For Whom the Bell End Tolls

Ask not, Mr Duncan Smith. It tolls for thee.

Welfare and Unemployment

There are now two strands of the discussion surrounding unemployment and benefits. There is the ignored issue of unemployment, and there is welfarism. The Tories aren't really interested in the former: they have no answer to it because they don't see it as a problem. Unemployment has always been a price worth paying, in their eyes. Easy of course for the rich to say; it doesn't affect them. There's no chance of Cameron or Osbourne losing their jobs, that's the nature of the ruling elite. They'll always be comfortable; the system takes care of its masters. That seems to be how it, how capitalism, is structured ultimately. People are screaming for Bob Diamond to resign this morning: so what if he does? He won't be short of a bob or two, nor will his revenue streams be closed down if he never works again. In fact you might argue that, with all his millions and bonuses accrued, riding off into the sunset is in fact the best thing he could want! 

Unemployment is part of capitalism. It seems self evident to me that, so long as we abide by it, there will always be some percentage, rising or falling as needs dictate (including the needs of the media), of the overall working age population unemployed. 

In light of that the debate has then become about the moral value of welfare. Is it right to give the unemployed money. If it isn't, then the Tories have a convenient justification for their slash and burn shock and awe policies. Fortunately for the Tories, decades of neoliberalism colluding with a media agenda has programmed the people to believe that welfare is bad: that it prevents people from getting a job. Even when you point out that there are 23 people applying for every job people still think it's because the feckless can't be bothered to stop watching Jeremy Kyle to bother. This was self evident on last night's Moral Maze discussion on Radio 4. 

This poe faced little psychodrama features a regular cabal of social thinkers, religious pontificators and former politicians (and, unfortunately, Melanie Phillips, frequently betraying her sad little prejudices) pretending to take both sides of a particular current affair. Last night they chewed the cud regarding welfare in one of the most naked displays of ignorance I've ever heard. It was only really Kenan Malik that stood out, meeting very little response to the very question the above statistic implies. I've never heard of James Bartholomew before (and never want to again). This tawdry individual claims that welfare should be done away with and that the government, presumably the state, hinders people from getting work. He couldn't answer the question. The rest of the discussion displayed a complete ignorance of the context that welfare finds itself in and tried to discuss it in some disembodied fashion, divorced from the reality of a capitalist money-oriented society where people are cut off from the means of production and self sufficiency. It was left to Owen Jones to redeem the cause of sanity which he did but only by having to constantly reinforce the fact that Housing Benefit is paid to Landlords. The whole discussion was permeated with nonsense, unchallenged; put forward in favour of the workfare, in particular the Wisconsin model.

The truth is that the idea welfare is the problem with welfare offends me. It offends me because the people putting forward this nonsense, like the blowhards on the radio, in particular the tedious meandering navel gazing of Claire Fox, are so divorced from the reality as to be irrelevant. I completely disabuse myself intellectually that welfare breeds dependence, specifically the notion of entitlement (something for nothing). This kernel lies at the heart of the point of view and is deeply insidious: we live in a capitalist system, we are ALL dependent on it, specifically on an income. More specifically on the source of that income. The idea that I, on JSA, am uniquely addicted to my means of support more than someone working the supermarket graveyard shift for the NMW is just bollocks. To them the welfare state just goes by a different name: Tesco - never mind that they might also need benefits because the government, and previous neoliberal capitalist governments (which is all of them), doesn't seem to care if private business pays its staff (or its tax dues).

So we get the idea that people should feel a sense of obligation to 'earn' their money. That of course completely overlooks the contribution that we, as humans, make to our lives, our neighbours, our communities and thus to society. Thus money is the only valid contribution one can make. In essence that's all life is now: a means of production, or, in the post industrial age, a means of shoring up or enhancing profit margins, interest rates and investment portfolios. Why else is the Olympics deemed so important by the government: not because David Cameron gives a fuck about some 18 year old kid winning a medal, but by how many corporate interests he can persuade into the City of London. Those SAM sites perched on top of your house aren't for your protection; they exist to protect the FTSE.

But in order to 'earn' your money we are also told the world doesn't owe us a living. It also assumes a level playing field. Well good luck, the cards were stacked decades ago. The unemployed are merely sailors on a ship they cannot control at the mercy of winds that blow at the whim of financial gods beyond their ken. To hold a man responsible for his fate in such conditions is simply cruel. Yet this is how we live, and when someone doesn't succeed we ascribe blame and fault solely unto them: they didn't study hard enough, work hard enough, try hard enough. There is no help or support as anyone on the WP knows full well. When I am told that wanting a career in writing is a laudable goal, the response isn't 'let's help' because it's a laudable goal; in fact it is, ironically, the exact opposite. Instead the providers will merely place you in front of the latest list of vacancies, their veracity and accuracy unchecked, and compel everyone to apply for them, thus increasing the competition for each job. They are not providing support as to their needs; they are merely reacting and raking in the cash.

In the end the ultimate consequence of the destruction of the welfare system will be further division within society. The working class will be told, through peer pressure and disapproval, to keep the dispossessed in line. God knows the state won't help: the police are being reduced and privatised and the courts only concerned with facebook rioters. Alienating increasing swathes of the population is a recipe for disaster that will only end in an exacerbation of everything that compels the ruling elite to believe that welfare is wrong. 

I'm tired, fetch me my Soma.

Blog Update

Just to inform those that survived reading Hatchet Job yesterday, i've gone through it to tidy it up and clarify a few things. I'm still rather concerned about it all, particularly the haunting phrase 'employment resettlement services', used, presumably, in reference to the Work Programme.

