Tendance Coatesy

Model Community Programme.

It’s worse than you thought.

People on employment support allowance who are deemed fit to work would be put on the jobseeker’s allowance, reducing their benefits by £25 a week. Work ‘experience’  and ‘training’ to be compulsory after 6 months. The core elements of the Tory package involve putting everyone on a single out-of-work benefit, including the stock of 2.6m incapacity benefit claimants and lone parents. The back-to-work programme will largely be run by voluntary groups and private sector companies.

I woke up – briefly – around five-thirty this morning. Put the radio on (Radio Five I think). Some woman from (guess it!)…A4e. Haven’t heard anyone so thick. And such a  goody-two-shoes. Unable to get simple questions. Interviewer asked if there was a subsidy to take on the unemployed employers might get rid of existing workers to have the extra money. She failed to understand this. Replied about what a  wonderful job her company was doing.

These are the people who are going to Get Britain Working!

But, Lo there is more (from the Morning Star):

The package of measures include scrapping the New Deal and replacing it with a one-stop shop for all claimants, including those on incapacity benefit.

The proposals also build on the government’s “work for your benefit” scheme, forcing long-term unemployed to engage in community work programmes to “earn” benefits.

Participation in community work will be for one year, at the end of which participants will start a fresh back-to-work cycle with a fresh assessment.

The Conservatives admitted that they were basing their ideas for the unemployed on Australia’s “work for the dole” projects.

Added Tuesday: Tories Putting Labour Plans into Place?

This is an accelerated implementation of Labour plans, not a set of really new policies.

Firstly, the underlying policy of replacing benefits which maintain people at a minimally decent level of existence has been eroded for a long while (beginning with said Tories). New Labour explicitly came up with the idea of actively encouraging those on benefit to seek work by a very simple measure: making their incomes so low they cannot possibly survive reasonably well (however meagre their income is) on them. Next they introduced a whole series of coercive rules to make life as unpleasant as possible for anyone signing-on – from constant checks, obligation to produce proof of job-seeking. To their final masterpiece, the New Deal. A central aim of this was to remove anyone working on the quiet, and to bore and cajole the rest into accepting any work going (thus making them an active drag on the conditions of those already in employment). A final part of this, the Flexible New Deal, will, under Labour, involve compulsory charitable and social labour – exactly the same as that carried out by those convicted but the Courts, Community service, for the long-term workless this will be a Community Programme.

All of these are efforts to remove an ultimate safety net and replace it with a machine to force people onto the labour market under the worst possible conditions. It really has its roots in the ideas behind the Victorian Poor Laws: make life for the unemployed as harsh as possible to encourage them to accept anything going.

Secondly, as part of this programme, those on Incapacity Benefit have already had to undergo a new series of checks on their status. the Tories will just bring this to bear more severely and more rapidly.

Thirdly, apart from the effects this is having on the labour market (a general downward pressure on pay and conditions) it will i) fail to deal with the most elementary features fo said market, its segmented nature. This will means large numbers of people trapped, regardless of any wish to work, in unemployment. ii) massively corrupt charities and the ‘voluntary sector’ which will be engaged in workfare – there are very clear signs that this is already happening (I speak from direct knowledge). iii) Feed the already greedy companies providing ‘training’ (parking people in near-detention centres, and yelling at them) for these schemes, as well as those giving ‘placements’ (useless for all but a few).

The Conservatives will move more quickly and create a greater mess than Labour – in terms of misery, failure, profiteering, fraud and broken lives.

Mass unemployment is the problem neither the Tories nor Labour really address. Or how to provide a decent life for those unavoidably out-of-work.

But, as is obvious with the advice of David Freud behind them, they are on the same track.

Mind you that hasn’t stopped  James Purnell (former Minister for above Misery) from bleating (here):

“So, the questions that should be asked:
1. How many people do the Tories expect to get back to work support? (Question to Purnell: how does back to work support resolve above problems in the labour market?)
2. How much would the service and success fees be? (Purnell, you set the gold standard of paying up front – would you pursue this wasteful idea?)
3. How much would the providers be expecting to borrow? (How much have your lot already funded these companies – break-down in detail if you please).

 
4. Do they have provider or banks prepared to commit to this policy?
5. When would the programmes start?
6. Are they abolishing the Future Jobs Fund?”

