Just a few thoughts on the utter spinelessness of the Labour party, hereafter referred to as the Pink Tories. At what point did they completely swallow the divide-and-conquer bollocks of IDS and the other arsewipes trying to draw a line between benefit claimants and 'hardworking families' - when most of us know that the two overlap? A fair day's work for a fair day's pay used to be their mantra. I guess the unemployed don't count. The thing that pisses me off the most is that workfare is not in any way beneficial to the jobseeker, other than in a small minority of cases where folk genuinely lack any work experience - how does a graduate or someone who has spent 20 years in work possibly gain from being forced to stack shelves for Poundland or Tesco for their £71 a week? Is it really going to go on their cv? The only beneficiaries are the corporations benefiting from the free labour, and the WP contractors like A4E and Ingeus getting paid thousands for each poor sod they shove into workfare. Its all about box ticking so they get paid and sod all to do with helping folk find real jobs - with the handy side effect of punishing people (who have mostly paid in during their working lives through NI) for daring to be out of work. And now we find that Jobcentres have targets for the number of people they have to sanction, i.e. leave to starve.
There must be a better way of weeding out the few who genuinely don't want to work - for a proper wage - or those few who are swinging the lead, than forcing the unemployed and the sick and disabled to jump through hoops. The situation is compounded by the inhumane ATOS assessment process for ESA, forcing the sick and mentally frail on to the Work Programme. It's no wonder there have been suicides and stress related deaths. And to their shame, LABOUR introduced the Work Capability Assessment and awarded the appalling ATOS the contract to administer it, though the rules have been brutally tightened by the ConDems. I joined the Labour Party after the last election, believing that despite their authoritarian tendencies and nannying they were at least on the side of those with the least. I no longer believe that, and have torn up my membership card.
