More boot camps for bums...

Chris Grayling, the Conservative Party's welfare spokesman, will tomorrow announce the new policies on employment benefits that the party plans to install should it win the next general election. And, as essentially a rehashing of the goals behind the Labour Party's ideas to encourage school kids to join the army cadets (unless Labour rehashed this idea), the new plans seem to suggest that everybody's run out of inspiration.

Though Labour's cadet plans are based on encouraging kids in school to find structure and discipline through the comfort of a warm gun in their hands, the Conservative plans encourage them to be themselves until the age of 18 and then to either find a job or get the fuck into 'boot camp'.

Grayling will say: "We plan to introduce much tougher rules for young people under the age of 21 claiming jobseeker's allowance. For this group, the welfare to work process will start much earlier. There will be employment 'boot camps' and community work programmes for those who don't find a job. Staying at home doing nothing will be a thing of the past."

We find it very unlikely that, in this day and age, there are still people that stay home and 'do nothing'. Lots of people play Grand Theft Auto, others watch MTV, and some feed their addictions to Internet porn.

Should the new system ever come about (probably some time 2011 if things go as they're looking), anybody aged between 18 and 21 who has been claiming benefits for more than 3 months will automatically be signed up to one of the boot camps, which is essentially a daily training regime to help people get back to work. If people don't go to the camp they won't get their welfare cheques.

Critics of the notion feel that this will create an increase in criminal activity, and perhaps it will. Politicians need to realise that not all of the unemployed are simply lazy. Some are ambitious but have found themselves with few options. Just because you've gone to a shitty school in a shitty part of town doesn't mean that you'd be any happier to work in MacDonald's or Tescos or some other shit hole than the next guy.

If the boot camps help people to fulfill their potential then perhaps there's a degree of worthiness in the idea. Otherwise it's just another example of out-of-touch political big boys with their heads too far up their asses...

Written by Oli Anderson on 26 May 2008 2:11 PM. Permalink