Learning that millions of people are in fuel poverty reminds me that it wasn’t that long ago when Nadhim Zahawi was caught fiddling his parliamentary expenses in order provide heating for his horses. What’s that? Libel laws? Oh, sorry. I take that back unreservedly. He made an unfortunate mistake that anyone could make because when you’re claiming expenses from the taxpayer to pay your utility bills – and who among us doesn’t do that, apart from nearly everyone else? – it’s very easy to accidentally put in a claim to keep your horses warm. And when you’re down to your last £100 million you would need a heart of stone not to feel sympathy for him. The poor lad.
However, I was more than a little surprised to hear him last week, saying that nurses are a bunch of cunts and are responsible for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – I think this was what he said: I was busy abusing nurses outside our local hospital at the time, so I may have misheard – and could just do one. But I’m afraid that’s what we, as working people, are up against.
Until last week, I was somewhat sceptical about the claim that workers in my old department the DWP are having to use food banks, some set up in their own offices, but I now know that it’s true, a stone-cold fact. I knew already that many staff are claiming the same benefits as they were paying out, but the fact that are struggling to eat and, presumably heat is a searing indictment of the broken country in which we live.
I’m returning to a familiar theme today but more and more it appears that these fabulously wealthy politicians – Rishi Sunak and his wife’s wealth make Zahawi look like a pauper – just cannot understand how the rest of us live. I met a lovely middle class woman the other week – if you have read some of my regular blogs, it won’t be hard to work out where – who lived alone in a big house. Until this year, she could just about to eat and heat, although she lived in two rooms, leaving the others entirely unheated, but this time she had paid her utility bills, the prices of which have doubled since 2021, she didn’t have anything left over to buy food. It was fortunate indeed that she didn’t have horses because the DWP wouldn’t have made any contribution at all. If she became an MP, she could wave those bills goodbye but as a mere working class person the choice really was down to heating or eating.
No such problem for the privileged former private schoolboy who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. It would be quite wrong, as many suggest, that he tried to pull a fast one with the fuel bill for his stables and got caught out. Perish the thought, for Nadhim Zahawi, the MP for Stratford on Avon, is an honourable man. (See what I did there, Shakespeare fans?)
It’s bloody freezing today, but fear not for Zahawi’s horses because for this winter their owner will be kindly paying for their fuel bills himself. It’s just a bit sad that he’s desperate to keep his horses warm, but doesn’t give a fuck about anybody else.
