A shocking - but not surprising - dependency culture

Border Reiver

No, not a suprise. But I suppose new Labour ministers are too scared to go into these estates. In Scotland we have some of the worst in Europe. Generations dieing young from drink, violence and hopelessness. In days of old these men and women helped build an empire and were a rather conservative bunch. The decline of industry - however, mundane and grueling that work was - has fractured communities and social morality has collapsed. Working in Tescos to get £35 pounds more than your dole and housing benefit isn't necessarily acting as a rational economic agent. I think of the 19th century Scottish estates like New Lanark. There was tutors for the children, civic halls etc and of course the men were employed. If you were disorderly you were kicked out. I'm not saying we can return (or should) to those days. I don't think Tescos have a Quaker philanthropic ethos anyway. However, the notion that you sign a declaration of intent to get a job seems tediously superficial. Besides alot of people like the status quo - in Scotland the council estates vote Labour. It reminds me of Rab C Nesbit visiting the jobcentre being told he needs to get a job or they'll stop his benefits. Indignantly he tells the bureaucrat, "I'll tell you this, see people like you, you wouldnae have a job if it wasnae for bams like us". At the end of the day the middle-classes are too highly taxed to care. Nevertheless until there is holistic reform of the whole system they will continue to pay for the communities they would rather ignore. Smart conservatives should try to help these people for economic and compassionate reasons.

mike

This just shows how tough we are . Tories talk tough, but New Labour is tough. We do more wars than you. We allow more old folk to die from the cold than you, so we missed a target, so what ? Only today on the BBC the minister in charge said that he was doing his best, that's bloody commitment for you. Council tenants, work-shy trouble makers that's what we call them, if they don't get a job we'll throw them and their kids on the streets and see how they like that. Labour no longer does poor, we're only interested in the ambitious and successful, if you can't do successful don't vote Labour. If you are sick you'd better be really, really poorly, no malingering fellow, get a job and stop sponging off the hardworking tax payer. You think the Tory Party was "Nasty" you ain't seen nothin' yet. We used to do Pensioners, poor, sick, homeless and vulnerable, no more, now is your time Gordon, show them you don't care, it's what Tony would want.

EyeSee

Everything Labour do is only about their power. There is no incentive to chase the work-shy, they vote Labour. Thinking about the implications of legislation interrupts valueable 'troughing' time. Brown raided the pensions and now there isn't enough money to pay pensioners. Coincidently, doctors suggest that they don't treat 'old' people (over 50's I think they mean). A country run by and for vanity and ego.

Austin Barry

There is a rough beast slumbering in the sink estates and the open-prison schools, in the extremist enclaves, in the seething inner-cities. Soon, I sense, it will slumber no more but, released from its benfits-induced torpor, will slouch towards us. Those will be interesting times and quite how our dithering, empty-suit of a PM will respond will be fascinating to watch.

Madasafish

What you have not commented on is that eventualy Labour admitted around 75% of new jobe created have gone to immigrants. Joined up thinking would suggest curb immigration and force people to work should go hand in hand. (No I'm not being racist .. just logical). It will not happen as it just proves Gov't policy since 1997 has been to ensure the poor will not work. (Whether deliberatley or otherwise). In a business, you fire the lot of them.In politics you let them continue in power and defraud the taxpayer.:-(

JZ

True, Labour may have struggled to relieve poverty. But Fraser approvingly quotes a radio phone-in caller who says "I work six nights a week for my family, no one else's". This is presumably someone who has a full-time job and should pay his share when it comes to feeding and housing those too ill to support themselves. But Fraser is enthused by the man's base instinct, which can be summarized thus: You might be disabled or clinically depressed, but you're not my problem. My taxes shouldn't rescue the ill from abandonment. Again, Fraser is pleased when "another called to denounce the idea that the state owes anyone a living." You might be too ill to work, but I owe you nothing. If you starve on the streets, it's not my problem. Is Fraser motivated by a desire to relieve poverty? I believe that he THINKS he is. But I also believe that his unguarded, stream of consciousness blogging reveals much.

Fraser Nelson

Madasafish, we comment on it regularly - every time making the case that many immigrants created these jobs by being so cheap/reliable. Its not a zero sum thing. Border Reviver its worse - for an average family, min wage pays just £20 a week more. Austin, I share your concern that Labour's appalling social segregation will hit us one day. Only the Tories would assess everyone on IB and not write these people off. EyeSee, turnout from these estates suggest they dont vote at all - hence their sink schools, etc. As Labour adviser Jo Moore put it, "there's not votes in the poor".

