Former Daily Mail journalist forced to claim Universal Credit

This is her harrowing story

Today I caught up with a distraught Daily Mail journalist who has just been laid off and forced to claim Universal Credit. Now you probably think this is cause for celebration because people on Universal Credit get everything, don’t they? Well, apparently not.

It looks like we in the mainstream media were talking bollocks about Universal Credit so the government would make claimants even poorer and pass on the savings to us in the form of tax breaks. I can’t believe it either! It really looks like everything we said was nothing more than vindictive lies which kept you lot mad at the wrong people. You should probably stop listening to us.

Anyways, the journalist, who does not wish to be named, gave me this harrowing story about how horrible the life she demanded other people have is when you go through it yourself. It seems the government does not understand middle-class people have feelings too.

When I found out I was getting laid off by The Daily Mail, I honestly thought it was good news. I actually thought I was going to get a nice pay rise. After all, they get everything for free, don’t they, these jobless types?

So I went to my appointment at the Jobcentre and I’m not going to lie, I felt a bit dirty going in there. I saw like three people wearing tracksuits and thought what on earth am I doing here? It was so degrading, but I told myself it would be worth it.

I genuinely thought they would be super-understanding what with me being better than everyone else in there so I explained my situation and then asked what kind of allowance I could expect to cover my nanny fees. The person just laughed at me.

I said I’m sorry, you don’t understand, my kids have a nanny and they go to private school as well, one of the best in London. Obviously, I, as a hardworking taxpayer must get some kind of extra allowance for that? I’ve contributed loads in tax so presumably that means I get a little extra help.

The person just sort of shrugged.

What about a free house? I said. Our mortgage is almost paid off and I’m thinking we could rent out our current house if the bank okays it, that way we’ll have an income. I could have a new job as a landlord.

I explained I’ve wanted to move closer to the kids’ school for ages and we once published a story in The Daily Mail about a Somalian refugee mother who got a million-pound mansion to house her and her seventeen fighting-age children. I’m pretty sure we didn’t make that up!

Sorry, we don’t have any free mansions today, they said with absolutely no sympathy whatsoever. I almost asked if it was because I was white, but I bit my tongue.

What about a flat-screen TV? I said. Mine’s just broken and they’re pretty expensive to replace. Obviously, every benefits claimant has a flat-screen TV and they’ve never worked a day in their lives so they must get them from you, right? Like a perk of being unemployed?

Silence.

Okay, what about that allowance they get for booze? Tattoos? Gold chains? When do I get the free holiday?

At this point, the person snapped at me and said I’ll get nine hundred and sixty pounds a month and nothing more.

I was like hold on, what?

You’ll get nine hundred and sixty pounds a month for yourself, your partner and your two kids, they said, but that’s only if you can demonstrate you’ve spent at least thirty-five hours a week searching for work. Expect pointless telephone calls and text messages all the time, including at weekends. Expect appointments to be scheduled at the very last minute. Make sure you’re signing into your online journal regularly throughout the day, otherwise you could get sanctioned. I asked what that means and they said it means we’ll pay you even less! How is that not abuse?

But I live in central London! I told them. Nine hundred and sixty pounds wouldn’t even cover my mortgage, plus I have two cats and a hamster!

Sorry, we don’t do pet allowance, they said.

I said what do you expect me to do? Become homeless just because I lost my job? Do you people expect us to go without food?

And that’s when then they said they can give me the details of my local food bank, but that I shouldn’t expect much more than a few tins of beans. They even said that if I’m struggling to budget, I could try speaking to the Citizen’s Advice Bureau or just ask a poor person. They said they tend to be really good at budgeting because they’ve been dealing with this crap their whole lives.

I asked how anyone could possibly help me budget with much less money than I need to survive and do you know what they said to me? Lee Anderson can cook nutritious turnip soups for only thirty pence. That’s when I fainted.

Later I woke up in hospital with a sore head and then I went home and cried for two days. I still can’t believe the government cut benefits so low based on our lies, instead of setting them at the level we pretended they were already at.

When I wanted them to cut benefits, I meant for lazy people on council estates. I never meant cut benefits for people like me! I never thought I’d find myself in this position, but you know what I mean. I’m now so poor I couldn’t even afford to buy myself a tattoo or gold chain and I didn’t even do anything wrong! What is happening to this country?

As you can see, this is deeply troubling stuff from former Daily Mail journalist Julie Townsend. Oh bollocks, I wasn’t supposed to name her, but I’ve only gone and done it now!

Anyways, while you lot are stuffing your faces tonight with the food you’ve bought from the empty Tesco shelves, please spare a thought for poor Julie who no longer has a nanny and is living the lifestyle she wanted those beneath her to have. Life can be so unfair sometimes x

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