Sharpe's Opinion
Sunday, 7th Dec, 2008
Coffee House: Tackling the Evil of Idleness
Absolutely brilliant article on the welfare issues we’re facing and what James Purnell is doing – despite pressure from the Labour Left – to solve the problems.
Purnell and IDS would make a fantastic team on this issue. It’s one of the few areas where the centre ground has not just the politically popular answers, but the best practical solutions.
I want to write some more on this, but it’ll have to wait till I get home.
Comments
Quoted in the Coffe House article, by the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police:
“Here are almost hidden, secret parts of our community. People who actually don’t socialise beyond a small group of people. No holidays, no going to town, no going to the cinema. If it doesn’t go on in their house, or a house nearby, it doesn’t happen as far as they’re concerned. And what that means is that they are not socialised in the way that society is generally socialised in terms of norms of behaviour. Norms of behaviour are, for them, whatever they can get away with.”
The above way of life aptly describes mine insofar as the specifics he chooses! This links back to your ASBO post, below, and what is ‘normal’. Some police have been trained to spy, entrap, even kill: that’s not my normal but I accept the necessity and pay them to do so. If a police officer wishes to express an opinion on non-police matters, I wish they would do so without their uniform and titles.
I am delighted that IDS has brought in the rather wonderful leftie Labour MP, Graham Allen, who caught my eye some years ago. It’s worth a few minutes to read some of his Commons questions and speeches. He’s also a big supporter of Humanism, if that helps quell the leftie bit!
Agreed Blue Eyes – although I’m not quite partisan enough to write off something interesting just because it comes from New Labour. At least Purnell is looking at IDS’s work and recognising its importance.
Tizzy – indeed that description probably fits me, as well – although we actually socialise online, too, which can give us at least some sense of perspective!
No, I agree with Blue Eyes. This isn’t about getting people into sustainable jobs, it’s about bullying the vulnerable to get cheap Mail headlines.
http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2008/12/06/government-bullshit-risk-detector/
In a time of mass unemployment & few vacancies, what they should do is allow jobseekers to volunteer to improve their skills. I am 100% against paying people to do such work or coercing them into it as it wouldn’t work & the voluntary organisations would reject it (cf: the failure of National Service for similar reasons).
But a school leaver of average ability, a skilled person made redundant, or a graduate, who is drifting, could very easily be put to use by a voluntary organisation. They should not be made to apply for low-paid jobs they probably wouldn’t get anyway.
Yes, people should not be sitting around idling. Hardie & Attlee would have denounced such a system. But Purnell & Freud can’t, & don’t genuinely want to, help matters.
In due time, they will able to find decent paid employment.
In the realms of really vague speculation, a Citizens Basic Income may free people to make contributions to society in ways other than by doing paid employment.
I have been on JSA twice. Once I sat around wondering whether I’d ever work again, the second time I was in a Citizens Advice Bureau helping others whilst improving myself & my employability. Surely you know from personal experience that that rigamarole of looking at job points & explaining to some DWP mong how the job search is going is useless. I bet that isn’t how you got your current job!?
No, I got my current job through sending belligerent and arrogant emails out to local employers on prospects.ac.uk. I wasn’t on JSA long enough to face any of the real problems, although I’d already been in my new job for two weeks before I even received the payments I was due from them – it took them five weeks!
Perhaps you’re all entirely right, but I don’t think I can be blamed for holding out the slightest tiny last bit of hope that there might be even just one politician left in the Labour Party who is still trying to do something they believe in. Even just a little bit.
Any “Labour” solution will automatically be far too complicated and involve yet another army of bureaucrats to administer it. It will have too many loopholes and too much box-ticking. Purnell might be realising a change in the popular mood, but he won’t implement a sensible system. It is not in Labour’s DNA.
Blue Eyes
December 8, 2008 at 12:16 pm