It is not just about money, working, is it? I grew up believing that was what a man did, work, and being 'on the dole' as it were was something to be ashamed of, or reserved for those who were in particularly dire circumstances. Which is something that comes to mind when I hear George talk about cutting benefits to push people into work, that I believe he does not understand the how and the why, or if he does, he does not truly care.
Now, if you were not aware or raised with that taboo against not working, then a cursory look at the job centre's range of available work is not all that palatable measured against the following trade off -
You go to interviews where you do not particularly try to impress the employer but not so much that it raises suspicions that you are not trying, you sit and talk in vague terms about how you have been looking for work in an exchange where you have practiced the trade off - your dignity in exchange for financial enhancement and more importantly, the security that benefits offer.
The jobs that are out there, are insecure, low-paid, non unionised with an atmosphere that implicitly hints at a less than desirable future if you do look to the relevant union for representation, but the truth of it is, I would probably take that job just so I could keep working. That taboo works on me, even as intellectually I know that you can work the system if you wanted to, I was raised too well to ever make it as a long-term claimant(thanks Pops)
I do understand why some people stay out on benefits, there are societal and social reasons that are not being answered by the government. Cutting benefits will force people into low-paid and insecure work, whereas I would propose that state investment in new jobs would be a more effective measure of increasing the amount of people employed, because unskilled and long-term unemployed people are going to only ever find unskilled and insecure work.
Simple solutions to complex problems are a surefire sign of wilful ignorance, either through lack of education or adherence to an ideology and that is part of what is going on here, it is about arousing the Tory faithful's prejudices. No one wants to see the welfare state used as a lifestyle choice, but for some people it is the best of a bad lot and until someone in government stops and considers the long view, then I see nothing ahead but conflict.
Further to that, and if anyone who has heard me say this, forgive me. There are more types of poverty than financial, the poverty of expectation is crippling and if you believe that you deserve no better, can do no more and that despair is your default view of the world, then the expectation that you can go out and find a job or a career that simply is not there is false. We tend to project that were we in that situation, we would delay gratification, that we would struggle against failing parents, broken schools and disparate communities, that somehow we would survive in situations that break entire generations when the truth of it is, is that we are speaking from a place of relative affluence and ignorance. Sure we can all talk of isolated examples of people who escape, but their uniqueness is indicative, isn't it?
There are entire communities in this country, that if they vanished tomorrow, would not impact upon the economy at all and demonising those people, because as some of you seem to forget, they are people like you and I, is perhaps a subconscious way of gaining favour with our cold, ruthless leaders. If you speak out against benefit scroungers and fail to realise that you are one bad week from joining them, you need to consider your lack of empathy.
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