Tuesday 5 February 2013

How in touch are you?

This post is more to provoke a thought within you, rather than actually make a point, although i'll be making several points as we go through this.

I of course want your brain to actually question about how in touch you are with thing's as they stand for what seems to be, an awful lot of british people, with the way things are at the moment.

For some time now, i've been pondering in my mind about how much people like political figures for example, actually have an understanding about me and my life. It's a question many of us ask, when looking to political figures, since these are the people who decide alot of things for us, infact, everything.

See as it currently stands, the MP's here in the UK decide how much people out of work can live on financially, they decide how to create an economy which is good for business to grow and thus, create jobs. They decide pretty much everything, but i'm damned if i can find one of them who has any sort of idea about what i'm currently having to live my life like.

Let me explain to you my life before benefits. While working, i'd earn about £150 to £200 a week, maybe more if i'd managed to have fitted more hours in. I'd spend my money on house keeping (Since i was living with my mother at the time), going out on days out / nights out and of course clothing, extra food bit's i wanted, presents for birthdays and christmas etc.

My life with benefits means that i can't afford clothing. The government think it ok for me to live on £49 a week. Living by myself means of course i've bills to pay, so night's out / day trips are all out of the window, unless someone else is paying. Christmas is hell on earth for me, because how can i afford presents for people when i can't afford much for myself?

Years ago, a lady whom i'm more than sure you've heard of, Margaret Thatcher was in as the prime minister of the UK. If i could and she was up for it, i'd vote her back in tomorrow. She was different.

Sure, she get's alot of down talk even to this day about some of her decision's, but when it comes down it, the woman knew her money. She'd grown up in a life that wasn't too different from mine. Money wasn't readily available, she'd had to work for her father. A famous scene in the film about her dementure "The iorn lady" is where she repeats the price of different brands of butter, to show to her other MP's that she was still in touch with the real world. Not many people know, but it is documented, that the incident did actually happen. Today, if you were to ask David cameron, or Nick clegg about the price of butter, i doubt the pair of them would know. Yet these two are in the highest position's to not only determine how much that butter is, but how much money i have, to go and buy the said butter (what's with all the butter?).

My point here is, is that these men would appear to have fallen out of touch with how thing's are in the current financial climate. Maybe, like the rest of us would be in their position, they're surrounded by that much work and stress about a flatlining economy, they don't have time to know all the prices of butter.... So why did Margaret Thatcher? Let's face some basic facts with her.... When she took to office, the economy was dying on it's feet, granted, not as bad as it is doing now, but it was in a bad way. Yet by the time she was forced out... i wanted to say left, but another fact is, she was forced out of parliment... the economy was back standing strong, people were back working and times were on the up.

Where is this government going wrong?

A very popular tv show format has been found. Commonly known around the world as "Undercover boss" the show takes the owner or manager of a company and places them as a member of staff within their own company. They will have to take on a new identity and sometimes a new look, so as not to be found out. They get to find how life is for people at the bottom of the chain.

This format, i would LOVE to see applied to this government because i genuinly believe it would make change happen. They would see that a tax on a spare bedroom, is pathetic. They'd see that living on £49 a week, isn't possable. They'd see that a lack of funding to council's have resulted in poor housing standards and awful neighbourhoods being created. They would see exactly what they are doing to this country. Yet not one of them would do it. Ok yeah, you'd find the odd MP who'd want to take part, but i highly doubt you'd find the prime minister living in a flat like mine for a week, with only £49 to his name.

But it's not just people in parliment who are living like that, living to their own means, commenting on how others live their lives, without having walked a mile in their shoes.

If people think that i'm happy living as poor as i am, then you are sadly mistaken. It is a big encouragement to get back into work and start earning some money of my own, yet the jobs are just not there like they once used to be. When people turn around and say that a person doesn't want to find work, i can assure you now, there's millions of people living on benefits that would much rather be out doing a hard days work, than sat in, day after day, looking for work.

Of course thing's will improve with the economy, they always do.

But my question to you is, how in touch are you? Have you tried to put yourself in another person's shoes before commenting on their life?

If you've not, give it a try, you might just be suprised.

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