The Sun: Don’t take it personally …

Personal responsibility is apparently something we all have and we should think twice when making decisions – such as when we line up to buy food from supermarkets known to build on school playgrounds because they’re cheap; or when we give hard-earned money to utility companies who rip us off because we have to; and when we go to work for idiots because we’re not stinking rich.

I live in a world where I have to work to survive. I live in a country where newspapers are closing down almost weekly. I live in an economy that is failing and freelance contracts are as hard to find as Rupert Murdoch’s conscience. Somehow, though, I should take personal responsibility and refuse to work for a newspaper – any newspaper – with a right-wing agenda.

Personal responsibility, I’m told, means taking the moral high ground and turning down work for the greater good: being an NUJ activist wouldn’t be enough. Arguing with editors and coming up with creative alternatives to the knee-jerk right-wing news will not suffice. No, I have to go hungry, to refuse wages from a boss I don’t respect and a company I can’t stand.

Would you do the same? Do you work for a council making cuts? A company ripping off customers? A corporation taking advantage of others? A multi-billionaire who will survive no matter what you do?

Most of us do – and journalists are no different.

Calling for personal responsibility is in itself right wing: to blame workers – and demand a decision to starve rather than take a living wage – isn’t just romantic moralising, it isn’t just smug condemnation, it’s daft. It’s beyond ridiculous when journalists are compared to fascists.

Journalists are workers – some are also black, some gay, others are women, some are disabled, even those working on tabloids – and like all workers have to go where the work is and we too face discrimination when doing so.

This new rhetoric around personal responsibility simply shifts the blame from the powerful – from the owners of the work, the holders of the purse strings – to the workers.

We might be responsible for our own actions but we can only change things by taking responsibility as a whole – not by singling out individuals for condemnation: no matter how much better we feel about ourselves when doing so.

Perhaps individual workers could also be blamed for low pay; for accidents in the workplace; for not having a pension; for not having a job at all.

Maybe if we all take personal responsibility and stop being fat, curb our alcohol intake and don’t have chronic diseases we won’t need the NHS either.

I think I’d enjoy being able to choose not to buy in the cheapest supermarket, not to give my money to a corrupt energy company and not to work for a boss who is powerful enough to spread nasty opinions globally, but it’s not a choice I’ve ever had.

When right-wingers condemn those on benefits as scroungers they often do so claiming people should take personal responsibility and not rely on the state. The rhetoric of personal responsibility is not far removed from that of responsible capitalism – and neither looks to make life better for workers.

Those condemning News International journalists aren’t demanding personal responsibility – they’re just looking for individuals to be held responsible.

Getting off benefits: the worst part of unemployment …

This morning I received another letter, in an envelope obviously from a government department. I put it on the coffee table and looked at it for a while, not wanting to know what was inside. Eventually, with a calming brew in hand, I opened it.

My Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit has been suspended.

As you know, my Jobseekers’ Allowance has already been suspended.

So, trying to stay calm, I immediately checked my bank account online to see how much money I have to survive on until my employers pay me my part-time wage or Jobcentre Plus reconsider my situation: I was hoping it would be enough to last till a get a giro next week when this mess is sorted.

Then I find £30 has been taken in unpaid direct debit fees from my benefits (for reasons beyond my understanding because everything has been paid on time).

I would’ve been better off staying on benefits.

If I were still on benefits I wouldn’t need to find bus fares to my part-time work. I could go hungry at home rather than while trying to give lectures. I could sit in front of the halogen heater and not have to venture out into the snow only to return to a permanently unheated flat.

Jobcentre Plus agreed to my working – I asked for permission before I signed any contracts – but still I’m penalised.

This is the reality of how workers are treated when they make concerted efforts to get off unemployment and to earn an income, albeit a part-time, temporary one. For trying not to rely on unemployment benefits, for trying to find work that could, perhaps, lead to getting off the dole completely, I now have literally no income.

I’m at a loss at what to do. I can’t begin to imagine what rabid Tories would suggest. I assume this would still be my fault: perhaps my entrepreneurial skills have failed me yet again; perhaps I chose the wrong two careers in journalism and academia; perhaps my qualifications aren’t the right type; perhaps I over-achieved; perhaps I under-achieved; perhaps living within my means doesn’t show enough gumption and I should invest my £67.50 per week into some money-spinning venture from which I’ll emerge richer than Mark Zuckerberg.

