The Shitty Circle of Life

So, an interesting evening yesterday as the Twitteratti gathered to reaffirm their allegiances.

I work for a living. I always have and sometimes I'd rather not, but if I don't work I don't eat. Plus, the good old Protestant work ethic keeps my nose to the grindstone. It's how it is. One day I'd like to retire - at the moment that's looking increasingly unlikely. And unless I win the lottery I may will end my days doing increasingly menial work to subsidise a meagre pension.

I can turn my hand to pretty much anything. I can read and write and count, sometimes without even moving my lips. I can cook and clean and sew and fix things up; a wall, some shelves, a kitchen... I could easily self-build a house. I have even managed the allegedly impossible Ikea assembly methodology. A Jack of all trades and master of some. I'm not 'fortunate' I have striven throughout my life to acquire skills and knowledge and fully expect to keep on striving.

I loathe those who do nothing. Those whose existence is catered for by the rest of us. Those who no more need to get up on a Monday as on a Sunday. Those who, having a 'bad day' can simply stay in bed and shut out the world. They can pity themselves as much as they like, but if they're in the system it IS piss-easy living on benefits. We workers cannot just coast along - a life on welfare includes an abundance of one luxury we will never be able to afford; time.

In pursuit of a reliable income,I had to move in 2008. I spent the thick end of £20k making my little house safe and warm and clean and new, knowing it would need to be just so to rent to the private sector. I'm no Rackman; I have to rent down here and on balance it costs me considerably more each month than I receive. But that's the economy, which I fully accept.

After proposing just one, wholly unacceptable tenant, the letting agent mislaid my details, didn't market the property and some weeks after the move the house was still empty. I accepted the entreaty of my former neighbour who loved what I'd done to the place and let it out to her. She paid the rent and yes, she was in receipt of Housing Benefit. She looked after the place and three years on, when she found a council house, she proposed her sister to take over mine.

I didn't set out to be 'social landlord'. I don't have a string of shitty little sub-standard slums to exploit migrant workers and cynically extort from the public purse. I made no money whatsoever from the deal and in fact over four years I am out of pocket, even taking into consideration the partial coverage of my mortgage liabilities during that time. If I could have sold I would.

So why should I tolerate the taunts of the pissant little commie wanker who last night revealed the true extent of his blind hatred for anybody with a job who doesn't want to support a welfare economy? His argument? That is was hypocritical of me to slag off welfare dependees while simultaneously accepting the socialist shilling in the form of Housing Benefit. Bollocks.

How many workers despise the people they work for, while accepting their wages? How many taxi drivers are repulsed by the objectionable, drunken scum they depend on for their Friday night's takings? Should every hard-working business owner, shop keeper, doctor and bin man refuse to deal with 'clients' who don't directly earn their income, or with whose preferences they differ? I rented out my home because i couldn't afford to run two houses. They [sometimes] paid rent; it was a business arrangement that allowed me to continue paying taxes.

How they earn that rent is an entirely separate issue and I reserve the right, without hypocrisy, to find welfare dependency objectionable and many of its recipients sub-human scum. The state in which MY home was left gives me no cause to change my mind or alter my principles.

The dirty, dirty bastards!

So, here's the thing. The reason I wasn't chattering away on Twitter last night? (What do you mean, you didn't notice?) I had to drive up to Leeds to get my house back.

Four years ago, when I first rented it out it was all newly finished. Rewire, new kitchen & bathroom,  re-plastered,  new central heating & beautifully decorated throughout. Early this year, when the first tenant left, it was still pretty much immaculate. Now, nine months later, I receive an anonymous text, asking me if it is available for rent, as it is empty.

What the f...? Call tenant; no pickup. Send text seeking explanation; received text back saying she'd tried many times to contact me to no avail. Funny how, when she blew up the washing machine, broke the back door and flooded the bathroom, etc, she could get hold of me just like that. Funny how everybody else who tried to contact me on holiday had no problem doing so.

Cool as you like she informed me she'd vacated ten days ago, that she'd got a council house and when would I like to pick up the keys? Leeds is only 110 miles from Birmingham, but it took 2-1/2 hours to get there through rush hour, accidents and lane closures. Did she show? Of course not. My reception committee was a pair of sub-human, track-suited, pond scum with overtones of welfare-funded, common or garden paedohilia in the form of a hooded middle aged man with an emaciated teenage kid in tow, who tossed the keys to me from over the road with a cursory grunt...

