Category A
Christine Brand
Breaking Free
I stand here, thinking, not choosing
Somehow making a choice is hard
I stand here, staring, not seeing
Time to move, but to be on guard
Anywhere, dreaming, planning
Can I be enough, how would I know?
Reacting, defending, running
I need to heal, to stay, to go
Money’s tight, no spare to waste
Every option I saw, passed by
Today I work hard, but it’s not enough
Only I can make myself fly
Breathing deep, I ask for help
Everyone answers, it feels so strange
Putting trust in strangers’ hands
Only I can make the change
Only I can fight my fight
Realising now, I can stand in the light
Liane Davis
Pause
Send me to prison
For being economically less able than you
Send me to prison
I lost my job to the pandemic
Send me to prison
Breathe
It wasn’t my fault
Send me to prison
I’m sorry for being poor
Please don’t take my freedom
I lost my job to the pandemic
Now I’m
Less economically able than you
Pause
Debts raked up to £3k
Now I’m
Economically less able than you
He’s filed for divorce
It wasn’t my fault
I lost my job to the pandemic
Debts raked up to £6k
Is it food or council tax?
I’m sorry for being poor
Please don’t take my freedom
Breathe
Take my benefits
I will work with you
Is it food or council tax?
Please don’t take my freedom
I lost my job to the pandemic
I’m sorry for being poor
He’s filed for divorce
Debts raked up to £8k
My children won’t visit me
Is it food or council tax?
DATE FIRST REPRIMANDED/WARNED/CAUTIONED : 26/08/22
I’m sorry for being poor.
Natalie Downey
Is it a crime to be poor?
Life is already hard enough
Born into a world
Where there isn’t enough
They can’t keep you safe
They don’t want to stay
They have decided its best to give you away
Its not you that isn’t enough
The social divide
Has just made life far too tough
Don’t be afraid
Someone will come to your aid
There’s a system designed, were people get paid
It’s not what anyone would choose
A life based on reviews
Constantly looking for someone to accuse
You can feel like you are always set to lose
As you navigate a haze full of confuse
Waiting on that never coming news
It’s not fair that others have it all
Yet you have no one to pick you up when you fall
They go home, while you remain a guest
And sure, the people around you are trying their best
They mean well when they dress you in someone else’s vest
But really you just want to be like the rest
And although at times it will feel rough
Just remember you are tough
Your future won’t be denied
But you are in for a bumpy ride
Please don’t hide
Or let this bad start impact your pride.
All the pieces that make up who you are
Are thrown into the air
And some of them haven’t landed yet
But they will
You can choose how your story ends
And a family can come from good friends
Paul Francis
Levelling down: a sonnet sequence for tough times
Business as Usual
Sanctions on claimants? That’s just common sense.
DWP require no further thought.
Select Committee asks for evidence,
evaluation, and a full report.
Post-Covid, as you were. Three years have gone.
They’re fining scroungers like they used to do
when MPs intervene and say, hang on:
what happened to that critical review?
We did it, but the findings aren’t yet out.
It’s sensitive. Some confidential stuff…
a tricky section, which is still in doubt…
…just bin it, yeah? I know, we promised. Tough.
Stuff that. Get back to what they’re really for.
Their raison d’être is punishing the poor.
The Wall
March ’21. Fran draws a small red heart.
Within it writes Steve’s name, the man she wed
three weeks before she saw him swept away
by this tsunami. Still, it takes her breath,
the speed and scale, the helplessness, despair.
Time was, she might have looked to government
to plan, respond, commemorate the dead.
No chance. They’re following opinion polls,
letting the current take them who knows where.
So mourners morph to activists, swap roles
and put on tabards. Early morning start,
another workforce starts another day
holding their ground against the tide of death,
fighting for something solid, permanent.
Investment
Kids have lost out in Covid. How can we
make up for what has gone – the lessons missed,
the friendships and the jokes, that precious time?
PM insists this is priority:
“We must repay these kids, restore what’s lost.”
Collins consults with schools, draws up a plan.
The Treasury want to know what it will cost.
It’s fifteen billion pounds. No way, they say.
How about a tenth of that? There’s countries who
invest thousands of pounds per kid per year
but us? We reckon fifty quid will do.
Collins resigns. Maybe he should have known.
There’s so much stuff that we spend money on
but kids? A waste. They’ll never pay it back.
Blind Spot
She’s had to ditch that school job, which she loved;
some supermarket shifts will pay the bills.
She’s haunted by the story of a kid
who mimes that he is eating, very day,
taking an empty lunchbox into school.
And on the news, this big man in a suit
says he’ll be cutting taxes on the rich.
He thinks he sees it all. He can’t see her
because he’s focussed on the nods and smiles
as donors pat his back, congratulate
their protégé, and top up his champagne.
There will be turbulence, but he’ll maintain
this course. He tells them what they want to hear.
“It’s just the start. There will be more to come.”
Delivery
We have been taught a lesson.
That catching up, and levelling up,
are metaphors. Tutors and laptops
made the news, but never made it through.
The bogs are shit, roof’s leaking and
they’ve cancelled all the clubs.
Staff cuts. There’s no-one here to supervise.
Outside the gates there’s lads that we don’t know.
They’re older. They’ve got burgers and warm coats.
I mean, they’re eating them and wearing them
but they’ve got spares. Which we can have
if we do what they want.
Yeah, stranger danger, like the juniors.
Fuck it. I’m hungry and I’m cold.
Motivation
Post-Covid, schools are suffering neglect.
Repairs not done, the structures insecure.
Staff under pressure, under-paid. The kids?
A fifth of them aren’t getting there at all.
Not learning grammar. Watching porn instead.
Who’s asking why? Who’s offering support?
How much is school supplying what they need?
These questions do not trouble government:
Research suggests that truancy can lead
to vandalism, graffiti, or much worse.
We’ll cut their parents’ benefits, create
an ethic of responsibility.
