What the Tories really think of their leaders...

One of the Tories rising stars, Nadine Dorries MP, was quoted the other day as saying about the Government that: "policy is being run by two public schoolboys who don't know what it's like to go to the supermarket and have to put things back on the shelves because they can't afford it...What's worse, they don't care either."

This blog isn't apolitical but it isn't party political either. Sure, I do say negative things about the Government, but I say negative things about all the parties and all policies that I disagree with.

For me it is about issues, things that happen in Government, decisions taken, that affect people who through no fault of their own, are generally at the bottom of the heap: the unemployed, the poor, the disabled, the disenfranchised.

So I slag off the Government but I try not to be personal. OK I might have called George Osborne a few names, but I'm not in the same league as Ms Dorries.

Maths and the budget

On Wednesday 21 March the Chancellor George Osborne will make his budget statement. Now I'm sure George Osborne doesn't welcome it but he's not short of people offering him advice.

Now one of the big talking points has been taking away child benefit from high earners. Up until now child benefit hasn't been means tested. The current plan is that for families where one parent earns more than £44k they will not be able to claim child benefit for any offspring they may have. However if you are a family where both parents work and are earning, say £35k each you will be allowed to hang on to any child benefit for any offspring you may have.

Now clearly I'm no economist but this neither adds up, nor does it make any sense, nor does it seem very fair. The Treasury estimates that this would save at least £1 billion, although at the time of the Comprehensive Spending Review (autumn 2010) they were saying it would save up to £2.5 billion.

The other issue being chewed over in the media this week is the so-called mansion tax. This emerged courtesy of the Liberal Democrat financial whizz - Vince Cable. What he is proposing is a tax on properties worth £2 million or more. Were this to be introduced it is thought it would raise up to £1.7 billion.

In the autumn of 2010 the Chancellor announced his Comprehensive Spending Review. This was essentially his outline of where his cuts were going to fall. One of the main thrusts of his CSR was benefit cuts.

Aside from the Child Benefit changes, George Osborne was expecting to make cuts to the welfare budget totalling £15.5 billion. These cuts will be to benefits that are paid to those who are out of work, those who are disabled, those who receive housing benefit etc.

What I really fail to understand is how savings of a lesser amount of money can generate so much debate when cuts to those who are sick, disabled, vulnerable, or out of work, those who are undoubtably the poorest in our society warrants so little comment.

Art for Crisis at Somerset House

Copyright: Yinka Shonibare. Image: Shaun Bloodworth.

Starting next week on Wednesday 14 March for five weeks or so there will be an exhibition at Somerset House on the Strand. Some famous names will be showimg their work and the aim is to draw attention to the issue of homelessness.

Some of the artists who will be exhibiting work are, in no particular order: Anthony Gormley, Tracey Emin, Nathan Coley, Nika Neelova, Anthony Caro, Bob and Roberta Smith, Yinka Shonibare, Gillian Wearing and Jonathan Yeo.

Alongside these big names, clients of Crisis will also have their work exhibited in the gallery and the chance to show to a much wider audience.

The works are to be auctioned off at Christie's May 2012 to raise money for Crisis, the national charity for single homeless people.

I live in an unemployment blackspot

It's official - I live in one of the very worst boroughs in London for unemployment. There are 32 boroughs in London if you don't count the city of London where the population is low.

The figures come from the Office for National Statistics. In December 2011 there were 11 209 residents who were claiming Jobseekers Alllowance. That figure equates to 7.3% of the working age population. In London generally, the unemployment rate is 4.3%.

This means there are 22 claimants for every unfilled vacancy in the Jobcentres of my home borough. This figure was 13.4 claimants for each vacancy this time last year. I must stress these figures relate to those who can claim JSA.

I also discovered this week that the borough where I live is the fourth worst local authority in the UK for child poverty. This depressing statistic emerged when the End Child Poverty campaign published a new child poverty map of the UK. Nationally there are four million children, that's one in three children currently living in poverty in the UK. I don't have kids but these figures are a national disgrace.

Perhaps the statistics I've cited give some indication of the kind of place I live. I've lived in this borough for the past 17 years and in fact it's a cracking place to live; busy, vibrant and creative, but perhaps I'm just biased.

Money for nothing

So Emma Harrison has resigned. For those of you who don't know, Emma Harrison was the woman appointed by our Prime Minister, David Cameron as "families tsar". That is, she was specifically put in Government in December 2010 to work with the estimated 120 000 families who the government regards as "problem families". These are families who have more than one generation who are what is termed welfare dependent - that is, not working.

That has nothing to do with why she has resigned. She is the head of a company called A4e. A4e are one of the companies who run Iain Duncan Smith's Work Programme. They run the Work Programme in five regions in the UK. They are also a Work Programme subcontractor in five other regions.