All I want is a job. I just want enough money to live on. I’m happy to forgo holidays, meals in fancy restaurants, new clothes, a car, a mobile phone and all the things I once took for granted. I can’t, though, not have money for rent, council tax, food, travel expenses to work.

I no longer know what I’m expected to do. I would’ve been better off staying on benefits.

Amount of money I have £21.62

Cost of travel to work: £11.50 per week

Days until I am paid: 40

A journey …

My students cheered me: they laughed at my poor jokes and had kind comments for old features I’d written. I was, though, glad to be on the bus home. My nerves have been frayed, I’ve been distracted and easily irritated: one young woman tutting at a man in a tracksuit who had asked for a light made my jaw clench.

I considered sleeping on the bus but knew I’d miss my stop. I was distracted from lazily watching a girl, who was busily tidying her bobble hat over the edges of her dragon mask, by the chattering of a young boy. He was determined to tell me about his day in words only his mum could understand: I nodded and smiled as enthusiastically as I could.

Commuters sat around me, some reading the paper I used to write for, others magazines I was once thrilled to see using my byline. A woman had fallen asleep midway through some journalist’s piece of exciting news, nodding awake when the bus reached stops and checking where she was before falling back to sleep. Her calloused hands suggested she’d worked harder than me today.

A pair behind me discussed the gossip from work. There had been nothing official, just rumours of redundancies, threats of cuts, everyone could feel it coming although nothing had been said: it was only a matter of time.

The talkative boy got up, now demanding a farewell from us all as his mum pulled him away: even the woman who had fallen asleep in the the newspaper mustered a weary, “bye bye, darlin’”.

I watched people, as I often do, and considered how journalists view the world through others. We witness lives and the emotions of those around us, finding the right words to express their feelings or taking photos so harrowing it’s hard to imagine the person behind the lens. It offers us a protection from reality and a chance to distance ourselves from our own experience: if we write about it or photograph it we can’t feel it.

Research in 2009 found that between 86%-100% of journalists had witnessed a traumatic event while covering the news: I’ve interviewed the families of murdered children; women who’ve been raped; adults who were victims of abuse; people with terminal illnesses; grieving siblings and heart-broken spouses. Most journalists, though, exhibit resilience despite repeated exposure to work-related traumatic events, the report concluded, and this was evidenced by low rates of post-traumatic stress and other psychiatric disorders.

Those of us who aren’t war correspondents or risking our lives undercover still experience danger and emotional trauma in our daily work. We can be among the first to arrive at accidents, crimes, family tragedies and other traumatic events, regionally, locally and nationally. Unlike police officers, firefighters and others who are the first to scenes, we don’t receive counselling and perhaps we should but our innate resilience comes as no surprise to me. We’re adept at recognising that the emotion of the trauma we witness belongs to others.

Today, though, it was the stress brought by the tedium of bureaucracy that proved more than I could stand. I was closer to tears on the bus home than I’ve ever been during an emotional interview. I’m told I should still get Jobseekers’ Allowance. I’m told paperwork was lost. I’m told sending more information will put things right. I’m told this but my complete lack of faith in the system means I’ll not rest until I have the cash in my hand.

The reality: why people stay on benefits …

I just shouted at Chaplin. I never shout at Chaplin but I’m now stressed, angry and scared witless so  I’m taking it out on a defenceless cat. (I say defenceless but he’ll get his own back at some point.)

I’ve received a letter from Job Centre Plus telling me my claim has been suspended. That is, I’m not entitled to Jobseekers’ Allowance. Nor will I be paid by my employer until mid-March. I now have literally no income.

I would’ve been better off staying on benefits.

The letter states that Job Centre Plus is sorry I won’t be receiving benefits any more and adds, “This is because we cannot be sure that you are entitled to as much Jobseekers’ Allowance as we are paying you”.

I’ve given my adviser all the information I have regarding hours and pay – and indeed did so before I took up the offer of work. I was even told to keep signing on three days after my claim was suspended.

The letter also states, “There is no right of appeal against this decision”.

I do, though, have a form to fill in to give them more information on top of the information I have already provided.

