Jim Murphy, Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform, is continuing his attacks on the usual suspects. On his blog (yeah, I read his blog...) he is writing about the speech he gave today at the Work Foundation and the discussion centred around skills.
Man of the people Murphy argues that: "It’s shocking to think that well over half of Pakistani and Bangladeshi children in the UK live in poverty". And then hones in on the, "Fifteen percent of unemployed ethnic minorities – 40,000 people – say lack of language skills is one of their main barriers to finding work".
But here's the sting in the fine print: "I’ve asked Jobcentre Plus to place much greater emphasis on helping people to improve their English. We can help individuals address poor language skills as part of their Jobseekers Agreement".
So, in other words, if a claimant doesn't "obey" their agreement then they could indeed lose their benefits. Again the emphasis as ever from New Labour is compulsion. He's victimising the poorest in this society which will have a racist effect.
Instead of putting more resouces into supporting claimants, what Jim fails to mention is that ministers cut back the English for Speakers of Other Languages schemes a couple of months ago. It is a case of driving people further into poverty if they don't comply with the rules.
Hey Jim, here's a comment for your precious moderated blog, what about supporting people on their own terms......?
5 comments:
Ye Gods! That pic of Jim Murphy is scary. Especially that cheesy Blairite grin.
Well, the pic on his blog aint much better either.
The thing is - that photo is on a governement web-site. So it is one he is obvioulsy happy with. What were the other ones like that he rejected?
Too scary to contemplate.
I think there should be a health warning slapped on that pic as that Blairite grin could cause distress and trauma.
I remember this balloon when he was NUS president. IIRC his favourite argument (apart from "the SWP supports murdering Jews" when Palestine motions came up) was "if you support a return to full grants, you're taking the bread out of pensioners' mouths". This from someone who'd never need to survive on a grant again.
I'd lost track of Jim, but it makes perfect sense that he'd be minister for welfare reform.
Splinteredsunrise: Yeah, I too remember the tosser (sorry, but the bloke annoys me...) when he was NUS president. He was getting ready for his nice ministerial seat back then.
Reminds me too of Stephen Twigg when trying to shout over the booing and hissing from Scottish students (Poll Tax debate circa 1989) that he was going to pay his poll tax! Nice one Stephen....An exercise in how to alienate and piss off a whole layer of students....
Most government ministers served their apprenticeship as a hack in NUS.
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