The Myth of Workfare

You hear this a lot these days: “isn’t it better that so and so is in work, even if it’s not their dream job? Isn’t it better they are working than sitting on their arse collecting dole?”

I find this quite insulting. It’s also hyperbole as of course it presumes the alternative to honest labour is idleness and sloth, ostensibly in front of the television (which ironically makes money from this). I don’t see the DWP chastising Jeremy Kyle himself, or the channels that profit from the ad revenue gained from daytime television.

It’s an ignorant assumption based on outdated religious values. The presumption is that work per se is homogenous and wholesome (and that non-work spreads idleness). Of course work is far from homogenous. There are many kinds of work at many levels and not all of it is necessary or even healthy. We don’t consider what is beneficial; we just assume that any work is, even if it’s unpaid or even if it’s in the most low rent retail venues possible.

The idea seems to stem from the Garden of Eden; exiled for the crime of innocent curiosity Adam and Eve were set to toil in the dust all the days of their lives. It’s a nonsense – and it implies a punishment. Yet we still cling to this value: work corrects a failing moral character. Certainly that’s how Duncan Smith views it; unfortunately he’s living proof of the complete opposite.

We hold to this religious legacy as if it were timeless wisdom, fundamental in its certainty. Yet it is propagated in a society riddled with inequality imbalance and division under the yoke of a biased all pervasive media and administered by corrupt and equally biased ministers. Telling people they are going to benefit from working stacking shelves in the businesses run by their friends, many of whom sit unelected in government, is hardly wise. Who does this benefit? Where is the paper trail that connects months of shelf stacking at no wage to a life of good character and rampant opportunity? Even if a candidate wanted a career in Poundland, striving to be Mr Poundland, his chances are made exponentially slimmer by virtue of the government sending everyone there as ‘work experience’. This creates the dog eat dog world we live in as the aspirant is forced to compete for the increasingly fewer positions that appear the higher he ascends the pyramid scheme of capitalist working life. Yet he does so because these are the positions that pay the most, and that’s what’s important apparently.

Duncan Smith is a dangerous zealot. A short tempered and ignorant man with too much power who has become convinced (perhaps even manipulated) that welfare is not just a drain on the public purse, but itself is unhealthy. Apparently being on the dole is a dangerous dependency. Yet no one can explain how this makes any sense; people are not dependent on welfare, they are dependent on money. In this working and unemployed are the same, including many politicians (i.e. those not born into inherited wealth, status and privilege). If state dependency is so bad then perhaps Mr Duncan Christ should give up his expenses. That won’t happen; quite the opposite as the MP’s receive an extra £100 a year second home allowance from April (an act of supremely malicious irony). Meanwhile the Tories want an extra 30% wage. Is that dependency or just self entitlement? It certainly reeks of all the things the Tories, in particular, advocate as the great moral failings of the day.

Workfare is a myth. We all know it has nothing to do with experience or opportunity. If it did it would be more sensibly applied and with more sensitivity to the finances of the individual. Instead it’s another portal to the hell of sanctions to expedite cuts to welfare. It’s a stealth tax on the unemployed. You will note how people that are sanctioned are ‘exempt’ from workfare: Duncan Christ isn’t going to start paying people’s benefits so they can attend a workfare placement anymore than the employer (pimp) is going to pay them, but without that financial support – a prime example of how capitalism contradicts itself – the sanctioned candidate couldn’t attend. How could he afford to get there or feed himself while on the placement?

Yet again, the centre cannot hold.

The Golden Bullingdon

We impoverish ourselves in order to compete with countries already further down the road of totalitarianism.

We make people destitute and push them further from independence just to have a 'competitive' tax system that cannot meet the needs of the society, which is the one reason people pay taxes at all.

We implement cuts to vital services in a bid to preserve rates of lending and borrowing while decrying borrowing as precisely that which caused the problem in the first place.

We are a nation of sheep ruled by wolves who have inherited their fangs from generations of stolen land and money guarded by usury. The secret knowledge of money and its accumulation are kept from the poor who can't afford to join the club.

In a primitive land a shaman sees the sun beating down on the land. He feels its angry heat and petitions the tribal elders to sacrifice another goat. This is the only way he knows to sate the displeasure of the sky god who blinds all that gaze upon her.

In a modern land Osbourne sees the banks that pay his wages collapse. He feels their angry heat and petitions the Golden Bullingdon to sacrifice future generations just to keep the system alive for one more day. Those elders sanction his plans and the capricious deities known as the free market grant him their favour for one more day, one more week, one more quarter.

Nothing is growing. They have salted the earth. Devil has taken the hindmost and is coming up fast.

Unemployment Application

Some seventeen year old in America built an app that aggregates news feeds (I typed that, I should know what it means). He's now sold it for a cool $30 million. He didn't do it alone; in fact while he built the thing he's had a lot of financial support from the likes of Stephen Fry and Rupert Murdoch. 

