Michael Gove's latest wheeze for slapping Britain's students into shape is to militarise schools. After all it never did him any harm. Take a drill-sergeant who has terrified his last Orrible Little Man, give him some basic training, and put him in front of a class of rowdy teenagers and see how they like that!
Of course he is right. Convicted murderers who have served their sentence would make great teachers, with suitable training. Their broad experience of life, and the insight into society they might gain from being detached from it would be invaluable in making a subject like History come alive, to name just one. Their lives would give them a certain presence in class. So why not soldiers?
Showing posts with label deficit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label deficit. Show all posts
11/22/2010
Charity Deficit Housing. The Poor Law Amendment Act Of 2010
Social Housing is now effectively a Charity Hostel service. To be allocated on the basis of a Means Test. The 're-assessment' will involve an unprecedented level of intrusion into personal finances, and will create the greatest poverty trap since the Victorian era which inspired it. To use the dialect, it is a 'positive disincentive' with nobs on. Why take that part-time, underpaid menial job when all it will do is dump you at the bottom of the greasy property pole with all your family and trappings. And don't dilly-dally on the way.
The greater damage to British society is almost unmeasurable but will make the government into an even bigger enemy than it already is, and will therefore increase crime and anti-social behaviour in general. Should it remain un-repealed, it will decimate already fragile communities, and nip any budding neighbourliness in the bud. Even if your Charity Tenancy overlaps with that of your neighbour, what is the point of forming a relationship with someone who will be gone in less than 2 years? In today's busy working schedule, it can often take almost a year to establish any sort of relationship, based on the kind of casual interaction which normally happens in crowded council flats with no community centre or well-planned garden space. So any sense of community will be a thing of the past, and any fantasies of a Cameronian Big Society will recede even further into the fog.
The greater damage to British society is almost unmeasurable but will make the government into an even bigger enemy than it already is, and will therefore increase crime and anti-social behaviour in general. Should it remain un-repealed, it will decimate already fragile communities, and nip any budding neighbourliness in the bud. Even if your Charity Tenancy overlaps with that of your neighbour, what is the point of forming a relationship with someone who will be gone in less than 2 years? In today's busy working schedule, it can often take almost a year to establish any sort of relationship, based on the kind of casual interaction which normally happens in crowded council flats with no community centre or well-planned garden space. So any sense of community will be a thing of the past, and any fantasies of a Cameronian Big Society will recede even further into the fog.
The great lie is that social housing is a rescue service for the poor. A necessary evil which, in the capitalist utopia to come, will wither away, like the rest of the welfare state, and even the state itself. The reality is that it is a vital part of the social infrastructure of any advanced, industrial state. As necessary as the road network or the national grid, providing the bedrock of local identity via stability and affordability of tenure. And requiring the same degree of investment and maintenance, not the open-season sabotage of the last twenty years.
As much as anything, it once offered genuine 'Choice' (remember that one?) of housing lifestyle. Those more interested in living their lives than chasing a mortgage, and who saw the buildings they lived in as homes, not machines for investment, were able to form strong links within their neighbourhoods, and the longer they stayed, the deeper the store of local knowledge and experience became. When responsibly managed the result is a strong community with all the benefits, all of which result in lower costs for other social services.
The teenager minister for housing Grant Schapps is claiming with some pride that the rolling bi-ennial wave of evictions, combined with a punitive increase in rents will pay to build more new social housing, which he says he believes is necessary. This is the biggest lie of all. If the New Poor law Amendment Act delivers any revenue at all, which is doubtful, it will immediately find its way into the pockets of grateful cowboy speculators, who will bang up their usual tacky boxes, and vanish overnight. The only real benefit to the government will be as another bulwark against local action and organisation. It is another shackle to genuine progress.
The Whig Poor Law Amendment Act Of 1834 decreed that external relief for the poor was to be stopped within two years, leaving them with the choice of the workhouse or starvation. No able-bodied person was to receive money or any other help from the poor law authorities except in a workhouse. The legislation was designed to root out the "undeserving poor".
Some things never change. The act, passed by a combination of the predecessors of the Liberal Party and the Tories of the day, had exactly the same contempt for those who had no property, and was just as fearful of them.
The other effect of the 1834 act was to create a huge interventionist state machine to imprison or evict the 'undeserving poor' and safeguard its political dogma. The same thing will happen this time. As Cameron should have grasped from his holiday reading ('The Spirit Level', Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett) enforcing inequality always creates a bigger state.
The default slogan of the Condems now appears to be 'You've Never Had it So Good', whether sanctioned by Number 10 or not. Which in a government is always a sure sign of being divorced form reality. It was predictable in the latter days of the Eden/Macmillan tory reign, and even excusable. But barely six months into a new administration must be some kind of record.
On our decrepit little South London estate in the late 70's there used to be 2 accountants, a doctor, 2 architects and even an executive from a city pensions fund. Along with various graduates in a range of scientific and clerical jobs, including one very well-paid person at the Home Office. As well as a range of plumbers, electricians, chippies and other tradesmen.
In general, people were quite happy not owning their homes. It was so much less worry. And people had more time to spend getting to know their neighbours and working with them to make all their lives better.
That community is now a wasteland of strangers thanks to the wonder of the property ladder. Furthermore, our collective efforts in renovating and managing the block have made it so desirable to the property market that our reward will be excessive market-led rent increases, and the danger to or tenancies from the new housing benefit limit of £400. So the message is obviously 'Only Suckers Make An Effort'.
