Learn to... be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not. ~Henri Frederic Amiel

I know I keep banging on about change but –

Once upon a time I worked in an amazing place doing the best job in the world. Not content with that I decided to ‘improve’ myself. The result of that improvement meant I was able to leave the job I loved in order to do jobs I was now ‘qualified’ for. Subsequently I have spent the last 5 years doing jobs that, although useful, drain my soul and provide very few rewards apart from financial. And we all know what they say about money not being everything.

The last 5 years have certainly been interesting. I have been given opportunities to learn new skills, meet new people and gain new experiences. But without realising it I became used to doing without the things that really matter to me. When this realisation dawns you start to miss something you didn’t even notice you not longer had.

Human Beings are amazingly adaptable and we are surprisingly able to deal with the impermanence that underpins our life. For most of us things are constantly changing. These changes may be so small we don’t notice them or so big we think we will never adapt to our new way of living. When the ‘cuts’ hit us and we all tighten our belts we will miss the things we used to be able to afford and we will learn to do without them. When we are bereaved we learn to live with the loss of a loved one because, well, life goes on doesn’t it? People whose health fail get used to dealing with their sick bodies, people horribly injured in accidents even get used to living in bodies that are maimed and torn. We get used to making new friends and losing touch with old ones. We accept as normal that our lives move from one stage to another, from babyhood, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, middle age, old age and we face the challenges each stage provide, and we deal with the changes they bring. Question: What stage is the bit between 50 and 70? It can’t be claimed to be middle age, nor is it old age. It’s like a pre old age and is the time when we can start to be more giving, caring and, contradictorily, more selfish. It is a time when perhaps work has taken a back seat and the luxury of time can be enjoyed. For others it may be the stage of life when risks no longer carry the fears they used to and we develop a ‘nothing ventured nothing gained’ attitude. But it is the intangible changes that catch us unaware and are therefore the most shocking. How did I not notice that I was being starved of something precious?

Bring on the big changes. I can deal with them. They are subconsciously prepared for. I know my parents are likely to die before me. I know that my body will weaken and one day I will be old. Really old, not just 50 and feeling old. We all know that things like illness, bereavement, and heartbreak may be waiting for us. Its the price we pay for having vulnerable bodies and open hearts. We may lose our job, our identity and our mojo. To quote a cliche 'shit happens'. It may be a stereotypical observation but as time passes widows get used to laying the table for one less, or not shopping for their husbands favourite foods, widowers get used to finding their own matching socks and people who lose their jobs get used to, when they are wakened by a shrill alarm at 6am, not wearily having to turn over to put their alarms on snooze because they don’t have a job to rush off to anymore. People who are seriously ill get used to the limitations of their physical self, they can even be accepting of feeling sick, tired and helpless. Parents get used to the empty nest when their children leave home and many are getting used to a full nest again as their off spring return to the family home after years away at university or when their relationships break up. We get used to our bodies changing as they age, and even our opinions and beliefs can change as we become more experienced and interested in new ways of living or in thinking about things. We dream of positive changes, winning the lottery, getting the perfect job, having a book published, falling in love. Like I said bring it on.

Its the unexpected, undetected changes that are the most scary and damaging to the soul. Yesterday I was struck by a change so subtle that when I was reminded of how things used to be, and given a taste of the past, I felt quenched. Just like a plant left for days out in the hot, hot sun, until the earth around it becomes parched and dry, its roots constricted and dying, the leaves slowly drooping and the flowers fading and losing any vibrancy they once had. I was suddenly given relief in the drip, drip, drip of cool clear water that eventually became a waterfall. This is how I used to spend my days...these are the things I used to care about, enjoy discussing, crave learning more about. These are the thinkers and doers I want to spend time with. This is what makes me glow and flourish. This is what I am good at. Having spent 5 years away from what I love doing it was heaven to be back in that field and partaking in stuff that really matters. Any fears that I had about changing jobs vanished and I can look forward to the next few months exploring what I can do and deciding what I should be doing.

What brought about this 'awakening'? Something dramatic? Earth shattering? Of course not, it was just the sequence of events that made me feel I was on the road to my 'spiritual home'. It started, I think, with a series of events I organised which made me realise how much I miss working directly with children. I then visited my grandsons school on Friday to meet his Reception teacher and see his classroom ready for when he starts school in September. He is so lucky to be going to a school which is newly build, well resourced, with the outside space utilised and as important as the inside space, with the emphasis on exploration and freedom to learn, with staff that seem totally committed and child centered, with classrooms that were hives of activity and for me, pure delight that the children call their teachers by their first names and the staff are committed to, and celebrate the value of, 'family service' at meal times. It was like 'coming home'.