They see the poor as cattle, or MPs;
the whip’s the only thing they understand.
Frances Flannagan
a park bench’s lament
the man in the suit sits down everyday, carefully placing his briefcase on one side of the
armrest and himself on the other, coffee cup balanced inbetween. it’s as though i was built for him; him and his belongings fit so perfectly i surely have lost any other purpose.
i’m not sure what he did before the addition of the armrest
did his coffee spill all over the floor as he positioned it in between his feet,
his feet acting as guards in case someone decided to help themselves to his drink whilst he’s consumed in his very important daily read of the Daily Mail
or did his briefcase fall into the hands of the
‘nuisances’ of the society which he so proudly positively contributes to
(no one knows exactly what he does but he’s obviously successful so must be doing
something right) i remember the day i was divided
when a public space stopped being public and became a private space for the privileged
armrest for the man in the suit partitions for the people who need me most
(although the man in the suit would disagree, where else is he supposed to comfortably sit
with his belongings to divide up his day to make the hours seem shorter?)
iron bars nailed to the planks of wood defending the views of those offended by people using me as a bed because, of course, one surviving a long hard day at the office who wishes to kick back and relax by taking a leisurely trip to the park is far more deserving of me than those merely surviving life itself(!!) it’s not just during the day that i see the man in the suit sometimes him and his friends
visit me at two am on a saturday after a well-deserved trip to the pub for ‘just a couple of
pints’ my armrest/partition/(hostile architectural addition) being used as none of these
but as a perfectly designed flat surface to carefully partition substances to be shovelled up
nostrils, fivers rolled and passed about like they’re not even worth any money. they’re fulfilling their purpose as getting one substantially fucked.
the irony is that before the steel was nailed to my skeleton, those using me to lie down, to
survive the night, were removed for being ‘anti-social’
accused of being drunk or high when most of the time they weren’t
whereas these men, (actually drunk and high), are allowed to continue with their habits
undisturbed because getting fucked up after a day in the office is much more acceptable than having a drink to withstand and forget the pressures life puts on you when you have nowhere else to go(!!) anyway, despite enjoying the armrest the man in the suit is adverse to the appearance of other new, inconvenient additions. the pavement outside his office that was once smooth has been dug up and replaced with uneven, rocky concrete. twice he’s tripped up on it, his work boots clipping the bumps causing him to not only lose his balance but also scuff the polish. and don’t even get him started on the large planters that now block the street he has to walk on, taking up space and preventing him from overtaking the loiterers that make him late. if people would just behave in a sociable manner there would be no need for these things.
these
ugly
inconvenient
annoying
objects
that ‘not enough people are objecting to’, the man in the suit says to his colleagues who agree with him.
i used to be the small bit of comfort that someone who sleeps rough had at the end of their equally rough day.
now, the division imposed upon me is a constant reminder of the division of a society where it does not appear to be a crime to do drugs in the open if you have the money to buy the drugs and the money to roll up to do the drugs but it is a crime to use me as a place to sit or lie or sleep if you have nowhere else, in other words,
it is a crime to be poor?
the divided society of those who can use me and those who can’t and where it is in fact a crime when those who actually need me use me but now they are unable to as i have been divided as the pavement has been made rough as the street has been intersected with planters that aren’t there to be pretty but are there as petty forms of defensive architecture that encourages the thoughts of those who defend their views as ‘contributing towards a society that clamps down on anti-social behaviour, for the good of us all(!!)’
a society where poverty is a crime
using a bench as a bed is a crime
being poor is, in fact, a crime.
and i am the embodiment of how this crime is dealt with.
how smart(!!)
this solves everything. poverty will certainly disappear now my purpose is exclusive to the
man in the suit who never has to worry about putting his coffee cup on the floor ever again.
these armrests are revolutionary.
Anna Grayson
I didn’t think that I was poor
I didn’t think that I was poor
But now the food costs so much more
At the tills I flinch, it’s how much?
We’d better put back such-and-such
Grumble. Mumble.
Try not to fumble
Don’t want everyone looking
To see what I’m left cooking
Judging while I try to fudge it
Some people don’t know how to budget
I didn’t think that I was poor
But all across the hallway floor
The endless bills will be waiting
Always nagging, always grating
Overdue. Overdue. Final warning.
I can’t face them, surely they can wait ‘till morning?
The heating is now set to off
Just ignore that chesty cough
Don’t boil the kettle, save a few pence
Put on a jumper! Where’s your common sense?
I didn’t think that I was poor
But when my back is aching and sore
There’s no chance of time to rest
Just grin and bear it and do your best
No work = no pay
Get to the end of the day
Take own-brand tablets in the break
Make them last for goodness’ sake
Grinding pain permeates
Distracts
Slows
Drains
Drives anyone into the ground
You’re not paid to just stand around!
I didn’t think that I was poor
But impulse buys are out the door
No, we can’t go to the pool
Or make traybakes for the school
Can’t you entertain yourselves?
Just make sure you’re back by twelve.
Tax credits. Food bank. Paperwork. Shame.
ASBO. Scrounger. All you do is complain!
There is a path, there is a way
I could make my troubles go away
Lie. Don’t pay. Cheat, steal and con.
Take what I need to get along
Sob stories to break the heart
Getting sympathy is an art
I might hate myself, but we’d survive
Breathe a sigh of relief that we’re safely alive
But all those voices, all of that hate
Would swell and grow, a river in spate
You are what’s wrong with the world of today
We always worked hard, we scrimped and we saved
But you expect things handed out on a plate
That or go crying and blaming the state!
Well people like you should be flogged ‘til you learn
Get off your backside, get out there and earn!
I didn’t think that I was poor
But I don’t know what to do anymore
You must prioritise your rent
But everything’s already spent
Why don’t you get a better job?
Some days all I do is sob
The eviction notice will surely come
Will I just leave or illegally stay on?
