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Back in January, just as China’s Covid-19 outbreak was turning critical, the story broke of how Graham, a grandfather of two and lover of football, had died aged 57. In June 2018, bailiffs pursuing him for nonpayment of his rent had found Graham’s body, which weighed just four and a half stone. A coroner’s report said he suffered from severe social anxiety, and had isolated himself from even family and friends. His flat in Nottingham had no gas or electricity, and there was no food in his fridge apart from two cans of fish that were four years out of date.
Graham’s case received a lot of attention, not least in the Guardian. But for all the awfulness of his story, it never really caught the popular imagination: at the time it was covered, the media was still aflame with controversy about the opinionated actor Laurence Fox and the fate of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Graham was one particularly tragic example of something that 21st-century Britain has long been in danger of accepting as a given: a nasty, punitive benefits system seemingly run according to the inhuman rhetoric we have regularly heard from politicians – and still might be hearing, had Covid-19 not arrived.
Six weeks later, the fact that people in charge are suddenly speaking a language of solidarity and accepting that unemployment is a consequence of economics rather than character failure is something to behold. Whatever its caveats, Rishi Sunak’s “plan for people’s jobs and incomes” is welcome; so is hearing him talk about people “not being able to pay the rent or the mortgage” and “not having enough set by for food and bills”. There is a truly astral irony in Sunak’s efforts being saluted by that well-known Tory sympathiser Bernie Sanders. Nonetheless, just about every part of the benefits machine that has ruined so many lives is, inevitably, still in place. We will sooner or later find out if it can survive this huge undermining of its basic logic – and either grind on or at last be changed.
Graham’s case received a lot of attention, not least in the Guardian. But for all the awfulness of his story, it never really caught the popular imagination: at the time it was covered, the media was still aflame with controversy about the opinionated actor Laurence Fox and the fate of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Graham was one particularly tragic example of something that 21st-century Britain has long been in danger of accepting as a given: a nasty, punitive benefits system seemingly run according to the inhuman rhetoric we have regularly heard from politicians – and still might be hearing, had Covid-19 not arrived.
Six weeks later, the fact that people in charge are suddenly speaking a language of solidarity and accepting that unemployment is a consequence of economics rather than character failure is something to behold. Whatever its caveats, Rishi Sunak’s “plan for people’s jobs and incomes” is welcome; so is hearing him talk about people “not being able to pay the rent or the mortgage” and “not having enough set by for food and bills”. There is a truly astral irony in Sunak’s efforts being saluted by that well-known Tory sympathiser Bernie Sanders. Nonetheless, just about every part of the benefits machine that has ruined so many lives is, inevitably, still in place. We will sooner or later find out if it can survive this huge undermining of its basic logic – and either grind on or at last be changed.
Fuente: The Guardian
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