Temporary Decency…

The people of the UK have opened their hearts and their homes to those Ukrainians displaced by the war, not only giving both monetary and practical donations to help, but also offering up spare rooms to those arriving here as refugees. The government, too, has been swift to offer help, if slower to actually ensure that help is available.

This isn’t a bad thing, of course, but it does raise a question as to where all this generosity was before. Yes, there was help for Syrians, but I must have missed the mass movements to assist Yemenis and South Sudanis fleeing their conflicts, and the offer of asylum to Uighurs persecuted by China. There has been little interest in taking in the Afghanis fleeing a collapse that was due to Western ineptitude, and even those translators and embassy staff who worked for Britain and are endangered as a result have largely been left to try and make their own way with no guarantee of being allowed into the UK should they make it this far.

Then, we have the huge numbers of homeless people sleeping rough. Why did nobody offer them their spare room?

As much as the offers of homes and help to Ukrainian refugees is a testament to what is good about the British, it is also a reminder that, when it comes to unfashionable refugees and the home-grown needy, there has been a distinct lack of charity. Perhaps people will be inspired to continue offering assistance once the Ukrainian crisis is over, helping others who need help just as much. We can hope…

Will They Be Fiddling While Britain Burns?

The events in Paris ought to have been a wake-up call for Britain, but instead all we get is the usual waffle and rhetoric and Cameron’s desire to be Blair and bomb Syria. The fundamental issues remain unaddressed.

The first issue is the lack of armed police in Britain. Now, I’ve always been against the routine arming of the police, but what we do need is a strong response force capable of dealing with such an attack. Yet, at present, we have only a small number of armed police whose arms and armour are not up to the task of combating a terrorist attack of the type we saw in Paris, meaning that not only are terrorists to be given plenty of time to carry out an attack, but when the armed police do arrive, they’re going to struggle to bring the situation to an end. I don’t believe the answer is to arm the police for routine patrols – Britain is too far along the road to becoming a police state as it is – but to ensure that, firstly, more and better-equipped armed response units are available, and, secondly, to ensure that many more police are trained and that firearms are available to arm them at short notice, whether in light of a security alert or in response to an attack.

The second issue is the lack of control over Britain’s borders. Cameron might waffle about strengthening border checks, but the system is a mess, understaffed and underfunded, and undermined by membership of the EU and the pan-European obsessions of civil servants. Yet, we need to ensure Britain’s borders aren’t porous, if we wish to ensure terrorists and the weapons they would wield cannot enter the country. No system is perfect and, no matter how strong Britain’s borders, we cannot guarantee no weapons or terrorists will get through, just as strong borders will not prevent home-grown terrorists, but the harder it is for them to enter the country, the safer we will be and the less stretched the security services will be.

The third issue is that of the Syrian refugees, an issue that is, unfortunately, the political football of extremists on both sides of the political spectrum, who are using the issue for their own ends without a thought for the refugees or the people of Britain. Unfortunately, just as they have been used as a cover by economic migrants, the refugees are the perfect cover for jihadists to enter Europe, and, despite talk of concentrating on refugees still in the camps in Syria, who can be better vetted, the government has done nothing to take control of the situation, partly due to a fear of being labelled racist, but mostly due to the scale and cost of such a project. But, their inaction only increases the threat, which plays into the hands of those who would see no refugees helped. Naturally, it is easier to ask for more surveillance powers or to discuss banning the veil (especially if it remains just talk, rather than requiring action) than it is to tackle the real and immediate issue of ensuring only genuine refugees enter Britain. Indeed, their inaction means that mistrust grows and people more and more begin to conflate ‘refugee’ with ‘migrant’ and ‘terrorist’, increasing not only the numbers opposed to taking any, but also the risk of a backlash, which is exactly what the terrorists want – they don’t need to flood Europe with fighters if they can set Europeans and Muslims at one another’s throats and inspire more hatred.