I can’t afford another place
The housing market is a race
I’ve been left behind and I didn’t even see
Now the council say there’s nothing for me
What options are left, what can I do?
I’ve tried all the legal routes and exhausted them too.
What about begging, on the streets or the train?
“I didn’t know it was wrong, officer, I won’t do it again!”
Shoplifting is stealing, there’s no denial
But a few bare essentials could be worth the while
Compared to what the government’s done
Can you honestly say that it would be wrong?
Glynis Greenman
It has been a crime to be poor since the Stone Age. The idea of poverty making someone a lesser person who had deficiencies began in pre-history. Once precious metals were discovered, followed by the development of a monetary system, the concepts of caring and sharing within communities disappeared in the belief that possession is everything, thereby creating the first two-tier society of ‘haves’ and ‘have nots.’ Remnants of Stone Age settlement sites display an equality of dwelling size and burials within their societies, and an understanding of compassion, because skeletal evidence shows that Stone Age people cared for those who were suffering from diseases. Later settlements show many examples of habitational inequalities and splendid burials with grave goods obviously for
those of higher rank. Out of this grew a class system which firmly believed those who possessed valuable commodities were somehow better and more special people. An ethic of possession equalling superiority still remains a common universal mantra.
Legacies of wealth in England are mostly due to being on the winning side in some long forgotten medieval battle. Five hundred years ago Sir Thomas More, a highly principled man, believing poverty was not a lack of character, but a lack of cash, advocated a universal basic income. That remains an unachieved ideal. The argument is always the same. Workers cannot be paid a decent wage because there is not enough money. In which case, why does anyone run a business, and why do so few have so much and so many have so little? The reality is that capitalist systems rely on profits from selling goods or services, and labour costs are the easiest and cheapest commodity on which to cut costs.
Hence the enthusiasm for slavery which reduced labour costs to virtually nothing. Enormous profits from the millscapes of north-west England in the 19th century were made on the backs of workers earning a few pence for a twelve hour day, who were denigrated for living in squalid poverty. Workers have been despised for centuries from medieval peasants to those oppressed by 21st century zero hours contracts. Labour is a perfectly respectable and essential commodity for workers to sell, but they remain despised for not having possessions, wealth or connections, and they have been regarded contemptuously as ‘the great unwashed’, the ‘swinish multitudes’, or ‘bedints’
(coarse and servile) simply because they are materially poor. Little money and few possessions are still seen as a lack of character, not a lack of cash (a view endorsed in the 1980s by Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher) with those not doing paid work dismissed as slothful scroungers.
Poisonous rants have appeared on social media. One, in response to a post supporting the use of food banks, read ‘**** off communist traitor. Everyone has enough to live on but iPhones, vapes, booze, drugs, are not essentials…all these food bank users are scroungers…’ yet no one criticises free perks for MPs earning five times what nurses, bus drivers, teachers, shop workers or refuse collectors earn.
Poverty is caused by chance, misfortune, social hierarchy, the class system, and exceptionalism; as well as by age, infirmity or high unemployment, which render people ‘economically useless’, although much of the work done in the UK remains voluntary, essential and unacknowledged. There is also patronising and active discrimination against those who have physical or mental health issues.
However, if an individual has a title, property, or ‘connections’ (think Downton Abbey or the
Eton/Oxford set), they will be treated far more respectfully than people who have been made redundant or become victims of no-fault evictions (think two up two down and the local comprehensive). As one former pupil of an expensive and prestigious public school, noted for ‘producing gentlemen since 1561’, put it, ‘if you have not been to public school, you really are not worth anything.’
Case studies of poverty indicate many of those taken to court for debt have mental health issues or special learning needs. They may not understand what they have done wrong or be unaware of civil law. For example, non-payment of poll tax is not a custodial crime, but people are still imprisoned.
Large corporations can avoid tax payments with HMRC turning a blind and benevolent eye to tax havens (unavailable to those below a certain income), but those earning just £12.5K are fully taxed at 20%. Underpayments of tax by poorer people are dealt with harshly. One low salaried taxpayer was sued by HMRC and threatened with imprisonment for an inadvertent underpayment of 38p, while a wealthy government minister who owed £1million in unpaid taxes, was not censored at all.
Women may fare worse than men. They often have fewer resources and many have children from whom they are parted by an uncaring legal system which is not concerned with what happens to the children of imprisoned mothers. Those suffering from addictions are particularly vulnerable. ‘Upper class’ females are allowed to escape prison by attending expensive ‘rehab,’ but ‘lower class’ females are locked up simply to get rid of them. Transgressions are often irrelevant to sentences passed. Stealing food to feed hungry children could be seen as less of a crime than the theft of expensive lingerie for luxury, but, for the poor, it can result in imprisonment while wealthy shoplifters are often able to buy their way out of trouble or use their social connections to get charges dropped.
Other imprisonable offences include begging and sleeping rough, shouting and anti-social behaviour, but punishments differ widely. One group of young Eton aristocrats from Oxford University found it amusing to burn £50 notes in front of beggars and rough sleepers to taunt them. A reprimand was given but no action was taken because it was just ‘high spirits’ and ‘boys will be boys’ while those begging for money to buy food or shelter were imprisoned for vagrancy. Two individuals suffering from mental health issues were imprisoned for anti-social behaviour for continually feeding pigeons. Both lonely, they saw the birds as special friends who always seemed pleased to see them. Contrast with the drunken loud anti-social behaviour of the Bullingdon Club members (an exclusive Oxford
University drinking club). Seventeen wealthy students, drunk, shouting, and fighting, smashed seventeen bottles of wine, every piece of crockery and the window in a local pub. This resulted in just four arrests and one fine of £80.
All people are people under the skin and should be judged on the type of person they are, not on grounds of bank balance, disability, mental health, ethnic origin or religion; but discrimination and victim blaming remain rife, so better paid jobs or decent housing are frequently improperly denied.