The other effect of the 1834 act was to create a huge interventionist state machine to imprison or evict the 'undeserving poor' and safeguard its political dogma. The same thing will happen this time. As Cameron should have grasped from his holiday reading ('The Spirit Level', Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett) enforcing inequality always creates a bigger state.
The default slogan of the Condems now appears to be 'You've Never Had it So Good', whether sanctioned by Number 10 or not. Which in a government is always a sure sign of being divorced form reality. It was predictable in the latter days of the Eden/Macmillan tory reign, and even excusable. But barely six months into a new administration must be some kind of record.
On our decrepit little South London estate in the late 70's there used to be 2 accountants, a doctor, 2 architects and even an executive from a city pensions fund. Along with various graduates in a range of scientific and clerical jobs, including one very well-paid person at the Home Office. As well as a range of plumbers, electricians, chippies and other tradesmen.
In general, people were quite happy not owning their homes. It was so much less worry. And people had more time to spend getting to know their neighbours and working with them to make all their lives better.
That community is now a wasteland of strangers thanks to the wonder of the property ladder. Furthermore, our collective efforts in renovating and managing the block have made it so desirable to the property market that our reward will be excessive market-led rent increases, and the danger to or tenancies from the new housing benefit limit of £400. So the message is obviously 'Only Suckers Make An Effort'.
11/15/2010
Deficit Happiness
A month ago it was 'Fairness'. November's 'Virtue of the Month' sees the Idiot Cameron trying to find out what Happiness is, in order to 'measure' it.
Garbage. The object of society is not happiness. Happiness is just a bi-product of people working together and trusting each other, not trying to trample all over each other in pursuit of ever-receding material security and job-supremacy.
The reason so many people are unhappy to the point of mental illness is because our society is gladiatorially sick. Less a case of 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' than Everyone is My Enemy.
People can never be happy with that deal. The millions of dead we just remembered on scraps of red paper did not die to make us all blissfully happy and content, they died, if anything, to bring us together. In the name of human brotherhood, not the Rat Race. Happiness is the result of the endorphins and dopamine released when we are most in communion with our innate Human natures. When we are in a state of natural empathy with other people. When we don't see them as threats or obstacles to our security and advancement.
As Orwell puts it (best):
'It Burns! It Burns!
Apologists for the destruction of the welfare state often point to Sweden, with its legendary high social provision and high suicide rates. The link is obvious. People who do not have to fight each other to survive kill themselves from boredom or frustration of some primeval, undeniable instinct. In fact, the high Swedish suicide rate is a total myth. But even if it weren't, there is a very reasonable explanation of why a 'happy' society might have the highest suicide rate. If people reach old age and feel they have fulfilled their lives, why wouldn't they feel, like Hancock in The Blood Donor, that they 'could go tomorrow.'?
The real Hancock had all the money anyone could spend, but was intensely frustrated, and ended it all because it could only get worse. People who think they have fulfilled their lives might end them for exactly the same reason.
In Twain's words:
If he is not sincere, then he is just another Tony Blair and should not be stoned to death, but should be laughed out of office.
The likely truth is that he is just a moron who hasn't got the faintest idea what society is, how it works, or who it's for.
Garbage. The object of society is not happiness. Happiness is just a bi-product of people working together and trusting each other, not trying to trample all over each other in pursuit of ever-receding material security and job-supremacy.
The reason so many people are unhappy to the point of mental illness is because our society is gladiatorially sick. Less a case of 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' than Everyone is My Enemy.
People can never be happy with that deal. The millions of dead we just remembered on scraps of red paper did not die to make us all blissfully happy and content, they died, if anything, to bring us together. In the name of human brotherhood, not the Rat Race. Happiness is the result of the endorphins and dopamine released when we are most in communion with our innate Human natures. When we are in a state of natural empathy with other people. When we don't see them as threats or obstacles to our security and advancement.
As Orwell puts it (best):
I suggest that the real objective of Socialism is not happiness. Happiness hitherto has been a by-product, and for all we know it may always remain so. The real objective of Socialism is human brotherhood. This is widely felt to be the case, though it is not usually said, or not said loudly enough. Men use up their lives in heart-breaking political struggles, or get themselves killed in civil wars, or tortured in the secret prisons of the Gestapo, not in order to establish some central-heated, air-conditioned, strip-lighted Paradise, but because they want a world in which human beings love one another instead of swindling and murdering one another. And they want that world as a first step. Where they go from there is not so certain, and the attempt to foresee it in detail merely confuses the issue.But what are the chances of Cameron even being able to read the words of a committed socialist without retching with pain?
'It Burns! It Burns!
Apologists for the destruction of the welfare state often point to Sweden, with its legendary high social provision and high suicide rates. The link is obvious. People who do not have to fight each other to survive kill themselves from boredom or frustration of some primeval, undeniable instinct. In fact, the high Swedish suicide rate is a total myth. But even if it weren't, there is a very reasonable explanation of why a 'happy' society might have the highest suicide rate. If people reach old age and feel they have fulfilled their lives, why wouldn't they feel, like Hancock in The Blood Donor, that they 'could go tomorrow.'?
The real Hancock had all the money anyone could spend, but was intensely frustrated, and ended it all because it could only get worse. People who think they have fulfilled their lives might end them for exactly the same reason.
