God Bless Us Every One!

I don't normally go into political shiz; I think all political parties are full of it and until people realise that just voting and then grumbling isn't actually a solution, not much is going to change. But a post over at Sue Marsh's Blog "God Bless Us Every One" and the whole Xmess thing got me seething. See, apparently in addition to all the cuts we dug up, there's a few more that we didn't know about. Apparently there are stealth cuts of Tax Credits which could see me about -£4,000 worse off. Great. So in addition to all the other screwing over I'm getting in the next year, it's going to be even worse. WTF?! What Big Society? What Happy Holidays?

Of course, the usual Tory-it's-your-own-fault-you're-poor person had to come up on Sue's blog and make a snippy comment about those poor unwashed "demanding" State money. How dare we? Indeed - Christmas is an extravagance! Reserved only for those who can spend it, the rest of us should eat gruel, after all The Taxpayer is the True Citizen, and anyone else is the dregs.

With this moment of Scrooge rearing up, the whole "God Bless Us Every One" sort of Pollyanna attitude of Tiny Tim that it seems we're supposed to show for any scrap of "charity" given our way grated. So, I had a rather vitriolic attack of writer-imagination to spin out the Christmas Carol for our Modern Times.

Here we have the Coalition, grimly spouting that we are all in this together and we may as well buck up and accept our cuts; if we're complaining of sitting in our own filth at night or losing our care plans or our DLA, we should just carry on like the patriotic citizens we are (we ARE all British, right? None of those unsavoury 'foreigners' correct?). Cameron goes to bed in his refurbished No 10 which cost more to change the colour of the kitchen than I'll ever see in a year, Clegg brushes his teeth and gets dressed not looking in the mirror if he can help it (mirrors make him uncomfortable these days but he doesn't understand why), visions of how grateful their bank buddies are for the bonuses that will be untouched dancing in the heads.

And then, a noise, a clang, a moan and groan - they awaken with horrified eyes and see Maggie Thatcher, her eyes ghostly and haunted, a shade bound with papier mache chains - Daily Mail, Sun, speeches she made during the 80's all bound round and round her form. "Repent! Beware! See what damage my words have done."

"I don't believe it!" cries the Coalition. "You're just a fragment of the failing Euro! It was Labour's fault! Foreigners have ruined our economy! And the banks needed bailing out anyway - begone, shade!"

Maggie roars and rattles her chains - chains that should burst; they're just paper, just words, but words can be stronger than steel, and they can never be banished once spoken. "Three spirits will visit you this night, let's see if you are so quick to blame others for the faults of yourself."

And through the uneasy night, the Coalition heads wait - suddenly the expensive houses and suits and public education isn't worth much as it won't save them, and won't spare them.

The Ghost of Life Before the Welfare System comes forth - a dowdy, weary looking woman who is maybe all of 60, but looks 80 after all the years of hard work and childbearing. In her arms is a newborn babe that looks asleep, but isn't - many children never made it to their first birthday. And behind her, a sea of people with eyes as black as night from edge to edge; the crippled locked in attics to hide their shame, the girls who were institutionalised for being pregnant from abuse or rape or for actually believing when they were told they were loved, the men who came back from WW1 haunted and broken before there was a word called PSTD, the suicides, the consumptives, the children who died in prison or workhouses. "This past is not so distant," says the Ghost is a wheezy whisper. "Your grandparents remember it, they have told you it was not a good time. And here we visit you again. Your past will be your future."

Shaken, but undeterred - after all, Cameron and Clegg are hale and hearty, have insurance and private doctors - they try and gain more sleep, but there is a shuffling on the floorboards and opening their eyes they are greeted by hollow masses; The Ghost of Modern Cuts approaches, his wrists dripping blood and a noose round his neck, holding a brown envelope; the envelope that told him his DLA was being revoked. Strangely enough, he LOOKS fine but for the blood dripping upon the boards, but he holds his body at an awkward angle and his joints creak. "I am the Ghost of Modern Cuts," the man murmurs. "Look at me...doesn't look as if there is anything wrong with me? That was why the decision was made, but look!" He opens his eyes wide, which are yellow with jaundice, and as he tries to take a step forward, his hips pop with a hideous snap and he crumples, both legs pointing in impossible positions. "Brittle bones and kidneys failing....but you found me fit for work. Think I am the only one? We are the "most vulnerable" that were never protected, for all your assurances." The very walls fade and there is a crowd of people, some with wheelchairs and some without, some looking mere skin and bones, and others who seemed in the prime of health but their eyes were wild and their hands shook. Some alive, some dead - and who can say which was worse; every one held a brown envelope or a slip of paper, sent out enmasse to end their lives as they knew it. They starve, they ramble the streets having no homes to go to. The charities and organisations which might have helped them were dissolved and there was nothing left but a slow fade, or the final release. It was a release they chose with pills or petrol or a razorblade.

Un-nerved now, the Good Ol' Boys forego sleep and go to the fumed-oak liquor cabinet - maybe a drink to settle the nerves. Or two. Or three. Mustn't overdo, of course...because alcoholism is a demon just as disabled are and there will be no sympathy. But as Clegg, Cameron, Osborne, Pickles, Smith...one and all try to move forward to take a step away from their nightmare, they find that they cannot. Their limbs won't move, lying as dead weight upon the mattress. Tingling pain that they cannot ease, barely able to raise their heads. Or perhaps Freud, Miller or Dorries find themselves missing details in the day - dementia creeping up on them and burning out their memories. One's personal hell inside one's own skull. The Ghost of the Future has no face, has no name, has no form - it doesn't need one. It's too inevitable, too unavoidable, merely a whisper in the mind. "I come everyone eventually - no one escapes me, even if I take you suddenly, I will strike your family in their mourning. Watch as your friends abandon you as they can no longer relate to you, be reliant upon another whether you wish it or not - and be at their mercy if they aren't as honourable as they seem." Reviling in the street, physical and verbal attacks by the Honourable Taxpayer, whipped into a frenzy by scrounger rhetoric. Suddenly the private health care doesn't cover you due to a clause and one must rely upon services which are no longer there due to privatisation. A GP that may want to help but is to pushed for time and has no idea what is even wrong with you says helpfully, "Well the good news is you've got a long life ahead of you!" But this isn't a reassurance...it sounds instead like a sentence. A decade, or two...of this?! Suddenly oblivion seems a mercy.

Now of course, if this were just a really good story, the Coalition would have awakened yesterday and patted down its limbs, nearly hysterical in relief. "I'm able! I'm whole! I've had a change of heart - it doesn't MATTER whose fault the past was, the present is something I can change! Oh, sod it, I can do without several million in the bank I cannot possibly spend in my lifetime!! So...so, here, have some! We'll redistribute it, we'll find a way to make it work. God Bless Us, Every One!"

But...it hasn't happened, had it? At least, the bit about the change of heart. The Ghosts? They exist. Every single one of them. The Ghost of Your Future is waiting.