The wealthier classes, including most of the judiciary, still believe they have an absolute right to rule, and rule through austerity continues because it is an excellent method of control. Even the Romans showed more empathy because Roman law enabled slaves and foreigners to work their way to become ‘free men’ and citizens of Rome. For people born into poverty or disadvantage in England, elite, entitled overlords simply do their best to penalise them because views of poverty remain hostile, poor people are still seen as essentially defective, worthless or criminal in character.
Sources:
Engels, Friedrich. The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845)
http://www.thejusticegap.com/ various articles…
https://historycollection.com/10-shocking-facts The Bullingdon Club, Oxford’s Ugly Secret
Brown, Gordon. Jeremy Hunt has left the UK to rot in poverty… https://www.theguardian.com/
Chris Law
Jamie
Today Jamie felt optimistic
He would get his life back
On track.
No more sleeping rough in
Shop door ways.
Setting himself ablaze becoming
A danger to others.
Meths and alcohol had not
Been his friends.
The break up of his marriage to Jemma
Still bought a tear, to his eye.
No employment after the army
Hallucinations, had not helped.
With help and support
From the hospital and halfway house,
He had met with others, to discuss
His problems.
Jamie sighed, one day he would, start
Life free of alcohol and spirits.
Picking up his glass, he shouted for
Another glass of pure malt whisky.
Zoe Mitchell
Is it a crime to be poor?
Single glazing,
Damp on clothes,
Zero hours contracts and showers that are cold.
If I’m fleeing violence or growing up poor,
I lack most privileges,
I’m unprotected by the law.
Hungry at school,
My uniform has holes,
Mums always working,
It’s taking its toll.
From pay-check to pay-check,
The money runs out,
My kids pretend they don’t notice but they know they miss out.
But I know that I have more,
Than the man on the street,
He doesn’t have shoes,
Whilst I’m making ends meet.
I’ve applied for help,
But they don’t want to listen,
I can’t read these letters,
Why does this mean prison?
Credit cards and scary loan sharks,
Food bank trips and poor exam marks.
Red warning letters,
Men in suits at the door,
I’m a 21 st century criminal,
It’s a crime to be poor.
Christine Sanderson
In Someone Elses’ Shoes
He sits on the pavement propped up
In a corner where a stone sticks out, and
He rests his head at an angle
To the passer-by, his face is white, eyes pleading
Unmoving, a gentle stare, too much bad luck
Too many catastrophes. Just too much
Bobbies on the pavement now, two of them
Two batons, two cameras, two tasers, two radios
They bend, he closes his eyes and
I watch, conflicted, a crime, a poor criminal
They lift him up and put him away
No alternative they say to me.
The magistrate watches in a room with a guard
The people’s representative, with a vision of justice,
A good society, fair to victim and perpetrator.
His fine was high at £300* but he never pays, and
Now jail is all I have for him,
A criminal act, a public nuisance, Article 202, Parliament decides and I have no choice.
And I storm in my heart, where’s the Leadership, the Desire
To intervene and at the very least
To stand in another’s shoes and contest
The near inevitable, the almost automatic
Failure of Humanity in the system and the Inequity
Of a man without resources before the Law
The politician watches, now his Bill has been passed
Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Act 2022
The man will be jailed, no money for fines.
But why do they fail and let themselves down
Where are his family, where are his friends
Mine’s the big picture. I count the Cash.
And there is never enough to think it all through, to bother with
People who are down on their luck and desperate for help out of a
Messy spiral of lost home, lost job, lost family, ineligible to belong,
Down to a bag on the pavement and the kindness of strangers .
But jail is no compassion, a fine is no kindness
It cannot be a Crime to be Poor.
Source:
*L….M….23.6.22 Clerkenwell & Shoreditch CC, begging fine £300
From Dr R Epstein Article/ Centre For Crime and Justice Studies “Go Directly to Jail,for shouting, begging and rough sleeping “
Category B
Pauline Alexander
My friend Joy
You can find friends in the most ordinary but weird settings. I used to attend a place that catered for mad people that society had labelled as a few bob short of a shilling because they never took the time to read about or understand what mental illness was all about. `Normal ‘people would prefer to assume that these people who I call my comrades should be locked away for their own and others safety and the act of letting us loose to roam the streets, letting us breathe the same air and allowing us to live a life maybe not considered appropriate was a dangerous and bad idea.
Anyway, I was sitting in a comfy chair when I saw joy come in. she was an elderly lady who had recently become of age as an OAP. Her body was large, a side effect of the medication she was prescribed and she walked with a stick. We started talking and she told me a little about her past, mainly that she had married late in life to a Polish man and together they had rejected the usual path and spent 2 years before he passed away as tramps. Walking from town to town sleeping where they could and taking care of each other as much as any devoted couple could.
I learnt that since he died she had come to the attention of the authorities and they had given her a one bedroomed flat a bus ride away from where we met. I assumed she had been hospitalized at some point as this was the normal route that most of her clients had taken. I gathered she was lonely without her husband and came to visit us to relieve the boredom and isolation often associated with long term mental health ex patients. The place we frequented almost daily was designed as somewhere to hide away from the pressures and prejudices of a sometimes hostile public.
Joy would sit on her favourite chair and chat with a cup of tea and the essential smokes and just BE.
She told me that as she walked down her street to get to her home the other residents would curtain twitch and this really pissed me off as it did me. Why didn’t they stop her and invite her into their home for a while? The answer was that she like so many of my friends were not welcome and as a lady with a diagnosis of deviating from the norm it was OK to gossip and point and generally make our lives a misery.
She told me about a time when the children of one particular household would call her names and shout abusive comments at her and one day she became so anfry that she went up to the house and hurled her stick through a glass panel by the door. I considered this reaction as quite justified but obviously against the law and she was arrested and taken to court. There she was ordered to pay a £50 fine for criminal damage. I congratulated her on her actions and this affirmed our friendship.
