Under guidelines introduced by the last government, dis-abled people are now allowed to decide the kind of services they want from local authorities. This is called ‘empowerment’ and ‘devolving services to people in the front line’, and it is a good thing, apparently. But it has had certain unexpected consequences.
Bizarrely, it seems that in many cases dis-abled people do not want to sit in a frowsy community centre which smells of stale flatus making raffia baskets for begonias, fortified by the occasional cup of tea and a pat on the shoulder and so on, as was previously assumed. What they actually want, it transpires, is a bloody good seeing to. With a congenial and well-lubricated whore. Preferably somewhere abroad.
And so, under the new guidelines, this is exactly what they get, a good seeing to, with a nice whore. In Amsterdam. Probably get the chance to smoke some dope before the shag and maybe take in a few canals, so to speak. Sometimes don’t you wish you were disabled? Just a little bit — I don’t mean sort of devoid of legs, or with a spinal column made of butterscotch Angel Delight or so mental that you find Alan Carr funny. I mean that new definition of disablement, which can mean that you’re feeling a bit peaky this week, all things considered. Not quite yourself. A bit down in the dumps and under the weather, as they say.
According to information released under the Freedom of Information Act, and reported by the Sunday Telegraph, local councils can use their budgets to pay prostitutes for services to their disabled customers. Not just prostitutes, but lap-dancers and internet dating sites and anything else the customer feels may be, well, sort of beneficial. And this is precisely what they have done. The chap who went to Amsterdam, for example, was 21 years old with learning difficulties and was an ‘angry and frustrated’ young man.
And it’s here we have to ask ourselves: is it better to send such a person on a one-week residential self-awareness course, most probably led by a social worker called Roz Termagant, where the young man will be challenged, in a very real sense, as to the causes of his troublesome behaviour and asked to discuss his grievances in an end-of-the-week open discussion session with other similarly angry and frustrated young people. Or would it be better if we just sent him to Amsterdam for a topless hand shandy with Svetlana? Would that cheer him up a bit? The customer — and he is always right, remember — decided, not entirely surprisingly, upon the latter option. And the council agreed that this was fine because it fitted very neatly into his ‘care plan’. Yes, care plan. Watch it — one of these days you may well be given a care plan by the politically crazed dimbos who work in our over-remunerated local authorities. Just hope against hope that a topless hand shandy in Amsterdam is the worst that will be coming your way.
Other councils have decided that lap-dancing clubs are ok, and porno internet sex dating too. One man in Norfolk, who had recently been divorced, was given by his local council a subscription to an internet dating site, driving lessons, the provision of art materials and a nice holiday in Tunisia. When asked what his requirements were, incidentally, the chap in Norfolk said: ‘some time out, rest and a change of scenery.’ And that’s what he got — driving lessons, a few foxy local babes to talk to, a holiday in Tunisia and some paint.
You know, I feel pretty much the same way, if we’re honest. But I want much less than him. Ok, I’ll take the holiday in Tunisia, although I’d rather it was Morocco. And you can forget the internet dating thing; sooner or later the chicks always ask for your age and while you can lie for a while, dissemble, send them false photos and pretend to really like N-Dubz, something always gives you away. You know, it’s the whiff of Werther’s Originals just when you’ve got them in the back of the van. And also — a personal thing this — hold the paint. I can do without the paint.
You cannot remotely blame the customers, the disabled people, for the sort of stuff reported in the Sunday Telegraph. Given the opportunity we would all choose the same. Ok, granted, this is a Spectator readership and maybe you would prefer to be sent to Glyndebourne for the week, rather than to the back streets of Holland. But the main point is that these local authorities, who demand more and more of our money every year, have far too much of the stuff, and have done for at least a couple of decades. The stuff, the green stuff, flows out of them and you can see this in the fantastically stupid jobs which they offer up to the newspapers every week. Jobs which in some cases you would pay them good money not to have at all.
And it does not matter terribly much who runs each local council; there is not really any difference in the money spent by the social services departments in a Tory-run council or a Labour-run council. The same ideology holds sway — and has done, I would reckon, for the past three decades or so. The sort of spending which is highlighted in those Sunday Telegraph reports — the driving lessons, the lap-dancing to help people who, as a human right, have a need for sex, the trips abroad, the internet dating agencies — are probably a case of money better spent than on a profusion of social workers. Although one would bet that there are still social workers perhaps holding the hand of the man who was sent to Amsterdam for a good seeing to. It is simply that all of it is an outrage and that if the government really wished to save money it would slash local authority budgets in half and tell them to make the best of it.
Offer ends in:
