Hey, Richie....

I'm a Carer. I'm one of the many hundreds of thousands of people who get trapped into a low wage...for caring.

I normally start my day wiping shit off the toilet. (not mine, I hasten to add) How do you start yours? Every single day I cook and clean for the person I care for. I do the washing, do the shopping, am there each and every day, every single night...

The other day I started my morning a little earlier than normal, at 6am picking her up off the floor, after her slipper had slipped away from her foot and CRASH! down she went...luckily, only bruising herself. She's 96 years old...

IF she were in a home it would cost you, Richie, a HUGE amount from your tax bill....around £500 a WEEK, for just one little old lady...

I get paid, as do all Carers...just under £8....A DAY, for the job I do. That also gets taxed.

I've looked after Vi for around 12 years now...and in all that time not one person every told me, until last week, that I could have been claiming Income Support purely because I'm a Carer. ????????????? In fact, you can claim Income Suppport and still have a job of under 16 hours, if you're a Carer. I never knew that..Did you?   For years I've been struggling on though, trying to find a job for 16 hours, which would enable me to actually keep my Carer's Allowance, so long as that job is minimum wage of course, because if I earn ONE PENNY over the alloted amount, then the Carer's Allowance is instantly stopped.

Carers are hugely discriminated against, and they get the lowest benefit amount of all benefits too.

If you're unlucky enough to have to care for MORE than one person, tough...you only get paid for ONE, no matter how many other people you're looking after.

And of course, with most jobs these days, they want you there 24/7 at their beck and call, hours going up and down like yoyoyoyoyos...and EVERY single time your weekly/monthly wage changes, you have to inform the Council Tax Office, either by email or by going in to see them, taking your wage slips with you, or sending them in by post.
Each time you go to your Council Tax Office you're asked to sit down and wait, given a number, and usually get stared at by yet more Burly Bovver Boys with shaven heads and uniforms, and shoes that would make an Army Captain proud...

You say to the overworked staff "How crazy is this situation?!!" and they shake their tired heads and agree with you. There is no threshold of a salary between A and B before everything changes, nope, it's every single time, no matter if pennies go up, or down...They then send out enough bits of paper to remove several acres of Rain Forest alone....and they'll do it the next week, and the week after that, and the week after that, ad infinitum...

It probably costs MILIONS, if not BILLIONS of pounds..and you know what Richie, it gets Mr and Mrs. Joe Bloggs so damned down and depressed that they then go on to get those Mars Bar addictions you so kindly ridiculed earlier on, getting fatter and fatter, or...they turn to cheap booze to drown their sorrow and depression...

I'm with these folks, Richie, I see them all around me. And you know what, they smile in the same way that I do, if you smile first...Many a time their smiles have many teeth missing though, because they've been drug addicts, or alcoholics. They're thin, wasted, tatooed, desolate, pale, dry skin, dry hair and a look of Utter Hopelessness in their eyes!!

When I go to these places I say to the Staff, "Can I have a private room please?" and they get me one. EVERYONE is entitled to ask for this, but few do, because they're so down, so depressed and so past caring...so they sit in line at voluminous desks, attended to by clerks who stare at computers rather than their clients, and fill in their lives on tick box questions asked to them in a situation of no privacy....

And you think these folks would RATHER be THERE than in some wonderful job, being praised to the hilt by bosses who bloody well care about them, pay them a decent wage which enables them to have a house, a family...a LIFE!!!?????

You truly sodding think that so many of these Utterly Broken People ENJOY that kind of life????????

Well, I'll tell you why some of them are trapped inside this horrifying situation, because they probably left school with no exams, so they can't tick the bloody internet tick boxes to apply for a job these days. They can't get past Corporate Bastard Stupidity which has now removed people from actually meeting other people or asking if there are jobs going, because so much is done on the internet these days...

Ring up Waitrose, Marks & Spencers, ALL of the big retailers and you'll find they're all exactly the same, filled with psychological shit tests they've probably paid The Emperor's New Tailors a BILLION DOLLAR FORTUNE for, and meanwhile, back at the ranch called The Arizona Job Centre, the cowboys and cowgirls sit in line, toothless smiles the last thing on their mind, babies crying for their tea, fathers feeling trapped, mothers hating the world.............because THIS IS their world, Richie.......

And Clammy and Gleggy don't want to know about them........They've never mixed with them, probably crossed the street if they saw them trying to sell The Big Issue in Eton, or Oxford...

And YOU, Richie, are one of the soldier boys of Clammy and Clegg's Army of The Ruthless, who are happy to annhilate the dreams of your fellow men and women who just happen to be less fortunate than you, for whatever reason....

What a True Hero you are, eh?