I digress for a moment and would like to consider the aforementioned glass panel that Joy had so wilfully destroyed. In my extensive experience of the basic cost of replacing a small window of that size common in social housing would probably cost £20to replace and panel A was probably filthy and in need of a good clean, ashamed to belong to a household that would bully an old lady walking by. Maybe it was happy to be removed and sent to panel heave.
In my opinion £50 in those days on an old age pension seems to be a high price to pay for this commodity. However, if my memory serves me well, when Joy had to go to court she showed no remorse and stated that she was pleased with her actions and that the family bloody well deserved the inconvenience of reporting panel A as broken and waiting for it to be fixed because of the way they had behaved towards her. Mmn, the magistrates probably handed down this extortionate fine in the hope that Joy would be seen to be properly dealt with and as a deterrent to her and others. They obviously hadn’t bothered to order psychiatric and social reports and unearth the underlying issues that had made Joy react in this way. Oh well, one wonders at the laws of this country but that’s for a different discussion.
I want to get back to my friend. She was removed from the street and placed in more suitable accommodation. So the powers that be must have sat up and taken notice of this act of defiance and generated action.
I have no idea of my friend’s life experience before we met but I did notice that when she saw the innocent act of two women hugging each other as was the norm in this establishment, Joy would become very agitated and comment that this was indeed lesbianism at it’s worst and shouldn’t be allowed. She would accuse me of having `come to bed eyes` and I was confused but I believed that she was entitled to her own views and opinions so I would close my eyes so as not to cause offence and distract her by offering to refill her teacup.
Joy would do her best to take part in all the activities laid on by the `institution’ in the community` but her health was failing and after one particular visit to see her shrink ,she was prescribed medication so strong that she could barely keep her eyes open and would nod off halfway through a cigarette which would then drop onto her clothes or the carpet, creating burn marks and holes. She also started to pee wherever she was sitting and this caused great emotive responses from the management. She was ordered to sit on a cold plastic chair so the poor thing must have been so embarrassed and upset. It wasn’t her that prescribed this awful medication and yet the price she was paying was inhumane.
After a while she was deemed to be unfit for independent life and placed in residential care, where she lost her life due to a treatable chest infection that was left to fester due to the neglect of those who were supposed to care.
I didn’t go to Joy’s funeral as I was at the time incarcerated in a rubbish bin called a rehab ward and unable to get leave in time. It was a sad time but I remember her so vividly as she was a breath of fresh air in my existence.
R.I.P
David Armes
POVERTY MASTERCLASS IN ‘TAKING THE PISS’!
Like me, any old fool knows poverty’s not officially criminal; but will ‘The Judges’ award me first prize just for being exceptionally ‘special’ if I stop here? Yes, brace yourselves, we’re actually talking illegal mass scale class conspiracy driving large numbers into debt using hated benefits and banking systems.
They know debt causes fear and stress as well as feelings of moral unworthiness, leading to very poor decisions with money. Those very poor financial decisions open the gates into criminality ending in terror of the Law, and ultimately ‘Hey Presto here’s a new wage slave lever to hopefully make someone only paranoid enough to do the labour!’
Why authorities do this is an altogether ‘Other’ question? I mock it now cus I paid off the debt after being put in hospital for ‘doing verbal’ street protests against being ‘Gay framed’ in a homeless house to prevent participation in the local homophobic community. The fact this encouraged my writing ambitions is hopefully hugely annoying to them also.
‘Cancelled’, or being ostracised for political reasons has been around long time so imho, there’s little more satisfying open to me than complaining about it. My debt free status thankfully leaves me lounging around comfortably warm enough watching smart tv, munching organic food, getting fit and healthy, saving for holidays, in a ‘lazyboy set up’ planning my next legal challenge to enforced criminalisation.
But what makes this really great is I only get to do this cus I understand enjoying on the face of it ‘generous State’ benefits is exactly what the authorities want. That’s cus millions of voiceless others languish psychologically in financial debt and fear of the Law/criminals, and frequently destitution. I know I’m part of the problem, and I also know I’m a model of the only way out also. Catch 22 so I scribble away laughing like a maniac at the absurdity late into the morning, annoying my powerless neighbours because it’s all I can do!
I’m assuming there’s worse things, and readers were taught at school about the horrors of the 19th century Workhouse and Debtor’s Prison. Yes that’s one way of telling us how much better everything is now. But what they don’t teach at school is ‘Two World Wars and one huge European Genocide’ did indeed causesignificant rethinking on poverty; without changing the basic model.
Teachers probably also didn’t tell you Elizabeth 1st inherited a huge vagrancy problem from her father; and so that’s how ‘the Poor have only themselves to blame’ instead of ‘Poverty is Closer to Godliness’ idea took off. ‘The Poor’ have never gone away as Jesus predicted, but Henry 8th certainly made things even worse. He also left the State with the still existing ‘problem’ of what to do with ambitious sexually unpleasing (to men) young women like his daughter Elizabeth who probably never much liked baldy fat gluttonous farty old men in tights no matter how rich and powerful they are?
Any ‘thick as thief’ knows spreading totally untrue rumours about some schmuck they’re blaming their crimes on, whilst hoping the State finishes them off in prison, psych hospital, and/or ‘the Dole’, is a crucial part of their ‘business plan’. That’s the same highly illegal and tolerated anti-competitive social exclusion-racket style of ‘free enterprise’ so prevalent today.
This ‘Persecution of the Poorest theory’ holds anyone accessing public support is in fact ‘thieving’ brazenly from those who ‘work hard for their money’. Yes their taxes could be used for far more deserving causes like invading Iraq for the second time, and making every survivor even poorer after their oil companies became American, Dutch, and French with a London HQ.
