April 26, 2013

Why the non-rich throw away food: Some tips for Richard Benyon

Posted by glosswitch under Politics | Tags: , , , , , , |
Comments Off 

Why do the non-rich throw away food? Because we’re stupid and we’re losers. That goes without saying, otherwise we’d be rich, wouldn’t we? As Tory minister Richard Benyon tactfully notes, we’re so stupid we wouldn’t even think to wrap up a piece of cheese after we’ve opened it (assuming we’re in the 13% of the population who don’t practise cheese-wrapping). Then again, even if we weren’t so ignorant of cling-film, we wouldn’t do it anyhow. That’s because we’re lazy and entitled. We’d be all shall we save that cheese? Nah, why bother? If we run out the welfare state will provide!

I am not rich and I waste food. Can’t stop myself, me. My waste-food bin floweth over. Even so I would like to point out that there are reasons other than the ones given above for throwing away food when you’re not rich. I feel it necessary to do so for no other reason than I strongly suspect that Richard Benyon, whose own fridge is to be found somewhere here, has very little experience of budgeting for food on a daily basis. So especially for you, Richard, some reasons why the food of the non-rich might head binwards:

(more…)

 

April 2, 2013

More middle-class feminist musings

Posted by glosswitch under Feminism | Tags: , , , , , |
[2] Comments 

On the same day that the Guardian frets over whether feminism has been failing working class women, Joanna Moorhead produces a Comment is Free piece which, to my mind, epitomizes a lot of what feminists of all classes should seek to avoid. And yes, I realise how judgmental that sounds. But really, while feminism can touch upon many issues – from violence to body hair, from education to glossy magazines – if there’s one thing I don’t think it should be about, it’s enabling “big dreamers” to have “big lives”. This is a drive towards equality we’re dealing with, not an X-Factor trailer. Is that what, for some commentators, it boils down to? A “successful” life, one in which you’ve found the key to Sunday supplement-perfect living? One in which you’ve risen above all the little people with their piddly little dreams? The truth is, it all sounds a bit “strivers vs skivers” to me. Shouldn’t we be asking for more – and be demanding it for everyone?

Moorhead is worried about work-life balance. Well, aren’t we all. It’s a global issue. Most of us would rather be “living” than working, unless we’ve got an ace job – which most of us haven’t. Yet Moorhead still pushes that form of feminism which rests on the idea that without workplace gender discrimination, we’d all be choosing between a brilliant career or a brilliant “life” (understood in heteronormative terms  as  husband and kids). And what then? Well, then the only real “problem” would be that, ooh, it’d be so hard to choose which to focus on most! Ace career or ace husband? It’s worse than the classic Daddy or chips dilemma! So why not, says sage mother-of-four Moorhead, have a bit of both? Why not indeed! Here’s what she advises her daughters (“especially the university ones”):

Number one, plan your life (if the plans go wrong, you can always re-plan; but it’s the people without a plan who are most often unfulfilled). Number two, see your life in the round: happiness doesn’t come down to just one thing. It’s not just about a great job, or a great relationship, or a happy home, or a gaggle of kids; it’s about many of those things (and, incidentally, you’ll rarely have all your ducks lined up in a row, so don’t expect to be fulfilled on every front at every point in your life; you have to be adaptable, you have to keep striving). Number three, follow your dreams: don’t be afraid to dream big, in any part of your life. Big dreamers have big lives.

And yet, the trouble is, how much money, education and support will all this dreaming, striving, adapting, planning and re-planning cost? How easy is it to dream big when you’re nothing to fall back on? What if you don’t have any “ducks” to line up at all? It’s not that women are afraid to follow their dreams, it’s that they have low-paid jobs they can’t afford to leave, violent partners they can’t escape, children they can’t afford to send to nursery, pregnancies they don’t want and can’t choose to terminate …. Feminism does – or at least should – offer some route out of this, but it’s not by encouraging individuals to buck up and dream.

To my mind, feminism is about women having the same rights as men – over both mind and body – and enabling them to live with respect and without fear. Money plays a big part in this, of course. As long as the majority of low-paid and unpaid work is done by women our freedom to make decisions, change our environment and / or escape abuse will be limited. Nevertheless, this sits within a broader context of gross and growing financial inequality. The economic disadvantage experienced by women on a global scale overlaps and intersects with geographical, racial and class inequalities. If we’re asking why we’re locked out of the boardroom, shouldn’t we also be asking whether there should be a boardroom at all? If we’re asking why privileged women can’t have the options open to privileged men, shouldn’t it bother us that no one else has them, either?

I don’t think middle-class feminists are bad people – after all, I’m one and clearly I care about the issues which directly affect my life. When people offer a blanket apology for “middle-class feminism” I get suspicious. If you can’t be bothered to distinguish between valid and invalid criticism of the feminism for which women of your class have stood, how seriously are you taking the criticism in the first place? What matters most – saying sorry for everything because you want working-class feminists to like you or focussing on what it is you represent that really does cause them the greatest harm? It’s hard for me to tease all these things apart. After all, there are experiences I lack, privileges I don’t recognise and an ego I want to protect. But when I read Moorhead’s piece, I do think that’s the feminism I don’t want to stand for – and for which at times I most definitely, without even noticing it, still do.