Hatchet Job

Following on from earlier, I've now read the letter that the DWP wrote back after my GP asked them to tell him how they were helping me (hint: they aren't). What a complete hatchet job. Now it looks like I could be in trouble: it ends with "Mr Whistler is required to cooperate with the WP to obtain JSA, at present he is not doing so therefore a doubt exists to his entitlement to JSA"! This is complete and total fucking bullshit. I have done everything I have been asked to by an organisation that, by its own admission, cannot help me.

Now the letter is dated 22/5 and in all that time I've had no comeback from the JC when I've gone in to sign, nor from the WP (though I must say I don't want to hear from them for the above reason, plus the fact that these so-called Christians are lying shitbags). Maybe then there won't be any comeback. I fucking hope not, but by god if I get that brown envelope through the door, out of the blue, telling me no more JSA because of this there will some serious aggro!

Anyway, at the risk of being very self indulgent (it's my blog and I'll cry if I want to!) let's cover all the bullshit. I think there are some lessons here in just how the system can really ffuck you over in these situations. Of course this is just my word against theirs, and we all know which of us will be believed when it comes down to it (to say nothing of the fucking rigmarole getting benefits reinstated will prove to be).

Firstly the letter is written from someone at the JC I've never heard of and copies in what the adviser at the Salvation Army Employment Plus fed back when he was asked. It starts be covering what the GP already knew: that I saw the Work Psychologist in January. It goes on to cover the Pluss debacle and makes the first accusation of my not engaging and general lack of interest. 

This is bullshit. I was told on two separate occasions by the Psychologist that Pluss would meet me locally. That turned out to be untrue when I contacted them (not the sort of thing the lazy do, but it matters not what you yourself do because it's never taken seriously nor credited). Not only that bu t Pluss seemed no better than the WP itself: it was either Pluss or the WP and the former was only a 6 month course so I would have ended up on the WP anyway, so why bother. The final part they ignore is that the Psychologist promised me she would speak to the Disability Adviser, who is responsible for the referral, on my behalf and clear the referral. The DA dug her heels in and insisted that I meet with her in person even though I explained that a) the Psychologist (A DWP official, of course, just like her) and b) going to the office is stressful (this is important as will soon become clear). She didn't even need to see me; it was only her need to be officious and supercilious. She had the Psychologist vouching for me along with my actual JC adviser. Yet she carped on about how she had to be sure that the DWP weren't 'wasting their money' with the referral - charming.

Pointless as well, given that there was no real alternative - it was either that or the WP! But instead of these facts the letter simply lists all the things I am credited with not bothering to engage with. This is the tone throughout the letter and it's just bollocks. It's the same attitude from my GP: he accuses me of not bothering, yet I'm the one that finds out which mental health service to talk to, asks to be seen by the local people whom he rubbishes out of hand (irony!), and I'm the one that engages in processes he doesn't understand and then accuses me of 'cant be bothered' when they don't work - and I explain how!

Moving on we find one diamond in this rough that might actually prove positive as it's now in writing. The letters says that they spoke to the Work Psychologist about my concerns and they were told by her that I "require considerable social and health support". Exactly the sort of thing that neither the JC, the DWP, JSA, nor the Work Programme provides or can hope to. Sounds quite emphatic and serious - just not serious enough to provoke my GP to write a fucking sick note. Instead he is convinced I'm a malingerer. The full quote is even more worrying: "require considerable social and health support, in order to be able to take full advantage of any employment resettlement services"! What the fuck? I presume they mean the Work Programme, but it sounds like something the National Socialist party in Germany would have done to certain members of the community; 'resettle' them. Typically Orwellian language from the state here.

It then says that the Psychologist said the GP funded a "specialist assessment of his mental and social adjustment needs" (wtf?). Well I presume she's referring to the asperger's diagnosis that's now looking like a waste of time (I think it's ADD instead and that should be looked at, as I've said before). I don't know how you get the above from an aspergers diagnosis. This assessment of my adjustment needs hasn't happened yet and the phrase again seems to twist the truth: it sounds more like an assessment of what I can do or need to work. Not an assessment of my actual health - away from that sort of bias.

In fact when I said to my GP why don't I go be seen by the CMHT in case it's not Aspergers he dismissed that and rubbished them out of hand, which is a rather ironic attitude to take. The whole thing has been completely misrepresented.So the implication again seems to be that I couldn't be bothered to attend or go through this process. Utter nonsense.  

Next is an interesting and worrying sentence: "However as the WP is now responsible for his employment development, any additional specialist service has to be provided through the WP contract." Well that won't happen will it; the Salvation Army as I've said made it abundantly clear they are not mental health experts (in the letter the adviser calls himself a 'job life coach' ffs) nor that they offer such services, whatever additional specialist services the JC thinks they mean of course - all geared with one goal in mind: getting off benefits by any means necessary, not my well being or my welfare. That's the real message to take from this folks, it's not about your welfare.

Finally the 'job life coach's' (JLC) reply to all this is copied in. It's pure character assassination, claiming that the first contact was aggressive. That's a dangerous overstatement. Crucially it ignores the key fact: the JLC had double booked me with someone else and that either I went back and arranged a completely new appointment (thereby going through all the stress of waiting for that appointment from scratch, on the eve of when I was supposed to be seen - a conveniently ignored fact despite recognising my health problems at this point). Or I could be seen, inexplicably, simultaneously with the other customer, which would have been totally impractical in every conceivable way, not least of all in terms of personal discretion. JLC fails to tell this to the jobcentre, nor that I turned up as agreed and did everything I was asked. In fact it doesn't mention that despite the DWP sending the information (crucially again including my health issues) and despite JObfit, the prime, passing that on to the Sally Army, and the JLC having received it (because how else could he have known my phone number?), he claimed not to have this information. Not only that, but throughout the interview I asked him this several times because I didn't feel comfortable discussing these things in an open church (even when there, as it transpired, were only a few other people - thankfully), and he refused to answer. He had the information, he knew the problems I had, it was all there, and he just wouldn't listen or answer me when I pointed this out). It was he that draw the interview to a close and gave me the asse4ssment forms to fill in myself and never contacted me back. Yet that's my fault for being aggressive.

