Tuesday, October 06, 2009 

The road to Purnell.

Over on the bustling Open Left blog, James Purnell has had a look at the Tories' welfare proposals and rather than arguing with the merits of their policies has instead decided to pick holes in them. If anything, Purnell is critical of the fact that they could be less tough on claimants:

The other big mistake the Tories are making is giving up on the Job Guarantee. In fact, this seems to me to be the bit no one has picked up on – looks to me like they are abolishing the Future Jobs Fund which is creating jobs with public and charitable organisations so we can offer everyone a job to every JSA claimant aged 18 to 24.

I think this would increase the number of claimants – training has limited value in helping people back to work. Instead, places like Denmark and the Netherlands guarantee people work but require them to take it up. That helps people such as the disabled who sometimes get overlooked in interviews. But it also forces people who are cheating the system to stop claiming. This is also the lesson from the US welfare programmes – what works is work. The Tories seem to be moving away from it (and indeed this seems to contradict the headline in the Sunday Times “Tories would force jobless to work”).

Even if Purnell is right, the Tory proposal is much more preferable. Just what jobs exactly are these lucky people going to have to take up or lose their benefit? Ones you would imagine that are dead-end and which no one who had a choice would want. Training on the other hand is a different realm of possibilities, although the funding and planning required would be far larger than simply plonking someone into what could be a completely unsuitable job. The other lesson of course from US welfare programmes is that they simply give up on those who exhaust their entitlement to benefits, leaving the charity sector to pick up the pieces, which is only slightly more draconian than what is being proposed here.

The real point though is that the Labour and Conservatives plans are almost identical, and that although I was highly critical of the Tories' policies yesterday, Purnell may well have set me straight on which will be the most destructive. It's worth quoting the comments left by both myself and Lee Griffin:

Interesting fight going on isn't it. On the one hand you have a party demonising the poor and the out of work, threatening them with destitution and a life of crime if they don't follow the government's prescribed course of "work-fare". And now you also have the Tories giving their own perspective on the same thing!

Is this really about picking (what are minor) holes in Tory policy, or outpourings of jealous petulance at them coming so close to Purnell's own frankly despicable policies?

I notice that nowhere in this does Purnell address the feasibility or likelihood of moving 500,000 individuals from IB onto JSA when there's the simple fact that there's no jobs for those people and that even if there were employers are loth to touch those who have been sick for years with a ten-foot barge pole. The real point here is that there is next to no difference between both the Tories' and Labour's policies: both are intent on further impoverishing the most vulnerable in society, not because it will save money, as it almost certainly won't, but because the focus groups and tabloids demand it.

Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Share |

10/06/2009 08:55:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, October 05, 2009 

The shape of the Tories to come.

You wouldn't normally consider Manchester to be natural Conservative territory - there is only one Tory MP in the entire Greater Manchester area - but perhaps the journey of the party faithful to the city is meant to be a statement of intent. You still get the feeling that there'd be much more at home in Bournemouth, which was this year's location for the Liberal Democrats, who also you'd presume would be happier in Brighton, where Labour last week held their wake, but for a party that is clearly gearing up for their return to their rightful place as the natural party of government, such details are hardly going to bother them too much. It clearly didn't concern Chris Grayling, who only a few weeks back declared that Moss Side was reminiscent of the Baltimore portrayed in the Wire, who responded to criticism of his view from a real member of the public by saying that he hadn't done anything of the sort, while directing him to read what he did say in his speech.

Still, such minor squabbles with those unlikely to vote for Cameron's new Tories are nothing more than a distraction from the main work of this week, which more than anything else is trying not to be appear too triumphalist. That can wait; you can be sure that there'll be no declarations from Cameron of everything being all right, nor that his underlings should return to their constituencies and prepare to reign. No, the main theme of this week instead had to preferably be something that the Conservatives are not renowned for, with the natural choice being "Getting Britain Working". Perhaps not that unknown for, for those old enough to remember the Saatchi classic which helped kick start the Thatcherite revolution, but as Dave Osler reminds us, few now can recall the irony of such a campaign when the following years lead to more than 3 million unemployed.

Fair enough, New Labour might yet have the dishonour of breaking that record, but looking at the Conservative proposals, especially on benefit reform, supposedly meant to be both "tough and tender" without becoming oxymoronic, you can't help but notice the contradictions. As always, while the Tories themselves are trying to dress up the proposed reforms in the warm, kind rhetoric of compassion and help, the exact same policy is instead sold to the Telegraph as cracking down on cheats, while in the Sun the ubiquitous skivers are about to routed. When it comes down to it, the differences between this radical proposed programme of welfare reform and the government's own recent changes are slighter than you might think. For instance, the Conservative proposal that everyone on incapacity benefit be reassessed is already being carried out; whether the Tories would do it all over again should they come to power is unclear, although doubtless they will attempt to do it faster.

The main change though is that the charities and private sector companies currently carrying out the medical checks and reassessments, should they after deciding that someone should be on jobseeker's allowance and not incapacity benefit manage by some kind of alchemy to get them into a job, they'll be paid the savings that the government would have made for at least a year. Hence not only will there be little to no savings straight off, but there's a huge great conflict of interest. Which company is going to actively reduce the scope for making a profit by deciding that someone on IB genuinely is sick when they can instead find any number of inconsistencies or conflicting evidence that suggests they in fact are capable of work?