 

March 16, 2013

Sheryl Sandberg, Barclays Bank and the real value of equal pay

Posted by glosswitch under Employment, Feminism, Parenting | Tags: , , , |
[10] Comments 

Yesterday evening I suffered the misfortune of witnessing the latest Barclays Bank advertisement. It’s one of those wry, cynical ones which show the customer going through various life stages, from youthful optimism right through to middle-aged resignation as the realities of family life slowly asphyxiate all hopes and dreams. Everyone’s been there, haven’t they? And by “everyone”, I mean all middle-aged, middle-class men, for they are the ones who have Stages Of Life and Related Financial Concerns. As for the rest of us? Why, we’re mere plot devices. Middle-class women exist only to have intermittently swollen bellies which produce parasitical children. Working-class men? Only there to screw over long-suffering middle-class men when they need their car fixed or their drain unblocked. Working-class woman? Doesn’t exist, at least not in bank ad land (perhaps one day she’ll be permitted to pop in, Mrs Doyle-like, with a tea urn and a duster with which to metaphorically “clean up” your finances). (more…)

 

February 22, 2013

Really useful engines: On Thomas, workfare and worth

Posted by glosswitch under Parenting, Politics | Tags: , , , , |
[7] Comments 

For reasons best known to no one, my children have got back into reading, watching and listening to Thomas the Tank Engine. As you can imagine I am devastated. I thought we were over this phase. We’d put it all behind us, weren’t going to speak of it ever again. The hateful phrase “really useful engine” was set to become a distant memory, but suddenly, out of nowhere, the old obsession has returned.

I really hate Thomas, and by that I don’t just mean the series, I mean the individual. “Thomas, he’s the cheeky one”. The cheeky one? He’s the most self-satisfied, obstructive, arrogant little prick on the whole of Sodor. Every single “adventure” involves him smugly deciding he’s going to outshine everyone else in being “really useful”. This invariably leads to some kind of major fuck up, usually involving a crash and some paint / bunting / milk churns, whereupon Thomas seizes on the opportunity to pile on the smarm in his efforts to “make amends”. God, I truly DETEST his supercilious little half-smile. Not that the other engines are that much better. The only one I like is James, except the TV series has got his accent wrong. Rather than chirpy Liverpudlian, it should be pure Leslie Phillips. He’s a rake, is James, welcome to chuff into my tunnel any time he likes *cough*. (more…)

 

February 12, 2013

The fashion industry: Just how fucking awful is it?

Posted by glosswitch under Random thoughts | Tags: , , , , , |
[14] Comments 

February’s issue of Glamour features an interview with the fashion designer Jonathan Saunders. It is, shall we say, illuminating:

“It’s reactionary,” says Jonathan, of the process of designing a new collection.

Too bloody right it is.

“Last season was about a very prim, buttoned-up, put-together woman.”

Riiiiiight.

“That smart woman is still at the core of what we do, but she’s now showing more skin. And I think she’s a little younger.”

Hmm. So Jonathan Saunders designs for an imaginary woman who ages in reverse. Brilliant. And yes, I suppose it’s just a “look”, not a person. But isn’t that the whole problem? It’s not about people, and yet there’s this discomforting pretence that it is, that it could even be about you, if only you weren’t so crap. (more…)

 

November 10, 2012

More dismally silly nonsense from the post-sexist world

Posted by glosswitch under Employment, Feminism, Gender stereotyping | Tags: , , , , , , |
[10] Comments 

I was born in 1975. I do not recall a time in my life, ever, during which sexism, racism or homophobia were not considered to be passé. Discrimination always happened yesterday. Then today becomes yesterday and suddenly we realise that today wasn’t too great, either. Apart from “today today”, 2012. Finally, at long last, we’re totally sorted. Prejudice doesn’t exist. It’s not as though thought there’s the remotest possibility that in twenty year’s time we’ll look back and say “actually, I don’t know why we all thought that was acceptable”. (more…)

 

November 3, 2012

A lesson in school ‘choice’ guilt

Posted by glosswitch under Education, Parenting | Tags: , , , , |
[10] Comments 

I am a middle-class mother of two, educated to PhD level. I work in an education industry. You’d think that when it comes to my own kids, I’d be hothousing like mad. Nonetheless, when it comes to sending them to school, I can’t help feeling I have let them down. I mean, I send them (the eldest one, at least – the other’s still too little). And I help them with their reading and whatnot. But so far I have singularly failed to do any of the following things:

  • save enough money for an emergency private school fund
  • make a tactical home purchase in a sought-after catchment area
  • pretend to be a Christian in order to get my sons into the voluntary-aided “outstanding” school down the road (which is actually closer than the school Eldest ended up in)

The last of these things is partly down to laziness, partly down to a desire not to be a hypocrite (and okay, a teeny bit down to the fear that if God does exist, namedropping Him in order to get a school place might make him rather wrathful come Judgement Day). The first two are down to money. I don’t have enough cash to play the system. So I get to keep my principles, but only because I’m too skint to sell out.
(more…)

 

August 29, 2012

Message to Chris Grayling from an “ordinary person”

Posted by glosswitch under Random thoughts, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , |
[2] Comments 

As one of the millions of “ordinary people who work hard and pay their taxes” ™, I have a question for Chris Grayling MP: when exactly will the work I do be reclassified as no longer “wage-worthy” and be funded by benefits alone?

