Tuesday 4 June 2013

"This Awful 'Tax' Affects Ordinary Families!" Screams The 'Guardian'...

...yet is curiously unable to find any to illustrate the point:
When Aisha was evicted from her flat in East Ham, east London, on 15 April, she packed her belongings in a suitcase and went with her six-year-old daughter to the council's housing office in Stratford, hoping for help to find somewhere else to stay in the area.
Instead she was given a train ticket to Birmingham, and details of how to take the bus from the station to the Bailey hotel in Edgbaston, a hotel providing emergency accommodation 127 miles away.
So, someone who's evicted (we aren't told why, though we are told that another family mentioned in the article were in arrears with their rent) has to take the best offer she can get? So what?

Oh, you heartless fiends, wail the left-wing press - we have to think of the children!
Because she has no idea how long she will be in Birmingham, her daughter is not in school. The six-year-old is very bored and is missing the friends she made at her primary school in East Ham.
The hotel, a very basic bed and breakfast establishment, has no facilities for children, and a sign on the door to the only communal space announces: "Due to recent events the dining room has been banned from children for play."
Too bad. When you are living on the State, beggars can't be choosers. Say, just why are you living on the State, anyway?
She understands that there is an intense housing shortage in London, and is resigned to moving from the city where she has put down roots over the past 10 years, since she moved to the UK from the Gambia.
Ah. She must be one of those 'hard-working immigrants' without whom our vital services would all collapse, right?
She is unable to look for work because she has no permanent address. She has worked previously as a radio presenter, but now is anxious to get any job.
*puts away Nano-Violin*

*checks flights to the Gambia from Birmingham Airport*

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bunny

Right then, not really an ordinary family unless you read the Guardian

Fahrenheit211 said...

Probably one of those who have been invited in by Newham Labour party and by their non-contribution have helped to turn East Ham from a pleasant shopping street into a shithole.

Why is she even being allowed to claim benefits?

Greencoat said...

Dear Guardian,

A husband, his wife and their
children.

That is a normal family.

Yours as ever.

Anonymous said...

I don't suppose by any chance that one of the bleeding heart Islington Guardi-Sparts instantly called the paper to offer accommodation ?

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX "Due to recent events the dining room has been banned from children for play." XX

What?

Now, I am slightly out of practice with my English, but THAT takes the bloody biscuit!!

JuliaM said...

"Right then, not really an ordinary family unless you read the Guardian"

And if you do, why, it's just like your au pair or the man who cuts your lawn!

"Why is she even being allowed to claim benefits?"

Damned good question.

"I don't suppose by any chance that one of the bleeding heart Islington Guardi-Sparts instantly called the paper to offer accommodation ?"

Ha ha ha ha ha ha! No, stop, you're killing me! My sides!

"...but THAT takes the bloody biscuit!!"

I rather wish they'd elaborated on those 'recent events'..