UNEMPLOYED WILL PAY FOR BANKERS' RECESSION

It appears that, in an effort to get Mr Coulson off the front pages of the newspapers, Mr Osborne has come up with a diversionary tactic. Hit the dole scroungers. No one ever objects, Rupert loves it, and he’s the boss. Can’t go wrong.

So George announced that there will be swinging cuts on benefits.

OK long story as short as I can make it (and I apologize; it is a long post). There are cheats. Yes, loads of them. But there are far more decent honest people on the dole than there are cheats. I promise you. It’s my job.

The truth of the matter is that most people do not actively choose to live on benefits. Despite what the Sun and the Mail tell you, they are rubbish. Even worse than the kind of wages so many people get by on.

No, most people would prefer to have a decent job and a disposable income. Those who are long term unemployed are so because they:

a) do not have the kind of skills, or intelligence, necessary for the kind of work that today’s employers are offering;

b) were put on the scrap heap in the last great clear out of jobs, taken off unemployment benefit and put on to invalidity benefit, in order to massage the figures, and forgotten about. As a result of which they are now elderly and utterly unemployable;

c) have criminal records which, for most employers, immediately disqualifies them for consideration;

d) have appalling employment records which mean that they discarded by employers;

e) have drink or drugs habits which will exclude them from any kind of work;

f) are recovered drug users or alcoholics;

g) are female, and pregnant or single and have children under 10;

h) are HIV positive and their treatments make them sick

or

i) they are over 45, and most employers are dubious about employing them

or (and these are things that should be actionable by government because they are the individuals fault, although that doesn’t increase their employability)

j) they have debts (that are held in abeyance while they are unemployed);

k) they are dealing drugs on the side and need the cover of unemployment;

The people who made this recession are sitting in the House of Lords or selling books, or raking in massive bonuses again like nothing happened. But savings have to be made and the idle poor are to be made examples of.

Maybe George would like some of them in the Treasury. Maybe he would like to explain to his colleagues why there is a paedophile and a rapist starting in their office on Monday, along with a guy who has a drink problem, and someone who is HIV positive and whose treatments make her vomit regularly.

If you are going to get the 5 million people that the government now estimates are idle (I seem to remember that the estimated it at 7 million when Labour was in power) back to work, iron lungs and all, there is a golden ingredient that is missing, and that is JOBS.

Unemployment is going up. Employers are paying off. The government is about to add to that. Vast numbers in the poorest parts of the UK (the BBC survey was all about England for some strange reason) are going to be paid off making the most depressed parts of the country more depressed.

I hope this is a ploy. It certainly was not planned and some members of the Liberal party are furious and predict resistance as they were not consulted. As for the public? Cutting benefits to the lazy is usually much welcomed, but there are a lot of hard working folk that the bankers’ recession has thrown onto the dole, while they take ever bigger bonuses like nothing has happened. I’m not sure that it will work so well this time.

Don’t take the prols for granted George. You’ve probably met very few of us, but we can be quite assertive when we are not tugging our forelocks.