My recent troubles with the DWP when I tried to claim Jobseekers Allowance…

I have not written a blog post in a while due to the time pressures of work, a move across the country and my general disillusionment with the hardship of being a self-published author and how difficult it is to feel like you are making any progress. That is not to say that I have given up, merely that I needed a break and that I would eventually come back feeling refreshed. I shall soon finish the sequel to ‘Only an atheist’, ‘Jesus Returns’, and self-publish it along with, hopefully, a few podcasts appearances. I am also making good progress with a book of short, science-fiction stories (that I am thoroughly enjoying writing!) and shall endeavour to get these published in magazines and via the traditional publishing route. Until I give up and self-publish, most likely!

Anyway, that is not the topic of this blog post, which is how Goddamn awful and unfit for purpose the DWP is. I’m sure a great many people would agree with that perspective, having had dealings with them, but I am currently banging my head against the wall that is our social security net and getting nowhere fast. Many years ago I was very unwell for a long time and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) helped me through this period. That was until I was sent to Atos for a physical assessment and, sure enough, deemed fit for work (which I definitely was not). I was then shunted onto Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) until I was able to get myself well enough to return to my studies, at least part-time, before finishing up my PhD in Neuroscience, as had always been my intention.

Above, Iain Duncan Smith, the previous gremlin in charge of destroying our social security net.

Now we move forward to present day. My wife and I recently moved across the country due to her job relocating and we had little choice but to move too. As a result I had to leave my job and I am now actively looking for work, with some success, in another field. I hope and expect to be reemployed soon. In the meantime I began a claim of Jobseekers Allowance to get me through the intervening period. My stamps have been paid for the past few years and, as a result I am entitled to JSA, or at least I thought I was. I put in my claim and waited for the payments which never came. Instead the awful brown letters from the DWP (that somehow seemed to be filled with dread) did appear to tell me that I would be getting nothing. Not a penny.

 

A conversation with someone on the helpline informed me that the reason I was not getting JSA was that the years that my current claim were assessed on were earlier than I thought and, as I had been living in Canada during one of those years, I had not paid enough stamps. Fair enough. However, the assessment years then changed when we reached the first Sunday of January 2018 and I am now eligible having paid my stamps for the appropriate years. Except the DWP will not reassess your claim even if you ask them to. They will not explain why that is the case. The only option is to close your claim and then restart it to force them to reassess the claim. All done and dusted, right? It should all be sorted now, yes? No.

Above, Esther McVey, the current minister in charge of the DWP.

 

As I made a first claim back in November, which I did not know would not allow me JSA, and I have now reclaimed I am being told the two claims are ‘linked’, DWP magic words for ‘we simply don’t want to pay you what you have earned’. Now, I have two choices. Either close my current claim and wait TWELVE weeks (and a day!) to restart my claim, forfeiting the NI contributions that I would get during this time and possibly jeopardise my state pension (I was a student for many years and lived in Canada for five more so I am genuinely worried I won’t have 35 years NI paid by the time I reach retirement) or I can keep getting my NI paid but NEVER get any JSA. That is despite my stamps now being paid for the relevant years.

 

There is clearly no justification for the position I find myself in, the DWP merely tells me this is the way things are and there is little point trying to fix it as JSA will be phased out soon and replaced with the joy that is Universal Credit. And we all know how well that is going. They have no interest in helping me and don’t care that they are not paying me what I have earned. The people I have spoken to on the phone have been very nice and helpful, explaining why I have fallen over every obstacle placed in my path that I could not see until I had fallen over them, and I bear them no ill will. But the godawful system that has been twisted by this Tory government (and by the Blair government too, they are not blameless in this situation) and now needs to be reconstructed so that it is fit for purpose when it so clearly is not at the moment.

 

I am lucky, however. I do not need the miserly amount of money that would come from the JSA to survive. Between my wife’s salary and our savings we will get by and I should be returning to work in a relatively decent job soon. I hope. I also would have liked to swear profusely during the conversations with the DWP and in this blog post but I did not do that. That is less effective than simply telling the story of how they have treated me and the way in which the system acts to deny the payment of money earned. So now I am able to get nothing despite having contributed for years. But then that is the point, isn’t it. This Tory government does not want us to access the social security network that is supposed to be there to protect us. Frances Ryan wrote about this recently in the Guardian (https://tinyurl.com/ycjc7pj9) and she makes the point very eloquently.