To all three questions: provide us with an independent Commission’s report on the results of the existing schemes, including stats of those suspended from benefits, salaries of providers, consultants, and an assessment of their effects on the labour market. This Commission should hear evidence from participants in the New Deal, Trade Unionists, and others affected by Government welfare reform policies.

JSA: £50.95     16 – 24  £64.30     25 or over

House of Lords: One of this Lot Will Make the Unemployed Toil for their Gruel.

The media today is full of David Cameron’s plans to Get Britain Working.

He plans to abolish the New Deal (in its various forms) for the Unemployed.

Good.

But what will they put in its place? And who is behind the schemes?

Details are sketchy (we will update them as they are revealed), but this (here) is worth noting. The policy is called,

“Get Britain Working” – which will see sweeping changes to policy across whole swathes of Whitehall in an attempt to “unleash investment and entrepreneurial activity that helps create more jobs”.

That is, the usual guff.

But wait..Who is the Shadow (unelected) Chap in Charge?

Mr Cameron’s article puts wholesale reform of Britain’s welfare system at heart of his drive for jobs – masterminded by Lord (David) Freud, the welfare expert who “defected” from advising the government to become a Tory shadow minister earlier this year.

David Baron Freud’s ‘expertise’ on welfare is nill. What has he done in his life? Well, he was a public schoolboy. He went to Oxford. Worked at the Financial Times. He then swanned around advising on financial deals, pilfering and making a mess of things.

A general outline of his knowledge of welfare issues:  (here).

“His involvement in raising £50bn ($72bn) during some of the biggest deals of the 1980s and 1990s made him a wealthy man – yet he continues to cycle to work, swim regularly in Hampstead Heath’s ponds and conduct his business in functional off-the-peg suits.”

Mistakes he has made in his career include (here), 

He moved into advising companies, and was involved in piecing together extremely complex deals such as the flotations of Eurotunnel and EuroDisney, which cost investors millions, and the financing of the Channel Tunnel rail link. Eurotunnel opened in May 1994 one year behind schedule and £2bn ($2.9bn) over budget. Sir David later admitted the deal was a “shambles” and that he had “successfully sold the market a pup”.But his chutzpah meant his career was not held back.Hauled before furious MPs to explain the mispricing of Railtrack, he was subsequently appointed an advisor to the government on its successor, Network Rail.

As a an adviser to the Labour Government Freud was responsible for introducing the principle of Workfare and the Flexible New Deal. Now he has ratted and joined the Tories we can be sure he will have had an even freer hand. Expect loads of money for the usual suspects (A4E etc) to ’train’ the workless, and a programme of workfare. That will be as a futile, demeaning, pointless, costly, as anyone can imagine. And do absolutely nothing to deal with mass unemployment.

Watching A4E gives some more information on this depressing, tyrannical, absurd, scheme (here).

Welcome to the Baron in charge of Creating Social Exclusion.

Cross-posted from Ipswich Unemployed Action.

Update  (Monday).

People on employment support allowance who are deemed fit to work would be put on the jobseeker’s allowance, reducing their benefits by £25 a week. Work ‘experience’  and ‘training’ to be compulsory after 6 months. The core elements of the Tory package involve putting everyone on a single out-of-work benefit, including the stock of 2.6m incapacity benefit claimants and lone parents. The back-to-work programme will largely be run by voluntary groups and private sector companies.

I woke up – briefly – around five-thirty this morning. Put the radio on (Radio Five I think). Some woman from (guess it!)…A4e. Haven’t heard anyone so thick. And such a  goody-two-shoes. Unable to get simple questions. Interviewer asked if there was a subsidy to take on the unemployed employers might get rid of existing workers to have the extra money. She failed to understand this. Replied about what a  wonderful job her company was doing.

These are the people who are going to Get Britain Working!

Mr Beadle: Pioneer Progressive Conservative.

Channel Four News last night. Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, launched, on the Demos platform,a robust project:  ‘progressive conservatism’.

Osborne declared that,

The torch of progressive politics has been passed to a new generation of politicians – and those politicians are Conservatives.By pursuing a course of illiberalism, centralisation, fiscal incontinence and opposition to meaningful public service reform, the current leadership of the Labour Party has abandoned the field of progressive politics.

In its place, the modern Conservative Party is now the dominant progressive force in British politics

Full Speech here.