Indeed, the more you think about it the more staggering it becomes. Based supposedly on government estimates, the Conservatives believe that anything up to 500,000 could be moved from IB onto JSA, although that figure seems ludicrously high to me. At a stroke that increases the number of unemployed by, err, half a million. This, in case it had escaped anyone's attention, is at a time when jobs are in rather short supply. Many of those moved from IB to JSA will not have been employed in years, some even potentially for 10 or more years; do the Conservatives seriously think that those in that position are going to find a job any time soon? The stigma against anyone with a record of sickness, whether mental or physical is always high; the TUC blog points out a survey which found 33% of employers would actively exclude someone with a long-record of sickness, while 45% thought that disabled workers would be less reliable. If anything, it quickly becomes clear what the real motivation behind this policy seems to be: the Tories' other welfare reform proposals involve losing the right to benefits if someone refuses to go on a return to work training programme, while those who refuse "reasonable" job offers could lose the right to claim for three years. Finally, those who fail to find a job within two years will find themselves having to work for their benefit; yes, the Tories are seriously proposing bringing back the workhouse. This isn't just wage slavery, this is dole slavery, working for a pittance well below the minimum wage. The obvious result will be those unlucky enough to find themselves in this position relying not on the state, but on charity handouts, something which has already become the norm in some American states.

Even more perplexing is the savings from this are likely to be negligible. At the same time, the promises of extra apprenticeships and training places, if they materialise, will further reduce the pot. This is before you consider the also tabled, supposedly funded, tax cut for new businesses with no tax needing to be paid for the first ten employees for two years which is to be introduced, meant to create up to 60,000 jobs. Even if it did, that would still leave a net increase of those on JSA of 440,000.

For a party so committed to tackling the deficit, or at least so they tell us, there's little yet announced on where the pain is going to fall, and especially on where tax is going to rise, as it almost certainly will. As the above illustrates, the priority still seems to be to find cuts where possible, whether it be on inheritance or council tax. The announced proposals on tackling NHS bureaucracy will doubtless as usual fail to meet up with reality, and although the proposed reforms on putting all major spending online are welcome, they're undermined by the dubious and short-sighted pledge to reduce the number of MPs to around 500, leaving an average constituency MP with 77,000 individuals to work with. Can one person honestly provide a decent service to such a number and over such an area? There's also some cowardice involved in this: what's the point of reducing the number of MPs without approaching the West Lothian question head on first? The sad fact of the matter seems to be that the Conservatives are going to win power not because they're a better alternative to Labour, but simply because it's time for a change. If Labour could only rouse itself from its stupor and actually attempt to communicate their policies, as well as adopting some better ones, they could still make a fight of this. Instead we seem doomed to a party entering government just because it's their time again.

Labels: , , , , , , ,

Share |

10/05/2009 08:19:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, September 17, 2009 

Surrender and cowardice on welfare.

You can't really help but read this and weep, as well as also knowing this was exactly the sort of response Laurie Penny was always going to get from James Purnell:

At some point during the meeting, I got tired of the equivocation. So I decided to tell him the truth and see if I couldn't make him listen. Very quietly, and mindful of how ridiculous I might sound, I said* -

"Look, James. You know and I know that the damage has already been done. There are hundreds of thousands of young people and people with disabilities out there whose lives have been entirely scuppered by a batting team of the recession and your damn stupid benefit policies. Sure, you're trying to guarantee jobs for one in ten of them now - but that's not enough, and we both know that. I'm not here to shout at you or to tell you how angry I am with you, and I'm not here to point out the massive hypocrisy in your personal behaviour over the expenses scandal -there wouldn't be a lot of point in that. I'm here to ask you, please, to listen.

"People are hurting, right now; people like my partner and my former housemates are in desperate situations and they are hurting. You're a highly ambitious, brilliant politician. There's not a small chance that by the time you're leader of the Labour Party or Prime Minister of Britain [note: neither Purnell nor his aide moved to correct me at this point] we will still be hurting, still be desperate, and some of us might still be unemployed. I want you to remember, please, that you owe us a voice. I want you to remember that our votes count, too, and that we are people just as much as people who are lucky enough to be employed. It's too late for some of us now; but we're good, bright young men and women who just want to earn our way, and our votes count as much as anyone's. So when you're powerful again, please remember us, and remember that you owe us. And that's all I have to say."

At which point, Purnell said, "Thank you. That seems like a good point on which to end the meeting".

It's probably instructive that it's the likes of Iain Duncan Smith's Centre for Social Justice that are now making the running when it comes to welfare reform, such has been the intellectual cowardice and surrender shown by those on the left. Smith's report is undoubtedly wrong-headed and hardly practical with its suggestion that you can somehow turn 51 benefits into just two, but it genuinely does seem to believe in help without dangling a tiny carrot while also wielding a dirty great big stick. We've all laughed at the Conservatives pretending that they're the "new progressives", a term which is so devalued to be worthless in any case, but wouldn't it be the biggest irony of all if actually turned out to be true?

