Sophia*, 28, from Wallsend, North Tyneside, is a mother of two children and is on universal credit. She kept a diary on the impact of the cost of living crisis on her and her children.
I have about £10 left until tomorrow when I get paid, so I’m pretty proud of myself. Altogether, it’s £6.50 on my card and a fiver in my purse. So I’m going to go to the shops now and get some cheap food we need, which is unsweetened almond milk, full fat milk and fish.
Well, yes, and, umm, well.
Used to live in squats etc:
When I was a teenager I was sofa-surfing with men who I thought were my role models. It took years of professional help that meant I finally improved myself. I quit drugs and alcohol. Back then, embarrassingly, I was using my body for free or for substances, which I thought was normal.
I’ve never been prouder to look back and see where I am now.
Excellent.
But the thing is, well, sure she’s poor. On universal credit – which is a useful definition of being poor of course. But it doesn’t seem to be appalling. Just tight.
Today I’m feeling so overwhelmed. My friend came round from the school pickup with her kids, and I wasn’t expecting it.
I realised, looking in my cupboards, I did not have enough food for her three kids too – I was mortified. I shared a pizza between all the kids and they only ended up with two slices each.
And, well, you know?
This before we get into anything about where’s the father(s) of these two kids and so on.
There is an important question here. What is that minimum that the welfare system should provide? Which does lead to that further question. The Guardian here obviously thinks all of the above is appalling. Three quarters of the world would be gasping at the wealth of this family. And what should we, we Brits, be thinking about it?
If the Graun paid the tax, on a moral basis natch, that is. the basis on which it thinks we ought to pay, she’d be wondering “Ooh, the ordinary Russian or the Beluga?”
Anyone who can afford two types of milk – one of which more expensive than the other – they are not ‘poor’ and struggling. If they were they’d buy powdered milk.
In the article the bint moans how hard it is on benefits to afford bikes and scooters for the kids and a new trampoline for the garden. Dear god how tragic, what’s the just giving page, why hasn’t bob geldof been informed?
@John B – for guardianistas these things are essentials. There’s is a funny world with funny values and you can bet that the fish isn’t coley.
“ I spend my days, until I start some part-time work, doing my NHS weight management programme […] learning about food and doing exercise”
So she’s overweight, but can’t afford food. The state is teaching her about basic things that parents would normally teach. And she has two children and no husband.
I bet the Victorians would look on aghast at what we have done with their legacy
Her parents should also have taught her about making poor life choices:
“When I was a teenager I was sofa-surfing with men who I thought were my role models.”
Off topic….
Spud – 22nd Dec “I will be taking a break from blogging over Christmas”. Designed to elicit lots of drooling ‘you deserve it’ replies from his leftard sycophants, which they duly deliver.
Spud – 23rd December “…..And ninthly….”
’My garden since the last storm is completely overgrown. It’s too big to handle for myself.’
Oh, the poverty of having a garden too big to cope with…
There’s a type of socialist who thinks the children should be seized from such dimwits and brought up in state “homes”.
They may be distinct from the type of socialists who like raping and buggering children. Who can say?
My garden since the last storm is completely overgrown. It’s too big to handle for myself
Yet
I spend my days, until I start some part-time work, doing my NHS weight management programme
A bit of effort on the garden, lucky girl to have one, might shift a few pounds. Has she considered growing her own veg – I doubt it.
You beat me to it Julia.
I used to know Wallsend fairly well. It wasn’t a place you’d associate with over-large gardens (not like that posh lot in Jesmond).
Unsweetened almond milk? That’s probably about the most expensive cow’s milk substitute you can get in supermarkets. Starts at about £1.50 per litre, and that’s the rubbish stuff that you need about 50/50 to whiten tea or coffee. And it sounds really healthy (almonds!) but it has very little protein. Definitely a luxury item.
Andrew C
That thread is a real diamond in the rough – actually one of his most coherent pieces although that isn’t saying much!
Some samples for the delectation of the general throng here:
Jesus was clear in the original language: as the Magnificat foretold his mission was to declare radical economic transformation by liberating poor people from debt.
