UB 40 Blues or The Poor Law Rediscovered

Having taken voluntary redundancy at the end of September from the charity for whom I had worked for the last four years (and there is a great deal in the press today about the chronic need for funding charities due to the depression) I found myself among the 2 million unwaged. This was bad timing on my part as it coincided with the massive increase in unemployment, which many experts believe will reach 3 million at least by the end of this year. I have to say here that I was never one of those who believed that the downturn would be short and would not have many casualties. As one who follows the economic runes closely, it was clear that both national and personal indebtedness had reached unsustainable levels.

I duly found myself signing on for Jobseeker's Allowance in October. I had not done this for many years, although it was by no means the first time I had been on the dole. As a young man in the Irish Republic in the 80s with a collapsed economy and the unemployment rate at 25%, I was one among many who found themselves going through the forthnightly ritual of seeking state support. The emigration rate at that time from Ireland was the highest since 1900 and many went to the UK and Germany, with many thousands more going as illegal immigrants to the USA on tourist visas. I later found myself in Liverpool in the mid 80s, which many people at that time described as "the world's first post industrial city". I stood once in a queue for the cinema there where there was half price entry for those with unemployment cards (called at that time UB40). Every single person in the queue had one. The devastation of the recession in the 80s carried out by the Thatcher government's policies has lasted for three generations in many of those former industrial areas of the north. Visiting Liverpool less than two years ago, I realised that not much had changed on that front, apart from the regeneration of some areas of the city centre, which is what most tourists see.

The forthnightly ritual of the JSA is that you tell the official when you are signing on what you have been doing in the preceding two weeks to seek employment. As I was on JSA based on my contributions and not on my income, I did not have to go through the further process of proving how much I had in my savings etc. Most of the officers in the Job Centre Plus are decent people although there are those who clearly hate their jobs and are out to wreak as much humiliation as possible on the unfortunate job seekers who come within their power. It was also clear that in the three months I signed on there was a significant increase in the numbers attending and articles in the South London Press and elsewhere have stated that so great are the numbers that many jobs are being advertised in the Job Centres - this after our prescient government, following the lead of the great Gordon's dictum "An end to boom and bust" had decided to close many of them down and lay off their staff, on the grounds that they would be surplus to requirements.

A few months before the economic collapse, James Purnell, Secretary of State for Work & Pensions, who makes Gradgrind seem benign, issued another immortal New Labour quote: "I am not interested in those who cannot work. I am only interested in those who can." This was in relation to the government proposals on welfare reform, which were presented as part of the Queen's speech. These proposals include such New Labour horrors as introducing lie detector tests for new benefit claimants, which I am sure is against the Human Rights Act. The Green Party put together a team, including the party's Disability Spokesperson, Alan Wheatley, to provide a response to Purnell's proposals and to present an alternative. Although given virtually no publicity at the time, it is a progressive and humane response to the needs of unemployed and disabled people likely to be affected by the new welfare rules. I include it here. http://www.greenparty.org.uk/assets/files/reports/GPEW_writing_off_workfare_final.doc

Green Left held a recent meeting in Manchester on unemployment and welfare. As I said at that meeting, there is nothing new in Purnell's proposals. As a historian I am familiar with the Poor Law and the Victorian attitude towards "the undeserving poor". Purnell's quote is the sort of slogan which one would have seen written above the doors of Victorian workhouses as families were separated (men and women had to live apart) and the inmates were forced to build roads to nowhere or sew hemp. The Irish countryside is littered with these roads, which were built at the height of the Great Famine by half starved workhouse inmates.

Now it has been revealed that the private companies being brought in to deliver Purnell's revolution in welfare and who are being promised fat sums for each person removed from the unemployment register are getting cold feet because of the sheer numbers of unemployed. It did not take a PhD in economics to figure out that trying to introduce such a system in the middle of a depression was insane.http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/feb/08/labour-welfare-jobs-plan

While at the Job Centre I was pointed in the direction of the over fifties advisor, who could give special advice to those like myself over fifty. This is another aspect of the whole equation. Many jobseekers over fifty find in increasingly difficult to find employment. Channel 4 are showing a documentary about this tonight on 'Dispatches' http://www.channel4.com/documentaries/microsites/D/dispatches/too_old_to_work/index.html
Difficult as it was during the good times for those who are disabled or over fifty to find employment, it is doubly difficult now with thousands of new unemployed every week. Yet this is the time that the New Labour government decided to introduce its draconian welfare proposals, many of which are targeted at disabled people. To cap it all, the proposals were introduced as part of a framework policy drawn up by an investment banker, David Freud, who took three weeks to produce them, and they are bitterly opposed by many disability organisations.

I am now returning to paid work with a local disability organisation in Lambeth. The last few months have been a salutary experience and one which many young people will be experiencing for the first time. Having been through several recessions and been unwaged several times, I am battle scarred, but for many others it will be a fairly traumatic experience. This government which has presided over the bonus culture and the cronyism of the City is determined to squeeze the poor and the unemployed until the pips squeak to pay the costs of this depression. The Tories are just the same. These proposals must be fought tooth and nail. The last ten years have seen a the gap between rich and poor in this country become a yawning chasm. One of the demands on the left is that MPs take the same salary as a skilled worker and I support that demand. For several months I have been living below that level. Vauxhall is a poor inner London constituency with high levels of deprivation and poor health. Nobody can say that I am not a candidate who has not experienced what a lot of people in areas like this are going through now. This depression will be long and deep but without a safety net of an accessible and generous welfare system it will lay the seeds for real hardship and suffering. Not for nothing has it been said that the sign of a civilised society is how it treats its most vulnerable. On that basis alone, New Labour Britain fails the test badly.