 

I am also acutely aware that I am far from the worst affected. I recently watched I, Daniel Blake with my wife (and I am in no way trying to compare my story with this one) but I read the news and I know that many out there have things much worse than I. It is apparent, and has been for some time, that we need this Tory government out and Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour to gain power (as a Labour party member, of course I would say that, but I do feel it is true). We need a shift away from the harmful neo-liberal policies of the last few decades and a return to social democracy where the system is set up to support those who need it and who contribute to it. Not just for those who have paid into the system, like myself, but for those who need the help, for those who are homeless through no fault of their own (blame the insane London property market) and for those struggling to feed and house themselves and their kids despite working a full-time job.

 

So, bring on the next election, say I. Bring on the end of this Tory government and bring on Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister. Because, whatever the Tory press tell us, it’s can’t be worse than this bunch of muppets!

 

Update: It’s always nice when things work as they are supposed to and, much to my surprise, things have now worked out. Following the DWP denying my legitimate claim, and my letter to the my local MP, they have now reassessed and decided to pay the JSA that I am owed. I suspect that, without the intervention of my local (Tory) MP, David Rutley, this would not have happened and I am grateful for his help. Of course, that won’t stop me voting Labour in the next election but I am glad that they system has worked as intended and that he was willing to help me. Cheers!

 

‘Only an atheist can help God save the world’ now has TWELVE reader reviews with an average of 4.4 stars and is available from all electronic retailers including Amazon UK here: http://tinyurl.com/pgjd68z. The sequel, ‘Jesus Returns: here he comes again’, will be out soon! Also check out my other “Rambling” blogs posts for articles on being an indie author, comics, politics, and reviews of books and movies! Finally, follow me on Twitter @onlyanatheist1. Cheers!

My review of James Rickards ‘The Death of Money’…

As a writer of science-fiction stories, along with atheist comedies, I have a keen interest in the shape of the future and in the changes that appear to be coming to our world very soon. Things like the creation of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), the loss of jobs due to automation and driverless cars that are being rapidly developed and thus the need for a Universal Basic Income (UBI) to offset the loss of these jobs, as well as the impact of humans on our world interests me. I read books like Paul Mason’s ‘Postcapitalism’ (review here: http://tinyurl.com/grg36v8) to inform me of what is to come and how I can incorporate it into my writings but also because I have a genuine interest in this subject and ‘The Death of Money: the coming collapse of the international monetary system’ by James Rickards fits squarely into that category.

This book details some of the events that the author thinks are likely to occur and that will shape our world and society during the coming decades, most notably a collapse of the US dollar, but Rickards also covers many other topics including the rise of China, along with the expected fall of that country’s economy, the use of gold by Central banks, and the manipulation of the markets by terrorists among other things. One of the implications that intrigued me most was the way in which countries like the US manipulate their own interest rates to pass inflation onto other nations, something that strikes me as deceptive but, given the number of ways that the US maintains its dominance of the world, this is actually pretty tame. And given that we have been living in a period of exceptionally low interest rates, combined with quantitative easing on a massive scale, also not the biggest issue we face.

 

This book was published in 2014 and the signs that Rickards thesis is correct continue to mount. Recently, several Chinese companies were downgraded by Moody’s leading to fears of a slowdown in the world’s second largest economy (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/24/china-credit-rating-downgraded-moodys-debt). The UK housing bubble and economy looks set to collapse should we actually go through with the whole Brexit debacle. And the effect of having Donald Trump as US president, and all of the insanity that appears on a daily basis, are yet to really be seen and felt. I was convinced before reading this book that we were heading for a financial meltdown and now I am even more certain that this will happen in the near future.