Then yesterday, at training for my new job, reviewing a DVD made by professionals and practitioners seriously committed to the social and emotional development of children, listening to their observations and suggestions was like the spark that made me realise. I have been in the desert for far too long.

Ali McClure the author of ‘Making It Better for Boys in Schools, Families and Communities’ was the guest speaker at the training and she is really very good. Not only does she know what she is talking about she shares her knowledge and expertise is a interesting and enjoyable manner and it was wonderful hearing about all the things I care about and believe in, hearing them discussed and valued by the team I will be working in and seeing the enthusiasm from all the practitioners that were part of the audience. It took me back to the enriching experiences I had in my earlier career and I am so looking forward to working in that type of environment again. It seems I had spent so much time contemplating the big changes in my life over the last 5 years that I didn’t notice the ones that have changed who I am and what I do. I do not kid myself that I can go back. That I can recapture the care free days of being useful and enjoying myself immensely. Not now I have 'bettered myself'. I have changed. I no longer seem to fit in to the role I used to have, and despite my tendency to romance about how it was, it would no longer be enough for me. But that does not mean I still can't be useful, just in a different way. I am going home yes, but to a different home. Who wants to live happily ever after? What does that mean? How does it look? For me it will be enough to, like the wise man Tony Adams, 'to try to live usefully and walk humbly'.

Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness ~Seneca

An email popped into my inbox several weeks ago suggesting that I apply for a place on a weekend retreat being offered by the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University. After checking out the venue on their website, and being suitably impressed by the beautiful house, tranquil gardens and riverside location, I sent off an application form and a few days later I received confirmation I was allocated a place - so despite the retreat being for stressed, overworked social workers - they let me sneak in.

I then promptly forgot all about it and before I knew it the day arrived for me to pack my bag and drive up to Oxfordshire for a weekend of relaxation and silence…or so I thought.

A Journal 10/06/10 – 13/06/10

Thursday 10th June

Why oh why oh why?

What on earth has processed me apply for this? I remember the email arriving and then taking 5 minutes to fill in the application form and sending it straight off to the BKWSU and then forgetting all about it. I also remember feeling vaguely pleased to be accepted. Then nothing….until on Monday I realised this was the week. This was the week I was going off to a strange place, alone, knowing no one, cut off from my family, my friends, my lap top, my phone, the telly. I had further investigated the background of the BKWSU and although I was impressed that the founder, Baba, was a very successful business man who, on reaching the age of 60, retired and started a new life as a Spiritual Leader. Like you do. I was worried about some of his ideas, celibacy for instance, even between a married couple, and the fact that he had visions concerned me (visions are usually a bad sign) although they apparently stopped after a while. But he had championed women in a culture and society which kept women in the background and today, decades later, the organisation is still run mainly by women. I toyed with the idea of dropping out, but knowing it was over subscribed and being very keen to learn more about the theme of the weekend, ‘The Kindness Factor and Meditation’, I thought ‘what the hell, what’s the worse that could happen?’ So I’m going.

Friday 11th June

Om Shanti



The drive up here was surprisingly straightforward. The weather was fine and sunny and, apart from a suspected WW2 bomb being discovered on route (which turned out to be an innocent non exploding pipe) and several roads being closed until they discovered that fact, I arrived at around 6pm. The drive to the house from the village, along a narrow, winding county road was a long one. It seemed much longer than the mile the directions gave but I was pleased to catch a glimpse of a huge rabbit. I think it was a hare actually but how can you tell? If it was a hare it was the first I’ve ever seen. Finally arriving at the house I was warmly greeted and taken straight up to my room. The staircase leading up to my room was carpeted in a rich blue carpet, so deep it made your footsteps bounce. The staircase is known as a ‘flying staircase’ because it spirals its way up to the top of the house without any visible means of support. At the door of ‘my’ room it becomes apparent, by the shoes outside, that it isn’t to be ‘my’ room but ‘our’ room. Yes…I am sharing with 2 strangers, 1 of which is already sitting nervously on her bed. My ‘guide’ introduces us and, after putting down my bag my new roomie and I are taken down ‘Silent Reflection to slides and music’. What the fuck?



