'Providing such unprecedented support for self-employed people has been difficult
to do in practice.'
Hi, good afternoon,
I was hoping that you would be able to help me.
'I know many self-employed people are struggling right now,
so we've made sure that support is available.'
You were a musician, or you are, you're not were, let's say ...
Well, were at the moment.
I mean, you know, the guitar is there ...
You had a job, tell me what the job was and how you ... ?
I did have a job, yes, I had a job.
Hello for my living room.
Sorry this isn't ideal, obviously, I am in quarantine
like the rest of you.
This is lockdown.
Now, it is a technical challenge not least when me, the producer, the camera person,
we are all in separate homes but that's how we make videos now.
in the age of corona.
Now, the coronavirus is not just a public health crisis,
it's a social crisis as well.
Of course the government have introduced drastic measures but there are big, big cracks.
Self-employed people can't apply for that until later on in the year and
people who have already been laid off also, for example, people who are newly self-employed,
they're not eligible for those schemes.
I'm going to talk to people now who all of a sudden have been plunged into crisis.
So, this is a little snug area,
where my mum works.
So she does her work, she's a health visitor so she's still working.
And then our very messy kitchen.
That's not messy!
Do you think that's messy?
You had a job, tell me what the job was and how you ...
I did have a job, yes, I had a job!
I'm a speech language therapist, so technically self-employed.
I am immunosuppressed so I got the 12-week text to say that you can't leave the house for 12 weeks
so I decided I needed to self-isolate and as part of my contract,
I have to be on site and actually do my job.
How much has your income fallen by?
What are we talking?
£2,500.
A month?
Yeah. — Gone?
Wow.
It's tricky because I have a chronic illness anyway so I think about my life as
periods of time that I can work and periods of time that are going to be really good and
then times when my life ... it kind of just falls apart.
This feels really different because I'm not ill, I don't know, there's nothing wrong with me,
I feel very capable of working.
You've been told to self-isolate for three months?
If we're gonna be honest this lockdown could go on for a lot longer than that.
Yeah.
Do you think you can afford to live on £94,25 for months ?
No.
I'm definitely not.
On a kind of mental, emotional level, how are you coping?
How are you doing? Are you sleeping alright? Do you have low moments?
I definitely do and I think that when the government first announced,
because I was really hopeful,
all of the things were pointing to the fact that yes, this is going to be OK,
we're going to be fine.
I was thinking OK,
and when that was released,
I think it was last week, wasn't it?
In the evening I was devastated.
And it's it is akin to like heartbreaking grief
because it's like, almost like a grief of what your life was.
If you had a two-minute Skype call, Zoom call, whatever, with Boris Johnson,
what do you ask him for in this current crisis?
Empathy!
To empathise with people who really can't deal with this.
And also to think about how these measures are on top of however
many years of austerity, 10 years of austerity, and the damage that that's done.
We're not in a position to be able to do this, we're really not.
'We've also changed the welfare system so that self-employed people can now access
universal credit in full.'
We care for what part of me I put up to the screen here, haven't I?
Let's take a look.
Music gear, I think, in the background there.
Oh, yeah, I can see that.
And well, everyone's got their toilet roll, haven't they?
There you go, there's one somewhere I believe.
There you go! — There it is!
You were a musician ... or you are, you're not were, let's use the correct tense.
I mean, you know, the guitar is there but yeah, very much in the sort of
past tense at the moment, I suppose.
The idea is looking for money, looking for work.
Roughly how much money though do you think this ...?
I had bookings to the amount of about £2,400 ...
Wow.
Do you have savings?
I don't have any savings sadly, no, I really don't.
So, universal credit ...
Yes.
Can you apply for universal credit?
I've called them to find out if I'm able to apply for universal credit,
I was hoping to cover until I could maybe find a job as a driver or something like that.
Or just stacking shelves or anything, really.
Could you live on universal credit?
No.
After my rent which is £80 a week that would leave me with £14 a week to live on.
How do you feel emotionally?
I've been holding together Help for Musicians which is
a Facebook site that posted that they had five million to give away ...
and £500 grants to musicians that were struggling.
I got the news of that on Friday night when I was checking to see how much over my overdraft I was
and they granted me £500 which means I will be able to get through the
beginning of this month and I just broke down and cried at that point.
If, for example, in two months time, we're still in lockdown,
mentally and emotionally what are your worries about where you'll be at?
There are those that struggle with depression heavily, I have done previously in past,
the last year has been great, it's been sunshine rainbows but
the last two years weren't.
If this had hit me three years ago, I don't know
how I would've dealt with it exactly.
If you had Boris Johnson for two minutes on a Zoom call, what would you ask him?
I'd ask him if the money was there to follow or to pay out to any sector
that he's waiting until June or July to do so.
First and foremost, how does he expect us to get to there
and second of all, if the money is there why do we have to wait so long?
'We will not be able to protect every single job or save every single business
but I am confident that the measures we have put in place will support millions of families,
businesses, and self-employed people to get through this.'
Hey, thanks for joining us!
Now, I know you're staying anonymous so we can't see you but you can see me.
Just tell me about the business you were running and then what happened.
But did you think to yourself, this means I won't be able to do my job.
Yeah, sorry, my cat is intermediately just trying to get in on the action.
Sorry about this. Hello this is Kier ... Carry on, sorry.
And what happened when you applied to universal credit?
When you say the damage that it caused, what do you mean?
When you realised this, what went through your head?
After that initial emotional shock, I mean, which I think anyone in
that situation would feel utter horror, how have you been emotionally ever since?
Have you felt you had the emotional support
in this when you're going through that?
In like, what's going through your head ...
If you had the Prime Minister down the line now, for two minutes,
what would you ask him to do to help people like yourself in the
circumstances you're in through no of your own?
The welfare state has long been demonised as something for nothing,
is overly generous, as for people who are scrounging to live a luxurious lifestyle
at the expense of the rest of us.
A lot of people who have heard all of that rhetoric for many years
are about to collide with reality,
that it's no such thing and all of a sudden, they have very, very little to live on.