WHAT IS WRONG WITH GOOD IDEALISM ?

Having just listened to a BBC radio feature about the proposed sell-off of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, I refuse to call it High Speed 1, a preposterous bit of re-branding, I was struck by the fact that no one from any government department would appear to justify the proposal and the only person whose comments and opinions were reported as being of importance was someone from the accountants Ernst and Young. This seemed to neatly encapsulate the complete removal of any motivating philosophy that might still exist in a nominally socialist government. Here we have a useful and fully functioning piece of up to date railway, the one example in this country, as opposed to the hundreds of miles that have been built in France, Germany and Spain in the last twenty years, that was funded by public finance and it is going to be sold off for a fraction of its cost to build and it is left to a representative of a firm of private chartered accountants, who, no doubt will be well rewarded for doing the sums in any such sale, to explain why.

What has happened to the principles that brought Socialism into being ? Would William Morris or John Ruskin recognise any aspect of their philosophy that sought to introduce values other than those of profit into the marketplace in the machinations of this Labour government ? Whenever these two are brought up the first thing said tends to be ’ they were idealists, they were an artist and a philosopher‘.’ But it was surely because they had ideals and were willing to attempt to follow them through that made them strong and, for a time, influential. What is wrong with a bit of idealism ? Especially idealism that was rooted in an attempt to find a way to improve the lot of the many not the few, to try to introduce a fairer distribution of the wealth that was being created and a more principled way of doing business than that which was becoming entrenched in this country in the mid-Nineteenth century.

Visiting the William Morris Museum in Hammersmith I was struck by the fact that it was here in this small coach house and the meetings that were held here that began the Socialist movement. And these ideas, ideals if you like, were not wholly impractical nor highly complicated but sought to restore a link between art and utility, good practice and decent reward, to re-introduce values that did not place monetary value and the maximisation of profit at the very centre of all activity and all social relationships. These, I suggest, are still ideas that, rather than be dismissed as irrelevant or historical, are well worth bringing to the table again or we may as well let accountants run the country, privatise the government and have a Chief Executive and a board like any public limited company.

It is true that Morris was from a wealthy background and could afford to take the risk of trying to put his somewhat utopian ideas into practice. Ruskin, with his unsuccessful tea shop in Marylebone, was certainly a man of ideas and ideals rather than an entrepreneur. But they did try to develop and foster an alternative form of commerce and practice which included a moral, human and even aesthetic dimension, no wonder they were ridiculed by the majority in an England that was and remains deeply utilitarian and conservative to its core.

But were these ideas so wrong ? The products of Morris and his fellow workers certainly found a place in homes of those that could afford them and continue to this day to be appreciated. His wallpaper and paint is still available but his project appears to have got nowhere.

As we emerge from this vile period of celebrity artists and the blurring of advertising and art, the whole Saatchi funded balloon of pomposity, empty gesture, moral equivalence and the dancing charlatans that were promoted by those that basked in their reflected glory, perhaps it is a good time to reflect on what these whiskered and well minded gentlemen were aiming to do. It is easy to dismiss and yet a real political party grew out of Morris’s meetings after he had been inspired by John Ruskin’s writing, as indeed was Ghandi.

Peter Fuller was one lone voice who tried to bring them to the front again in his art criticism and also clearly warned about the coming cult of celebrity and the general cheapening of cultural values. Sadly he died in a car crash in the early 1990’s and the apologists for the vacuity of Brit Art took over championing the latest Philistine nonsense as clever and avant-garde rather than the work of meretricious calculating con-artists and businessmen in an adolescent re-hash of the self-important shock tactics of  Duchamp and his circle.

When Labour came to power in 1997 what started to take place was a blurring of previously more distinct areas of high and low culture, a confusion between the ethnic background of the artist and the merit of the work, an obsession with pop musicians and the disastrous equation of the viceral and ugly with veracity and authenticity.

