Osborne

Before continuing I should say, I am at death's door with flu. Normally my Victorian upbringing doesn't allow me to exaggerate or over-state issues such as this, but since I've managed to evacuate so much mucus from my body I've noticeably lost weight, it doesn't offend my conservative sensibilities when I say I'm not well.

Recently, Johann Lamont saw fit to diagnose all independence supporters with another type of virus, something I'm not sure she's qualified to do. The Yes side retorted with an impromptu "I'm Yes Positive!" campaign. Cue many complaints from unionists who claimed this did down those suffering from HIV - even although it was Lamont who made the initial comparison. As usual, wild-eyed uni-twits behaving at their very unreasonable & illogical best online.

Anyway.

The Conservatives had their Conference during which George Osborne picture below...

Actually, its probably unfair to use this image - yes - he went to an English public school but that shouldn't be a barrier to life as a Tory politician and Chancellor of the Exchequer

Here's what he actually looks like:

Pinched from Guy fawkes' blog.

So, fairness established. In his speech to conference (get me sounding like a real journalist) Osborne said he wanted to extend the 'work for benefit' program. In this system, long term unemployed (two or more years) would be made to work for the pittance they receive. There will be three choices on offer:

1) Work placement (meaning pointless no-training-necessary work picking up litter etc.)

2) Daily visits to the Job Centre. (Possible aim would be to replace Job Centre staff with benefit claimants?)

3) Compulsory Training to improve literacy among other things.

For a more surgical dissection of why this is a shit idea please click here. For the less concise version, read on a bit.

First you have to understand, not everyone who has been unemployed for more than two years chose to live that way, its very easy and lets be honest, convenient to think that - but it isn't the case. Of course there are some who have chosen  to do so - but even then - its a tiny percentage of people. Westminster - aided by the braying mob of newspapers titles ever more desperate to up circulation - want you to believe people who happen to claim benefit are at the root of all our economic ills. We've already covered this and the truth is; its small fry compared to the real culprits.

Remember this?

Right, so why is it a shit idea? This seems to be Osborne's - and we must assume - Tory logic in action. The long term unemployed can't find work that pays a practical amount of cash, the sums are easy to do - if it costs more to get to work than you earn while at work - what is the point? This is a problem created by Government and the low wage economy it wishes to create at the behest of its business backers. Having a low wage economy attracts business - which is fine if you live in China (for example) where the cost of living is also quite low. In the UK - the cost of living is quite high - a single person must earn a good bit more than the minimum wage to make ends meet.

But shoe-horning benefit claimants in to already existing jobs will surely mean employers won't advertise real job opportunities because they'll know they can rely on free workers courtesy of the Tories - and to be strictly accurate here - the Labour Party's batshit crazy ideas around workfare/work-for-benefits.

If you told me you didn't think employers would take advantage of a free bank of staff and instead employ people in real paid jobs - I would begin to regard you with a high degree of suspicion.

Sure, it sounds good - getting the long term unemployed back to work - but what kind of work? These are litter picking positions and other odd jobs around the community they're talking about. When people are convicted of crimes and sentenced to community service they pick up litter or paint kid's play parks for fucks sake, now we're putting the long term unemployed in the same category?

On attending the Job Centre daily - is the government going to provide free transport so the long term unemployed can go and browse jobs offering zero hour contracts or low paid no-training-necessary positions all day? The former isn't a job at all as it doesn't guarantee an income, the latter won't exist because those jobs will be filled by benefit claimants who aren't sitting in the job centre or attending sinister 'mandatory training'.

It goes without saying, if you don't comply with the new rules, there will be sanctions. (This link has to be seen to be believed.)

Westminster had a choice, they could have done something substantive about jobs & pay in the UK, but they chose to demonise then punish those who've been out of work for the dubious purpose of 'attracting business'. It might be obvious to us what the proper course of action is but when viewed through the British Establishment/Westminster kaleidoscope of corruption, grasping selfishness and general fuckwittery - there was only ever one option.

Westminster creates a problem, blames that problem on the people who are suffering the most from it then punishes them for good measure.

This isn't an issue with one Westminster party, they're all guilty. If I lived in England I'd be even more horrified than I am now. I refuse to believe normal English people believe this is good government, I can't believe they accept it and can't see through it.

Finally, Michael Rosen has written a letter to Michael Gove, (Tory Minister for Education who thought it was a 'disgrace' Tories rebels voted against dropping bombs on Syria - because it worked so well elsewhere.) Its worth a read and joins up some pretty alarming dots in terms of where David Cameron's government want to take the UK.