I haven’t worked since February, it’s getting on for 6 months now since I’ve been paid. Despite the government paying out billions to some fantastically good causes and supporting the overwhelming majority of people, 3 million of us are actually not being supported at all.
We’re not in it together in any way shape or form. Imagine if you had to face the virus situation and like me are Shielding due to suffering from a chronic lung condition of all things but that on top of that you weren’t receiving a penny.
As an example, here are my sales charts from just one source but they are indicative of my situation and others generally.
It’s never a good sign is it for your income to be 100% down for 1 month, let alone most of a year.
The only people who care are those who are affected and we have coalesced into a pressure group known as Excluded UK. One of the problems of working for yourself is that you don’t have any influence over anyone. Big organisations can campaign for very generous financial assistance which they don’t even need whereas people like me don’t matter at all.
And it’s not just the government either, that Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer who some may remember stating here what a waste of space he would be for many outside the middle-classes of North London has not even raised an issue. Imagine having 3 million possible votes and they just don’t care.
Meanwhile big organisations are being paid £1,000 for every employee they bring back to work even though the overwhelming majority would be doing do anyway.
And restaurant-goers are being given £15 off their meals in order to encourage eating-out so effectively my taxes are paying for people who have been receiving thousands of pounds a month from the state to eat out when people like myself have not received a single penny of help from either the state or indeed anyone else. I think it’s fair enough to feel it isn’t quite fair.
And absolutely nobody cares. People march and protest for all manner of things, even for injustices from centuries ago and yet today 3 million people in the U.K. are without any income or government support. ‘Even’ the United States has given payments to its citizens.
I’m not sure if the Chancellor has ever read The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau who theorised that a ruler or government doesn’t rule by force or the will of God but by a Social Contract between the state and the people. No matter how powerful the state is, if it abuses power and loses the support of ordinary people then it loses legitimacy. It’s something that can been in democracies and dictatorships to various degrees, even things like Brexit could be argued to be an example.
Well I feel I am very close to having been pushed out of my Social Contract. Only 6 people on the entire planet have helped me out over these near 6 months. I help more people than that on an average day out in London. It would be easy to say that I don’t care about anyone either any more and why should I if my country and society do not care one bit about me?
I also know that I will never again pay a single penny of tax that I can avoid doing so. All those cash tips and payments from tourists fresh from the airport who didn’t have time to pre-pay will be spent on cash purchases and luxuries that many take for granted but I have never indulged in rather than dutifully going beyond the pail and recording every little transaction which otherwise would never go discovered.
If the government, country and largely the people have broken their contract with me then in a small way, I can do the same with them. Despite what has long been said, we are not in it together. Approximately 65 million people are in it together, the other 3 million of us have been left to rot and die.
I am #ExcludedUK.
Stephen Liddell 
Same here. Stay at home and we’ll make up your lost freelance work was the message. Four months later, it’s sorry, actually, we’ve got no money for you. A con job.
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Totally. Legalised discrimination and wilful institutional hatred.
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I am now in Italy having managed to escape from a confused and very unsafe UK. The Italian PM has returned to his country after securing a brilliant deal from the EU for the recovery of the nation. It’s just a pity that the UK, now that it has left the EU, will not get a penny for its own recovery from the worst thing that has hit the world since WW2. I am truly sorry about the plight that people in your occupation are having to suffer. Here in Lucca tourists are coming back, shows and sightseeing are recovering and the mood is truly upbeat when compared to the ghastly way the UK govt are continuing to handle covid 19.
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It’s a shame. In nation after democratic nation, this has been the biggest failure. Of supporting the unorganised.
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I an sorry Stephen – like you we are self isolating because of underlying health conditions, and I am trying to engage new streams of income online with artwork, but its tough. I don’t see how we can emerge until there is a vaccine.
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It is crap and profoundly unfair that the self employed are not being helped.All power to your political elbow.
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Hi Cathy – I hope Stephen reads this!
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Thanks Cathy, I’ve actually been approached by a national newspaper and national/international TV news station recently but I have to decide if I want to be famous for a few days.
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Thank0you. I don’t see how it will change before a vaccine either. You’d like to think we are through the worst (unless winter is awful) and after 6 months or so of this we must surely be getting closer to those vaccines which we were told would likely be ready by the end of the year. At best I feel its like being in solitary confinement in prison for a year but even prisoners get to talk to their guard or go in the yard for an hour a day! I hope your new venture picks up though!
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WprdPress is still stopping me posting!
I am SICK of these “Master Control Programs” that suck up all my subs across multiple sites and try and force me to download their crap. Disqus is another.
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That’s so annoying, I hate all these things that they slyly get people to authorise and then have no living being you can contact when it all goes wrong 😦
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Yes, it allows a short comment, but I STILL had to log in, even through I never logged out! It goes to a page that asks me if I am who I am, and the REMEMBER ME check box never works.
But if it’s a few paragraphs, like the last one and the one about Buffy on the Vampire Killer’s Kit article, it just doesn’t work and if I repeat says “Oops! It looks like you already said that!”
Moronic atrocity!
I hesitate to add my last aborted post to this one, in case it fails again.
>:8o
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I feel your pain, Stephen!! I think the world has gone mad! I do not think this shut down was necessary. I read where places like Sweden didn’t! Living in the US I don’t really truthfully know what is happening in other countries. You can’t trust what the media here says at all…..only one station Fox can you halfway trust! Are fewer people getting the virus there now? It is time to get on with living! If some want to wear a mask, wear it and go to work! Maybe you could advertise that….put on your mask, and take a tour of the UK!! I feel like I am living in Lala land! It is hard to fathom how so many of us can so easily be controlled!! Then, there is all of these insane people over here getting away with destroying cities!!! I don’t know if your schools quit teaching history over there, but apparently, they did here! No one has been taught the dangers of socialism and communism in years! Those in power want to control us all from birth to death! It is insane and has to stop! Some just want to have government money given to them and not work! At least you, Stephen, want to work and don’t want to have “Daddy government” take care of you! Maybe you can get a part time job somewhere? I hope! All I know is, I don’t trust everything that is going on! I think we are being manipulated as certain people are trying to implement the so called “New World Order”! This will be a nightmare for all of us!!
Hang in there! You are a smart, intelligent, guy!
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Yes, but in Sweden there have been a lot more deaths per head of population.
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Stephen, all I can say is “Keep the Faith”…not in government, but in the Lord. Pray and the doors will open to you.
Hopefully you can open this link because it is my prayer for you. Nancy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCpxgEHqjFA
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I just read this today. Rather a hard time being had by so many. Its like this on both sides of the pond. How hard and frustrating for you all these months. Hard enough when your healthy to make a go these days, but throw in a pre existing condition…KEEP AWAY! My 7 yr old autistic grandson is phobic on Covid. He has dreams about it. A few weeks ago he was sleeping and this little voice says…no no not the covid… Golly broke my heart.
I understand feeling abandoned… my hubby of 21 years , who suffers from mental illness, totally went paranoid and left us. Took everything including the money. Been a long week of not eating and dealing with a child who dent understand how this man he loves cold leave us like this. One day at a time….
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Oh I’m so sorry to hear your sad news. You can always contact me through my Tours contact-me page or Freelance Writing and we can have an email chat. That all sounds so terrible for you all.
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