If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em - The Bennett Family Round Robin 2010

Oh, dear God - as if it wasn't bad enough that Christmas Recess starts again tomorrow, I'd forgotten that it's the time of year when normally-reasonable friends lose their minds - not to mention all sense of decency.

What is the point of round robins? My in-box is rapidly filling up with them and, to make matters worse, the postman hands me five more of the damned things as I pass him on my way into work this morning.

I read them as soon as I sit down at my desk but, by the time I've finished, I wish I hadn't bothered. Why doesn't anyone ever admit to any failures during the preceding year? And don't they know it's bad manners to boast?

Greg spots my expression and asks me what's up.

"Round robins," I say. "I never have a clue what to say in reply, seeing as it's not as if I've I got anything impressive to report. And, as for the kids, it's probably a case of the less said the better - at least where Josh is concerned."

"Well, you could always try doing a truthful version," says Greg. "Treat it like Writing Honest Letters hour."

So, in the absence of any better suggestions, here's the Bennett Family Round Robin for Christmas 2010:

Dear All,


Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year to you! Or to those of you who don't flaunt your good fortune in the faces of the rest of us, anyway.


Many unexciting changes have occurred in the Bennett household during 2010. There has been a marked decrease in the level of marital sexual activity, even from the baseline set by last year's record low. This may or may not be due to Max having an affair - either with Ellen, our nymphomaniac neighbour, or with an irritatingly faun-like colleague with a penchant for red wine. 


As revenge, I may or may not be having an affair with Johnny Hunter - an International Director of a Global Oil Company who bears an unnerving resemblance to Vladimir Putin. This has not, however, led to any significant increase in my sexual activity, unless you count the virtual kind. (Which most of the time I don't.)


When not stalking my husband, or typing emails to Johnny, I continue to grow an increasingly-convincing beard, and am still dressed almost entirely by Primark, mainly in their thermal underwear. Both these factors may, I suppose, be contributing to the above-mentioned lack of sex.


With regard to the kids: Connie and Josh remain locked in sibling rivalry, and united only by their sense of having been utterly failed by their parents. Connie is spending this year working as an underpaid and overworked intern; has been dumped by her chilli-fetishist boyfriend, and continues to struggle with the definition of normal behaviour. Not to mention with the concept of flexi-time.


Meanwhile, Josh has managed to fail almost all his A-levels and now has a job that seems entirely without prospects, unless you count the odd free cinema ticket. His skateboarding abilities have not improved at all, and nor have his skills in the martial arts. He continues to visit Accident & Emergency rather more often than we would like, though the orthopaedics department always enjoy hearing how his injuries were caused.


As far as my working life goes, I have had no pay rise, no promotion, and no recognition whatsoever, though I do apparently have the distinction of being possibly the lowest-paid member of staff on the House of Commons payroll. I am fully expecting to be replaced by a younger model as soon as The Boss can think of a good enough excuse to get rid of me. 


Max has no sympathy for those of us working in the public sector, however - having had to take two pay cuts during this year alone. He has also ceased to earn any commission, due to the fact that no-one is actually buying any furniture, though this has not discouraged him from spending more and more time at work. Or, at least, that's where he claims to be spending it.


Mum has broken her wrist; had a nasty fall while unaccountably wearing no pants, and has accumulated at least seven more side tables since last year, while Ted continues to enjoy fishing and to avoid lengthy telephone calls like the plague. 


Dad is currently unmarried, though we do not expect this situation to last much longer. Stepmother Mark IV seems likely to be an inappropriately young woman called Porn-Poon, who apparently finds the physiques of seventy-five year old men irresistible. Dad is sure that this has nothing to do with the size of their pensions, or the attractions of a British passport.


Stepmothers Mark I, II and III remain very glad to have divorced Dad and are trying to avoid taking offence at his claims that all the women in the UK are now "too old" for him. 


Sister Dinah remains committed to smoking, swearing, and not listening to a word I say; whilst idiot brother Robin continues to preach compassion while exercising very little of it in practice. He is currently wrestling with the difficult decision of whether to become a Buddhist monk or a rap artist. 