I will now have to take out what little money I have from the bank in order to ensure I have bus fares to work … but considering I won’t be paid for six weeks, have little food, am using the emergency gas supply and now won’t pay other utility bills I can’t so far see that part-time working is worth the effort.

… I also now have to go to work and pretend none of this is constantly racing through my head.

Why Cameron and Miliband are both wrong about aspiration …

So Cameron and Miliband are having a catfight about aspiration with the PM saying “people working in offices and factories around the country need financial incentives too”.

He’s not wrong – but he’s talking codswallop. This idea that some jobs – those with qualifications and no need to clock on – mean a guaranteed life of luxury and as much houmous as you can eat could be destroyed with a moment of honesty.

As a trainee reporter I would go without lunch to enjoy a pint because I couldn’t afford both. While working on press agencies I would prioritise petrol over food – knowing I’d lose my job if I lost access to a car. Even when writing for a tabloid as “permanent freelance” – attending glitzy parties, interviewing celebrities, flying first class and getting black cabs to jobs – I wasn’t entitled to holiday pay or sick leave. If I was ill I’d drag myself into work and holidays came in the form of a night in a hotel having interviewed someone about their threesome, bizarre pet or wayward husband.

I was earning then what many people earn now – and the cost of living was much lower.

Now I stand in front of students and give lectures intended to help them prepare for the world of work: I wonder what they would think of career aspiration if they knew I have less than £30 to last me a fortnight. I bet it never crosses their mind that I have nothing for lunch. I doubt they even consider whether I had to boil the kettle to wash my hair. They don’t know their lecturer is now planning to sleep on the settee this week to be near the halogen heater rather than top up the gas meter.

I recognise that tips on living in poverty might come in handy for journalism students – and details of how slowly employers pay would help all new freelances – but I don’t share them. I also don’t suggest that the journalists going through Alan Partridge’s bins might’ve been looking for slung out cashmere jumpers or the scrapings of a pot of couscous. Perhaps I should.

I write now not to moan – although, to be frank, I am weary and in the mood for a whinge – but to point out the fallacy that is “aspiration” not just while we loom in the shadow of a double-dip recession but always when employers take advantage of workers: perhaps more advantage of those desperate not to be seen in a dreaded blue collar.

I’m enjoying working: I like to be challenged, to be tired when I fall into bed (or onto the settee), to be reminded of my abilities and to feel valued – by students if not those paying my wage – but I work to earn. Losing at least £20 a week on unemployment benefit to get to a part-time job seems completely ridiculous to me. I feel like I’m working to make a point, to get my foot in the door, to seem keen and not too demanding: I should expect to be paid what I’m worth.

But too many workers try to pretend that they’re among the elite staff, try to pretend they have qualified, experienced and well-read their way out of being labelled “a worker”. They might even call themselves a part of the “squeezed middle” to try to appear somehow different, above the norm.

We’re all workers: all selling our labour to someone else who decides how much we get and when we get it. This, in my experience, never changes.

I’d suggest we talk more about our employment situation and – rather than pretending we’re aspiring and deferring gratification – admit we’re low-paid and working long hours.

We should tell each other how much we earn; share our frustrations at the hours we work; explain the difficulties we have with childcare and its costs; ask colleagues if they get holiday and sick pay; talk about our shared conditions in the workplace; find out who else is struggling to pay utilities bills; ask how much debt people are in; ask if they too fear redundancy; make sure everyone has something to eat at lunchtime; find out if our workmates are being forced into retirement or paid a trainee wage while doing a senior job.

We should talk to each other. Imagine how much we’d realise we have in common if we just stopped pretending otherwise.

How much money I have: £46 to last a fortnight which is really £26 if I want heating and hot water

How many more hours I will have worked: 24

As bankers grab bonuses …

I’ve knocked ten minutes off my walk to the bus stop. I celebrated this minor achievement with the same arrogance, machismo and energy of Daley Thompson winning a second gold Olympic medal in 1984, except I didn’t flash my bum at Princess Anne

It might not seem much of an achievement to you but after nine months spent on a lumpy settee, followed by a few weeks of backache, this return to a natural, pain-free walking position is hard-earned.

More importantly on arrival at a dreaded destination, Job Centre Plus seems less threatening; the building doesn’t loom large as I walk down the street as if in some green and yellow nightmare. Once inside I don’t become a subservient mess desperately trying to look like I’m not a benefit cheat but instead another victim of mass unemployment.

