Benefits

Hello all,

Discussing benefits and welfare over at liberalconspiracy at the moment. Head over and get stuck in.

Private companies should never be allowed to run the welfare benefits system. The whole idea is disturbing.

Here's another interview with someone on a sickness benefit
You can read earlier interviews with people on benefits here
 

It's about two in the afternoon and Paul Thomas, 40, is sitting just outside the front door of the petrol station on Shoreditch High Street, begging away. He does this for several hours most afternoons.

He gets about £40 a week by way of the sickness benefit that he's been on for about a year. Unfortunately, his bills at home come to about £80 a week (he's lived in the same council flat in Bethnal Green for 16 years): thus the daily efforts outside the petrol station. Thomas, who is very articulate , possibly black, and fully political, says that his present way of life just sort of evolved for him after he was made redundant from a maintenance job about 18 months ago.

He is interested to hear there are people who think that scrounging for coins on the pavement on Shoreditch High Street is a lucrative lifestyle choice.

'It's humiliating. I've got two children - one 22 and one 18. They are always asking for money. Money, money, money. I do this, because I can't live on £40 a week. I'm not going to go around robbing other people.'

Other people rob him, though.

Will the long-term jobless really benefit from a private sector presence in welfare?

Surely people who live like this deserve sympathy, education and support, rather than corporate rape:

For Natalie Langford and her partner Kelvin, this month's primary unpleasantness will be the formal loss of their ten-month-old daughter. She was taken away from them just after she was born, and will shortly be adopted out by social services. Such are the joys of life as a junkie, says Natalie.

'So, my daughter was taken off me and I never get to see her again. I only get photos,' Natalie says. 'I won't see her now until she is 16 and [if she] wants contact. I was nicked for shoplifting (just after the baby was born) and I was taken to Holloway for two months. They didn't give me a chance to look after the baby. All I have is letterbox contact now, because I was on methadone. I stopped taking drugs and everything. I was trying to go into detox, but I couldn't get into detox, because they didn't have funding and all that shit, so like, it weren't happening. So, my daughter was taken off me and I never get to see her again.'

It is a story that calls, Kelvin says, for a drink. He and Natalie and five or six of their friends are already working their way through the beers. They're drinking at the top end of Deptford High Street. They all look pretty horrific. Natalie is only 35 and she is personable, eloquent and political, but you'd be pushing the romance if you said she was something to look at. She's got thinning hair, bleached-looking irises and the pale, pimply skin of a user. Her skin is so inflamed in places that her face looks misshapen. Kelvin, who says he's ex-Army, could be anywhere between 35 and 60. He's grey-haired and sallow, and also has the faded irises.