today : I give out some plaudits

Hurrah for George Osborne. We know we can trust Gideon the Baronet to be 'fair' and look after our interests. That's why, after running on an election promise of dealing with the amoral, greedy rich, he's put the brakes on regulating bank bonuses under the guise of needing to do things Europe-wide. Pretty generous of someone who has long been a declared Euro-sceptic. Oh, and the heir to an Irish baronetcy has also given the Irish 7 billion of the quid he's slashed from our public services and welfare.

Hurrah also for Eric Pickles, who has told councils that they must celebrate Christmas as a Christian festival. Yet another declaration that isn't needed but so kind of him to make Daily Mail readers feel good about themselves. So Birmingham has a Winterval event that encompasses Xmas, Eid, Divali and Hanukkah. Does that mean that the politically correct police go around fining people for going to a Christian Church and singing carols? No, it means that the council only has to put up one set of lights and can never be accused of ignoring or marginalising any group in it's huge and diverse population that has a religious festival around December (that's most religions, btw)

But the biggest hurrah is for Michael Gove. Not only has he proved that you can get to the top of politics, despite being half-man, half Atlantic Cod, but he has finally solved all the problems in the education system by the simple measure of making everyone do what he and his cronies did at school. That's a great relief for the poor and educationally disadvantaged. They'll now be able to finally learn all the Latin and Greek they've been hankering after for years, and be tested on Thomas Hardy novels only by yet more proper fashioned exams, instead of that annoyingly inclusive namby-pamby broad-based teacher-led assessment. To help with the Greek and Latin lessons Gove has also made sure that they will be conducted in broken down, semi-derelict and ruined buildings, just for authenticity. Oh, and he's going to solve all disciplinary problems by turning a few soldiers into teachers. That'll sort everything out in about 6 months and everything will be okay. What a relief.

today : two brains (no) good

Hurrah for David Willetts, the Universities minister, whose considered first response to the recent student protests was to demonstrate how supportive and in-touch he is with his minsterial constituents.

His opinion? Not even to acknowledge the validity of the protest or to argue the case for raising fees, but merely the suggestion that most of the students and school pupils protesting the tripling of fees were confused and didn't understand the policy change. Such confidence in the young people of the nation is exactly what a Universities minister needs. Surely they can sleep safe in their halls knowing that the man in charge of their educational futures is such a sympathetic, understanding and respectful character. Willets (who went to a private school and then Christ Church Oxford) , is clearly down wiv the kids.

He does understand the concept of confusion, though. Perhaps it was confusion that led him to lie to a select committee in 1996 and having to resign from government.

today : I apportion blame

Again we have a complex economic story. Who truly understands it? Not the newspapers and their £300 per person they reckon we are going to give to the Irish. Not even the economics reporters. Maybe they do understand it but can't really explain all the nuances in a 2 minute report. Certainly not any of the people who are vox-popped on the street and asked about a situation that could keep economics professors awake at night.

Perhaps not even the Irish government.

But one thing is for sure. Follow the trail back to its source and you get to the banks again.

today : who are the Royal Watchers?

9 hours into the royal engagement story and everything is as you would expect. There is only one fact to report and the news people are doing their best to spin it out as much as they can. One question intrigues me. Just who are these people who brand themselves 'Royal Watchers'?

When I was a mere teenager, I had a pal whose mother was obsessed with the royals. It was around the time of the Charles and Diana wedding and she'd been completely overcome with it. I, a staunch republican, was once more or less frogmarched from their house for suggesting that the tyranny of the monrachy should be overthrown. Apparently, my standpoint had caused actual tears. Things were never quite the same. Nowadays I am still a republican but am more sanguine towards the actual people. Then, asking why we should fete and look up to Diana, possessor of precisely no O levels, at a time when the rest of us were desperately caught up in the scramble for exam grades, was one of the things that set my friend's mother off. Of course, I'd simply driven a wedge into the faultline of the poor woman's hypocrisy, but on reflection I could have kept my counsel, realising that her obsession was beyond logic. These days I possess no particular liking of the royals. But neither do I harbour any malice towards them as people.

What continues to baffle me are the snoots who appear out of the woodwork each time there is a Royal story.

They teemed across my TV screen today. Hour after hour I was assailed by women in twin sets with double barrelled names and ski-holiday tans; and men with comb-overs, tweed jackets and dubious dental hygeine.

There must be a specific path set out for them. If you attend a minor public school and are just not quite characterful enough, or well-bred enough, or pretty enough, or clever enough, to become barristers or editors or PR people, then I imagine the careers advice is to become a Royal Watcher. Except none of them actually brought any insight or knowledge to the role.

They are (along with much of the current Cabinet) the best example of how a private education can go a long way. Teach people that they are superior beings and it doesn't matter how thick/useless/lazy they are; they will breeze through life with a brash unself-awareness, somehow convincing everyone that they are worth something when, if you scratch one billimetre beneath the surface, they pretty much aren't.

It is these people who have infested my TV and radio for the last 9 hours, telling me that Kate Middleton is a naturally beautiful woman with lovely teeth (always a measure used by the upper classes - without shame they assess their women as bloodstock). It was one of these people who commented that it would be controversial that Kate is a 'commoner' marrying into a blueblood dynasty - the inference that she might contaminte the bloodline with dangerous mediocrity. When was the last time you heard someone referred to as a 'commoner'? Somewhere around 1788, perhaps.

today : that's the sound of the men working on the chain gang

Nothing wrong with helping the long-term unemployed gain work experience and the confidence to re-enter the job market. It's quite easy to get a caught up in a whirlpool of low self-esteem while the waterfall flows over you.