JLC also claims that "we did go out of our way in order to provide a queet area for the assessment to take place, but he was unhappy that I left the door open". Really this is such rot. Firstly there was no door to close, secondly there was no such area: you had the main church hall, where we were and without any discussion either, and then a kitchenette at the back directly connected to the church hall with the door to the outside on the wall inbetween (imagine a little connecting space, with no door or screen to divide the two areas). It's such garbage; there was someone else being interviewed in that kitchenette and I could hear their conversation, and they could certainly hear us! It goes on to claim that this magical door was left open for safety reasons, presumably in case I launched myself over the trestle table or threw a bible at him.

I don't object to safety, just to bullshit.

He then points out that he had 'helped' me by suggesting, in order to further my intended writing career (something they are completely unwilling to countenance), I go to gigs (where does he think I live, London? No gigs around here, I live in the countryside and certainly can't afford to go gigging). At the time I said I don't feel comfortable in crowds. To be fair he does relay this, but again it's done in such a way as to ignore the aforementioned acknowledgement of my issues (which seems to be the overriding problem here, that and the lies) and focus on me being lazy and not engaging. If I can't cope with crowds and can't afford to go to gigs then it's not much of a suggestion, really, is it!

He ends by saying relating that he drew the interview to a close. He does mention that he said to me that JLC's aren't trained in dealing with or offering mental health support (something that youd' think would be important and is exactly why I got annoyed, which I did, with his not reading the health notes that were part of the referral). He then says that because I'm on JSA he has to look at getting people into jobs or job ready - so of course how can they help me if they can't offer help for my 'considerable' issues? HE says he suggested that if I wanted to be on a different benefit I should claim ESA (again ignored by my GP who's read this letter as well as heard me explain all this). Finally it mentions him giving me the paperwork to fill out myself, and then ends with this bombshell: "To date I am still waiting". Firmly putting the blame on me for not engaging: apparently I didn't bother to do what was agreed (even though there is no mandating of this task, which is important because if the WP doesn't mandate you then they can't accuse you of not engaging - at least that's how it's supposed to work, see the www.consent.me website for more info), and never bothered to report back. That was NOT what was arranged. Not that it discusses why he couldn't contact me. No, that's not his responsibility, ironically. So again the customer gets the blame and bears whatever consequences. 

The letter ends with the comments mentioned above. After the input from the JLC it concedes he isn't a mental health expert but says that "he referred the customer to FRIEND (a local mental health charity) again the customer has not taken up his offer of help". Again bullshit. Just plain bullshit. The JLC said this because he assumed quite vigorously that people with genuine mental health needs always have an adviser accompanying them and that, the absence of such, didn't, shall we say, count in my favour. Certainly that was the implication. However this statement is wrong because I actually did go to them (I have the info on the desk in front of me), not that the JLC would ever know (they aren't affiliated with the Sally Army, or, as far as UI know, Jesus). When I spoke to them I mentioned what I had been told by the JLC and was told, not unexpectedly, they don't provide such chaperones. They are a small charity that really offers no more than a place to chill out (expensive to get to unfortunately). They have an advocate service, but not a ready supply of people to come with you to every WP appointment either. Unsurprisingly.

There it is folks: this is the system. If you've waded through all this then I salute you. It's yet more Orwellian bullshit: selective editing and reportage of facts. There's also the assumption that everything they suggest is guaranteed to help or otherwise able to do something; it's not. The suggestion to see Friend is not only treated as a mandated activity but something guaratneed to help. Friend can't do that, they haven't the resources and they aren't the WP (remember the letter says that it's all the responsibility of the WP now, not whomever they are 'friends' with).

I was almost thinking perhaps I can't be too mad at my GP for not listening either, having read such a hatchet job, but then it says it right there in the letter, reinforced also by the JLC: "considerable social and health needs". Yet still not enough to work towards an ESA note - to write a sick note. Just what chance do people stand when the support systems aren't working or aren't interested. Or just plain lie.

La La La Not Listening!

Well, well, well. I have just had it out with my GP! Sounds exciting, well not really. More depressing actually. 

For several months he's been claiming to support my pursuit of an Asperger's Diagnosis, coming into contact with that inexplicable Work Psychologist I saw at the start of the year. (It all seems so long ago now...) Now, when confronted with me actually explaining to him - again (though as emphatically as I could) - how ESA and the DWP works, he decides that he didn't and indeed never thought I have Aspergers. Not at all. Could he not have said this earlier. 

He seems to think that the diagnosis process is going to do his job for him: that they, if they indeed do believe I have Aspergers, they are going to take the decision to sign me off out of his hands. He clearly doesn't want to do it. He seems to think, bizarrely, that with a positive diagnosis, I could 'appeal', demonstrating a complete lack of understanding of the system. I had to explain that I'm not on ESA and can't appeal it without first having to be on it, and that to do so requires not just passing the WCA (which won't happen solely ont he basis of AS), but first getting him to write a sick note. When confronted with this he backs off and doesn't want to know, but offers no solution. So in the end we get nowhere. I point out to him that if he doesn't think I qualify for ESA now, I won't be any different after the test. A test I'm increasingly inclined to think is a waste of time. 

I need to speak to the mental health people because again I think he misunderstands their role in all of this. They aren't going to provide him an excuse to sign me off. They won't get involved in that at all and will focus on the diagnosis, which is appropriate; it's not their job to sign people off or make that decision. They are simply there to provide a diagnosis, but he thinks they can provide a credible enough opinion as to whether they think I can work. Given that the prevailing attitude is so pro-work and so anti-scrounger they will affirm that loads of people with AS have jobs and that because I can communicate I can hold down a job.