Pretty close up pictures of flowers and trees and grass. Background music. Help.

My new roomie is called V and it transpires she works for the same organisation as I do, although our paths have never crossed. V is about my age and she seems very nice. We have a lovely vegetarian meal, prepared with produce grown in the vegetable gardens and ‘lovingly prepared by our volunteers’. It certainly tasted as if it had been. After the meal we had a welcome meeting and the facilitators all seem ok….not at all cultish. I am determined not to be brainwashed. That would not be good.

The 3rd roomie came up way after bedtime (10.30pm) and it is really weird meeting someone for the first time whilst you are sitting up in bed reading. Val and I, old friends by now, do our best to make her feel welcome but it obvious she (A) is tired and keen to go to sleep. It seems A has arrived by train and bus. The bus had deposited her in the nearest village and A had walked the long and winding road to the house. Before falling asleep she mumbled ‘some man drove by and offered me a lift and I was tempted…then I remembered the prostitutes who were recently murdered in Yorkshire so I said no. Night all’

‘Om Shanti’ V and I said with a wink.

Saturday 12th June

'Look into my eyes'

There was a choice between Meditation and Meditation and Music at 7.30am and opting for the one with music I took my place in a huge airy room with panoramic views of the surrounding countryside. As does my room. My room is simply but tastefully furnished, has a double aspect and the bed is very comfortable. After a good nights sleep I am keen to get started and the meditation and music class does not disappoint. The facilitator, D, is a Japanese man of, I suppose, around 60. He may have been older. Or younger. It is hard to tell. D has the happiest face I have ever seen. He moved playfully and gracefully and we danced and skipped across the room, we stood still, we twisted and stretched and had the best time ever! D, dressed in silky pyjamas, talked to us, made us laugh and lifted our mood. We all floated down to breakfast.

At breakfast V and I got into conversation with two ladies who work together in Kent. M and J, again women in their 50s, told us they had been talked into attending by their manager and had been under the impression it was going to be like a weekend in a health farm with facials and saunas and massages. Boy, are they in for a surprise.

It’s funny the way groups form. V, J, M and I naturally fit together and we went along to the first talk….’The Inside Story’ given by Dr Sarah Eagger.

Dr Sarah Eagger is Chair of the Special Interest Group in Spirituality and Psychiatry at the Royal College of Psychiatrists. She is the medical advisor to the Janki Foundation, promoting a worldwide values-based approach to healthcare. Dr Eagger gave a very worthwhile, interesting presentation and followed it up by leading a wonderful meditation session. Not surprising as she has produced a CD ‘Introducing Meditation for Peace of Mind’. Must send my sister a copy.

After a break for coffee we went off to various interactive ‘Reconnecting with Kindness’ workshops were I was paired up with a guy called T. T is the only man on the retreat and, like me, he has an interest in Buddhism. Unlike me T is loud and confident and he more or less ended up leading the group. Which wasn’t a bad thing…he said lots of sensible stuff. We had to pick a card randomly from a pack, without looking, choosing the one that drew us towards it. Tony drew ‘Confidence’. My card – ‘Detached’ - the equivalent to the Buddhist concept of non attachment- and it read 'Loving without clinging. Involved yet not dependant.’

After lunch we had free time so me and the girls decided to explore the grounds. We had to be careful to stay to the path as we made our way between the fields on the way down to the river. We had been warned about the grumpy old farmer. With ‘you will be OK if you stay on the path’ ringing in our ears we made our way down to the river….where we rehearsed our ‘act’ for this evenings entertainment.

In the information we had been sent the agenda mentioned that Saturday night was entertainment night. It also said ‘come prepared’. I wondered at the time what they meant and this afternoon, at coffee break, I found out. ‘P’, one of the facilitators come up to our table as we were finishing our homemade cookies and, with pencil poised over a sheet of paper, asked us what ‘act’ we were doing for tonight's entertainment. We all blushed, mumbled our apologies and admitted that we were a talentless bunch but we would make an appreciative audience. ‘OK, no pressure’ said P and off she went to the next table. ‘Phew, lucky escape’ someone said. ‘I know, I feel a bit guilty’ I said ‘I really can’t do anything. I can’t sing, dance or play an instrument.’ ‘Nope…us neither’. We all sat looking forlorn for a minute or two. Then I said – for some unknown reason – ‘we could do a comedy sketch’. Like what?’ J asked. ‘Oh I don’t know. Maybe we could pretend that I am an hypnotist and you three could be my ‘plants’ in the audience and I make suggestions and you act them out.’ Before I knew what was happening P was brought back to the table, my name went down on the list as ‘K – Hypnotist Extraordinaire’ and P was asking if we needed any props. Panicking I asked for a tambourine. As I said…what the fuck?