The Labour Party has had its own problems with siblings during the recent leadership election, and the result remains a subject of considerable ill-natured debate within Northwick *CLP. The general public seem less bothered, probably because the ConDems have, of course, been running the country since the General Election. This has made a nice change, as at least it means that there is someone other than the Labour Party to blame for all the things that constituents complain about.


Talking of constituents, the ratio of sane to insane enquiries has definitely taken a turn for the worse, and it has not yet been possible to work out whether the proposed boundary changes will improve or worsen matters. My colleague, Greg, is confident that the detonation of a nuclear bomb over Easemount would alleviate the problem, but has not yet succeeded in obtaining one. His enthusiasm for the project remains undiminished, however.


Meanwhile, The Boss has become convinced that everyone in the Party is out to get him and, if he continues to allow paranoia to dictate his behaviour, this may well prove to be the case - though there is likely to be heated debate as to who will be allowed to take the first shot. I suspect that his wife may decide to render any such discussion academic, if a certain intern isn't soon given her marching orders.


So, all in all, 2010 has been a year of considerable highs and lows. While the lowest of these may well have been the significant birthday I supposedly celebrated back in May, the greatest highlight was undoubtedly surviving anthrax poisoning, and the usual suspects' attempts at strangulation. 


We do hope that all is going as well for you and yours as it is for us, and look forward to seeing you all in 2011.


Lots of love from
Molly, Max, Connie and Josh (Bennett).

Greg says this should do the trick - if having an improved social life is not one of my New Year resolutions. On the basis of the last two events I've attended, this is a risk I'm more than prepared to take.

*CLP - Constituency Labour Party. A rather motley crew, not known for their combined senses of humour.

A Depressing Tale of the Shambles that is Housing Benefit.

Today's surgery seems to be all about Housing Benefit. The whole system is a shambles. For every Somali family living in million-pound luxury in the West End, there are God knows how many other people struggling to keep even the most modest roof over their heads.

Today we have two such enquiries. The first is from Mr & Mrs Farrow, a nice couple in their late fifties. Mrs Farrow is chronically sick and can't work, and Mr Farrow recently got made redundant. They have been forced to claim Housing Benefit for their two-bedroomed council bungalow. So what, you might say - their housing costs are being covered, aren't they? Well, yes, except that the Farrow children are grown up and have moved away. So the Council have decided that they are under-occupying their house, and will only pay a proportion of their rent as Housing Benefit.

Mr & Mrs Farrow have no income with which to make up the shortfall and with her health problems and his age and lack of IT skills, I can't see this being resolved by either of them finding employment any time soon. They are terrified that they will fall into arrears with their rent, and end up being evicted. They've been told that they could always seek an exchange to a one-bedroomed house - but they haven't got the money to pay removal expenses, even if they could find someone to swap with.

Not only that, but they've already had to bail out one of their sons by allowing him to move back home on more than one occasion, and this wouldn't even have been posible had they not had the other bedroom. There seems to be no option but for them to try to "find" the additional rent from Mr Farrow's Jobseeeker's Allowance. The Boss agrees to write to the Council and beg them to use their discretion, but I'm not optimistic about the result.

The business about the Farrow's son is thrown into sharp relief later on in surgery, when Gemma McKeown comes in to see The Boss. It's unusual for someone as young as Gemma to even visit their MP - she's only twenty-three, but has been self-supporting for some five years after a breakdown in relations with her family. She's also recently lost her job, and it looks as if she will soon be homeless too.

I am shocked to hear that young people under the age of 25 are only entitled to approximately 50% of the Housing Benefit payable to people over that age. How stupid is that? Their landlords don't charge them less just because they are younger. The amount of Housing Benefit Gemma receives isn't even enough to cover the cost of her room in a shared house in one of Northwick's grottiest areas, and homelessness is a very real threat if something isn't done. She doesn't have parents like Mr & Mrs Farrow who will take her in.

Her chances of employment don't seem much better than the Farrows' either, as the only jobs she's been qualified to apply for so far have all been on contracts which guarantee only between zero and four hours a week. Nothing like enough hours to reassure her that she will be able to earn enough to pay her rent, even if she succeeds in getting one of the jobs. God knows what we can do to help her, but I'm going to try bloody hard to think of something.

