According to the BBC’s Budget Calculator, me and the Mrs will be approx £260 BETTER OFF in the coming year*. This is absurd. We are both earning, both working 50-60 hour weeks, we have each other, and neither of us has to support a child** or an aged parent (other than emotionally!! there is rather a lot of that at the moment …)

I would much rather the money George Osborne has gifted me (and many many people earning far more than we are) went to people who really need it, the low income earners, the elderly, the sick.

I have therefore, just this morning, started a monthly direct debit to SOS Children’s Villages, for whom I am an ambassador. I chose to become involved with this charity because I firmly believe that children are best cared for in family environments, and that siblings and extended families should be kept together – and in their own cultures – if at all possible. I love the fact that SOS Children aims to do just that. (I’m not personally interested in sponsoring a specific child, that feels a little too vested interest to me. I trust the organisation to use their income to the best for those needing it.)

This is NOT an action that Cameron & like idiots can claim as part of their Big Society bollocks. This is me, like so many others who care about what is being done to our country and our economy, taking up the slack BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT IS MAKING WRONG CHOICES – and worse, they’re saying they’re doing it on our behalf.

I am self-employed, have never had a ‘proper job’ in my life, have never had sick pay, holiday pay or compassionate leave – not even when I was treated for cancer for six months – I don’t have a pension plan paid for by my employer, I have no idea what my income will be in the next six months let alone the next year – there’s no security net. So I am most definitely not the wealthy philanthropist the Tories picture ‘helping out’. But I’m too bloody annoyed with them to do nothing.

Nothing to do with Big Society and everything to do with Stupid Budget.
Feel free to join me with a charity of your choice.
We could call it Doing George’s Job.

* neither of us smoke, and assuming we continue to consume alcohol at current levels! (almost none in her case, rather more in mine)

** that said, I am a little tired of my taxes paying child benefit to the millions of middle and high earners who don’t need it, who simply save it up to give their already-fortunate child a nest-egg when they’re 18 or 21. I doubt very much that’s what child benefit was created for.