Notions of quality, of concern with content, with aesthetics, with beauty, with aspiring to anything at all went out of sight. The idea that art could have any redeeming social value almost ceased to have any currency.

While notions of strict boundaries between high, low and, that always derided term middle brow, culture can be overly rigid to simply ditch all distinction and declare that all forms of cultural production are equal is foolish and creates an environment where he who makes the biggest noise and the crudest gestures takes precedence. Artists have, in some cases, become inseparable from pop stars, vulgarity has become ’cool’ , intelligence, sensitivity and subtlety in cultural fields has been greatly undermined. A nadir was reached when Johnathon Ross and Russell Brand used his platform on national radio to abuse for his own amusement a 70 year old actor.

While high brow culture has continued to exist in its own shrinking world, low brow has been elevated and merged into a no-brow mess from which we have still to emerge. I mentioned how middle-brow culture is routinely ridiculed, but I see nothing wrong with something which used to be a sort of stepping stone between low and higher culture and has a certain merit in itself , yet it has been almost crushed out of existence. I suggest that the contempt that it is held in by many commentators is a form of snobbery, it is acceptable to like almost anything but not if its middle-brow. What is it then ? Could not Dickens be seen as middle-brow, for example ? Football has been embraced by the middle-class as it is still seen as low brow yet it is written about and analysed as thoroughly as Proust. Similarly pop or rock groups and a liking for same is usually seen as in some way connecting with a vital low brow force. I disagree. It is very largely the product of and the preserve of the middle class and always has been. The myth of the working class kids producing pop music and it being a rebellious activity is almost completely fictitious.

As with football it is a very good way of distracting people from any meaningful political activity and acts to divide people along partisan lines. Football clubs are businesses first and do not represent the interests of their supporters. When the Thames Ironworks works team started to employ paid professionals and charge to get into the games the employees ceased to be interested, why, after all, should they pay to see a player earning more than they were paid to work in shipbuilding allegedly representing them ? This team became West Ham United.

Both football and pop music are consummate spectacles. They appear to be enlivening and involving, but they in fact confirm individual alienation. They invite you to be part of a mass spectacular operation but to no purpose other than that of the spectacle itself. ‘ And the songs we sing, they’re not supposed to mean a thing’ Morrisey, by the way. Have you ever noticed how when the football is turned on in a pub suddenly 90% of people’s attention ceases to be their fellows but instead becomes this arbitrarily imposed spectacle of paid protagonists acting out a stylised contest on a remote patch of grass ? Its like a general anaesthesia sets in.

Back to Mr Ruskin.

‘Unto This Last‘, by John Ruskin’s was translated into Gujarati as ’Sarvodaya’ which means ’ The Well Being of All.’ That is still some way off, like Jerusalem, but this aim and this ideal, and just how it may be achieved, remains well worthy of being placed at the centre, at the heart of what the Labour Party should be.

REAL LIFE ON THE DOLE : PART 4

My shoes are falling apart. As I have just one pair they get heavy use as I walk a good deal. The problem will be buying a new pair. Someone once said you can tell much about a person from the state of their shoes, mine are a pair of Clarks bought for a reduced price that are now splitting apart, uppers from sole, very much as I am.

Being on the dole is being in a condition of constant anxiety. There is plenty of time but it is often spent in a condition of paralysis brought on by a fear of expending money. All your activities are highly limited, your confidence undermined, your sense of exclusion emphasised. You are constantly aware that you cannot afford anything. Every phone call or letter is dreaded, as it will almost always be a demand for payment. It is a form of social suppression and control by economic means.

To repeat : the current level of benefit given to an adult citizen in this country is totally inadequate. It does not meet the terms of the EC Joint Report on Social Exclusion 2002 to which this Government is a signatory to ‘guarantee an adequate income and resources to live in human dignity…and participate in society as full members.’