Labels: , , , ,

Share |

9/17/2009 10:23:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, December 11, 2008 

Fudged.

Courtesy Beau Bo D'or.

If the response to the welfare reform white paper could be best described as tepid, the government as usual has no one other than itself to blame. For a party so apparently diametrically opposed to leaks, the real tabloid pleasing meat was released last week; single mums having to begin their back to work preparations as soon as their nippers turn 1, along with a massive increase in the work-shy having their appeals for money subject to voice detectors.

Strangely then, neither of those things are played up in the actual document itself. In fact, the entire thing is, like the response, broadly tepid. It's difficult to know entirely why this is: is it because the government, as it has repeatedly done in the past, has flew the same-old kites in the tabloid press, disgusted their own supporters deliberately, then watered down the proposals when it comes to the actual crunch; or is it because it's accepted that with the recession about to bite, this isn't exactly the most opportune time to suddenly dump many of those previously on incapacity benefit on the bonfire?

As so often, the answer is probably a bit of both. Coupled with that is that the worst excesses of the David Freud review, cobbled together in three weeks by an investment banker who admitted that prior to being asked to ask to write it he knew absolutely nothing about welfare, but who knew within those three weeks that a good proportion of those on incapacity benefit instantly shouldn't be on it, have been shaved off. The green paper, prior to this white paper, titled without a hint of irony "No One Written Off", had all the proposals of this one without the added pilot schemes and readjustments. While the emphasis in the green paper, despite the title, was on punitive reforms where a dirty great stick was being yielded while a carrot similar in size to Richard Littlejohn's cock was the supposed reward, the message here is on tough love.

Along with "fairness", another of those all things to all people terms which governments without any remaining ideology cling to in the hope that it will pass for a defining motif, the proposals, having initially been sold on the prospectus that they were all about at long last telling the scroungers that they would have to sing for their supper, are now instead advertised as being designed to "help" those in need, giving them the push that they've been without, helping them to help themselves. This is "personalised conditionality", with the set groups being designed around those mentioned in that quite wonderfully vivid and explanatory diagram posted last week. The vast majority of those previously on incapacity benefit, either now or shortly to be herded onto the new "Employment and Support Allowance", will be placed in the middle "progression to work" where they will be expected to co-produce a back-to-work plan. It doesn't seem to matter that the government themselves don't expect much to come of this, hence why those on it are not going to be expected to actively look for work, probably because they recognise that most of those on incapacity benefit are either on it because they are genuinely too sick to work or because they were put on it in to massage the unemployment statistics and are now unlikely to return to the workplace however many plans you put in front of them; pointless box-ticking, as Chris suggests, needs to be done to appease the tabloid press and convince them something is going to be done.

Make no mistake however, even with all the concessions made, there are still fundamental problems with much of the white paper. First, and most apparent, is that despite all these reforms about to be made and with the workload at JobCentrePlus increasing as the jobless figures inexorably rise, only a further £1.3 billion has been allocated initially to help. That's before a substantial further amount is creamed off by the private and voluntary sector to help with those still out of work a year after being on JSA, who will be paid for every individual they place in a job. This is meant to save the money that would otherwise be spent in paying them JSA, but it's by no means clear whether there will be any overall saving once the contractors have had their pay and the person in a job has potentially claimed tax credits. Furthermore, what's incredibly likely to happen is that the private sector will find it easy with those who've been tardy in trying to find a job who are now having to get one unless they want to spend four weeks doing unpaid work, while finding it just as difficult with those who have tried but have comprehensively failed to find work. At the same time, those in that group will be having to do the unpaid work because the anti-scrounger lobby demand it, even though it's no fault of their own. Breeding bitterness and resentment against those who are supposed to be helping you and against work itself is not the greatest of ideas, but that seems to have passed those drawing the reforms up by completely.

Most pertinently however is that nowhere in this document is it explained how when we're approaching 2 million unemployed with only 500,000 vacancies that all of those currently on any of the current benefit schemes, whether JSA, income support or incapacity benefit can find work. Nowhere is it also set out exactly what work those who, after a year without finding a job, will be expected to do. Will they be sent out wearing fluorescent jackets with "Community Payback" on as well, or what? Exactly how many will simply take any job, however demeaning or poorly paid, just to avoid such treatment? As Compass argue, the white paper assumes that work is an end in itself, a route out of poverty, when it quite often isn't. The government even further infantalises and keeps the low paid hooked on handouts from the state with the tax credits scheme, rather than raising the tax thresholds and lifting them out of paying income tax altogether, not to mention introducing a living wage or a citizen's basic income.

Overall, as again often occurs, the result is a fudge. The hope is to achieve right-wing support while not riling the backbenchers and the soft left vote too much. In this, the government appears to have achieved its aim: only the socialist left seems really concerned, while the Tories have said they'll support it. The only people left without a say seem to be those on benefits themselves.

Labels: , , , , , , ,

Share |

12/11/2008 10:05:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, December 04, 2008 

Gregg's diagram.

Via Bleeding Heart Show, have a fantastic explanatory diagram from Paul Gregg's welfare report, which he's rather more accurately rechristened "scrounger processing":

Don't know about you, but this has truly enlightened me to the merits of the government's intent to extend lie detector tests. We can hook Professor Gregg up to one and see if even he can tell us what the gibbering fuck it's supposed to represent and/or mean.