Their reason for my ex-tenant's no-show? She had the kids 'back'. When she took the place - recommended by previous perfect tenant - she had only one brat... turns out the others have been recovered from the social services lost property shop. To people like this, this is just a normal event. When I got inside I immediately saw the real reason she didn't meet me... dirty protest. (The kids are just an excuse; as easily ditched as soon as a better offer arises.) No wonder I got no notice until the evacuation was a done deal.

To us, the decent, striving, tax-paying fuellers of the economy, Life of Grime was a freak-show documentary about people with extraordinary and slightly amusing mental aberrations. To the underclass of idle, scrounging, sprog-popping, benefit-thieving peasants, it was a design for life. The Labour Party would have you believe that everybody is deserving of minimum standards way above those they have the ability to afford or appreciate. I defy you, after seeing the state she left MY house in to demand anything better than extinction for this breed of animal.

Labour's legacy

I am owed rent. The place needs a top-to-bottom, hospital-standard, disinfectant deep-clean -  full carpet & curtain replacement, new shower, total redecoration - before it's fit again for habitation. So, not content with taking our money - she/they lived entirely off the state - she sees nothing wrong in leaving me further costs to recover what is mine to a reasonable standard.

Do I have any sympathy for these generations of 'forgotten' souls? Do I believe for one second that they are the equal of any other human being? Do I think their squalid, mean, existences can be improved and that that improvement would benefit society as a whole? Do I reckon this breed of sub-human is the result of decades of mealy-mouthed, weak Socialism?

What do you think?

A Few Good Men

In a follow-up to yesterday's housing benefit story I offer another view, from The Daily Mail's Stephen Glover. Of course there's a problem right there. As soon as I cite the Daily Mail, there will be a visceral reaction from certain quarters that the DM is only capable of biased reporting which, ironically enough, is exactly what that article is complaining about.

I got into a small twitter-spat last night on similar lines; that from one perspective another's viewpoint will be biased. In this case I was 'chatting' to a lawyer, in my opinion a profession with no more sense of right and wrong than many of the villains it often represents. (Nothing personal, Jane.) It came down to a simple choice - given a vote would you put to the sword all the tradesmen (such as electricians) or could you suffer to live without lawyers?

Survey: Given a choice, who would you put up against the wall?

          A) Bent, scum-sucking, parasitic lawyers, or
          B)  Good, honest, down to earth tradesmen

Do you see what I did there? I deftly employed a certain amount of barely discernible spin to influence your vote, just like the politicos do. (Although in this case there was no need; the lawyers every time, right?)

In the movie, Colonel Jessup said "You can't handle the truth!" But what IS the truth? I know what I think - and so do you - but there is always more than one way of looking at any issue, to wit:

• Did the government just generously increase pensions or viciously slash them?
• Did they cut their wealthy chums a nice tax break, or will the 45% rate actually increase the overall tax take, which is far more important for the country? (The reaction of wealthy Français to proposals to increase theirs to 45% suggests the latter but only time will tell.)
• Have we actually had any real cuts in public spending yet, or is everybody just reacting the way The Guardian and the BBC tells them they should?
• Living standards falling is not the same thing as true, harsh austerity - many people live beyond their real means anyway. For the greater majority, life continues pretty much the same with a bit of added thrift. Sounds sensible to me, but to some it's like stamping on the heads of babies.

Both sides let their political affiliations affect their judgement, which makes rational discussion and debate almost impossible. To the left any reductions in public spending are a calculated assault on the very poor. To the right, those in work cannot be expected to forever pay for more and more poor - they breed, you know.

But worse than that, it makes it nigh-on impossible to even know what the truth is because those who deliver this important information may often be biased themselves. (Take a bow, the popular news media.) Then it all comes down to perception and acceptability. While the last government were spending every penny they could to buy acceptance, riding the wave of worldwide fiscal madness and impropriety, nobody cared because the world looked like they thought it ought to look.

Truth or Beauty?

I have a feeling that what we are experiencing right now is nothing more or less than naked reality. And while the truth doesn't have to be ugly, it often falls short of what you might want to be told. But, as Paloma Faith asks, "Do you want the truth or something beautiful?"

Please feel free to vote on the lawyer thing by casting your vote in comments, below.