The fourth issue is that of the treatment of Muslims in the UK. Now, Britain is nowhere near as bad as France or Belgium, but it is far from a good host. We hear a lot of waffle about multiculturalism and acceptance, but there is precious little respect for or trust of Muslims. Too many Muslims are left without a decent education or access to jobs, pawns in political gerrymandering, and are frequently denigrated and abused. It should come as no surprise that the Jihadist ideology appeals to so many young Muslims. And, as more of them turn to it, so the mistrust and hatred will grow, resulting in a self-reinforcing cycle of hatred leading to exactly the outcome the Jihadists desire.

I would love to believe that commonsense and decency will prevail and that these issues will be addressed, but I fear things will only grow worse until disaster forces a change – and the outcome could be even worse a disaster. We need strong and decisive leadership, but not born of fear and prejudice, but of compassion and a genuine understanding of the threats facing us.

The Bedroom Dilemma

So, we have our first official death due to the so-called bedroom tax. Stephanie Bottrill is reported to have killed herself because she could not afford to pay £80 towards her rent on her three-bedroom home. From initial reports it seems that she was already in dire financial straits and that the additional charge was just impossible for her to cope with. Reportedly, she had been offered a bungalow six miles away – the media have made much of the distance this would have placed her from family and friends and the journey time, but none seem to have mentioned the most pertinent point of all, the fact that public transport is prohibitively expensive to anyone on benefits. It is not just that she would have faced a long journey to keep in touch with family and friends, but that there is little likelihood she could have afforded to make it.

I actually agree with the basic idea underlying the ‘bedroom tax’ (or ‘spare room subsidy’ as the government would prefer to term it – perhaps ‘poverty penalty’ would sum it up best?) – where possible people who do not need a large home should make way for those in desperate need of larger accommodation. We cannot cram families into one-bedroom flats, after all. But, I fundamentally disagree with both the manner in which it is being implemented and the fact that, like all government initiatives directed from the centre, it utterly fails to take into account any aspects other than the number of people and rooms involved. I also feel that it is very clearly intended as an attack on people on benefits rather than as a move beneficial to the nation.

I think people who do not need a large home should be encouraged to ‘downsize’, but the key word here is ENCOURAGED. Offer them a ‘bribe’ to relocate and pay for their removal costs, don’t bully them – especially as, as is always the case, the ones who will be forced to move will be those who don’t deserve to suffer. We have already seen how people had to campaign to make sure groups such as, to pick just one, foster carers were not unfairly targeted because the initial plans had failed to take their needs into account. Many more remain overlooked. Doubtless benefit fraudsters living in spacious properties will continue to make up the shortfall, if they haven’t managed to mislead the authorities with invented inhabitants, whilst the law-abiding unemployed and disabled who have good reasons not to leave their home – or who would like to but are struggling to find somewhere suitable – are bullied into unsuitable accommodation or suicide.

The scheme also needs to take into account other factors. People should not be forced to move away from friends and family (we all need a support base) nor away from work, if they are amongst those benefits claimants on a low wage. Nor should people with restricted mobility be forced to move into areas inadequately supplied with shops and other services. (Ideally, the government would be making sure public transport was affordable to those on benefits and ensuring that all areas had equal access to all necessary facilities such as shops and doctors, but, sadly, they aren’t.) Then, there are people who live alone but want to be able to have family stay with them or have lived in their home their entire life and would like the opportunity to remain there till they die – why should only homeowners be entitled to a family life or ending their days in a familiar place?

Which brings me on to my other concern. If this scheme was truly about opening up housing to those who need it, we would see the government penalising homeowners who were not making sufficient use of their property. Where is the swinging tax on holiday and second homes? On houses left empty? On people living alone in a house with multiple bedrooms? Why are we not using an economic stick to try and force them to sell or rent to families rather than selfishly occupying more space than they need? The simple fact, as ever, is that it has nothing to do with the stated aim of the exercise. The government sugar coats it as being about opening up housing to those who need it, but, really, it is about having a stick to beat the poor with.