This was not Jesus ‘meek and mild’. This was Jesus the angry, social and economic revolutionary in action, willing to upset the powers that be and those that made the money that kept them in positions of power. No wonder they killed him.
That narrative was proclaimed with the intent to overthrow the economic and social order of the day, with the explicit goal of bringing down those with economic power that would then be transferred to the poor. That would have changed everything. So they killed him.
I have always balked at the comparisons between Spud and Hitler but thinking of himself as some kind of latter day Jesus really does speak to an almost complete lack of self-awareness to the point where pre-senile dementia has to be a very strong possibility.
Praise the Lord! Jesus has returned! To Ely!
Mark Meldon says:
December 23 2022 at 11:06 am
Thank you for this, Richard. Will the tables ever be overturned? We can live in hope. Happy Christmas.
Reply
Richard Murphy says:
December 23 2022 at 11:17 am
I will keep overturning them
I actually did once, accidentally, when I left a Methodist meeting at their Central Hall where the questioning was so right wing antagonistic that I decided I had suffered enough of the hypocrisy of those attending, and left in protest
It was the only time I have ever done that
Reply
There’s a chap called Mark Meldon who has written some excellent posts on insurance on the Monevator blog. I do hope that either (i) He’s not the same Mark Meldon that BraveFart quotes, or (ii) He is the same chap but is taking the piss.
BF
Now perhaps people understand why he reached a point where Pubwatch in Downham Market thought him sufficiently antagonistic and unwilling to back down to enact a ban on him townwide?
I’d also advise him to read Proverbs 22:4
‘Humility is the fear of the Lord: it’s wages are riches and honor and life’
or Proverbs 11:2
When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom
But my guess is he’d dismiss the book as ‘neoliberal propaganda’
“My garden since the last storm is completely overgrown. It’s too big to handle for myself.’
All the old council houses near me come with v big gardens. I was speculating with a guy who lives in one why that was (we’re talking 90ft with hedge borders) He reckons because you were expected to grow your own veggies. Of course the Thatchers children right-to-buyers flogged off their original portions and built more houses.Since most of the original purchasers are long gone you currently have the somewhat incongruous situation of pretty well off yuppies living next to forklift drivers and retired dinner ladies who live in roomier houses with massive gardens. (although they’re still all single glazed so i know which i’d rather be in this winter.)
I guess Spud’s Bible has had the Parable of the Talents redacted. That stuff about ‘unto those that have shall be given; and unto those that have not…’ is obviously a typo.
Veggies and council house gardens. There’s actually a bit from Bath City Council deliberations in 1920-ish about this. The gardens must be large enough for the working man to grow veggies – and keep a pig.
Walked up around the area they built those houses a few weeks back. Good, solid, 4 bedders on big gardens. Very fine houses. Couple of streets away there’s a development in 70s/80s of more council houses. They would have disgraced the 2 up 2 down back to backs of Burnley and the like. Just vile, foul, hovels for the peasantry. Middle class progressivism in England has a lot to answer for.
“There is an important question here. What is that minimum that the welfare system should provide?”
Well, of course, what it used to do was to barely keep you alive, because it was supposed to be temporary. Dad loses his job for a few months, and it kept you from starving. Maybe it’s hard for that time, but you return to normality.
What we’ve switched to is a system which really doesn’t replace wages for most people. If you have savings, you’re expected to spend those first. And the money won’t pay most people’s mortgages or even rent. So, lots of working people never touch the benefit system. It is mostly a benefit system for people living on benefits.
“Which does lead to that further question. The Guardian here obviously thinks all of the above is appalling. Three quarters of the world would be gasping at the wealth of this family. And what should we, we Brits, be thinking about it?”
The Guardian is mostly read by idle, lucky people. Either they have some non-job in government (as opposed to people who fix street lighting and drive ambulances) or in the case of their staff, the useless offspring living off their rich parents.
They probably feel an affinity with the average dole scum. Talk to the working class who are in factories, or working as security guards, they f**king hate these people. They have to live near them, even though they put in 40 hour weeks.