 

Rickards wonders how much longer the dollar will be the reserve currency, not long by the sounds of it, and then the impact on the US will surely be felt. I’m also very curious to see what the resultant fallout will be with the author airing a cautious note in the last few pages about the possibility of America turning into a fascist state with its militarised police, surveillance mechanisms and easily controllable road network. The UK is comparable to the US is a great many ways but personally I am grateful that we have not followed them in adding SWAT teams, drones and APCs to our police forces. And with Donald Trump now in the White House that possibility seems ever more realistic.

 

My feeling is that we are indeed heading for a financial meltdown and that the world that needs to follow it, one where neo-liberalism is no longer the driving force of our economy, AI runs much of our world, UBI is implemented along with shorter weeks, and we put the emphasis on sustainability in a finite world is one possible outcome. Unfortunately, there are other, far more scary outcomes too and there seems to be no way of knowing exactly where we are heading. We shall just have to see. Cheers!

 

‘Only an atheist can help God save the world’ now has TWELVE reader reviews with an average of 4.4 stars and is available from all electronic retailers including Amazon UK here: http://tinyurl.com/pgjd68z. The sequel, ‘Jesus Returns: here he comes again’, will be out soon! Also check out my other “Rambling” blogs posts for articles on being an indie author, comics, politics, and reviews of books and movies! Finally, follow me on Twitter @onlyanatheist1. Cheers!

Reaching ‘peak stuff’ and how it has changed my view and what I want…

So, the feeling has been building for a while but I think my wife and I have finally reached ‘peak stuff’, that is the notion that we now have enough material possessions in our lives and that we no longer wish to keep gathering more. This makes us very bad citizens in the current age when you are encouraged to buy more and to consume more and to not think about the environmental cost of all this and instead to think about the benefits to the economy. It also causes issues at Christmas with all the gift giving and receiving.

But the reality is that we really do have enough stuff. We live in a small apartment and, unless something dramatic changes (which it actually might be, if some newspaper reports are right), we won’t be buying a house anytime soon. Therefore we can only buy and keep the stuff that we can fit into said apartment. We have moved several times in the past decade (another increasing trend among my generation and the next), including to and from Canada and this required us to shed the vast majority of our stuff (and to buy new, which was quite fun), the rest was stored to await our return. But even those things, those possessions that we decided were worth keeping, are now looking like unnecessary junk in our lives and we are considering losing more and more of what remains.

 

In addition to this, I have sold off the majority of collectibles that I owned from many years spent building a substantial Transformers and Star Wars Black figures collection. Losing that feeling of needing to own stuff means that these figures would inevitably be heading out the door, and selling them actually paid for our car. I have also stopped buying graphic novels, which has been a passion of mine for a long time (though I still buy beautiful hardcovers of series I love, my last remaining weakness). I had gradually been moving to digital for my book and graphic novel needs anyway so replacing them with electronic versions when they have been available for a good price is a good move. Most of my physical books are borrowed from the library, breaking the link between owning and reading, and subscriptions to online streaming services have ended the need to buy physical copies of movies. All that we have left are mostly mementos of our lives and our travels and I am realising more and more that we need little else.

 

So then the question changes from what do I need to buy and own to what else do I want? I want an electric car (something else that seems right on the cusp of becoming mainstream) for I do not want to keep contributing to our humongous carbon dioxide output. I want less plastic to pass through my hands simply because I have a need to eat (why does a cucumber now come wrapped in this?). I want to eat well (our Riverford Farms weekly veg box helps with that http://tinyurl.com/j58aep6). I want the world to stop consuming fossil fuels when alternatives are finally reaching the mainstream (higher plastic use is clearly a by-product of oil consumption when we have significant quantities of oil derivatives to use) and I want renewable energy to become the norm, as I was told as a kid that it would be. My wife and I recently switched our energy supplier to Green Star (website: https://www.mygreenstarenergy.com/) who source their energy from renewables and that felt like a step in the right direction and a very good thing indeed. I also want everything that I discard to be recycled, though the rates of doing so are still dismal.

