I know a pub....

I know a pub...

It sits in a hamlet off the beaten track, two miles from the nearest sizeable settlement which in turn is ten miles from anywhere that might reasonably be described as civilisation.

The public bar is rumoured to have a pool table and a jukebox, but I don't know of anyone who's ventured in that side since God was a boy.

The lounge is dark and dingy, there's little choice of beer. Wadworth's 6X, Stella (from a can) or Natch cider (from a bottle). There'll be a house red if the landlord hasn't already drunk it. Any of these will likely be served in glassware that would benefit from a second pass through the glass washer if indeed they have one.

They do not sell food. There is no jukebox, fruit machine, television or anything to suggest that the room has been altered in 100 years. There is a patina that could only have been created by so many smokers over that period of time.

It is quiet enough at lunchtime, maybe two or three folk will be in and occasionally the landlord will add his wisdom as he opens his second bottle of wine (he is educated, ancient and autocratic).

He opens at 7.30 in the evening and often as not the place is packed. Some folk will put their wellies on and walk 2 miles across open fields and a golf course, braving windy, wet November weather to get there.

Why does this place work?

Is it because people have to talk to each other for amusement because there are no distractions such as a telly?

Or is it because he has something that one rarely sees these days: an open log fire that burns at all hours in all seasons and weathers? Surely it's not because his "watch stops working" now and then?

S

I Promise not to talk about politics

I promise not to talk about politics! 

We wake this week to the news that the cuddly George Osborne has made good on his promise of cutting 12 billion off the welfare budget. Like it’s “right you’ve all had your fun when we were in government with the other lot, can we now shift the agenda back to where I want it?”

Makes sense doesn’t it? Why then do we feel so uncomfortable?

People working hard to survive don’t like the idea of idle, lazy no-hopers and permanently pregnant work dodgers sitting about the house all day seemingly enjoying a superior life-style to them. But until we manage something close to 100 % employment we have to live with them because people out of work don’t actually like it if you take the time to ask them. Yes, I know some people are fat lazy idiots – they just are – and you [George Osborne] want them to go to work? Just imagine it; turning up late, pretending to be ill, moaning all of the time, hiding in the toilets? Of course you don’t. But that’s the risk you take if you try and bully people into jobs they don’t want to do.

Are the no-hopers really the problem or is the “blame the poorest” argument akin to some sort of close up card trick. Lots of distraction up front while the real trickery continues under the table. I’m talking about tax avoidance of course. Billions of pounds leave the country to tax havens and whatever you think about people on benefits, they cost us considerably less than tax evaders and the money stays in the country. In fact if you consider that many benefit payments are cash injections into the country’s poorest areas they are in fact a good thing and should be massively increased.

I’m lucky enough to never have claimed benefits but I can remember the dole. In the 80’s It was supposed to cover food, rent, live music, a modest amount of beer and a tv licence – if you chose to have one. The music was great back then, most of the nation’s most important music and comedy between the 70’s and 90’s came from people mastering their craft at the tax payers’ expense. Look at your music hIstory; The Clash were on the dole. Joy Division, The Smiths, Oasis – would those bands ever have happened if they were all forced to work in a call centre of clean streets all day?

Times may have changed but what remains the same is the desire of most people out of work, or not getting by on zero hours contracts, do want a proper job. You see it isn’t cost effective to work. Many people are reluctant to get out of bed or to work more than 30 hours a week because the cost of renting a property and paying the bills just got too expensive. Like it or not, they are the refugees of the modern society. Scroungers? Hardly! No, the emphasis has to stay on the super-rich evading their taxes and no, we won’t be waiting for the “trickle-down effect” where we let those people keep getting richer until everyone who wants to work can afford to do so – and feed their 2.2 kids at the same time – like Mr Osborne keeps telling us will happen. Will it? I doubt it. Double the benefits I say – and start looking more closely at tax avoidance - then and only then might we see a more equal sharing of the nation’s wealth.

S – July 15