Skipper writes of ex-jailbird Jonathan Aitken

He recalled that, as a young Tory MP, he used to parrot the rightwing tropes like ‘lock ‘em up and throw away the key’ and ‘life should mean life’. Such an approach he now sees as total rubbish. Prison makes only a minimal attempt, he testified, to rehabilitate those whose lives have taken a seriously wrong turn and should be reformed from the top to the bottom.

It seems perhaps ironic that it takes a spell in chokey for a Conservative to realise the emptiness of their attitudes and policies on social policy but one is enthused to suggest that all of his erstwhile colleagues, presently serving in the Commons, should also be consigned to Her Majesty’s prison accommodation for six months to improve their education on how life is led by those at the wrong end of society’s social spectrum.

We should implement Skipper’s suggestion straight away.

There’s been uproar on many of my favourite blogs regarding the governments proposals on getting people back to work.

Minister James Purnell said it would “transform lives” and said public money should not be wasted “on people who are playing the system”. Harpymarx.

You can tell what they’ve got in mind when they begin an article, as the Work and Pensions Secretary did yesterday, by insisting they have to make tough decisions. It means they’re tough enough to cut benefits for the weakest people in the country, because they’re hard. It’s like if Ricky Hatton did an interview at the start of a fight, saying “I’m going to show the world tonight just how tough I am”, then walked into the audience and smashed an old woman in the mouth. Chicken Yoghurt.

However, the BBC’s Nick Robinson sees the proposals differently.

The central proposition in today’s White Paper is that all those who once were simply on benefit will be expected to agree to the goal of entering the world of work. All those, that is, except those classified as severely disabled or parents of babies under one. The system will accept that “the goal” may take many years to reach or may never be reached at all. During that time the benefit claimant will stay on full benefits and will not be forced into community work providing they stick to a plan they agree with an adviser.

The plan may involve receiving counselling for a problem such as drug abuse or being heavily indebted. It may involve training. It will include help with job search such as advice on how to draw up a CV, money for a new suit or the cost of the ticket needed to get to an interview.

Only if someone who was on incapacity benefit doesn’t follow the plan they helped to draw up will they face sanctions. At first, they’ll be given a warning (a kind of benefits yellow card). If that doesn’t work those on ESA (the new name for those on IB deemed fit to prepare for work) will be fined £12 for a first offence, £24 for a second and then forced into compulsory work such as digging an old person’s garden. There will, in other words, be no red card which throws people out of the benefits system altogether nor any American-style time limits for claiming benefits. Source: The BBC.

I’m not to keen on the fines but apart from that, is there anything radically wrong with the proposals or am I missing something?

My first reaction to the Governments proposals to use lie detectors to catch benefit cheats, was rubbish. The proposed Voice Stress Analysis (VSA) system the government intends using doesn,t work. I started to write a post to this effect and then it slipped my mind. However Unity’s post Government Bullshit Risk Detector at the Ministry of Truth has saved me the job.

On of the most damning pieces of evidence Unity cites is a National Institute of Justice field test into detecting drug use amongst arrestees which concludes VSA is no better in determining deception than flipping a coin.

What VSA can do is detect stress; however, people can feel stressed for many different reasons, including getting the third degree from some twat of a council officer about their benefit claim.

Unity has examined the trials and writes.

In piloting this technology it is not enough for the government, Harrow Council or any of the local authorities who’ve been using this technology to simply to assume that every additional claimant who withdrew their claim over and above the number who did so before this system was implemented must automatically have been cheating the system. An assessment of the extent to which it may also act to deprive genuine claimants of benefits to which they are legally entitled should also have been a feature of the pilot but, on what little published information is available, I can find nothing to suggest that this has been the case.

Read the rest of Unity’s post here.

Hat Tip: Chicken Yoghurt.

I don’t know what Cameron’s up to with his latest round of speeches attacking more reckless borrowing and spending, but it warms the cockles of my heart to see the Tories snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

In his blog on the BBC, Nick Robinson sums it up accurately.

The world’s biggest celebrity – the soon-to-be President Obama – also stands for optimism and change.

Up until now, these have been the key elements of David Cameron’s appeal. What is stake in this argument is that positioning.

Now, you may say: I can see how Gordon Brown is trying to position himself as politically and economically in step with Obama.

However, you may cry, surely Mr Brown will never ever be identified with optimism and change?

To which I merely reply that I can’t help noticing that that’s exactly what he is trying to do.

With Obama scheduled to dominate the news agenda in the New Year and due in London in the spring, Gordon Brown’s goal is to prove that although David Cameron may be the young new candidate, he represents old, failed “do nothing” responses to recession.

Brilliant, stuff.