Letters: How can we have a four-day week when some of us are working seven?

Big Issue readers offer their perspectives on the four-day working week, helping the homeless and the state of the rental market.

Four-day working week is a pipe dream for most

While most people are working six or seven days a week just to pay the bills, where is this argument for a four-day working week coming from?

Food is sky high and rent is sky high. We are paying record-high income taxes, and record-high council taxes, and the poorest are contributing the most while billionaires pay nothing. How is a system that makes the poorest pay the most going to continue? How is a four-day working week ever going to be introduced when we’ve literally gone from a five-day week to a seven-day week? Let’s stop the rich lobbying politicians and start making extreme greed illegal.

Iamjustwayne, Reddit

Misplaced anger

I read with great interest Naomi Westerman’s piece about her film, Sandwiches, in which she describes the act of giving sandwiches to a homeless person as way of “pretending that you care”. She also goes on to say that giving food to someone with very little is a way of saying, “I think I know better than you”.

Did she ever stop to think that the person giving the food may be doing it out of a genuine act of kindness and that they may not have much money themselves but want to help in the only way that they can afford? I share her anger at homelessness on Britain’s streets but she is aiming it at the wrong people. Surely her anger should be at government and not at a passing stranger who has gone out of their way to help.

Apologies if this is not enough but I shall continue to offer food to strangers who are hungry because, in a world that is very cruel, it is an act of kindness and shows that, although I can’t solve all the world’s problems, I can in that moment show that I care.

Andy Clark, Bedworth     

Strong point

In Sam Delaney’s recent column, he writes of the last government: “We have been gaslit by self-serving, incompetent and ideological politicians into believing all our problems were complex and unsolvable.” This is not only true of the government we have just got rid of, but in many ‘civilised’ countries worldwide. In the US, Russia, China, India and many more, there seems to be a desire to believe in these ‘strong leaders’, who are mainly in it for their own advantage and self-aggrandisement.

Peter Cole, Northumberland 

• MP pushing for four-day week says long working hours are to blame for the UK’s low productivity
• From a new UK pilot to union backing: The four-day working week has never been closer to reality
• ‘Thank God it’s Thursday!’: Will we have a four-day working week by 2030? Yes, probably

Changing wind

Let us not be under any illusion: it will take Labour considerable time to correct the precipitous list our nation has developed due to the previous mob’s awful mismanagement! Affordable homes, devolution of central to local government, NHS reinvigoration and investment, abolishing rough sleeping, making state-sponsored poverty a thing of the past, stopping the privatisation and shareholder monopoly of once-national assets. 

This can be done and must be done, to create true business ties with our friends in Europe. The wind of change – to quote the Scorpions – is blowing gently, now make it a whirlwind!

AC Zacharski

Special mention

I am writing in response to the article ‘Teachers forced to choose which special needs children get help as funding crisis worsens’. I am the parent of a 10-year-old with Down’s syndrome thriving in a mainstream school. I am disappointed that both professionals quoted talked about “children who should be in a specialist school” and that this was unquestioningly quoted by the author.

Less than 100 years ago professionals thought that babies with Down’s syndrome should be institutionalised for life. There are a few places in the world with no specialist schools, where all children are educated in the same establishments. People will be less motivated to find ways to make education work for children within a mainstream school once they think that those children should be in a specialist setting. It becomes self-fulfilling. Hoping for a more inclusive future.

Ruth Walton, Sheffield

House rules

Why did renting become so bad? Is it due to a lack of rules and regulations or because we’ve overseen the biggest rise in demand for housing this country has ever seen at the same time as rewarding investment in property (from anywhere in the world) more than ever before?

The changes in the King’s Speech are not going to fix the true cause of the problems renters face, they are just treatments for the serious ongoing wound inflicted by rampant population growth and obscene amounts of property investment.

Things that people need to live functional and safe lives should not be investments. There is no reason for us to allow foreign investors to buy residential property in this country. It’s not the only cause of our housing crisis, but it’s a rapid and cost-effective fix that would make a massive difference.

In-jux-hur-ylem, Reddit

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about a four-day week, or any of the topics raised? Get in touch and tell us more. Big Issue exists to give homeless and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income. To support our work buy a copy of the magazine or get the app from the App Store or Google Play.