In Twain's words:
"The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time."Red Dave Cameron has a real problem. If he is sincere in his belief that happiness is more important than prosperity, then he will have to abandon competition as the prime mover of the economy and put the brakes on Consumerism and ditch the entire tory dogma of total competition. In effect, he will have say goodbye to the Rat Race theory of society and surrender to socialism in one form or another.
If he is not sincere, then he is just another Tony Blair and should not be stoned to death, but should be laughed out of office.
The likely truth is that he is just a moron who hasn't got the faintest idea what society is, how it works, or who it's for.
Deficit Democracy
By cutting the number of MP's by 50, The Electoral Reform Bill will cut the amount of democracy per voter at a time when the electorate is better informed and more vocal than ever, and when they are about to suffer the worst attack on their communities since the Blitz. There should be twice as many MPs, not 50 fewer.
The twin effects of this de-democratisation will be to make the government seem like they are saving money, when in fact it will cost huge amounts; and to vastly increase the workloads of MP surgeries when people are being evicted because their street has become interesting to the property speculators, or their streets are overrun with gangs of unemployed youths raging against anything to hand in Cameron's wonderful Bog Society. It will also be the biggest act of sheer Gerrymandering on the British mainland since the achievement of Universal Suffrage, making Lady Porter's shenanigans in Westminster look like a rehearsal.The depressing, ridiculous public attitude at the moment is that All MPs Are Bastards. So speaks the voice of well-engineered apathy. In a Britain which boasts one of the highest rate of online social networking in the world we still retain a quota of MPs which is more a result of the C19th rail network than the demands of democracy. More MPs - more representation. Cameron thinks we have too much democracy. And is exploiting knee-jerk reactions to the Expenses Scandal to impose his social vandalism on us all.
Each British MP now has to deal with far more constituents than ever before. That means we should have more of them, not fewer. We deserve as much representation as it takes, and at the moment, MPs are far too important because they are so rare. And we certainly don't need to follow the US further into the Land of Millionaire politicians.
And if there were enough MPs to cope with the burden of the people's everyday needs, politics might not be in the quagmire it is now. Making parliament even more of an elite will cause far more problems than it solves. And the only problem it will solve is a PR job for the Condems.
11/11/2010
By Moral Force If We May. By Physical Force If We Must.
The broken windows at Millbank Towers on yesterday's demonstration by students against the government's policy on tuition fees has triggered the usual dreary monotone of deadness from the usual media poltroons, and calls for 'clampdowns' on future protests, which are now seen as a universal threat to public order, which they will be. See any protest in the last 200 years for identical defeatist quotes. The calls for clampdowns will be counter-productive. The more they crack down, the more violence there will be. If the Condems wanted nice protest, they should have made nice cuts. In other words, they deserve everything they get because they are the cause of it.
One particular snide-issue is the accusation that these demonstrations are expressions of pure self-interest, and not to be mentioned in the same breath as the campaigns of the 60's against Vietnam or Apartheid. That 'it is all about money'. This is the attitude of those who only see life in terns of money, and is therefore irrelevant. But the points it misses therefore need airing.
The student campaign is not just about the Sword of Damocles of tuition fees. It is essentially about the nature of education itself, and therefore the kind of society we want. The bureaucrats and Gradgrinds want a future of obedient cannon-fodder to carry on fighting the war of Consumerism, whatever the cost. An education system churning out little turtles every three years to carry the next generation of turtles on their backs for all eternity.
Turtles all the way.
While a growing number of students refuse to see why they should not be granted the same mental freedom as the generation which demonstrated against Vietnam and Apartheid. A generation which knew full well that those crimes were all about money.
This is a moral argument. And in spite of a few broken windows yesterday, the government does not hold the high ground. And many will be encouraged by yesterday's scenes. So there will be more demonstrations of anger, and more violence. And while the students alone are no Chartists or Suffragettes, together with the many other blameless victims of free-market madness they constitute a coherent single case against the atomisation of society and community, and for progressive change. And so the Chartist position is a perfectly valid one to adopt, as it is for all opposition to the excesses or idiocies of government.
Turtles all the way.
While a growing number of students refuse to see why they should not be granted the same mental freedom as the generation which demonstrated against Vietnam and Apartheid. A generation which knew full well that those crimes were all about money.
This is a moral argument. And in spite of a few broken windows yesterday, the government does not hold the high ground. And many will be encouraged by yesterday's scenes. So there will be more demonstrations of anger, and more violence. And while the students alone are no Chartists or Suffragettes, together with the many other blameless victims of free-market madness they constitute a coherent single case against the atomisation of society and community, and for progressive change. And so the Chartist position is a perfectly valid one to adopt, as it is for all opposition to the excesses or idiocies of government.
'By moral force if we may. By physical force if we must.'
11/07/2010
ActionFutureWorkPlan People 1993
Ian Duncan Smith's American welfare reforms will certainly mean that more unemployed are created than "experience the workplace environment" as the Department for Work and Pensions puts it. So there will be many more to chain to the work-gang, and more pressure on workers to surrender to management demands, whatever they might be.
Sometime in the early 90's I was unemployed for over six months, along with millions of others. The government of the time benevolently decided to help us by delivering us into the hands of ActionFutureWorkPlan, a right bunch of contractors paid a lot of taxpayers money to make the unemployed go away. I wrote this at the time. I've corrected most of the spelling.
