Tag Archives: cheap-work conservatives
Honey, I shrunk the economy
Benedict Brogan argues in his Telegraph blog: Persistent doubts about the men at the top distract us from assessing the more subtle work of this Government, and from answering the most vital question: what will Britain look like by the … Continue reading
Filed under Economics, Poverty, Tuition fees
Profits, non-profits, and a living wage
Last night I had a nasty little conversation with a Cambridge Tory: I was rude (for which I am sorry today); so was he (but I can’t do anything about that). The conversation began with a tweet by someone else: … Continue reading
Filed under American, Healthcare, Poverty
David Cameron: Give citizens more power
People have been shut out of Westminster politics for too long. Having a single vote every four or five years is not good enough – we need to give people real control over how they are governed. So, with a … Continue reading
Filed under Epetitions, Healthcare, Travel
Workfare, welfare, and freedom of information
So long as the government’s workfare programmes were kept slightly blurred, it was easy for people otherwise of good will to support them. (Ideological cheap-work conservatives would support workfare all the more for understanding what it is, but genuine believers … Continue reading
Filed under Benefits, Disability, George Orwell, Poverty, Supermarkets
David Cameron: We are now in the 1930s
As I noted in The Ideology of Workfare, the ultimate goal of the cheap-work conservatives in Westminster is to roll us back to 1834, the year of the workhouse. But as Cameron says: Today marks an historic step in the … Continue reading
Filed under Benefits, Charles Dickens, Economics, Poverty, Scottish Politics
The outside agitator wants your biscuit
At a table somewhere in Hypothetical Stories, there’s Dolly from Tunbridge Wells, who reads the Daily Mail and works 35 hours a week for £7 an hour and an evening job on top of that just to get by. And … Continue reading
Filed under Benefits, Poverty, Supermarkets
Why I know workfare doesn’t work
Chris Grayling makes large claims for his workfare schemes: There is a work experience scheme, it’s voluntary. If you are a young person looking for work, the Job Centre Plus advisor will talk to you about which area you might … Continue reading
For Greece, the nightmare will never end
Thirty years ago, Greece joined the European Union. Fifteen years ago, at a science-fiction convention in Chicago, I was staying in a huge flat near the Loop which had been turned into a kind of dormitory for all three of … Continue reading
Good show, Tesco. Good show, what?
I say: those lovely people at Tesco have realised that it is wrong to employ people for nothing, who are showing up to work not because they’ll get paid but because if they don’t they’ll lose their benefits. (Turns out … Continue reading
Filed under Benefits, Poverty, Supermarkets
You will work harder. Cameron is always right.
At the beginning of 2012, a young woman, Cait Reilly, stood up for human rights and natural justice as no one on the front bench of the Labour Party has done yet in this Parliament: she took the Department of … Continue reading
Filed under Benefits, Disability, Healthcare, Poverty, Scottish Politics
