So every now and then, they all ask to spend their meagre pocket money on over priced packets of these little fragments of confetti and I grudgingly agree. The other day they were standing at the counter, purses in hand ready to each pay individually for a £1 packet of stickers with a queue of six people behind us and I didn't have enough cash for the lacto free milk for which I was having to delve into the overdraft. I paid by card and paid for their stickers simultaneously to try and save time. When we got home, I asked for the money for the stickers. "But we still have it." Rex declared, suspiciously guarding his rainbow purse in his sticky fist.
"No," I explained, "I paid for it with card so you need to give me the money."
"But that was the bank's money." he countered, quite accurately.
"Yes but for your stickers."
The rest of the details are tedious, but needless to say I had to wait for them to go to bed and sneak the money out of their purses later.
It seems to me that David Cameron is having the same trouble understanding economic policy as my 5 year old. He doesn't seem to understand that once the money is gone, it is gone and cannot be spent twice over.
Today it has emerged in a Guardian article that David Cameron has written to his local County Council in his role as a constituency MP to ask them about all the cuts to local services.It's like a Monty Python Sketch, or Yes, Minister, or ... or Prisoner .."Who is responsible for this mess? " "You are number one."
I think he genuinely believed that there was a whole raft of people out there willing to pick up the pieces of these massive cuts to council funding, a whole set of elderly ladies who were just dying to get up off the sofa and stack books at the local libraries. And I wonder if people who have been brought up in privileged environments have only a vague understanding of what the "simple folk" do all day. Perhaps, at David Cameron's school, food magically appeared, rooms were magically tidied and no one ever questioned where it all came from, it was only when Hermione reminded everyone that there were actual house elves doing all the work that any of us thought about it. Oh no wait, that was Hogwarts...and Cameron's school didn't have girls, so no wonder he never gave it any consideration. So as a consequence it's no wonder that some MPs are convinced that there are myriad back room staff who fanny about with press releases and clean and type things and all those little jobs that don't take very long really, why would you need to actually pay someone to do them? No doubt someone would be happy to give up a couple of hours a day to help feed the children / type up letters / organise road safety / teach a class of twenty four five year olds. Just the little things.
That army of volunteers does not exist. I am a volunteer, I know. My mother-in-law couldn't retire early, she still does extra shifts if she needs to to pay the mortgage because her pension isn't going to go that far and she's worked her whole life. Other grandparents are having to look after their grandchildren because childcare is so expensive and all mothers have to go back to work. Anybody else with a couple of hours on their hands is usually trying to pick up a couple of extra hours of work to help make ends meet because wages are static and everything else isn't. It is not that people are not willing, but if a job is worth doing then it is worth being paid for and these things are valuable.
Our library in the village is threatened with closure. It is an amazing place and really active, always full of people, a great resource. Pip and Rex love borrowing sock monkeys as much as books. There are always free activities and crafts for children. They are really well attended but the librarian is not allowed to charge for those things, not even to cover costs. She is allowed to charge adults for activities so she often gives up her evenings to run quizzes and other activities to raise the money, to pay for the children's activities. She doesn't even live in the village and has to drive out to open up the building so she feels she may as well be there. This is on top of her full days at work, and when she goes / retires, they may not even appoint another qualified librarian, because that is too expensive and apparently anyone can put books on shelves.
I am no more likely to convince David Cameron of the ludicrousness of the display than I am to convince Rex that the money is not there any more but I have to keep trying to convince everyone else to remind politicians and voters to think really carefully about the value these public services provide before the big yellow taxi comes for me, because we really are not going to realise what we've got until it's gone.