To buy a new pair of shoes I will be relying on the possible sale of some LP’s from my record collection. Fortunately some of these have become ’collectable’ but they are a finite number. But is it right that these have to be sold to keep shoes on my feet ?

Like a minimum wage, which was eventually enacted despite the howls of protest from various ’ Captains of industry ’ and the opposition of the Conservative Party, there is a strong case for a basic minimum income below which no citizen should have to live.

In France where the benefit system is considerably more generous, there have been riots in consequence of social exclusion and poverty. A sort of manifesto has been recently published ’The Coming Insurrection’ by The Invisible Committee which provocatively challenges the blindly accepted mantras of work being the only way to take part in society. There never has been nor will there ever be paid work for all I contend, and furthermore the very term is no longer meaningful. What do we mean by work ? The highest paid jobs are the preserve of those who manipulate elaborate financial schemes and do not make anything useful in the real world. Yet there is a continual assumption that ' real jobs ' are created by their machinations. First, that implies that what they do to make money is not real, and indeed it appears to be some black art which is given pseudo-religious reverence. Listen to the solemn intoning of the stock exchange figures at the end of the BBC Radio 4 news every day, as if it underpins all else and has some ultimate almost holy significance.

Second, where are these real jobs that an outfit like Goldman Sachs, who continue to reward themselves obscenely for their unreal jobs, magically created ? Once their extravagant hidden HQ had been built, on the former site of The Daily Telegraph in the late 1980’s, other than ensuring the local Starbucks stays in business can anyone show me how one new ‘real job’ has come about through their arcane practices and fanatical devotion to appropriating enormous amounts of money into their wallets ?

What does the ‘City’ do exactly ? What is it ? It is not a single entity, although always referred to as if it is, it is not an elected Government, why is this thing called ‘The City’ always given such importance ? Share prices and currency exchange values are given at the end of every BBC news bulletin, like a holy incantation. Relative currency and share prices are of interest only to those who make their money from dealing in same, why are they cited as if they underpin society as some underlying given with vital significance for all ?

Even the Corporation, the more tangible organisation that provides the services and facilitates the financial ‘City’ is a very strange animal. No more than a couple of thousand people live in the square mile, not that it is square, nor indeed is a square mile ever used as a unit of area elsewhere, and it takes in a huge amount in business rates with but what does it do ? Granted the streets are the cleanest in London, the sewers in good order, there is the Barbican Centre, where I sit writing this, although for many years the library was only accessible for those who lived or worked in the City. And it doesn’t keep Tribune but it does keep Vogue.

There has always seemed to be a vacuum at the heart of the City of London, no discernable purpose, no guiding principle other than its own material preservation and the maintenance of its power. Its obsessive care of the fabric of its buildings, its boundaries, its bollards, its pavements ( recently all chewing gum was meticulously removed ) is symptomatic of a deep commitment to utilitarianism, a disregard of the society and citizens it is supposed to serve.

It is notable how in Italy, for example, cities have Communales as their local Government, here we have Authorities, and, in the particular case of the City, a Corporation, which is, of course, a term for a business.

Getting back to some facts about how the ridiculously complex and inadequate benefits system operates in this country. If I do earn some money only the first £5.00 is disregarded, anything over that is deducted from your basic benefit. Thus if I was paid £25 for writing this I would be £5 better off. This is how a means tested system operates. It is absurd and encourages non compliance.

Yet there is an incentive deal available for employers called, incredibly, a ‘Self Marketing Voucher.’ This gives an employer £500 if they trail you for a job and a further £500 if you are still there in six months. This bribe goes direct to the employer if they ’ create ’ a job while you continue to try and survive on £64.50 a week while working full time. This is crazy. Why cant that £500 be given to the person who needs it the most : the claimant. £500 seems like a fortune when you are on the dole and if £1000 can be found to give to an employer who does not have to pay you anything and does not have to offer a paid position after six months why cant it be found for the claimant ?

