Section 28 and why it must NEVER return

I thought that growing up in the shadow of Section 28 didn't affect me until I was all grown up. When I was at school, I didn't hear the word lesbian until I was well into my high school years, and when I did, it was almost always being thrown around as an insult.

I didn't know whether being gay was "ok" and this casual banter even infected my own lexicon. I became homophobic, without really even realising what that word meant. It seemed easier to turn a blind ear or worse still, join in, than it was to admit that I might be gay.

We didn't have any gay teachers, just suspected ones and we didn't have a single pupil in the whole school who was brave enough to come out (although between 6 and 10 from my year alone did once they left!)

Section 28 was something I had never heard of. I wasn't interested in politics or education policy and I didn't know any gay people anyway, so it just wasn't a thing that I ever needed to encounter.

Watching Ellen Degeneres come out in 1997 changed all that. I didn't come to terms with my sexuality until 2001 when I was 17 years old. But '97 was a crucial year for me. I suddenly understood what gay actually meant. I had an actual lesbian upon whom to anchor my thoughts.

I was still in the closet, even to myself, for the next four years and my sexuality expressed itself, unfortunately, as internalised homophobia. I watched Queer as Folk and thought it was incredible and exciting, but at school I said it was disgusting, because that was what all my friends said. I speculated about the sexuality of various teachers with my friends as I wrestled with my own sexual orientation.

What I feared most was somebody asking me directly, I don't think I could have lied. Four years later when I left high school, I came out and never looked back... Yeah right! I didn't have anybody telling my "It gets better" or "It's good to be gay". The backlash against Ellen had been brutal and in the UK, it was really no easier to come out as gay at 17 than it had been ten years earlier.

Once I was out, however, I never went back in. I came out to my Mum, she told my Dad, somehow my Nana found out and once I went off to university, I was a fledgling dyke waiting to spread my little gay wings.

University was a revelation. I suddenly had gay friends, got to experience gay clubs and the "gay lifestyle" (which is very much like the "straight lifestyle" but with more rainbows). It was then, at my first Pride in Manchester, that I heard about Section 28 for the first time. It was August 2003 and I was 19 and my feeling was one of abject horror. Shortly after that, Section 28 was finally repealed. But for me, that wasn't the end of the story.

Section 28 caused me harm. There I said it. Not insignificant harm - real harm. Because my teachers didn't step in when people used the word "Gay" as in insult, I never realised it was bad. Because my teachers were too afraid to come out, I never had a role model. Because there were no role models, I didn't come out.

So it was with sadness that I read Shaun Dellenty's TES article which said that gay teachers are still being told to "keep quiet" about their sexuality. This Section 28 by the back door MUST stop. Perhaps if I'd had one teacher who was out and proud, I would have had an easier ride in my teens.

Some kids and teachers are gay - get over it.

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6373296 - Shaun Dellenty's beautifully written article for TES.

Notes on why Lily Allen is amazing

For context... 

I'm mixed, black Afro Caribbean and White British. I'm almost 30 and I live in the UK near Manchester. 

So I'd heard about Lily's new single and finally got to see it on Buzzfeed. It was awesome, amazing, hilarious. It spoke to the feminist in me, the woman in me and the 29-yr-old who is sick of this nonsense in me!

Checking the comments, several double takes were required about notes along the lines of "Hey, why you bein so racist Lily?" I had to check myself before I wrecked myself! I rewatched the video and could find nothing but satire.

It was as though they had been watching another video entirely.

For at least the past 15 years, I have seen women of all races being objectified in music videos by rap artists, directors, producers, media moguls and executives, pop stars, country stars, punks, metal bands... The list goes on. They have been props, pets, sex objects. 

Worse still, women in the music business who are stars in their own right who feel that they won't sell any records without objectifying themselves. Luckily, I had Girl Power and the forces of Spice to remind me that I was nobody's object. But what about today's young girls?

And then came Blurred Lines - surely the most mainstream song about raping a girl since... Nope, can't think of another. And this earworm got into my brain and I found myself singing it in the car. When I finally looked up the lyrics, I felt like THE WORST FEMINIST IN THE WORLD!

What is really scary is that Blurred Lines is number 2 on the Now 85 album... Disk 1, Now 85 will be on every little girls' Christmas list and with all the editing in the world, there is no escaping its message.  

