There is more than enough money/food/stuff in this country to go around. Despite this, the horrendous story of a child starving to death after the family’s asylum claim was accepted has just hit the headlines today.
Oh, I’m sorry, no, it’s not in the headlines. It’s on a website with news, views and jobs in social housing. It’s all over twitter though, so maybe some mainstream media will pick up on it tomorrow. It’s the sort of thing that heads should roll for, and in this case, it should be whoever designed a system that is so poor that a family can fall through the cracks and a child die for want of a few pounds and some food.
Also not in the headlines, but in the comment pages, yet more horrific tales of institutional bullying causing suicide. In this case the institution is our government of millionaires, whose sustained attack on the poor and vulnerable in the form of those with disabilities is causing death and despair among the people they should be trying to protect. If this makes you want to scream as well, feel free to share Pat’s petition, and sign it.
What is wrong with the world? Why is our government attacking people who have nothing, and protecting those who have it all? Don’t tell me that the millionaires taking home vast salaries and avoiding tax deserve what they’ve got. How do you deserve a paycheck of £1.2 million pounds like Stephen Hester? What do you even do with it?? That type of payment doesn’t recognise that businesses don’t run without cleaners, shelf stackers, cashiers, and so on – it’s time the people on the front line received fair pay, and if that means that the people at the top get a little less, so be it.
I’d like to see a system where full time jobs are required to pay not a minimum wage, but a living wage. Where everyone paid into the tax system so that everyone could be cared for when they need it. I guess I’m living in cloud cuckoo land, because the one thing that is for sure is that no one will vote for higher taxes, so no one is voting for their to be that safety net there when they need it.
I don’t know what the answer is. But tonight I’m ragingly mad about the questions.
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