I M smokinafaig.

The official figures show that one half of social housing tenants are unemployed. I am always surprised at the number of expensive new cars parked in front of council houses. Either the benefits payments are too high or many tenants are moonlighting. The Government should redouble its efforts on tackling benefit fraud so that social housing is only available to the deserving families who have no other means to earn an income. While they are at it, could they also stop the practice of building social housing in the middle of new private housing developments. This will do nothing to eliminate the two tier system of council and private housing which is so unique to our country.

Penlan

Figures are undeniably awful but 1981 was the year when council tenants first were able to buy their homes under the "Right to Buy" legislation.Those in work bought and have continued to buy.The unemployed remained as tenants so I am not surprised that the proportion of working families still paying rent to the Council is so much less.

David Lindsay

Caroline Flint is not exactly the sharpest tool in the box. So I hope that someone will explain to her, very slowly and in words of one syllable, that people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance already have to prove that they are seeking work. If she can think of a more demanding way of requiring this of them if they also want council housing, then why is that not already being applied in relation to JSA?

Alan Woodcock

Doesn't anyone at The Spectator, with a Fellow of All Souls as its editor, know that the past tense of the verb "to lead" is "led" not "lead"? The latter is a heavy metal - and a noun!

mike

They live in squalor and fear, do you really think someone wants to live on a council estate ? They were born into this life, some escape but many don't. If you think they have it easy, go give it a try. Labour has failed them, they had ten years and they bloody well failed them. Cameron gives not a jot for this underclass,and neither do you lot.

Border Reiver

Good point Mr Lindsay. It's a superficial ploy. Yet, listening to the Jeremy Vine show on BBC Radio 2 there was over-whelming support: 'The best thing Labour has said in ten years'. Mr Barry's concern is valid. Will the post-war Welfare State lead to a(is that right!?)21st C version of H.G. Wells dystopia. The Elois and the Morlocks. "The too-perfect security of the Upper-worlders had led them to a slow movement of degeneration, to a general dwindling in size, strength and intelligence...To come upon them after dark without a light was to put them in a tumult of apprehension...The nemesis of the delicate ones was creeping on apace". I understand Wells and D.H. Lawrence concluded some sort of eugenics was required to stop this. Seemingly alot of Radio 2 listeners would agree.

Ex Council Estate resident

Many unemployed, particulary single parents and those in unemployment blackspots say there are just not the jobs available for them to do. That may be so. Why then doesn't the state pay them to do such work as cleaning up litter/glass etc. from their parks; remove graffiti - instead of sitting on their bums feeling more and more worthless? By making their own locality a cleaner and better place for them and their families, they might just engender a sense of community pride; make it less likely that their offspring will despoil the area. One other suggestion (for those who think too much benefit money is spent on satellite t.v., booze and fags etc.) Why not give a basic cash benefit of, say, £30, with the rest in tokens that can only be exchanged for food (not alcohol, not fags, not lottery tickets)? I'm sure there are practical as well as political reasons why this might not work, but it's worth consideration surely.

Fergus Pickering

Come, come. Booze and fags are necessities of life, and lottery tickets are hope for the hopeless, though I must admit I rather jib at anyone buying a lottery ticket on my money. I agree with the other stuff you said about cleaning up the locality a bit but it'll never happen.

Tiberius

Ex CEr: The sole reason that your much discussed and eminently reasonable suggestions have never been enacted is because the soft Left have won the argument that these souls must not be stigmatized. Cleaning up litter or paying with vouchers in the Coop is just too undignified. But, the argument may be ready to move on - who knows.

Border Reiver

Tiberius, the argument has moved on for over 50 years. Plus ca change! Ian D-S in Glasgow last-night observed the obvious: prosperous inner city, blatant third-world on the spheres. Dinnae mean to sound like a Socialist, but the Nu Tories appear as genuine as New Labour on real reform.'Blogging'this topic is not the same as real discussion; for a start the people we're discussing don't even have access to the internet. Mr D'Ancona I dare you to run a leader on this whole topic . Get Frank Field, Dalrymple etc to attack wee dignity & knowledge. Yours aye, ax

John Lea

I wholeheartedly agree with Ex-Council Estate resident. The welfare system is an essential safety net for those who find themselves out of work through no fault of their own; not a career choice for the lazy and feckless. What's so humiliating and outrageous about asking the unemployed to work for their benefits (picking up litter and removing graffiti, as suggested). At the very least, this would help to establish discipline and structure in their lives, foster self-respect, and benefit their communities.