(I've come to think it's more likely to be ADD, at least - and I've never said that I 100% believe I have AS either.)

That's the first part of the problem: the idea that possessing certain traits, regardless of what problems you do have, means that you can work. The second part is that being able to work means that there are loads of jobs, which is something my GP seems to believe. He was asking me what I do to look for work, what I have applied for as well as whether or not I think I can't work with the belief that saying I do also means that I believe I will never find work. It's impossible to answer these quesiotns; so much is dependent on the current labour market and the attitudes within society. There are not enough jobs for people that do have a decent work history and no health issues. But he doesn't want to hear that anymore than he wants to hear about the day to day issues we all have to face: eg dealing with recruitment agency jobs that don't exist (never mind whether I can do them). Everything is so conditional.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The worst part of this was discovering what the DWP had to say in response to the letter he agreed to write last time. When I saw him before a month or so ago he said, in regard to not being given a fixed time to see people at the JC and having appointments and advisers change every five minutes and the fact they don't help at all (they won't, it's all up to the Work Programme now), that he'd write and tell them that I needed stability. Turns out they wrote back and that he may have inadvertently opened a can of worms. 

I don't have the full gist of the letter (will try and get a copy later today due to their pc not working earlier), but it seems, in response, the JC got in touch with the Salvation Army who said that I 'dug my heels in' when they spoke to me and that I wasn't engaging with them. This raises a potential red flag in respect of me fulfilling the JSA: I'm supposed to engage with the help offered (ie the WP). Since I've had no comeback from this as yet I'm conditionally assuming there won't be any - but I'm mindful there's a chance (you never know with these people). They'd have contacted me by now had there been an issue...surely?

This is just patent bullshit and I said as much to the GP, in fact I was pretty assertive for once in dealing with him. This kind of crap is exactly what I have had to put up with all the time: the nature of the relationship simply presumes I'm the gulty party, that I'm not dfoing what I should and that what I say is, at the very least, not taken seriously. Frankly this has to stop and I doubt I will bother seeing him again (not least of all because getting appointments with him is next to imposible, something else he brushed off). This constant use of tactics such as 'you're not engaging with the process' is becoming the norm it seems to me - and it's far too easy for the likes of the Sally Army to make these spurious claims when they are not only in charge of the situation but make no effort to rectify it. Never mind that the service they provide is complete shit, something else I pointed out that again just seemed to fall on deaf ears.

No matter what I say it just comes down to the same thing: I'm the lazy scrounger, I'm the malingerer and that I could work so what's the problem. No matter his ignorance of the reality of the Work Programme, the Jobcentre, the DWP and the process of claiming ESA (which, oddly, he still agrees would be best even though he blindly refuses to engae in the process required to get me on it). The claimant, me, just ends up with no support and no help and is sent on his way to carry on because the likes of my GP just have a blind spot when it comes to the reality of the system and the people on benefits. It's all a simple matter of getting out of bed and making an effort and everything's hunky dorey. It's base ignorance of the worst kind because it promotes indifference and even conflict, when the GP doesn't like what I'm saying but can't back up his belief that I must be making it up. These people are in a position of power and are key to the progress of people in my position (and worse) but they seem to want to remain wilfully ignorant.

More on this as it develops (ie, when I read the full letter from the DWP). If I do lose my benefits because the DWP decide to put a doubt on my claim for not 'engaging' I will be back to have it out with him, again, and he really won't be pleased to see me, of that you can be sure. He may not be directly to blame for the consequence of that letter. He couldn't really have known what would happen - but then that ignorance is the problem!

The Queen and Mrs Barlow

By far my favourite story of the year is the Jimmy Carr, and now Gary Barlow, tax avoidance 'schadenfreude'. This is gold. There's nothing greater than a pompous media figure, particularly one that prides himself on his wit, being taken down a peg or two. Don't get me wrong, I love comedians, but Carr ain't a patch on Carlin or Hicks, who are as relevant today as they ever were. So it makes me laugh when I see Jimmy Carr, fresh from his stints as presenter/stand up on 10 0 clock Live where he did a skit satirising tax avoidance, exposed as a tax avoider. All legal of course. well that's ok then.

Far more entertaining is the hopefully-imminent downfall of Dame Very Ly...sorry I mean Gary Barlow. The new nation's wartime sweetheart. He's gone from a failed solo career, where his self penned middle of the road 90's shite was the backing track to one of the flattest weakest singing voices I've ever heard, to bored housewives fantasy and national icon. Over recent years he's been behind equally bland charity lineups for concerts, comic relief events and of course the recent godawful Diamond Jubilee anthem. As if that wasn't bad enough, he was obviously short of cash in spite of the sale of Take That albums (not his solo stuff surely) that he had to hawk tat for Marks and Sparks! And as if that wasn't bad enough, he butchered my favourite Beatles song, Here Comes The Sun! That alone is a hanging offence in most countries. But no, Dame Gary can do no wrong.

Except it seems to not pay his tax on the eve that his work in corralling performances from black folks throughout our former colonies was to net him an OBE (for services to caterwauling and the deadening of creativity no doubt). Good work! 

What makes me laugh is that the person out of all of us that should be most offended by this revelation is the Queen herself. The royal family are dependent on taxation for their income and people like Gary and of course Jimmy are literally taking food from her mouth! Well ok, stealing quail's eggs and pheasants from her pantry.

It's all such a joke. The queen herself is now perhaps the most loved person on the planet. Even a returning Christ, fresh off the UFO, couldn't compete with post-jubilee Britain's admiration of this bland old lady. This is a woman in an increasingly and historically emasculated position: the role of Queen is irrelevant, she has no powers to make laws and never, it seems, any interest to do so. Even Charles, nut that he is, is more opinionated! Yet that seems to increase public admiration for her even more! Monarchists contend that she is to be supported and admired, more now than ever, precisely because she has fuck all power and nothing to do except sit around and play xbox (wouldn't you?). 

