WHAT ON EARTH IS THIS NEW DWP REGIME ABOUT?

I’m a little worried.

I heard that Mr Cameron was going to get a little harder on people who persistently refuse to work, and who scrounge off society. And, having worked in the business of getting people into work for more than 10 years, I thought ....Good.

He’s going to do something about the ones that the DWP are afraid of... you know, the ones who’ve been done for murder or GBH or armed robbery, and who present a thug-like exterior to the Job Centre and who, therefore, are excused most of the 'back to work' rubbish that successive governments have churned out.

I also thought that it was likely that he would target the “I’m going to have babies for a living” set. The ones that every time it looks like the dole may be catching up on them get themselves pregnant again. “Oh... I’ve fell pregnant... I dunno how that could have happened” (Maybe the same way as last time and the time before and the time before that... just with a different partner.)

But I was wrong. According to The Sunday Post, Willie Durrent of Dunfermline was called to a “fit for work” interview while undergoing radiotherapy for head and neck cancer. He was being fed through a tube in his neck and the man has less than a year to live.

OK, you might think that the Dept of Work and Pensions, like the rest of us, is capable of error and that, when they were called to appraise them of the fact that he wouldn’t be able to attend and explain why, the clerk would have apologised profusely and given sincere condolences... you know, like human beings do when they discover that they have got it badly wrong and one of their number is terminally ill.

Well, that’s where you’d be wrong. To the Durrents’ shock, they were told that the meeting was compulsory and all the DWP could do was delay the interview.

No, “sorry you’re dying...” just “get your lazy arse in here for an interview or we’ll stop your benefit”.

Mr Durrent is not a compulsive scrounger. He has in fact worked all his life and he is 58. He is however dying of cancer, and that makes it impossible for him to work any longer. You’d really think they could do better.

ITS NICE TO SEE A LITTLE RESPECT COMING NORTH OF THE BORDER

Thank goodness that at least the Liberal-Tory Government in London is going to be more co-operative with the SNP government in Edinburgh over attendance at meetings. A clear signal of this is that Stewart Stevenson, the Scottish environment minister, will be part of a UK delegation to climate change talks in Luxembourg. Now whether or not you believe that climate change is happening you have to accept that the world, including Mr Obama and Mr Hu, is talking about it. So it’s important in that it is being discussed at top level.

It is less the subject for discussion, and much more that any discussion takes account of the Edinburgh government.

The Scottish Government has made repeated attempts to get ministers on British delegations but when Labour was in charge at Westminster it was met with a big fat NO, based I’m sure on the last prime minister’s passionate and paranoid hatred of the SNP and indeed of Scotland as a country. He preferred to refer to the area north of England as North Britain.

Madman!

According to the Caledonian Mercury, Labour even turned down requests for Scottish ministers to represent British interests during the election campaign, when the relevant UK minister was busy campaigning at home and had no time to travel abroad. On each occasion Labour refused the Scottish Government’s requests, almost certainly because it did not want to give the SNP extra kudos and status internationally.

Pathetic!

Possibly to make Labour ministers appear churlish and mean-spirited (not hard to do) the Liberal-Tory coalition has invited Mr Stevenson to Luxembourg as part of the British delegation.

Mr Stevenson asked to be part of the British team because of the Scottish Government’s commitment to tough new climate change targets and its experience in reducing carbon emissions. There’s going to be a lot of work in the green economy, and whether we believe in it or not, it can bring Scotland a lot of jobs, and manufacturing ones, which we all agree we need desperately.

Chris Huhne, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, has agreed to Mr Stevenson’s request whilst pointing out, reasonably, that the UK was the sovereign member state in the EU and would maintain a single negotiating line.

Michael Moore (SoS) said: “The First Minister has said his government will measure our agenda in deeds rather than words and the inclusion of the Scottish Environment Minister is just the latest practical sign we take a constructive relationship with the Scottish Government seriously.

“There is no doubt we have a common agenda when it comes to tackling climate change and there is much we can do together to work towards reducing the UK’s emissions.”

It’s a start. Scottish ministers regularly took part in these events when Labour was in power in both London and Edinburgh, but when the SNP took over, Scotland was seen as the enemy and had to be put down. The Tories respect agenda including Scotland in EU talks is a start.

Now we need some power to deal with the Fisheries problem. The one that Scotland is best placed to do something about... and the one that Labour was determined to keep us away from.