…here’s how I would defend his welfare reform white paper to the Labour left:
This paper is about increasing support for the worst off. Some benefits will rise by as much as £17.60 a week (par 33); single parents who get child maintenance from fathers will no longer get income support cut (7.15); and benefits will rise more than inflation (5.46). And there’s increased spending to help people look for work or come of drugs.
But the problem is, I couldn’t announce all this on its own. The right-wing press would scream about “hand-outs to scroungers” and for some reason I’ve never fathomed, my boss gives a damn about tabloid headlines. So I’ve had to sugar the pill. That’s what all my talk about obliging people to look for work is about.
This will only apply to some benefit recipients. Many - the “work ready” and “no conditionality“ groups (the most disabled and parents of young children) - will see no change in their obligations (26 and 4.14).
Where the change applies is in the “progression to work” group. But these changes are largely about mere box-ticking. All they’ll have to do is pretend to a “work focused interviewer” that they’re looking for work, or preparing to do so.
In some cases, they’ll be serious. If they are, we’re offering them more help. If they’re not serious, the interviewer will just tick the right boxes.
Look, all of us in work have to waste time on imbecilic box-ticking exercises. Why shouldn’t the unemployed as well? We’re promoting social solidarity.
Granted, these will also be expected to do “work related activity”. But this “could vary considerably and may, at least at first, have very little to do with job seeking” (4.19). It might just mean sitting on the bog reading the Sun - which is what they’ll do at work anyway.
It’s just a bureaucratic palaver which keep the right-wing quiet. If those twats believe the unemployed are looking for work, they'll be less likely to oppose future benefit increases.
And remember, I do say (4.24) that we’ll “never” oblige people to apply for specific jobs.
Of course, I don’t want to bully the unemployed into work. At a time when jobs are becoming increasingly scarce, we should leave the few jobs there are for people who really want them. An efficient economy requires that some people be unemployed, because the disutility to them of working, and the hassle their colleagues and bosses suffer from working with idiots, outweighs their puny productivity. All that guff I gave in my speech about not wasting talent was just the crap Gordon wants to hear. No-one else believes it.
Yes, I’m promising to launch “work for your benefit” schemes for the long-term unemployed. But these are only pilot schemes (6.10). If they fail, we’ll drop them. If they succeed, we gradually convert the benefits into a living wage and expand the schemes. You guys always wanted “a massive programme of public works.” Maybe that’s what we’ll end up doing.
But the problem is, I couldn’t announce all this on its own. The right-wing press would scream about “hand-outs to scroungers” and for some reason I’ve never fathomed, my boss gives a damn about tabloid headlines. So I’ve had to sugar the pill. That’s what all my talk about obliging people to look for work is about.
This will only apply to some benefit recipients. Many - the “work ready” and “no conditionality“ groups (the most disabled and parents of young children) - will see no change in their obligations (26 and 4.14).
Where the change applies is in the “progression to work” group. But these changes are largely about mere box-ticking. All they’ll have to do is pretend to a “work focused interviewer” that they’re looking for work, or preparing to do so.
In some cases, they’ll be serious. If they are, we’re offering them more help. If they’re not serious, the interviewer will just tick the right boxes.
Look, all of us in work have to waste time on imbecilic box-ticking exercises. Why shouldn’t the unemployed as well? We’re promoting social solidarity.
Granted, these will also be expected to do “work related activity”. But this “could vary considerably and may, at least at first, have very little to do with job seeking” (4.19). It might just mean sitting on the bog reading the Sun - which is what they’ll do at work anyway.
It’s just a bureaucratic palaver which keep the right-wing quiet. If those twats believe the unemployed are looking for work, they'll be less likely to oppose future benefit increases.
And remember, I do say (4.24) that we’ll “never” oblige people to apply for specific jobs.
Of course, I don’t want to bully the unemployed into work. At a time when jobs are becoming increasingly scarce, we should leave the few jobs there are for people who really want them. An efficient economy requires that some people be unemployed, because the disutility to them of working, and the hassle their colleagues and bosses suffer from working with idiots, outweighs their puny productivity. All that guff I gave in my speech about not wasting talent was just the crap Gordon wants to hear. No-one else believes it.
Yes, I’m promising to launch “work for your benefit” schemes for the long-term unemployed. But these are only pilot schemes (6.10). If they fail, we’ll drop them. If they succeed, we gradually convert the benefits into a living wage and expand the schemes. You guys always wanted “a massive programme of public works.” Maybe that’s what we’ll end up doing.
That's the last thing Purnell would do. While it may placate the left, it would create some space for the Tories to operate in. By coming up with announcements that sound like they are "tough on benefit scroungers" they are emasculating the Tories. It looks like the MSM has fallen for it, so Call Me Dave is out-manouvered again.
Posted by: marksany | December 10, 2008 at 04:58 PM
"An efficient economy requires that some people be unemployed, because the disutility to them of working, and the hassle their colleagues and bosses suffer from working with idiots, outweighs their puny productivity"
This is like one of those movies where the director gets us to sympathize with the bad guy before confronting us with our own moral debasement. Sucker us in with talk of higher benefits and no real obligation to look for work and then bam! hit us with the logical extension - the unemployed should be left on the scrap heap where they belong. But that's how the right wing thinks about the unemployed, oh no I have become a monster!
Stop twisting my melons man.
But if you really do think that the (non-frictional) unemployed are so because it is efficient they be so (in terms of private returns: they are not productive enough to employ nor to want to work) and you also think that unemployment makes people unhappy and has all sorts of negative externalities, especially nasty intergenerational ones, then what's the optimal policy response? If social benefits exceed private, that justifies state job creation, does it also justify state coercion into employment? If not, then even with state job creation (which isn't exactly unproblematic in itself) won't an unconditional benefits system still leave a large number of chronically unemployed ... which is a sort of leave them on the scrap heap answer. What is a left winger to do? I don't know.
Posted by: Luis Enrique | December 10, 2008 at 05:48 PM
"The real point is that welfare claimants' have no strong motivation to find a job because they lose more in benefits than they can earn in net wages. Until the Powers That Be grasp this simple fact, all this tinkering achieves nothing." Mark Wadsworth today
Posted by: marksany | December 10, 2008 at 08:30 PM
Is it just me, or does James Purnell look like a trainee estate agent?
Posted by: anglonoel | December 10, 2008 at 09:49 PM
"Is it just me, or does James Purnell look like a trainee estate agent?"
Or even a trainee banker.
Posted by: Bob B | December 11, 2008 at 05:53 AM
"Is it just me, or does James Purnell look like a trainee estate agent"
Nah, more like a second-hand car salesman....
Posted by: Harpymarx | December 11, 2008 at 03:42 PM
Building on your post about Karen Matthews and cognitive dissonance, Matthew Taylor has an interesting view on welfare reform and cognitive dissonance: http://www.matthewtaylorsblog.com/politics/welfare-reform-our-confused-attitudes/
Posted by: Matthew Cain | December 12, 2008 at 05:08 PM
"Is it just me, or does James Purnell look like a trainee estate agent"
Are you kidding?
He looks exactly like a hobbit straight out of Tolkein's Lord of the Rings... although internally he's more like Golem!
Posted by: Derek | January 02, 2009 at 09:08 AM
Who in the hell is that hooray henry,it's hard to believe that arse pieces like this exist...this twat probably masturbates in an SS uniform,whilst listening to the HORST WESSEL SONG.What a dinosaur....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: David Yuill | May 02, 2009 at 11:55 PM