David Cameron, George Osborne and the unspeakably self-righteous IDS have latched on to a soundbite they trot out at every opportunity to justify their hatchet job on the Social Security system. It’s that one about the hard-working man or woman setting off for their job in the morning and gazing resentfully at the drawn curtains of their unemployed neighbours.
Workshy scrounger! Boo, hiss!
Before we all rush in and beat the lazy blighters around the head with our rolled up copies of the Daily Mail, let’s look behind the curtains at the people curled up in bed and listen in on their thoughts.
“This time last year I was on site by now, but was made redundant when our firm ran out of work.”
“Buy food, or try and pay off the ‘Wonga’ loan?”
“I miss having a laugh with my mates at work.”
“If we stay in bed for another couple of hours, it’ll save putting the heating on. We can’t cope with another bill like the last one.”
“Who’s going to take me on - at my age and after a heart attack – with so many younger, fitter people out of work?”
“I hope the agency have something for him today; me and the kids can’t cope with these angry moods much longer.”
“That smug so-and-so over the road won’t be so high and mighty when his boss works out he can replace him with a ‘trainee’ off the Work Programme who’ll do his job for nothing!”
Oh yes, there’s so much to be jealous of, isn’t there? Far more to hate about the unemployed than, say, the commodities dealer who can spread famine across half a continent with a couple of clicks of a mouse or the investment banker moving virtual funds around in an electronic world whose actions close a real factory in Saigon, Shanghai or Sheffield. And let’s hear it for the lady living in a mansion on the profits creamed off from a company that farms out unemployed people to fake training schemes giving highly profitable companies free labour, so taking ‘real’ jobs out of the economy, and the smug director of a ‘Pay Day Loans’ company rubbing his hands at the news of the poor getting even poorer and more desperate. They’re ‘wealth creators’ and worthy of tax cuts, aren’t they George?
And they certainly don’t want you making hostile judgements about the smarmy politician who not only has never had to try and manage on Jobseekers’ Allowance himself, but doesn’t know anyone who ever has either. If they and their tabloid editor chums keep up the rhetoric about the ‘workshy’, they hope you’ll forget that the ‘working age benefits’ they’re cutting are also paid to disabled people even Atos accepts are unable to work, and that Tax Credits and Housing Benefit help to support to low paid workers too.
Making all these people poorer won’t force a single person back to work who doesn’t fancy going, because the genuinely dodgy few will find the odd bit of cash-in-hand or low-level crime to keep them ticking over whatever happens to their benefits, and cuts at the DWP mean staff have less than half as much time as they used to scrutinise their availability for work or to offer them proper employment advice on ‘signing on’ day. And anyway, where are all those jobs? How many of the ‘new’ private sector vacancies were simply the product of the creeping privatisation of our Public Services.
Let’s get the truth about ‘fairness’ out there and nail these lies.
It’s time to bring down the curtain on this vicious Coalition government.
