Care In The Community, My Arse.

It turns out that Mr Meeeeurghn is in a bail hostel because he has just got out of prison. More details are being sent by post, and are strictly confidential. 

I have no-one to share this with, as Greg is off sick with his self-diagnosed Post-Traumatic Stress. I'm a model of efficiency today, though, despite all the usual suspects being out in force; and am storming through my caseload when Carlotta phones to ask me to sort out her work permit. 


Huh. I’m not doing anything about that, until I hear what The Boss has decided to do about the inevitable job cuts he’s going to have to make now that he has to pay our pension contributions himself. 

Good old IPSA*. I thought they were going to make things a whole lot better, but they seem to have missed the point a bit. Anything that put paid to mad March when MPs ran around like loonies, buying any old office equipment just to make sure that the IEP* budget got spent is a Good Thing, but losing casework staff isn’t. 


I liked my old blue office chair, and really didn’t want a red one even if we did have to find something to spend the money on. (Red fluff gets everywhere and shows much more against black clothing than the fluff from the blue chair used to.) Anyway, if it comes down to a choice between Carlotta LongLegs’ so-called job or my pension, I may have to take a strategic approach. She’s twenty years younger than me!

Going off at a tangent, the usual suspects do make me think, though. When Old Thatch’s Government got rid of long-stay wards in psychiatric hospitals, it seemed like a reasonable idea at the time. Care in the Community sounded so warm, and woolly-headedly liberal, that it was irresistible to even the most rampant socialist, which I was, then. 


Of course, everyone assumed that two very important features would be put into place to ensure delivery of this great new concept: Care, and Community. Now we - MPs and their staff - have become Care in the Community, so I decide to keep a tally of how many sane enquiries we get in a day. 


Today’s result is nine. Out of a total of thirty-three phone calls, and thirty-nine letters, and not even counting emails. I rest my case. 

*IPSA: Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, see previous explanation

*IEP: Incidental Expenses Provision, one of three allowances for MPs.