Paul Howsley

The job of the politician is to speak for all people; not just for parties with vested interests, or organisations with the biggest wallets. The first people a politician should protect are those that cannot protect themselves: Those weakest and most vulnerable among us. This is, to most of us, something that seems to be an obvious statement of fact, and that may be so, but it__ also a forgotten fact. Now, today, the opposite is true. It should shame us all. It shames me. The very fact that the most poor and the most vulnerable in our society are those that are victimised and stamped upon, whereas the most wealthy and the most influential are making more profits and acquiring more assets and wealth than ever before in history, is a damning indictment of what our society has become

He picked up the paper and read the article; it was just one of many he had read lately that portrayed the poor in an awful light. The badge had now become the symbol of the unemployed, the sick, the disabled, and the most vulnerable. Badger had noticed that the media, just like that newspaper, swirled around anybody who they deemed too lazy or too stupid to work, and it seemed, people believed what they read.

Badger had been waiting with ever increasing certainty for that brown, government stamped envelope, to hit the floor with the impact of several atomic bombs; the shockwaves hitting him before the sound could penetrate his ears.

Too right things could be better, that__ my whole point. My going to work for the badge will not change that, will it?_ Joanna said, __nd Pride? There is absolutely no pride in being used and cast aside every twelve-weeks for someone equally replaceable. Do you see pride on the faces of people on Workplace? I don__. I see worry, I see weariness, I see downcast men and women, shuffling to and from work, ridiculed at the shops when their badge has ran out, shouted down in the streets with insults like __adger_ and __cum_ for simply doing all they can to survive. Pride, I don__ see that, and you know what else I never see? Any fucking hope.