It’s cold out there …

and not just the weather

On Monday morning I woke up to the ultimate Christmas scene. It has been bitterly cold, but crisp and beautiful, and for me up lifting. I was even tempted to go and build a snow man for about 5 minutes, then realised my leather gloves would get wet, soggy and my poor old hands very stiff with the cold. It is very hard to be grumpy when everything is so calm and peaceful, sounds muffled by the snow. So this week’s original topic, being a grumpy old f&rt, can wait until we are back to mud and grey, grey, grey days, possibly with a bit of flooding from the thaw thrown in, possibly next week in time for Christmas. I am left with a bit of a quandary what can I write about from my warm front room. I know the cold, light bulb moment, and everything that is going on. Ok not everything my limited grey cells can only compute so much these days.

When I first started working in welfare rights it was in Islington, north London. It was in the days of supplementary benefit and additional requirements, which definitely indicates my age. What has this got to do with the cold, you may ask? In those olden days (sounds good) we could dramatically increase the incomes of those with health issues and age related problems through additional requirements, these included heating, dietary and laundry amongst others. The system was built to reflect the needs of people rather than the computer tick boxes we have now.

We ran take up campaigns with the hospitals, social services and GPs to ensure people were safe, warm and didn’t need to be admitted to hospital. I am very lucky I can afford to heat my home, this is not the case for many. There is so much information being pushed on how to save money by saving on fuel and keeping warm. What jumped out me was the advice to only heat the rooms you use. My younger self would be horrified, we continually told people to claim the benefits and keep corridors and bathrooms warm. Falls often happen in these areas rather than in the living area and hypothermia in these temperatures could be very quick to take hold, possibly requiring hospital admission or, at worst, causing a death. I had my speech well and truly rehearsed.

I am not against the use of technology in relation to welfare benefits, claiming benefits online nor welfare reforms that are based on evidence and common sense. Unfortunately the implementation of so many welfare and health reforms has concentrated on saving the individual budgets of one government department, for example the DWP. We need a holistic and systematic review across all departments. Shock horror, although not always easy, working together by consensus has been achieved in the past. This is essential to consider prevention rather than costly alternatives, such as admission to hospital. What tends to happen is sound bite reorganisations, across departments and services, which are exceedingly costly, superseded by the next reorganisation before that one has been completed and often demoralising staff on the front line.

What does this have to do with getting older, my cynicism and a feeling of deja vu. About the same time as my first tentative steps into the world of social policy we bought our first flat and mortgage interest rates were at 15%. I hope we will not see these figures again, property wasn’t as expensive and repayments didn’t equate to the same % of earnings as now. I remember standing on the ‘picket’ line at the hospital where I worked, during my lunch break, as many did. Much has been written about clapping for carers and yet we have a government who doesn’t even have enough respect for nurses to sit in a room with the RCN to negotiate on pay. We have other strikes including paramedics, trains, Mail, civil service, but the government whilst saying it cares bangs on about how taxpayers money must come first and stubbornly refusing to get their hands dirty. I know there isn’t a bottomless pit but those taxpayers are also on the picket lines. Yet certain prominent politicians not paying their full tax bills due to manipulation of the system. Double standards? 🤔🤔🤔🤔 I’ve been around long enough to know about priorities, and reviewing them as required. I am so very tired of the ‘it’s not our problem it’s everybody else’s fault’ and let’s bash the Local Authorities rhetoric.

I do feel a difference between then and now, but I am not sure whether it is my older and jaded views on life imposing. I feel there is a hopelessness for many more people and whilst we have strikes there is a sense of “there is nothing we can do about it all”. There are some amazing people like James Anderson who runs Depher UK CIC, replacing and installing people’s boilers for nothing, amongst other things. Yet he receives the most horrendous abuse online by trolls and bots on Twitter. Why?

When I first started out I promised myself I wouldn’t become too cynical, jaded or weary to stop caring. Nor would I say: “we tried that years ago it didn’t work, so don’t bother”. I do still care very much, I want a better world and I don’t say “don’t bother”. Nonetheless, I do get so very frustrated with people coming up with ‘new’ ideas, particularly in government, that aren’t. For example, preventative and homelessness agendas/policies, something many of us worked hard on over the years. We even evidenced the cost/financial benefits to the public purse (read taxpayers money). Yet these have been demolished and we are now reaping ‘the rewards’ of the destruction for ministers. Those ministers now come up with the same ideas packaged as news ones they developed.

I do apologise, this week I have moved from peaceful Christmas scenery to my ranting 😁. But I would like to ask you all, am I just too old and jaded or do others feel the same way, is it just my age or something else. Is there an answer and if so what can I/we do to make life a little less bleak in the big wide real world?