I visited today. I arrived early thanks to beating my personal best in bus stop walking and had to wait in the haemorrhoid-coloured room, on a stained chair, reading the “psychological wellbeing” poster which seemed less significant, then the debt advice information which seemed less immediate: I remembered being overwhelmed by the offers of advice and little practical help.

I listened in to a man in his 20s who seemed new to the signing on experience.

“You’re not making the effort,” the adviser told him, a faint squeak in her voice which suggested frustration or nervousness.

He remained silent as I’ve found most do. He watched, waiting for her next comment, knowing it was entirely up to her to lead this conversation: signing on does not feel like a two-way street but an opportunity to be told what to do and prove you’ve done it.

“You’ve not provided a CV,” she squeaked on. “You’ve not completed your Looking for Work booklet.” When she didn’t receive a response she said: “No CV, no job search, no benefits.”

While I didn’t think this was much of a Jobcentre catchphrase, it did get the man squirming in his seat. “I’ve been ill,” he finally said. “When I was better I went to Job Club.”

“You went on the days I told you to go?”

“Yeah.”

“But they should help you with a CV. Then you bring that CV to me. Did they not help you?”

“When I went they told me it was the wrong day so I’m going next week.”

“I gave you the correct days. Wait, let me phone them and see what is going on.”

The man waited, calling her bluff then, just moments before she lifted the receiver, said: “Right, I might as well tell you. I didn’t go.”

I had to stifle a laugh. The adviser had to stifle a scream. The man shifted in his seat some more as if to leave.

“I’m not finished with you yet,” the adviser snapped, not the faintest squeak in her voice, and he sat still. “Do you warrant your benefits?”

Silence. I listened as the threats to stop his money continued and wondered why someone would fail to do the bare minimum. I’m told I no longer have to complete my Looking for Work booklet because I’m in part-time, temporary employment. I am, though, acutely aware that I have a Jobseekers’ Agreement which I’ve to commit to every time I sign on. I wouldn’t stop doing this no matter what a well-intended – or potentially dodgy – adviser told me.

This man, I overheard, had what were described as “basic skills issues” but the threat to a benefit ban continued. Jobcentre Plus makes you see life in all its miserable forms: people who can’t find work for lack of qualifications; the mentally-ill; those with learning difficulties; the marginalized; the excluded; the angry; the depressed. All signs of life under Tory rule are here.

Just listening to it is depressing – but to feel that sense of being herded, judged, written-off, to see boxes ticked and papers stamped as you sign on among others fed up of going through the motions is demoralising.

I look forward to the day when my employers pay me and I can sign off – albeit it temporarily. I also look forward to being paid so I can buy some food – my food money is now being spent on bus fares and topping up the gas meter so I can wash my work clothes.

I wait to be paid as the RBS boss considers his £963,000 bonus in shares and wonder what positive use that money could be put to as the UK teeters on the brink of double-dip recession.

I read that up to 400 workers could lose their jobs at a Kent steelworks with the recession taking 706,300 jobs across UK manufacturing: 119,000 in the West Midlands, 108,000 in the  South East and 97,000 in the North West at 97,000.

I see that almost 23% of Spanish workers face unemployment as they too struggle in a global economic crisis brought about by the banks. Indeed, among the Eurozone member states the second highest unemployment rate is Greece (18.8 % in September 2011) followed by Lithuania (15.3 % in the third quarter of 2011). Eurostat estimates that 23.674 million men and women in the EU, of whom 16.372 million were in the euro area, were unemployed in November 2011.

I read this – mass unemployment and greedy bankers offered ridiculous pay-outs – and decide that the man not taking an interest when attending Jobcentre Plus is hard to condemn.

Food I have in until giro day: half a loaf; half a tin of beans; tins of chickpeas, hoummous, carrots and sweetcorn;  a jar of sundried tomatoes; the remnants of a bag of oven chips; dregs at the bottom of a jam jar.

Hours I’ve worked in the past two weeks: 20

Return to Oz …

I haven’t had coffee with Niles and Frasier for a few days. I’ve not escaped to the country where I inevitably scream abuse at wannabe mansion owners. I haven’t even managed an afternoon nap with Chaplin, much to his irritation.

