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The benefits system - bad for society and bad for dependent individuals too
The case of Susan Moore, branded Britain’s laziest woman, tells you much about what has gone wrong with our country - clueless, feckless, shameless and, of course, workless.
In fact not only has she never spent a single day in gainful employment in the last 16 years since she left school, she’s never even attended a job interview.
The 34-year-old from Burythorpe, North Yorkshire, spends her days watching videos and listening to CDs, while gobbling up £35,000 in state benefits with all the tenacity of a giant tapeworm.
When she was offered the chance of weekend work she turned it down because she ‘needed time to relax’.
A shelf-stacking job at her local supermarket was also rejected because it was five miles away.
As a condition of her £130-a-fortnight jobseekers’ allowance she was required to attend a training course in Scarborough which attempted to give her what 12 year’s full-time education had conspicuously failed to do - skills which an employer might find useful.
But when a taxi, arranged by the local Job Centre, failed to turn up one day, she packed in the course.
Miss Moore is not the slightest bit embarrassed about all this. In fact she is appealing against the decision to halt her jobseekers’ allowance.
“I don’t see why I shouldn’t get it when other people do,” she said.
Of course she is right, and that is the problem. There are hundreds of thousands of people like Susan Moore.
You see them leaving the post office with handfuls of cash.
You see them in the supermarket picking up the week’s essentials - beer, fags, mobile phone top up cards and twenty quid worth of lottery tickets.
As a result spending on benefits is spiralling out of control and no one, it seems, has the courage to do anything about it.
The effect on society is corrosive. We have a government that encourages dependency yet punishes self-reliance.
Pensioners who have worked hard all their lives are driven into poverty by rapacious increases in council tax, yet we can always find the money to keep people like Susan Moore in the style to which they have become accustomed.>br>
Any civilised society should fund, through collective taxation, a benefits safety net to prevent people falling into destitution.
But it was always envisaged by those who founded the welfare state that this should take the form of temporary assistance - not to fund a permanent lifestyle choice by those who prefer not to work.
The solution is simple; able-bodied, healthy, individuals with no dependants should receive
unemployment assistance for a limited period - say three months - and then it stops.
This would not only save taxpayers money, it would also release a huge new workforce that could plug the gaps in the labour market.
It might also help give people like Susan Moore some pride and self respect.
Incidentally, Miss Moore says she now plans to apply for Income Support on medical grounds because she suffers from ‘monthly painful spells’.
I get those too - usually when I open my wage packet and see how much tax I pay.
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1.3.04 17:17
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A silly name game
So David Blunkett has come up with a cunning plan to address the crisis in the criminal justice system - he’s going to knock the crown off its head.
The Crown Prosecution Service will be renamed the Public Prosecution Service and Her Majesty’s Prison Service will become the National Offender Management Service.
The name changes will give people ‘greater confidence’ in the system, according to the Home Secretary.
That’s it then! Job sorted! Another Blunkett initiative - another problem solved!
What next? A cure for cancer simply by changing its name? Or perhaps he will sort out world poverty by way of a marketing relaunch?
It is a bit like the captain of the Titanic who, as the icy waves of the Atlantic begin lapping his ankles, decides the best solution is to climb over the side and paint a new name on the prow.
In truth the malaise in the criminal justice service runs much deeper than a mere monicker and won’t be fixed by a bit of superficial tinkering.
We have a cadre of senior police officers who see their job not to catch hardened criminals, but to persecute and extract the maximum amount of money from law-abiding citizens.
We have senior members of the judiciary who are obsessed with preserving the rights of the ‘burgling community’ rather than using the law to protect the weak and vulnerable in our society.
The result is a dangerous dislocation between the insulated, privileged elite in their chauffeur-driven limousines, and ordinary citizens whose daily lives are blighted by crime and the fear of crime.
The solution to this is simple - but far more radical than anything the Home Secretary has come up with so far.
We should create regional Directors of Public Prosecutions who would, alongside chief constables, be obliged to stand for re-election every five years.
This would invigorate local democracy far more effectively than any Mickey Mouse regional assemblies.
It would also make the legal system far more responsive to the needs of local people, and would help restore pride and purpose in demoralised and directionless police forces.
Above all it would help end the culture of cynicism and arrogance that many senior public servants display towards the people who pay their fat salaries.
If the local police chief and the DPP proved unable - or unwilling - to tackle crime, then we would kick them out and elect someone who will.
Nothing would better concentrate minds on the things that really matter.
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5.3.04 13:51
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A young British hero
I am deep in admiration for trooper Christopher Finney who at 19 has become the youngest recipient of the George Cross.
At a time when most of his contemporaries have become enthusiastic participants in Britain’s latest hobby - collective whingeing - Trooper Finney has actually made a positive difference to the ordinary people of Iraq.