But, as always, the Tories give themselves away with their rhetoric. In the past six months it has been a relentless barrage of negativity fired at the most vulnerable. It's a blatant attempt to create an orthodoxy of division and blame in order to justify their all-out attack on the poor. Anytime anyone points out that the rich seem to be getting richer they jump up and bleat on about class warfare. The real class warfare is in slashing investment, hacking away at the poorest in society, wilfully destroying jobs in vulnerable areas and continually attacking the poor for being poor.

And now the unemployed are to be put to work picking up litter and cleaning graffiti for their £65 a week. This appeared in the press. A Coalition source said: ‘We cannot go on allowing tens of thousands of people to wilfully avoid getting a job. Some go to great lengths to sabotage all efforts to help them find work. That is partly why the welfare bill has gone up so much and it is why hard-working taxpayers get so angry. ‘Some have been out of work for so long that they are literally incapable of obtaining or holding down a job. They have lost the discipline and all sense of work ethic. ‘This programme is designed to address that. It is not intended to apply to people who have genuinely tried to find work or who genuinely cannot work. Some people have simply got out of the habit of working. Hopefully this scheme will help them get back into a nine-to-five routine. ‘But is it meant as a sanction? Yes – and we are convinced it will have an effect. ‘All research shows that when sanctions are applied to those who can work but try to avoid it, they soon get the message and get off their backsides.’

The first thing that is worth pointing out here is that something like these measures already exist. Long term unemployed people are compelled to attend job-seekers training courses. I know, because I taught a bunch of them basic skills (and in the process managed to help a few get a job). If they fail to attend the training then their benefits are compromised. So all that's changed is that instead of endeavouring to help people, the Coalition has decided to declare this kind of thing as a sanction. The inference here is that people should be punished for being poor. An orange jump-suit and a shackle away from a chain-gang.

As with the relentless drive to demonise the disabled. At best this is merely a way of justifying what is really an easy choice for amoral politicians. It's easy to demonise the poor and voiceless as you attack them, just as it's easy to kick someone while they're down. At worst it is an expression of their hatred and contempt for the poor, disabled and voiceless. All evidence from the past suggests that they really do despise the poor and relish the opportunity to attack and undermine them. Remember that these are the people whose ranks include George Young (current Tory leader of the house) who described the homeless as the people you step over on the way to the opera.

today ...and the Daily Express

here

today : and the Mail on Sunday duly delivers

text quoted from here

The feckless unemployed will be forced to take part in a punishing U.S.-style ‘workfare’ scheme involving gardening, clearing litter and other menial tasks for just £1 an hour in a new crackdown on scroungers.

And if they fail to turn up on time or work hard they will be stripped of their dole for three months.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith will tomorrow unveil ‘compulsory community placements’ in an attempt to stop people living on benefits for years without bothering to look for work.

The ‘Workfare UK’ project will be targeted at tens of thousands of people suspected of sabotaging attempts to make them work.

The measure is a key part of David Cameron’s drive to slash Britain’s annual £192 billion welfare budget.

But Labour MPs condemned the scheme. One said: ‘This sounds like slave labour.’

The scheme is also likely to run into fierce opposition from some Liberal Democrat MPs.

Under Mr Duncan Smith’s anti-scroungers blueprint, employment office chiefs will be given the power to order the long-term jobless to take part in four-week mandatory work schemes.

Instead of receiving their usual £65-a-week Jobseeker’s Allowance for sitting at home doing nothing, they will get substantially less – and will have to clock on and off on time and work flat out.

The Government has not decided how much people on ‘community placements’ will be paid but it is understood the figure will be between £30 and £40 a week – the equivalent to £1 an hour, one sixth of the minimum wage.

They will also be expected to look for a ‘proper job’ for when they complete the scheme. Each participant will be expected to spend at least 30 hours a week on their specified ‘work activity placement’.

If the unemployed fail to turn up on time or work hard they will be stripped of their dole for three months

A Coalition source said: ‘We cannot go on allowing tens of thousands of people to wilfully avoid getting a job. Some go to great lengths to sabotage all efforts to help them find work. That is partly why the welfare bill has gone up so much and it is why hard-working taxpayers get so angry.

‘Some have been out of work for so long that they are literally incapable of obtaining or holding down a job. They have lost the discipline and all sense of work ethic.

‘This programme is designed to address that. It is not intended
to apply to people who have genuinely tried to find work or who genuinely cannot work.

Some people have simply got out of the habit of working. Hopefully this scheme will help them get back into a nine-to-five routine.

‘But is it meant as a sanction? Yes – and we are convinced it will have an effect.

‘All research shows that when sanctions are applied to those who can work but try to avoid it, they soon get the message and get off their backsides.’

The projects will involve all kinds of work, from gardening to clearing litter, repairing vandalised bus stops and buildings and street cleaning.

There are an estimated five million people stuck on various kinds of out-of-work benefits in the UK. Britain now has one of the highest rates of workless households in Europe, with 1.9 million children living in homes where no one has a job.

The proposals are part of a Government White Paper on welfare reform which will herald a bonfire of dozens of complex benefits, to be replaced by a more straightforward single Universal Credit.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1327385/1-hour-clear-rubbish--new-IDS-blitz-workshy.html#ixzz14ahyZ7HA