Tory benefit proposals are stupid and cruel

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/29/iain-duncan-smith-workfare-cruel-stupid

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If I were a betting woman, I'd be wondering at which point Iain Duncan Smith might be scheduling introducing public stocks for the long-term unemployed. Put the lazy feckless proles into the stocks. Not all of them, just the ones who have thus far stubbornly proved themselves "hard to help" by Duncan Smith's Work Programme (widely and scathingly described as disastrous).

Let the bone-idle coves get pelted with rotten vegetables and malodorous dung by the fine upstanding working public for larks. Pelt the poor!

But this is childish. Duncan Smith isn't planning to introduce stocks for the long-term unemployed; that would mean they might get to sit down. The plan is to make people work for their benefits.

In a move rumoured to be announced at the Conservative conference, there may be plans for a US-type workfare-style scheme whereby the long-term unemployed would be required to work for their benefits, either for communities or for companies. I would have thought that being unemployed is clear-cut – you are or you aren't. However, a recent poll places me firmly in the minority.

Of the 1,930 people polled, by the rightwing thinktank Policy Exchange, people strongly supported such schemes. While only 17% were interested in ensuring minimum waged jobs, more than half wanted people to work for their benefits; 75% thought that people with mental disabilities (judged fit) should still be made to work for their benefits, while a whopping 78% applied the same view to the physically disabled. However, 67% felt that unemployed mothers with young children should be excluded. The words "all heart" spring to mind.

The wider danger is that, once tweaked, this idea could swiftly morph into a righteous attack on the "something for nothing" culture, on those people said to lounge about on the dole for years, with no intention of getting a job, all the time laughing at the bleeding-heart state and its gullible taxpayers. There's a fair chance that the fact would get lost in the mix that the numbers of those who are very long-term unemployed (exceeding five years) are surprisingly small.

Duncan Smith may also clean forget to mention that the majority of benefits are claimed as supplements by those already working, but on low wages. All we would be left with is the "something for nothing" culture and the latest cunning scheme to stop it: get the work-shy to work for their hand-outs. A guaranteed crowd-pleaser. Just one problem: if the aim is to help the long-term unemployed back into work, it makes very little sense.

It seems not only unfair, but also impractical, to expect people to work unpaid while simultaneously seeking paid work. Job-hunting is an exhausting, complex, time-consuming affair, as has been demonstrated by the lamentable performance of the Work Programme. Moreover, the unemployed must surely be completely free to seek work, not semi-free. The term is "jobseeking", not "jobseeking, when I'm not labouring just to earn my benefits, so that I don't starve". What does this resemble if not a state-sanctioned form of moonlighting?

This "workfare" scheme is not only ripe for exploitation by big business, it also defeats the government's stated objective, indeed their responsibility – to give the long-term unemployed the best possible chance to find work. Yet more depressingly, it represents another attempt to change the national conversation about the unemployed.

Instead of being helped, encouraged and empowered back into work, they must be chided, chivvied and, above all, punished, placed on some modern-day version of chain gangs, including, it seems, even the physically and mentally disabled.

So go ahead, Mr Duncan Smith, announce your plan at conference –let's hope it will be recognised for the spiteful, grandstanding, illogical and self-defeating nonsense it really is.

Wakey, wakey. Time to land the plane

If you are scared of flying, look away now. A survey of 500 pilots by the British Airline Pilots Association reveals that one in six pilots admits to having been asleep at the same time as the co-pilot, with the plane left to fly on autopilot. The findings of the survey were released after an incident in August, when the entire crew slept while a plane was on autopilot.

Balpa says it has repeatedly warned the Civil Aviation Authority that pilots are expected to spend extremely long periods flying with too little opportunity to sleep and that pilots would not feel supported if they objected.

Furthermore, an attempt by the European Aviation Safety Agency to give new leeway to land after 22 hours without sleep would result in levels of fatigue similar to being four times over the legal alcohol limit for flying. Exhausted, sozzled-feeling pilots? Marvellous! Where do I book?

When one thinks of all the legislation aimed at haulage companies on motorways, this is farcical. How can we be so (rightly) concerned about the fatigue levels of long-haul lorry drivers, but so laissez-faire about pilots?

One would ponder how this may have something to do with the god-like status bestowed on pilots, though not in other areas concerned with people transportation (trains, buses, ferries).

However, in fairness, it's the pilots' union that is flagging this up. It's especially galling when you consider the levels of security you need to go through before you are even allowed on board – x-rayed, searched, your liquids confiscated, all for the privilege of getting on to a plane potentially flown by someone itching to get into their jim-jams.

I've never been one of those people who are scared of flying, but I think I'll start now.

Here is the news – with snacking and lightsaber fights

The BBC's new "fishbowl" newsroom at Broadcasting House – why all the carping? (Carp… geddit?) There have been complaints that during reports viewers can see people in the background hugging, yawning, laughing, eating snacks, even having pretend lightsaber fights with umbrellas.

Along with moans from viewers, there are people at the BBC who feel that their gravitas is being undermined, by, say, someone behind them exuberantly picking their nose during a newscast. Someone said that it felt akin to being pandas in a zoo, though it wasn't fully explained whether this was with or without mating.

To an extent, you can understand the newsreaders: it must be difficult to deliver serious international bulletins, wondering if "Luke Skywalker" is still attacking "Darth Vader" behind you. But that's their problem; viewers should stop complaining and enjoy it while it lasts – see it as a nice bonus. It can't be long before they spoil the fun by putting up killjoy screens, shielding the innocent licence-payer from the background visuals of people picking their toes, logging on to Match.com or tucking into a well-earned Ginsters pasty with their feet up on the table.

We should accept this for what it is – a wonderful ad hoc advertisement for the BBC. After all, here is incontrovertible proof that the people who work there are ordinary, fun, flawed and human and not just faceless android-suits. Who knows – if Aaron Sorkin had seen this real-life Newsroom he might have written a better show.

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