Claimants to 'work for benefits'

One of the things which David Cameron has been very successful at since becoming Tory leader is in offering his party's support of Labour's policies when Labour's policies are actually Tory policy in disguise. He then offers to back the government against the inevitable outrage of Labour backbenchers and see that Tory policies are passed with the help of the Tory party.

Blair often adopted Tory policy as a way of forcing the Tory party to move even further to the right and become unelectable. Cameron is not falling for this plan and the net result is a Labour party which is supported by the opposition. Why, in God's name, is the Labour party pushing this agenda?

Claimants "will have to work to get their benefits" under proposals due out on Monday, Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell has told the BBC.

Help would be offered to find work, he said, but responsibility was "vital".

He added that the plans in the Welfare Green Paper for England and Wales - including abolition of the incapacity benefit system - were "revolutionary".

The Labour party are now rounding on the sick and the unemployed and are doing so with the active aid of the Conservative party.

Tory leader David Cameron claimed the government had taken up ideas recently proposed by his party.

He promised the government the support of Conservative MPs to get the measures in the Welfare Green Paper through Parliament if they faced a rebellion by Labour backbenchers.

If Gordon Brown is ever worried as to why he is tanking in the polls next to Cameron, he might consider this; we elected a Labour government because we wanted Labour policies. We didn't want a Labour government which finds itself aligned with the Tories against it's own backbenchers.

And certainly not doing so for a scheme where the unemployed have to collect litter in order to get their hands on the pittance we hand out in benefits.

Giving his response to the Green Paper, Mr Cameron said: "Great - the government has taken up our ideas. I am absolutely thrilled at that.

"What (Mr Purnell) has done is very much taken the ideas we came up with in January, that are very clearly thought through and involve tough choices."

Mr Purnell said he "completely disagreed" that the proposals would be unpopular with some Labour colleagues.

"I think that people who see the way incapacity benefit or drug addiction or deep unemployment can scar communities are desperate to turn that round and when I speak to my colleagues they want a system that provides support for people, but also responsibility."

Purnell is right that unemployment can scar communities, but the cure for that is surely jobs that pay a fair wage, I really can't see how making unemployed people collect litter for the pittance that is on offer is going to improve matters. Unless the Labour party are now embracing the basic Tory belief that unemployment is somehow the fault of the unemployed and that it is only laziness which keeps them unemployed.

Likewise, I am sure there are skivers who are scamming the incapacity benefit system, but is abolishing the entire system the way forward? There are people in the city who are insider dealing, I hardly think that the appropriate response is to stop all trading.

But Labour plunder onwards, veering ever more to the right, with Cameron clapping them every inch of the way.

The whole bloody thing is simply shameful.

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Tags: Cameron, Brown, Purnell, unemployment benefit, incapacity benefit