DAY 1
“Right” said Annette, our Actionfutureworkplan leader. “What are your hobbies? What do you really like to do?” It was 10 o’clock on the first morning of the Actionfutureworkplanweek and already we knew our names. Now we were going to find out what we enjoyed. At this rate we’d all be brain surgeons by Thursday. This week wasn’t going to be quite as strenuous as I’d feared. Nobody resented the question, they merely resented being there. “Let’s get one thing clear,” Annette had said earlier, “you’re all here voluntarily. Yes? You all had a choice.” ...“Yeah, Hobson’s Choice” someone said. The truth was that we’d all been told ‘Be there or lose your benefit.’ Annette passed round a form. It told her our skills, where we used them, and any experience which would help us get work. We talked about the ‘Hurdles and Barriers’ to getting work. We talked about the pluses and minuses of being out of work and in work. All of us had been out of work for more than a year, most for longer, some much longer. In the middle of a fractured discussion about age discrimination, we discovered that the average age of the group was about 35. Two people were under 30. There were 12 men and 3 women.
The discussion rambled from one point to another. As a chairperson, Annette was not a great success. After 20 minutes talking about motivation and how to hold the attention of a potential employer she was losing our attention and we were more discouraged than ever. Conversations were breaking out on every table corner. While she was stressing the importance of training I realised that she had no training in how to run a group discussion. It was obvious to everyone. In the tea break, the large handsome Jamaican said “I’ve got a terrific idea. Instead of looking for work again, let’s never look for work again.” After one morning of the Actionfutureworkplan we all knew what he meant.
DAY 2
This, according to Annette, was our ‘Digdeepday.’ There was a silent groan, something I had never come across before. We started to examine our hopes and aspirations. Among the group were an ex-lorry driver, an ex-forestry worker who couldn’t speak English and had to be informed what an aspiration was, an ex-secretary, an ex-shelf-filler, and an ex-labourer. All 35 or over, and all of whom had taken twenty minutes to fill in a simple form. This was therefore the most depressing part of the week. Asking someone in that situation about their ‘aspirations’ became tantamount to saying 'Your life is absolutely meaningless and pathetic.' Some simply didn’t know what they wanted to do, and were being forced to say so in open court. They just wanted a job. In fact, they didn't want anything, they just didn't want to be un-employed. The double negative at the heart of capitalism.
It was not a pretty sight. And when the ex-businessman (greatest fault “too trusting”) made his contribution: “Some people just want to sit on their arses in front of the telly. They don’t deserve help” it took a swift change of tack to avoid real trouble. Maybe we’d dug a little too deep. Annette decided we could take an early lunch.
Babylon Sandwich
Lunch, promptly dubbed the 'Babylon Sandwich', was never the highlight of the day. It wasn’t Spam, but ten years ago it would have been. Processed White and cheese or soggy lettuce or ‘seafood’ which tasted like
Margate beach only pink. Afterwards we roamed the lovely streets of North-Nunhead for an hour and a half and smoked. So this was what work was like. We could get used to this. In fact we were used to this. It was no different to being unemployed for a year - and all in one week. The afternoon brought us Ron from the Quick Hands Agency, who organise ‘training courses designed to provide skills tailored to the demands of today’s high-tech marketplace.’
These turned out to be: a two day first aid course, two weeks of Child Care and Baby Maintenance, and How to be a Security Guard. So we could learn how to change nappies and wear a shiny hat with confidence. There was general disgust and outrage. Our faith in the Actionfutureworkplan was completely dead. Every day after lunch, Annette’s sidekick Beverly would take over. If anything, she was even less accomplished than Annette. In fact, after the farce of Tuesday afternoon, the ‘course’ had run out of steam. “What do you want to do tomorrow?” Beverly had asked. Out of the embarrassed silence came the noise: “Mumble mumble. Interviews? Mumble.” So interviews it was.
Day 3
Beverly entered with a video cassette. “Anyone know how to work this thing?”. The woman did not know how to operate a VHS. Two people simply got up and left the room. The Smart Alec Troublemaker confronted her with the inconsistency of her not being able to show us a training video because she wasn’t trained to operate a VHS. “Not me. It’s not my job. No way.” Mere disillusionment was rapidly turning to mass incredulity.
With professional supervision and direction, and a lot of editing, the video could probably have been of some use. But there was none. We drifted in and out, discussed hot lottery numbers, and made cups of institutional tea. One or two did ‘heads on desks’, which brought back memories.
Hobson' Choice
Things got more bizarre. Nimbly evading the pros and cons of successful interview technique, someone suggested we “Do a building society. HO-HO.” We plotted the heist in some detail for the next half hour, with Beverly leading the discussion. “But what about the security cameras? Aren’t they connected to the police station?” got pitying looks from around the room. This woman obviously knew nothing. It finally dawned on her that this particular small business idea was not exactly within her brief, and she ended the heist plan and the day with her favourite line: “What do you want to do tomorrow?” The trouble was, someone had an idea. “I’ve got a video.” he said. “It’s sort of about how to set up in business..... It’s a movie.... By the guy that did ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’....'Hobson’s Choice’.” The joke was completely lost on Beverly, but not on the group, who laughed like drains. But it wasn’t a joke. We watched it the next day, complete with Charles Laughton, John Mills and “Ee by gum!” - without any guidance, preamble or review, naturally - but at least it was a recognisable way of passing the time. In fact, it did prompt a detailed discussion about ‘capital’, and there was some pun fun on the virtues of boot sales. It was a start, but it had come too late. During one of these supervision-free afternoons we speculated about the future.
