MISSING from Chancellor George Osborne's Conservative Conference speech yesterday was the name change for the Department of Work and Pensions.
The DWP acronym remains but it now stands for the Department for Work or Punishment.
It's part of the tough on the unemployed but not very tough on the causes of unemployment policy. Those celebrating a third anniversary of joblessness under the Coalition Government are entitled to join the God Help You If You Are Out of Work programme. Not so much entitled as compelled to join, actually.
Members will be required to report for duty 30 hours a week picking up litter, removing graffiti, working for local charities, or making meals for the elderly. (The elderly may wonder if there is an opt-out clause whereby they can make their own lunch instead of relying on unwilling conscripts who may have no culinary skills or even a food hygiene certificate.)
Members of these DWP work details will wear bright yellow jackets with a large U for unemployed stamped on the back. This is to let voters in the 2015 General Election know that the U-people are not getting something for nothing. The U-people may ponder that when they paid tax and national insurance all the years they worked, there was no mention of wearing yellow jackets with a big J should they ever have to go on the dole.
Failure to participate in the programme with a cheerful grin and a spring in the step will result in the withdrawal by the DWP of all benefits.
Some unemployed will have to sign on every day at the No-Jobs Centre and spend hours looking for work in case there is a sudden upturn in the economy. This may seem a waste of time but has the merit of keeping the idle away from daytime TV. They should be made to spend the hours in mindful meditation which lowers depression and lets us get to know our true selves.
A third category of U-people will be ordered to attend classes on issues such as illiteracy, alcohol abuse, and drug addiction. At the end of which they may be literate, sober, and clean denizens of the buroo.
The Get Tae Work club will initially involve 200,000 jobless a year. When it is extended to the entire unemployed population, there will a terrible shortage of litter, graffiti, and yellow jaikets.
l Some facts may have been changed to suit this article.
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