It's Complicated

Hello. I can only apologise for the silence and I hope you will forgive me but I have been a little preoccupied. As I believe I mentioned last Saturday was my birthday and the first half of it was very lovely. The second part - from about 7pm onwards was spent standing in the middle of my place of work, with water dripping onto my head and a powerful smell of smoke. I was accompanied by several colleagues, two fire engines and at least five police cars. Happy Birthday to me.

To backtrack - which I have to do carefully - wheels of justice and all that. We have been dealing with a gang of rough sleepers at our back fire door. Rough sleepers are nothing new where I work. We try our best to operate with compassion - we make coffee, they use our loos (carefully timed to ensure it is only tinkling going on) and I'm pretty certain that our people are slipping them a few quid.  In truth, we have been rewarded many times with filth (human filth as well), drug detritus and abuse. I must stress that this is not always the case but, at the risk of sounding like a Reform candidate, it is definitely getting more full on. To return to the back door. The key was that the sleepers were at a fire door. We tried to negotiate a solution which involved them sleeping overnight but leaving as we raised the shutters -  that didn't work. Then they brought a tent. And an old kitchen unit. And an office chair. Then a volunteer caught them "jacking up" as I believe the young people call it, at two o clock in the afternoon. Now, you and I may be familiar with drugs and how to take them, having watched all the Channel 4 documentaries but this kind of atmosphere is frightening for an elderly or disabled customer. 

We, of course, tried to involve the various agencies but the police have a long queue and the council are the council. One of the random muppets who wander about the city in red flack jackets looking for shoplifters etc. turned up to give us a lecture on what difficult lives these people have, referred to all the sleepers by their first names, told us that there was nothing he could do, then informed me from the other side of our blocked fire exit that, if anything should happen to anyone while this exit was blocked, that I personally would probably be liable for Corporate Manslaughter. The back door is, by now, about ankle-deep in filth. And the prospect of evacuating anyone in a wheelchair through it is daunting, to say the least. 

Eventually (and that is very much the operative word here) our uninvited guests were served with a 48-hour notice to quit. That was on the Friday. On Saturday night, our back door had been set on fire. CCTV shows some kind of fire bomb being thrown and the tent had burnt in a way that suggested solvent. No one was hurt. Those are the facts, we obviously don't know who started this fire, you can draw your own conclusions. 

We are left with a massive bill that is possibly not covered by insurance (a complicated lease), reduced working hours because the smell of smoke is catching in everyone's throat and a group of people who struggle to get out at the best of times, having their town centre time curtailed because we are having to close early. There is a possibility that it will contribute to putting us out of business permanently. AND I AM HERE TO SAY THAT IT IS JUST NOT FAIR. 

We have seen a lot of kindness in the last few days - the police are talking about running a Crowdfunder for us, one of our tradespeople has repaired the back door temporarily and done a really good job as well as offering to pay for a Health and Safety review. This is wonderful BUT IT IS STILL NOT RIGHT. And I am mad. I am not a fool. I know I need mercy more than I need justice but, sometimes, I feel that some justice would make a nice change. I would like someone held to account. Because I am getting quite woozy and losing my compassion compass here. 

Feel free to lecture me on the awful circumstances that have led people to these lives. I wouldn't necessarily advise it at the moment. I know there is a lack of justice around the distribution of wealth that has led to the poor falling into these circumstances. I also know that many poor people would rather die than set fire to a building and would be righteously offended by any suggestion that they would. We have plenty of people who donate to us out of their own straightened circumstances and we are grateful. 

BUT IT IS STILL NOT RIGHT. I am really tired of it. I get tired of illegal cladding being replaced at taxpayers' expense (eventually) after the people responsible for shoddy building practices leading to the deaths at Grenfell trouser millions in insurance. I'm really tired of Foodbanks (FOODBANKS) being just part of the furniture. HOH says it is shocking how many who turn up to them are in full-time work. (Usually carers - again doing the government's work on the cheap). That's before we get to the Blood Scandal and the Post Office. Who was it who said - "In a crisis - look for the people doing good." Well, that's all very lovely but, at the moment, I'm a bit more interested in looking for the people who are NOT doing good and have a bit of holding to account. 

I know that I am probably shouting at people who are victims by being mad at these sleepers but I am mad at them and that's the truth. I'm not proud of it, but what they did was awful and is hurting lots of people.

Gerald Coates (and that's a rabbit hole I'm not going down at the moment) wrote a song about pleading with God for justice. I used to think that Compassion was more important. Now I think that they go hand in hand. There's a bit in Psalm 89 where it says 

The Right and Justice are the roots of your rule; Love and Truth are its fruits.

Suggesting maybe that Love and Compassion come out of Justice  - not the other way around?

We have a General Election in the UK in a couple of weeks. At the moment, it looks like one big personality cult. For me, it's not helped by a lot of people - when asked where they going to put their vote - saying "Well, I don't rightly know" like Mavis from Corrie. And, even worse "I might not bother" or EVEN worse "I'll probably vote for the one who makes me laugh" What?

I'm not telling anyone where to put their cross but we should do so soberly and thoughtfully and we should be asking difficult questions about this mess to anyone who stops us in the street and honks "Vote for me - will you?" 

Because I genuinely wonder if we are losing it. I will send you off and say Have a good week. I could then apologise and say I am sorry for ranting but that would be a lie.