Instead I’ve faced the cruel irony of running after a bus adorned with the face of Meryl Streep as Thatcher as I make my way from long-term unemployment to part-time, temporary work.

I’ve been in a panic about money, of course. I know I won’t receive any wages for at least four weeks.

Getting to work costs £11.50 a week; I will need lunch on one day so will spend about £2 on a sandwich and I imagine there will be other expenses I’ve yet to identify: this could include the hole in my boot I found on my first day running through a puddle, the boot is now so sodden even Charlie Chaplin couldn’t eat it. I also considered a new diet: jam on toast, beans on toast or sardine curry for four weeks.

Then I went to sign-off. I walked into Jobcentre Plus and, despite a fear of being unpaid for weeks, had the arrogant swagger of a prize-winning fighter, knowing I was throwing off the shackles and returning to a world where people didn’t speak to me like I hadn’t yet learned the alphabet.

I sat down with my adviser. I like this one. It took me four to get one I liked which, I assume, is how Tory leaders feel when they’re finding someone suitable to bring up their children for them. He isn’t patronising, believes me when I show my Looking for Work booklet entries and understands my frustration.

“I’ve found part-time work-It’s be enough to live on-I’m so relieved-I’m so excited.” I yabbered at him as soon as I sat down.

“I’m sure you are.” He smiled the knowing smile of someone used to the mania of the newly short-term, part-time employed.

Then he shocked me to the core. After months of fearing even thinking about part-time work because I would lose all benefits and be plunged into poverty I’m told I can sign on until I’m paid. I am, after all, on a part-time, temporary contract and still looking for permanent, full-time work. I will receive Jobseekers’ Allowance, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit until I receive my pay then I will sign off and could receive a £100 back-to-work payment.

This is, of course, because I spent nine months unemployed, any less than six and I think the rules change. It amuses me that the five hours I currently work (soon to go up to 12 in total) will be all I can work.

The government insists that I work for five hours and I’m paid for five hours … if this changes I must alert them immediately. I’m to work only for the hours I am paid. As soon as I sign off, however, I can join you all in being paid for, say, eight hours but effectively working for 12: I can take part in that unpaid overtime us Brits are so good at.

You should consider this one-way street next time you decide to stay late in the office, unpaid, rather than go home to have a glass of wine, bath your child or just lie on your settee. The TUC recently reported that the two billion hours of unpaid overtime worked last year would be enough to create over a million extra full-time jobs.

Even the Daily Mail took this information on board reporting that figures from Labour Force Survey Summer Quarter 2011 found 5.3 million workers put in an average of 7.2 hours of unpaid overtime a week last year, worth around £5,300 a year per person.

It also states that the proportion of workers doing unpaid overtime increased slightly, from 19.7 per cent in 1992 to 21.1 per cent in 2011.

So Friday, February 24 is now Work Your Proper Hours Day. I don’t work Fridays but will be not working in spirit.

If you need something to do while not doing unpaid overtime, I would like to provide a list of my favourite blog entries. I’ve chosen ten in no particular order – to celebrate my return to Oz:

Why I write

Smells Like Teen Spirit

Poverty Porn

Entrepreneurs on the Dole

Currie Makes Me Choke

Grudges and Degrees

Bread, Eggs, Teabags, Catnip

Barking Mad

Rainy Days and Tuesdays

Is It Me Or Is It Cold In Here

I will keep blogging but it will be less often. I have some new skills to learn, there are things I have to read, people I have to see, writing to be done. I’m going to be working extremely hard – and I couldn’t be happier.

How much money I have: £5.11 until Tuesday

How many hours I have worked: 5

How many jobs I’ve found to apply for since I started part-time, temporary work: One (also part-time)

Work fair …

I keep being offered bits of work. It’s not enough to live on but could, potentially, lead to more work. It’s also a way to keep me engaged, active, employable, away from Twitter.

I’m now trying my maths skills (not always wise) to see if I can accept this work. It’s not enough to pay rent and bills and it seems I’d be a few pound better off on the dole – but it’s an opportunity. If I keep turning down work I’m unlikely to be the first choice in the future.

I’ve been told – repeatedly, threateningly – that I’m not allowed to do any work while signing on. Now I hear I can sign on up until my first pay packet, potentially, or can still claim housing benefit for one month and get a £100 job grant.