It’s a serious question, and what’s more, I don’t often ask serious questions of this nature. That is because I have a job and don’t want to lose it. Like anyone who is not rich, I am scared. I have seen what is happening around me and I know it could happen to me, too. The use of outsourcing and unpaid internships creeps up and up each business, like a rising flood. Whatever my own skills, I know I could be replaced by someone without a job. At least if I am lucky that person might be me. (more…)

 

August 14, 2012

Posh-bashing: Enough to make you want to leave the Bullingdon Club

Posted by glosswitch under Politics | Tags: , , , , , |
[4] Comments 

The actor Benedict Cumberbatch is considering leaving the UK on account of “all the posh-bashing that goes on“. Sick and tired of being “castigated as a moaning, rich, public-school bastard”, he might just up and leave. I sincerely hope this doesn’t happen. My partner and I have had him on “the list” for years, all thanks to a particularly saucy scene in To The Ends of The Earth. Visits to the SS Great Britain in Bristol haven’t been the same since and for that we have Benedict to thank.

Like Cumberbatch, I too have been a victim of posh-bashing. Unlike him, this was not because I attended a posh school. Au contraire, I attended a normal state school, but was bashed on account of being the type of person who needlessly throws around phrases such as “au contraire” (I also have a ridiculously long name, a barrister dad and degrees from Oxford and Cambridge. I might have a nothern accent, but I know where I stand on the poshometer, and it’s a million miles away from Coronation Street). So Benedict Cumberbatch, I know where you’re coming from (well, not literally, since I didn’t go to Harrow. But generally, I mean). Posh-bashing is mean, and it’s clearly wrong. But is it really that big a deal? (more…)

 

August 9, 2012

Bigging up the office in the name of choice

Posted by glosswitch under Employment, Feminism, Gender stereotyping | Tags: , , , , , , , |
[4] Comments 

Most mornings I trudge resentfully to work. Today, however, I skipped merrily through the August sunshine, eager to reach my desk, get my head down and perform my duties as a useful economic unit labouring away for The Man.  Whence this joy? It’s not simply because my kids were being annoying, making the office seem a welcome break (let’s face it, that would be most days anyhow). It’s because I’d just read this, a piece that’s enough to make any sane woman think OFFICE! WOO-HOO! YEAH!

The piece I’ve uncovered (via @Scriptrix and @LynnCSchreiber) tells the story of a woman whose whole family turn up at her office to “liberate” her from the tyranny of work and celebrate the start of her new life as an “ever-present loving homemaker”. I don’t know if it is a spoof; I suspect it isn’t. Either way, it reminds me of the reasons why I became a feminist in the first place. (more…)

 

July 15, 2012

How to make a £30 dress cost £1,000

Posted by glosswitch under Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , |
[6] Comments 

Hey everyone! I’m rich, rich beyond my wildest dreams!*

*Actually, when I say “rich”, I don’t mean Conservative Party donor rich. I mean I have £1,000 to spend on clothes at very.co.uk.**

** Actually, when I say “have”, I don’t mean I literally have £1,000. I have £1,000 worth of credit, for which I applied.***

*** Actually, when I say “applied”, I don’t mean I applied for it. I just got given it, subject to credit checks.****

**** Actually, when I say “subject to credit checks”, I don’t mean…

I think you get the idea. Today I bought a dress from Very and uncovered a whole world of exploitative credit hell which I didn’t realise existed.
(more…)

 

July 5, 2012

Success, the Louise Mensch way

Posted by glosswitch under Employment, Politics | Tags: , , , , , |
[4] Comments 

When were growing up, my brother used to have the following poem on his wall:

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

Success, attrib. Emerson (possibly)

It is a nice poem (you can tell I’ve got a PhD in literature, can’t you?). Nevertheless, it makes me sad. My brother is disabled and hasn’t achieved all of these supposedly tiny, natural things. He has my respect, and my children love him. But it’s not quite the same. Perhaps we shouldn’t set any universal standards for success; it’s always a bloody minefield.

I say all this, but I have in my hand a copy of August’s Glamour. And right there on page 26, it’s none other than Tory MP Louise Mensch, taking me to task for my pathetic ambivalence towards success:

(more…)

 

June 27, 2012

Young people: Get rid of your sodding phones!

Posted by glosswitch under Politics | Tags: , , , , |
1 Comment 

Mobile phones are bloody brilliant, aren’t they? From inauspicious beginnings in the 1980s, it’s amazing to see how far they’ve come. Take mine, for instance. I can use it to send emails, access sat nav, download music, sell all my worldly goods on Ebay … in fact, I even used it to start writing this very post. It’s fantastic, isn’t it? You start to wonder if there’s anything a mobile phone can’t do. I mean, it can’t give you money or opportunities or choices, or even a roof over your head. But to be honest, that doesn’t matter. Because in lieu of that, it provides everyone with an excuse as to why you shouldn’t have that anyway. This is particularly true if you’re young.