Now I don't want to denigrate this kid's work. Fair play to him for building something and selling it, even if it's for a ridiculous sum of money - especially for a kid his age. But he's had a lot of breaks other kids won't. His dad works for Morgan Stanley and his mother appears to be an international lawyer. Life isn't giving him lemons, it's giving him Sturgeon's eggs.

What does this tell me?

It tells me that I live in a world that has changed around me. A world that doesn't offer the same opportunities to people that find themselves out of work, never mind to disadvantaged people. Ironically while there are some systems in place for people with issues that are conventionally accepted, there are plenty that slip through the cracks. Surely everyone should have the opportunity to learn how to build apps that might make millions? But I wouldn't even know where to begin. I don't own anything that uses an app in the pure sense: I don't have an iPhone or a tablet or a laptop netbook pad device. Despite being continually told how easy these things are to acquire on the dole - they must be as everyone unemployed seems to own them - I cannot afford such things.

This is a world that passes me by. Here in my little hamlet there is no support of any kind. The Work Programme certainly isn't going to furnish me with smart technology and, though I haven't asked, I can't imagine they will fund me learning to build apps. Meanwhile kids these days are in schools built around this technology on a curriculum that is designed for a world that embraces these things. They do homework on laptops, they talk to each other through smartphones, they will probably one day have their entire school reduced to an app. All of this stuff is taken for granted, which is as it should be - technology is ever changing and should be assimilated as quickly as 

possible. However for people on the dole access to it - to the opportunities it affords - is a luxury. This is backward and self defeated thinking. We already have a huge problem with unemployment among the youth and they are the people at the cutting edge of this technology for reasons mentioned above: they own it, they understand it best, and they are raised on it in school. People on the dole having to deal with the sheer incompetence and poverty of the Work Programme are instead sent to musty old churches, or stuffed in failing prefab office spaces (the sort we went to school in, you know where there are roof tiles falling down all the time and a constant threat of asbestos), where the only technology is Universal Jobmatch. We are not given an opportunity to learn new tools and skills that, even at best, would put us on an even footing with the youth. So what chance do we have when even they have no chance?

Radio Bristol vs. DLA

I didn’t sleep well. Consequently I woke up ‘hanging’, in the popular parlance of the day, so I suppose hearing Mark fucking Littlewood, frog faced lead vocalist for the populist shriek combo, the Institute of Economic Affairs, spouting lies about disability benefits isn’t a good start. BBC Radio Bristol claim to be discussing welfare this morning so I’m tuning in with great trepidation. 

Already they’ve misfired inviting this libertarian shit stirrer on to an early and brief discussion about the changes to DLA. This was preceded by a soundbite from local Tory MP Chris Skidmore who disingenuously said these changes were about getting people back to work. This was not corrected, predictably, by the presenter: DLA is not an out of work benefit. Part of the reason many are scared about losing it is precisely because it helps them get to work. Instead we get the usual two pronged attack:

1. Moan about reassessing people. Fraud is less than half a percent, yet the aforementioned ‘think’ tank want this to be better policed. Think about this; it’s policed effectively enough that 99.5% of potential fraud (if we assume fraud could ever be 100%) has been eradicated. That’s how effective the system currently is – for all its faults, fraud isn’t an issue. Many DLA claimants have lifelong conditions: what is going to be achieved throwing money at ATOS (of all people) to determine if they’ve magically somehow been cured?
2. Use big numbers to scare people. Littlewood is always doing this. He constantly uses the fact that the welfare bill is, per se, a big number to bash welfare, referring to the usual nonsense about how it’s a big part of public expenditure (no mention of pensions of course). He went one step further: he divided the figure, without context, between the umber of households in the country and decided that each was paying eight grand to those in receipt. Therefore ‘it is right’ (that phrase again) people should be policed – to use his words.

It’s easy to say the welfare bill is high. It’s equally easy to misrepresent the expenditure (just under 4% of total expenditure at 12 and a half billion quid), and it’s easy to say that people should be reassessed. But there is nothing to stop people ending their claims unless you assume they are dishonest, or that their GP no longer supports the DLA claim. Factor in the negligible fraud rate and you can see that people are not being dishonest, so clearly people need the help this gives them.

People are always reassessed: they see doctors and specialists regularly – assuming of course they have a condition or issue that is changeable. The fact of the matter is that now, as compared to when DLA was first introduced a couple of decades ago, there is more awareness of what people are entitled to claim, disability itself and the conditions involved, and of course there are more, and older, people in society!

So what is the problem with DLA?

The question posed by the radio this morning, in its ‘informed’ welfare discussion, is: “are you entitled to benefits without being assessed”. None can walk into the DWP and just ask for money and get it on a plate. Yet again with the BBC bias – why do I bother.