‘Bombing Iraqis back to the Stone Age theory’ is instructive for professors of Western poverty (aka ‘The Liars’) cus of similarities to domestic policy. But is claiming Universal Credit villainously ‘taking advantage’ of our hard won over centuries millions dead legal right to Welfare? Maybe not, but ‘All Property is Theft’ is an obvious thought for any ‘kid’ not taking the big hint to ‘let it go’ or be frozen out?
By this point, an unfortunate person who merely thought they needed a little help to get by in the first instance, becomes a potential terrorist and maybe referred to ‘Prevent’ (as I was). Terrorism is indeed a crime against humanity as well as the Crown; so to avoid this happening our benevolent authorities ‘nip’ all possibilities ‘in the bud’. Clearly, they think it’d be a very serious moral crime, if not actual one, if they didn’t criminalise anyone needing their help?
I know, ‘I Wasn’t Expecting That’, but don’t go trying to bellyache on BBC Question Time, GB News or LBC; that’s because you’re expected to know it’s not up for discussion. Potential threats like not criminalising the poorest are so severe the Free Press all agree we mustn’t talk about it directly.
But no worries. The most fervent believers that ‘All Benefits Are Theft’ (aka ‘The Police’), use criminalisation to intimidate ‘potential terrorists’ into work. There’s a reason for this. That is we’re even more vulnerable in the workplace where bosses use recorded and unrecorded criminal records of varying veracity to enslave those of us stupid enough to venture back. Once trapped in a stupid job, bosses agree we did indeed ‘steal’ the benefits because we’re now back at work QED.
Increasingly though, returning to work, especially over age 50, isn’t fooling anyone due to the diagnosed mental illness epidemic reaching plague proportions. Personally speaking, I find incredible rises in mental illnesses since poor people voted for Tony Blair and New Labour an interesting phenomena. Thinking is clearly dangerous, but I do confess to wondering if this has anything to do with getting half the UK on some form of means tested benefit through tax credits even when we’re working?
Poorer people are expected to look for Salvation to a Labour Government. Maybe it’s our only realistic hope (of saving the Union) even though Sir Keir is moving faster and further away from Scandinavian style Liberal Social Democracy policies many hope for? In this respect I admit the appeal of Scandinavia is particularly tempting not least because almost everyone apart from off-putting crime writers support the Rule of Law.
Voting ‘Unknown Labour’ nonetheless reminds me once again of Anarchy in Iraq. Literally ‘Poor Iraqis’ are now joined by Muslims from Algeria to Pakistan as well frequently unwelcoming, and increasingly poorer, Europeans opposed to boats full of asylum seekers desperate to get their property back. Mostly a forlorn hope though; since those who remember voting in 1997 for the New Labour Tony Blair
Government now know raising our social status through ‘making work pay’ is rarely an option available to anyone who might even only have an unstated cause to grumble?
So yes as I said to begin with, ‘being poor is not a crime’… but neither is an ASBO and Sir Keir Starmer wants to bring them back too. That’s what we get for ‘progressively’ voting ourselves more ‘public investment’; just so we can be terrorised thinking about rapists in Scottish women’s jails as well as men’s!
‘Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose?’
Marc Grace
Reflections on Homelessness
Having a consistent place to call home is a very valuable and reassuring thing, even more so when one’s abode is safe, well maintained, and provides the basic amenities that allow us to keep warm, clean, able to cook and feel protected from difficulties – and the amenities are relative to living in a Western-European environment. I would definitely include good neighbours as part of being in a nice home as they make life more comfortable, for sure. I never appreciated how valuable my own home was until I experienced homelessness.
I’ve experienced homelessness on a few occasions because of my personal difficulties and choices. When homeless, I considered it matter of factly, just how my life was, nothing complicated, just something I had to deal with. The first time I was homeless I was living in someone’s flat, knowing that the shelter was given was dependent on if I could provide them with what they needed – class A drugs – as I couldn’t give them money because that would’ve affected my drug, use as buying drugs in bulk and giving it to him in smaller amounts saved me money. So that was my first taste of homelessness and was street homeless bar the shelter that I used, dependent on…
Having that sort of relationship with my ‘landlord’ brought about other issues, such as me resenting him and vice-versa, because of the fragile symbiotic relations we had and other extreme problems that came with living in a ‘crack house’, such as regular police raids, violent incidents, and constant concern about my physical and financial welfare, magnified concern about my financial welfare because I knew other addicts would possibly try and take what was mine.
Living in a place like that gave me no feeling of security with regards to having a roof over my head for a specific period. I did prefer it to the possibility of living on the streets, that’s for sure. That period wasn’t to last long because a good friend and his wife offered me and my then girlfriend their generous hospitality; we could stay at their four bed house, in a nice village called Clifton, in Bedfordshire, for as long as we needed. The only condition was that we get clean, no class A. I accepted their kind offer but my girlfriend didn’t want to stop using drugs, she didn’t come with me.
Eventually that would be her downfall as she was found dead in 2005, whilst I was in prison, of a suspected heroin overdose. She wasn’t even 30 years old.
The first time I knew someone who was homeless I was around 17/18 years old and a friend of mine who was 16 had been kicked out by his Dad and step-mum. Sometimes he would stay on my sofa but during the day when me and my father were at work he would have to leave and usually he’d hang around on the streets, getting into trouble, wandering around North London. Eventually my Dad said he couldn’t stay anymore, the main reason was because of his personal hygiene and the front room would always smell when he stayed; he was given the opportunity to use the shower etc. but didn’t – I felt sorry for him but my Dad’s decision was final.
The worst experiences I had when homeless was staying in ‘crack-houses’ and in 2007, I was 27, and sofa surfing and staying in a lot of hotels around Manor House/Finsbury Park, North London. I found myself in the nastiest place I’ve ever stayed in. It was a dilapidated and spooky squat on Green Lanes, just next to the entrance to Manor House tube station.