Of course, none of this will stop me struggling on a low income due to having just a few hours work – but it is helpful. It took me almost nine months of being unemployed to find this out. My understanding is that it is of no value to anyone who has been unemployed for less than six months.

Previously I’ve been told, “we’re not good at helping people in part-time work” or “if it’s less than 16 hours we can’t help you”. I’ve felt desperate and fed up as former employers and contacts have been in touch with various opportunities I’ve had to turn down because the Jobcentre computer says “no”.

The Jobcentre sees work as: full time work of 16 hours or more, part-time work of 16 hours or less and, if claiming with a partner, work of less than 24 hours per week. I’m child-free (Chaplin doesn’t count, apparently) so not entitled to In Work Credit. I’ve not been unemployed due to illness or disability so I am not entitled to Return to Work Credit. This is if you actually get these benefits when you apply anyway – I imagine it’s as difficult as claiming on insurance.

I have to do something to make a change. I sit home in my jogging bottoms, watching mind-rot afternoon telly, swearing at the screen, spilling tea down my front. Chaplin is in and out all day, once again happy and healthy, looking at me as if to say, “Have you been outside? Do you think you should go outside? You smell a bit.”

I keep in touch with people by computer. While I’ve written two PhD proposals (yes, two) that might lead to something, I’ve also not worked my way through the reading list as planned. I have, instead, watched more rubbish films than Mark Kermode but with a far less articulate response, shouting at the screen as butty sprays everywhere. This is usually the point when Chaplin thinks sitting outside in the rain is preferable.

I have no routine, now waking up late morning, sometimes as late as 2pm on occasion. This might sound luxurious but it is oddly depressing after a while. I’m also awake till the early hours or not sleeping through the night, getting up to watch the news then going back to bed. This is probably because I fall asleep during the day, exhausted by the banality of television’s offerings. I don’t want to live in a world where employment dictates our body clock but I miss having a routine.

So I think I’ll take the work. It’d be better than being sent back to entrepreneurial training scheme that will lead to … no work. I’ve had my fill of walk-on parts in League of Gentleman. I’ll take the risk because, while I’m scared of getting behind on my rent and bills (not credit cards, etc, they can wait), I’m more scared of being on the dole permanently. I’m now existing rather than living.

I came across an interesting website today which outlines the amount of unemployment benefit available to jobless workers across Europe.

In the UK we’re spongers, yes? We sit on our backsides, living off the backs of hard-earning taxpayers, right? We don’t want to work because benefits keeps us in the lifestyle to which we have become accustomed?

I know many readers don’t think like this but if you know someone who does, show them these figures for European unemployment benefits in 2007 for a single person with no dependents. In Euros.

The amount paid in the UK remains roughly the same today.

Country                       Wages     Benefits

Luxembourg                €32,604 – €21,346
Denmark                     €32,564 – €18,302
Netherlands                 €32,363 – €15,758
France                         €32,540 – €15,605
Portugal                       €32,288 – €14,323
Belgium                       €32,636 – €12,415
Finland                        €32,577 – €12,339
Austria                        €32,499 – €12,212
Sweden                       €32,643 – €11,924
Germany                     €32,631 – €11,821
Italy                             €32,529 – €11,179
Spain                           €32,625 – €10,522
Ireland                         €32,747 – €9,662
Greece                         €32,731 – €4,407
UK                              €32,381  – €3,631

My ultimate fear is if I don’t get some work for which I’m qualified and experienced and which I might actually enjoy then I’ll end up working anyway as the Tories bring in Workfare which will see me working full time for benefits in a job I don’t want to do.

So wish me luck and I’ll keep blogging … I’m still an unemployedhack, after all.

Happy New Year …

Even Chaplin came in after midnight. I went to look for him, wanting to bring in the New Year with my flatmate.

I took my warm cava with me to the front door. The street was silent, except for fireworks nearby. I spotted Chaplin sitting on a wall with the ginger tom and I felt uneasy, as if plans were being made for 2012 and they didn’t include me.

Regular readers will know that Chaplin moved in with me having left a neighbour. I don’t know why, you would have to ask him, but I assume because he knew he would be escaping toddlers and get to live the bachelor life again.