The problem with the BBC is that they want to appeal to everyone and so think they have to be inoffensive. I don't suggest they ought to start effing and blinding, but their non committal stance, their so called objectivity, merely becomes submission to the wisdom of the day. Now we have a brutal government whose viciousness is unmatched in living memory, they are utterly wrong footed. This is made worse by their belief that balance is achieved by giving the same credence to all points of view. While I passionately support freedom of speech, it is absurd to suggest that all views are equal; they view that it's acceptable to treat the disabled with contempt cannot be seen as equal to the view that the disabled deserve equality respect and dignity. While you can hold either view freely, do we not want a society where the latter is preferred? The BBC won't commit to making that kind of choice and so it fudges and fusses while many of its presenters and staff are ex politicians (Michael Portillo is ready to bemoan the BBC's apparent lefty bias while happily appearing on their politics shows to spout his odiout crap unchallenged), or ex political scriptwriters and spin doctors (people like Andrew Neil who's bias is naked and sarcastic, or Nick 'Blue Robbo' Robinson, so called from his Young Conservative days). In these days of 24 hour media insanity we need a decent credible and upstanding representative.

Skills

I've just been having a look at te training websites the Work Programme recommended (tabs-training.com, alison.com, and vision2learn.com). I was told there are loads of these organisations, but when I asked for a comprehensive list I was told by the Adviser that she didn't have such a thing, however I can be sure that there are loads, despite being given only three. 

Alison.com is a strange one with an equally strange name. It seems to be a bunch of higher education courses, but without the qualification. In other words you can be an 'amateur' student and do the learning for its own sake, just without the official reward. Not entirely sure what to make of it really, nor how I could use it on, say, a CV. The list of courses is not huge, but somewhat diverse - I could study for a 'diploma' in Human Resources, or Environment Science, or study Arabic (I'd prefer Mandarin, as it goes, but that's a personal thing).

The other two seem to be carbon copies and are really why I'm making this post. I've noticed, among the success stories workfare providers put out, a lot of similarity. Most of the providers have a couple of these 'personal testimonials' on their website, usually featuring young women who have ended up working in one of the caring professions. Great, if true, and good luck to them. However when you look at these training sites you see that 'health and social care' is one of the (few) categories that they offer, so it's easy for young women, usually those that don't have much of an idea of anything else, to end up in or end up wanting a career in health and social care. 

The provider can then foot the bill (probably a couple of hundred quid, nothing huge) for them to study what isn't likely to be too taxing a curriculum. Let's be honest, these courses are not there to be arcane, inaccessible or hideously complicated. They are entry level courses. So it's probably easy to produce a success story from this situation with no real effort (from the provider). The real question is whether these people end up in a stable career as a result. Of course we hope they do, providing it's something they wanted and not something the provider persuaded them to do (under threat of non compliance perhaps) or that they felt obligated to do by virtue of no alternative.

Other courses are similar: IT Skills covering basic word processing, a bit of Excel, 'Life Skills' encompassing numeracy and literacy, 'Employability' which translates as construction card training, and, similar to health and social care, training in being a trainer in one of these 'Learning Centres'. So maybe if that's your thing, you could work in one of these places. It's all a bit of a closed circle really and, I fear, a bubble that, one day, will surely burst, if only through changes in technology/accessibility rendering them redundant. There are lots of these sites and places now; it's easy money for the likes of the Work Programme who doubtless get funding/payment each time they get someone on to a Health and Social Care course. But is this really going to address the problems in society of unemployment, underemployment, skills and knowledge? Or is this another example of big business dictating or running things: these courses for example don't cover art, culture, philosophy (what gave us democracy: thought or big business?), and creativity.

The Phone Call To Nowhere

Yesterday was telephone appointment time with Mrs Adviser at the Work Programme. With dismal predictability no one called so I rang them half an hour ago; they don't understand that it's difficult for me to have to sit and wait for people to contact me. Yet another waste of time. This is really starting to piss me off now because what can you say? 

I won't go through the whole pointless affair but it's the usual crap. I'm told that the Work Programme is a two way street but when I reaffirm that I'm interested in writing she tells me that she doesn't know of anything. I'm supposed to pick something that she is able to offer help with, but I don't have an answer. It's a stupid game: guess the one or two things they can help with and bingo! Pick something else and be labelled as non participatory. 

She tells me that she knows of loads of courses, but they are all basic level/NVQ stuff (they dont' fund above 'level 3' apparently - whatever level 3 means). You can't get a proper education, like a degree, out of this, even though it's probably cheaper than paying these clowns. There's loads of places, including online, that do training. Great, so what do I train in? I've no idea. How to be a drone? How to press buttons on a till? How to please a given corporate employer as the only real future in this country now seems to be wageless work for big businesses like Poundland? What about a better level of education? What about going to a university or somewhere that can lead to proper opportunities, not some 'customer service' NVQ that, ultimately, won't mean anything - especially if everyone else in my position is doing this?

