Archive for August, 2011

  • It is so easy…..

    Brighton Pier.001To judge and pass comment on all that transpired in London over the past week is so easy, everyone is doing it.

    I am nothing more than a middle aged, middle class mother and business woman living in South London, on the edges of Peckham, employing local people, using local shops and living on the edge of bankruptcy on a month by month basis. I used to live on credit, money against my mortgage but that ran out and since then I have been completely self employed and lived only from what I earn. I am fully paid up tax-wise and have never been on benefits apart from receiving  Child Allowance as do all the bankers, politicians and mothers of the rioters under 16.

    What is only now being brought into the light is the real link, as far as anyone living in the real world is concerned: The awful disparity between the lives of those who did take an opportunity to thoughtlessly and indiscriminately raid the High Street and those who live in an altered reality where a £60,000 car is an every day experience, their wages and expense accounts are all paid for, they earn thousands in bonuses for playing with money etherically and have no sense of responsibility at all towards society and move most of their money abroad through tax evasion incentives set up by the government to stop the money market moving elsewhere.

    Daily life is stressful, and the lack of money makes for huge stresses despite being a functioning creative with a business. Try running a small business….. the incentives are appalling, the costs ridiculous, the rewards puny, the work, phenomenally exhausting and my recent brush with a disgruntled employee and the Industrial Tribunal system showed me very clearly where the governments sympathies lie: Huge multi national industries that all play in this wild and exciting banking and monetary system that the rest of us have nothing to do with. Vast sums of money being made globally by people whose psychological profile is the same as that of a Psychopath. (A recent article about this appeared in the Financial Times. I think it was up for an hour before it was lost in the mists of history, never to be seen again. Far too inflammatory… )

    Watching the two concurrent news stories over the week has been fascinating as a social study. Endless men in suits getting really stressed over computer screens showing a little red worm slowly snaking it’s way down a mountain. Or flaming red and black images of naughty local kids venting rage and fury in the only way they know how: To kick against a system that wants nothing more for them than that they are in thrall to a system that expects them to do nothing but consume with every penny they have, like sheep on a treadmill until they drop dead. There is no thought for the individual any more, fashion, the media, facebook, Apple, Amazon and all the other huge conglomerates have seen to that….. turn all eyes towards mind-numbing, unfulfilling purchasing and chasing of highs that are heavily taxed and you have a workforce that will do as you say. If they do not, they are social misfits who need to be punished. Meanwhile the shiny Range Rovers and smart suited boys can go to their brokers and rake in millions with lots of dodgy tax scams that benefit no one but themselves and their families. And rather like the camaraderie that exists between those in the office doorway, dragging on a quick fag, they are all together in arms against those who dare get angry.

    I come from the Ghandi school of response: Through peaceful protest. I do not have any desire to smash anything up but I do, so strongly, want a future for my Peckham kids that is not one of hopelessness and fury because the men who make the rules are all wildly partying together at their great good fortune to have gone to the right schools, have the best hedge fund manager and know how to spend It…

    How to find a leader out there who can speak for the feeling of betrayal that exists outside of the politicians and bankers cosy worlds seems to be a challenging task, but if the police can individually identify 2200 masked hoodies, mostly I would guess by other’s plea bargaining, then sure we can all keep our eyes peeled for a strong woman who can stand up and say “Enough….. let’s try a different way….”

    Why a woman? Will they be better at it? Who knows, but the last few years has been so profoundly male, what with the Wars, the Bankers, the Politicians and the Footballers…… a different point of view must without.

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