Attitude Problem

This country has a serious attitude problem.

No, I'm not talking about anything to do with the forthcoming General Election. There will be no politics on this blog.

What I AM talking about, however, is the attitude to unemployment which seems to be prevalent in this country. Look through any tabloid newspaper and it's a fair bet you'll find the word 'slackers', 'moochers' or similar somewhere in there. Actually, that might make a pretty good drinking game. Hmmmmmm. One shot every time The Sun, The Mirror or the Daily Mail says anything about people on benefits.

I never knew much about unemployment before. Sure, I knew it was a bad thing for the people experiencing it, and I knew people kept moaning about how benefits were too high and how the system benefited scroungers. (Ah yes. That's the other word I was looking for earlier). Well, that's a load of rubbish.

I had it easy, I was living with my parents. I could have fed myself on the statutory fifty pounds a week, no bother. But I know I couldn't have afforded to pay bills on top of that. Another thing I couldn't have afforded- and this is the bit that really gets my back up- is the £5.60 I had to pay for a return bus ticket to the job centre once a fortnight. When you're living on fifty pounds a week, that's more than five per cent of your income. On principle, I asked, and there's no help available. The sheer injustice of losing that proportion of one's benefits just for living in a town without a job centre is staggering.

I'll talk about the job centre itself some other time when it's less fresh in my mind. But for now, I will not be going back. I have escaped the system, attained the nirvana to which every unemployed person aspires.

Yes, people. I have a job.