Indeed, on the estate where I live, there are no single-bedroom flats left. Anyone living alone in a two-bedroom property or finds themselves living alone due to a change in their circumstances has two choices – stay put and pay the subsidy,  or move somewhere else altogether. Of course, they could look for private accommodation, which raises a whole raft of questions about higher rents, lower quality of housing and less security for their tenancy – assuming they can find a one-bedroom flat.

The only good news I’ve come across – and I found it entirely by accident whilst researching another issue entirely – is that the bereaved will not be penalised for a year. So, if you find yourself no longer eligible for your home through tragedy, you do at least have some breathing space to try and get your head together before being forced to make decisions about your future, which is better than the situation had appeared.

Unfortunately, that good news is balanced by the bad news that Private Eye reported on the way in which the government intends to squeeze those families with children living at home. The protections that were in place for younger adults just starting out in the world of work will be removed and the amount taken from housing benefit is going to be increased. In other words, if your children live with you, you are going to have to fork out a lot more cash to pay your rent; but, if you boot them out, you will be required to pay the subsidy. So, your only hope, really, if that you and your children can all be simultaneously rehoused into single-bedroom properties which is only slightly more plausible than pinning all your hopes upon the intercession of a genie. Or, in other words, you’re stuck up a proverbial creek without a paddle.

The UK certainly has a housing crisis, but it is not one that can be solved by bullying the unemployed, disabled and working benefit claimants. We may have seen the first official death, but I am certain we will see many more – unfortunately, most will not be suicides that capture the public attention and highlight the iniquities of the system, but will take the form of heart attacks and such like as the stress of the situation takes its toll. The government might piously look away, saying that it cannot talk about specific cases, but the fact remains that they are culpable for all that happens as a result of their actions.

Glass-house America

That old saying about people in glass houses not throwing stones obviously isn’t known to the American political elite. Turning its baleful gaze on Syria, the USA is busy rattling its sabers. Syria is in particular trouble for possessing WMDs. I suppose we should be grateful that, this time, America is, at least, turning its attention towards a country that does actually seem to possess them (although, it is peculiar that it has taken them so long – ahem!). Given that Syria has, so far, threatened only to unleash its arsenal if attacked by an outside aggressor, the USA’s loudmouthed interventionism serves only to undermine what little moral stance it could claim.

The USA has been no keener than Syria to sign-up to international bans on chemical and biological weapons. The USA amongst the largest such arsenals on the planet. The USA has made use of chemical weapons in warfare. The USA has illegally tested biological, chemical and radiological weapons on its own civilians. The USA is the only country to have detonated nuclear weapons in anger. When it comes to WMDs, Syria looks positively saint-like when stood next to America.

Then, we come to Syria’s escalating civil war. As difficult as it is to discover just who is doing what to whom and whether any of the atrocities placed at the Assad regime’s door can be justified, the simple facts are that America has no right to condemn them. The USA’s behaviour down the years – illegal wars, illegal territorial seizures, the abuse of its own citizens, its treatment of citizens in other countries it has interfered in, torture – make Syria’s behaviour – restricted to its own borders and people – look almost civilised. If America can drop bombs on wedding parties in other countries in the name of targetting terrorism, then it can hardly accuse Syria of wrongdoing when it attacks its own citizens on the exact same grounds.

Whether intervention in Syria is justified on moral grounds or not, and it is impossible to be certain what is really happening, America isn’t the country to do it. In fact, none of the major powers and wannabe powers today have the moral standing, all being as evil and corrupt as each other. Whether it would be possible to a coalition of less tarnished states to take a leading role in the UN and guide a more ethical approach to international relations, I cannot say, but it is the only moral alternative to doing nothing. At the moment, any intervention in Syria or elsewhere will just be about hypocrites attempting to further their own aims, not about building a better world.

Perhaps we should update the saying to “People in glass houses shouldn’t possess WMDs”?