Punishing the Unemployed

We really do seem to be returning to the thinking of the 19th Century where the Protestant Work Ethic - amongst other thought provoking ideas - basically laid forth the idea that the rich were showing God's approval by being rich and the poor God's disapproval by starving.

Iain Duncan Smith - as reported in today's Observer [click on blog title above to read the article] wants Job Seekers to be penalised for their audacity in previously working for industries/workplaces that can no longer retain their services. So to show them their sins and remind them what it is like to maintain "habits and routines" of working life [quote from the article] the suggestion is that the unemployed will have to undertake "mandatory work activity" of at least 30 hours a week for a four-week period [quote]. Apparently the Department for Work and Pensions is planning to organise this by contracting private providers who will presumably arrange placing the unemployed with charities, voluntary organisations and so forth.

Lots of objections spring to mind and will probably continue even after I have logged off. The sheer audacity of the way that this has been announced with no regard for the feelings of those who are unfortunate enough to be long term unemployed cannot even be described or listed. However these are just a few additional 'objections' that immediately occur:

1. Will the 'volunteers' in any way displace those already employed? Litter gathering and gardening as suggested in an article on the BBC news homepage should already be covered by local workers, for instance

2. Many of these 'volunteer' jobs will require some sort of training. Who pays the trainers or will they also be taken from those naughty, naughty individuals in the ranks of the unemployed?

3. Fares/Expenses: One assumes that in areas where the population of unemployed is in a higher ratio to the employed than others there will be less 'volunteer' jobs to go around. Therefore there will be fares/expenses involved in the logistics of 'matching' individuals and work. This will surely put the benefits bill up?

4. Insurance: These part-time/temporary workers will have to be insured. They may not be permitted to use machinery because training is insufficient and insurance would not cover.

5. At the end of the mandatory work period where are the jobs that our 'volunteers' are now raring to fill? Would I be cynical to suggest that nothing will have changed really? The real winners will be bureaucracy - a lot of forms will have been completed and possibly a few more civil service jobs created? And the private providers that are organising the scheme of course. Oh but wait a minute - wasn't that one of the ConDem pledges to cut down on bureaucracy and the Civil Service? I must have misheard that.

Picture today is of Robert Tressell's grave - author of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. I may have mentioned this book before. Tressell may be spinning in his grave today. I hope not, may he [and the others with him] sleep gently.

My e-reader

I love my e-reader! I first became vaguely interested in buying one when I read a review of the 'appliance' by Andrew Marr in the Gruniad about 18 months ago. Then last year when my neuro probs seemed to be escalating and reading could at times be stressful, although my computer use didn't seem to get so compromised so quickly I thought about buying one and after seeing one 'in the flesh' decided to make the leap and part with the pennies!

It has helped a lot and reading so much 19thC literature I can download so much from free sites on the net. Just now I downloaded something one of my face to face reading groups is doing in September, although I have the 'hard copy' it means that I can take this copy along with the other 130 so books on holiday with me in the e-reader and it will take up less space than an average sized paperback.

The other great use is when - like yesterday - I get a copy of a book out that has been sitting on my shelf for a time and find that since the last read the print has shrunk considerably! So I can download the book and get started whilst I am waiting for amazon to deliver a new copy with larger print.... I find that old hardbacks are the worst culprits for shrinking print. Victorian editions especially. Our ancestors must have been a lot more determined than us when reading - especially when considering their poorer lighting!

There are drawbacks, it is not always easy to find something one has read previously and obviously one cannot annotate the text - but it is possible to 'bookmark' pages and if using the reader for study purposes a small notebook would help. When I have been teaching a book I always have two copies of it anyway - one to read and one to teach from which is full of annotations, post it notes and scribbles whose meaning are known only to me! One can save photographs and things , but despite having had the reader for nearly a a year that is a technical leap I have not yet taken, but it would make a lovely compact, portable photograph album!

The only trouble is that when I get onto one of these free sites I am worse than a child in a sweet shop! Books I have always meant to read or know I have and can't find in the house just beg to be downloaded and because it is so easy to do I just have to do it. Last 'I must download it' was 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists', after I had told everyone on the blog that they must read it, I thought it would be a good idea to take it to Somerset with me. Two minutes later there it was in my e-reader, I hadn't even had to look for it in the cupboard to pack [and I do know exactly where that is in my cupboard - right next to the biography of its author Robert Tressel, about a foot from where I am typing this!]

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

Have decided to become dictatorial and recommend summer reading on facebook, twitter, various blogs by other people and here on my own: The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell http://amzn.to/dBjzQD Many 'Old Labour' party members claim it changed their lives/caused them to become Socialists. I worry that the Condem government policies may see a return to many of the problems highlighted in this novel, albeit in a more 'modern' form {OK so we may not have workhouses anymore but some form of state interference may cause pensioners to lose all that they have saved before any State help becomes available}