“We’re surrounded by supermarkets. In six months we’ll all be stacking shelves. And not for pay - for benefit.” This was frightening to hear, even if it was bollocks.
“Nah, how they going to do that? They can’t make you.”
“They made you come here didn’t they?”
“No-one takes away my money. They do that they gonna have big trouble. We torch that Job Centre to ashes. They can put me inside. When I come out I’ll be a hero.”
That may have been bollocks too, but it was bollocks born out of bitter resentment and frustration. This was someone with nothing to lose: for whom prison was no deterrent because liberty was no better. At least it was someone who had discovered what they’d ‘really like to do’.
DAY 4
And so the farcical week dragged on. Running the gamut from insulting to bizarre. To be fair, some did benefit from the week. Dave the lorry driver got a job driving a van. Marcos the ex-plasterer was last seen grimly swapping notes about his driving licence points in preparation for an interview for driving a bus. But these were the result of the fabled ‘one-to-one’ sessions with Annette, and could have been provided six months earlier by the Job Centre. During my ‘one-to-one’ it became obvious that no-one in the building had the first idea about operating a computer, and I offered my help with the basics. “Thanks, but no thanks.” said Annette, touching my knee. What did she mean? I escaped flattered but confused.
I returned un-helped to the main room, into the middle of a discussion about prospects. Someone was loudly stressing the importance of “not seeing the world through rose-coloured scepticals.” It seemed the perfect strategy to me.
Sometime in the early 90's I was unemployed for over six months, along with millions of others. The government of the time benevolently decided to help us by delivering us into the hands of ActionFutureWorkPlan, a right bunch of contractors paid a lot of taxpayers money to make the unemployed go away. I wrote this at the time. I've corrected most of the spelling.
DAY 1
“Right” said Annette, our Actionfutureworkplan leader. “What are your hobbies? What do you really like to do?” It was 10 o’clock on the first morning of the Actionfutureworkplanweek and already we knew our names. Now we were going to find out what we enjoyed. At this rate we’d all be brain surgeons by Thursday. This week wasn’t going to be quite as strenuous as I’d feared. Nobody resented the question, they merely resented being there. “Let’s get one thing clear,” Annette had said earlier, “you’re all here voluntarily. Yes? You all had a choice.” ...“Yeah, Hobson’s Choice” someone said. The truth was that we’d all been told ‘Be there or lose your benefit.’ Annette passed round a form. It told her our skills, where we used them, and any experience which would help us get work. We talked about the ‘Hurdles and Barriers’ to getting work. We talked about the pluses and minuses of being out of work and in work. All of us had been out of work for more than a year, most for longer, some much longer. In the middle of a fractured discussion about age discrimination, we discovered that the average age of the group was about 35. Two people were under 30. There were 12 men and 3 women.
The discussion rambled from one point to another. As a chairperson, Annette was not a great success. After 20 minutes talking about motivation and how to hold the attention of a potential employer she was losing our attention and we were more discouraged than ever. Conversations were breaking out on every table corner. While she was stressing the importance of training I realised that she had no training in how to run a group discussion. It was obvious to everyone. In the tea break, the large handsome Jamaican said “I’ve got a terrific idea. Instead of looking for work again, let’s never look for work again.” After one morning of the Actionfutureworkplan we all knew what he meant.
DAY 2
This, according to Annette, was our ‘Digdeepday.’ There was a silent groan, something I had never come across before. We started to examine our hopes and aspirations. Among the group were an ex-lorry driver, an ex-forestry worker who couldn’t speak English and had to be informed what an aspiration was, an ex-secretary, an ex-shelf-filler, and an ex-labourer. All 35 or over, and all of whom had taken twenty minutes to fill in a simple form. This was therefore the most depressing part of the week. Asking someone in that situation about their ‘aspirations’ became tantamount to saying 'Your life is absolutely meaningless and pathetic.' Some simply didn’t know what they wanted to do, and were being forced to say so in open court. They just wanted a job. In fact, they didn't want anything, they just didn't want to be un-employed. The double negative at the heart of capitalism.
It was not a pretty sight. And when the ex-businessman (greatest fault “too trusting”) made his contribution: “Some people just want to sit on their arses in front of the telly. They don’t deserve help” it took a swift change of tack to avoid real trouble. Maybe we’d dug a little too deep. Annette decided we could take an early lunch.
Babylon Sandwich
Lunch, promptly dubbed the 'Babylon Sandwich', was never the highlight of the day. It wasn’t Spam, but ten years ago it would have been. Processed White and cheese or soggy lettuce or ‘seafood’ which tasted like
Margate beach only pink. Afterwards we roamed the lovely streets of North-Nunhead for an hour and a half and smoked. So this was what work was like. We could get used to this. In fact we were used to this. It was no different to being unemployed for a year - and all in one week. The afternoon brought us Ron from the Quick Hands Agency, who organise ‘training courses designed to provide skills tailored to the demands of today’s high-tech marketplace.’
These turned out to be: a two day first aid course, two weeks of Child Care and Baby Maintenance, and How to be a Security Guard. So we could learn how to change nappies and wear a shiny hat with confidence. There was general disgust and outrage. Our faith in the Actionfutureworkplan was completely dead. Every day after lunch, Annette’s sidekick Beverly would take over. If anything, she was even less accomplished than Annette. In fact, after the farce of Tuesday afternoon, the ‘course’ had run out of steam. “What do you want to do tomorrow?” Beverly had asked. Out of the embarrassed silence came the noise: “Mumble mumble. Interviews? Mumble.” So interviews it was.
