P
petercj
So today the Labour Party announce their latest brainwave for attracting votes by having a go at the long-term unemployed, i.e. they will ensure that long-term unemployed folk get offered "a job" for six months, and if the claimant refuses, then they will stop their benefits.
Hooray, you may say! "Tough but fair, and the more of a kicking the lazy so-and-so's get, the better the chances of them finding a job!"
But is that really the case?
How many people reading this post will be willing to give someone with no recent work experience, and possibly very little in the way of practical skills, a job for six months knowing that they are taking up the offer with a gun held to their head re an ultimatum: "take this work placement, or we stop your benefits"?
Will you be willing to honk your horn of a morning when you call to pick them up and find that they're still in bed?
When they eventually roll out bleary-eyed and embittered at being made to rise at such an unseemly hour, will you be willing to patiently counsel them on the benefits of self-reliance and the protestant work ethic?
Will you encourage them, and nurture any spark of motivation that might lie beneath their resentment over being forced into work?
If you have answered yes to the previous questions, then I salute you for being one of those rare human beings that is willing to go the extra mile for the good of society by casting aside self interest and personal gain.
Being the sort of person that you are, I suspect that you will have a lump in your throat when after six months of cajoling and mentoring you find that you are required to let your fledgling employee fly away into the big wide world of the labour market - or more likely, to resume their place back on the dole!
Call me a cynic if you must, but actually I have written this post having fallen from a position of high optimism, i.e. I really did have some hopes that having sat on the side-lines for the past few years the Labour Party might have come up with something more than a revamp of YTS thinking and the old cheesy chestnut of New Deal wrapped up in the mentality of a kick up the backside for unemployed people.
In my naivety, I thought ED & Co might come up with some substantial plans for tackling unemployment and getting Britain back to work.
Silly as it now sounds, I really did have some hopes that the days of New Labour spinning and meandering and tossing scraps of populist tripe to the tabloids was now history.
Sadly, I have been forced to recognise that very little has changed - just the same old populist BS spun out in the hope of catching votes.
Hooray, you may say! "Tough but fair, and the more of a kicking the lazy so-and-so's get, the better the chances of them finding a job!"
But is that really the case?
How many people reading this post will be willing to give someone with no recent work experience, and possibly very little in the way of practical skills, a job for six months knowing that they are taking up the offer with a gun held to their head re an ultimatum: "take this work placement, or we stop your benefits"?
Will you be willing to honk your horn of a morning when you call to pick them up and find that they're still in bed?
When they eventually roll out bleary-eyed and embittered at being made to rise at such an unseemly hour, will you be willing to patiently counsel them on the benefits of self-reliance and the protestant work ethic?
Will you encourage them, and nurture any spark of motivation that might lie beneath their resentment over being forced into work?
If you have answered yes to the previous questions, then I salute you for being one of those rare human beings that is willing to go the extra mile for the good of society by casting aside self interest and personal gain.
Being the sort of person that you are, I suspect that you will have a lump in your throat when after six months of cajoling and mentoring you find that you are required to let your fledgling employee fly away into the big wide world of the labour market - or more likely, to resume their place back on the dole!
Call me a cynic if you must, but actually I have written this post having fallen from a position of high optimism, i.e. I really did have some hopes that having sat on the side-lines for the past few years the Labour Party might have come up with something more than a revamp of YTS thinking and the old cheesy chestnut of New Deal wrapped up in the mentality of a kick up the backside for unemployed people.
In my naivety, I thought ED & Co might come up with some substantial plans for tackling unemployment and getting Britain back to work.
Silly as it now sounds, I really did have some hopes that the days of New Labour spinning and meandering and tossing scraps of populist tripe to the tabloids was now history.
Sadly, I have been forced to recognise that very little has changed - just the same old populist BS spun out in the hope of catching votes.