 

Finally, I want a political system in my country that works, one that meets the needs of the people and not of the elites and the Corporations who fund them. I want a truly representative Parliament, one that listens to us when they express ourselves and our concerns and then acts to help. I want enough houses to be built in the UK so that those who choose to buy are able to do so. I want a properly regulated financial system that doesn’t always seem like it’s about to bring about financial apocalypse (http://tinyurl.com/zgjg8ll). I want a powerful and well funded environmental agency that will police the actions of those who seek to destroy it, which we currently do not have (http://tinyurl.com/hszoort). And I want a forward looking political system that actually addresses the changes that are coming in the near future, like driver-less cars and ever more insecure working conditions.

 

It sounds like I want a lot, huh, but I really don’t think that I do, and I also think that many of you out there would agree with this point of view. Let me know if you do, eh. Cheers!

 

 

My debut novel, ‘Only an atheist can help God save the world’, now has TWELVE reader reviews with an average of 4.4 stars and is available from all electronic retailers. The sequel, ‘Jesus Returns: here he comes again’, will be out soon! Also check out my other “Rambling” blogs posts for articles on being an indie author, comics, politics, and reviews of books and movies! Also follow me on Twitter @onlyanatheist1. Cheers!

My wife and I recently started a ‘Riverford Farms’ veg box scheme. Here’s why I think you should too…

Since moving back to the UK a few years ago I am increasingly becoming environmentally conscious and have been trying to reduce the size of the carbon footprint of my wife and I. We have switched over to a renewable energy supplier (who are cheaper than the others and called Greenstar, check them out here: https://www.mygreenstarenergy.com/), we have been eating less meat, though that also has to do with the awful practices used to raise livestock in the UK including feeding antibiotics to perfectly healthy animals and raising livestock in appalling conditions, and we are still looking for ways to do more. One of the best decisions that we made during this time was to start a vegetable box scheme from Riverford farms (website here: http://www.riverford.co.uk/). Now, I know that other veg box schemes are also available but from what I have heard they are the venture capitalist versions of this one, which is the real thing.

So every week we receive a delicious box of vegetables delivered to our door that has never failed to impress us; the contents within look as beautiful as they should and the produce is of the highest quality. You will not find monstrously overgrown carrots in these boxes, rapidly cultivated to an oversized volume at an increased rate at the expense of flavour. You also won’t find seasonally unsuitable vegetables. Everything arrives when it should in the year and you start to feel a little more connected to the seasons. Yet another advantage is that we have tried a significant number of new vegetables including Romanesco (something like a cross between broccoli and cauliflowers and delicious roasted or fried, see picture below), different kinds of squashes, new cabbages and many more. Consequently, we have been pushed to try not only new vegetables but different meals in our desire to use everything that we receive each week.

Along with your veg, you also receive a newsletter from Guy, the founder of Riverford, and it is obvious from first reading that he cares passionately about what he does. He wants to bring his customers the finest, freshest products that are produced in a genuinely organic way (by using natural means of controlling pests and not by simply switching to ‘organic’ pesticides, that is chemicals of an organic nature). He explains how, for instance, they use various kings of bugs to control other, invasive bugs that will damage their produce. And he talks about the use of chemicals like Monsanto’s ‘Roundup’ and how potentially damaging it is to us, let alone to the environment upon which it is sprayed. Riverford’s animals, which we have not yet tried but intend to do so, are raised without the use of unnecessary antibiotics and the eggs from their chickens (which I suspect are genuinely free range) are the best my wife and I have ever tasted with bright yellow yolks. They’re delicious!

Another advantage to this is that it has taken a significant chunk of our weekly spend on groceries out of the hands of corporations. I read and reviewed George Monbiot’s ‘Captive State: the corporate takeover of Britain’ recently (link here: https://onlyanatheist.wordpress.com/2015/12/16/181/) and was appalled to learn of the bullying tactics major retailers use to get their way with not only suppliers and local producers but also in regards to the locations where their stores are sited and of how much damage they do to the local business environment when they set up shop and so I am very happy about this result. I am also glad to support a business like Riverford which has a real interest in sustainable practices and in environmentalism. These corporations do not care about the carbon cost of getting their wares to their shelves as long as they don’t have to pay for it. Riverford do care and do all that they can to reduce these costs including growing as much of their wares in the UK as they can.