I have been unemployed before, in the early Eighties and the early Nineties, two other periods of deep recession. It was just about possible to manage on the level of benefits in those periods. It is impossible now.

It disturbs me to continually hear the assumptions and accusations that are made about those claiming legitimate benefits. There are millions of unemployed people, the percentage that defraud the system is tiny, the vast majority are trying to exist on £60.40 or less a week. It is remarkable how little complaint is heard in the mainstream media.

It is badly misguided and dangerous for this or a future Conservative Government, and they seem identically minded on this, to tinker with the basic entitlement and make it conditional. It is already at a scandalously low level and completely inadequate. To introduce some form of work for this already inadequate provision and to perhaps remove it from those not prepared to submit to these coercions would be a further step away from the principle of a form of social security. I for one will refuse to work for a benefit that does not come anywhere near the minimum wage.

It is rather a Minimum Income that should be introduced by any progressive and civilised Government.

This gradual undermining of the principle of social security and the avowed aim of social inclusion to which this country is committed at European level will further stress the already fragmented society and add the to the sense of injustice I and many others already feel. It will give more credence to extremism from both Left and Right wing groups and could lead to civil unrest on a considerable scale.

To quote Geoffrey Wheatcroft ’ Blaire did not destroy Socialism, he did destroy two older traditions that had long nourished Labour : the liberal and the radical. I concur, Socialism is an idea, a philosophy it cannot be destroyed.

This has to be the time for these radical traditions to be revived. For the Labour Party to stop doing the Conservative’s work for them and instead introduce a simple, universal minimum income entitlement which would be a very important step toward making this country less unequal, less socially stressed, more fair and more civilised.

Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you

Ye are many , they are few.

The Mask of Anarchy

XCI

P B Shelly

REAL LIFE ON THE DOLE : PART 3

So, a further visit must be made to the JobCentre, for an ‘ interview.’ There are as usual various slightly dangerous looking individuals hanging around the entrance, often with vicious dogs in tow. Some sit on the steps to the entrance, which are in disrepair. It is next to a monstrous 1970’s Arndale Shopping Centre, in fact that is the address. This has security staff, mostly Polish, but outside the JobCentre entrance there are no visible staff, no entrance foyer, you go into a narrow stairwell with a small steel doored lift much like in a block of Council flats.

Up on the 2nd floor is a large open plan area with a security guard near the doors. There is a standing receptionist at a sort of desk where there is always a queue. There are a number of machines which are operated while standing, like at a gambling machine, that have screens to show vacancies. If you request a print out it comes out on a paper roll much like toilet paper.

After the inevitable wait, your name will be called, you have to be careful not to miss this as if you do it is deemed that you have missed your appointment. This can effect you benefit. This is easily done as the seats are a good 6 or 7 metres away from the desks. These interviews are now being done weekly. There is no option but to agree to attend, even if largely pointless, because the threat of withdrawing benefit always hovers in the background. The interviewer will bring up a few jobs that may match your usual occupation, but often they are only distantly related given that there is no specialist knowledge that the person behind the desk has with you or your field. The staff are acting out the role of a recruitment agency while not actually being a recruitment agency. Similarly one is acting out the idea that this is where one goes for a job lead, when in fact you are there to ensure that the miserly benefits are paid. I have never obtained a job through a JobCentre, only through direct applications. There are professional recruitment agencies, but even they only act as middle-men. They are parasitic on the real economy. Its simple, either jobs exist or they don’t. Agencies thrive in good times when recruiters cannot be bothered to recruit direct. In bad times agencies wither away and JobCentres pretending they are recruitment agencies is faintly ridiculous.

When my father died I was claiming benefits. I informed them and had to delay my next signing date. When I went in and made the advisor aware of this she still persisted in asking me what job searching I had done in the preceding week. I explained that this was not what was uppermost in my mind during the weeks leading up to my father’s death and his funeral. This is the degree to which the staff stick to the prevailing absurd rules and fail to treat people with a degree of dignity and as individuals.