It's all so depressingly predictable and so lacking. Even Mrs Adviser agrees that the provision is rubbish; weirdly the tone of her voice is somewhat resignatory. They just have nothing to offer; at best they can tell you about some websites or, if your ambitions are mundane enough, a suitable entry level course. Nothing to build a career or move forward. 

But what annoys me the most is how you are told they can help. I didn't bother to argue over her telling me back in December that there are places she can refer me, as an ESA claimant (a major part of the reason for making the claim). It was made quite clear to me that, in lieu of their not being trained in medical matters, they could instead refer to specialists. This turns out to be a list of the local NHS services, which of course are lacking. There are no diagnostic services. She tells me explicitly they can't refer people. I'm then resigned to the realisation, once again, that this whole thing is a total farce and a waste of time. The really weird thing is that she agrees with me. 

What else is there to say I haven't said a hundred times before? I actually made the point that her organisation must have known they would have to deal with ESA claimants. I'm told that yes that's true, but the whole thing wasn't thought through and is a giant exercise in trial and error. It seems that if you want nothing more than access to a computer to jobsearch, some basic printing, maybe some stamps, or a list of local courses (as opposed to more specialist or advanced education), or medical/health support, you'd better forget it. 

Now I have to wade through a bunch of websites to find something that appeals to me (which may or may not be possible) just to please the Work Programme, meanwhile there is no discussion of my needs or my skills or abilities. Just posting people toward community courses or compelling them to 'jobsearch' is no use at all. What people need is more fundamental and requires a great deal of specialisation experience and proficiency; something the Work Programme isn't remotely capable of. 

It's all about buzzwords and rote processes: 'jobsearch', getting people 'job ready', 'building confidence', and a whole raft of bland empty unspecialised procedures and schemes that achieve nothing more than a homogenisation of the same number of people forced to apply for the same few jobs. The blind leading the blind and the tail wagging the dog. Meanwhile nothing improves or changes.

Useless: Coda

The lack of opposition to the government's retrospective legislation has revealed two truths:

1. Welfare laws, and therefore those that need them, are not worthy of the protection of Parliament. If that is not the definition of social divide, no that's not strong enough - economic apartheid - then I don't know what is.

2. There are not enough opposition MP's that understand the precedent they have unwittingly set. Some of these people are thick as pigshit. Those that did oppose are a sad minority - and that they didn't include the shadow welfare minister, nor a single Libdem, is a disgrace.

This is a watershed.

Useless

We are living in one of the most insecure periods I have ever known. People don't know where to turn or even, quite literally, who to talk to. Perhaps it's naive to say, but you would think politicians would be a pillar of consistency in the lives of communities. A point of reference and support. Of course that's long been a myth, and last night's disgraceful performance from Labour in capitulating to Iain Duncan Smith's retroactive 'emergency' legislation proves the point. I'm sure he slept like a baby last night, in his father in law's ancestral million pound home, having got his way in rewriting both law and histroy. I'm sure those that fell foul of his malicious bungling, now denied any chance to get what they are owed, didn't. Some justice.

Not all the opposition disgraced themselves and you can find a list of those with the courage to vote with their conscience here. Notable by his absence on that list is Liam Byrne who seemed to spend much of the debate, that i could stomach to watch, staring into space; as if a colourful insect had caught his eye. Other opposition MP's spoke about how they found the proposals disgraceful, but, when faced with continued pro-workfare straw men from Mark Hoban, admitted they had no problem sanctioning people into poverty and despair. Not once did anyone ask of Hoban, McVey or IDS, what someone sanctioned was actually meant to do. In the minds of these nastyocrats, in the perpetual boarding school of their minds, a period of sanction is akin to sending Billy Bunter to the dunce's corner for scoffing too much tuck. Greedy people should know their place! Well it seems their place is to be denied the money they were rightfully owed by deign of law.

The point of the discussion wasn't to talk up the merits of workfare, I'm sorry, 'work experience', or talk down the lazy scum that can't be bothered to work for nowt. The point was to discuss the rights and wrongs of retroactively legislating to avoid the consequence of the government's hamfisted and malicious proposals. These only exist because IDS fucked up and, perhaps more pertinently, because he doesn't like having to apologise. What a magnanimous attitude to have as a millionaire living on the taxpayer in the lap of luxury.

Labour chose, in the main, to either abstain in favour of this legislation. Utter cowardice. Apparently the alternative - ie paying people their due - is worse than abstaining. How telling; that Labour agree that it would be inconvenient to compensate people nothing more than what they are legally owed; instead it is preferable to revise history and law to deny these people any justice. Not even an apology. IDS hasn't even said sorry he fucked up, of course he won't. Never mind that this is money that will go directly and immediately into the economy: those compensated will most likely have moved on and as such this will be a small windfall they will quickly enjoy (and why not!). So it will be spent where the likes of IDS, Hoban (silk cushions aside) and McVey don't spend: the economy.