There’s quite a lot (mean and dishonest) in this allocution. We can leave to one side, for the moment, rich men’s gimmicks, like Open Primaries for Parliamentary candidates. Most will concentrate on the ‘reform’ of education. Apparently on a Swedish model (I have my doubts about that claim). That is, to break up further school management  and make them responsible to local oligarchies and those eager to make rhino out of the three ‘Rs’. In Osborne’s terms:  ’businesses, charities and parents’.  The plans to turn over greater layers of NHS (following New Labour) to commerical interests will also get plenty of coverage.

TC,  by contrast, is largely interested in Channel Four’s attention to the Third Sector in Tory plans.  They underlined that many voluntary body, Charity, not-for-profit enterprise, chiefs were in Obsborne’s Demos audience.

What are they hoping to pick up?

The ‘Third Sector’ is not so  much a  sector as multi-storey car park for all kinds of vehicles. Some are sterling. Doughty fighters for people’s rights. Not a few genuinelly help ‘make a difference’. Others less so. Within this vast realm  there are increasingly money and power-hungry large-scale organisations. Social ‘entrepreneurs’ eager to get influence. Boards dominated by national or local worthies who expect deference – not democracy. I could cite the YMCA ‘training’.  I just have. I could mention the whole range of bodies dealing with the unemployed. Unlike traditional ‘impersonal administrations, the civil service, they are all too personal. Nosey-parkers, out to ‘reform’ the shiftless. A notable case locally is a Charity dealing with drug addicts. It expanded (state and local funding), following the Ispwich murders, into rehabilitating street workers. From supporting decriminalising it now enforces the criminalisation of prostitution. Wields power over people’ lives (with the threat of benefit sanctions and even prosecution). In-between the state and civil society they may be: as  the arms of the State interfering in  the lives of ordinary people.

Unemployment is up again today. 2.44 Million, including, a million young people. Workfare, Labour or Tory is coming. It’ll be hell on earth if private companies are in control. Not just of ‘training’ but of work itself. But what of the (apparently) softer option? Will the out-of-work be consigned to Third Sector care? More logical, since compulsory volunteering treads into their areas.  TC knows that already some voluntary sector organisations are gearing themselves up for this. Justifying their action on the grounds that people should ‘give back something’ to society (at weekly wages that would barely pay for a ticket to a rock concert at the Regent and an Indian meal afterwards).   

As trade unionists are well aware, Third Sector bodies are often poor employer. It is unlikely they will  always deal fairly with the unemployed (who will have even fewer rights). What mechanisms will there be to reign in the power of those in authority over them? What if the person in charge, a not so hypothetical scenario, has strong opinions about work-shy scroungers, and foreigners taking advantage of the system? Harassment and similar issues are hard enough to deal with in ponderous state bureaucracies. Believe me there’s nothing like local tyranny to make you yearn for their formal ways.

So, progressive conservatism look like giving power back to the local stock-jobbing oligarchies who ran British  towns and cities in Victorian times.  That ran decentralised welfare services. Devolved to  the capable hands of Mr Beadle. Progressing back to the 19th Century.

For more information on what’s happening on the Welfare  Front see Ipswich Unemployed Action.

Open Left Theorist.

So” equality of capability” and, elsewhere, “equality of potential” are James Purnell’s objectives (here). Whatever this means: like equality of being capable to realise a potential chance to have a chance to get a capability.

John Cruddas pontificates on fellowship and moral unity with material equality (here). Blimey he’s read a bit of Tawney. Though not, one suspects, any serious modern discussion of what equality means. Like by Brian Barry.

Our old friend, David Blunkett, notes on today’s letter pages that, Cruddas’s approach is misguided. What is needed are new directions. He cites, “The fascinating speech of Oswald Mosley, then a member of the cabinet, in 1930 – before his decline into fascism – showed that what was required were bold economic measures, not the cutback, retrenchment and cut in wages that were the reality of the early 1930s.” In fact David, the need for these bold measures were precisely what led the leader of the New Party  to his fascist trajectory. But then we always knew you had a shine for Mosley.