Lily, your video is genius, you are entirely right. If this is where we are now, a world where an electronics manufacturer feels that it's right on to sell their products with a rape song, where will we be in 10 years? What is to come?

And as for the "Lily is a racist" commentary. Buy a dictionary, look up satire, then look up racist, then look up idiot and I'm sure you'll find your face there!

Stand Up

It's time to stand up...

A few weeks ago I posted an entry about not marching, not loudly protesting.

Well something just changed that.

This story about a woman who left a suicide note stating "I don't [blame] anyone for me death expect [sic] the government."

It can be argued that she may have been severely depressed before she received the letter confirming she would lose £80.00 per month as an "Under Occupancy Penalty". She may have had other struggles and mental health is not black and white. But on the other hand, even if the difficulties she was facing under the new Welfare Reform Act were merely a catalyst, isn't it possible to see the correlation between her finding out she was going to lose £80.00 per month of her benefits, that she would need to find or lose her home and her ultimately stepping out onto the M6?

It's time to act.

I have no idea how, although I suspect there will be a slew of protest marches across the country. I think it's time for me to start a slightly louder protest.

Now, the facts of the case are that she was offered an alternative home - but it was unsuitable, isolating her from her family and without good transport links. The Council were unable to offer her a property in the same area she had lived for over a decade, close to her family. How is this moral? And let's be clear, the way the legislation is written, this is a moral rather than a legal issue.

Will you join me? Will you stand up? 

Will you get angry with me? Will you shout?

Because I'm furious, and I KNOW I'm not the only one.

No Middle Class Anarchy

I am no middle class anarchist. I don't have the energy. I don't have that wilful disposition. Frankly, I don't have the time. I can't afford to get arrested at a peaceful protest gone wrong. I'm 28, I have a lot of life to live in front of me. When the anarchists start their revolution, I'll support their cause, but I won't risk my liberty or my future employment prospects by becoming embroiled in a loud demo. I'm not often meek, but I'll be the one silently protesting in my living room, spreading the word. Writing, talking and hoping for a better future.

Because all I can do is write and talk about the anger and deep seated despair at the status quo. It is an anger which causes my hiatus hernia to throb daily at the moment, an anger which stops me falling asleep. I just can't stop thinking.

I should probably just quit reading the paper. It's making me bitter. But I cannot be without news, whether good or bad. I can't live without knowing what is going on in the world.

I have never felt so impotent, so weak. Sometimes I get so mad that I pull out my dusty old soapbox and rant at my wife for an hour. She is very patient. How can I move forward?

I sense that this recession and this austerity will last well into my middle age. We will be hard pressed to afford the two kids, two cars and three bedrooms of our parents generation, hell we'll be lucky if we can afford to have any children at all.

I could weep.

I would love to become an MP. I feel like I could do a better job. I feel like I would use my expenses fairly and that I could live on £60,000/year without needing to charge the taxpayer for my lunch. I feel like I could create laws which force companies to pay their way. I feel like I would be able to make work pay without hurting our oldest, youngest, poorest... our most vulnerable.

Sometimes I feel so frustrated that my brain starts to leak out of my ears.

It's easy to look back with rose tinted glasses, but I remember my childhood in intimate detail. I remember walking down high streets with independent shops taking up every window, not boarded up buildings. I remember the sense of community following the Manchester Bomb, not discord, scowls and divide and rule splitting society. I remember spending Saturday nights watching family friendly television shows, not lowest common denominator titillation.

We're now a country which feeds its children chocolate for breakfast and then wonders why they weigh as many stones as their age. A first world country which throws away tonnes of food every year and yet needs a growing network of food banks to feed its children. A country where the only shops thriving on the high street are pawn brokers, payday lenders and bookies.

Can anybody give me any ideas about how we can fix things? Is it even possible? We can't go backwards. I can't go backwards. How would I cope without my dozens of channels with nothing on, without my unrestricted internet access and my 24 hour mobile connectivity? I never leave the flat without my mobile. I even watch television on my Kindle in the bath. Is it any wonder I spend my evenings with my shiny distractions? I am newly Civil Partnered and incredibly happy with my life and my wife, but I can't help looking around me at the shattered remains of a once beautiful, active, healthy, community driven country.

How can we stand up for ourselves when our leaders are happily watching the country fall to pieces?

Answers on a postcard...