Imagine if John, in data entry, was kept in his job after being replaced by computers capable of doing what he did automatically. We don't need John, but he's now a greater asset to the company precisely because of this. So we keep him in his own opulent office upstairs where he gets to sit and listen to Take That and watch Jimmy Carr DVD's all day, at the company's expense!

More Jobs?

Lovely morning for a walk. Notsomuch for listening to local BBC radio. The topic was unemployment (more specifically 'can you find the work you want'?) and the usual array of anecdotes that, as ever, seem to be used as fact. This is the problem with the media and I really shouldn't listen to this nonsense, but there's no other debate that I can find (certainly not where I live, in the country).

So we have a discussion with old people saying that they've managed to find work later in life. Then we have some businessman in his 60's talking about how kids these days do not leave school ready for the workplace (something I'm tired of hearing, personally). We have an 18 year old kid starting up a business that has, as far as I can tell, something to do with photography, having done work experience in a studio; and we have someone that offered to work in a caravan factory getting a job. This is on top of the news that the employment figures have gone slightly down, although there are still 2 million people out of work (a figure that isn't representative of the whole of course).

What then is the truth in all of this? It's like an echo chamber or a hall of mirrors: all you get are the same opinions, anecdotes and beliefs trotted out time and again and used to judge the whole. A young person that turned up to a caravan factory this morning asking for any work is lauded among all this. Well that's great, but we don't discuss this at any length, and so none of the issue surrounding this are mentioned: did he live nearby and could therefore easily turn up at 7am to ask about work? Thus how can someone like myself travel to such a venue if a) it's nowhere near b) the buses are considerably dearer in the morning (peak time) and c) it costs a fortune. Can we really expect people to be therefore 'getting on their bikes' regularly? Is he claiming Jobseekers? If so how will this affect an ongoing claim? What arrangements for work were made with the employer? Was it just a days work cash in hand that he can (though he shouldn't, technically) declare? Does he hope it will last long enough that he won't go back on the dole in a month's time or at the end of the week? Is it a few days work before he's off on holiday with his mates for example, just some spending money?

It's so easy to put these stories forward in so simple a way. They then become the totality of the issue: why doesn't everyone then rock up at their local factory/place and ask for work - well for starters with 2 million still out of work (the figure reported as an increase is barely 1%) they couldn't possibly all compete. That's the problem: competition. We won't hear anything in the future following up on this case. 

There's no discussion of whether or not everyone out of work should be corralled into all applying for the same, few, positions, over and over. That seems to be the case; the reasoning being that slowly it will whittle down the claimant count, and that people stand more chance of finding work if they apply for more jobs. But is this really true? With more people thus competing against each other are their chances of finding work really improved? There's no discussion about this. No conversation about finding suitable work for people. In fact there's no conversation about making work suitable, period! No discussion about work life balance. The system is so obsessed with getting people off benefits it doesn't care how, so getting a job - any job - is just a bonus. This is evidenced by the fact that reporting of unemployment figures never mentions the real number of people out of work, just focusing more on people claiming JSA. 

Do we even need half the jobs that people end up doing? How many call centres, administrators, office people, private companies scamming money in various ways off of each other and the public purse, legally or otherwise are vital for a functioning society. Everyone has to have a job it seems so anything is fair game. There's no discussion about the right kind of work that a society needs, yet we look down our nose at people doing lowbrow work, as compared to gangsters in the financial sector.

We even degrade people coming out of school, saying they are so green they are totally unfit for work. This gets said all the time, particularly by the CBI, but I have never heard them actually explain this. It sounds to me like a well disguised plea for more cheap staff; more workfare. They complain that it costs money to train staff, that hiring people is such a gamble because they are so wet behind the ears. Well, employing anyone is a risk, unless you happen to be psychic. But nowadays it seems the business lobby can't cope with all of these useless kids. It's also part of the continued degradation of state education, most likely as a means to promoting private education and such things as free schools. Yet again the public sector gets kicked in the nuts. I don't really believe school leavers these days are as incompetent as the CBI likes to make out. Of course what isn't talked about is what a given workplace or employer is like: it may be that one of these moaning employers is himself incompetent and perhaps just a bit of a bully. It may be that they are referring to work that requires skill in particular areas that schools can't possibly cover: particular software, such as payroll or accounting tools for example. A blanket statement that is never qualified does nothing to convince me.

In the end where are we going. It's just about making money as far as I can see. Big business continues to divide and rule: look here's a lad got off his arse and now works building caravans. Look here's an 18 year old entrepreneur. But how successful will these people prove to be? We can't really judge their efforts - and thus compare the rest of us scroungers - until we see how things pan out. And if they are successful surely their success cannot be used as a template for everyone else. How do we know if a 67 year old businessman is any more skilled than the 18 year old, and will prove successful? It isn't these people that are creating jobs and saving our economy, it's the demand for their goods and services. Sure they might hire a couple of people, but that's only going to be initially: if that demand isn't there then what will happen to them and their staff?

Jobs?

I've just been to town to do my shopping, while the weather's nice. Across the road from the seafront is a new Premier Inn being built with a Brewer's Fayre (iirc) restaurant, and possibly some other places (all owned by Whitbread). All under the same roof. I noticed in the window it said "3000 qualifications will be given out, 1000 work placements/apprenticeships for young people, and 5000 jobs over three years (or something like that)". That's 6000 jobs in a seaside Premier Inn in a matter of a few years, and this is being presented in such a way as to make me thing 'wow, lots of opportunities; maybe the government really are helping, and maybe the private sector really is the great saviour'. What it really says is that they are happy to exploit young people in jobs, not just the placements/experience (workfare?), that can't have much of a lifespan.