It was a big house, 1930s build, about 5 bedrooms plus a big basement area that was flooded in about a foot of water and who knows what else. A lot of the area’s most dangerous and notorious drug users, criminals and dealers would frequent it, as well as prostitutes and of course the old Bill would turn up a lot, not really wanting to explore the place, even though they knew what was going on in there, but they had to be seen to be doing their bit for the community and appease the neighbours or shop owners who called them.
Most of the squat smelt disgusting, of urine, vomit, faeces and was littered with crack pipes, used needles, condoms and other things that anyone in their right mind wouldn’t want to share their space with. To me it was a place I could access whenever I wanted to get off the streets and use drugs, either smoking, sniffing or injecting them, whichever method was working best at the time; sometimes my veins would be hard to get into because of scarring or they were cold and not hydrated enough, so I’d have to smoke, or if the thought of smoking heroin was making me feel sick then I’d sniff it, just to take away the pains of withdrawal.
Another good thing about the squat, for a drug addict, was that there was a lot of places I used to hide my drugs, money and valuable items, so I didn’t fear the police catching me with drugs, taking my drugs. I also needed to know that when I passed out from the stupor of heroin intoxication, or the exhaustion of sometimes spending 3-4 days awake, that no other addicts would go through my pockets and find my stuff, as I would do to them if I found them asleep.
What a terrible condition my life was in for those several months in 2007. Not surprisingly, it ended in the early summer that year with me on remand for attempted robbery, with imitation firearm and I received – very unjustly from Snaresbrook Crown Court – an IPP (Indeterminate sentence, for public protection), basically a discretionary life sentence. I was grateful to Allah that I’d been imprisoned and forced to stop taking drugs and com mitting crime, because no matter how much I wanted to change whilst I was free, I just couldn’t.
During that time in Finsbury Park and Manor House I was intentionally homeless because when I arrived there I had enough money to rent a decent flat for at least a year, and have a lot of money left over, but the chaos of addiction intervened.
For all my experiences of homelessness, I’m left grateful and humbled, given humility, because prior to experiencing these problems I was always very judgemental of homeless people and addicts. I would ignorantly and arrogantly look down on them and vilify them. Thankfully this hasn’t been my condition since 2004, so thanks to Allah for the hardships and ease that follow them and the changes of attitude and character that come from experience.
Dalton Harrison
Guilty
I feel the taste, as steel hand cuffs click shut and I am reduced to a bitter, bale under tongue. The lining of the roof of my mouth feels damp with its acid after taste. My lungs choke on the fumes let out plumes of smoke in retaliation. I am a beast. The lining of my gums lies scorched struck like dead match heads lined along in rows, nothing but the rotten corpses of time and sin. Then comes up the metallic texture that could only be blood. Lips bitten and chewed like hungry dogs waiting for a bell to ring that never comes. My throat crackles like swallowing pork scratchings which catch and claw it’s way down in defence. A marker to those who enjoy the death of living things to succeed another day. What taste! What tears, just salt left behind like genesis 19.
The sights flicker In front of my eyes infringing my senses a light as if a new. I see the handcuffs. Blurred and then the colour of red, round wrist and I blink, as the reel runs off its line. Black and white men point and this silent movie plays out I walk as if on script. My movements not my own, but written by an unforeseen director. One door looms. The back door. I am leaving by the back door. Bruised and stumbling I can’t turn round. My moment in court has ended. The door. I see it. I find my feet to walk beneath it’s arch to move between this world I knew and then to the next. The beyond, past the door, past this point of no return lined with corridors and stairs. I look at my hands fitted in front with bracelets of sin. I slide up to the wall. Watch me walk down like Pinocchio, pointing to a room I sit down buckling and shackled. I open my eyes to see myself. These bracelets. This marker. Warning all these faces who pass me staring behind the secure glass, I am guilty. I walk. Walk a walk of shame. A map millions of people have seen and walked before me. I follow the track to shutters and black and white. Moving men that point you to a white wagon. I see the sun for a second bright and merciless, sending down arrows of fire to destroy my fortress. My body. All that I carry. All that I have left. I am dazed by white shiny plastic, glaring back at me. I blink and the director moves me backward, the last action. My handcuffs now took from me show me I don’t even deserve this. Nothing. But the body I came with. I am sat staring at the last street. The last person. The last pram filled with a child who would be walking by the time I got out. I see buildings and steps. The signs I had seen so freely moments before gone. Going. Now blurred with colour and fire and I shut my eyes in the heat. So bright so blinding.
My senses ignite like a match to my touch, the plastic sticking like tar, tearing at flesh exposed. No room but here. No were to stand. No were to stretch. I am drowning in sweat, burning in sin. I am being sent to hell. I slam hands stinging into hard flat plastic as I slide back and forth no protection in loose soft limps against hard smooth surfaces. Blow hot breath on window slits and feel the sauna, cook bubbles of boiling water in my brain. To many questions raise up with each gasp, short, shallow now. More salt anyone?
The engine rumbles and growls like a pack of wolves circling there pray. Sounds hit the floor like rivers of saliva. Rocks flying like skittles scattering. It’s a strike we got a bus load! There no Aircon. No sound of freedom. No sound but road. Dirt and metal, aching under the strain of rubber and heat. The lack of human sound is simply silence. Silent but my beating heart. Pumping blood, racing. Racing along blurred lines and longing sighs. I hear brakes chatter, click, climb from road to gravel, pump slip on mud smooth and gliding silent whispers as locks ease open. One by one. Bolts holler in echo’s. Alien sounds, laughing in the stillness before. Someone new to banter with or laugh or jeer at! Word’s fall out of mouths like Scrabble pieces what you done? What’s your religion? State your name? I lose my voice, it jumps like an old record, speak up! Stand here! Go through to there, piss, spill droplets of blood into circles, why you shouting!