You might think young people today are having something of a shit time. The qualifications they’ve worked for are mocked and discredited; further education saddles them with decades of debt; apprenticeships pay them a pittance, while an entry-level job is now an “internship” on no pay at all; most young people will never own a home, but can no longer claim support to live somewhere that isn’t theirs; they’re told not to reproduce when they’re young but not to leave it till they’re old; they will start their adult lives in debt and end them in poverty. But hey, sod all that. Just look at them: they’ve all got mobile phones! (more…)

 

June 26, 2012

Aiming for the squeezed middle

Posted by glosswitch under Politics, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

Have you had a go on the Guardian Breadline Britain income comparison tool yet? Go on, it’s fun. I’m not sure exactly what the purpose of it is, though. The only thing that seems certain is that whatever label you get given – in poverty, on the edge of poverty, squeezed middle, right up to super-rich – you will feel bitter about it and sense that, somehow, you’re the one who’s really worst off.

I had a go at it and found myself to be in the very top category – super-rich. This surprised me – I know we’ve fallen on hard times, but it comes to something when my own life constitutes living the dream. Then I realised that I’d accidentally added in an extra nought (my propensity to do stupid things like this being one of the many, many reasons why I am not super-rich after all). So anyhow, I had another go. It’s amazing the difference a nought makes. Turns out I am in fact on the edge of poverty.

This allocation also surprised me. Financially, I’m not doing brilliantly, but I didn’t think things were that bad. To describe myself as “on the edge of poverty” feels, to me, a little like glory hunting. In the grand scheme of things, life’s just not that bad. I suppose “on the edge” means if the slightest thing goes wrong (or the “accidental” third baby makes an appearance), I could be in serious trouble, and that’s possibly true. But hey, let’s not get all dramatic about it just yet. What would be the point? After all, things could be about to change for the better. (more…)

 

June 25, 2012

My year of housing benefit shame

Posted by glosswitch under Politics | Tags: , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

Right now, I am in the bath, messing about on the netbook, which is resting on a pile of books on the bathroom bin. The book at the bottom is The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. I think that is symbolic. I haven’t actually read The Wealth of Nations – it’s my partner’s book – but hey, it’s symbolic anyhow. Because I’m thinking about money and the men who decide where it goes.*

I am so fucking annoyed about the Tory plan to cut housing benefit for the under 25s I don’t know where to begin. Indeed, my head might explode with sheer annoyance at it all. And that would be a bad thing, because mine is the head of a taxpayer. And I won’t be paying much tax if I don’t have a head. (more…)

 

June 25, 2012

David Cameron: Politics of the playroom

Posted by glosswitch under Politics | Tags: , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

This morning my eldest child’s school had the photographer in, so I took him and his younger brother in early for a picture. I’ve got the proofs and order form with me on my desk right now. They look gorgeous. Really, totally, absolutely gorgeous. I look at it and I feel incredibly proud. Or at least I would do, if I didn’t know that five minutes before those photos were taken, I’d been in stressed mum from hell mode, and telling them to “grow the fuck up”.

I don’t usually swear at my children. I’d been having a bad morning. The kind of morning so bad, even knowing that the feckless are having benefits cut can’t ease the pain. Even so, I feel totally ashamed. I’d feel ashamed even without the swearing. What am I, a grown woman, doing telling two tiny people, aged three and four, to grow up? God knows they’ve been doing their best.

The person who really needs to grow up, of course, is David Cameron. I mean, yes, my children can be annoying sods. They’re used to having everything done for them. They’ve never had to worry about money. They think the way they live is the way everyone lives. But that’s because they’re little. David Cameron, just what is your fucking excuse? And yes, that’s swearing. But I think that’s the very least you deserve.

Like your average four-year old, Cameron seems to think it is in some way realistic to order the world in response to resentment. Here’s him quoted in the Guardian:

We have, in some ways, created a welfare gap in this country – between those living long term in the welfare system and those outside it. [...] This has sent out some incredibly damaging signals. That it pays not to work. That you are owed something for nothing. It gave us millions of working-age people sitting at home on benefits even before the recession hit. It created a culture of entitlement. And it has led to huge resentment amongst those who pay into the system, because they feel that what they’re having to work hard for, others are getting without having to put in the effort.

Yes, it’s just not fair, is it? Waaaaah! *stomps off to room. No Playstation time for me tonight* But seriously, David, if you think it’s realistic to have policies based on playing off entitlement against resentment, you must, surely, know this: huge numbers of people, working or not, resent your own privilege and sense of entitlement. So what are you going to do about that?

