Has anyone seen my camel...?

Well, I'm knackered. This afternoon I had one of those telephone conversations. The bloke wasn't actually a nutter, but he certainly had an agenda of some sort. And I couldn't get rid of him no matter what I said - and his polite, calm, patient explanations of his mad theories meant that I couldn't just tell him to piss off, either.

It started routinely enough: the switchboard rings me and tells me they have a query on council rent policy. Fair enough. But I end up speaking to a bloke who is trying to prove that the Government has broken some law somewhere by enabling councils and housing associations to subsidise social housing.

Apparently, according to this bloke, this is unfair competition. All rents should be set at market rates which would force up wages accordingly. (shome mishtake, shurely...? -Ed) Hmm.. I don't think so. Of course, this might mean that people who can't afford those rents will be eligible for housing benefits.

It became rapidly apparent that whatever this chap was wittering about, it was not rent-setting policy in social housing. He had an entirely different view of how society should work, and it was my turn to listen to it.

It took me a half hour, but I finally persuaded him that whatever the merits or not of his views, they flew directly in the face of a general policy established and followed by both major political parties (to differing degrees, certainly) for upwards of sixty years. No explanation of rent-setting policy from me was ever going to cover his (quite radical) political, social and economic agenda.

It appears that he has written to a number of politicians and got very short shrift from them. Since what he seemed to want would involve any of the established major parties changing a basic tenet of long established policy and then removing subsidies on rents for low income families, I wish him well. I think we can guess what would happen to the electoral chances of any party that did that...

It seems to have been a bizarre form of socialism through hyper-capitalism. I think the words social unrest, revolution and looney-bin should fit into the equation somewhere.

Either way, it's drained me... I think I need a course on assertive telephone technique.

Has anyone seen my camel...?

Well, I'm knackered. This afternoon I had one of those telephone conversations. The bloke wasn't actually a nutter, but he certainly had an agenda of some sort. And I couldn't get rid of him no matter what I said - and his polite, calm, patient explanations of his mad theories meant that I couldn't just tell him to piss off, either.

It started routinely enough: the switchboard rings me and tells me they have a query on council rent policy. Fair enough. But I end up speaking to a bloke who is trying to prove that the Government has broken some law somewhere by enabling councils and housing associations to subsidise social housing.

Apparently, according to this bloke, this is unfair competition. All rents should be set at market rates which would force up wages accordingly. (shome mishtake, shurely...? -Ed) Hmm.. I don't think so. Of course, this might mean that people who can't afford those rents will be eligible for housing benefits.

It became rapidly apparent that whatever this chap was wittering about, it was not rent-setting policy in social housing. He had an entirely different view of how society should work, and it was my turn to listen to it.

It took me a half hour, but I finally persuaded him that whatever the merits or not of his views, they flew directly in the face of a general policy established and followed by both major political parties (to differing degrees, certainly) for upwards of sixty years. No explanation of rent-setting policy from me was ever going to cover his (quite radical) political, social and economic agenda.

It appears that he has written to a number of politicians and got very short shrift from them. Since what he seemed to want would involve any of the established major parties changing a basic tenet of long established policy and then removing subsidies on rents for low income families, I wish him well. I think we can guess what would happen to the electoral chances of any party that did that...

It seems to have been a bizarre form of socialism through hyper-capitalism. I think the words social unrest, revolution and looney-bin should fit into the equation somewhere.

Either way, it's drained me... I think I need a course on assertive telephone technique.