So, this week, I ventured into the world of the budget. Why, I ask myself I have never really taken much notice of it in years gone by?
Probably because politics has never interested me much and I am not sure it’s affected me, or people like me, in any great way.
So, this year, I decided as a community councillor, it would be helpful for me to know more about this – surely this is a positive step forward, hopefully, I could answer my constituent’s questions if I watched. Here we go then, I sat down with my cup of coffee, and the TV tuned in ready to listen to Jeremy Hunt’s budget speech. I can’t say I was inspired.
I wonder why it has taken me so long to take an interest in something that affects us all on a daily basis – or at least it should.
Does it though? I ask myself, though, is the true problem that as each year goes by nothing changes, and no real help comes for the ordinary people in my community?
As a kid, the only conversation I ever remember hearing around the table on a budget day was whether and how much fags and alcohol had gone up.
Back in the day, both my brother’s smoked, and as young men, they both liked to go out for a pint, so the big concern in our house was how much these had gone up by, and the reason for that was probably that they both wanted to know how much they would have left at the end of their working week.
One question has seemed to repeat itself every week now since my blogs have started – and that question is, have we really progressed in life in the last 50 years?
Scientifically yes, Medically, Yes. Everything has to be state of the art, whether architecturally, technologically and weapons-wise, omg yes – spending has definitely increased, in fact, the amount of money that is now being spent, in countries around the world to prevent some sort of nuclear war is phenomenal, millions (probably billions) of pounds spent.
And yet, here in the UK, here in Wales in our community we have people starving, living on the streets, people travelling to food banks, and – guess what – some of these people work 40+ hours a week.
How is it, I ask myself, do the Powers That Be not see what you and I see? Why is it we on the streets know what needs to be done?
I have sat shouting at the TV when those magic words come – we hear, ‘we are going to invest’, “invest in what!” I shout. Often the so-called investment we hear about in budgets is not going to make a difference to me, and it’s definitely not going to make a difference to someone that doesn’t have a roof over their head, or food in their stomach, or access to healthcare at a reasonable speed. Shouldn’t these issues fundamentally be the priority to anyone that is in our government? Isn’t that what we vote for, for someone to fight on our behalf, so the desperate situations we see daily in our community never happen?
The words of my mother when I was a teenager still ring out in my ears, and how I would always roll my eyes, every time she would say them.
“I would never want to be brought up in your generation.”
I could never really understand, because my mum had seen real hardship, having lived through the 2nd World War.
It’s only in recent years I sat down and asked her more about what she meant.
“Well,” she explained, “firstly there was no such thing as a television, you only had one of those if you were rich!”. My mother was definitely not rich. My mum was the eldest child and had 6 other siblings, I don’t ever remember what my grandfather ( puppa) as we used to call him did for a living, but I do remember my grandmother being part of the Red Cross. My grandmother, Annie, spent most of her day looking after other peoples family, while my own mother was left to bring up her siblings.
Mum always told me how tough life was, but how happy they were anyway. Mum had to leave school at 14, and go to work herself – and despite her young age she started out life as a Nanny, a job back in those days that was quite easy to get, due to other peoples wealth.
I still never got the fact of how she would say my generation seemed worse. How could it be, when I was little we had a black and white TV, which within a few years had changed to a colour TV – and omg the excitement in our house when we had one! Those readers who are my age will probably remember the same experience!
However now I yearn for the days of my youth. Food in those days wasn’t an issue, it didn’t matter where you were, somebody would feed you, because you knew everybody around the area you lived, neighbours would sit on the wall and talk to each other, us kids would all play together in the streets. We were free, life was good, and I echo my mother’s words now as I say them to my own children, as they face the struggle of earning enough to buy or even rent a home.
I hate to think what the future holds for our generations to come, we have taken so many steps forward but so many more steps back, is the blame solely down to every government that has passed us by?
However, the one thing that has definitely changed, and the government cant be blamed for this, is the way we treat each other, very few neighbours these days even know who their next door neighbour is, they don’t sit on the walls or pop into each other’s homes for a quick cuppa, kids spend more time fighting than they do playing. We as individuals are doing something wrong, so much nastiness in this world today, we can let a lot of things affect us, but the easiest and cheapest thing in the world is to be kind.
So to conclude my first proper sit down and listen to the budget was a disaster, I didn’t understand a word he said, the only thing I do understand is that they haven’t a clue what’s really going on in this country, because there was nothing, nothing that will make any fundamental difference to our day to day lives – though I understand a few millionaires can avoid paying even more tax by paying a bit more into their pension.
I still don’t know in this day and age, whether my children will ever be able to afford their own houses – but after the past year, if they do, would they even be able to afford to heat them anyway?
When will the day come when the politicians in suits see from behind their rose tinted glasses, the suffering, the homeless, the destruction of towns and communities, wake up and do something that will genuinely make this country a better place?