T joined us at lunch and we took him into our confidence about the act. We wanted to trick the audience into thinking it was a serious act to begin with and, after I had made my victims perform as certain farm animals, I was going to attempt a whole room ‘hypnotism’ and get everyone to sing the song ‘If You’re Happy and You Know It’ with a little re working of the lyrics to reflect the ‘Kindness Factor’ and to show our appreciation for the hospitality being extended to us, as by then, hopefully, the audience would be ‘in’ on our joke. T volunteered to become part of the act. He was worried his act, a rendition of Martin Luther Kings ‘I had a dream’ speech wasn’t going to show his comedic side. I could see his point. His idea was that I would call him up on stage and ask him if he knew any impressions. After insisting he didn’t I would look into his eyes, say the magic words and he would do his Frank Spencer impression, which was really very good. Then we would finish with the song. We agreed to do this but I was worried as we had no time to rehearse as we had to rush off to our various creative sessions immediately after lunch. I had put down for drama and it was led by an actress I recognise. I must Google her later as it is driving me mad trying to remember what she was in. It seemed rude to ask.

I found it hard to concentrate on the early evening session ‘The Power of Kindness’ as I was so worried about the bloody act. Having seen the room where it was to happen I was shocked to see a proper stage. And about a hundred bloody seats for the audience. I wanted to go home.

We were on second. The girls and T had spaced themselves out among the audience and I went up nervously when my name was called. Grabbing the tambourine I explained that hypnotism was a misunderstood skill and that I had developed an interest in it when I had used hypnotherapy to enable me to stop smoking. I said that contrary to popular opinion it wasn’t gullible people who made the best subjects of hypnotism but rather it was highly intelligent, strong willed people who found themselves easily put into very pleasant trances. So, I told them, tonight I knew, I was on to a winner. All these faces looked up at me and I could see that they had fell for it….hook, line and sinker! I then reassured them that I would not make anyone do anything embarrassing and they would not ‘come too’ to find themselves out on the lawn, naked, doing the Conga. I explained that when I banged my tambourine they would awake from the trance feeling refreshed - with no memory of what had happened. I then asked them to close their eyes and I did a bit of a meditation talk, asking them to imagine a field etc, until I had them become a cow. ‘Are there any cows in the house tonight? ‘MOOOO, MOOO, MOOO, mooed V, M and J. The audience, at first surprised, began to see the joke. I then described a chicken. ‘Are there any chicken in the house tonight? CLUCK, CLUCK CLUCK said lots of people….they ‘got it’! I then asked for a gentlemen volunteer and up sauntered T who then did a Frank Spencer that brought the house down. And everyone clapped thier hands, stamped their feet and shouted on cue when asked 'if you've had a great weekend shout I HAVE'. Seems I do have the power of suggestion after all! I have not laughed so much in ages.

A Trinidadian woman did a routine with drums, which drew on her upbringing in Trinidad, had me crying with laughter. The two main facilitators delivered jokes like this one:

Psychiatric helpline

If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.

If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2.

If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5, and 6.

If you are paranoid-delusional, we know who you are and what you want.
Just stay on the line so we can trace the call.

If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell
you which number to press.

If you are manic-depressive, it doesn't matter which number you press. No
one will answer.

In Ns deadpan brummie accent this was very funny. They told some great social worker jokes too:

‘A social worker is facing a mugger with a gun. “Your money or your life!” says the mugger. “I'm sorry,” the social worker answers, “I am a social worker, so I have no money and no life.”
‘Two social workers were walking through a rough part of the city in the evening. They heard moans and muted cries for help from a back lane. Upon investigation, they found a semi-conscious man in a pool of blood. “Help me, I've been mugged and viciously beaten,” he pleaded. The two social workers turned and walked away. One remarked to her colleague: “You know the person that did that really needs help”

There was also poetry readings, singing and dancing. And Ts ‘I had a dream’…which has got to be the best speech ever.