 Is Premier Inn such a shitty place to work to explain such a turnaround of staff to justify that figure? They must fast track people into upper management and move them somewhere else perhaps? It's the usual spin we are seeing more and more of. Looking on their career page I see only two vacancies (in management) for the place in question. So these are just casual positions that mean nothing (they don't advertise those on the web and I can't be bothered to ring them up).

I walked into Waterstones and saw someone I've never seen working there before. Not a big deal, I don't go there every day after all. But I've noticed that Waterstones is the sort of place where this happens. Their staff strike me as comprising students. Someone such as myself wouldn't stand a chance competing for a position, and even then I regularly look on their web page which, outside of the holiday season, never has anything anyway. 

There was also a new 'ristorante' along the seafront with its own ice cream parlour (or probably 'ice creme parloriatte'). I had known this place was under construction over the last few months but I had no idea who owned it or what brand/company were running it (I still don't, the company name meant nothing to me). So had I wanted to be the person I saw selling ice creams on the seafront how could I have applied? This place was not advertising for staff in the local press and, given that I use the (poorly programmed) DWP database (almost) daily, I didn't see it there either. 

There is a whole attitude built around finding these sorts of jobs that seeks to make people like me, the people that obviously aren't doing 'enough' (otherwise we'd find out about these jobs) look lazy. But where is the help? I still haven't heard from the Salvation Army, would they have known about these jobs? Doubtful; their tired little enterprise is just as casual as anything else I've seen. It really is about being in the right place at the right time, or knowing the right people - such as the owners of seafront ristorante's and local bookshops (even then most retail positions are part time, or 'key' time as they started calling it, back in the day).

Of course the elephant in the room is the fact that I don't want to sell ice cream and frankly I'm fairly ambivalent about selling books, though I prefer books to ice cream. Neither of these things inspire me, neither of them contribute to society (we have enough booksellers). Retail is tiresome, especially when you can't relate to people and have to put up with their inane babble; comments like "careful, the ink's still wet", when being handed money, or "you look bored mate, here's something for you to do," as if you're the customer's personal skivvy. Yes I'm bored, I said when once working on till in a garden centre on the NMW, because there's fuck all to do except sit (stand, actually; unless you were elderly the till supervisor got stroppy with people sitting) and wait for some hot till action to materialise.

My jobsearch for this Friday's delayed signing time (can't wait) will, I fear, be very minimal. Frankly I'm too tired to do any more. This merry go round is just a fruitless waste of time, no matter how easy it might seem to the working multitude to sit and do an online search. Einstein said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. He wasn't wrong.

Ga Ga Grayling!

Well he's back, our rat faced overlord; the dull eyed and dull witted employment thug and capitalist extraordinaire, Chris fucking Grayling. This creature really does make my blood both run cold and boil at the same time. There's not many people I hate, but he's definitely one of them. A man in charge of not only ignoring both fact and wisdom, but of advocating blatant hypocrisy. A man happy to abuse the parliamentary expenses system (if only ethically - because these people make the rules in their favour anyway) but lecture the poor on their perceived obligations to his view of society; the Tory view where the poor are just serfs on their land. Same as it ever was.

Over the weekend he came out with this cock and bull, as reported in the Guardian. The nation says NO to workfare, but Grayling hears the opposite, emphatically. No doubt his corporate paymasters have cottoned on to how sweet the deal is for them (not for the slaves sent to these gulags) and are petitioning him to get them as many as their voracious corporate appetites can find. Feed me, Grayling! Like the plant in Little Shop of Horrors. 

Not only that but anyone that signs off the dole in (perceived) anticipation of this nonsense is deemed to be 'gaming the system' - which I suppose is a subtle way of accusing them of benefit fraud. This from a man that could very easily be accused of exactly the same thing, and also happy to enjoy a property portfolio of buy to let (you know, that thing that fucks up communities and hikes up rents and causes Tories to oppose rent controls, fuckers). More people are being referred to state sanctioned servitude than to Grayling's beloved Work Programme! So there's work people could do for a wage clearly!

As a result of this another few million quid has been found to pay fr all this. Clearly Labour didn't spend all the money then; or perhaps that note was so big and heavy that it hid all this extra money the coalition magically finds for its batshit hateful schemes of social engineering.

The article even includes some dull witted nonsense alleged to come from the mouth of a young Jobseeker called Lee Sproat who has had some kind of epiphany about workfare. Initially adamant to refuse his sentence, he decided that instead it would be a good thing. Apparently this has directly led to him getting a job:

"The interviewer was quite impressed, [with] the fact that I'd done the voluntary work. [But] I didn't say, 'oh it was mandatory voluntary work'… but it was very positively taken at the interview." 

Right, he didn't tell them it was MANDATORY. That makes a huge difference. Employers are impressed because it sounds as if the candidate made the effort to do something for himself (although not in my experience; no employer gave two shits after I worked at Oxfam for a while - they just hired people with 'proper' experience instead). None of this proves that workfare was the deciding factor in Sproat's subsequent employment, nor does the anecdote explain what the job is or who it's for. So this is just another gullible lad suckered into providing the government with its own publicity.

At the same time, it's been revealed that research into workfare demonstrates its uselessness:

"Thousands of jobseekers have been referred to a mandatory work scheme that has done nothing for their employment chances, has made them more likely to claim benefits in the long run, and may have had adverse consequences on their physical and mental health, government research has found."

Pretty damning you might think. So what does ratface want? That's right, he wants MORE workfare. So that means he's happy for all of that negative unhelpful life destroying shit to be heaped onto people he clearly doesn't give a stuff about, all so he and his cunt friends can carry on in the manner to which they have become accustomed. Correction: to which we have allowed them to become accustomed. That's the sad part in all this. We have the power, but of course, through media driven divide and rule, we don't use it, nor do we believe it a good thing to exercise it. People that do, those that campaign against workfare, etc, are branded as trots and scroungers.