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way Home From New Years

I feel the need to preface this with a disclaimer and statement...
1) I am rather tipsy at this point, so there is every chance that the story will be funnier to me than to you...
2) I am the most tolerant, open minded and liberal individual you are likely to meet (I'm a black lesbian with mental health issues currently wearing a beard for goodness sake)

So, there we were on the night bus (£5.00 no passes - thanks First, really glad that I pay £800.00/ year!) I had just finished half a bottle of wine and a Jeremiah Weed... I was a little tipsy. A seemingly nice gentleman got in the bus, followed by two gays and two lesbians. The most important part of this story is that there was a mixed race guy on the back seat... this is VERY relevant!

We got into a conversation with the gay guys about our wedding and CP/Marriage Laws (they've been CP'd since 2001) when suddenly I hear the guy behind me going what I'd call apeshit because one of the other girls on the bus had asked if he was Jewish. Now I do have a problem with this. If somebody assumed I was Jewish, or assumed I wasn't, I would just let them know you are wrong, actually this is the case. But this guy went utterly "sick" as my young cousin might say.
"You can't go around asking people questions like that..." my interest was peaked... Why not?

I'll skip forward slightly as the story is muddled in my head, but somewhere along the line, one of the gay guys points to the back of the bus and says "There's a black guy on the back of the bus, well, black or asian". I giggled and responded, "There is definitely an afro coming in there, he's black." Nickie blushed, the guy laughed and was not in any way offended.

The first man who had been asked if he was Jewish somehow totally misconstrued the situation (possibly drink related). The next ten minutes of the journey consisted of him saying - verbatim "YOU JUST TOLD ME I SHOULD SIT AT THE BACK OF THE BUS BECAUSE I'M JEWISH? YOU ARE SICK". I interjected (Nickie told me to shut up because I think she sensed trouble afoot) "No, I think you've misunderstood that..." "I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT YOU WOULD SAY THAT, YOU CAN'T SAY THAT". Meanwhile the gay guy is trying to explain "No, there's a black guy, at the back of the bus". I'm not sure if the issue was with the phrase "The Back of The Bus", perhaps if he'd said "On The Back Seat" it would have been different... but all I could think was, in another parallel universe, that black guy is sitting on the front seat, and none of this exchange has taken place... I couldn't help but laugh at that though, how utterly muddled things can get because of words and connotations and assumptions.

The guy then started going on about how you can't ask someone what their ethnicity is, you can't call somebody black. I turned to the man and said, "Since when is the word black a racial slur?" He was kinda stunned into silence. I then said "If somebody assumed I was black or asian, or a christian or not a christian, it wouldn't bother me. None of those things are offensive. In fact, I've been called gay, lesbian, dyke since I was 17, I am proud to be black, gay and a christian so I don't see those words as offensive."

"I don't practice the Jewish religion." He whispered.
"Sorry?" I said.
"I don't practice the Jewish religion." A little louder this time.

The bus stopped, I wished them all a Happy New Year and thanked them for a fun ride and apologised to the bus driver.

"I'm not a practicing heterosexual" I thought, "but it wouldn't offend me to be asked if I was one..."

A Very Special Birthday...

Thanks to the lovely folk at "Broken of Britain" and a severe inability to sleep due to money worries, I have discovered that it has been exactly five years since the beginning of the Credit Crunch. And where are we?

Pay freezes which have lasted 4 years (and are essentially pay cuts when you account for inflation), spiralling debts (and that's just the government), increases in electricity, gas, transport, car insurance, car tax, food, water rates, Council Tax. And that is only the half of it. Here, The Guardian details where the 25 most influential people of the financial crisis are today. From politicians who ignored the problem, to speculators and bank bosses who caused the problem, to CEOs of mortgage firms who loaned to Ninjas (that's No Income No Job ApplicantS). And where are they? A few notable mentions are "Hank" Greenberg of AIG who is now advising the Ultra Wealthy on how to invest. Fred "the Shred" who is leading a quiet and comfortable life in Scotland, Former Bradford and Bingley Boss Steve Crawshaw who has a pension worth £105,000/year.

It is unlikely that any of these people will be truly punished for their misdeeds. Those who stood by and  knowingly allowed toxic bonds to be sold willy nilly across the globe won't face jail. Even the "Sub-Prime Specialists" of Bear Stearns paid a fine of just $1.05 million on losses of $1.6 billion.