Back in our room A went straight to sleep. V and I listened to the owls and swatted mosquitoes until tiredness overtook us and we fell asleep. I’m in heaven.

Sunday 13th June

Don’t stray from the path

More Meditation with music and D. The man is amazing. They should make badges with his face on. It is the essence of happiness. After breakfast we had a talk from Dr Ruth Sewell ‘From the Inside Out’. Dr Sewell is an holistic psychotherapist and nurse who has specialises in the academic study and teaching of the Intergrated Healthcare and the research of women’s emotional responses to cancer treatment, particularly breast cancer. We learnt some relaxation techniques and breathing exercises. It was blissful. The final session followed this where we shared our thoughts and experience of the weekend and everyone used words like ‘reconnecting’ ‘essence’ ‘inner child’ ‘love’ ‘happiness’ and ‘enlightenment’. We all promised to be kinder to ourselves. Not indulgently but forgivingly. Everyone talked about the laughter. We all said it has been ages since we laughed with such gusto and abandonment. We all talked about the friends we had made. The connections we had made. The hugs we had shared.



I went for a final walk in the grounds so I could take some pictures. I saw another hare, yes, it is definitely a hare. I remember once being inexplicably thrilled to see a terrapin while out on a walk alongside a river. It was sitting on the riverbank basking in the sun. Enjoying the fine weather just like me. I had seen loads in tanks. But seeing one ‘in the wild’ is completely different. Seeing the hare, hearing the owls, eating food grown from the earth at my feet, made a connection for me. A connection a townie like me finds difficult to understand but certainly appreciates.

The BKWSU offered this weekend completely free of charge. It claims part of their role is to offer a helping hand to those who work on the front line, helping vulnerable families. The aim is to nourish the spirit and the body thus enabling them to continue to help others. They certainly did that. Without brainwashing me or even once mentioning the organisation behind the BKWSU.

Today I drove 3 ladies back to London, including the elusive A. ‘You know that man you said offered you a lift that first evening? Did you see him at the retreat?’ I asked her. A thought for a second or two, ‘no, I didn’t! Good job I decided to walk’.



Sometimes it is best to stay on the long and winding road. Short cuts can be dangerous.

Om Shanti

Girlfriends

A recent report says that women should have, ideally, 4 close girlfriends.

Two might be company and three a crowd, but it seems four is perfect when it comes to friends.The average woman needs this number at any one time in her life, a study suggests.Researchers say females are becoming far more selective and will bother forming close bonds only with those they know they can trust and share experiences. Having four friends is also ideal as it makes up a group of five - which ensures no one is ever left out, the researchers say.

Tonight me and 4 of my girlfriends, well 3 girlfriends and 1 daughter, went to see Sex And The City 2. Having spent the last few weeks avoiding reading reviews of the film I finally got to make up my own mind. What was all the fuss about? Although I had avoided the critics it has been hard to escape the fact that the film has been pretty much panned. Unfairly so. It was funny – best line went to Samantha, having been lamenting her dwindling lack of sexual desire, on spotting a handsome man riding the dunes in a 4X4, sighed and said breathlessly ‘Laurence of my Labia’. It was a riot of colour, the clothes, the decor, the burnt yellows and oranges of the desert, the blues of the sea, and the cascading hues of the market. The opening scene, a gay wedding, was wonderfully OOT, with Ziegfeld Follies type male singers, swans, indoor canals and best of all….Liza Minnelli doing a Beyonce number and shaking her booty in all the right places. Sounds scary I know, but, take my word for it, it was something to behold. Hell, it is worth seeing if just for the beautiful Irish nanny who has the most perfect large and natural breasts, and for some reason refuses to ever wear a bra, cartwheel across the lawn. The four friends are closer than ever and are still what they have always been, Carrie, the writer, still observing the world she lives in and writing her weekly column. Miranda, still fiercely ambitious and wanting to progress in her career. Charlotte, still perfect and trying to create a perfect family, and Samantha, thanks to all the lotions, potions, patches, pills and hormone replacement therapy, still happily fucking her way through life with the most gorgeous men imaginable.

Carrie has finally married her Mr Big and, two years down the line, is worried their relationship has lost its spark. When Mr Big suggests they spend a couple of days a week living apart, so they could both do their own thing, she worries that it is a signal they are losing interest in each other.