An, but hold on, the Daily Fail has come to our hero's defence, with this stirling piece of shit. Apparently people are not only committing fraud to avoid the workfare schemes, but are working in the black economy. They are all working on the sly apparently. By way of proof, Grayling sat in on an interview with a young man at the jobcentre that had been working a 'few hours a week below the benefit threshold' at a local nightclub. A few hours? And he deserves your special attention Chris? As pointed out here the benefit threshold is a fiver, so again Grayling's arse is speaking on his behalf. Now why was this young man singled out for your attention? Did he have any say in whether Grayling sat in on this discussion, most likely causing a great deal of stress and with far reaching consequences? When was the last time we got to sit in on your discussions and examine them? According to the article the man was told he'd lose a week's money for missing his previous signing appointment (that'll learn him huh!). In return, and to Grayling's apparent astonishment, he shrugged: "Noone just shrugs if they lose a week's money!" says our hero, clearly demonstrating a lived-in knowledge of life on the dole. So obviously he's a fraudster, yes? Consequently what this feckless lollygagger needs is a stint working for nothing. That'll certainly help: unlike supporting that which he is doing that gives him some money (if any of this Nazi shit is remotely based in fact).

So here we have it, beyond the bluster of the figures quoted by the Mail, this is just a means to persecute perceived benefit fraud, even though benefit fraud is still a complete non-issue as the likes of Vodafone know full well...if you catch my drift.

Windy Days and Inflexible Appointments

Woke up to the beautiful evidence of climate change that is our current summertime weather (yes I know climate isn't weather, but this is meant to be summer). My appointment to sign was at 10 past 10 this week. It's like a lottery; will i get the winning ticket and be given an appointment that makes sense? Not next time apparently as they have chosen to ignore the letter my GP wrote to them and can't, it seems, make any exceptions using their inflexible booking system (it seems impossible to block book my appointment times, for example, which are meant to be 10am, which would be fine). So in a fortnight I'm in at twenty to 3 in the afternoon, assuming that's ok with the buses, I don't know (I never have to travel here at that time).

Curiously as I was signed (which again involved mysterious data input before my jobsearch diary was signed - no special coupons for me) I heard a call being taken by the floor supervisor. My ears pricked up when I heard the call refer to not just Jobfit (the prime I'm supposed to be with), but also the Salvation Army. Against reason I tried to hang around afterwards to see if I could hear more. Unfortunately I couldn't divine a great deal, but it sounded like the caller wasn't happy as the supervisor asked them if they'd made a complaint to the provider (the Jobcentre don't have any power to deal with complaints it would appear; I've heard staff tell claimants to go through the provider before). Looks like another unhappy Salvation Army conscript (one can only hope). Would love to know how many of my fellow souls are as happy with their service as me!

Post Jubilee Rubble

Over the weekend I received an appointment for a diagnosis to see if I have Aspergers. Unfortunately it's miles away and I don't travel well, so I have begun to question the point of it. What good will getting a diagnosis, if it were to happen, be anyway? 

There's no way I'm going to pass a WCA just because a doctor gives me a piece of paper saying I have Asperger's. All I will be told is that plenty of people that have Asperger's work anyway, plus we all know that you need to do a hell of a lot to pass that test. My doctor is reluctant to write a sick note, even though he agrees the ESA WRAG would be the best place (at least that's the theory), that won't change. What does he think being labelled as an Asperger's sufferer will mean? Does he think that will bypass his role in getting me onto ESA? It won't. Does he think that a whole bunch of doors and opportunities will magically open? In the current climate? Nope. 

What would those opportunities be? How many employers are going to be interested in hiring me if I tell them I have Aspergers? What if I don't; that's hardly fair on me. If I have to apply for jobs I find difficult because of my problems, which is the case right now being on JSA, then how is that going to change if I can't get off JSA?

In the end nothing really changes, so is it really worth all the hassle. I know my own mind, labels don't mean anything. If they can't provide access to help and, more pertinently, an income, then what's the point? I've already had the Work Psychologist tell me that plenty of people with such conditions manage to work. But that assumes one can even find work. The problem is the system doesn't offer any help in these areas and I don't see how getting an official diagnosis will change that. It hasn't so far, and having a piece of paper telling me I'm an official Asperger's sufferer - and there's no guarantee that will happen (the assessment requires that I get someone that's known me all my life to answer a bunch of questions about my behaviour as a child, which is not possible) - won't make a lick of difference.

The problem is until the system is able to help there's not much that will change. Either I claim JSA or ESA or somehow get a job (or sign off altogether and starve of course). But I can't switch to ESA and even if I could there's no chance I'll pass the WCA. Even then I'll still be on the Work Programme, which is still a giant waste of time. So I remain on JSA and have to deal with the continued need to look for work with the implication that there's nothing wrong with me (because of course if there were I'd claim ESA!). Again it seems to come down to the systems that are available which are ever more in decline as the powers that be tell you that you have to help yourself and pull your socks up. That's just hot air though. 

Still I guess I could always go and live under a bridge with the CPUK trainees, forced to work under absurd conditions for no pay as part of their Work Programme/Workfare/Training/Slavery deal. The government dismisses this as a one off 'logistical error' - a bit like that nightshift job Tescos advertised a few months back eh!

Listening to all the excuses and the 'dunkirk spirit' apologists for this practise their words are pretty hollow. Why would anyone choose not to be paid? That implies they had the choice in the first place. Sorry that doesn't ring true.

And just because this is fast becoming the norm, this practise of slavery, doesn't make it right.
But the weasel words of CPUK and Tomorrow's People are just not good enough. It's another attempt to offer a weedy apology in terms of 'if people think we need wrong then we're sorry'. So not an apology. Downplaying this as a logistical error ffs! 