Then again, Gregg is an appropriate name for someone tasked with selling the benefits of, err, benefit reform, considering that most of those re-entering the workplace at the moment have a choice of not working and working at one of the ubiquitous sandwich shops from hell.

Labels: , , ,

Share |

12/04/2008 11:57:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, December 03, 2008 

New Labour in rude decline.

Perhaps the government had the Queen herself in mind when it limited this year's parliamentary legislation to just 12 bills, leaving Liz to expel just below 700 words in the yearly parade of inanity, tradition, and as the Queen inexorably ages, insanity of getting her to dress in full ridiculous regalia to read line after line of jargon written on goatskin vellum. On the one hand, you have to admire her refusal to start reading it in a funny voice, or break wind or belch after the bills she doesn't think much of, such is the onerous and ludicrous nature of the state opening of parliament; then again, perhaps if you'd lived in the lap of luxury for your entire life, only having to make the occasional trip to meet Johnny Foreigner in-between state banquets and shooting small/and or large animals unable to defend themselves, you'd put up with the occasional indignity as well.

In any case, this latest Queen's speech, due to the paucity of any real eye-catching initiatives, perhaps lays bear what has driven New Labour since its establishment better than any pretentious newspaper article or even book attempting to explain their success. While the economy boomed, and especially up until the Iraq war, most managed to either shut out New Labour's worst social and illiberal excesses, or they were helpfully covered by education and health reform bills which came as thick and fast as the crime ones. This time round, with the government boasting that its main priority will be dealing with the busting economy, and with the focus on the public services perhaps rightfully jettisoned to actually allow the reforms that have been put in place to take root, although a NHS constitution is proposed, the vindictiveness and general unpleasant nature of the crime, welfare and citizenship bills stick out to a far greater extent.

The main criticism being thrown at the government, as it always is at those coming towards a general election, is that it has run out of ideas. This is not the case in this instance: New Labour has ideas, it's just that they're epitomised by their intellectual poverty. You would have thought for instance that the first recession since the early 90s would be a bad time to start out on the most "radical" and punitive welfare reform of New Labour's three terms. You don't cut the safety net when a far greater number are either jumping or being pushed, unless of course you intend to keep the rise in benefit payments down to make up for your lackadaisical and far too late gestures at making those who prospered during the boom pay their fair share. Instead we have James Purnell, who has never had a job outside of wonkery and a short stint at the BBC, insisting that New Labour is rude health and that a recession is the perfect time to "increase the help" to those who need it to find work. This "increasing of the help" is the line which the government has taken, intended to suggest that it won't be cutting benefits or abandoning anyone or making them do unpleasant things such as unpaid work if they're useless enough not to be able to find any.

Then again, you shouldn't really have expected much else from a government who employed an investment banker who boasted he knew nothing about welfare prior to writing a report on it (not entirely true: he begged for a state subsidy of £1.2 billion over the Channel Tunnel, which is roughly 10% of the annual incapacity benefit bill) and which isn't willing to admit that its proposals were based on the preposition that the number of jobs available would continue to increase. The other fatal flaw is that it's completely uncertain whether these plans will actually result in any overall savings, due to how the government intends for the private and voluntary sector to pick up the slack, paying them for every individual they manage to get into a job. Then, just to add the cherry on the cake, it comes up with such obviously barmy and offensive ideas as how single mothers should be preparing to return to work as soon as their child hits the ripe old age of 1; obviously caring for the baby comes second to attending interminable meetings at the local JobCentrePlus (sic). If you thought that was bad, then extending lie detector tests across the country after their apparent success in trials, all to weed out the fraudsters that cost the Treasury far far less than those who avoid their taxes really ought to convince you of how a Labour government is intent on betraying those it is meant to represent. Similarly, it doesn't matter that proper polygraph tests are often no better at detecting whether someone is lying than by chance, and that is after decades of research and developments, ones based on voice alone are considered reliable enough to be used to dock benefits from people often already anxiety-ridden or depressed. Some might suggest that if it's good enough for the dolescum, why can't politicians be permanently hooked up to the same machines in the public interest? Couldn't that potentially save us far more in the long run than any harassing of some of the most vulnerable in society?

Much of this isn't being pursued out of anything as noble as sorting out a system which certainly does have its problems and which can be abused, but rather because Brown is intent on continuing the doomed Blair agenda of at least gaining the right-wing tabloids' acquiescence by being as right-wing socially and on criminal justice as the party can manage without setting off mass internal protest. Crucially, this has recently coalesced with the feminists remaining in the party, resulting in the almost farcical reforms on prostitution, where someone who fails to determine adequately whether the person they're paying for sex is controlled for another person's gain can be charged and potentially convicted of rape. This coalition of opportunity was never more accurately described than by john b:

I’m especially impressed/depressed by the bit where they effectively admit that government policy on prostitution is based on the Venn intersection between Julie Bindel and Nick Griffin. That’s basically a summary of the current lot’s policy on everything, isn’t it? - if you can find something so bloody stupid that gibbering rightwingers *and* gibbering Trots think it’s a good idea, they’ll promote it.