Now I watched as he huddled up with the cat that lives with an affluent Polish family who have done up their home, virtually rebuilt it, and both seem to have regular work. I felt like screaming, “They lock him out all day, you know! They didn’t fit a cat flap when they put in those posh new windows.” I didn’t because even on an empty street, a street where everyone had gone to a party but me, I knew this would look insane.

I drank my cava, picked Bombay Mix from my teeth, and listened to the fireworks. I think I heard distant cheering and someone enjoying a snog. I’d been forced to endure an evening with Alan Carr.

The terraced houses stood empty, but with fairylights dangerously twinkling within, and no one had stayed home to celebrate in my block of flats: Toothless Dave went out hours ago and the drug-dealing prostitute had been in and out, as it were, all over Christmas. [For fact checkers: the specifics of only one of these descriptions can be called “truth”.]

As the news keeps reminding us it was unseasonably warm so I remained outside, leaning against the wall drinking the cava that I should’ve shared with friends, irritated by the light from the telly flashing in the living room, where Jools Holland – a man no one really wants to spend their New Year’s Eve with – was mute.

I listened instead for break-ins thinking I might as well do a good deed while stuck in on my own. Even the burglars were at parties.

I had made an effort: I didn’t drink the cava from a mug, I did put the Bombay Mix in a bowl, and I put some nibbles – venison pâté, crackers, baklava – on plates: it all looked pretty in the orange glow of the halogen heater. I had snuggled up to watch something called a Hootenanny but I couldn’t stop thinking about what others were doing and why Chaplin hadn’t come in for telly-watching cuddles.

I then thought of previous New Year’s Eve celebrations when I had work and cash and enough money to travel: as a child on the balcony of our flat (now in the shadow of Canary Wharf) and as an adult spending the Millennium freezing cold in a doorway offering warm cava to the homeless: who knew I’d once experienced a hint of the future? And I don’t mean Canary Wharf.

Finally I thought of New Year’s Eve 2012. I pray now to the Fairy Jobmother that I’ll have enough cash to go out rather than stand at the front door watching my cat looking hopeful and optimistic, making plans for his year ahead.

New Year’s Resolutions:

1. To campaign for onesies to be given to everyone on unemployment benefits from the first day of signing

2. To learn microeconomics to expert standard so as to be able to live on £67.50 per week despite the rising cost of living

3. To have “I acknowledge the debt, I don’t dispute the debt but I have no money to pay the debt” tattooed on one arm – Tulisa style – and “I have no savings and no realisable assets” on my calf

4. To develop a skin thick enough to tolerate cold temperatures in order to outwit NPower and their weekly surcharges

5. To convince Chaplin to stay, to remain my flatmate, despite things taking a downwardly-mobile turn in 2011

Stand up for journalism …

Still the anger towards journalists continues on Twitter. Some of it is threats of violence, some knee-jerk reactions to other Tweets and some just juvenile vitriol – but it is commonplace.

“”Having a baby will be a celebrities hottest accessory” Are you being serious?! Journalists are beyond the valley of stupid.”

“Hate the press. Hate journalists. I have no respect for them whatsoever.”

“I hate journalists! Extremely HATE!”

“i hate journalists!!!!!!!!”

“Most of journalists lie anyway”

At risk of repeating myself, not all journalists write for red top newspapers and those that do are not all excited by seasonal filler stories, fashion, celebrity gossip or any other nonsense they’re told to produce. Not all of them hack phones. *Sighs.*

We need a debate about journalism – not a witchhunt.

The most amusing among the comments are those weakly attempting to politicise their hatred: saying journalists are class traitors, establishment cronies, puppets of the state.

“Journalists are wage slaves telling it the way their neo-liberal masters want them to tell it. #classtraitors”

Then there’re those – sometimes in the same thread – saying bloggers are the future as if independent and political journalism is something new.

These arguments ignore that journalism began among workers writing about their plight, their politics, their fight against the bosses and that, in time, newspapers were bought, sold and created bigger profits for fewer powerful media owners. It ignores that independent journalism is thriving – but isn’t paying a living wage to journalists.

But even when being open and independent we can’t win with some Tweeters:

“I really hate journalists who cover stories and tweet their subjective nonsense. Tweet the story not yr political view!”

