Government defends state-forced evictions and bankruptcies

Wednesday, January 7th, 2009
Big Bad Bullying Bailiffs
Bailiffs – it’s a tough job but someone’s got to do it.. Oh. Really? Are you sure?

The sheer callousness and bare-faced lying of politicians often leaves me wanting to puke or hit someone, but the news that thousands are being forced into bankruptcy and evicted from their homes by local authorities for non-payment of council tax had me screaming that it’s time for a revolution, to overthrow the oppressive and self-serving political class that has sprung up slowly but surely ever since Thatcher came to power. Of course we won’t get one. Not for decades, if ever.

It wasn’t so much the facts of the matter, terrible as they are. I already know politicians, like bailiffs and bankers, are a wicked bunch of lowlifes who care for nothing but their own fortunes and, sometimes, families. Precious few politicians genuinely want to do what’s right and are genuine, and they are maligned by manipulative PR agencies and the media whenever they speak out.

No, what had me spitting was how the government defended itself yesterday.

Our glorious leaders give not one little shit about the devastation being wreaked on ordinary people. Whenever you hear them talk about our pain—we’re all in pain right now, apparently—and how they sympathise, whether it’s Cameron’s smooth cronies or Brown’s brigade or even the Vicar of Dibley’s Lib Dems, just remember: it’s all about getting you on side and getting your vote. Nothing else matters. Certainly not whether an old lady gets chucked out on the street, or a family ends up living in a tiny caravan or B&B.

“Local authorities must have the tools at their disposal to tackle the small minority of people who can but won’t pay,” said a spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government. It’s a classic robo-dweeb response, you think, and you’re right—but consider what’s being said. Does the government really believe that all those not paying their council tax, running into arrears, are doing so because they just don’t want to pay?

Perhaps all the elderly and unemployed, the disabled and those working full-time on minimum wage are all frivolously spending their hard-earned pennies on champagne? Or a new yacht, on which they can schmooze Russian oligarchs? Personally I’m not sure whether to spend my next disability benefit payment on a castle, a helicopter, or a holiday in the Caribbean. Decisions, decisions.

The simple fact is, nobody wants to lose their home. Nobody wants bailiffs turning up to take possession of their furniture, either. It is a lie, a damnable one, to say that those who don’t pay can pay. We had the same bullshit trotted out in the days of the Poll Tax, which was not just Thatcher’s downfall but threatened at the time to bring the country’s entire local government framework to a halt. A majority of people didn’t pay because it was an unfair tax, but the council tax brought in to replace it—introduced by the Tories under Major—wasn’t, point of fact, much fairer. Those on low incomes don’t and never did get much in the way of rebates, and the mechanisms brought into play when people run into arrears are draconian, cruel and heartless, harking back to the good old days of Queen Victoria, when the poor knew their place and took their punishments for stealing loaves of bread to feed their kids.

Bottom line is, whoever you vote for, they’re all well-off and, nine times out of ten, outrageously rich by the standards of most people. And the rich are, for the most part, incapable of understanding what the pressures of real life do to a person, to families, to husbands, wives, children. Our politicians are hopelessly out of touch and have no concept of what it means to rob Peter to pay Paul.

Of course, more of the public are giving a damn now, today, but a year ago the poor and vulnerable were getting evicted and their goods robbed for non-payment of council tax. And nobody cared, the media didn’t make anything of the fact. And it was the same the year before that, and the year before that, and the year… You get the picture.

In the good times most people don’t care, or certainly don’t think. But now, when the middle classes that have grown in number ever since 1979 face the loss of their jobs and, moreover, the possibility that their financial jobs will never come back into being, and they face the loss of houses they were confident would never lose their value let alone be hard to pay for, they suddenly care. They worry. They bleed just like the poor do, and have always done. I find this new-found care almost as obnoxious as the absence of care. And, of course, the rank hypocrisy is buried under constructed ego responses, lies that they always cared. But they didn’t. If they did, they would never have voted for Thatcher, for Major, even for Blair. But no. They bought into the dream, they rode the gravy boat.

The poor were sidelined and ignored. Of course I am sad for anyone at risk of losing their home, but watching the BBC’s documentary about three families facing repossession last night I was struck by so many things, ways they could have saved money, I lost count. There was the fact that children ate expensive sweets, when those kids could have eaten cheaper fruit instead from the market; there was the wife who didn’t, even in the family’s time of absolute peril, consider going out to get a  job; and, there was the guy who, when faced with the collapse of financial services, simply stood firm against the prevailing winds and wished for work that never came. Oh, and the meals being served—where were the vegetables, where was the real home cooking? The consumer lifestyle of today is addictive but can be set aside if you have the will. It costs too much when money is a real issue.

The poor are used to being poor. The middle classes are not, and they are in for a very hard time unless they wise up and start to use their heads, to consider new ways of thinking and living. But it seems it will only be when the rich hurt, among them our political leaders, that we stand any chance of seeing an end to cold statements from government officials that indicate we’ve all got plenty of money but just don’t spend it on the right things. But if you have to choose between food and rent, and paying for your local police to do fuck all and your local councillors to spy on dogs crapping in public places, what choice would you make?

Houses are boxes. Sure, we come to love them but the fact is, we carry our bellies with us everywhere. We don’t want them to be empty.

So what should the government do? In times like these it seems reasonable, when we look at how the banks have been helped to the tune of many hundreds of billions, to say that you pay what you can afford to pay. Allow council tax debts to rise, so long as monthly payments are being made, even if they fall short of what we’re supposed to pay. Councils would, of course, need loans from central government to assist them in covering the shortfalls—but if they can keep people paying until things get better, the money will come in sooner or more likely later.

We’re already in debt as a nation like never before. Shouldn’t we keep everyone in their homes by any means necessary while we try to weather the storm? And while we’re at it, reform council tax. It’s simply unfair—a bad Tory idea that’s gone on far too long.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
categories: news and politics, perspectives