The increasing amount of conditionality on the already inadequate level of benefit is further undermining any form of what was termed social security. When people feel insecure they often look for others to blame for their position and, rather than the people who have the power to improve their security and increase their inclusion in the wider society, will pick on other vulnerable groups and individuals. It is quite clear that the rising levels of unemployed combined with inadequate levels of provision produce tensions in societies. These can and do turn into violence against others, often the most recent arrivals in the country. Discord, crime against the individual and less security for all, both the haves and the have-nots is the outcome. This is being seen in the rise of the BNP and at flashpoints such as in Birmingham city centre recently. Why this point has been reached, where the benefit system has been run down operationally and let fall way behind adequate levels of provision during a period of a Labour Government is a tragic falling.

Here I wish to quote Paul Nicholson, the founder of the admirable Zacchaeus 2000 Trust, a rare voice of reason and humanity in this neglected debate.

" There is a naïve belief in Whitehall that coercion by destitution works. Nevertheless hungry people and others with no prospects of work or no right to work do not jump the way intended. So the prisons and the hospitals fill up with poverty related crime and ill health. The tax payer’s money would be better spent housing and feeding the destitute and observing international commitments. "

Here is just one of the numerous articles that this country has signed up to : European Commission, Joint Report on Social Inclusion ; Employment and Social affairs 2002

Page 27 [ 5 ] Guaranteeing an adequate income and resources to live in human dignity. The challenge is to ensure that all men, women and children have a sufficient income to lead life with dignity and participate in society as full members.

I can state with absolute conviction and highly stressful personal experience that our current welfare system does not enable a Citizen of the United Kingdom to do so.

You will soon realise this is a fact if you try to exist solely on the current level of JSA without access to any other funds. Try it Mr Bercow, Mr Duncan, Mr Cameron, Mr Brown and whoever is the current Minister in charge of the Department for Work and Pensions.

Meanwhile banks are still able to harass and bully people who have little to no way of repaying debts, charge excessive interest rates, and refuse to acknowledge that anything they have done was unfair or punitive. In my case I have been identified as ‘ in hardship’ yet the Co-Operative Bank plc has refused to repay a penny. I then went to the Financial Services Ombudsman, filling in yet another set of forms and they have simply agreed with the bank’s position. To even get to this stage of a decision from either has taken more than six months.

I am currently selling off my record collection to make ends meet, which they still don’t.

While the NHS has become an institution that both major parties now agree must be maintained in principle as it is a common good and should not be undermined by part - privatisation, the social security system, the very name of which has been erased, has been undermined and continues to be turned into some preposterous low-budget copy of a recruitment agency. The arcane, complex series of rules and means testing over amounts that may be provided and the increasing conditionality are taking it even further from its basic purpose. Crucially this further confuses and distances it from the simple necessity in a civilised country of providing a basic modest level of income to which all law abiding members of that society should be entitled. Surely this is what any Government that could claim to be aiming for a fair and more equitable society must address, and if the Labour Party continue to dream that everyone is middle class now and that no one is in need while the Conservatives still remain self-serving charlatans at root, witness Alan Duncan’s real feelings about the perks of being an MP and The Speaker John Bercow’s recent appointment of 100K + media advisor, the future looks very worrying indeed for a very large number of British Citizens and therefore for the whole country’s well being.

I may emigrate to Poland, which was a line in of a typically deranged Fall song, but now sounds quite sensible.

REAL LIFE ON THE DOLE : PART 2

Having had some surprising reactions to my last piece including ' wear a suit ' and ' you are insulting former criminals ' ( ? ) I will attempt to continue with the reality of the way in which an unemployed individual is dealt with in Britain in 2009.