Day 3
Beverly entered with a video cassette. “Anyone know how to work this thing?”. The woman did not know how to operate a VHS. Two people simply got up and left the room. The Smart Alec Troublemaker confronted her with the inconsistency of her not being able to show us a training video because she wasn’t trained to operate a VHS. “Not me. It’s not my job. No way.” Mere disillusionment was rapidly turning to mass incredulity.
With professional supervision and direction, and a lot of editing, the video could probably have been of some use. But there was none. We drifted in and out, discussed hot lottery numbers, and made cups of institutional tea. One or two did ‘heads on desks’, which brought back memories.
Hobson' Choice
Things got more bizarre. Nimbly evading the pros and cons of successful interview technique, someone suggested we “Do a building society. HO-HO.” We plotted the heist in some detail for the next half hour, with Beverly leading the discussion. “But what about the security cameras? Aren’t they connected to the police station?” got pitying looks from around the room. This woman obviously knew nothing. It finally dawned on her that this particular small business idea was not exactly within her brief, and she ended the heist plan and the day with her favourite line: “What do you want to do tomorrow?” The trouble was, someone had an idea. “I’ve got a video.” he said. “It’s sort of about how to set up in business..... It’s a movie.... By the guy that did ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’....'Hobson’s Choice’.” The joke was completely lost on Beverly, but not on the group, who laughed like drains. But it wasn’t a joke. We watched it the next day, complete with Charles Laughton, John Mills and “Ee by gum!” - without any guidance, preamble or review, naturally - but at least it was a recognisable way of passing the time. In fact, it did prompt a detailed discussion about ‘capital’, and there was some pun fun on the virtues of boot sales. It was a start, but it had come too late. During one of these supervision-free afternoons we speculated about the future.
“We’re surrounded by supermarkets. In six months we’ll all be stacking shelves. And not for pay - for benefit.” This was frightening to hear, even if it was bollocks.
“Nah, how they going to do that? They can’t make you.”
“They made you come here didn’t they?”
“No-one takes away my money. They do that they gonna have big trouble. We torch that Job Centre to ashes. They can put me inside. When I come out I’ll be a hero.”
That may have been bollocks too, but it was bollocks born out of bitter resentment and frustration. This was someone with nothing to lose: for whom prison was no deterrent because liberty was no better. At least it was someone who had discovered what they’d ‘really like to do’.
DAY 4
And so the farcical week dragged on. Running the gamut from insulting to bizarre. To be fair, some did benefit from the week. Dave the lorry driver got a job driving a van. Marcos the ex-plasterer was last seen grimly swapping notes about his driving licence points in preparation for an interview for driving a bus. But these were the result of the fabled ‘one-to-one’ sessions with Annette, and could have been provided six months earlier by the Job Centre. During my ‘one-to-one’ it became obvious that no-one in the building had the first idea about operating a computer, and I offered my help with the basics. “Thanks, but no thanks.” said Annette, touching my knee. What did she mean? I escaped flattered but confused.
I returned un-helped to the main room, into the middle of a discussion about prospects. Someone was loudly stressing the importance of “not seeing the world through rose-coloured scepticals.” It seemed the perfect strategy to me.
__________
This was a story from the Major administration. Spiteful and stupid though they were, they never stooped to the depths of Cameron and Clegg. And so escaped major collective punishment - more by luck and sleaze than any humanity. The Condem Alliance has learned neither honesty nor humanity. What hope for them when the British people get teachy?
10/30/2010
Jokes Aren't Funny
The interesting thing about recent BBC Deficit Sitcoms is that they show us how the ordinary is funny, not just jokes. Jokes aren't funny, people are. And not cartoon stereotypes, but characters as real as comedy will allow, and often more so, which is why they have been able to attract such high-grade acting talent. Roger and Val, Getting On, Grandma's House, all comedies in the original, All's Well That Ends Well sense. Not farces where clowns fall through open doors ('Play it cool, Trigger.') And all condemned in green ink as Simply Not Funny on BBC messageboards, often by the same people who complain about soundtracks and incorrect costume uniforms. People who, apparently, only laugh when someone is paid to make them laugh using a recognisable mechanism for laughter. A gag. A pre-packaged, mass-produced, easily digestible portion of junk-comedy. A formula.
Maybe it's the time. Maybe we're a bit less susceptible to escapism that our grandparents generation, at least where comedy is concerned. Today's comedy writers don't seem willing or able to roll out the sitcom equivalent of the deplorable X-Factor or Strictly Come Dancing. Good for them. By not being put in harness they prove that the shift away from the Mother-in-Law Gag-World is permanent, and that creativity is not merely a means of avoiding the world, but of confronting it. But most of all they produce work which is both interesting and funny, and which isn't afraid of playing unorthodox emotional chords in the sitcom sonata. Of introducing genuinely dark themes, then puncturing, or inverting them with comedy.
Roger and Val's bereavement would have been comedy poison ten years ago. And no American producer would still allow anyone with such a pitch into the building. And so they would have missed this incredibly delicate balancing act between tragedy and hilarity.
If only jokes are funny, we have lost our sense of humour, and part of our humanity with it. Like someone only able to eat liquified Astro-food through a tube.