The smell, the smell of sweat, body oils, damp from no ventilation, hair dusty, bars caked black , locks stale with grim shadows, a finger print of all the crimes that have been and happened here unseen. My last scene is now my crime scene, taped and Cordoned off. My cell smells of smoke, smells of brimstone and misery. I have nothing to clean it with, no fluid but my own to mask the smell of decay. My smell. Me. The only thing that’s telling me in brick and smeared plastic I am still here. I am still alive.
I sit bolt up right gasping at air and grappling at sheets and fallen tears. I am not in prison. I am not on probation. But I am still seen as a risk. My dreams take me to all the places I have been. Each step brought more bars as release left me in an area that looked like a community prison. Each window. Each door. Secured. Telling me I am not far from going back in. The streets see sex workers in shifts flowing back steady in the early morning hours. The half pipe men who stagger covered in last night’s nose bleeds. The park that already has the early morning drinkers sat on benches. Poverty and crime are soul mates in a relationship that has grown toxic and old. There is a community centre that always seems shut but when I walk past a few are sitting down. I can’t afford to go in not when I still have to dry my bedding in the laundrette down the road. I want to belong and all that surrounds me says that belonging is not meant for the likes of me. I am supposed to know what I should do, yet I have been told for the last two years to do exactly what I was told. I can’t see past this decay, violence and pain. That’s when I realise the only way is to change the way I see the world. I start with a book. Education is a door that opens. I am still creating a self-narrative, one that is built on what I want to be. Not the one everyone sees and I keep moving forward. I keep moving no matter how much I don’t want to go outside. I walk. I connect with my surroundings and I begin to write. I write poetry. I read. I begin to breathe.
Alan Johnson
To whomever it may concern
I must complain about the current situation our species currently finds itself in, I do wonder how this situation has been allowed to get to its present state, surely this can’t be sustainable or healthy for humanity.
In the develop and developing world, only a few small pockets of humans seem exempt from this situation having removed themselves and cut themselves off as best they can from the modern world’s pursuit of material gain and wealth.
How is it the pursuit of material gain and wealth has made trying to live a decent humane existence so difficult, stressful, dangerous, life threatening (suicides, crime, migration) also unpredictable, it seems to have made people so unattached with little or no empathy or love for each other, we seem to be brainwashed into the pursuit of this wealth and judge each other accordingly, people are treated as if special due to wealth, people seem narcissistic and sociopathic, surely personal health and the health of our environment and species is true wealth?, the word communism has been turned into a taboo subject, a problem controversial subject, surely this was done by capitalists, communism and the stopping of this idea has been the cause of conflict, in the form of war, militarily, economically, mentally and politically, communism is demonised as a regime, and I am not championing communism as I believe a loving, liberal socialist outlook is needed, based on love for all and everything and everyone, or at least a thorough understanding and empathy, humanity works better as a team connected and accepting without judgement.
Being rich or poor is a problem in our society, as money and happiness are two separate states of mind and existences made up by many different interwoven factors, having money is not a guarantee in the pursuit of happiness, especially if you come from a poor, not wealthy background or a background in which your peers are not at the same level as your new found wealthy existence, you might actually l find that your wealth will set you apart, make you stand out, and that your peers will attach themselves to you in times of crisis and financial need, and inadvertently drag you back down to their level with constant demands and pleas for financial assistance, placing stress and unwanted or unneeded problems and drain on your finances.
It seems as if our current system is wrong fundamentally for our planet and species, and how have humans a so called intelligent species adopted such a approach for our existence, to accept this reality and let this reality prevail, what are our long term objectives, and outlook for our species?, surely if we have created this reality and existence, I would like to believe in our future we address this problem and try to make it so all humans are born into a utopian world, ,and we realise and identify the dangers of our current unsustainable path, and all have a fair chance to live a beautiful existence, on our beautiful planet, as surely that is the path to true civilisation for the masses?.
We humans can and do shape our own existence as a collective and I hope our destiny is a amazing planet for all, so we can all live in harmony and preserve our precious planet, we can and must have this as our future goal.
Capitalism seems a brutal regime set up for winners and losers in its present form of detached empathy for all peoples plights and needs, how can humans be rated on wealth and revered, with some humans having much more wealth than they could possibly ever spend, whilst others stress starve and suffer?, surely if we noticed the need in some countries for a minimum wage to be implemented, we should of balanced that and seen the need for a maximum wage and wealth cap, to keep some form of control and level playing field why do some humans have more money than they can spend whilst others starve?, that excess could be doing good instead of stagnating and accumulating whilst doing nothing but sitting in accounts or just making more unexpendable finance.
Please whomever it may concern, can you please address these issues, also the position our species finds itself in ASAP as a future matter of the utmost urgency, I believe action must and needs to be taken to stop people suffering and forced into migration on our planet, the world and our amazing planet needs help, and I have true faith that as a intelligent species, we will work to form this positive, sustainable, loving, caring, environment, to sustain our planet and our species existence we actually must, that has got to be our civilised intelligent future if were to survive and prevail as humans on this special wonderful planet.
Daniel Mariner
Normal Joe
Pin back your ears and I’ll tell you a tale
All about a justice fail
An everyday Joe, without a dime
I ended up doing proper time.
Had I been famous or an MP
The inside of a cell I would not see
Legal aid was my protector
Fairness was the ultimate defector
Screwed by the system I thought I knew
While the rich in their ivory towers, from justice flew
The normal person stands alone
While the wheels and cogs of justice moan
Jails burst at the seams with token inmates
The wealthy untouched behind their gates
A normal man who made a mistake
My life and my future the system did take
Poorer now then once was I
The Ivy League look down from on high
Bitter and sad from what what I’ve seen
The future now is nothing but lean
I served my country as a normal dope
Needed some help but not a hope
I made a mistake and messed up bad
The privileged are more than glad
They feel nothing resembling woe
When the toll is paid by the normal Joe
____________________________________________________________
Is it a Crime to be Poor? 