On Saturday I attended the Bedroom Tax protest in Bristol where Bristol Labour MP Kerry Mcarthy spoke (mumbled rather, refusing to commit to repealing this awful stupid tax). Turns out she too abstained. I've sent her a tweet reminding her of the fact. Clearly it's all about the publicity for the likes of her, and right after she spoke she and her well heeled SPAD (I presume - she stood out like a sore thumb to be honest) left. Is this what we can expect going into the next election from our moribund opposition? What is the point of you?

UJM, IDS, IOU.

Everyday I try and use the Universal Jobmatch site, even though I claim ESA. I don't have a problem using the internet once a day just to see what's around; isn't that what they'd want me to do in the Work Related Activity Group (if I ever get that far)? Unfortunately it's still a giant fucking mess. In fact the quality of advertising is so lazy it beggars belief these are professional companies (even the recruitment agencies) using the site. It is like wading through treacle having to deal with that site. They haven't obviously bothered to sort it out and make it at least user friendly.

McDonald's has traditionally been the poster boy for crap jobs, hence the phrase 'McJobs', yet rarely do I see them actually use the DWP machinery to advertise. A good thing, I think, since working there would be the death of me. I couldn't handle the environment; I hate the food and even the threat of sanctions couldn't persuade me to lie thoroughly enough to convince Ron that I was made of the right (non horse) stuff.

Now I don't know if they are associated with any of the government's workfare schemes, but in the interests of being thorough I followed a link on today's UJM roster for 'crew members' at Maccy D's. Took me two attempts though as the link was incorrect (it's not complicated either).

Best part is that they had to film a short promo clip convincing potential applicants that society won't think less of them if they ended up working there! The clip (SPOILERS!) is hosted by a young woman doing a quick vox pop; turns out she's studying for a law degree. Is this really a good advert for our society: someone smart enough to study has to flip burgers for a toxic shit food chain in order to pursue their studies? Own goal?

Anyway, to the point. the job is for a crew member in Portishead (the town, not the band), yet if you look at the list, the same venue, Portishead (the town, not the band), also has vacancies for 'work experience' crew members. Now why would anyone choose to apply for an unpaid position over the paid position when they are both the same? In fact there are more listed 'work exoperience' opportunities, which also include full time, than there are paid regular opportunities - both of which are part time!

Workfare? I'm not loving it (sorry).

On another topic I got charged for postage on a DVD I ordered from Amazon Marketplace (don't worry Alec Shelbrooke, it wasn't expensive). Seems the guy forgot to buy enough stamps. It annoyed me a fair bit, it's true to say, so I left some negative feedback. I emailed the guy as well to ask what had happened. Turns out, giving him the benefit of the doubt, he made a mistake. I believe him; he offered to refund me the fiver I spent and I removed the feedback.

Why do I mention this? These are tough times. I think he's just an ordinary guy trying to make a few quid on Amazon. What's wrong with that? I'd do it if I could (and I tried getting advice from various Work Programme type providers over the years, none of whom were interested). So we need to stand together and not let capitalism and money divide us. It costs me nothing to give him the benefit of the doubt and if he does right by me and refunds me then all's well that ends well.

Contrast Iain Duncan Smith who will tomorrow seek the approval of Parliament to push his latest, nastiest, piece of legislation through - possibly with the support of Labour, definitely with the support of the Libdems. Even if Labour vote against this, they won't win alone. There's no fucking justice in IDS' world, and I'm sure retroactive legislation goes against the ECHR - no wonder the scum in government loathe it so much. Disgraceful.

Two Stupid Stories

Recently there was a story about a gentleman named Paul Marshallsea from Wales who was 'caught' wrestling a shark while in Australia that was near to attacking kids in the sea. That's not the interesting part about this story for people like us, however. You see Paul was in Australia, apparently staying with friends, because he and his wife had been advised to take a break for health reasons. Paul had been working running a youth centre for many years prior to the involvement of the private sector and a boss culture that had led him to physical sickness due to stress. That he happened to be on the beach when a shark was spotted while on sabbatical is irrelevant. 

Unfortunately Paul's mistake was claiming ESA while away. He's paid into the system, so why shouldn't he. Upon his return, and having heard about his herculean sea-bound exploits, his new bosses decided that he wasn't genuinely off sick, but was larking about under the sun, despite the advice of his doctor. His services were, predictably, no longer required. 

This story made the news, for obvious reasons. I heard about it on radio 2 when Jeremy Vine, an increasingly shrill man with no patience for facts, figures or for giving interviewees time to properly tell their story. Paul was talking to J-Vi and explaining the situation. He was also followed by a psychotherapist who spoke of her utter incredulity at the decision and that undertaking physical activity shouldn't preclude stress. Besides he was on holiday to get well, so why would it be uncharacteristic that he should therefore get better while on holiday? Isn't that a bit like saying that, because someone has a plastercast on their foot, that there's nothing wrong with it?