I recently had to attend an interview at the Jobcentre. The letter came from Belfast. I sign at a large centralised office in London. It is an anonymous tower block that replaced the smaller local offices in this Borough that at least had a human scale. First I was informed that I did not fit into any of their categories. I was then given a sheaf of bad photocopies outlining a new scheme. It is called a Work Trial. This document is addressed to a prospective employer and nowhere does it have any reference to an individual. It makes the assumption that you are willing to work under the following terms : The employer does not pay anything to the employee. The employer may at some point unspecified offer a paid position. Meanwhile you work as free labour with no contract of employment and thus no rights and no wages. You continue to try and exist on the inadequate JSA, mine is currently £103.40 every two weeks, while working until the employer makes up their mind whether or not they want to offer you a job. There is no indication how long this trial should last nor that there will any job at the end of it. But you would be off the unemployment headline figure.

Given that there are far more people unemployed than there are permanent paid positions available what is to stop an employer taking on people on this basis at no cost and then saying they were not suitable rather than offering a job with security and a living wage ?

There have been a number of academic studies completed that establish that the current level of benefit for a single adult is considerably below what is required for healthy living. For example in 2004 The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine suggested a stringent minimum to be £84.76. There are pages of clauses in declarations, covenants, conventions and charters that the UK Government has signed up to at International and European level that are clearly intended to guarantee as a basic right sufficient resources and social assistance to live in a manner in keeping with human dignity. This is not a poor country. Yet the wealth is more inequitably distributed than ever. Surely the resources can be made available to go some way towards implementing these agreements which remain mere words on a page and should be deeply embarrassing to a ostensibly Socialist Government.

Now, it seems, there is a move to get people to work for a level of benefit that as it stands is one of the lowest in Europe and is wholly inadequate and places the individual in a highly vulnerable position.

My Local Authority, despite being aware that I am unemployed, have enforced repayment of overdue Council Tax by the use of a private firm of Bailiffs. They set the repayment rate at £90 a month. These agents then apply there own charges on top of the debt, the Council apply charges of £25 for a Summons issued for £60 of arrears. This too is added to the debt. The use of bailiffs to collect a local tax, wholly unrelated to ones ability to pay is draconian, intrusive and highly stressful. Yet those who are unemployed are far more likely to be at the receiving end of their visits and demands. Again, incredibly the Government were on the point of giving them additional powers of forcing entry. This has only just been averted after some effective independent lobbying.

Instead of this vast complex means tested benefits system that is inadequate and unfair why is nothing heard about a basic Citizens Income ? This would be payable as a right, and not related to increasingly conditionality and these unrealistic schemes to ' encourage ' people back to work : into jobs that don’t exist and or can be magically created and will pay starvation wages of £60.50 a week.

There is a small largely academic organisation the Citizens Income Trust and the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust produced a Memorandum on Benefit Inadequacy and its consequences which was sent to the then Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2004. What response it had, if any, I do not know. What I do know from painful experience is that living on current benefit levels is tougher now than it ever has been, and it is scandalous that this reality is distorted by the drip-feed to the tabloid media of exceptional cases of individuals that have in some way apparently ‘ worked the system ’ to their advantage. These people are exceptions and have been investigated and exposed in any case. They will have to pay anything received fraudulently back, which is more than any of the executives in the corrupt major financial agencies have had to do.

What is being done is private sector consultants are being given Government contracts worth millions of pounds to coerce people into jobs. What jobs ? Consultants cannot create lobs. Jobs as private sector consultants to get people into jobs ? Granted the staff at Jobcentres are not best placed or experienced in the harsh reality of the free marketplace that has been created by the Tories and sustained and unchallenged by the policies of New Labour. But to apply the mantra of ' get in the Private sector to sort it out ' is a waste of resources and time. It is the failed Public sector that needs to be fixed and brought up to an acceptable standard.