So, if you are looking to reduce your carbon footprint and you’d like to improve your diet by eating more vegetables that are mostly grown in the UK and France, if you’d like to try a new range of produce that will diversify your diet as well as leave you feeling a little more connected to the seasons and the changing vegetables that come with it, then I cannot recommend Riverford highly enough! Their customer service is also excellent and each time there has been a problem (always small) they have done their best to fix it and things have always worked out in our favour. They now have very long term customers in my wife and me and I hope that I also might’ve persuaded you to give them a go too. When I joined they had an offer where you received a free cookbook after a couple of boxes, and then your fourth box free, so it’s worth trying them for a month and seeing how it works for you. I hope you do!

 

My debut novel, ‘Only an atheist can help God save the world’, now has TWELVE reader reviews with an average of 4.4 stars and is available from all electronic retailers. It’s sequel, ‘Jesus Returns: here he comes again’, will be out soon! Also check out my other “Rambling” blogs posts for articles on being an indie author, comics, politics, and reviews of books and movies! Also follow me on Twitter @onlyanatheist1. Cheers!

My review of Anthony Loewenstein’s ‘Disaster Capitalism’…

A number of books that I have read in the past year have given me a better understanding of the way in which the world actually works and of the future direction it may be heading in, including Paul Mason’s ‘Postcapitalism’ (review here: http://tinyurl.com/grg36v8), Owen Jones’ ‘The Establishment’ (review here: http://tinyurl.com/jo8sekz) and several others besides. All of these have been informative, if a little depressing, to read but none more so than ‘Disaster Capitalism: making a killing out of catastrophe’ from Anthony Loewenstein. Right, onto my review!

‘Disaster Capitalism’ is an excellently researched and documented work, which covers topics from the way in which private military corporations have profited from wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the stripping of public services in Greece during their crisis (austerity has done the same in the UK, handing public services to private hands), to the way in which private prisons and detention centres are run in the US, UK and Australia in a manner that costs a fortune but achieves little. This book covers a litany of cases where the rich and wealthy maintain their hold on the world by preventing the money that is supposed to help those affected by disaster from reaching them, instead padding their bottom lines.

In a similar manner to Johann Hari’s incredible ‘Chasing the Scream’ (review here: http://tinyurl.com/hy8q9gu), Loewenstein travelled the world and talked to many people affected by these policies, and the people and places that he managed to access is impressive. Learning how Haiti has been treated in the time since the 2012 earthquake, seeing how aid is funnelled from the US to non-governmental organisations who then seem to be under no obligation to actually provide the relief that the aid was intended for, is incredibly depressing. Reading as Loewenstein documents efforts by the US to force Haiti to accept the neo-liberalist agenda that prevents the island from allowing its citizens to achieve independence from aid through farming and by other means, and forcing them to work for poverty wages in industrial parks as per the dominant model is awful. And the list of crimes goes on and on.

Now, an awful lot of the problems created in this scenario stem from the inability of the media to actually report on what is happening in the world. Other books I’ve read, such as ‘Triumph of the Political Class’ by Peter Oborne (review here: http://tinyurl.com/jevqp6z ) have made the case that the media are so deeply in bed with politicians that they can no longer do their job properly and I think the case can be made that the same is true of commercial interests. Stories have been recently reported where media outlets, in this case the Telegraph, refused to report on stories that would negatively impact on their sponsors like HSBC. It seems that the media, our primary source of information on the state of the world, has become less than trustworthy and this makes it much more difficult to understand what is broken in and how we fix it.

‘Disaster Capitalism’ is another of those books that, once you’ve read it, your world view will likely be changed. And that’s a good thing. I’m starting to see stories in the media in a different light and I feel I am better able to understand world events as well as how far things need to change, to get away from the current model and towards providing actual disaster relief. And with our ever warming world, the incidence of natural disasters is sure to increase making the need for change ever more urgent.