What was really sad about the whole interview was the predictable audience reaction. However the level of nastiness from the judgemental curtain twitchers that bothered to text and email their 'thoughts' was nothing short of appalling. Who takes pleasure in calling for the dismissal of someone from their job? Who would want this man who, upon returning home, was eager to get back to work? Do they want him to be a burden on the state.

A couple of days later, on the same show, J-Vi had what I can only describe as one of the most bizarre guests. Former Tory Mike Buchanan (no, I've never heard of him either) has set up a political party under the tired misapprehension that men and boys (his party is called, rather eerily, Justice for Men and Boys!) are now the losers in post-feminist Britain. 

I don't think I've ever heard such a vacuous load of misinformed rubbish in my life. It blows my mind that people actually think this, in an age of lads mags, sexualisation and misogyny and chauvinism. Men are still dominant in society and people still think women should be seen and not heard - preferably with their knockers out on page three in some cases.

Again there were plenty of people calling in to agree with this clown. Plenty of people brainwashed by the tired reactionary media that they, as white men, are the oppressed minority. If it's not women coming to stop them from doing whatever they want (which is to say selling Keep Calm and Rape Her T Shirts, looking at page 3, or generally being sad misogynists), it's foreigners, muslims and gays, probably. 

Something has gone terribly wrong in this society and it's the media that's to blame. Once upon a time it was easier to ignore the machinery of the likes of Murdoch and the print media. Nowadays these people not only own the print media, despite it's apparently parlous state, but they have 24 hour rolling news channels. They are ubiquitous and they are courted by those willing to sell their principles to sell these repugnant values for a sniff of power and some cash. Whether it's the tedious arrogance of Dickensian businessmen like Farage, or Prime Ministers from Eton, the message is the same: be afraid, they're out to ruin your life. Doesn't matter if it's people fighting for their rights or actual terrorists. The media plays you against yourself as it does you against everyone else.

Continued BBC Bias

Yesterday morning, BBC Radio Bristol showed yet more anti-welfare bias. I've complained to them before about it, it does no good. I may complain again. I don't care if that makes me sound like a torrid little curtain twitcher, if we don't stand up for the truth about welfare and this awful government's propaganda then there's no point.

The discussion was actually about something else, but I tuned in at two different points, tuning out each time in disgust. The first caller was a lady recanting her experience claiming ESA as a wheelchair user. At the end she was asked - or perhaps told - that she must know people who are on the fiddle. Charming. Aside from an errant assumption that is easily debunked by simply looking at the facts, it's a rather nasty jibe at the character of the caller, unprovoked.

I tuned in half an hour later and the caller then was a local TUC rep who spoke about the cruel nature of the Bedroom Tax. Rightly so (solidarity with ALL those protesting that iniquitous policy). Again, at the end, more bias: the presenter asked, again told, the rep "but it's not a tax". This carried on for about five minutes with this idiot parroting this line out almost robotically, concluding with the assertion that it was unfair and somehow harmful to misrepresent the 'under occupancy charge'. Semantic bullshit aside (and those that support this policy are doing this deliberately), he tried arguing that 'it's not a tax' because, he claimed, he'd had lots of distraught callers, when discussing this subject, who were only distressed because of this supposed misrepresentation. As if to say that had the policy been discussed 'accurately' they'd have been more favourably disposed toward it!

I've noticed that people who are not opposed to the Bedroom Tax use this 'it's not a tax' nonsense to stifle the discussion. They must know they are on a losing tip, but they try and shut discussion down by revising the facts: it's not a tax, ergo it's not a problem. That's bullshit of the worst kind.

Shit Is Iain Smith

A few weeks ago, DWP fuhrer and arch fantasist Iain Duncan Smith was interviewed by James O'Brien on LBC radio. 

This piece is one of the most extraordinary glimpses into the unique psychopathy of the Tory attitude toward welfare, fuelled by big business and filtered through the singular zealotry of a former failed leader of the same party. We may never fully know what transformed the 'quiet man', in his own mind, into the raging ideologue he has now become, but this gives a few insights and lays bare much of his own rampant hypocrisy. The interview was conducted in the wake of the revelation that 1700 people had applied for 8 vacancies in a Costa Coffee in Nottingham, and a week or so after the DWP were spanked for their handling of their own disgusting workfare policy.

The first bone of contention is the nature of the work IDS claims is representative of now 'record' employment. He is confronted by the fact that the work is mainly part time. His response is both to say that it's full time work, not part time, and to then go on and talk about it as part time work. 

"All the jobs taken are full time work"
"When we look at the part time work..."

Which is it then?

He claims his figures represent success by saying that those that have found full time work were successful at finding full time work. Except for the 2 and a half million that don't have full time work, comments James, clearly amused at Smith's utter stupidity. I don't think this is lost in IDS but then he's in a permanently haughty and aggressive mood anyway, so it's hard to tell.