It isn't just that though which makes you despair of the other crime policies outlined in the speech, but instead the government's apparent determination to stamp out almost anything that might resemble the citizenry daring to enjoy themselves. Hence lap-dancing clubs, something truly making people up and down the country rise up and demand change, will be reclassified as sex establishments, same as sex shops and sex cinemas (which don't exist, to the best of my knowledge), and so increasing the numbers that will oppose them opening up, just as the same individuals oppose any change in their area regardless of what it is. Likewise, local authorities will have the power to ban cheap drink promotions, anyone selling alcohol will need to sign a now compulsory code of conduct, while measures to further clamp down on anyone drinking in public or underage will be introduced. As usual, there is no inclination to look to why we have such an apparent drinking problem or binge culture, which might well pose some unwelcome questions about quality of life, working hours and wage slavery; instead just roll out the bans, the higher fines and the new powers. That in a recession some might well think the government ought to lighten the burden and even encourage you not to sink in a depression akin to the economic one seems to be anathema; instead it's time to attack all the bugbears of the rightwing press which only simmer during the boom but explode in indignation during a bust.

So it also is on the introduction of rules towards gaining citizenship. No longer will it simply be enough for you to show a rudimentary understanding of English, know enough about the country to outwit some of the contestants on the Weakest Link and pledge allegiance to our unelected monarch; unless you want to wait an extra two years, you'll have to perform voluntary work as well. Paying tax and not breaking the law it seems are no longer enough; they have to show they really want to enter our glorious multicultural society where all are welcome and no one is discriminated against by err, having to jump through as many hoops as the most jaded official can come up with. No one seems to have an idea what this voluntary work will be: it can't be picking up litter or cleaning off graffiti, as that's what those who can't find a job are going to do, equally taking that job off those newly having to declare that they are on "Community Payback", who have already also taken that off those paid by the council to do it.

This then is New Labour in apparent rude health. Instead it's a party exposed, something long overdue, as lacking in any rigour and exhausted by its own long-term policy manoeuvres, reduced to just a husk of its former self, its true nature fundamentally apparent. This could well be the last Queen's speech before a general election. It ought to be Labour's last. The sad thing is that the Conservatives will only offer even worse.

Labels: , , , , , , ,

Share |

12/03/2008 11:59:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, July 21, 2008 

Everyone written off.

A few months back Johann Hari wrote a fairly decent article urging Labour, almost certain to be defeated at the next election, to spend its last couple of years in office engaging in the sort of radicalism that it has either completely eschewed over the last decade or rejected because of the fear of being knifed by the Tories or the right-wing press. The argument, so it goes, is that when you've got nothing left to lose, you might as well go out with a bang.

James Purnell seems to have acknowledged that spirit but got it completely the wrong way around. Yet another of the young uber-Blairites whose balls don't seem to have dropped yet, he's instead decided that he's going to do the Conservatives' job for them, to their almost unbelieving delight; probably because it'll save them the effort of doing the whole job, having to just add even harsher methods on to the end of it once they're elected. Instead, the real enemy is immediately Labour backbenchers who might not accept this new welfare paradigm which must be instituted for all our sakes.

Like with all the other Blairite excesses, the presentation and Unspeak which festers the green paper (PDF) is glossy and brazen respectively. It's even called one of those wonderful managerial names which, as Simon Hoggart has often pointed out, if turned backwards wouldn't be worth saying. We've had Every Child Matters, now we've got No One Written Off, to give the impression that these plans have been drawn up with the individual at the sharp end, inside the welfare system, at the heart of the scheme. This couldn't be further from the truth: the only intention the government has is of cutting down the ever growing number of those on Incapacity Benefit, putting the recommendations of investment banker David Freud, who had ran a review, into practice. If you're thinking that it's counter-intuitive to get an investment banker to ring the changes in a system where you're dealing with some of the most vulnerable people in society, then it might be helpful to know that he too has been subsidised by the state: he went cap in hand to John Prescott over the channel tunnel, asking for an extra £1.2bn on at least one occasion. Freud decided that he knew better than those that actually assess the claims for incapacity benefit, and claimed that only a third were genuinely incapacitated enough to not work at all. Like with Purnell himself, it doesn't seem likely that Freud has ever experienced genuine hardship, let alone personally: both went to public schools before following on to Oxford.

What rankles most about the Green Paper is not its actual proposals, it's what it's alluding to. It's the casual wink and a nod, again so often part of Blairite thinking, that is so exasperating. The government pretended to be shocked when the proposals were "leaked" to Sky News on Friday, as opposed to be passed them so as to build up a head of steam over the weekend. Having given them to Sky News, they obviously went straight across to the pages of the Sun, which was delighted with the government at least getting tough on the scroungers, the work shy, the feckless and the fraudsters and sung its praises. As Justin says, this is little more than demonisation, pandering to myths and fantasies while attacking those that need help the most for very short term political gain.