I am not exactly Miss Underprivileged. I went to Oxford University when I was 18 (this was back in the day when you even got small grants. Which is just as well. I’d have found it a right bugger to get to lectures every morning if I’d been sleeping back home in Cumbria every night). When I arrived at Oxford, though, I didn’t consider myself particularly privileged. I’d been the only person in my school who’d even applied. I’d worked really hard. I thought I deserved my place. I still, kind of, think I did, at least as much as anyone ever does. But this is where I went wrong: I thought that just because I worked hard and got what I wanted, anyone could get what they wanted by working hard. That anyone who didn’t was a bit of a loser who deserved to be where they were. This was, of course, complete bollocks. But sadly it took several terms of being around people far, far more privileged than me for me to work this out (what with me being, fundamentally, a selfish sod).

I have heard it suggested that as you get older and acquire more stuff, you become naturally more right wing. That you become a liberal “mugged by reality”. This hasn’t been my experience. But then, perhaps I haven’t acquired enough stuff yet. David Cameron, well, he’s always had lots of stuff. No wonder he hasn’t the slightest perspective on what it’s like to be without it. Even so, I don’t think having stuff is a sign of maturity. Certainly not in this day and age, when children can no longer expect to achieve the same standard of living and wealth as their parents did (as my dad kindly informed me on Saturday evening; in an odd way, I was actually quite touched). In some ways, I think the resentment politics proposed by Cameron is the politics of someone who has never, ever had to grow up.

People like Cameron find themselves with all the toys in the playroom. Then the minute someone else wants to play, they’ll be screaming it isn’t fair. Those are their toys. Of course, you might add that this in itself isn’t fair. But then you’ll get told that life just isn’t fair, and why did you expect it would be? (Toddler Cameron does have flashes of pseudo-maturity, at least.)

So anyhow, there I am, swearing at my lovely, beautiful kids. The kids I think I am allowed to have (although you never know; perhaps I’ve failed on account of not having a partner who can support me not working. It’s confusing). Anyhow, really I need to be swearing at David. He at least totally deserves it. But I’m not taking him for a school photo shoot afterwards.

 

June 24, 2012

So, who’s going to be operating the feckometer?

Posted by glosswitch under Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

Cameron to axe housing benefits for feckless under 25s as he declares war on welfare culture.

Mail on Sunday headline, 24th June 2012

Have you ever wondered how much feck you possess? Don’t worry – you don’t need to know what feck actually is. Me, I haven’t got a fecking clue. However, I still have a pretty good idea that feck-wise, I’m doing better than most of my neighbours.

I live in a former council house on a poor estate. We could have bought a much smaller house in a different area – one with a far higher concentration of feck – but this was the house we wanted (it’s big and it’s near Bargain Booze. Who could argue with that?). Many of the people who live on my street don’t work. I’ll be setting off early in the morning to drop off the kids at school whereas they’ll be, um, setting off early in the morning to drop off the kids at school, too. But they’re probably hungover. And they might be having a fag on the way, before going back home to watch Jeremy Kyle.

Many of our neighbours have more children than we do. Here’s me, thinking we can’t afford to have another child, and there they are, breeding like rabbits. Only rabbits who smoke. And who don’t have any feck left in the burrow. Obviously I am very resentful about this. Every day I think ooh, you, you, you feckless people! How dare you even exist without possessing the requisite amount of feck! 

Fortunately David Cameron is feeling my pain:

Speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday, Mr Cameron said: ‘We are sending out strange signals on working, housing and families.’

He argued that some young people lived with their parents, worked hard, planned ahead and got nothing from the State, while others left home, made little effort to seek work and got a home paid for by the benefits system.[...]

‘A couple will say, “We are engaged, we are both living with our parents, we are trying to save before we get married and have children and be good parents. But how does it make us feel, Mr Cameron, when we see someone who goes ahead, has the child, gets the council home, gets the help that isn’t available to us?”

Yeah, Mr Cameron! These people, they don’t half piss me off! I mean, speaking personally, I didn’t actually get engaged and live with my parents and try to save before getting married and having children or any of that bollocks. I’ve always just bumbled along being middle class. It always seems to have worked out, just about, for me. I’d obviously like a better economic environment, in which things weren’t quite so difficult for working parents. But still, in the absence of any policies that are going to make working and having children more affordable, yeah, let’s just have a go at people on benefits. It’s the very least we can do.

If I’m really honest, I wouldn’t say I worked out of some great desire to be “good”. If anything, I read the pronouncements of politicians such as Cameron and get a huge desire to change my behaviour just to be “bad”. But I work so I have prospects and a future. I work so I don’t feel trapped. I work so I feel I’m using the skills I had the opportunity to gain. I don’t do it because of my feck, whatever that is. It has crossed my mind that, if everyone around me on our estate is having such a great time, I could try to join them. But it doesn’t look that much fun from where I see it. It’s hardly winning the lottery. They’re not working because they don’t know what else to do and how else to be, and no one, as far as I can see, is giving them the opportunities to change or making change affordable.