"Those who find full time work are finding the full time work they are after".

Extraordinary!

Now we step into the thorny bear pit of workfare and the recent court case. We'll ignore the obvious stupidity that assumes shelf stacking is of any value to one's career whatsoever.

"Work experience is us allowing them to earn Jobseeker's allowance, but also allow them to take in experience at companies that allow them to do that."

Quite a mouthful, but the key word is 'earn'. The second is 'allowing'. IDS is allowing the poor scrounger to work for his benefit. His rationale for this ridiculous scheme is based around the notion that lots of kids want to work but can't because they have no experience and that these people have asked him to be allowed to get that experience, conveniently for the benefit of big business. This is warped: there has never been anything stopping people gaining work experience - ie working for nothing in, for example, a voluntary capacity (like work in a charity shop, in a traditionally unpaid capacity). JSA claimants have always been allowed to do that. He gives himself away by using the word 'earn'; they are allowed to earn their keep says Victorian Smith. But they were anyway - because they weren't being paid!

"Involving yourself in a supermarket is as vital as any job that you might have to do."

Like driving an ambulance for example.

And then we get that glorious moment where the mask slips. Confronted by the first mention of that terrible uppity scrounger, Cait Reilly, IDS loses what passes for his cool.

"She was getting paid! What do you think the taxpayer was paying her for god's sake? Jobseeker's Allowance?"

At the merest mention of the possibility that someone other than a Tory might be paid for the work they do, IDS loses it. How dare she!

However it turns out that DWP policy is not to use benefits as remuneration. This fact is put to IDS, but, in typical true blue doublethink, he dismisses whilst going to make the point repeatedly that she was getting paid. 

This is the biggest canard of them all: we need workfare because it allows people to get experience while keeping their benefit. This could have happened anyway as not only would she not need to be exploited and lied to, she was doing voluntary work of her own volition that could have been simply allowed by the DWP without all this heartache. But of course that's not the point: this isn't about letting people keep their benefits; it's about letting them 'earn' their money, further devaluing welfare as intended.

There is still no reason that Poundland could not have paid her. She could have declared that as paid work and in a sane welfare system there'd be no problem. In fact I'd go one further: knowing that the 'experience' was not a proper job nor was it intended to be (something else that isn't made explicitly clear), I'd have let her keep what she had earned as part of the work experience. Call it a bonus.

"We don't have a work fare programme."

But you've just said people earn their benefits.

"What I found when I arrived is that young people were not allowed to go and do work experience and be paid JSA for more than two weeks."

Now there may be some arcane piece of legislation pertaining to young JSA claimants here I'm not aware of, but nonetheless the point remains: it is not DWP policy for benefits to be paid as wages, and people have always been allowed to do voluntary work. The problem IDS has is that he has muddled the two on a colossal scale, hence the court ruling. Cait Reilly was lied to; never mind that she had her own placement, she was told that she had to go to Poundland or she'd lose her benefit. That is the essence of her complaint and that is what was upheld.

Of course there has always been an issue regarding experience, but that is a problem caused by big business who don't like having to pay wages and expenses in training people. That's their fault and their problem. It is not an excuse for capitalists to exploit people. Frankly if we are all meant to be a nation of entrepreneurs and aspiring strivers, maybe these businesses should be prepared to stick their necks out; the unemployed have to do so constantly.

"In many cases the businesses once they've seen them for two months say to them actually we're going to create a job around you because we think you're worthwhile."

So 'in many cases' there were never jobs to begin with for these people to work towards - for two months (does it really require two months to learn shelf stacking?)! Then if they are lucky the business will use them to create work!?! This is pure exploitation!

When confronted with the court of appeal's decision regarding people being forced to do workfare where they should have had a choice (which is separate from workfare where they unfortunately don't - Mandatory Work Activity, as I understand it all), IDS uses human rights as a man of straw. While it is true that there is a human rights component to the case, that was not the basis for the court of appeal's decision, nor was it anything to do with what James asked.

"We have deliberately set them (the rules) general around all work schemes."

Indeed!

"Young people want it. The vast majority enjoy it. They get something out of it and they get to work for it."

Utterly disingenuous; what they want is to earn a wage, not their benefit.

"What she was saying (CAit) is that we're not being paid, we don't earn any money. My answer is you do the taxpayer is paying you (again) JSA. We have allowed you to do work experience and not lose your JSA. In the past she would have lost her JSA if she'd gone to do more than 2 weeks work."

But this is a complete misunderstanding of the very system you are in charge of: if she was - as she indeed was, again of her own volition, working in a volunteer/unpaid capacity then her benefit would never have been at risk. This scheme is completely unnecessary because it has never been against the rules to work for nothing just so long as you still have time to search for work (there may have been a 16 hour weekly limit on voluntary/unpaid work). But that is not the point of this scheme, is it Mr Duncan Smith!

