More stories from the jobcentre:

To Clacton now – and a long conversation outside the jobcentre with Paul, who is 56. There is a transcript from that conversation below. Paul has mental health problems. He has been in and out of street homelessness for some years, in different parts of the country. “I’ve been travelling for about 35 years,” he says. His face is seamed and his teeth are broken. He says that he was sanctioned for six weeks about 18 months ago when he was homeless in Manchester. He was born and raised in Newcastle.

Now living in Clacton, he must sign on every day at the jobcentre. This daily-signon setup is utterly pointless. It won’t lead to work. It can’t. Nothing goes into it, or comes out of it. It’s a process for the hell of it. Paul says he goes into the jobcentre each day and waits around until jobcentre staff “check all that out and say “I’ll see you tomorrow” and tell me a time to come in tomorrow and that is it. It’s a pain in the arse. It’s pointless.” Indeed. So many of these jobcentre exercises now are meaningless: exercises to be gone through to meet a criteria, not a useful result. I’ll be posting more on this next week. “I don’t know what I got to come up every day for. I just say thank you very much and then go.”

During our discussion, Paul – like so many people I speak with now – says that Britain has reached a crisis point. He thinks that Britain has become weak. More specifically, he says the problem is that Britain is filled with immigrants who think that Britain is easy. So. I hear people say this sort of thing more and more now. It’s important to keep pointing this out – the extent to which this dislike of immigrants has taken hold. I used to hear it every now and then. These days, I hear it all the time. I hear it in plenty of places other than Clacton, too. I hear it in places where there’s not enough to go around – at jobcentres and from people who can’t find work, or housing. And it is hard to see how things will improve while a terrified political class devotes itself to keeping stride with Ukip, rather than, say, to addressing the housing crisis in a genuine way.

“Enoch Powell was right, you know,” Paul tells me. “It will spread like a cancer. He should have been prime minister. But lots of people are worried about it [immigration]. They are taking our things off us. We get in trouble for having our things – for having crucifixes in our rooms. [But they] are walking up the street with their face covered with a mask. [When you have a face veil on], I don’t know who you are or what you’re going to do. And they moan about people wearing crucifixes.”

So.

Says Paul:

“I have to sign on five days a week. Every day, I’m here at a different time and all. It’s twenty to two today and then I’ve got to go upstairs. They took me off the sick and all. I can move and all that, but my mind is sick. I got mental problems. They took me off the sick and said “you can work.” I can move about. I can have a conversation probably.

“I was on the sick because of the depression. I went for the medical and they took me off. That was in 2010 and they knocked me appeal out. So, I’ve got to come up here and jump through their hoops, which makes my depression worse. But if I don’t, they will stop my money. I have been sanctioned before for not getting [applying for] five jobs a week and I was on the streets at the time and all. I was living in a nightshelter – this was in Manchester. They sanctioned me, because I wasn’t applying for five jobs a week. My priority then was getting something to eat and somewhere to live. You know, instead of jobhunting. It’s somewhere to live, innit. I’m all right [for somewhere to live] at the moment.

“If I’m not on a course, I’ve got to come in five days a week. There’s no set time. If I come in today, they will give me a time for tomorrow. It can be from 9am to 4pm or 5pm. I know I have to come in tomorrow, but I have to find out what time. It’s gets my depression more and more [sic]. I’m fit enough to work according to them.

“How do you find a job? That’s their job. I think their job is to get me a job, so they are not doing their job. I have to sit there for an hour waiting to be seen. If I come in ten minutes late – I will get my money cut. I can’t say that to them. I get that and I will get sanctioned.

“I got sanctioned for about six weeks or so when I was homeless. That was in Manchester, about 18 months ago. I been travelling about 35 years. I’m 56 now and it was time I was settling down. This is a little old quiet town. If you don’t have a job, it’s quiet here. If you’re looking for trouble, you will get it, but otherwise, it is quiet town. I been here on and off about 30 years, in and out of Clacton.

“I’ve got money for £74 a week. With stoppages and that, I’m on £117 a fortnight. Stoppages. They are taking money out and I can’t remember what for – it’s for this and that. I’m losing about £34 a fortnight with stoppages. You got to go on a computer [to complain about money being taken out of your benefit payments]. You can’t go on the phone anymore. I don’t know how to go on to the computer and say “you’re taking too much money off me.” There’s no phones in the place.

“I don’t vote. They are all the same as each other. I’ve never voted in my life. What you need changing don’t get changed anyhow, not for the likes of us. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, innit. It’s an I’m All Right Jack world now. I go in there [to the jobcentre] and listen to the same crap every day. I can be sitting there for 40 minutes – then it’s “have you done this” and “have you done that.” I do my best to do what they want. If they don’t think you are doing it right, you are sanctioned.

“England’s on its knees now. The best time to attack England is now. We’re weak now. Why are they cutting the [armed] forces? You never cut your forces. They [the forces] are defending us. I respect all the boys. They’re doing all the fighting for us. They’re getting screwed with all the secondhand dodgy gear [they have to use]. Where’s all the money going? It’s going to government. And what are they doing with it? Feathering their own nest. I’m worried about Great Britain. I’m not worried about the world. I’m British.

“If you are born under the Union Jack, you are British to me. You can be yellow, green, blue or black. You are British to me. People coming in – well, I don’t know. I don’t like that. People are coming into Clacton. They are coming in everywhere. Enoch Powell was right, you know. It will spread like a cancer. He should have been prime minister. But lots of people are worried about it [immigration]. They are taking our things off us. We get in trouble for having our things – for having crucifixes in our rooms. [But they] are walking up the street with their face covered with a mask. [When you have a face-veil on], I don’t know who you are or what you’re going to do. And they moan about people wearing crucifixes.

“It’s got more violent. That guy got killed in Woolwich. How do you think that the British are going to feel seeing that? How dare you [do that]? What are you doing? You are living in our country and you come and take the full liberty. We’re the softest country in the world. We shouldn’t be.

“I’m 56. I’m 57 in April. There’s no chance of work around here. They still want me to come up here and jump through hoops. I am worried that I will take that much and then go Fuck It and not come back any more. Only take so much.

“I will move on to another city – go somewhere where there is a Big Issue office. If there was a Big Issue office here, I wouldn’t be touching them [the jobcentre]. I’d be on the Big Issue selling them every day. You just go into the office and give proof that you’re homeless and that’s okay. But that’s even now getting took over by foreigners. Have you seen London? Every other Big Issue seller in Victoria in London is foreign. They say “we love England. England is easy.”