There are so many problems that arise out of this abandonment of a certain level of basic provision that should be set in Law in a fair and just society : a reasonable non-negotiable basic income, an adequate stock of what is now called ' affordable ' housing, (which always seems to imply that the majority of housing is unaffordable to a great many people, and it is, unless you already have a mortgage on another unaffordable property) and financial institutions that can foster and assist in attaining a modest financial stake in our society. Instead there remains a largely unfettered, uncaring, un-Christian, un-Muslim, as it happens, bunch of usurers that still form 99.9% of the banking sector and who, despite having been saved by going to the Government when their greed and hubris nearly brought down the house of cards, remain morally bankrupt, parasitic on the real economy and seemingly unable and unwilling to accept any fundamental change in practice.

And remember that one of Oscar Wilde‘s, that the rich take pleasure in hoarding their money, the poor in spending it. By giving a little more to those in most need, which are at this time again in the millions, there is no doubt that it would indeed be spent in the real economy, which is a good thing, is it not ? Instead the argument from all sides seems to be seen to be tightening the screws even tighter on those that are most vulnerable.

REAL LIFE ON THE DOLE : PART 1

This is about the actual experience day-to-day of trying to maintain any sort of half-way decent life while relying on the woefully inadequate benefits system in this country. Life on the dole, if you like, not that its called that anymore, nor is the Government Department that administers it the DSS anymore. This stood for the Department of Social Security. Now it is the DWP, the Department for Work and Pensions. This strongly suggests that there is no such thing as social security anymore, there is only work and pensions, the idea of social security has been quietly dropped. A far more accurate name would be the DSI : the Department for Social Insecurity, for that is what it does, it gives just enough for you to feel permanently insecure while not in employment.

The dole, unemployment benefit or the silly, demeaning current phrase ‘ Job Seekers Allowance ‘ now stands at its lowest level as compared to average earnings since it was introduced in 1912 at a rate that was 22 % of average male earnings in manufacturing. Since then it has fluctuated but by 1979 was still about 22% of average earnings ( manual and non-manual, male and female .) By 2008 it had fallen to an all-time low of 10.5% of average earnings. The maximum amount that an adult over 25 can receive is £60.50 a week. That is to cover all living expenses other than rent and Council Tax which are assessed separately. I no longer have any savings and try to get by on this benefit. Academics that study these issues have made detailed analysis of the consequences of this inadequate level of income for individual citizens expected to live a decent life and participate in society when this is all there is to rely on. What this column is about is being at the sharp end, the day to day reality of this miserly and outdated as well as unfair system.

First, it creates a situation of continual worry and stress about how one is going to meet commitments on basic expenses such as electricity, gas and water bills. All of these have been increasing markedly over the post - privatisation period. I was visited last week by EDF operatives with ultimatums on bills in arrears. The electric is going to be deducted directly from my JSA at a rate of £9 a week, which is going to reduce my two-weekly income to just over £100. The gas has been put on a card pre-payment meter. I now have to think before boiling an egg. I have decided that scrambled are quicker.

Second, there is the effective exclusion from simple social activities, a visit to the pub, a trip on the train. I am no sociologist and no statistician but when a pint costs approximately 5% of your weekly income and a one day travel card for Zone 1 & 2 (off-peak) costs 8% of your weekly income and colossal 10.5% at peak hours it is clear that your participation in everyday life is going to be very limited. Boris Johnson, who I suggest has never experienced anything like this level of income, recently gave a concession : once a massive form has been completed one can get half-price on the buses if claiming JSA. This is exactly the sort of measure that just adds to the sense of being an inferior and sanctioned lesser citizen because one has no job and has to claim benefit.

Third, the continual concern about how one is going to get through the next week actually mitigates against being able to settle down calmly and organise and facilitate income earning ideas or applications for those jobs that exist. One is more likely to seek distraction and panacea when under financial duress.

There is something called the Social Fund. This is a means tested one off loan up to a maximum of £348, note not £350 but £348, I wonder what arcane calculations went in arriving at that figure ? This is immediately then deducted from your basic allowance, as, presumably the Government need that £ 3.35 more than I do on a weekly basis. This is an admission that the basic benefit rate is inadequate, so you have to then get into debt as well.