"She is benefiting from the work experience so that she will then go on and be more likely to be employed in the future."

An easy and cheap point to make. Of course if this scheme becomes as ubiquitous as I'm sure IDS intends then it will have even less value; if everyone does their 2 month National Poundland Service then what will give them that edge over everyone else? It's self defeating. The whole point of experience is to learn skills: we learn to read and write not to be better than the rest of the population but so we can read and write! You don't learn to stack shelves (chances are if you own a cupboard you've already mastered that skill anyway) ffs!

So what is minimum wage legislation for, asks James. Good question these days!

"They are doing up to two months work experience. I don't quite understand why you think that they shouldn't be doing that and that they should be paid a full wage because the companies aren't committed to taking them on. Many of them then do."

Many isn't all; straight away the scheme is inherently unfair. Those that get a job are employed, those that don't aren't, and in each case the company has undertaken no risk and made no loss. What is there for the company to commit to when they have nothing to lose? Given that they still often have no say in the whole process, including whom they work for, how can this lead to anything positive? What if they don't want to stack shelves as a career? No doubt they get branded as uppity little madams and ungrateful ingrates.

"The British labour market is doing better than expected."

Because people are working for free without choice and the work programme is also used to massage the figures. Even so, the 1692 people that didn't get the 8 jobs in Costa just have to keep looking - as if that alone will magically create work. What good will telling people this do Iain? What good does it do to keep looking? Isn't this just a road to insanity - if not the detriment of the claimant's mental health (who here can't attest to that!)? Keep looking, it's there, you just have to keep looking! Meanwhile go and work for nothing in a shop because that might itself create work.

"There are 15,000 vacancies in the same area"

And yet there are still almost 1700 people unemployed; doubtless then they must be feckless - but not so lazy as to not apply for 8 positions they had individually a very slim chance of getting. 

"The positive figures today are a good indication that the private sector is creating jobs. There are more people in work. There are more vacancies. The claimant count is falling."

Of course the private sector is creating jobs. The point is that there aren't enough jobs for the 2 and a half million out of work (not counting others that don't work). But the private sector is always technically creating jobs. That isn't something unique to this government; the private sector would have done so regardless - in fact had there been better economic conditions it might have created more. 

Whether they are decent vacancies is another matter entirely.

"Long term unemployment is falling."

Would that be because this group is the target of these insidious schemes intended to massage the claimant count?

"au contraire; this debate is incredibly illuminating!"

Never a truer word spoken James!

Commoditised

The sooner this system changes, the better. 

What can I say? I am drifting along with no help whatsoever from the Work Programme. Billions have been wasted on this farce and what have I - or even they to show for it? At the very least a bus pass would be of immense help to me; every journey I make costs me 10% of my total weekly benefit. It's simply unsustainable. Consequently I make one journey a week and that's to do my shopping. 

I've been told by the Salvation Army that they don't get any funding; this is apparently why their provision locally is in a musty old church hall. I have no idea if this is true; it may well be the case as they are working for the prime, JHP, and not the prime provider themselves. I suppose it is therefore possible JHP (who happily will provide your business with free staff) that the Sally has been used as bid candy. If that's true then it's unacceptable to treat charities in that way. However I've not got much sympathy for these greedy enterprises; they were quite happily salivating at the prospect of making coin off the backs of the poor when it sounded like they'd make big bucks. Now they are reaping the whirlwind.

Someone's making money off of me. All of us on this scheme are commodities; we are no longer 'scroungers', we have become stocks and shares on the human commodities exchange that this scheme has become. As a result, I don't think it's unreasonable for us to see some of the profit we are making for providers, if only the big boys. Are we not working for these people? I think you could make a very strong case for that in the same way that banks and financial product pimps sell their services by way of 'making your money work for you'. That way I could afford a bus pass.

For more on the Salvation Army's attitude toward the poor, read The Void.

For a good laugh...

and prepare to sing Hymn number 10; "Iain Duncan Smith, Your God, Hath Made You Poorer"

Nothing in that video is true. There is not one thing said that has any bearing on my experience whatsoever. This woman is the director of Salvation Army Employment Plus (Employment + Profit = Salvation Army. How she can say this straight faced I do not know. 

"The best possible support"...bullying claimants and demanding personal data while offering no training, having no facilities and lying about what they can offer.

"We're aware that some people have more difficulties than others and we feel very well equipped and placed as an organisation...to support their employment needs" by ignoring those difficulties and lying about provision apparently on offer to such people. 

"We don't differentiate whether they are job ready or how far they are from the labour market"...by telling people they are to follow very specific rules that are not explained regarding conditionality that must be followed on pain of sanction regardless of their distance from job readiness.

"We work with everybody on an individual basis to make sure they reach their full potential"...to get us our slice of the cake.

Hilarious, though tragic. Just another day in UK PLC. Could've done without the cheesy piano chords though.