Cameron claims that “at the moment the system encourages people not to work and have children, but we should help people to work AND have children”. I agree. Working and having children is hard emotionally and financially. I can think of many possible solutions – increasing childcare vouchers, encouraging childcare providers to fit around shift patterns, working to decrease the pay gap, investing in depressed communities to ensure that there are jobs – but cutting benefits for “the feckless” seems an odd one to start with. It won’t make things any easier for most people. I don’t know, perhaps if my neighbours get evicted, I’ll be able to do the school run marginally more quickly, then I might get to work earlier, then I’ll get a pay rise, then I’ll actually be able to afford the nursery fees I’m paying for anyhow… Is that the thinking? Cause I’m not sure that’s going to work. Hell, I don’t even know if I’ve got enough feck to make this doable.

Well, thankfully it won’t be me who has to operate the feckometer. Because knowing feck all about the morality behind it, I just wouldn’t know where to start.

Postscript: Since writing this post, it still looks like everything’s going badly wrong, but I have at least worked out the answer to the original question: it’s obviously Father Jack.

 

June 21, 2012

Jimmy Carr, I feel your pain

Posted by glosswitch under Uncategorized | Tags: , , , |
Leave a Comment 

We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.

Leona Helmsley

So Jimmy Carr used a financial advisor in order to pay less tax. Big sodding deal. We’ve all done that, haven’t we? I know I have.

My tax avoidance antics started in May last year, on the day we all got handed our monthly pay slips. As we all know, a pay slip is just a piece of paper which displays the same numbers every single month. Nevertheless, it remains obligatory, every single month, to rip it open the moment it’s in your hands, and to pretend it’s some kind of National Lottery scratch card which might reveal that, this time, you’ve actually been given a million squillion pounds. Thus I tore open my pay slip and discovered that this month, the numbers had in fact changed. But not for the better. On the contrary, all of a sudden my take-home pay had become really rather rubbish.

I wondered, briefly, whether there might be a problem. Could I be paying too much tax? Don’t be silly, I told myself. You’re one of the little people, the people who never pay too much tax because their earnings are so insignificant to the world at large. Perhaps it was just something I didn’t understand. Probably something to do with the company car I’d been using since last year, although I hadn’t thought it’d be costing me quite so much. Still, mustn’t grumble. I crossed my fingers that the next month it’d be back to normal.

Alas the next month my pay was still surprisingly low. And the next month, and the month after that. Finally I plucked up the courage to see our payroll administrator. Of course, I was horrendously ashamed and apologetic about it. I am so sorry to trouble you, I’m a bit worried about the tax, it’s not that I don’t want to pay it, I’m just a bit, you know, obviously if you’re busy, blah blah blah. She took one look at my pay slip and told me it was wrong. I’d been given a K tax code when I should have got an L. I would explain this but it’s boring and I’ve forgotten the details and being one of the little people, I’m not sure I ever understood them to begin with. She scribbled some things down on a piece of paper, working out the exact code I should have got. We guessed the error had arisen from the fact that at one point I’d swapped cars. The company had notified, um, whoever it is you notify, but it seems “they” had assumed that I’d kept the old one and been swanning about in two cars (I’m bad enough at driving as it is).

The next step was to contact the Inland Revenue. I asked the administrator if she would do it, seeing as she knew what she was talking about. She said she couldn’t; they’d need to speak to me in person. Would I like to do it now, while I was in her office? I said no; I needed to psych myself up for this, and at least try to get my head around how it all worked. Plus I thought I’d maybe leave it another month. Just to see if it’d all work out by itself.

At this point it did of course cross my mind that I could just keep on over-paying tax. After all, I believe in paying tax. I believe in contributing to the greater good. Hadn’t it just so happened that I’d been given the chance to contribute even more? I considered this, but not for long. After all, I’m not a fucking saint. Moreover, if I wanted to use any additional money for the greater good, I’d rather use it in a more targeted fashion (ideally to make the kind of political contributions that might eventually ensure that the original “greater good” money didn’t get wasted on pointless wars and shit). And the truth is, over-paying tax would, in the long term, have seriously pissed me off. I know that, in the grand scheme of things, I am privileged. But, in the small scheme of things, over-paying tax while living on a shit estate and knowing, deep down, that rich people do stuff meaning that they under-pay tax – well, I’m a grumpy enough sod as it is. That, I’m afraid, would have got to me.

One month on I made the phone call:

ME: Um, hello. I’m ringing because, um, you know, I think I might be paying too much tax. I’m sorry.

TAX PERSON: Can I have your details please?

ME: [gives details] I’m sorry. I’m sorry for making such a fuss about this.

TAX PERSON: [goes away for a bit then comes back] It’s because of the cars. That’s why you have that code.

ME: Oh, the cars! I only have one car, though. I didn’t have them at the same time. That’ll be it.

TAX PERSON: It says here you have two cars.

ME: Oh, the thing is, I swapped cars in July. I’m sorry.

TAX PERSON: Our records say you have two.

ME: Um, but I don’t. Sorry. [starting to wonder whether in fact I do have two cars but just haven't noticed]

This all sounds like it was going badly, doesn’t it? Well, in fact, I managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Or rather, I got a marginally better tax code in the end. Still a K code, but hey, I felt really grateful by then! Until I mentioned it to the payroll administrator. She was seriously unimpressed, and said I’d need to go back again. And then she went through the numbers one more time. I still didn’t really get it.

