Once upon a time I spent many hours and days on board Indian
trains. Rail journeys on the Subcontinent were a far cry from anything here in
the UK
There was however one real stand out horror – the deformed beggars.
Almost every station would bring on board versions of the Elephant Man. Men and
women, boys and girls, all vying with each other for the most gut wrenching
deformity. The worse the mutation, the more successful the begging. This
horrific freak show had nothing to do with accidents of birth. If only it had.
Instead these desperate souls had been deliberately broken and twisted by their own
family members within days of their birth. In their first few days on earth, the
family determined what their bread winning role would be. They would live out a
life of hopping on board trains with evocative names like the ‘Frontier Mail’
or the ‘Pink City Express’ to ply their hellish trade. Look at me. If you can.
If you dare. And reflect my deformity with generosity.
It’s a hell of a way to feed the family.
How does this nightmare plug into the miserable story of
Mick Philpot? I guess it just goes to show that there are always those among us
who look to cash in on misery.
When I was on the road south to Anfield on Sunday morning, I
listened to several podcasts which picked over the bones of the Philpot affair
and the reaction of public and politicians alike to its dismal horror. On the
Spectator’s ‘View from 22’, Owen Jones took a right wing adversary to the cleaners
in every aspect of the debate. He conclusively won the argument by revealing
that of the 1.3 million families in receipt of benefits, only 110 or so had
more than 10 kids.
Philpot of course is the absolute exception, not any kind of
rule.
A Shipman. A Suttcliffe. A random nightmare.
A rather more chilling point was made by Tom Clark on the
Guardian’s ‘Politics Weekly’. Tom was more interested in examining the
extraordinary headlines which blazed out of several of the tabloids in the wake
of Philpot’s life sentence. He wondered if millions of benefits claimants were
being demonised as a result of the behaviour of a single, appalling
individual. Were the tabloids eagerly jumping on the case as an excuse to turn
the majority against an increasingly loathed minority? And then he made my
blood run cold when he compared this red top rabble rousing to Kristalnacht.
So what happened back then? It was November 1938 and Nazis
had been cranking up public loathing of the Jews for many years. They needed
something to take their hatred to the next level. That something came along
when an exiled German Jew living in Paris Dachau
and Belsen and Buchenwald . 1000 synagogues
were burnt to the ground. 7000 Jewish businesses were smashed up. On the
morning of November 10th, Germany
The actions of one man were taken on by an angry media and
twisted to create a seething hatred among the majority towards an already
despised minority.
So yes, Tom. It has the ring of familiarity.
So does this simply prove that George Osborne is a gobshite
of the first order for linking the abhorrent Mick Philpot to the welfare
system?
I would say yes and no. I don’t have much faith in Osborne’s
motives, but sadly there is a point to be had in his sentiments.
At First Base we have been witness to vile nastiness rooted
in the welfare system for many years. Of course it doesn’t begin to compare
with what Philpot did, but there are similarities. I heard one Osborne
apologist make the point that the basic motive for Philpot accidentally burning
his kids to death was that he had hatched a half baked scheme to get more of
his kids back under his roof which would have thereby re-united him with their benefit
dividend.
£1000 a month, most of which he seemingly had earmarked to
spend on drink and drugs.
This motive for evil is all too familiar. We see it every
day. Here’s how it plays out in the shadowy corners of our sad and fading
country. In many ways the benefit system works a little like the begging
pecking order on the Indian trains. The bigger the list of problems a person
has, then the more cash we give them by way of compensation. And that of course
is exactly as it should be. A person who is seriously ill or disabled needs the
biggest safety net. It’s a no brainer.
But there are all too many dismal grey areas.
Take the young guy with low level mental health problems.
Something has gone badly wrong with his upbringing and he has lived out his
childhood in the care system. Learning difficulties mean that he has never
learnt to read and write. He was the one who everyone took the piss out of at
school. He was the one who was always the butt of the bullies. The one with the
wrong clothes. The one who never made any friends. The one in care. The one who
was always alone in the playground. At 18 he was declared to be an adult and
therefore deemed OK to look after things on his own. So we duly gave him a flat and about £300
every fortnight.
What does his life look like now? Achingly lonely. Empty. The
modern world is a place he can’t even begin to manage. Work is out of the
question for he lacks the skills to work. Can’t read. Can’t write. Can’t count.
Can’t switch on a computer. Can barely hold a conversation without getting
tongue tied.
He’s the bloke who is always on his own, who looks like he
has forgotten to wash himself. We look away when we pass him on the pavement.
Once upon a time he would have got a job sweeping up in a factory and maybe,
just maybe, the workforce would have adopted him and invited him along to
things. The pub of a Friday night. Trips to Blackpool .
Football on a Saturday.
But we don’t have factories anymore.
However, the fact that £300 a fortnight magics its way into
his account makes him of great interest to a certain Philpottish breed of
predators. The pondlife. The amoral. The low life, low level addicts who have
learnt the art of feeding their habits by befriending and shaking down the very
most vulnerable. The pondlife know exactly when the £300 will drop into the
account of their prey. They appear out of thin air, all smiles and bonhomie and
promises of a laddish day to remember. Come on mate. Let’s party. I’m you best pal. And
the aching loneliness can be left behind for a few hours as the pondlife ply
him with a bottle of Frosty Jacks and a handful of blue valium pills.
Once they get him completely off his face, they get a hold of his debit card
and empty his account.
A day or two later he winds up walking through our door with
a letter from support worker explaining he has no money for the next twelve
days until his money is due again. Can we feed him please? Keep his body and
soul together? Course we can. And we try to sit him down and suggest ways he
can keep his money safe from his once a fortnight best mates. But it hardly
ever works because the loneliness is just too all consuming.
The Welfare State does what it does with the very best of
intentions and most of the time it works as Beveridge wrote on the tin all
those years ago. But not all the time. Some of the time it creates a market out
of misery. It puts a high monetary value on deprivation and vulnerability and
inadequacy. And when you put money on any table, there will always be a Philpot
sniffing around and licking their lips.
So George, you are actually more right that you probably
realise. The truth of what you said is found in the grime filled cracks at the
very bottom of our world. You won’t get a glimpse of the petty day to day
nastiness to be found in these cracks from you lofty perch in the House of
Commons. To get the chance to take a look, you probably need to spend a day or
two in a place in First Base. But I don’t think that is really what you want to
do, is it George? No. Of course not. Sadly I feel that Tom Clark has it pretty
well correct. Your words are more Goebbels and Kristalnacht that any kind of
genuine concern.
You really should be ashamed of that. I don’t suppose you
will be.
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