I recently applied for an emergency loan from the Social Fund when my electricity and gas were at risk of being disconnected. I was telephoned some three or four weeks later and told that unless I was in danger of dying that they could not make a further loan. That was said quite straight faced and without irony.

The Labour Party has presided over this complete failure to bring the benefits system to a level acceptable in a civilised society. I suggest that the Socialist project was effectively abandoned in this area and many of the knock-on problems of crime, social incohesion and inequality have grown as a direct result. Now that the economy has stalled an awfully large number of people are going to realise this and that the myth of the scrounger living comfortably on benefits is a tabloid deflection from the harsh truth. While a life consisting of drinking cans of industrial lager while sitting inertly indoors, barely eating and being able to pay any bills is indeed how some exist, that is not a result of a generous benefit system : it is the opposite. I can assure you that it takes a great amount of strength and ingenuity to not fall into that sort of situation when being drip fed on the woefully inadequate and morally indefensible absolute minimum amount currently allowed when not employed. It is remarkable how little is actually spoken about the reality, there are millions now unemployed and they have virtually no voice, there is no Union for the unemployed, no group is larger and yet still almost completely marginalised and excluded.

As to that other long standing myth : full employment, as far as I am aware the only countries that claimed to have full employment were Nazi Germany during the 2nd World War and the Communist Soviet Union, which hardly seem like models to be followed. Surely it is way past time that this mythical full employment mantra was excised. There is never going to be continuous full employment under a Capitalist system, to say so is to lie. As the deep flaws in that system have been exposed, not, it must be said, by it being challenged by a Labour government who were supine in the face of the grinning Cheshire Cat of the ‘ City’ and its worshipful financial services ‘ industry ‘ ( what does it make, if its an industry ? Oh, people who play complicated games with large sums of money very, very rich, I see ) and as the devastating effects trickle down rapidly to the broader population, many more are going to come up against the consequences of a Darwinist ‘leave it to the markets’ philosophy. There has been a surreptitious removal of the safety net, like in Catch 22 when Yossarian in an plane about to crash discovers that he has no parachute because it has been sold for the value of the silk. Of that I am highly conscious every single day.

And they wonder why people turn to crime.

REAL LIFE ON THE DOLE : Four pieces for Tribune.

The Bland leading the bland : Obsessive Neutrality at the BBC.

While it is difficult not to admire the BBC for its intention be an arbiter of truth and impartiality this obsession with a neutral position in all matters is becoming increasingly unrealistic. Particularly in current circumstances this perceived necessity to give every side of the argument a say and a stand well back and don't make judgements editorial policy on just about everything is becoming both irritating and, I suggest, counter productive. There is much that is neutered rather than neutral.
There was a situation on 'Newsnight' recently when two Muslim guests were left to talk over each other, both becoming incomprehensible, while Jeremy Paxman just sat it out. This offered nothing other than demonstrating that these two individuals were not going to agree on anything and added little enlightenment to any issue. This presentation of binary opposites is what seems to be a preferred format as it allows the BBC to maintain this stance of being an impartial referee. But at some point judgements and points that come from a gathering of different views must be made, otherwise no progress is made.
I sometimes wonder if the massive amount of airtime given to comedy is not in a way a result of this refusal to put out strongly argued editorial material.
In particular programmes like 'Have I got News for You' which, although amusing enough, manage to criticise quite freely political decisions and corporate and individual actions because it is under the banner of 'comedy' but these are the same decisions and the same activities that are rarely challenged outside of this cosy comedy format.
The recent bad weather is another great excuse for dropping all possibly contentious material and devoting hours to pictures of snow and cars stuck in it, which add very little to the sum total of human knowledge but cannot be said to be of any particular political persuasion.
I wonder what they would do if snow was red or blue ?