“Twitter proves that all you have to do make a lie the truth is repeat it often enough. Embarassing how journalists use it as a news wire.”

Only 45 people have joined the I Hate Journalists page on Facebook, described as: “I hate all journalists, from the funny body movement they make when reporting news, its like they r looking for a spot on the camera, to the psycho bullshit they write. U knw they suck, we dnt mean all just 102% ha! Ha! suck heavily!”

Here people write:

“they make up lies and have their own agenda and cant be trusted and should be murdered. i hate them.

“PLANT BOMBS IN ALL MEDIA HOUSES,,,AND KA BOOM..WE DISINFECT THE WORLD IN ONE GO!!!”

“I heard that over 600 journalists have been killed covering conflicts around the globe since 2001 . . . That’s a good start, but it still leaves too many in circulation.”

There are of course, those who aren’t carrying torches and waving pitchforks:

“When you see the situations journalists find themselves in, it’s amazing there aren’t more fatalities/serious injuries. Respect.”

It doesn’t matter that these groups and comments aren’t all UK-based because the work we do is threatening and threatened the world over.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists 85 journalists and media workers were killed in 2011. They’re our colleagues and they weren’t killed for going through Alan Partridge’s bins.

Few journalists would be intimidated by the moronic comments – and many would be itching to correct the spelling and grammar – but the Leveson Inquiry has sparked a discussion that has been lost in the outrage and moralising.

It strikes me as ridiculous to turn on an entire industry because of the actions of a few. Worse still to blame workers for the actions of their bosses and the owners of the media.

It also strikes me as worrying that the debate about subjectivity and non-partisan journalism is confused, lost amid the demand for the truth no matter what: forgetting that even truth is someone’s version of it.

Journalism and journalists are not being defended adequately enough during the Leveson Inquiry. As some people spot their favourite celebrity moaning about intrusions into their privacy they become emotionally involved and in the next breath they berate newspapers for being filled with celebrity codswallop.

There isn’t an open, honest, intelligent debate about what journalism means – perhaps because, to some MPs, journalism means uncovering the expenses scandal and the Leveson Inquiry means getting the chance to have a go back.

The Guardian now reports that “four groups – End Violence Against Women, Equality Now, Object and rape charity Eaves – are calling on the Leveson Inquiry to move away from addressing the concerns of celebrities and other victims of alleged phone hacking by News International and look at the daily treatment of women, which they say contributes to a society where rape can only be committed by evil strangers down darkened alleyways and where a woman is valued only because of her body.”

I agree that this is something to be tackled but hope the blame isn’t put at the feet of journalists reporting on rape using information from the police and courts. There seems to be a train of thought developing that journalists are responsible for what is printed – that shooting the messenger is acceptable.

When I was a trainee I described a burglar as “vicious” and my editor told me I had no right to write this: it was my opinion, he said, that the crime was vicious and, unless the police said it, I should not write it. He was absolutely right – one of the few times he was, as I recall – but while the police are emotive and subjective journalists will, and indeed in some cases must, report it – just look at the comments from GMP, for which they later apologised.

There are currently many journalists in the UK facing job cuts, newspapers facing closures, local news coverage threatened – and this is a threat to democracy. Worldwide reporters are detained -  and even murdered – for telling the truth, for reporting on more important activities than some pop singer’s wedding and because the work they did was a threat to the powerful.

If we lose journalism – good journalism – we lose the voice of communities, we lose our voice to tackle the powerful. If we stop trusting all journalists we give the powerful free reign to publish whatever they like.

Here in the UK we’ve allowed our newspapers to become trashy – journalists and readers alike. We need to reclaim our media from the few people who own it and to ensure journalism and journalists are not trashed in the process.

Don’t hate journalists or journalism. Instead, seek out the independent newspapers – published and online – where you live. Join the NUJ and fight to defend good journalism and talented journalists. Remember that journalism is not reporting who Alan Partridge has slept with – and that most journalists don’t care what he gets up to either.

When you grow to love journalists again you might want to consider this.

How much money I have: ten pounds until Tuesday, which isn’t bad at all

New Year plans: Cava (a gift), a recovered Chaplin for company, Jools Holland on the telly and a bag of Bombay Mix (I might even put it in a bowl). Jobseekers’ Allowance will not stretch to a double fare taxi home from a party