Thursday 1 March 2012

Small Victories

Embarrassed and shamed - well maybe that's too much to hope for - the government has changed it's stance regarding sanctioning kids who don't participate in 'work experience'. Of course it would be very easy to point out that, given Herr Grayling has claimed all along the scheme is voluntary, they are contradicting themselves. A victory is a victory.

But the work can't end there. Many other work fare schemes exist with many more capitalist supporters; the government has done it's best to wheel them out this week. We still have Mandatory Work Activity (capitalised because it's a component of the Work Programme) as well as the vile Community Action Programme. The pressure must be kept up on these disgraceful schemes. Work experience surely must include the experience of being paid: not just a simple handout of free labour to the supermarkets at busy times of the year. I've been through the arguments against this lunacy before, just to say that it seems far too easy, to my mind, for these organisations (state funded!) to just call up the local Tesco or the charity shop next door and gift them with free labour. All with no thought as to the purpose of these schemes - they are meant to be giving people experience. What experience do people need in entry level retail?

The sanction regime seems to remain. What has changed? What use is sanctioning someone? WHy are the Tories so blind to think that forcing someone into destitution, poverty, possibily criminality and dependency going to help them?

On 5 Live yesterday morning Peter Lilly let slip the Tory mindset in response to a question about work experience. When asked if he'd done any unpaid work he blundered through a telling comment implying that because of their hours being an MP was unpaid. This did not go by unchallenged. That veneer of decency these filth have tried to build over the last decade or so comes off so easily. It's not even as if he was joking either.

He was followed by reality tv wannabe Thatcherite rentagob Katie Hopkins, known less for her actual business accomplishments (if indeed any exist) than her appearance on the Apprentice and other media outings I can't be arsed to research (the woman annoys me). Again she resorted to the just world fallacy: if only the unemployed would ask 100 odd people what they want doing for payment they'd get a job - just like her no doubt! What bollocks. Turn up at someone's front door, a complete stranger, ask them what you could do for cash and you're likely to get told to leave! As if people even have the money to spare for random strangers to do them work. You might as well turn up with an Irish accent and offer to tarmac their drive! Again she was put in her place.

So it seems there's a groundswell of resentment for what the Tories are doing. I hope it continues. I hope this is just the foundation for a long standing development. WE need these Tories out: Cameron's response, in the House of Commons where he continually plays to the gallery with nothing to say, just to call us all job snobs and trotskyites! It's venal, it's pathetic, and it's desperation. And it's all underwritten by our friendly yellow bellied Liberal Democrats!

We are becoming serfs again. This government is trying to take the very land we stand on that should be our right, or at the very least our means to support ourselves. If we must be thrust into this awful competitive marketplace then at least give us something to sell. But I don't want to live in the marketplace. I want to go to sleep at night and wake up knowing I have the means to take care of myself, without having to compete for that right against my fellow citizen. That's where our problems come from and that's the heart of the Tory divide and rule that's been in overdrive over the last 18 months.

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