Wednesday 11 September 2013

A Fascist Remedy for Unemployment

I checked my calendar today to make sure that it wasn't April the First as I genuinely couldn't believe what I was reading. It was reported in both the Times and the 'i' newspapers that the Policy Exchange had released a Report called 'Cultures of Dependency' in which it recommends that the unemployed should be made to commute 90 minutes in order to sign on. This is not a wind-up, as I went onto their website to check this. In addition, it recommends that where everyone in a family is unemployed they should be required to sign-on together as a group. The following is from Wikipaedia

"Policy Exchange is a British conservative think tank based in London. The Daily Telegraph has described it as "the largest, but also the most influential think tank on the right".
The New Statesman named it as David Cameron's "favourite think tank" a view shared by the Political Editor of the Evening Standard Joe Murphy, who referred to it as "the intellectual boot camp of the Tory modernisers’"."

As a result of the obvious influence of this group, this is likely to become government policy. A red light was alerted in my mind when I went onto the website because they have a statement at the top of their site that the Policy Exchange is "the best think-tank in the business" and that comes from John Rentoul. For those of you who are unfamiliar, John Rentoul is described as a journalist who writes for the Independent newspaper. For many years now I have simply refused to read anything written by this person as I consider him the worst journalist I have ever read. Indeed to describe him as a journalist is to demean the whole journalistic profession, he is quite simply unreadable.

If you live in Scotland you will be aware that Glasgow is a 45 minute journey from Edinburgh by train and car, thus a 90 minute commute. Thus, what this think-tank is proposing is that all the unemployed in Glasgow should travel over to Edinburgh to sign-on whilst all the unemployed in Edinburgh will travel to Glasgow. Naturally, unless the authorities are going to pay for their travel, no unemployed person will be able to afford to do that and will therefore fail to register as unemployed, and that of course is exactly what the neoliberals in the Policy Exchange wish to happen.

This policy proposal displays a genuine insanity. All over Britain, the unemployed will be travelling  a 90 minute round trip from Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle etc. indeed all over the country, simply to register as unemployed. The person(s) who came up with such nonsense must be genuinely disturbed. It does however, reveal the depth of hatred and contempt that the neoliberals harbour for the disadvantaged in our society. This is another signal that Britain is descending into fascism. Again I repeat without apology that if you are thinking of voting against independence in the coming referendum then that is what you are voting for, and that is the type of person you are voting for. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat  

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