The new proposals are based on the classic carrot and stick approach, although this is a New Labour style huge great stick combined with the smallest carrot they could buy from Tesco's. Incapacity Benefit is to be abolished altogether, as is income support eventually, all to be replaced with just two main benefit schemes: either ESA or JSA. No longer will those on incapacity benefit simply be abandoned, "written off"; instead they'll either be in one of two sections of ESA, either the "Work Related Activity Group", where they'll be on a programme of back to work support, or in the "Support" group, where they'll be able to go on the WRAG programme on a voluntary basis, and receive an higher basic rate of benefits if they do. In other words, Labour is planning to abolish pretty much all of the welfare state's current back to work programmes except for Jobseeker's Allowance and Jobseeker's Allowance Diet. Or Lite. Whichever you prefer. If you're unfortunate enough to be on JSA and don't manage to find a job within three and six months, you'll be expected to "intensify" your job search activity and "comply" with a "challenging" back-to-work action plan. After 12 months, despite Purnell praising Job Centre Plus to high heaven for their fantastic work just a couple of paragraphs back, you'll be put onto a scheme provided by a private, public or voluntary sector provider, although you may as well skip the middle one as an option. Then you'll have to perform four-weeks "full-time activity" i.e. work as a minimum. If you haven't then killed yourself or picked the most menial job available just to escape from the horrors of this programme, after two years you'll have to take part in "full-time activity" the entire time. Whether you'll be given time off to actually find a real job isn't mentioned.

If I'm making this sound all rather unpleasant, if not a little nightmarish, then that seems to be the general idea. Make the bastards so miserable that they'll do anything to get into work, even if it is of the sort that makes them wish they had been written off. The thing that makes it seem so sinister is that throughout, those who are either on ESA or JSA are described as "customers", as though they're choosing to either be sick so they can live on what is little more than a pittance or out of work so they can experience the same. It doesn't seem to matter that there are gaping holes in this plan, such as exactly what this "full-time activity" will amount to: the press seems to think that it's going to be picking up litter and cleaning off graffiti, which for a scheme that is meant to providing skills seems to be following Purnell's idea of turning advice on its head. Seeing as those on community service are already going to be doing this, and, oh, that there already people employed who also do this, just what's going to be left for any of them to do? It also completely ignores that being on benefits other than JSA is already not "passive", as some love to make out, as if there aren't any opportunities already provided to get back into work. It makes for good spin, but it certainly isn't true.

The thing that troubles most however is just what the point of this venture is, and just what savings are to be made from making being sick or out of work even more unpleasant than it already is. The jobs most who are out of work are going to go into are ones which are low-paid, and unless they're too young to claim tax credits, they're going to be straight onto to them to top-up their earnings, negating any major savings. At the same time, the private and voluntary sector who help with getting the long-time unemployed back into work will be paid the savings that the state makes from that person entering employment, with up to £5,000 being mentioned in some places. The state then doesn't save or benefit; they do. Purnell claims that he wants to make the benefits system simpler; the easiest way to do that would be to abolish tax credits altogether and take the poorest up to the lowest middle earners out of paying any tax whatsoever by making the rich and ultra-rich pay their fair share. This would however make too much sense and mean offending the Confederation of British Industry and the non-domiciles. Is the point of these changes then to increase the well of overall human happiness, New Labour becoming utilitarian by deciding that work is generally good for well-being? Why on earth would it change a habit of a lifetime by doing that now?

All our proposals are driven by a core belief – using the power of a responsive State to increase people’s life chances, opportunities and capabilities.

In line with that, Purnell has been selling his proposals in the Guardian, along with some pedestrian attacks on David Cameron by claiming that all of this is in the name of tackling poverty. This, as we've seen before, has become Labour's last all out gasp for compliments and to be recognised as being fundamentally decent; we're helping the kids escape from poverty! Except, of course, that they've succeeded in altering overall inequality not one jot. At best what these proposals will do is take individuals that are in dire poverty and put them on the path to borderline poverty; a great achievement, as I'm sure you'll agree. That leaves us then with the very last defence. If Labour doesn't do it now, then the Tories will introduce something even harsher. This is the line taken by none other than... Johann Hari. And so we have come full circle.

Labels: , , , , ,

Share |

7/21/2008 10:46:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, May 26, 2008 

On yer chain-gang!

As Labour prepare yet another doomed comeback, it's instructive to examine exactly what it is that's going to be replacing our current overlords in a couple of years' time. If you thought that New Labour was heartless, callous and Machiavellian, you ain't seen nothing yet:

A future Conservative government will bring in "boot camps" for unemployed young people aged between 18 and 21 who refuse to take a job, Chris Grayling, the party's welfare spokesman, will say tomorrow.

In a significant hardening of Conservative policy towards welfare claimants, he will announce the abolition of benefit payments for any able-bodied person under 21 who is out of work for more than three months and who refuses to go on a compulsory community service programme or a "boot camp" training course aimed at improving their work discipline and giving them basic skills to get a job.


It's about time that someone broke down the barrier between the unemployed and the criminal classes, because, let's face it, they're one and the same. Both are robbing from the taxpayer and both only understand one thing: the cold steel. Thought that boot camps were only for those that broke the law? Think again!

To be slightly more serious, who can honestly say that they're surprised that it's the weakest in society who can look forward to getting whacked again once we're back under the security of a Conservative government? They've got off slightly under Labour, despite all the rhetoric about getting tough on welfare and the triangulation policies that have already led to Brown stealing some of the Tories' original idea, but the unemployed, single mothers and foreigners can all be assured that the old guard are back in town. Nasty party doesn't even begin to cover it.

