Pandora II
Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2006
- Messages
- 9,613
I'll add here that I have told people that they are wrong and I do believe that some behaviours are wrong as well.
An example: a constituent called me to complain about her housing - she had 6 children under 10 by 4 different fathers none of whom were present or paying maintence, was pregnant with number 7 and was living in a 2 bed apartment. The local district has a huge shortage of housing, especially housing for families. There are currently 15,000 people on the waiting list for housing (currently they're in bed & breakfast or hostels) in just this one small area of London, and the average wait for an apartment is around 2-3 years.
She berated me for the fact that in the 21st Century I expected her and her children to live this way and complained that her children had nowhere quiet to do their homework and so I would be the cause of them failing to do well at school.
I explained that all I could do was ensure that she had been fairly assessed for housing but I couldn't hand it out with a magic wand, she would need to wait till she got to the top of the list. Alternately, we could assist her in looking for housing in another area of the country (she was unemployed and none of the father's were present so no real pressing reasons to stay in central London). But no, she didn't want to move as her friends live in the area and she didn't see why she had to wait.
In the end I lost my temper... I told her that she was irresponsible, that it was because of her choices that her children were living in over-crowded accomodation and that they had nowhere quiet to do their homework - but perhaps they had heard of the library - and frankly she should count herself extremely fortunate that she lived in a country where free housing was even available. That if she attempted to keep 6 dogs in a 2 bedroom apartment that it was quite likely that she would be prosecuted for abuse by the RSPCA, fined, the animals confiscated and she would be banned from caring for any for 10 years, therefore what made her think it was acceptable to treat her own children this way?
She told me she would call the newspapers, so I told her to get a pen and paper and I would give her the phone numbers of the two local political journalists, that I was more than happy for her to do so and what is more, half the district would applaud me!
She put the phone down on me at that point! Oh, and she never did call the papers which I was rather sad about as I could have had a lovely rant about fecklessness to them!
Oh, the following year she rang my political running-mate to complain about the housing for her 7 children now that she was pregnant with number 8! My colleague who is the most bleeding heart liberal I know, and who was horrified when I told him about my previous conversation with the woman, rang me to say that he just thought that her behaviour was wrong and could we do anything about it!
So, while I try to work with the system we have and it try and tackle things in a positive rather than negative fashion, privately it makes me furious... but what can one do?
An example: a constituent called me to complain about her housing - she had 6 children under 10 by 4 different fathers none of whom were present or paying maintence, was pregnant with number 7 and was living in a 2 bed apartment. The local district has a huge shortage of housing, especially housing for families. There are currently 15,000 people on the waiting list for housing (currently they're in bed & breakfast or hostels) in just this one small area of London, and the average wait for an apartment is around 2-3 years.
She berated me for the fact that in the 21st Century I expected her and her children to live this way and complained that her children had nowhere quiet to do their homework and so I would be the cause of them failing to do well at school.
I explained that all I could do was ensure that she had been fairly assessed for housing but I couldn't hand it out with a magic wand, she would need to wait till she got to the top of the list. Alternately, we could assist her in looking for housing in another area of the country (she was unemployed and none of the father's were present so no real pressing reasons to stay in central London). But no, she didn't want to move as her friends live in the area and she didn't see why she had to wait.
In the end I lost my temper... I told her that she was irresponsible, that it was because of her choices that her children were living in over-crowded accomodation and that they had nowhere quiet to do their homework - but perhaps they had heard of the library - and frankly she should count herself extremely fortunate that she lived in a country where free housing was even available. That if she attempted to keep 6 dogs in a 2 bedroom apartment that it was quite likely that she would be prosecuted for abuse by the RSPCA, fined, the animals confiscated and she would be banned from caring for any for 10 years, therefore what made her think it was acceptable to treat her own children this way?
She told me she would call the newspapers, so I told her to get a pen and paper and I would give her the phone numbers of the two local political journalists, that I was more than happy for her to do so and what is more, half the district would applaud me!
She put the phone down on me at that point! Oh, and she never did call the papers which I was rather sad about as I could have had a lovely rant about fecklessness to them!
Oh, the following year she rang my political running-mate to complain about the housing for her 7 children now that she was pregnant with number 8! My colleague who is the most bleeding heart liberal I know, and who was horrified when I told him about my previous conversation with the woman, rang me to say that he just thought that her behaviour was wrong and could we do anything about it!
So, while I try to work with the system we have and it try and tackle things in a positive rather than negative fashion, privately it makes me furious... but what can one do?
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