By this point I was despairing. But then I had a thought: what would JC do? Presented with a situation such as this, what would sex god and all-round genius Jarvis Cocker advise? He’d take one look at me – someone who struggles with money while remaining more middle-class than Waitrose and Outnumbered put together – and utter those immortal lines from Common People: “if you called your dad he could stop it all”. So I called my dad. He stopped it all. Him, and his personal accountant, a family friend who agreed to look at all my paperwork and contact Inland Revenue for free.

Two things amaze me in all this: 1) how hard it was to even attempt to sort things out on my own, and 2) what a total piece of piss paying less tax becomes when you have an accountant on your side. Within two days – two days! – I ended up with the tax code the payroll administrator said I should have had all along (that’s in case you were wondering whether I ended up with something even better. I had wondered myself whether a little fiddle would get thrown in as an added bonus). But the annoying thing is, if I hadn’t got the work done for free (in itself exploitative, I suppose), I wouldn’t have got it done at all. The money I was missing out on made a huge difference to me, but I’d have been scared that an accountant’s fees would have swallowed up all the money I got back, and more. If it’s not big money you’re dealing with, is it worth it? And more than that, what if I had got it wrong? What if I had somehow acquired a second car without noticing and therefore owed money in taxes and, due to making a fuss, to an accountant? I mean, it’s unlikely, but I once stole a bike by accident and who knows, perhaps I’ve moved on to bigger things.

This inclines me to think that it’s perfectly possible that lots of “little people”, far from being benefit scroungers, may be over-paying taxes and not doing anything about it. First, because they don’t have the sense of entitlement that comes with being rich and famous, so they wait before asking questions, and second, because once they know something’s wrong, they can’t pay anyone to help them. I mean, I couldn’t. I just went back to being 18 and asking Daddy for help. If only I’d been better at rape jokes, it would never have come to this.

I don’t know what people like Jimmy Carr or Gary Barlow think when they’re busy playing the system. Perhaps it’s something along the lines to a view expressed by national treasure Adele in a Q magazine interview last year:

I’m mortified to have to pay 50%! [While] I use the NHS, I can’t use public transport any more. Trains are always late, most state schools are shit, and I’ve gotta give you, like, four million quid – are you having a laugh? When I got my tax bill in from [the album] 19, I was ready to go and buy a gun and randomly open fire.

Well, today I took my son to the hospital for a check-up before dropping him off at his perfectly non-shit school. Thanks, Adele. As one of the millions of little people whose taxes are, individually, a mere drop in the ocean, I am eternally grateful for your gracious benevolence. Without Chasing Pavements, perhaps my son would have had to make do with one grommet rather than two. But as for you, Carr and Barlow, you can fuck right off. You owe me. After all, with us little people, it’s just take, take, take.

PS Due to austerity and whatnot, I no longer have a company car. I do however fully expect to be paying tax on a car I don’t have for the rest of my working life. It’s okay, fellow little people; no need to thank me. It’s not morality; I just can’t be arsed.

 

June 20, 2012

Stefano Pessina: The exfoliated face of capitalism

Posted by glosswitch under The beauty industry | Tags: , , , |
Leave a Comment 

Hey ladies! Time to form an orderly queue. Please allow me to present to you Mr Stefano Pessina:

Phwoar! How’s that for an Italian Stallion? Out of two I’d give him one. Stefano? For me it’s definitely a Stefa-yes etc. etc.

Ahem. Sorry. I really need to watch my language. For instance, just then I wrote “ladies” when I should have written “girls”. It’s important to use the correct Boots-based terminology. After all, we wouldn’t want to upset Mr Pessina, who’s CEO of Alliance Boots.

I don’t know what I expected the CEO of Boots to look like, but to tell the truth, I’m disappointed. It’s not bad for 70, but I was still wanting a little more Johnny Depp, a little less Ikea-smart. After all, this is a man who must have access to all the cosmetics in the cosmi-megaverse. Couldn’t he at least have found one product that would allow him to have his own “ta-dah!” moment? And yes, I know I’m being unfair. After all, you can’t polish a turd. We women have known that all our lives, and still we spend gazillions trying to do so, first with the help of Boots 17, and then No. 7 (presumably at some stage you get to Minus 3). It’s shocking to think of what gets spent on this fruitless quest for “real woman” perfection. No wonder Stefano looks, if not exactly attractive, then at least “untroubled”.

Today I was on my way to buy my sandwiches in Boots, then I changed my mind. This was partly because Café Soho had a special offer, but mainly because I am a stupid and get all het up about companies being run by cunts. Obviously if I took this to any logical extreme, I wouldn’t buy sandwiches anywhere. I wouldn’t even buy bread, or flour, or yeast. But I am too lazy and compromised to do any of that. But anyhow, moving swiftly away from that particular minefield, I didn’t buy sandwiches in Boots. And that’s not just because Pessina sells us the beauty myth while looking like he should be designing work surfaces. It’s also because the likes of Pessina don’t like you or me or anyone really.

