Will Get Fooled Again?

More ridiculousness; this time from the human slime that is Matthew Hancock. This creature is already known to me thanks to his regular appearances as a Tory pundit on the BBC, talking bollocks. He tried to argue against Paul Krugman on the issue of austerity economics, but the former has a nobel prize in the field and Hancock has nothing but contempt; "you're wrong" he claims, on the basis that, being a Tory, he isn't.Yesterday he came out with the latest iteration of the government's viciously circular war on welfare. Another "intensive" work scheme, this time primarily aimed at the young - because after all they broke the economy didn't they!

If nothing else this is actually a tacit admission that everything the Tories have tried, all born of their hateful ideology, since 2010 has failed. Wasn't the work programme meant to be intensive? Wasn't the post WP service meant to be intensive? Wasn't every aspect of signing on meant to be intensive? Wasn't workfare meant to be intensive? Isn't the claimant commitment and it's 35 hour/week jobsearch (I defy anyone to use their website for 35 hours without going mad) meant to be intensive?

This would be laughable if it wasn't so tragic and so damaging. There won't be any intensive support; claimants will just be sanctioned at the drop of a hat as they are now. Where are these mentors going to come from; the same private sector cowboys that have run things so far? Whatever happened to Emma Harrison eh (I bet she turns up again)?  Will it be the already beleaguered JC+ staff - including those jobsworths that push sanctions on to claimants without a care?

This is just intended to play to the gallery: look it's the Tories being tough on scroungers. Except they've already tried being tough. They've already tried asserting there's a culture of dependency to crack...but the evidence doesn't support the existence of such a culture. Even if there was such, threatening people with and putting people through a regime of sanctions achieves nothing. It won't create jobs.

There will  never be full employment. There will always be more out of work, especially among the young, than in work. All this does is punish people for living in the world the Tories have created.