I arrived back from the states this week after a holiday but even the insular news coverage over the pond shown some of the footage of the recent riots. My sister ran in the room at one point and proclaimed “They’ve burnt Selfridges down”. “Fuckin hell”, I thought, “this must be serious”. Turned out to be Miss Selfridge. Despite her error in the scale of the destruction, the evidence was there for the world to see, Britain is in turmoil. Before I go any further, these riots are a disgrace and I am in no way condoning what these idiots have done. The majority of these acts committed were mindless and simply an extended form of consumerism. Young scally’s jumping on anarchy as a shortcut to obtaining the things many of us work hard for or simply do without. However, upon landing back on terra firma in old Blighty, I found out a guy who works for me had received a sentence of 8 months for looting and I saw things from a different perspective.
To give you an insight, I work running an on site recruitment agency for a major manufacturing company. Last year we began recruiting via a back to work initiative from the job centre, meaning the incentive for taking individuals who hadn’t worked for 18 months was a backhander from the government to ourselves for £500. Another fluffy labour policy that juggled the unemployment figures to give the impression the country was in growth. My company, like many others the country over, forced us to take all our staff from the job centre via these back to work agencies to take advantage of this free money the Job Centre were handing out. And we did, as ashamed as I am to admit it. We would recruit these individuals despite there being no genuine regular shifts for them to undertake and claim the money, then simply leave them hanging despite their benefits being stopped as they were now “in work”. Sure, they might get two or three shifts a week, but full time work it wasn’t.
For the sake of this article I’m going to call the guy in question Peter. He started in a group of six of these individuals from Job Centre. He was always polite and courteous and wanted to do well. Like most young working class British lads I’ve had during my time there, sometimes he needed a rocket up his arse but he wasn’t on his own in this department. For the first year, I managed to keep him mainly in work. He was late pretty much everyday, but I turned a blind eye as I felt a guilt in my stomach that I had taken this guy off regular benefits and wanted to try and do right by him. However, this year the recession has really landed and the work is drying up. For the last eight or nine weeks I would be surprised if he has got one shift per week. Not even fifty quid to live on.
In the past five years, salaries at this workplace have frozen and the agency I work for do not pass minimum wage increases on. Sunday double time is now time and half. Saturdays and over 40 hours is now all at flat rate. Eventually we will have someone in a fucking hamster ball powering the lights things are becoming that ridiculous. Major manufacturers like the one I work for don’t care about the individual. Bean counters sit in boardrooms and see where they can save money. We can cut staff here, make them work longer there, make them do more here. These accountants justify their salaries by reducing yours. More and more, they demand staff for short term assignments. Sure, the skilled and valued agency staff will be kept in work all week, but the Peter’s in the factory will be brought in only when exceptional orders are being run. When the Young British contingent refuse to do these short term assignments, then the vast swathes of immigrants that the previous government have allowed to gather are queuing up to fill the gap. Big business and employment agencies have eroded the individual’s rights to the point of breaking. Now, place that alongside a Conservative government who have an agenda to reduce the number on state benefits and you have a recipe for disaster.
The average Joe on the high street is well and truly fucked off with being shit on for the last 20 years. If you sit on your arse on benefits you are treated like scum, if you go out and get a job you are treated like a slave. We chastise the feckless and desert those who endeavour to better themselves. To compound this problem the public’s attitude to the Unions has become ice cold. We don’t want our holidays interrupted, or our tubes stopped, or our economy affected. This selfish society we live in encourages us to forget how important these individuals rights are. It doesn’t matter, until it happens to you or yours.
So when hope deserts these people and self improvement is removed as an option, then something fills the void. In this case it is the “chav” culture. Where the only thing important is where your next 4 pack of special and the eighth of black are coming from. Where you are suffocated by continual advertising of products in a consumerist society that you are forbidden from being part of. Where “cool” is something out of your reach unless you deal drugs or burgle houses. Where cheap drugs are a short distraction from the shitness of your reality. This is the everyday for the current underclass in the UK and it is only going to get worse. They are fucking like rabbits and passing these bad habits on.
I will be sending a letter of appeal to the justice secretary regarding Peter and explaining these points. It doesn’t excuse his actions, but there is always effect from a cause. If you remove hope, there is little left. Next time, it may well be Selfridges. Then Parliament.
