Liz Kendall’s plan to tackle worklessness: start at the Bottom
A government that pledges to save money and create jobs flew Ed Miliband and 470 civil servants 2,000 miles to negotiate the death of British industry at the Cop summit. He returned to the Commons madder than ever – “Power!” Max Zorin shouted, “More power!” – to declare we are leading the world in a direction it doesn’t wish to go. Followed deftly at the Despatch Box by Liz Kendall, the hard face of an employment campaign financed by taxing business into oblivion.
You know, someday all those Labour MPs are going to have to attend their local dole office – sorry, Jobcentre Plus – to explain what they’ve been doing for five years. Living off public money. Zero work. And little experience gained, unless you count chasing one’s secretary around the office as a transferable skill. Let’s hope Liz’s “Get Off Yer Backside” campaign has kicked in by then, and we can find them a job worth doing.
The big idea, she said in a voice pleasantly huskied by sickness or overuse, is to turn “a department for welfare into a department for work”. The short cut would be to shut it down and halve the benefits – but, no! Kendall’s plan is to, a) do job centre meetings by Zoom, b) “drive down inequality caused by ill health”, and c) expand opportunities for the young.
The use of Zoom will certainly be welcomed by those who regard the fortnightly bus trip to the dole office a grotesque imposition (how many of these tele-meetings will be conducted naked from the waist down, one shudders to think).
Tackling ill-health requires social workers making an admission I can’t see coming, that a lot of mental health claims are bogus or could be solved, irony-of-ironies, by getting a job. As for the insipid youth, they should take a leaf out Rod Stewart’s book: the 79-year old rocker has announced he’s headlining Glastonbury next year. “If you really need me, just reach out and touch me” – and guide me down these tricky stairs.
Why is it that boomers won’t give up, yet Gen Z is too anxious to get started? It might have something to do with Lefties telling them for a decade that Britain is a racist, toxic dump and capitalism a scam. We’ve got to build a better world for the next generation, Ed Siliband had told the Commons – gnawing at the straps on his straightjacket – but with fossil fuels gone, and energy costs rocketing, exactly what careers will they inherit?
Liz had an answer for that: “I can also announce a new national partnership to provide exciting opportunities for young people [with] the Premier League, the Royal Shakespeare Company and Channel 4.”
So there you have it. Gareth Boggs, unlike his fathers and forefathers, will not be digging coal or building ships: he’ll be touring for two seasons as Bottom in Midsummer Night’s Dream. With this scheme, Liz does little to dispel the impression that Labour is the party of north London, or that the only jobs created by the green revolution will be making documentaries about the green revolution – fronted by Sandi Toksvig, who never wants for work.