More than that when his armoured vehicle took a direct hit near Basra he pulled one comrade out of the burning wreckage and then attempted to go back to help another, despite being wounded himself.
The Manchester teenager "displayed clear-headed courage out of all proportion to his age and experience", according to the citation.
“I'm overwhelmed," he said after receiving his medal from The Queen, “I thought all I would get would be a pat on the back and a 'Well done, mate'.
“I am extremely proud. “
Yes Christopher, aren’t we all.
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11.3.04 14:11
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Ra-Ra Rasputin
According to ‘lifestyle guru’ Carole Caplin, her influence on the Prime Minister and his wife is undiminished despite the scandal over her former lover, convicted conman Peter Foster.
If the former topless model is to believed she is a sort of Rasputin in a ra-ra skirt to the Tsar and Tsarina, Tony and Cherie.
Apparently they rely on her for everything from choosing the colour of Prime Ministerial underpants to what to eat for supper.
She even revealed to millions of readers of Vanity Fair magazine the ‘closely guarded secret’ that she has a pet name for the Prime Minister - ‘Toblerone’.
This is a family blog, and I’ve led a very sheltered life, so I think we’ll leave any further speculation there.
But I was fascinated by her dietary advice. Alcohol, cigarettes and caffeine are banned, which sounds a little dull.
But things liven up a bit with what is not only allowed but positively encouraged - “goat’s milk and lots of sex.”
What - both at the same time?
No wonder the poor sod looks so worn out all the time.
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12.3.04 19:04
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What Terry Waite would call 'so-called terrorism'
How long before we’re told the Madrid bombers were simply “desperate people expressing their legitimate opposition to imperialist oppression.”
Monday’s Guardian I reckon, if the Independent on Sunday doesn’t get there first.
If the horrible Americans didn’t insist on liberating Iraqis from a murderous dictator then the brave Islamofascist/Basque patriots wouldn’t feel obliged to incinerate nine-month old babies on surburban rush-hour trains, would they?
Don’t forget - you read it here first.
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13.3.04 00:10
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Call this courageous?
I raise a glass in celebration at the death of the notorious Palestinian terrorist Abu Abbas who died of natural causes in custody after being captured in Iraq by American forces while trying to flee to Syria.
Good riddance!
But the PLO terrorist group hailed him as a brave patriot and martyr and accused the US of assassinating him.
It is worth recalling Abbas’s most infamous atrocity that occurred during the hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise liner in 1985.
An elderly and disabled passenger, Leon Klinghoffer, who was confined to a wheelchair, was singled out simply because he was Jewish, shot and his body thrown overboard.
Anyone who portrays such despicable cowardice as courageous and admirable is nothing short of a barbarian.
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16.3.04 10:52
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The lesson of the pain in Spain
Perhaps the Spanish are right and the best way to combat terrorism is to drop to your knees and wave your hands in the air in surrender?
But I suspect the craven response of the Spanish electorate to the Madrid bombings will make terrorist atrocities more rather than less likely.
We may excuse a nation in grief, but by running from the fray Spain has put other members of the coalition more firmly in the terrorists’ firing line - most notably Britain.
“Please don’t bomb us - kill someone else instead” is never going to be a recipe for peace and stability in Europe.
If the history of our continent teaches us anything it is that reacting to fascist aggression with feeble appeasement leads to shame and ignominy - and you end up having to fight anyway.
Spineless Spanish voters reacted precisely the way the terrorists wanted them to - and elected the first government in the West with the Osama bin Laden seal of approval.
Hell, if we were to go down the same road we’d end up with Charles Kennedy as Prime Minister - and if that doesn’t scare you witless, nothing will.
The Reactionary Left tells us that the bombings are all the West’s fault and we have to do more to ‘understand’ the terrorists.
If we can only feel their pain, empathise with their oppression and humiliation, reach out to embrace their inner child, then all will be well.
In truth the terrorists are neither oppressed nor desperate. They are in the main privileged, well-educated (usually in the West) and sometimes fabulously wealthy.
They hate everything about our way of life - our religious, economic and political freedoms, our rule of law, our success, our tolerance, our diversity - and want to destroy it all.
As Israel has proved, it is impossible to negotiate with someone whose opening gambit is that they want to destroy your country and slaughter your people.
Exactly, what is there to ‘understand’?
Islamofascists have declared war on the West and we have little choice other than to capitulate or fight back.
If the Spanish don’t have the stomach for the battle, then we in the UK will have to carry the fight on their behalf.
Let’s hope our other European allies - the Poles and the Italians - are made of sterner stuff.
But if it ends up that Britain stands alone in Europe against fascist tyranny, then so be it.
After all it won’t be the first time.
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17.3.04 22:13
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