A Man's World

It is a curious state of affairs in the International Community, when the LGBT population of the US gets DOMA repealed, on the same day that Julia Gillard gets ousted from the Australian Labor party. It appears that the new global (or at least Western) political cause du jour is gay rights: celebrities and politicians everywhere have "come out" in favour of equal marriage, against DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) and DADT (Don't Ask, Don't Tell), and in favour of gay adoption. Australia has proved that, far from being ready to join the 21st Century, its politicians are still sat firmly in the 19th.

Julia Gillard, the ginger kangaroo-knitter from South Wales (the Old one, with sheep and rain and actual real Welsh people) ousted sly PM Kevin Rudd from office in 2010 in the 3rd favourite past-time of the Australian people (after Barbecues and Aussie rules) - the 'Spill.' Clearly a woman on a mission, the Australian media and political community set about trying to tear this unmarried, baron dominatrix apart. Particularly telling of the nature of regression in Australian society, however, was the way in which they undertook this task: rather than creating policies that were better for Australia and holding the Prime Minister to account, they broke her down in the only way their tiny chauvinistic minds would allow them.

So intrusive were the questions about her hairdresser partner's sexuality, the never-ending debate about this childless woman's ability to relate to normal Aussie families and cruel pranks played by the opposition - notably the Julia Gillard Kentucky Fried Quail added to the menu at a fundraiser being organised by an ex-minister, which described the dish as having "small breasts, huge thighs and a red box" - that Gillard was forced into a corner where she cringingly opened up about her private life by taking part in a photoshoot, clad awkwardly with balls of wool, her cavoodle Reuben and a part-knit kangaroo that she stated was being made as a present for Wills and Kate's new baby. This was the end of the line. If the politicians had hated Gillard being a woman already, they hated even more her last-ditch attempts to integrate into the culturally-transcendent stereotype of a dull, menopausal housewife.

Rudd decided to win back his place in the top seat as voters realised how much of a desperate PR stunt Gillard had just engaged in. Which is a shame, because despite the almost-constant struggle of Gillard to single-handedly defeat sexism in Australia (and why not the World?), there was something us Pommies loved about Gillard. We will miss her falling over, her battlefield-worthy corridor walks with her ever-diminishing allies and her definitely-only-mildly islamophobic remarks which are now used across the world by right-wingers as the ideological political stance on immigration. Being called a bitch is something that no woman should have to endure, let alone by the leader of the opposition.

Payday Poverty

The government has a lot to answer for: cutting benefits and increasing the cost of education. The bedroom tax - which is supposed to increase the fluidity of larger properties for council and housing association tenants - has ended up inflicting poverty upon people and created a vacuum of small,  1 and 2-bedroom homes for people whose families have fled the nest. 

What it also has a lot to answer for is the increase in payday lending. It is surely no coincidence that the poorest people in society have their homes and livelihoods taken away from them and turn to a sinister, confusing, morally-void system of lending money to people. Stella Creasy MP is right; Payday loans are crippling the impoverished. And Wonga.com is offering rates of 5853% to borrow up to £400 at a time. 

This creates a dependency which is cyclical; if one month, a struggling mother needs to borrow some money to pay for food for her family (which has had its benefits drastically decreased and is being forced to fork out up to 25% of the rent they used to have covered by the state), she will likely see the allure of the payday lenders who use questionable tactics to lure their vulnerable victims into borrowing money at several hundred times the rate of a normal, high-street bank. Then the next month, faced with a £130 charge for a £400 loan, this poor single mother will be forced again to keep borrowing at several thousand percentage points. Embarrassed and desperate, she will continue this vicious cycle. 

And this may seem like a harmless way of raising money for some big-wig with his Bentley and mansion on the outskirts of London. But this is the sub-prime mortgage crisis for the working class. Debt breeds poverty, poverty breeds crime and hopelessness and crime and hopelessness are the cause of the disintegration of our communities. 

Shockingly, Wonga.com also operates in South Africa, a country with huge poverty levels and huge attributable consequences: gun crime, drugs, prostitution, HIV/AIDS. All of these are a result of the people of South Africa being exploited in a plethora of ways over a prolonged period of time. 

These companies, whether in the UK, South Africa or elsewhere are not lending a helping hand; they are lending a ticket into prolonged desperation. These are regulated loan sharks and they need to be stopped.