Miranda, whose new boss is a misogynist and treats her appallingly, stops enjoying her job and, having been sidelined one too many times, quits her job but feels guilty that being a stay at home mum is just not enough for her.

Charlotte is finding parenthood challenging, difficult and sometimes NOT enjoyable and is filled with guilt because she sometimes resents the demands made on her by her imperfect, but perfectly normal, children. Plus she employs the cartwheeling nanny and fears, if her husabnd is seduced by the breasts, she, Charlotte, will lose the nanny.

And Samantha? Well Samantha despairs that her hormones are packing up and leaving the building.

The film does skirt its way around some serious issues, but then it is a chickflick laced with comedy and fashion and is meant to entertain not moralise. It is about women not being scared of being different, not being scared of their needs, their sexuality or their need to explore their emotions, doubts and fears. It is about women finding their voices and it celebrates their need for ‘personal space’. It recognises that wives, mothers and friends need the freedom to be who they are, not just what they are. Carrie learns that she and Mr Big are free to make their marriage one that suits them and not to feel pressurised to make it fit other people’s idea of marriage. Miranda realises that in a job were she is valued and listened too she can be the best she can be and give her son the time and attention he needs. Charlotte learns that imperfection is pretty perfect after all and Samantha, once back on the hormone replacement stuff, gets to shag her Laurence of Labia on the bonnet of a 4X4. Fucking wonderful!

These woman have been friends for many years and I would love to see a 'prequel', something that has already been done by the other female friends programme, 'Desperate Housewives'. I would love any of the friends in SATC to be my friend whereas I wouldn't want any of the DH women as a friend. When, in an email conversation yesterday with a friend, I mentioned I was going to see SATC this evening my friend said she didn't really watch it but asked me the question she said every woman asks their friends when discussing SATC- 'if you had to shag one which one would it be?' My friend said she would, if forced, 'shag the brunette, it's the princess thing'. I replied 'Samantha, she's dirty'. 'Yep, should've guessed' replied my 'friend'.

The Word Really Is Mightier

Excellent article by Polly Toynbee in yesterdays paper about David Laws. Although the article headline 'David Laws life goal was to cast people out of work' was over the top, and an unfair assumption to make, the byline 'I regret the manner of his fall, but he wasn't honest with public money, while his cuts agenda is terrifying to contemplate' is nearer the truth.

Polly writes:

Who would be a politician? As yet another Icarus falls, many would-be politicians will shy away, appalled by the British press acting as the nation's moral Taliban. Few people live without hypocrisy, with no contradictions between principle and practice, nothing embarrassing that risks exposure. David Laws had every right to hide his private life. But scrupulous honesty with public money was essential for this Savonarola about to conduct a bonfire of others' benefits, services and livelihoods.

Desire to conceal the truth about his lover may have caused the duplicity over his £40,000 rent claims, but other expenses also show him falling short. He claimed £150 a month for utilities and £200 a month for service charges until receipts began to be demanded, when his claims abruptly dropped to £37 and £25 respectively – trifling sums for a rich man, but for the lord high axeman political death. How does he take away a baby's child trust fund while being so casual about similar sums himself? How does he tell classroom assistants the loss of their job is a price worth paying?

As for the right to privacy, it doesn't exist for benefit claimants. Iain Duncan Smith and other scourges of welfare protest that single mothers cheat the system by claiming not to be living with or sleeping with anyone else. While the tax system assesses individuals, the benefits system assesses household income, demanding to know, in nosy detail, who is in your bed and how often. Snoopers are common. People live in fear of falling out with malicious neighbours. James Purnell had ads put up in bus stops in poor areas exhorting people to grass up their neighbours. No ads appeared in City wine bars calling for informers against tax frauds costing the state between 40 and 100 times more than benefit cheats.

While outrageous fraud cases do hit the headlines, most of those caught for working while claiming only do odd hours, temporary and uncertain, too risky to declare when there are long delays in reclaiming benefits. But this toughness on the poor with a reason to cheat, and laxness on tax evasion or MPs' expenses, sets politicians up for a stern dose of their own medicine.