In what world does bussing people into work in the middle of the night, unprepared (except for the camping gear they seem to have had to supply themselves), then giving them the opportunity to get a couple of hours kip - under a fucking bridge like a troll - before working a 16 hour shift make sense?

Logistical error doesn't begin to explain or justify this blatant exercise in getting labour on the cheap and cutting corners. These people made a mistake? Yeah, my arse they did! They got caught out and shame on them - and shame on the pathetic apologists for this crap. You are devaluing your own worth in the labour market. They even had some grandmother on whose grandson felt that those complaining were not only way off base - but were putting his opportunity to get trained up for the Olympics in jeopardy!
 

Tomorrow's People say that unemployed people couldn't be paid because it was against the JSA rules. But that doesn't stop them behaving like gangmasters of course.

 

Divide and rule, alive as ever. Just to round off, here's something typically Tory to cheer us all up!

Jubilationed to Death!

I find all this depressingly regressive. We should be looking forward, like the Occupy Movement, not wallowing in nostalgia. It's not even proper nostalgia: we don't yearn for the days when kings and queens really had power, but for some rosy mid 20th century worldview. A time when empire still meant something, but without the excesses. 

I find flag waving equally banal. Flags are inherently divisive; you wave them to brag and to boast that yours is the richer territory, often when riding onto another's territory you wish to claim as your own. To say they have been 'reclaimed' or otherwise divested of negative connotations with the far right is spurious. Of course they haven't. The point of waving a flag is to say 'I be Engerlish!'. Well we know you're Engerlish, because we're all standing on Engerland right now! So what's the point, other than an expression of subconscious insecurity. I hate flags and the jingoism they represent, and right now I'm surrounded by them as the neighbourhood is bedecked in this nonsense.

I feel like I'm stuck in this morning's Radio 5 Live Your Call phone in, in which dissenters were subject to heckling, jeering and abuse from people that claim the monarchy is so precious that no one should be allowed to exercise the democracy they claim the queen champions.
er!

ER?!?

Sunemployment

Pop quiz: what do the following people have in common? Toby Young, with Shadow Employment Minister Stephen Timms, 7/7 survivor and employment expert Dan Biddle, KFC CEO Martin Shuker, Tesco personnel director Judith Nelson and Michelle Dewberry (from the Apprentice years ago, before getting knocked up by a fellow Apprentice candidate and then resigning).

The answer is 'Sunemployment'.

I had never heard of this, which you might find a bit odd considering they were in town the day before I went to sign on and noone had ever mentioned this to me at the JC, nor was there any literature or advertising at the time. As I don't read the Sun I had, fortunately, never heard of this...this Sunemployment.

Yes, it seems in a scheme so loaded with populist bullshit I fear it might destabilise reality, the Sun has its own scheme to get Britain working. Well thank god for that. Phew, we can all rest assured that Britain's best loved soft porn and football hooligan peddling shitrag will find long term sustained careers for the millions out of work, soon to be out work, sick-but-not-sick-enough-to-not-work, and everyone that isn't a white hard working heterotaxpayer. For fuck's sake, Toby Young? A right wing tory toff gobshite. An opposition minister - opposition! - desperate to cash in on the opportunity (which is the only explanation for an opposition employment minister to be present, says it all really), a guy that was injured in the 7/7 bombings?!? Madam from the Apprentice and people from Tesco and KFC! There are more 'celebrities' than actual employers, how does that make sense? What on earth do the 7/7 bombings have to do with this? No doubt so this gentleman can espouse a 'can do' attitude, having survived such an awful event. Well that's all fine and good, but it's just irrelevant. This is just the Sun stirring the shit. Mr Biddle may also be an employment expert, but would they have picked him if not for 7/7? After all there are plenty of employment experts local anyway, surely? No, this is just to say there are no barriers to work, certainly compared to suffering injury from terrorist bombings (something I do not take pleasure in and am glad he has survived and is happy). 

Well, apart from a lack of jobs.

This reminds me of that godawful BBC youth employment fair that was on roughly a year ago, around the time of the riots, or just before. It was the same trick. But does it achieve anything? Not according to the (boo hiss!) SWP. 

"Starting on Monday in Newcastle, we’ll be visiting five cities around the UK with top employers including O2, Whitbread, Sainsbury’s, Barclays, Sky, Nissan, British Gas and BT — all eager to hire."

Right, but you didn't bother to tell the Jobcentre (despite Grayling being on deck at the finale) nor Work Programme providers who might have informed their 'custoimers'. Will you be paying travel expenses for prospective employees to attend this seminar and soak up the wisdom of people like Toby Young, Jeremy Kyle and Michelle Dewberry, and whatever talking heads they can cull from The Apprentice You're Fired? If there are so many jobs, why weren't these advertised before hand? Why aren't they, for example, stored in the DWP's own jobsearch website? Are they even full time jobs? Are they even jobs? No mention of Sunemployment (god that's a depressing word) on the KFC site. I just had a look at that site and I can't tell if they have any vacancies or not as it's not clear. It seems to suggest there are vacancies for 'team members' (counter staff, fun), but no mention of hours, location, wage or anything. On the other hand Tesco are not listing anything (including Sunemployment) on their page: I counted 16 local vacancies, none of which were suitable and the majority were night shift positions in Cardiff (not Bristol). I suspect we are talking 'work experience' here. I also suspect this is yet more free publicity for big business who can be seen to be positive employers by turning up and offering the pitiful masses a few scraps.

"Last year hundreds found work — this year it could be YOUR turn."

Hundreds? Doesn't that just say it all? And if your ticket last year wasn't the golden one, there's always next year...I'm sure Jeremy Kyle won't turn down the opportunity to tell you what a scumbag you are, and if not you can always talk to Graham behind the scenes.

"Sorry no jobs match your criteria, please search again."