The Hunger Strike of Eric Russell
IF you should go down to Whitehall you might find an interesting sight. A man, Eric Russell, on hunger strike over the appalling bloody bureaucracy that this country has.
No, it’s not about “the cuts”, not about the welfare state not giving a shit. It’s about the welfare state simply being incompetent. Eric has told all us media types that he’s going to be there from yesterday, the bank holiday, until someone somewhere among the six million civil bloody servants we pay for manages to get a clue.
The back story is one of taking a minimum wage job, getting tax credits while doing so. The usual nonsenses when the job came to an end, getting back on Jobseeker’s, making sure that the tax credits were stopped (seriously, difficulty in getting them to stop damn paying you what you’re not eligible for!).
And then some pillock whose wages we pay demands all of that tax credit money, legitimately paid out, back as an overpayment.
The protest isn’t actually about any of this though. It’s about the year of going pillar to post trying to sort the cock up out.From one office to another, one letter being mislaid, another not answered, phone lines that are never answered.
About, quite simply, the way that nothing ever gets done or solved, no one will take responsibility for a decision.
What Eric is actually asking for is simply that one named individual, any named individual, sit down with the paperwork and sort the fucking thing out.
Which, given that we do indeed pay for 6 million of the bastards shouldn’t be too much to ask, should it? But apparently the only way of getting this is to go on hunger strike.
Posted: 8th, May 2012 | In: Money Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