X+Y = Bathos+laughter
situation
In fact, most laughter in life is about life. The little things. Comedians didn't invent laughter, as they will be the first to admit. So why should comedy rely on jokes? Especially situation comedy as merciless and true as 'Getting On'.Maybe it's the time. Maybe we're a bit less susceptible to escapism that our grandparents generation, at least where comedy is concerned. Today's comedy writers don't seem willing or able to roll out the sitcom equivalent of the deplorable X-Factor or Strictly Come Dancing. Good for them. By not being put in harness they prove that the shift away from the Mother-in-Law Gag-World is permanent, and that creativity is not merely a means of avoiding the world, but of confronting it. But most of all they produce work which is both interesting and funny, and which isn't afraid of playing unorthodox emotional chords in the sitcom sonata. Of introducing genuinely dark themes, then puncturing, or inverting them with comedy.
Roger and Val's bereavement would have been comedy poison ten years ago. And no American producer would still allow anyone with such a pitch into the building. And so they would have missed this incredibly delicate balancing act between tragedy and hilarity.
If only jokes are funny, we have lost our sense of humour, and part of our humanity with it. Like someone only able to eat liquified Astro-food through a tube.
10/19/2010
Condem Wrecking Ball. 50% Cut In Social Housing
To slash the housing budget by half is pure sabotage, and the machine was a wreck to begin with. This will push many people over the edge, and there are too many of them, with too much to lose, for it not to make a political difference.
Whether this is a cut too far on the scale of the polltax only time will tell, but every cut so far has done one thing - further removed the incentive for people to work harder, and pushed the recovery back further. The increasing number of people on the borderlines of benefit will ensure that they end up on the entitlement side. The response will be to tighten the noose even more by reducing the thresholds, and see who calls Uncle first. But it is a huge gamble by the government, which they don't even realise they are taking. They are under the happy delusion that they are being prudent, when in fact they are pissing the future up the wall.
The cuts attack two classes of people, those with too much to lose from them, and those who couldn't fall much further. Normally, these two groups chug along, grumbling a bit, but playing by the rules. But at times like this, and the PollTax, they coalesce into one 'Fuck-You' class, composed of a wide cross section from the Grantham Women's Institute to anarchist squatters from Hackney. And then the government is always in serious trouble.
The Condem nightmare vision for social housing will probably be the tipping point. Housing estates are to be turned into something more like Benefit Transit Camps than communities. Everyone will be assessed on arrival, and directed to the left, or the right. One queue is evicted and sent to the building society to sign their life away for a Barratt slumhouse, the other to the Municipal Blackleg Labour Pool, to 'volunteer' to destroy the wage of another worker, who will then join them on the chain-gang. And the massive sink estates created by this process will be constantly repopulated, making any meaningful solidarity impossible. Anything to break Britain even more than Cameron claims it is already. By tieing housing benefits and council rents to the market rent is creating an apartheid of the market, with Affordable Townships for the service classes. The cleaners at Canary Wharf will now have to travel in from Luton and Southend for their minimum wage. They might as well just camp on the plaza outside and go home at weekends. Immigrants in their own country.
There is a lot of nonsense being spoken about the rights of poor (nasty) people to live in nice (expensive) areas. What this idiocy fails to recognise is that places are not made 'nice' by the salaries of the people who live there but by their ability to create a communiity. And in general, those who earn most are the least able to relate to their fellow human beings, and more likely to be the death of any community. This has certainly been the reality of the Right to Buy sabotage.
The idea that the unemployed of Merthyr Tydfil can just up sticks and move to Cardiff is especially absurd. But it gets even more sensible, since the Over-Subsidised claimants of Cardiff are to be evicted by the new market-driven rents and benefits to Merthyr. The result will be a grotesque merry-go-round of the unemployed and homeless, all chasing their own tails.
It seems that by making people rush about pointlessly and endlessly, IDS hopes to create the economic recovery. Like a sort of Rain-Dance.
Whether this is a cut too far on the scale of the polltax only time will tell, but every cut so far has done one thing - further removed the incentive for people to work harder, and pushed the recovery back further. The increasing number of people on the borderlines of benefit will ensure that they end up on the entitlement side. The response will be to tighten the noose even more by reducing the thresholds, and see who calls Uncle first. But it is a huge gamble by the government, which they don't even realise they are taking. They are under the happy delusion that they are being prudent, when in fact they are pissing the future up the wall.
The cuts attack two classes of people, those with too much to lose from them, and those who couldn't fall much further. Normally, these two groups chug along, grumbling a bit, but playing by the rules. But at times like this, and the PollTax, they coalesce into one 'Fuck-You' class, composed of a wide cross section from the Grantham Women's Institute to anarchist squatters from Hackney. And then the government is always in serious trouble.
The Condem nightmare vision for social housing will probably be the tipping point. Housing estates are to be turned into something more like Benefit Transit Camps than communities. Everyone will be assessed on arrival, and directed to the left, or the right. One queue is evicted and sent to the building society to sign their life away for a Barratt slumhouse, the other to the Municipal Blackleg Labour Pool, to 'volunteer' to destroy the wage of another worker, who will then join them on the chain-gang. And the massive sink estates created by this process will be constantly repopulated, making any meaningful solidarity impossible. Anything to break Britain even more than Cameron claims it is already. By tieing housing benefits and council rents to the market rent is creating an apartheid of the market, with Affordable Townships for the service classes. The cleaners at Canary Wharf will now have to travel in from Luton and Southend for their minimum wage. They might as well just camp on the plaza outside and go home at weekends. Immigrants in their own country.
