simply revolutionary in the first few centuries CE. The powerful stories in Christianity have been adapted to suit different cultural beliefs (Easter probably didn't actually happen in Spring, but a lot of fertility rites did, so it superseded them, See also: Christmas and the birth of the new year) and the laws of the old testament have been used to develop law systems across the world.
In other words, the rigid, right-wing, superior exclusivity that is now viewed representative of Christianity is A TOTAL BASTARDISATION.

Nothing shows this more than the British right wing political parties (and similar across the world) using Christianity to justify their shattering policies of giving more to the privileged and taking from those in need.

Christianity is about love, acceptance, fairness, equality. It's about helping those most in need. It's about sharing. If Jesus were alive today, he would be screaming from the rooftops about how hideously unfair welfare reforms, taxation loopholes and criminalising poverty is. That's what he did in his own time, according to the Bible. That's why the powers that were killed him.
He wouldn't be sitting in judgement on people with HIV. He wouldn't be taking from the disabled, and workless. He wouldn't be exploiting workers. He wouldn't be encouraging the government to take from the poor to increase the rich.

If you consider yourself a Christian, and you support UKIP (and to a lesser extent, the Conservatives) you really need to reconsider your faith, or your politics.

Faith and politics should be kept as far apart as possible, because nothing shows up the rampant hypocrisy of government like pretending to have God on their side.

The reality of living in a deprived area

Wealth and health correlate - the more money you have, the better health you are likely to experience.
I happen to live in a deprived area, in the red on this handy deprivation index map. So, what's it actually like? How does it impact on our ability to make healthy choices?

First up, diet. Everyone knows poor diet is linked to numerous long term health conditions and obesity. There is a lot in the media about choosing to be fat, but how much choice do you actually get in deprived areas? All distances are courtesy of Walkit.com, and are fastest route, so mostly along dual carriageways.

CLOSEST SHOP: Cornershop and Nisa. 0.2km
CLOSEST SUPERMARKET: Morrisons, 1.1km
ALSO AVAILABLE: Marks and Spencer 1.1km, Farmfoods 1.1km, small Tesco 1.7km.

The food choices are varied. The cornershop sells mostly sweets and newspapers, with a small amount of essential daily purchases, like milk.
The Nisa sells a very poor selection of 'fresh' fruit and vegetables, at slightly increased prices. I have never had an unmouldy onion from there, but it will suffice at a push. There is no fresh meat, just sausages, bacon and ham, and no fresh fish at all. There are four whole aisles dedicated to sweets, crisps and cake. There's also a large frozen food section. One whole side of the shop is full of alcohol. There is also a large variety of cigarettes. The deals offered by Nisa are usually focused on cheap multibuys of packs of sweets, alcohol and fizzy drinks.
I'm sure you're acquainted with the produce sold by Tesco, Morrisons, M+S and Farmfoods.
Cost wise, it is cheapest to get a full shop, including fresh produce, from Morrisons or Tesco However, this requires transport, on which more later. The nearest greengrocer is approximately 4km away. There are food banks all over the city, with supermarkets regularly collecting for them. The nearest one is about 2km away and open once a week, accessible by voucher.

Now, exercise. The opportunities for exercise here are limited to walking/jogging, children's karate and gym membership.
BANNATYNES: Costs more than £600 a year, 2km away
COUNCIL FUNDED GYM: £8 a session, 1.7km away
PERSONAL TRAINER: £25 an hour

There are three parks within walking distance. One has lots of broken equipment, countless enormous rabbit holes, and is a popular haunt for drunks. One is much bigger, with better equipment, but is sited right next to the nastiest pub in the area. The last one is a proper landscaped town park, but last time we visited the park, it was full of dust and fumes from the housing estate being built behind it. The general area is well provided with pavements and trees, at least on the main thoroughfares. Once you get into the residential areas, it's less of a concern.

Education is a key determinant for health. The better your education, the better your job prospects, the better your later income, the better your health. The schools here are not great. There is only one primary school here, which received a good rating at its last Ofsted inspection. There are two secondary schools with catchment here. The closest is inadequate according to Ofsted. The other requires improvement, and is 1.7km away. Thankfully, the nearest preschool has an outstanding rating, but is oversubscribed by the entire city, as it has excellent special needs provision.

Transport is not amazing. In fact, my city is apparently the worst in the country for public transport, a particularly damning statistic for a 'new town'. There is a bus service every ten minutes into the city centre, which costs around £4 for a dayrider. Theoretically, this allows travel across the services in the city all day, but it's usually cheaper to get a dayrider than a straightforward return (it's £2.10 for a single to town). A taxi is between £5 and £7 each way, depending on where you're going - it's £5 to go the almost 5km into the city from my house, and £5 to go to the next suburb along. The bus is a five minute walk from my house. My husband is out of the house working from 10 to 12 hours a day. We can only afford one car, and all the families round here are the same. This means doing the grocery shopping has to be done either on foot, or at the weekend. Thankfully, we do the majority of our shopping online, as we can both afford both the technology, and the delivery charge. Access to the internet cannot be taken for granted.
It also means going to the doctors (which is 4km away) relies on public transport or friends. This is great fun when you've got a sick child on the bus.
One nice thing for the city in general is that it does have comprehensive cycle lanes and footpaths. The only problem, as a lone female, is that some of them seem designed to make you fear attack. There is one underpass here that goes under one road and over another. It terrifies me every time I go through it, even when it's the middle of the day, because it is totally invisible from the roads and surrounded pathways. Subways and leafy, murder-alley type paths are de rigeur. Good lighting, and CCTV are less popular.