This is the faultline between £64,000-a-year Westminster MPs and millions of people's daily lives. Britain's median income is only £24,000 – and MPs (and journalists) forget at their peril that they are in the top 10%. The oddity about British attitudes right now concerns the class fury easily aroused by hypergreed in the boardroom or the Queen demanding £6m more at a time like this. The incomes of over half the population hardly rose in the boom years, yet now those people risk paying a heavy penalty for the behaviour of bankers and City types clamouring for deeper cuts, their press diverting anger from the true cause of this catastrophe towards the "bloated" public sector.

The same Daily Telegraph that berates the public sector and castigates MPs' expenses is owned by a pair of tax exiles refusing to pay their public dues. The same owners are running a vociferous "Hands Off Our Assets" campaign against raising capital gains tax. David Cameron and George Osborne declare they are "listening" to a bullying clamour for loopholes so large that most of the rich will hardly pay more. (Only 130,000 shareholders and 250,000 second-home owners must pay, as gains of less than £10,100 a year attract no tax). Expect an outburst of public anger if the government backtracks to allow huge loopholes: Vince Cable last week on Radio 4 adamantly ruled out as unworkable any kind of "taper" arrangement.

An edgy rancour about unfairness erupts easily these days yet doesn't quite express itself as class politics. Class simmers everywhere with unfocused resentments since Labour deliberately stopped being a conduit for the inchoate indignation of the bottom half or two-thirds. After next April's budget when public employees cascade on to the dole, will this scratchy resentfulness crystallise into a political movement? Or will the sense of social injustice be skilfully channelled by government and press into outbursts against dole cheats, immigrants, overpaid public-sector chiefs, MPs and each new scapegoat of the day?

It is by no means clear if Labour's leadership candidates have an economic strategy to oppose unemployment on the scale we are about to witness. The Institute for Fiscal Studies warns there will be 25% cuts in unprotected departments – a quarter of staff in schools, nurseries, colleges and universities, police, prisons, social care, child protection, street cleaning, parks, road repair. Nor will NHS jobs be preserved. The terrifying scale has not begun to sink in with the public, or politicians still claiming that the deficit is the priority: it won't be soon. The US treasury is warning Europe against the frenzied cutting each country is embarked on, risking a downward spiral when growth should come before cuts.


On resigning, David Laws said: "How much I regret having to leave such vital work, which I feel all my life has prepared me for." How odd that his relished life goal was to cast people out of work. As editor of the Orange Book that staked out new turf for Liberal Democrats as state-shrinking economic neoliberals, he called for a rejection of "soggy socialism" and breaking the NHS into a private insurance system. Laws's faction rejected the heritage of Beveridge and Keynes, the two great Liberal giants.

So perhaps Labour negotiators in the days after the election should not have been so shocked when Laws and Alexander demanded that the Tories' £6bn of cuts should be implemented this year, although they had campaigned against cuts in the election. Laws's biggest cut last week was £700m from Labour's Keynesian stimulus to kickstart manufacturing and growth.

He would have been a Tory, were it not for repugnance at section 28 social Conservatism. I regret the manner of his fall, but not the departure of one who expressed little sympathy for the lives of others being damaged by a too harsh interpretation of economic necessity.

I'm surprised but not shocked to read his expenses claims have fallen since he was required to provide receipts. It is what I have come to expect of a certain 'class'. Although I could claim certain expenses I don't. In relation to what I earn and the amount of time I would have to spend filling in the paperwork to claim the £20 odd pound a month I am entitled to it just isn't worth it. My time is better spent doing something useful for the people whose taxes pay my wages. Reading that a millionaire claims for his £60 per month is sickening - but hey, he is entitled to it so who am I to criticise? I know my place.

Polly puts what I have been feeling into perfect words:

As for the right to privacy, it doesn't exist for benefit claimants. Iain Duncan Smith and other scourges of welfare protest that single mothers cheat the system by claiming not to be living with or sleeping with anyone else. While the tax system assesses individuals, the benefits system assesses household income, demanding to know, in nosy detail, who is in your bed and how often. Snoopers are common. People live in fear of falling out with malicious neighbours. James Purnell had ads put up in bus stops in poor areas exhorting people to grass up their neighbours. No ads appeared in City wine bars calling for informers against tax frauds costing the state between 40 and 100 times more than benefit cheats.

Polly, thanks for this... sums up all that is wrong with the class based society we live in. And thanks to all the other journos and bloggers who have written informative, insightful, passionate, revealing and sometimes eye wateringly funny pieces on the political comings and goings this last month. Who ever said politics is boring?