As for the rest of this stuff about equality. I note a deafening silence on a major cause of rising social exclusion, poverty and inequality in the UK. Welfare Reform. Even Red Pepper, which participates in Cruddas’s Compass, has kept mum about it. Mind you as it was founded by Trustafarian money I suppose they already have a welfare system of their own. Only the unions and a few campaigning groups have done anything at all. Which has not been enough – yet.

Until the left grasps the mettle and campaigns against Welfare Reform all these fine words on equality butter no croissants. Mass unemployment is coming back and those on the Dole are being subjected to a life of pain. Those on incapacity benefits are suffering. Lone parents, drug users, alcoholics, are being dragooned into coercive schemes. Against this we need decent welfare, freedom of choice, proper jobs and higher benefits. Or as they used to say, work or maintenance.

Or maybe the Open Left  – so open I bet they’ll ask lot to contribute (er, not), wants to force us to have equality that Blair, Brown, Purnell and Blunkett have created. Hat tip to rwendland on the very rich, Quangos,  and large companies who fund Demos here.

Their project. For most of us: Equality of misery.

Update: as this post seems to have got attention from Open Left they couldn’t do better than see this  site to grasp what is meant. Ipswich Unemployed Action.

Details are just emerging of a serious attack on a prominent member of Ipswich Unemployed Action by Security Guards at the Silent Street Job Centre.

Three brave security guards homed in on a small working class youth. Who had got a bit stroppy.  They called the coppers. He managed to escape.

What a fucking nightmare the Dole is becoming!

The Spirit of our Goddess was with us today.

The Historic Leader of Tendance Coatesy was in a bit of a foreboding.

The Dole had summoned me for  a special meeting.

Turns out I am excused from any version of the New Deal.

And I get my dole!

Now if we all stood up like this we would smash the New Deal (and variants) into the ground.

I went down this Friday to the TUC day of discussion on Welfare  Reform.

That is, against.

I can’t say I was in a good mood before I got there: paying £1 40 for a small bottle of water on the train does not inspire great thought.

The seminar was well-organised.

But let me observe these points.

Firstly, there is no compromise with the likes of Brown. The only response he respects is absolute opposition. I said that. To some agreement.

Secondly, there was very obviously what we call in French an OPA (take-over) attempt from two quarters. One, from Anne Gray, ex-CPGB (old CPGB that is) who wanted the Green Party to be the main reps of the unemployed. Sorry Anne but your mates in Norwich who banned foie gras from chippies are not going to be leading this one.

The other was the lassies from the various front groups of the King’s Cross Women’s Centre (now in Kilburn). Even a hardened sectarian like Coatesy can’t keep up with all your fronts. I don’t wish you ill.  You played a role in supporting us in Ipswich which shall never be forgotten.

But please you are not going to get a campaign going on an assemblage of women’s groups.

Same goes for that black women who talked of ‘her’ people (as if she bleeding owns blackness). And talked of slavery etc. That, the New Deal was about putting ‘her’ people back on the plantations.

Excuse me darling, I went to Westminster Further Education College to do me A levels.  A few streets from Congress House. I was in a minority of ‘whites’ (what the hell does that mean?). At the time in Peter Street, just off Berwick Street Market. The woman who took care of me (chief of library), and was me Mentor was a Jamaican. Jackie, an absolute pearl of a person. She was not oppressed: she helped  free me from oppression!

Stop talking gobshite.

Class Unity!

Smash Welfare Reform!

New Deal Company Manager.

Channel Four had this report last night (here).

Seems our enemies are finally getting flushed out.

You could have contacted us, you know.

“A mob of unruly Transylvanian Peasants are rumoured to be heading towards Dencora House this Saturday. To celebrate the Victory of their alleged ‘leader’.” (Vlad the Impaler Workers’ Daily)

I have to announce to the International Proletariat  and Unity of the Peoples against YMCA-Training, that guess what, Coatesy has won his epic struggle!

I was not best pleased yesterday reading some stuff from the Dole about my ‘misconduct’. Just a phase, but it rankled.

But I noted – that is after quenching my thirst on three pints of Abbot Ale – that I had got the Dole transfer in my account.

This morning, looking at the sordid pile of junk mail, I picked up a Dole paper.

Coatesy has been reinstated on the Dole.

Now the struggle has to focus on the rights of the other blokettes and blokes who have got thumped on.

Ipswich Unemployed Action’s Web Master this Morning!

Yesterday this Blog had 1,071 Visitors!

That’s all.