Richard Hare

It should not be possible for children to be born into such deprivation, for the simple reason that one of the principal responsibilities of people who are a burden on society, or in debt, should be to not add to that burden or debt. It's unacceptable for people who can't afford children to have them and assume someone else will pay for it.

Geoffrey Harrison

It may be 'unacceptable' but it will continue to happen. We live in an age and society where personal responsibility is at a very low ebb. The cry for any an all social ills is, "The government should do something about it" meaning take taxes from those who work and splash the money all over those who won't. It's not a question of a 'safety net' any more. The Welfare State has become a total swindle perpertrated by Labour solely to ensure an underclass whose votes, even at their low level of participation in elections, when combined with the mass of State Employees continues to sustain them in office, power and privilege at the expense of the rest. These nabobs of privilege are the 21st Century equivalents of Communism's Nomenklatura. What makes them, and their strategy, worse is that there never was a genuine intent and policy to reform welfare or help the unfortunate. It was all a deliberate strategy designed to appeal to the sentimental among the electorate and when power was achieved, to make it permanent by screwing us.

dave heasman

" It is thanks to this government-sponsored social apartheid " I'm sorry to bring this up, but does anyone think that the sale of council houses, while being highly beneficial for most of those who bought, was thoroughly disastrous for those left behind? True, the Labour Party just whine about it, but that is in part because there is no civilised solution. It's something we're stuck with. And perhaps it's not such a bad thing - the trade-off for the ruined underclass lives is that most people will never come into contact with them.

dave heasman

That, Richard Hare, was why I said a "civilised" solution. Are you thinking mass sterilisation? I can see it now, a New Labour sterilisation bureau with PC criteria for tube-tieing. Or perhaps goon-squads wielding pangas?

John Lea

Excellent point made by Geoffrey Harrison. I agree, it is in Labour's interests to foster and maintain a vibrant dependency culture. All of the social ills that accompany such a culture - poverty, crime, drug abuse - merely help to support Labour's central tenet that such problems are the direct result of inequality in society. Abolish the idea that unemployed people are the 'victims' of inequality in society and you abolish the underlying principle of all left-wing thinking.

William

"It's unacceptable for people who can't afford children to have them and assume someone else will pay for it." Perhaps Government inspectors should be sent round to inspect the finances of each couple proposing to have 'relations' (having submitted a form, in triplicate, to the relevant State body). All bank statements, account books and other financial records will be taken away and the couple will receive a decision in 6-8 weeks. Yes, that sounds a marvellous idea, Richard. Do you have any other thoughtful and humane solutions to society's problems?

dave heasman

"It's unacceptable for people who can't afford children to have them and assume someone else will pay for it." I guess if you're not a libertarian you could propose parenting licences? Breeding without one would lead to forced adoption? There's been a proposal for this in the US that's been worked on a bit, and it's less uncivilised than forced sterilisation. It would allow for other criteria than the economic to be applied, too.

Perry

There was a time when one considered carefully whether one could afford to marry, and settle down, let alone have a child. Who cares now? Procreation, for some, is equivalent to income generation, - and an easy way into furnished accommodation. Responsibility? Well certainly not mine! ‘specially if oim a yoof! – I know moi roights!

Rachel

I feel that the majority of your comments really are putiing people in boxes! I desperately want to work, I have two children and I am a single parent! I managed to get a position within my local bank working 25 hours a week during school times. After careful workings out, it turns out that by working I am indeed worse off and would be paying to work! After a recalculation based upon working 16 hours I am much much better off! So the less i work the more i get paid??!! So wrong! I want to dig my way out of this situation and have no aspirations to be a benefit scrounger! I want the very best for my children but the government make it so hard to get out of this hole!!
Either the benefits are far too good or the national minimum wage is too way to low? Given a choice people dont want to live off of the backs of others, we want to work!!!!! Its so easy for you to comment when you are simply looking over the fence!