TRUE TO FORM 06/30/2010
 
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In grotesque but sadly predictable fashion, Ian Duncan-Smith, the millionaire ex-Guards officer, and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (square peg, round hole), is threatening to stop housing benefit to unemployed people who refuse to uproot themselves in order to find non-existent work elsewhere. In other words, a rehash of the classic “Get on your bikes” Tory dogma from the 80’s. While this proposal will no doubt propel many Daily Mail readers to erotic spasms of ecstasy, the English Radicals are curious to know - which part of the UK has labour shortages at the moment?

Or perhaps he has visions of sending them somewhere even further afield, such as Romania, or Hungary? After all, we’re in the EU now…….

Mr Duncan Smith, here are some facts from the real world for you to think about. 

For every new job vacancy that appears, the number of applicants is in double, sometimes treble, figures. 

Government plans to raise retirement ages for those already employed, will make a bad situation worse by preventing younger people from entering work.

Many newer jobs are currently filled by workers from the EU, mostly young men and women from eastern Europe, prepared to live in overcrowded, cramped conditions, working for long hours and low pay? Back to Victorian values, hurrah! 

Finally - there simply aren't enough jobs to go around in our crowded island.

Ironically, Tory policies from the Thatcher era were responsible for the demise of industrial areas that now have massive levels of unemployment: the “Free Market”, the beloved doctrine of global capitalism-loving Tories everywhere, dictated that foreign made goods made in sweatshop conditions, thus undercutting English goods, should be allowed to flood our markets and kill our home industries, whether it be coal or cloth, shoes or steel. The only solution they can dream up to compete with foreign manufacturers, is for English workers to gradually accept third world pay and conditions - hence this latest Tory plan, to make us compete feverishly for imaginary jobs.

And what was New Labour’s answer to the Tory demolition of British and English industry? Borrow money to create public sector non-jobs for the educated middle classes, whilst at the same time using the benefits system to create junkie-like dependency in the working class areas worst affected by industrial collapse, to ensure both groups' future support at the ballot box. Labour were in power for 13 years, yet their poorest seats are even poorer now, incredibly, than when they first took power! The economic mess we are currently in, can be traced back to both party’s short term “fudge” tactics, each one leaving a mess for the other one to clean up, but finding when they return to power much of the original mess is still there, plus some dodgy new carpet stains from the recently evicted tenants. 

It is not the job of government to spend taxpayer’s money hiring people to shuffle paper, or to make unwanted widgets, in order to make unemployment figures look better. The job of government is to protect its home industries - and therefore jobs - from unfair foreign competition, by heavy taxation on cheap, slave made imports, levelling the playing field for our higher waged workers to compete. It is the job of government to encourage foreign manufacturers to build factories here, not by bribery in the form of grants, but by allowing them to be classed as English companies while based here, to sidestep the heavy taxes we would otherwise impose. England is a huge market for any company – if they want to sell here, they should have to “make” here.

Only when your government has done ITS job, Mr Duncan-Smith - when you have created the framework for English industry to flourish, stemmed the tide of potentially unlimited EU economic immigration and allowed the elderly to retire at a reasonable age, will you be morally entitled to ask the unemployed to “get on their bikes” and fill the new jobs as they appear. Until then, the English Radicals suggest you live up to your reputation as the “quiet man” of politics.

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