There is a lot of nonsense being spoken about the rights of poor (nasty) people to live in nice (expensive) areas. What this idiocy fails to recognise is that places are not made 'nice' by the salaries of the people who live there but by their ability to create a communiity. And in general, those who earn most are the least able to relate to their fellow human beings, and more likely to be the death of any community. This has certainly been the reality of the Right to Buy sabotage.
The idea that the unemployed of Merthyr Tydfil can just up sticks and move to Cardiff is especially absurd. But it gets even more sensible, since the Over-Subsidised claimants of Cardiff are to be evicted by the new market-driven rents and benefits to Merthyr. The result will be a grotesque merry-go-round of the unemployed and homeless, all chasing their own tails.
It seems that by making people rush about pointlessly and endlessly, IDS hopes to create the economic recovery. Like a sort of Rain-Dance.
10/04/2010
The Vordeman Benefit
"Ian Duncan Smith will announce that jobseeker's allowance, income support, housing benefit and dozens of other payments will be replaced by one type of universal handout in an attempt to simplify the system and curb fraud."
Says the Daily Mirror. In other words, the ConDem coalition is consolidating all its small benefits into one single, manageable benefit. As croakingly encouraged by celebrity brainbox bimbo Carole Vordeman on behalf of debt management vulture First Plus. So now we have the final dumbing down of Britain, a government reduced to daytime-loser TV political remedies.
The bright idea is to withdraw child benefit from any anyone earning over £44K. So a single parent on £45K loses out, as does the ideal single income nuclear family on the same average wage. But the career-couple with one kid at private school, and a canny accountant to keep their visible incomes below £44K, get to keep the lot. AND the revenue is cheated of the income tax from the massaged incomes. So the saving is far less than the paltry £1B estimated, and all at the expense of those least able to afford it.
On the same conference platform that Boy George showed who he intends to punish for the crimes of the bankers, bigmouth Boris Johnson also sells an enormous political pass. His proposal to shackle the unions even further, and drag society back towards his ideal Romanised state, has turned the Deficit cuts into a human rights issue, all the opposition has to do is intercept Boris's wild, opportunist pass to the extreme right wing, and gallop unopposed over the line.
If the unions and the labour party combined can't accept this gift, they don't deserve to represent the people.
The bright idea is to withdraw child benefit from any anyone earning over £44K. So a single parent on £45K loses out, as does the ideal single income nuclear family on the same average wage. But the career-couple with one kid at private school, and a canny accountant to keep their visible incomes below £44K, get to keep the lot. AND the revenue is cheated of the income tax from the massaged incomes. So the saving is far less than the paltry £1B estimated, and all at the expense of those least able to afford it.
On the same conference platform that Boy George showed who he intends to punish for the crimes of the bankers, bigmouth Boris Johnson also sells an enormous political pass. His proposal to shackle the unions even further, and drag society back towards his ideal Romanised state, has turned the Deficit cuts into a human rights issue, all the opposition has to do is intercept Boris's wild, opportunist pass to the extreme right wing, and gallop unopposed over the line.
If the unions and the labour party combined can't accept this gift, they don't deserve to represent the people.
6/27/2010
Lord of the Ring-Fence Lies
This is a political Black Sunday for the Condems. The real bug-eyed, malformed nocturnal tory reptiles surface through the PR scum on the swamp.
Ian Duncan Smith does a Tebbit, and orders the ethnic cleansing of the unemployed from their communities, and in the process releasing a tide of internal immigration of Northrons to swamp leafy, industrial Roehampton and St Albans. Exactly what's needed to keep the southern workforce on their toes. Where else is he going to get enough aliens to keep people fighting amongst themselves? Without this competition for jobs and homes and services, they might begin to know their own value, and with it their strength, and that would be fatal to Cameron's doctrine of People Power.
Within an hour of Smith, Nigel Lawson admits Tories lied to the electorate on NHS 'Ring-Fencing'. The NHS is to be slashed like everything else. And in an ultra-Stalinist proposal which will see more riots than the SPG, SUS Law, Miners' Strike and the Polltax combined, Tory Ferret-in-Chief, Michael Gove also wants to evict the single and childless from council housing to make room for families.
And all on the day on which England were eliminated from/gloriously triumphed in the World Cup.
Ian Duncan Smith does a Tebbit, and orders the ethnic cleansing of the unemployed from their communities, and in the process releasing a tide of internal immigration of Northrons to swamp leafy, industrial Roehampton and St Albans. Exactly what's needed to keep the southern workforce on their toes. Where else is he going to get enough aliens to keep people fighting amongst themselves? Without this competition for jobs and homes and services, they might begin to know their own value, and with it their strength, and that would be fatal to Cameron's doctrine of People Power.
Within an hour of Smith, Nigel Lawson admits Tories lied to the electorate on NHS 'Ring-Fencing'. The NHS is to be slashed like everything else. And in an ultra-Stalinist proposal which will see more riots than the SPG, SUS Law, Miners' Strike and the Polltax combined, Tory Ferret-in-Chief, Michael Gove also wants to evict the single and childless from council housing to make room for families.
And all on the day on which England were eliminated from/gloriously triumphed in the World Cup.
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