Pessina claims that the atmosphere in the UK is “anti-business“. He’s right, you know. I fucking hate business, me. Bloody organisations doing stuff and making money. Can’t stand the fuckers. Of course, however true, it’s a risky thing for Pessina to say. After all, he still wants to do business with us, bless him. Hence he’s since qualified his statement, quoted here in the Telegraph

I am convinced the Government in the UK is trying to do the right things and the fact they are reducing tax is going in the right direction. Unfortunately, the public opinion, the environment is not as favourable to businesses as the government is.

So David Cameron and George Osborne are okay, the rest of us are nasty, business-ist morons. He’s right, you know. Take me, for instance. I’m such a business-phobic bitch I’m considering finally registering that Superdrug loyalty card and never heading Boots-wards ever again.

Just to make matters worse, US Pharmacy giant Walgreen has just taken a 45% stake in Alliance Boots. Being a knee-jerk business basher my first thought is, of course, it’s American and it’s got “Wal” in the title. Gotta be bad. I mean, there are in fact some serious question marks over how Walgreens have dealt with contraception provision in the US. But that’s just a random observation. The real problem I have is with the “Wal”.

Anyhow, what I’m saying is, I won’t be going to Boots any time soon. Except, knowing me, I probably will, as Superdrug are bound to annoy me in the near future. And look how long my Lush boycott lasted -  two weeks, or was it one? I’m always going back to these evil hellholes. You know, sometimes you’d think I didn’t mind people selling stuff, as such. I don’t mind choice, or using money as a means of exchange, or even buying crap which I know won’t work, since that’s my own stupid fault. I just expect the grasping capitalist bastards at the top to be a little less patronising. And, of course, to look a whole lot more like Johnny Depp.

 

June 19, 2012

My kids: They’re ace, so ner!

Posted by glosswitch under Uncategorized | Tags: , , , |
1 Comment 

For some reason, late in the evening, I have started reading a Guardian website article entitled How do we improve childcare? Even more inexplicably, I’ve scrolled down and started reading the comments. If you have children and – gasp!- work, reading some of it’s a bit like being punched in the stomach.

Here are some choice views on why your children should have never been born or, at best, need to be excused away as “accidents”:

I’m a firm believer that you should not even contemplate children unless you’re in a position to look after, and raise them [...] But let’s be realistic and accept the fact that circumstances change, and “accidents” do happen, and one then has to then deal with it.

What “in a position to look after, and raise them” means, precisely, is not clear. But I suspect I’m not in said “position” and never have been. And my children weren’t accidents.

I think for under 5′s it’s tough. It’s a childminder, nursery or au pair. Or even, shock horror, stay at home, look after your kids and tough it out on bugger-all money.

Hmm. The trouble is, for some of us having “bugger-all” money would actually mean enduring the levels of poverty that make families unhappy. Is that so hard to understand? It’s not “hey, let’s play at being thrifty and raiding charity shops and getting rid of the car and having oodles of smug vintage fun”. Most of us have to dabble in that kind of “thrift” while we’re still working.

I have some sympathy for people who say don’t have kids if you can’t afford them or are not prepared to take responsibility and make the huge sacrifices necessary, yet misfortune and unforseen calmities happen, and our childcare is horrendously expensive and very variable in quality.

Well, to be honest, any “misfortune” I’m experiencing now could have been predicted before I had children. Should I have ruled myself out of the game? Left the breeding to the rich? But then who would do the shitty jobs in years to come? (Obviously I’m still hoping that won’t be my kids. But hey, just for argument’s sake).

This is however my favourite:

Cutting back on obsessional consumerism, and providing a full time parent ?

Just a thought.

Style of thing

It’s not a very good thought, though, is it? Style of thing. I mean, yeah, my son’s in nursery so I can save for an iPad. And I’d have done it, too, if it wasn’t for those pesky kids (and the nursery fees).

To summarise, here is the limited range of options that should have been open to me:

  1. be rich and have kids
  2. be old-style poor (i.e. have same job but have bought house earlier) and have kids
  3. not have kids as noble sacrifice because actually, I can’t afford it

But I had kids! Without meeting the “having kids” criteria as set by the wise people of Comment is Free! Bugger! What have I done?

Well, the thing is, I had some bloody brilliant kids. They are way better than any of those people who are waiting for the “perfect moment” to “responsibly” have kids can possibly imagine. They are way better than the “I’m far too noble to have kids” people could ever dream. My kids are magic and I wouldn’t regret having them ever, despite my misgivings about nursery and despite all the things I would do differently if time and money were no object (hint: they’re always a fucking object). They are fantastic kids and they have not been ruined by not emerging into a perfect financial set-up. In fact, while I’d like things to be better, that’s only because I’d sometimes like the freedom that more money brings; I’d hate to turn into the kind of person who thinks having more money makes you a better, more responsible parent.

The main thing I wanted to say, though, is HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Hey there, Guardian commenters! You can say what you like about “responsibility” but the fact is, I HAVE ACE KIDS AND YOU DON’T!!!

 

Next Page »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 2,759 other followers