Top Yourself

The announcement that the rabidly anti-Quango Michael Gove would head up the Department for Education put us all on edge. While my back was turned I might add, he announced they were closing us down with indecent haste. Senior management had been assembled and told by the board that the whole shebang was being shut down in a timescale yet to be defined and that all staff would be going down the road. Returning to the office immediately afterwards, their message was simple: ‘look out for yourselves!’ And then they all fucked off down the pub apparently!

When I eventually got back to the office a couple of weeks later the shock had dissipated but the disbelief was still tangible. “It’s ridiculous, who’s going to do what we do?” seemed to be the question on everybody’s lips, along with, “And what’s going to happen to us,” of course. And the worst of it was that nobody seemed to have an answer.

Remarkably, the programme I was involved in was reprieved, but nothing else was! So the organisation I worked for was being closed down but it was still full speed ahead with the project I was involved in. Except we now had new ‘guidelines’ to work within.

For instance, pretty much all communications were put on hold. No marketing allowed, no newsletters, no online interactions, nothing. Any expenditure at all needed to be authorised directly by the Cabinet Office. So far from business as usual, even if there was still work to do.

Of course the first thing on my mind was ‘how long will I be here?’ “You’ll be here until the programme’s finished,” I was told from on high. Within a few days I was going down the road at the end of the month! Eventually it was decided that everyone who was either a full-time employee or fixed-term contractor would be retained for a 90 day consultation period, while it was decided how to shut everything down. So a temporary reprieve, but still no clear information about when I would be signing back on again.

As it transpired Gove and his cronies couldn’t actually close us down. The organisation’s a registered charity and can’t just be shut down. However, our funding comes direct from government, so although they couldn’t actually wield the axe they withdrew funding – with one exception – and left it up to us to close ourselves down.

Talk about indignity heaped on indignity. It’s not enough for the Tories to cut our jobs, but we’ve actually got to do it to ourselves. Is this what Cameron refers to as ‘personal responsibility’ within the Big Society? You’ve got to admire the brass neck on him……………………………

Suggested listening: Top Yourself

Spare us the cutter

We knew it was coming. The writing was on the interactive whiteboard as soon as Dave name-checked us in front of the reactionary rabble, sorry, Tory faithful.

No doubt it was exactly what they wanted to hear, but it sent a bit of a chill through our place. “We’ll be alright though,” one of my senior colleagues said, “someone has to do the stuff we do and it’s unlikely that they’ll close us down – we’ll just be under intense scrutiny if they get in.”

And of course they still had to get in at that time. I know; Poor old GB was a liability from the outset, but the live debates gave me some hope. Foghorn Clegghorn, just struck me as ineffectual and utterly reliant upon taking the Shaggy approach; insisting, ”it wasn’t me.”

As for Dave, singularly unimpressive! They used to say that Michael Howard had ‘something of the night about him.’ I think Dave has something of the petrochemical about him – he’s smooth, oily, mis-informed people think he’s absolutely necessary, and once let loose, lays waste to jobs and livelihoods.

The Hung Parliament held out some false hope. “They’ll never throw their lot in with the Tories – they’re more diametrically opposed to them than Labour,” was the general view. And I had to agree. Foghorn Clegghorn’s performance in the debates suggested this was the case. Even without GB’s insistence that he agreed with Nick, it seemed more natural, more politically sensible for a Lib-Lab pact to be on the cards than ConDemnation.

How wrong we were, how foolish to think that political principles would hold sway, how ill-informed about the true desperation for any semblance of power lurking in the hearts and minds of the liberal hierarchy, and just how fucking disappointed!

As the news sank in, the fear magnified. ‘We’re heading to the JobCentre,” was the general consensus. “They’ll shut us down as a matter of principle and use the money to set up schools for the Tarquins and Tabathas that are being held back by the Wayne and Chardonnay hoi polloi,” I suggested. Hoping I’d be wrong, utterly convinced that I’d be right.

Helplessness seemed to be the order of the day. It was like a slow-motion car crash that you had a front-seat view for but were powerless to prevent. An air of resignation settled on the office and it became a waiting game to see how it would all pan out.

When the decision came it was brutal…

… more later.

Suggested listening: The Cutter