I Hate James Bartholomew

Know the Tory mindset: according to these creatures welfare breeds dependency. Meanwhile they do not want to set a minimum wage, they do not want to create legislation to protect the un - and under - employed from the predations of the system they benefit from. That word is chosen deliberately, because they like benefits for themselves - the ability to sack whom they like, when they like and how they like. In this UKIP are the same. This is the febrile heart of the right wing.

Yesterday on 5 Live's laughable morning phone in - bigots drink for free - another right wing excuse for a human, James Bartholomew, revealed another aspect of their nasty prejudice and staggering ignorance. Not surprisingly this vile creature was once a banker. He writes (if one can call it that) for the Telegraph and though I don't know the content of his ballot paper, I dare say I can guess. He props up every tory myth about the unemployed and welfare with dull witted aplomb.

He believes people have been induced to worklessness. A thoroughly bizarre phrase completely unsupported by facts, evidence or even anecdote. He believes that the government's welfare reforms are the proverbial bitter pill that, after the pain of swallowing has subsided, will bring about a change for the better. These changes will lead to more employed people in the country. This is a complete nonsense, unless you are so delusional that you think starving people out of their bed in the morning (if they have one left after paying for their 'spare' rooms) will create jobs. 

How will this create work? In the minds of these fevered capitalists it's all the fault of the claimant (though they try and soften this by blaming it again on the state, conveniently). The situation here isn't so dire that they can explicitly blame the unemployed for their condition (as they view it), but no doubt that's what they think. So if we do away with welfare - regardless of the human cost - there will be no impediment to work. But what work? What wages? People receive tax credits as a sop to the corporations that refuse to pay decent wages. Capitalist big business want it both ways and make sure their Tory servants achieve this: keep wages down, and keep welfare down. I don't think that's sustainable. 

Bartholomew thinks that tax credits subsidise the worker. He doesn't get it at all. They don'; they subsidise the employer. They are a poor substitute, typically of New Labour, for a decent wage that enables the right wing and libertarians to squeal about how the state breeds dependency. Of course someone working for NMW in the likes of Tesco is 'dependent' on Tax Credits: they can't live otherwise. In truth it's the employer that gets the real benefit, but benefits for the capitalists and the rich and the corporations are the acceptable face of welfare.

There was a caller, audibly anxious and using a pseudonym, that commented on the difficulty of life under ATOS. She explained her health conditions, suffering from extreme anxiety (only the most hard hearted could deny the clearly perceptible reality). She even said that, if a home visit from ATOS was possible, she'd be happy to go through the process. In response Bartholomew made some of the most disgusting comments I've ever heard:

"James Bartholomew," says Nicky Campbell (of whom I'm not a great fan), "there's a lot of people in Sarah's position."

"It's incredibly difficult to decide if someone is capable of work or not," James is not a doctor, nor has he any training as a diagnostician. People don't just get sick notes. If a GP cannot determine, with enough confidence, the veracity of someone's claim they can send them to a specialist who will know. But of course such people are marginalised by the right wing media that lacks the guts to come right out and accuse them of fraud. Insinuating this instead.

"The big rise in the disabilities that people have come to the welfare state with. The big rise has been in two disorders: musco (sic) - skeletal disorders - in other words backache - and mental problems."

But wait it gets better (that is to say, worse):

"These are two areas, not by coincidence in my view, where it's impossible to say yes you have or no you haven't a problem."

But wait it gets better (that is to say, worse):

"There's been no rise in broken legs or deafness. Only a rise in these conditions which you cannot verify."

How does he know these conditions cannot be verified? He doesn't; he's basing his entire position on the usual 'John had backache but was caught refereeing the local football team on Saturday' stories. Stock in trade for the right wing press, of which he, don't forget, is a member.

And the broken legs/deafness comment is just...what the fuck? 

But wait it gets better (that is to say, much worse):

"So it's going to be very difficult to distinguish between those people who have maybe below average intelligence, or not very able, or some mental problem, and those that have a smaaaall (his emphasis) problem and are egging it on and don't really want to bother."

'Mental problems' = low intelligence. Nice. James, you're a cunt. Of course he can't comment on Sarah's case "I can't comment on individual cases". No, but you can make sweeping wholly uninformed generalisations instead. It's all a mess, apparently, and you can't clean up a mess - unless you live in the grandeur of Torygraphshire or Westminster or the Square Mile - without pain. So suck it up, that's the message. 

No, James Bartholomew, people are not, nor have they ever been, better off unemployed. If you are only looking at the money - and even then you are only looking at a very few distorted cases (someone with 11 kids for instance, never mind that she's had cancer as well) - then you are not just missing the point, but wilfully ignorant.

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.