If you want to buy my vote…

A tax cut would be lovely; I’m a low income earner. Please change HELP back to HECS – too ironic and so far there’s been no help just debt. Make it less of a millstone that we both now that I’ll probably never pay off now. Or maybe I will as it seems likely that I’ll be barren by choice or non-choice because with the huge rents and the low wages and the dribs and drabs of money slowly leached away by my oh-so-hedonistic lifestyle and eternal singledom and my desire not to become a whore for money or security it seems I’d never have enough money to pay for the hospital costs let alone the things a child needs and no, I don’t think five grand covers it, not a minute of it, certainly not a lifetime. Since I’m barren by choice could you please stop spending my hard earned money on private education for the children of the wealthy – I’ll never have either children or wealth so it seems a bit of a cruel irony to finance someone else’s, nor is it that I had such an education and I guess I’ll do alright as one of the worker bees slowly bringing back the pollen, or whatever it is, for the lucky inner circle, bet then, I was never meant to be one of the leaders of the next generation was I? they’ve already been chosen by their parent’s success. Of course, we all know that success in life has nothing to do with the situation of your family and birth and everything to do with your actions – so long as you have that backing and none of the crippling fear of the poverty you’ve barely known and are too scared of to chance or even, for a few who I admit are far better people than me, the poverty that you’ve known and could know again and which frightens you so little or so much that you will chance everything every single time to never live it again. Being in the middle is quite the horrid place, neither one thing nor the other.
But I digress, we were talking about how you could buy my vote. I would like to not be afraid that every employer that I have for the rest of my life will have so much power over me that I will be a slave, you may never have met this condition but it doesn’t feel very good, it does not make for peace of mind. I would like that those less capable or less rational or less intelligent or more easily cowed or simply less able be protected from those who would and could fuck them over. I’m even more worried about them than me, those are some good people and I count many of my friends. I worry, you see. For my friends and family with babies and uncertainties I’d like the safety nets to be fairer and less crippling. For the crazy old codger I call Papa and others of his generation and their successors in Iraq I should like assurances that they will always have access to the things they need, the help, the money – we owe them more than most will ever know; and several billion apologies too. Likewise, mental health for all and to all a goodnight – this experiment of some thirty years has not worked, some people need to be looked after, they need help when they ask not after they’ve dialled triple fucking oh. Parasuicide should not be necessary in getting help for bi-polar or for any other kind of help. And while we’re on the topic, don’t you think that depression is getting a little passé? Everyone seems to have it some of the time and some all of it, I would have thought of this as symptomatic of a society in serious decline - though please prove me wrong.
I’m afraid that health and welfare [the original meaning, not that cruelly corrupted by a thousand governments] are high on my list of priorities. I care about my own, of course, but I care about everyone else’s as well. In this vein, dental health is as important, possibly even more so than mental health given the holistic nature of health. I don’t know that it was supposed to become prohibitively expensive, but it has which is, quite frankly, ridiculous. Maybe it’s that I’m too fastidious but I feel that my wellbeing would be well better if more people could more often access dentists. Especially on public transport – what a nightmare in winter, the stench of bodies on heated busses, wet clothes and umbrellas, and rotting mouths. Yes, public transport, sorry, I know I’m not a priority and my vote is very much unwanted but private transport seems a bit of an excessive way to escape the horrors of people when those horrors can fairly readily be fixed. Pity that public transport can not so readily be fixed – I understand that in not using it you regard it as a non-event and, in fact, trains often are – but it is a way for me to get to work and the whole money/work/spending thing is supposed to be good for the economy and I know how we feel about that.
There are other things but I am, essentially, a realist and I really believe that in looking after people, or assisting people in looking after themselves, you make for a stronger healthier more determined work force. You create a people who are capable and confident and who are more willing to give of themselves and to create a better society. It’s a silly old-fashioned notion but not one that I’ve been able to let go of. Don’t get me wrong, I do not think that we should be without struggle or that we should have anything simply handed to us by the gods above. The simple fact is that it is us and our collective earnings that make the money you spend and it might be nice if it was spent on the things we really need, as a whole, rather than those we think we need or that you think we need. I do believe in user pays but, alas, I seem to be doing an awful lot of paying, and am expected to pay even more, and really very little using. Oh but I tease myself so! No-one wants to buy my vote because I am of the saddest demographic – a single childless woman! Still, you know…