My head hurts by the end of surgery, and even Andrew is uncharacteristically quiet. I think it's dawned on him that he can't blame this Housing Benefit fiasco on the coalition, and he was even sensitive enough  - for once - to avoid adding to the constituents' misery by scare-mongering as to what the ConDems' proposed changes to Housing Benefit might do to make matters worse.

All I can think of is that Connie and Josh could find themselves in Gemma's situation, if Max and I were ever to split up, and become unable to provide a roof over their heads in an emergency. I am going to turn Johnny down. Any transient pleasure he might be able to provide would be as nothing compared to how shitty I would feel if I contributed to making my children homeless. I might be capable of low cunning in the face of the long Recess, but I am fundamentally a good person. At least, I hope I am. Who knows - I might even still be a socialist at heart?

Calendar Girls

Monday morning, oh joy. God knows why the public think working for an MP is glamorous.

When I arrive at work, I'm greeted by the sight of an hideous new office-calendar bearing the logo: Andrew Sinclair MP: Working Hard for Hardworking People. It features The Boss grinning inanely in front of a block of flats in Easemount.

You can't see the other block which got burnt out just before Christmas by our regular nutter, Steve Ellington, on the basis that, if he was going to have a miserable festive season, then so were all his neighbours.

Greg has Photo-shopped the picture to show a bevy of obese, naked women standing behind The Boss. They are also grinning inanely, and improve the photo no end. At least Andrew's gone back to the House today so I won't have to cope with him in the flesh. There's quite enough of that on the calendar.

Greg won't discuss what he got up to at the weekend, just says he's planning our next move. Our next move? It doesn't bear thinking about.


The first letter I open sets the tone for the day:

Dear Mr Sinclair,

I am writing to you because there is a serious problem on Broad Street. I walk down there every day to my job at Economyland, (a girl needs her pin-money, after all), and what should I see at the side of the road today but a dead rat! This is bad enough, but what I want to know, Mr Sinclair, is what would happen if, when I was walking past one day, the rat were to be struck by a car, be hurled up in the air, and then strike me in the face? Something needs to be done before this happens.

Thanks for all you do for hardworking people.

Yours etc
Pauline Harpenden (Miss)

Greg thinks it's funny. I despair - what the hell am I supposed to reply to that?

There are only three women in the Coalition Cabinet so far - apart from a Lord - and I bet they're only there to act as nursemaids to the men, who are probably all just like The Boss. He phones this afternoon to ask whether we need him for anything. We never do but, as usual, I pretend there's something I need his advice on.

Then he asks, "Am I for or against cycle helmets?"

Honestly, no wonder the country's in such a mess when MPs can't even remember where they stand on the simplest issue. Mind you, I bet the Tories and LibDems have no idea where they're supposed to stand on anything now, given all the horse-trading that's gone in over the last few days.

They're probably even more stressed than The Boss, who sounds a bit frazzled. I ask him what's the matter, though I don't really care since he blamed me for upsetting Mr Dougan.

"I'm thinking we may need to do something to tighten up security," he says.

"Oh good," I say. "Any particular reason?"

"Someone put dog shit through my letterbox on Saturday night."

"Oh, vital we do something about that, then," I say. I don't tell Greg - he'd be far too triumphant.

In the evening, the house feels funny without Connie, who went back to university this morning. I am left in testosterone hell, which I think must be contagious. I look closely in the mirror for the first time in days, and see hairs sprouting from my chin. God - now, I'm turning into the bearded lady.

I start plucking them out, but seem to grow another two for every one I remove, and I can't even see the damn things properly, despite the 25x magnifying mirror. I suppose I'll be able to work as a circus freak when Max notices them and leaves me.

Since Ellen's comments at my birthday party, he's taken to doing sit-ups every night - much to Josh's amusement. I think it'll take more than sit-ups, but wisely say nothing, as I am endeavouring to become an enigma.

Just before I go to bed, Mum phones to announce her latest affliction - something to do with a painful buttock. She certainly gives me one. I endure an hour of whingeing and then instruct Josh to shoot me if I ever become like my mother. He just raises an eyebrow meaningfully and returns to the important business of doing nothing.