Big Issue

John Bird - the founder and editor-in-chief of The Big Issue - seems like a decent human being to me.

Someone who is plainly on the side of the homeless - those at the margins of society - the poor and dispossessed.

But John is no soft touch - he's refreshingly candid about the importance of work and  the need for people to help themselves - as opposed to settling for a lifetime on benefits. 

Here's an interesting article John wrote for The Times the other day.

From which you can tell that while he's a very political animal - he has little time for tribal politicians and party politics.

Probably because the kind of pontificating individuals he's talking about - could only dream of setting up something like The Big Issue.

"Take any job to escape the hellhole of benefits"

"Middle-class liberals should try a spell of unemployment before they criticise workfare

One of the worst places to be is on social security. From above you your paymasters, Her Majesty’s Government, seem ill-disposed to continue with the arrangement for a moment longer than they have to. From above you too, it would appear, vast supermarket-type businesses are desperate to suck the living blood out of you and pay you nothing in return.

Also above you, looking down at you and your predicament, are middle-class liberals who are outraged that you are disturbed in your hibernation from the job market. With great anger they shout that big business is exploiting you and that the Government is using you to boost corporate profits.

I tend to take a worm’s eye view of the situation that benefit recipients are stuck in. By a worm’s-eye view I mean what it’s like being down at the jobless ground level while these big people circulate above you, all full of advice and supposedly looking out for your best interests.

So what would I do if I were to join the ranks of the unemployed again? I would take the flimsiest offer of work even if the advantage was greater for the company that was using my labour than for unpaid me. I would take a punt at this work placement scheme, however impure or contradictory are the reasons why the Government or business want me to do it.

Why? Because life on benefit stinks. And any half-cocked exit plan is better than no exit plan at all. Maybe the work will not lead immediately to a job, but getting up and going to work in the morning must be a step nearer proper work than a step away from it.

Let me give you a few reasons why I would want out of the institutional state-sponsored poverty of social security. First, benefits are a Bastille, a life sentence for too many people. They not only imprison you, limiting your chances of liberating yourself from unemployed life, but they also cage your children, who are less likely to do well in school and get into higher education.

You will die younger and your health will be worse than that of an inhabitant of mainstream society; you will be more drawn to the stimulants of drink, drugs and tobacco; you will be more likely to suffer from mental health problems or end up in prison or excluded from school.

Being on benefits stigmatises you — and whole communities — because your neighbourhood is likely to have many other people in the same boat as you. In other words, despite many “caring” governments over the past 30 years, you will have been ghettoised. In short, your life will be on the line, along with your health and your sanity.

Much of the controversy about work placements has been absurd and naive. Tesco was started by Jack Cohen. He worked off a barrow in the East End nearly a century ago. He started his business to make money and Tesco has never erred from that concern ever since. So, of course, there should be no surprise that when Tesco entered the scheme — before getting cold feet and withdrawing — it wanted to maximise the benefits that free labour brings them.

Nor should anyone be surprised that the State is reluctant to hand over unearned income to people or that the Government is keen to get benefit recipients to do some work.

To those who are constantly vigilant about the poor being exploited I would suggest they tried a period of no work and “no exploitation” for a period of time. It is mind-rotting and degrading. And if the vigilant were less ethereal and more grounded they might be suggesting ways of improving the work experience scheme to make it less open to abuse.

I am sure there are countless pieces of anecdotal evidence to suggest that the current system has been exploited by some employers. But the longer we leave people marooned on benefits, without even a faint chance of getting off, the more we condemn them to a life sentence.

I suggest that the jobless ignore the advice of the outraged and well-intentioned and get stuck in, stacking shelves or washing vans. Getting a bit of work under the belt may well lead to saying goodbye to the hellhole of a lifetime on benefits.

Who knows, it may even get them nearer to the day when they can join the middle-class liberals and be concerned about the poverty and exploitation of other people."

John Bird speaks a lot of sense and has provided a lot of practical help for people - to gain some control of their lives and change them for the better.

No system involving large groups of people can work without sanctions - and anyone who says differently is either an anarchist, has their own political agenda - or no experience of life.   

The real question - the big issue, if you like-  is why do some people think it's perfectly OK to sit on benefits year after year?

To my mind that's the area the government should focus any sanctions upon - claimants who have been on benefits for years - who show no sign of trying to work through good times or bad.

Because that's the area which is open to abuse by anti-social elements in society - from career criminals to drug addicts - to old-fashioned benefit cheats.