Employment opportunities are slim to none here. You have to travel either into the city, or to the outskirts where the factories are. Unless you want to work in retail, but retail never paid anyone's living costs by itself. Or you could be a dinnerlady, or a cleaner. Which...same. If you work outside the area, you better hope you earn enough to run a car, or face the awful buses, or be healthy enough to cycle.

Housing conditions are poor. My house, which is a little older than average, is a terraced Edwardian villa. It features original windows in the kitchen and bathroom, which means no double glazing. All three exterior doors are originally, and not weatherproof. They also let in an unseemly number of slugs. The heating is inadequate for the size of the house, and the gas costs approx £1 an hour to run. The walls are lime plaster and keep falling down when you put nails in them, and there's no cavity wall to insulate. The damp gets really bad in the bathroom. My landlord's attitude is that it's an old house, it's not worth the work. Many landlords and rental agencies will not countenance your application if you are on benefits, because as ANY FULE KNO, people on benefits are going to ruin their house, and never pay their rent. I do not know how this is legal. How does it MATTER how you pay your rent, as long as it is paid? We claim minimal benefits now, but would still have trouble getting a new rent because of this ridiculous ruling by most agencies.

There aren't many opportunities for socialising. The primary school have craft mornings for parents (which aren't advertised, so how you're supposed to know it exists is beyond me). There's a large immigrant population here, which has no apparent provision from anyone. There are no language classes in the area, and no advertised groups for those who have recently arrived. The nearest Surestart centre was closed as part of budget cuts (to make way for the £120 million city centre redevelopment, which has so far pissed off everyone who lives here, and attracted very new visitors) but the preschool who occupy half the site has managed to open a few groups for families, as so far the plans to turn it into a disability outreach centre have not been implemented. The nearest fully operational Surestart centre is a little over 2km away, and includes a KS4 pupil referral centre that may put off some parents from attending. There are two pubs locally, and plenty of outdoor drinking spaces, as well as a Costa, but as far as making friends go, opportunities are somewhat limited if you don't already know people here. You can travel out to other areas, if you can bear to navigate the awful bus system. But that's a big if. Being part of strong social networks is one of the best ways to protect your health.

Health services need to be easy to access. I speak as someone who feels rubbish at the moment, but cannot face the bus journey, and then half mile walk to the doctors' when struggling with sickness and pelvic pain. The nearest doctor's surgery is actually in the next suburb along, and would take me 25 minutes to walk, or I could get off the bus in front of it. The reason I joined my actual doctor's surgery is because they have a branch surgery at the top of my road. Alas, this has been out of use for six months, although they claimed it would reopen after Christmas. I have personally never had a problem with getting appointments because I have inside knowledge on how the system works, and thus don't object to detailing my health woes in great detail to a receptionist. Dentists are also a problem. I have a very good dentist, who I love, who is only about 2km away, but who will only see me as long as I have a prescription exemption certificate. Thankfully, I've had one almost constantly for the last five years. However, when I lose my exemption, as I will around a year after my baby's born, I will either have to pay astronomical private dentist fees, or re-register with an NHS dentist miles away. Bad teeth is an image of poverty, because many people either cannot reach, or cannot afford, a decent dentist.
The local hospital is an originally PFI funded, highly modern, highly in debt, new build about 10 minutes away by car. I have to say, I've used them regularly since it opened, and I have never been less than impressed with their care and service. However, to try and get there by bus is a nightmare. You have to catch the local bus into town, going PAST the hospital as you do so, then transfer to a DIFFERENT bus which will eventually drop you off right outside. The local link community bus service that linked up directly from the north of the city to the hospital was dropped as part of the council cuts over a year ago.
My son is autistic, and is still waiting for his assessment, one year after initial referral. Thankfully, the council-run educational psychology team is a lot more efficient than the NHS-run neurodevelopment team. I imagine other disabilities and services are similarly hit and miss, though thankfully we don't need to access them.
On a slightly different note, midwifery services are also taxed, and I have been warned that if I have a homebirth (this is the plan, I'm sure I'll blog about it at some point), the midwife on call may be coming from up to 64km away. However, homebirths are being encouraged to reduce the load on the maternity unit.

Now, a lot of these problems are things that could be (in fact, can ONLY be) solved by a forward-thinking government, or some well informed local councillors. The local councillors here are mostly concerned about things like parking on grass verges, and tree trimming. I know this because they send me the most unintentionally hilarious newsletter every now and then. They do nothing about improving the general local services, aside from repeatedly shutting down attempts to open YET MORE takeaways on the main drag into town. I imagine actually fixing the structure of the area takes considerably more red tape than people in a four year term of government can be arsed to go through.
And some of these problems are circumvented by moving away (if you can afford it), owning a car (ditto), or taking on the 'Big Society' initiative and trying to set things up yourself. Again, this is not easy.

In a few months, I've got to propose an improvement to my community as part of my dissertation. And just writing this has given me so much to think about how much this community COULD be improved. But where do you START?