You can also rest assured that this would just be the rolling out of it to begin with. The "healthy" young (the so-called NEETs can almost always be defined by their depression, desperation and profound pessimism about their chances of getting anywhere, and mostly they're right to be) are the easiest to demonise: after all, if you can't find a job within 3 months when you're that age, they might as well be put down and save the taxpayer the money entirely. It doesn't seem to matter that this is the equivalent of the bringing back of the workhouse, getting the poor to sing for their supper rather than allowing them to sit on their arses all day, as that's clearly what they do with their time. The Tories would put them to work on "community service programmes", doing all the jobs that even the immigrants won't do: cleaning the graffiti that they probably sprayed up in the first place off, washing out drains, cutting the grass, picking up rubbish, and all for much less than £70 a week! As we're so often reminded, there's the deserving poor and the undeserving poor, the aspirational and the feckless, and the feckless will be made to face up to their lot in life by receiving far, far less than minimum wage for doing so.

The community service programme will be what the lucky get off with. "Boot camp" training course, it just sounds so inviting, encouraging and bound to enthuse, doesn't it? It's just what these kids need, discipline, a jumped-up man with a thin moustache screaming at them when they put a foot wrong, ensuring that they get the "basic skills" needed for a job. First question: can you read what this tin says? If yes, please report to nearest supermarket for the rest of your life. If you work hard enough, you might even get to become manager in 20 years time! Now that's an aspiration we can all respect.

If you thought Labour wanted to privatise everything and use PFI to build everything, then again, the Tories are prepared to go that little bit further. It's quite obvious that the welfare system just isn't working at the moment: the Jobcentre Plus is providing jobs mainly for the private sector, so why don't we just square the circle? The private and "voluntary" sector can pick up the slack straight away, and we all know that they'll be far more efficient and realistic with the unemployed than the current lot, who tend to get attached to those they're working with. There's no room for sentiment in big business, and when there's the dirty great big carrot of £5,000 for every young person they stick in a dead-end job which makes hell look like an attractive proposition, they'll soon forget there's an actual person they're dealing with and instead turn it into the conveyor belt one size fits all system which it should be. Doubtless, these firms won't be providing the Tories with funds in the mean time, or be directly offering money to Tory shadow ministers studying the portfolio. That would be an unthinkable slur and allegation of corruption.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The Conservatives under Cameron have looked at New Labour under Blair and found a lot of it that they like. Just one problem: it's not quite right-wing enough, and the Conservatives are determined to be even less subtle than the Blairites. All the things Blair wished he could have done they will be straight on to push through, and this welfare package is just the beginning. Inheritance tax will be next, then a huge expansion of the "academy" system, directly bribing the middle classes, a huge prison building programme, a major rise in defence spending, tax cuts for those who declare that they are "one of us", while all will be forgotten about those they're currently trying to appeal to over the 10p rate. As for tackling tax avoidance, which some studies suggest takes far more from the exchequer than the welfare system even does, that won't even get a mention. The Conservatives are the new, real Blairites. And Labour only has itself to blame.

Labels: , , , , , ,

Share |

5/26/2008 09:14:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, January 08, 2008 

Blame the poor, blame the uneducated, blame the sick.

I sometimes wonder why I write a politics blog when I'm so disgusted and often turned off by the minutiae of the policies espoused by all of the political parties. I'm directly referring in this instance to the Tory proposals on welfare reform, more on which in a moment.

First though, it's the return of politics after the season where we mostly concern ourselves with the internal family equivalent. Old Gordie Brown has been having a thorough think during Winterval, as though he doesn't do that intensively every moment of the day anyway, and he decided that his prime ministership needed a relaunching after the accumulation of disasters that left him about as feted at the end of the year as Chris Langham crossed with the McCanns. (Speaking of which, perhaps he can relaunch his career by playing Robert Murat in the Maddie movie.) If there's one thing Brown knows about, it's tradition, so this relaunch looked much the same as his original charm offensive. Off he went to the Andrew Marr programme, talking of "fiscal arithmetic", promising to clamp-down on inflationary pay demands, whether they be from MPs themselves, the police or the angels, and how he's going to transform the NHS into a bastion of prevention from bad health rather than the source of it as it is now. It culminated with a similar interview in the Observer where he set out his stall on how he's going to save us from ourselves in this "dangerous" year. The solutions are 42 days, even though he's determined to find a compromise when there isn't one on such a fundamental matter of civil liberties, and ID cards, which despite the child benefit database debacle, won't be "compulsory", despite the legislation which has passed through the Commons confirming that they err, will be just that.

Next step in the fightback was the finding of a proper spin doctor. Served badly by his advisers from his days in the Treasury and by his cabal of "Young Turks" centred around Ed Balls, Douglas Alexander and Ed Miliband, he's called on the services of Stephen Carter, who just happens to be the chief executive of a PR firm. So much for all the jibes at Cameron about being in a similar but lower down position at the ITV regional broadcaster Carlton; now Brown needs just that sort of experience in his cabinet. Carter should in any case be used to being in charge of such a dysfunctional outfit as 10 Downing Street under Brown; he was head of NTL when it was nicknamed "NTHell" by its long-suffering customers, now under the yolk of Richard Branson in the similarly revamped Virgin Media. Most hilarious though were the remarks from the Tory Caroline Spelman about Brown bringing in another spin doctor rather than getting on with the job. That would be the same Conservative party that employs as its chief spin doctor the former editor of the News of the Screws, a man with about as much political knowledge as a fruit bat.