They are currently being investigated for fraud. Their head office in Slough has been raided by the police. In recent years they have been investigated by the DWP nine times.

Their work, providing the Work Programme has been called into question by many people, not just the jobless who are working with them. Fiona Mactaggart MP whose constituency Slough is where the head office for A4e is, has said due to the allegations of malpractice A4e are "not fit to receive a government contract". Margaret Hodge MP who is the chair of the public accounts committee has spoken of aspects of A4e's record on welfare-to-work as "abysmal". Ms Hodge goes on to describe A4e's habit of subcontracting, that it "seems like a scam,".

Emma Harrison hasn't done too badly out of the Work Programme. She paid herself a dividend of £8.6 million last year. She lives in Thornbridge Hall. This is a grade II listed mansion set in 100 acres of land. Margaret Hodge says of the dividend: "It's a rip off. Emma Harrison lives entirely on public contracts. She's got a load of contracts with the DWP."

Unhappy capping

So there's all this hoo-ha about the benefit cap of £26 000 and how it's absolutely essential for the nation's financial well-being that we implement this benefit cap as soon as possible to prevent these feckless scroungers bankrupting the country any further.

As I understand, they arrived at the figure of £26 grand as it is the national average salary for 2011, according to the Office for National Statistics. In order to take home £26k you would have to earn £35k gross. (Which is not the national average salary - £26k is.)

To listen to those in Government indignantly bang on about this you would think that people sign on and are given a big wad of cash that adds up to £26k! This is just not the case.

This is a huge deception being played on the British public and it is a pernicious lie, it is a disgraceful sleight of hand on the part of the Government. What they are trying to get us to believe is that "THESE PEOPLE" are taking your money. This is bollocks!

If you are in receipt of benefit this is money to which you are entitled. The Government will ensure that you prove that entitlement several times over before you get any benefit.

Housing is a right. Also, we have no right whatsoever to interfere with people's right to reproduce.

So to return to this benefit cap: First off it is a national cap and does not consider the vast differences in rental costs depending on what part of the country you are living in. The rental cost of housing in London is so much higher than almost anywhere else in the country. London is my part of the UK and that is where I concentrate on. It is also the place where most of the people who are going to be affected by this benefit cap live. It is estimated thet there are 67 000 households who receive this sum due to their circumstances.

A cursory look at two or three estate agent's websites in my part of London and I discover that three and four bedroom properties start at £15 grand a year, most were over £20 grand, so it's very easy to see how a couple with two or three children would hit the £26 grand benefit cap.

So the real problem with the benefit cap is the cost of renting adequate family housing yet with all the fuss this week there has been hardly anyone talking about rent controls. (One exception was David Lammy MP on Question Time last night on the telly.)

As far as I'm concerned the Government are looking at this in a really cock-eyed way and being deliberately disingenuous in the hope that they can play one section of society off against another - the working poor and the unemployed.

Lost generations

Just before Christmas, unemployment in the UK according to the Office for National Statistics hit 2.62 million. This is the highest recorded total since 1994. The unemployment rate in the UK now stands at 8.3%.

Within these statistics, the number of people aged 16-24 years old who are unemployed is now 1.02 million. This means that the unemployment rate for 16-24 year olds is 21.9%. That means that over one in five of our young people are NEETs. Not in employment, education or training.

Social commentators talk of a lost generation at times of recession and high unemployment. I heard on the Today programme this morning that unemployment won't peak until sometime in 2013.

It is well known and statistically borne out that if you suffer unemployment when young it drastically increases your your chances of being unemployed later in life.

Two professors in the west country have examined this in detail. Lindsey Macmillan - Centre for Market and Public Organisation in Bristol and Paul Gregg who is professor of economic and social policy at the University of Bath.

If you spend six months unemployed before the age of 23, it is statistically probable that you will spend 20% of your time unemployed five years later and 15% of your time unemployed twelve years later. These figures come from a study of two UK birth cohorts, which track babies born in a particular period for the rest of their lives.

I left school in 1982 - when the recession under the Thatcher government was in full swing and unemployment topped three million.

My first "job", which I didn't especially want and wasn't especially suited to was a YOP scheme as a builder. YOP is an acronym for Youth Opportunity Programme, basically a government job creation scheme and it certainly wasn't an opportunity. Sometime later I did another job as part of a government scheme in a college library which I loved.

It wasn't until I was 21 that I was able to land a proper job and that was a full four years after I finished school. I was only able to secure a job due to the fact I had done a full 12 months as a CSV. As a Community Service Volunteer I was paid £13.75 a week. (I lived in) This was 1985. There followed well over a decade of full employment.

I'm 47 years old, I should have been working for 30 years. When I look back over my life I've been working for 20 plus of those years so I'm living proof that if you experience unemployment when you are young it does blight your life.