At least she showed some entrepreneurial spirit when she was sucking cock for crack. The state has got hold of her, given her a chance at a fresh start but now the mindset is that other people should go out and work to provide her a trampoline without even a handjob in return. And funding a “professional” to advise the porker to stay away from the biscuit tin. Tbf she showed fleeting moments of gratitude before the more-more kicked in
““When I was a teenager I was sofa-surfing with men ”
Either they were extremely deep sofas or her weight problem’s a recent event.
“…I get paid tomorrow.” No, you receive money stolen from taxpayers by our useless and corrupt government.
BoM4,
Well, of course, what it used to do was to barely keep you alive, because it was supposed to be temporary. Dad loses his job for a few months, and it kept you from starving. Maybe it’s hard for that time, but you return to normality.
There was a time that ended sometime in the ’70s when if you lost your job you got something like 80%? (I can’t remember exact figure) of salary for up to a year. I met a few people in the Army who’d left, took the 80% for a year and then joined up again without loss of seniority, it was a paid holiday.
“What is that minimum that the welfare system should provide? ”
Enough to pay UK average rent, basic food and bills.
No means testing, no reduction for people in relationships, eliminate the 1001 different benefits and army of bureaucrats who administer it, just pay it on demand. You can have it any time you want, but it’s treated as taxable income, and after 5 years you are on your own. Finito, for ever.
No one should live on welfare for more than 5 years.
Or are a bunch of busy-body nosey parkers imposing an artificial scarcity of money because they are control freaks?
@?
Sadly there is more than enough food to feed the world. The problem is that a number of regimes use it to control their populations. Kim Jong Il would rather have have nuclear weapons than feed his people. Russia was trying to cut off grain exports from the Ukraine. The US subsidizing ethanol for fuel to appease a green constituency. Left to market, damn near everyone would have enough to eat.
@ BiFR
Wrong!
Retired coalminers with silicosis thans to the National Coal Board.
People unable to perform manual work thanks to the NHS
I could go on at length
Only the Grauniad thinks fish is cheap: thanks to the CFP it is more expensive that most meat.
Having a comfortable pension from my 50+ years of work I can afford to buy fish at the weekly market as part of my healthy balanced diet but I do notice that most fish costs more per lb than steak, let alone pork, from my local butcher.
I remember wheniworralad, a fish supper was cheap peasant food, buyable with left-over pocket money on the way home from school. I had one last week as a treat, it was almost a tenner. That’s an hour’s labour!
@jgh
IIRC small cod & ‘medium’ (enough for two) chips is £7.99 at The Codfather near me in Hedge End.
Family run & I have yet to find better chips in a takeaway. Takes me about 10 minutes to earn that.
jgh, cue ‘The four Yorkshiremen’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKHFZBUTA4k
I’d like to be on £48/hr.
john77,
No doubt there will have to be exceptions (incidentally am disabled myself and wonder how much longer my health will hold out for the day job*), but we both know the vast majority are full-time scroungers whose marginal productivity is not worth enough for them to actually deploy it. They are making an entirely economically rational decision, thanks to the excessive generosity and perverse incentives (such as taxing low pay) of the current system. Not working 40 hours a week for an extra tenner is sensible, I understand why people make that choice, and the government have largely created that situation.
I like the story, possibly apocryphal, of the disability assessment centres being on a high floor of a building without elevators. Make it in and you fail automatically.
*: Now if only I could stop funding layabouts and plan an early retirement for my own likely beshortened lifespan…
@ BiFR
Those whose marginal productivity is below NMW grossed up for Eers and Eees NI and other direct overheads will be on out-of-work benefits even if they are not scroungers because firms that try to employ people whose value-added is less than their cost will go bankrupt and those people will be out of work.
Many of the worst scroungers are not on benefits: try talking to a civil servant who has to carry a couple oflazycolleagues and finds it impossible to get them to work by the threat of the sack because they are virtually unsackable.
presumably she isn’t working? Doesn’t sound like she is. If you added up all of the handounts, I wonder what the monthly total would be? Free Healthcare. Free education. Subsidised rent. Subsidised utility bills. Universal credit payments. Child benefit. What have I missed?