As with the other, similar non-fiction books I have recently read and reviewed, ‘Disaster Capitalism’ ends on a hopeful note and actually there now seems to be a movement towards change. The tide may finally be turning against this sort of arrangement between private companies and government with an announcement that the US will be reducing the number of privately run prisons (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/18/us-government-private-prisons-use-justice-department https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/18/us-government-private-prisons-use-justice-department). Personally, I’m waiting for the end of neo-liberalism, as predicted in many of the books and articles I read, and for us to finally reach the turning point away from allowing these expensive and ineffective deals and towards something that will actually provide the services intended from the money spent. I can’t wait for that day to come, and hopefully it won’t be too much longer.

Next time, my review of Terry Pratchett’s wonderful ‘A slip of the Keyboard’. Until then…

 

My debut novel, ‘Only an atheist can help God save the world’, now has TEN reviews with an average of 4.3 stars and is available from all electronic retailers. Also check out my other “Rambling” blogs posts for articles on being an indie author, comics, politics, and reviews of books and movies! Also follow me on Twitter @onlyanatheist1. Cheers!

My review of Paul Mason’s ‘Postcapitalism’…

Recently I’ve read and reviewed a short list of non-fiction, mostly politics books from Laurie Penny’s ‘Unspeakable Things’ (http://tinyurl.com/jl5trzc) to Owen Jones’ ‘The Establishment’ (http://tinyurl.com/jo8sekz) and George Monbiot’s ‘Captive State’ (http://tinyurl.com/zevxd7g) as well as a few others. This week I’m reviewing Paul Mason’s ‘Postcapitalism’, a book that is a little different than my other recent reads in that it not only explains how Capitalism got to the point where the author thinks that it will soon collapse, but he also details what might be to come and it is a fascinating read. Onwards to my review!

In clear and accessible language, Mason talks us through the history of Capitalism and how this economic model, especially the current form of Neo-Liberalism, has driven our world economy to the brink of its own destruction. He explains that this system must inevitably end and that something else take its place. Mason challenges the assumption that Capitalism will always be our economic model, starting from the point that it has not always been so, and moving onward to the changes that are to come. The Postcapitalism model, as seen by Mason, is driven by the rise of information technology, the fall of Labour as the driving force behind value in the production of goods and the desire of information to be free. The internet and the ever increasing connectivity of the next generation is a key part of this coming change and something that, now in place, will be extremely hard to undo. Impossible, I would say.

As someone who has an interest in politics and in the future, I found this a fascinating read and I feel that I can already see much of what Mason addresses becoming reality. Reading this book during the upcoming EU referendum also makes for a fascinating experience. Mason makes the claim that the end of Capitalism and Neo-Liberalism will likely be caused by an outside shock of exactly the sort that the UK leaving the EU might cause. Although that scenario currently seems unlikely, should the UK remain in the EU there is still the possibility that other countries, like Greece , Italy, Spain, may decide that they would prefer not to accept the conditions of remaining and their leaving may be the shock that hastens the end of our current economic model and the move forwards to postcapitalism.

One of the aspects of this coming revolution that fascinates me is that this ongoing change is being driven not by my generation but by the next. I already have an interest in how those younger than me engage with and consume media and, having talked with my younger sister and her friends, it seems that there is a clear difference. I am still stuck buying and owning DVDS, and watching television, though the means by which I access these shows is via the internet. But my sister and her friends don’t own or watch their TV except to have games consoles and internet connections attached to them and all media is consumed through this medium and via streaming services like Netflix. As a result the model for this particular part of their lives has shifted and I only see this change becoming more dramatic. It also changes how her generation access their news, bypassing conventional sources, and pushing them towards different agencies and I find this to be a very interesting thing indeed!

Postcapitalism is a superb book that is accessible and well written and one that I thoroughly enjoyed. I can’t recommend it highly enough and if you have any interest in the future, in the end of Capitalism and Neo-liberalism, and in what might replace it in the years to come, then you should read it. I’m glad that I did! Up next time I hope to review either be ‘The Hollowing of Democracy’ or Johann Hari’s ‘Chasing the Scream’. I just have to find the time to actually read them both! Cheers!

 

 

My debut novel, ‘Only an atheist can help God save the world’, is available now from all electronic retailers. Also check out my other “Rambling” blogs posts for articles on being an indie author, comics, politics, and reviews of books and movies! Also follow me on Twitter @onlyanatheist1. Cheers!