Spelman does have something of a wider point: this was the same Gordon Brown who standing in Downing Street last year faced by the world media talked of change as much as Lionheart talks about how evil Muslims are. For as long as he went on unscathed, regardless of attacks by patio gas canister jihadists, floods or foot and mouth, the status quo was acceptable. It was only once he departed for an opportunistic visit to Basra at the start of the Tory conference that everything started to fall apart. After all, while everything's going well, you don't need someone to distort the reality of what's happening for you. That was why the Labour reliance on Alastair Campbell and news management was so perplexing: when the majority of the media was so favourable to you, why did you need to be practicing the dark arts? Campbell's blithe explanation that he never wanted to see a Labour prime minister on the Sun front page on election day in a light bulb again is an excuse, not a reason. You can at least respect Brown's decision to employ one now, even if you can't accept it.

Brown's maneuvering on the NHS and with Carter though is nothing to the latest populist measures from the Tories dressed up in their compassionate clothing. The illusion under David Cameron has been that this is a changed party, one that isn't going to come out with reactionary nonsense about asylum islands again or ask whether we're thinking what they're thinking. Even while headbangers like David Davis remain in position but at least sensibly oppose extended detention for terrorist suspects, and they propose inheritance tax cuts while bribing the married middle classes, the emphasis has been on the touchy-feely environmental promises and just what a thoroughly nice bloke Dave is. This has worked when Labour has been woeful, but while Brown looked fresh in the summer it briefly fell apart. The support for the Tories isn't because they're trusted or look like they're ready to form a government, it's because they're not New Labour.

Whether their welfare reform proposals published today will change any minds remain to be seen. What is clear is that just like in the past, what first goes in the United States eventually winds its way over here. Quite where they're inspired from is contentious: some say Wisconsin, others say New York state. Whichever it is, neither can be a direct comparison with the benefit system currently in operation here, where our population vastly outnumbers that of both. As Chris points out, when you get down to the actual figures involved, despite them initially looking huge, they're far smaller than you're probably being led to believe.

First up is a reassessing of every single person on incapacity benefit, of which there are 2.64 million current claimants, by a doctor. As Labour has argued, this would be hugely expensive, incredibly time-consuming, a waste of resources and probably do next to nothing to actually bring the figure down. It has to be remembered that some of those on incapacity benefit have not worked for nigh on 20 years: the unlucky who found themselves out of work during the glorious Thatcherite revolution, shoved onto IB to bring down the unemployment figures. They're simply not going to work again, full stop, however uncomfortable that is for any political party but especially the Tories to admit. As has been pointed out, incapacity benefit is now in actual fact incredibly difficult to get on: a relative of mine who at one point was only given a few years' to live and has chronic back pain was refused. Those on it are overwhelmingly genuinely sick or unemployable; getting them off IB and onto jobseekers' allowance or even into employment will save the state either a whopping £22 a week or £200 a week. It sounds a lot, but in the scheme of things will make next to no difference to the Treasury coffers.

The changes to JA itself are no better. Those on it for 2 years will be expected to carry out "community work"; for which almost certainly read the removal of graffiti, picking up rubbish, maybe setting plants or general cleaning up. The Conservatives haven't explained how those already employed to do just that, or indeed those carrying out "community service" which often also involves just those things are going to be affected. When not cleaning up the trash, there'll be expected to be at "back-to-work" centres, where they'll be able to do everything apart from seemingly the training that politicians of all stripes think will be needed in the "knowledge" economy. These centres, to be run by the private or voluntary firms so en vogue with the Tories, will also be paid according to how many they either get back into work or off benefits when they refuse an "reasonable" job offer. As with much else of the plans, what a "reasonable" job offer will be isn't defined. Those who do so though will be more or less destitute or dependent on others, as they will first lose benefits for a month, then three months, then three years. Whether some will accept job offers then quit immediately or get themselves sacked so as not to lose benefit and how they will be dealt with also isn't considered.

The main reasons behind all of this are again explained well by Chris. Like him, I also think the biggest motivation behind it is the get tough strategy. So prevalent is the view that those on benefits are either skivers or scrounging, repeated endlessly in the tabloid press, that if you're told a lie enough you'll often start to believe. As with so much else, there are some who could work but who don't simply because they can. For the majority though, who desperately would like to work but who can't for a whole spectrum of different reasons, making their lives even more miserable seems to be a Conservative priority. David Cameron asks where the dignity is "in sitting at home, dependent on the state, not having a job?", but where also is the respect for those that can't? It takes something to make New Labour look humane and liberal, but the Tories have somehow managed it.

Labels: , , , , , ,

Share |

1/08/2008 08:54:00 PM | | | links to this post

About

  • This is septicisle
profile

Links

Last posts

Archives

Email me
Syndicate this site (XML)
Powered by Blogger
and Blogger Templates