Last month I threw caution to the wind and decided to go on holiday. It is a luxury, but one that we carefully thought about. Our last holiday was blighted by my injury, and with my depression worsening, we decided that we should take the opportunity to spend two weeks in the sun. Now my lovely bank has charged me £16.00 which took me over my overdraft. They then proceeded to charge me £22.00 for going over my overdraft. My Car Financing company ignored my request to change my payment date, and so now I don't know if I'll manage my finances over the next four weeks. I mention the holiday because I don't want any reader to think that we are destitute. I often feel guilty when I complain about my abysmal finances because there are plenty of people far worse off than me, I am one of the lucky ones. How come I feel guilty and yet those who caused the recession seem to be immune to this basic human emotion?

I have said it before and I will say it again, although I despise the actions of the bankers, I don't blame them - in the same way that I don't blame the dog that shits on the pavement outside the flat. (Yes, in this analogy, the bankers are the dogs and the government are the owners). New Labour promised, amongst other things - "New Labour", "getting 250,000 unemployed 16-25 year olds off benefits and into work", a commitment to "education, education, education"  and crucially "No More Boom and Bust". What did we get instead? Blue Labour, the highest levels of unemployment in decades, privatised Comprehensive schools with Academy titles... and of course a Boom in public spending with Quangos galore, followed by the Bust of the longest, deepest, double dipping-est recession the country has ever seen.

After D-Day, Britain was decimated. Some 800,000 soldiers, mostly men of working age, were dead, disfigured or missing in action. How did we managed to rebuild our cities, get out of rationing and "Keep Calm and Carry On" from 1945-1955? Our leaders were men of action. Firstly under Clement Attlee's labour government, then under Churchill's Conservative, Britain became Great again. The NHS was created offering non-descriminatory healthcare, free for all at the point of delivery, the Welfare State offering William Beveridge's "Cradle to Grave" support system was set into motion and the damage of done by WWII was fixed. Across major UK cities, slums were cleared and new innovative housing was built. By the time Harold Macmillan was appointed in 1957, Britain was in a Golden Age.

So what went so wrong in the intervening years? How come 60 years later, even with the advances in technology and the explosion in wealth and longevity we are now in worse financial shape than after the war? Could it be that we spent £11 Billion on hosting the Olympic Games (Spectacularly I might add) rather than a paltry £750,000 in 1948 (That's 0.7% of 2012 GDP vs 0.01% of 1948 GDP for anyone who wants to throw inflation into the mix, according to the Guardian) The 1948 games delivered a profit of £30,000 and actually cost the taxpayer nothing and the government did everything they could to keep costs down. They had to, the country, in fact most of the world was broke. Cut to 2012 and the Games are set to cost the tax payer four times as much as the original estimates. To put it in perspective, Manchester's 2002 Commonwealth Games cost £300 Million and hosted 71 nations. London's 2012 Olympics will cost £11 Billion and is hosting 204 nations - that seems like quite the disparity to me...

Our government seems intent on spending indiscriminately whilst cutting almost equally indiscriminately. Our wonderful, unique NHS must do more, with less, every year. Our schools are being farmed out to the highest bidder - will there soon be an IBM High or a Syco Academy of Music? We are being robbed blind with one hand, whilst with the other, Dave and his cronies give tax-breaks to millionaires who earn their money here and spend it abroad. Our legal aid system is rife with abuse, as is our welfare system, but instead of making life better for people who choose to work, they simply make it worse, both for those who do work AND for those who don't. I am sure we will see these people, forced off benefits getting legal aid to take the DWP to court under the Human Rights Act in the next few years, and they will win and they should. For to take from those whom have little or nothing to give to those who are (in some cases) obscenely wealthy is surely one of the grossest human rights abuses of the modern age. People are literally killing themselves (that's 3 different articles) because they cannot afford to live a decent life.

I kind of hope that this little blog might go viral. I'm one tiny voice, unable to cope amongst with the financial demands of living in 2012. But I'm sure, I'm positive that your tiny voice is saying the same thing. In pubs and cafes across the country. In sitting rooms, around kitchen tables, in double beds between couples. In hospitals, in schools and in workplaces across the country, we are all saying the same thing. If only we could join up those voices, maybe then we might be heard.

