It takes a nation of homeowners to hold us back

I have a deep sense of foreboding about this government. I didn't vote for them, fairly obviously, but I don't believe that the people who did vote for them are getting what they voted for, especially the ones who put the tick in the orange box. Instead they are getting to witness the taking of a battering ram to the public sector - up to and including the NHS and the BBC. And like Humpty Dumpty, once it falls off the wall, that's it, we've had it, we are living in America.

It's being sold as inevitable, on the grounds that the last government broke the economy.

I believe this is bullshit on both counts. It's not inevitable, and it wasn't the government that broke the economy, it was the unregulated hyper-capitalist banking system. No. This a concerted attack on local government, the post-war welfare state and anything funded with public money.

The private sector can do it better, they argue, and if the private sector can't do it better we shouldn't be doing it at all. I don't agree. As my friend Dr A put it recently, it's "more about the ideology of a smaller state than the economics of a smaller deficit".

For the middle classes, things may get tighter, but relatively few things will break (though, with luck, Cath Kidston's bottom line might suffer a bit). It's the breadline workers and those reliant on benefits (who are often the same people, or in the same households) whose coping strategies will fail. I'd recommend Polly Toynbee's Hard Work, a book which paints a bleak picture of life in low-pay Britain. And that was under a Labour government who invested in improvements to social housing and introduced a minimum wage.

Some of the people she worked with are dinner ladies and hospital porters, who were once public sector employees. These jobs still have to be done (at least while we still believe we should feed schoolchildren and wheel people round hospitals) but they are now done by agency staff who are worse paid, unrepresented, and have minimal job security.

There's money being made, tons of it, but it's not going into their pockets. The private companies which took over these contracts, and will take over many more essential services, are constituted to make money for their shareholders. They will pay as little as they can get away with, and cut whatever corners can be cut, in order to maximise their profits. That's what private service provision companies do. That's what they have to do. CSR only comes into it if someone with a spreadsheet has worked out that it's a money-spinner. They would pay less than the minimum wage if there wasn't a law against it.

This is what we will see more of. Less accountability, worse services, and more money in fewer pockets. Depend on it.

I do think it was time for a change of leadership, and I also think there are policy areas where reform is much needed. Too much time at the top is bad for anyone, and even the most faithful had lost their faith in shiny Tony (and isn't he looking old these days?) and dull Gordon. I wasn't one of the most faithful - I have never been a member of any political party - but I believed, at the beginning, in the New Labour project, and only later wondered exactly what it was which was sold down the river in the name of electability. The public gets what the public wants, until there's a Global Financial Meltdown, and that's part of the problem.

Ultimately, I wish, as a nation, we were braver. I wish we were genuinely prepared to throw our private hat collections in a communal ring, and could do so with the confidence that our freely-elected milliners were the best they could be. Sadly, this is not the case. They say we get the government we deserve, and sometimes I think they might be right.

I am thinking radical thoughts. It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it.

joella

The road that takes you to the places where all the things meet, yeah

I get an email which invites me to a local event with "family activities". It ends "volunteers are needed to help – making cakes or preserves in advance, or helping on the day".

Um... no. The last local event I was invited to happened directly outside my house. It was fun in many ways, but blighted by (let's call him) W, a man who had drunk so much red wine that his mouth resembled a black cave of horror. M was providing the music for the event, and I was very glad that this was controlled a) largely by a prepared-earlier playlist and b) from upstairs, as after a certain point in the evening, whenever the track changed W would shout 'this is shit!'. When something came on that he did like, he would lurch to the amp, on our front path, and try to turn it up to 11 so "everyone" could dance. My job - which I took upon myself, but someone clearly had to do it - was to deflect him from this mission for long enough for him to forget about it. A couple of times this involved physically pushing him out of my front gate.

Later, he came over to me, and told me I was giving him 'a look'. I'm sorry, I said truthfully. You are pissing me off, but I really was trying to keep my face neutral. Ah, he said, but the more you glare at me, the more I want to impress you.

What larks.

At such moments, I also remember the time X years ago, when one of M's chilblains got (temporarily, as it turned out, in the best Blackpool tradition) engaged. There was a party. It was 17 shades of uncomfortable. And several days beforehand there was an awkward phonecall, where it was suggested to M that I might "like to do the vegetarian food".

Um, no, I said. I cannot think of anything I would like to do less.

And I didn't do it, a fact of which I am now rather proud. I did turn up, but I was somewhat dissolute. Like the monasteries.

All the above sometimes leads me to fear that I am not a communal person, not willing to do my bit, etc, whereas generally I think it's fair to conclude that I'm actually dangerously sane, believing as I do that nobody wants to bake cakes, that men like W should be confined in the nearest cellar till they no longer pose a public nuisance, and that engagement parties are a crime against humanity.

But the sometimes bit twinges, so I was very happy today to be part of a plan to have a Reunion Picnic. It is 10 years (give or take) since I spent a year (give or take) working on the smallish but perfectly formed Millennium Project which was my entry into NGO X. Of the seven other people (plus one husband and one son) present, I still see two regularly and one occasionally, but I was mildly and pleasantly surprised to discover how easy it was to lie on a blanket by the river and laugh with all the others as well. There was no plan as such - beyond two of us bringing blankets and several of us knowing how to find the river - but delegations were formed, roles were assigned and a perfectly serviceable picnic was purchased, consumed and later disposed of in an environmentally friendly fashion.

I conclude that I can do community, as long as it isn't compulsory, and you get to take a packet of leftover cheese and onion sausage-style rolls home afterwards.

joella