Past Caring

The wife and I were discussing 'social bubbles' the other day. I was surprised that she was taking an interest in one of my pet subjects but I soon realised that we were reading off the same hymn sheet, except she made a very salient point which was essentially the more 'social' you are the more likely you're going to become 'blind' to more and more of the real/outside world.

Actually 'blind' is the wrong word; intolerant is the real word but 'harsh' might be an even description. I've mentioned before that I'm growing more and more of the opinion that what we see on the news, hear on the radio and read in newspapers don't reflect what is going on every day on and around our streets. We are all told how the people feel about things and yet see polar opposite 'loonies' on social media. We get the press telling us how it is and because they set the agenda it can sometimes be frighteningly accurate; but try spending time within a 'socially classless environment' and transpose that against things like opinion polls and (if you could give a shit) you'd see that opinion polls are probably designed to sway your opinion rather than show you a fair representation of what people actually think. And what people actually think would require much soap in the mouth...

I realised about 6 weeks ago that I didn't have to try and instigate discussions with my fellow dog walkers about politics because eventually they would start it and however crude a stick to measure things by I'm more inclined to think my dozen or so dog walking chums represent pretty much a huge cross section of 'society'.

There is everything from a trendy 40-something teacher to a retired painter and decorator to a midwife to a 'retired' nurse who has just gone back to work at 68, to a prison chef to a retired plumber to a woman none of us have any idea about to a disabled 20-something - it is a cross section of opinions and needs and only one of them has admitted to voting remain and that was, quietly, to me because I've made no secret of it. I do get the feeling that this is perhaps an underlying black mark against me in the eyes of some of them; like they're getting into practice to start blaming me when they can't blame the EU or all those foreigners for the shit we're hurtling towards.

The point is this group of people have all, at some point in recent weeks, started a conversation about how shit everything is. From inflation to local council injustice, people are beginning to complain to each other again.

There are three people I know who are all in their 80s and one of them, a fascinating woman (called Pat) who could walk for Britain, said to me she can't remember a time since she's been alive where everyone was so unhappy and downtrodden despite having pretty much everything they need, if they so choose. She said to me (and I howled with agreeing laughter), "Someone on the wireless said it was like the country wants to return to the 1950s, I've done the 1950s and trust me, it was shit."

I was quite surprised that Comic Relief raised so much money for charity because I've been out and about far more in the last few weeks than I have in recent years and I saw nothing that remotely looked like fundraising or charity stunts (in fact the only bit of fundraising I've seen was related to CAFOD and was the day after Comic Relief, which was probably bad timing). The wife said she didn't see anything and nothing was done in her office for the first time she can remember and on my dog walk on Friday I saw many people and the only person talking about Comic Relief was complaining because they had to ferry their kids about for some fundraising thing which more than half of the girls involved had already pulled out of.

One of the more ... conservative of the dog walkers was complaining about inflation the other day and part of me was itching to point out that the inflation might have happened anyhow but it was more likely to be linked to the impending Brexit than any other factors, even if some people try to justify the not-so slow erosion of our economy on puerile excuses like 'Sterling was overpriced and needed reassessing,' or 'Inflation means people will be better off in the long run' - which I have seen and heard an actual politician say. Apparently inflation drives wages up, which seems to be the latest insane 'logic' except it does drive wages up, but only at about a fifth of the rate of inflation - look at history, there are zero examples of it being anything other than this.

This is neither here nor there, the thing is if my circle of dog walking friends is reflective of the country as a whole then nobody is happy. Take 10 of us: 3 retired but 1 back in part time work; 5 in work, two of which part time; 2 unemployed - the youngest and me - isn't that pretty much a reflection of the country (except there aren't any foreigners, but that might be a dog/cultural thing)? The 22-year-old has still got some exuberance but you can see the frustration that she's never going to have the things she wants beginning to encroach on her eyes; she's still amazingly elastic and bouncy but you see the sad realisation that despite being a good person the country probably isn't going to reward her or even help her become something better and despite not being a parent, it still sickens me that Tories especially should show such scant regard for education when it is probably the most important thing in the world now - kids need to be taught, the truth, as much as possible to prepare them to be more than just blank automatons, because we are heading that way.

This brings us round to the incident in London last week; it has, to my amazement, been a topic of conversation for the people standing in the sunny corners of the old cow field and everyone of them, apart from the social media-attached 22 year old couldn't give a shit. They were not interested in it; turned the TV over and watched rubbish they would never watch to avoid facing more bad news. They don't care if it was done by a Muslim, a Pole, a psycho Millwall fan, Santa Claus or some celebrity from TOWIE - they DON'T CARE. Turn it off. Leave us alone. Life is shit we don't want to see it on the screens all the time.

No one cares, really. They might put on a different face at work or home, but in the classless environment of the cow field they speak their minds. When they say they're fed up with it, they mean all the incessant fearmongering and bad news; they're not fed up with the event but they want the event to be at the head of the news before moving quickly onto the cuddly kitten story or the football results. The impression I'm getting more and more of is People are Cared Out. The more people start to care less the tighter they become embroiled in their own even tighter circles of social media friends. I've met people in their 20s who honestly believe that because they emoticon on social media about social things they're contributing to its improvement. Really.

Our governments don't see education as being in their long term interests; jeez, the last thing any self-serving politician wants is a population that thinks for itself. What am I on for even thinking such a thing?

I'm sure the majority of the charity that comes in now comes from people who can't afford it or companies and corporations who want the association. The Tories probably look at charity and wonder if the only way to balance the books after Brexit is to end all public services and hope that charities fill the void then that is where we are headed. I once said there were things the private sector simply couldn't be allowed to do or wouldn't because there's no money to be made from it, but I'm no longer sure that our current government couldn't sell the air you are breathing back to you, especially if they think they can squeeze just a little bit more from you.

But 'we' voted them in, 'we' are allowing them to steer us into the future and 'we' will almost definitely vote them in again in 2020 because the people that really run the country want that and the more people grow to hate politicians the fewer people will vote making government's 'mandates' as solid as a house made of blancmange. Democracy is probably dead now, anyhow.

This is where we are. It's a bit shit whatever way you look at it.