*Update (thanks Historic Inflation Counter - £700,000 in 1948 would equate to £21,530,000.00 today)

Libor Libor Pants on Fire

Mac's take on Barclays (From The Daily Mail)

Credit is like a drug. In fact, it's like a few drugs.

You start with something soft, like an overdraft, interest free for the duration of your student years. Then you move onto a credit card, the thrill of spending money that isn't yours on the never-never too tempting to pass up. Then a consolidation loan, just enough to free up some cash month to month. Next you get a Mortgage, it's worth it, you've got a house and one day it might make you a profit! Finally there's equity release, not a loan so much as a way to decimate the lovely profit that your house has just made.

You might as well be sat in a gutter, belt around your forearm trying to find a vein - please, just one more hit, one more grand, one more loan. And that's when the real pushers come in. Wonga.com and their ilk have become the loan sharks of the 2010s. There was a time when anything more than 30%APR was considered extortionate, now when you look at those ads, you see upwards of 1000%APR justified by the fact that "these loans are not a long term solution". Try telling that to the single Mum who is now paying half her weekly wage to one of these companies trying to play catch up.

So finding out that Barclays traders had been fixing interest rates didn't surprise me. It annoyed me, but it didn't surprise me. It made me feel physically sick with rage, but it didn't surprise me. Essentially it's like finding out your drug dealer has been in cahoots with the other drug dealers in the area and has kept the price of your crack artificially high. Yes, I just compared bankers to drug dealers, which is frankly offensive to drug dealers - at least they're honest about the work they do!

I feel so angry and helpless, and it has left me asking the question, how the hell did this happen? It started in 2005 when traders from several banks began fixing the LIBOR rates (London Interbanking Offer Rate) artificially high. This meant that when the banks loaned each other money, they could rake in huge profits. This went on throughout 2006, 2007 and 2008 and during the global recession when the purpose of fixing the rates was to deceive the world at large that they were doing better than they were.

Now obviously, I've been writing a lot about this, but there is a reason. I feel personally aggrieved by the behaviour of one particular bank - Barclays. At the same time as Barclays were raking in the profits through lying and scheming, they were also telephoning me between 3 and 4 times every day demanding that I paid them £300.00/month to repay my overdraft in the shortest possible time. I couldn't afford to do this, it was a large overdraft accrued during my time at University and in the end my father took out a loan that I repaid in order to get them off my back. It makes me feel physically sick that at a time when I was financially vulnerable, they were threatening me with court action and bailiffs requesting more than a 3rd of my monthly earnings, whilst defrauding the Bank of England, the British Tax Payers and of course their customers.

So is it time to say NO to the banks?

We are all so blinded by this perceived need to put our money in the hands of the banks that we can't imagine there is another option. My reason for staying with Barclays is simple, like an unfortunate divorcee, there's a lot of debt, all in my name, which has to be cleared before I can be rid of them. I've got an overdraft and a loan and so for the next 5 years (or less with a lotto win), I'll be tied to the bank.

I keep having this fantasy, a daydream of sorts in which I win the lottery - a big win. For most people they'd be dreaming about telling their boss where to stick their job... Not me! My fantasy has my bank manager calling me up personally to discuss my options and me uttering a string of expletives and then putting the money into my local credit union.

So what to do? I feel as though I'm in limbo. A curious mixture of abject fury and helplessness, I am just one person. How can I take on the banks? The reality is, I can't. My fury will remain, quietly poking me stomach lining until I get an ulcer and tapping away at my brain tissue. I am so angry I'm struggling to sleep and although that seems ridiculous, my righteous indignation has suffered a hit (if you don't know that's a Captain Bucky O'Hare reference, you're either too old or too young!). I worry so much for my entire generation, and the next, as it will be us who clean up after today's leaders. We're unlikely to get on the property ladder, we can't afford to insure our cars or have children or take holidays without almost impossible savings.

I'll let you in on a little secret. I have SUCH a desire to protest, march, make my voice heard. But there is that fear that my participation would lead to my arrest and ruin a possible future as a teacher. So how about a peaceful protest to begin with? How about joining a Facebook Group... may I suggest Topple The Banks? A civil forum for organised discussion. Somebody needs to fix this, and we can't rely on Cameron, Clegg or Milliband. They are more interested squabbling amongst themselves (Seriously, have you every watched Prime Ministers Question Time? It's like a school yard!) Could we be the first serious political party created on Facebook? Why not? We can't do much worse than the current lot...