Clear as Mud

As we approach the 2015 General Election, here is a quick sample of the sort of person that is currently in charge.  I note the following key points from this interview, which is admittedly a couple of years old:

"We do not have 'work for your benefit' or workfare schemes in this country" - Official statement by the DWP in response to a petition to abolish workfare in the UK.

"Benefit is not paid to the claimant as remuneration for the activity." - DWP statement in response to a FOI request.

"People who are doing work experience which is US ALLOWING PEOPLE TO CONTINUE TO EARN THEIR JOBSEEKERS ALLOWANCE.." - Iain Duncan Smith on what he feels 'work experience' is. (My emphasis)

"She was paid for it! What do you think the taxpayer was paying her for God's sake, Jobseekers Allowance!" - Iain Duncan Smith in response to the observation from James O'Brien that a woman who was stacking shelves was happy to do so, but would like to be paid for it.

So to reiterate, we absolutely categorically do not pay benefits to claimants in return for them doing work, nor are we holding their benefits to ransom on the basis of them doing these jobs.  But we DO consider, when asked why they can't be paid for this work, that they ARE being paid, by way of the benefits which we are ALLOWING them to claim by doing it.  Clear as mud eh?

Now, I used to work (briefly) in the benefits system and have once claimed JSA myself, and this fantasy land that IDS speaks of in this interview, of masses claiming benefits whilst just sitting at home before he and his took charge and made it all better, never existed in my experience.

In order to claim JSA back in 2002, I had to continuously visit the Jobcentre, proving that I had applied for jobs, answering as to why I hadn't got any and being all but marched to apply for others.  And I wasn't being precious about what job to take either - as a recent Law Graduate, my first job on leaving uni was working on an assembly line for a plastic filters company, earning about £6 an hour.  Then I went on to the heady heights of a solicitors office, where I was paid £8k a year as an administrator.  It wasn't until I went on to work as an administrator for Peverel, a retirement homes company, that I reached the sheer indulgence of a five figure salary.  The point is, IDS would like you to believe that until he and his lot got in and started 'acting tough' on this stuff, the benefits system was overrun with people claiming king's ransoms in benefits whilst sitting on their arses doing nothing.  I can tell you that there were odd instances of that happening (I met one myself), but I can also tell you that they were by far the minority.  Most of us were just hoping that we would manage to eke out the roughly £70 per fortnight we were allowed to claim.  I'm also pretty sure that the people who were abusing the system then are still doing so now - it's always the honest that are caught out by each new swingeing bunch of 'measures'.

In three months working for the DWP as a JSA administrator (or 'talking pencil' as we were told to think of ourselves) back in 2009, I spoke to literally hundreds of claimants. In that time, I spoke to one person that I would describe as not having a fully legitimate reason to claim JSA, and that was because that person was unable to work (due to being a recovering drug addict) and had been told that their sickness and disability benefit was to be cancelled and they would have to apply for JSA (incorrect, as I had to advise them).  The vast majority of claimants were people literally at the end of their tether and with no place else to turn, and some of those, some of the truly deserving who I would happily have given money to, were told no by the computer.

I honestly avoid telling anyone how they should vote - politics is a personal and divisive subject.  But I would ask anyone who is of voting age and reading this to think very carefully about this one small snapshot of a person at the centre of the current government - a government which has promised an additional £12 billion in cuts if it gets another term but categorically refuses to say in any detail where these cuts will fall.  My suspicion, based on the last five years experience, is that they will fall on the most vulnerable members of our society.  I am lucky enough to be able to earn my own way and not have to panic about where I will find the rent money or how to buy my next meal, but that doesn't mean that this sort of thing doesn't or shouldn't concern me.  I have voted Tory once in my life (and that was more because I was fed up of Blair and wanted to vote for someone who might have a reasonable chance of ousting him - oh how young and naive I was) but I can't honestly bring myself to do so ever again, especially when people like this are part of that party and it's policies.