Is this the Most Stupid Headline Ever?

Tiberius

Tosh, my friend.

A "hard job" is contributing to the profitability of a manufacturing company, and that would include being a contributor from the taxpayers' alliance. Everything else is "soft", particularly those jobs which make the hard jobs harder which would include much of the public sector.

HedgePig

Fair point, well made

Obnoxio The Clown

I think you're missing the point, and wilfully so (although I suppose you could possibly be an idiot) -- these jobs are luxuries even in good times, irrespective of how physically demanding they are.

Comprehensiveboy

I am going to be unemployed soon. If they are all the best thing since sliced bread let's have lots and lots and lots of them. No, bother all the money will come form the profitable sector of the economy. The bit people shell out money willingly for - not from taxpaying McDonald's workers. That of course is a magic bottomless pit and it is rather philistine to suggest otherwise.

Mark Adrian Solomon

OK, perhaps the headline should have said 'non-jobs' - but the overall tone is right, these are all spurious irrelevant jobs created by government money to make the unemployment figures look good and to fulfill PC ambitions. The idea that a government spend our money on this sort of thing was supposed to have died in the 1980s but we are increasingly stepping back 30 years to make the same mistake. None of these things should be funded by the government if they cannot live and die on their own merits and worth in the market place.

Oh and by the way, this is supposed to be a right wing magazine so try not to be so insulting and patronising to the readership in future - or get a job on the New Statesman...

mac

"the first tranche of 47,000 jobs, mainly created in local authorities". Get real, In reality this means more non-jobs invented to further bloat Labour's client state and funded by council taxpayers.

Never mind your aggrieved red herring about forestry workers; just admit it, it's the Telegraph's allusion to 'ambassadors' which has peeved you, because the criticism is uncomfortably close to a bullseye on your own unconvincing job creation wheeze. You want to send emissaries to persuade Peckham's finest to enjoy your New Deal culture? Yeah, that'll help fix the mess New Labour's created.

Jeremy

"So what would a "hard job" be...Perhaps it would be working in service, hand-milking a cow or hand-scything wheat. Or maybe it would mean stoking a boiler with coal till your lungs give out or stuffing bristles in a toothbrush till your fingers bleed -- all jobs done by my grandparents..."

Yes, those are hard jobs. But your grandparents' working conditions were not exclusive to themselves. Having served in the British Army right the way through the Great War, my grandfather became a coal miner. Not a pretty job, back then. And after that he worked right the way through the Second World War in an aircraft factory...

"...all of which sound like pretty tough jobs to me, certainly compared to "Daily Telegraph senior executive headline writer " or "mouthpiece for the Taxpayers' Alliance"."

And yes, those last mentioned are - by comparison - "soft jobs"; something which does, I must admit, put their own criticisms of "soft jobs" into perspective. So well done for that.

But I don't like the notes of bitterness, vitriol ("sneering philistine right-wing pomposity") and indignant self-righteousness with which you have infused this piece. The aforementioned are not the virtues of the Left, they are its vices. And they are rooted in the same kind of destructive hatred that you highlighted amongst the Islamists in your last piece. And "indignant self-righteousness" is - as it happens - the very quality that Tony Blair adopted and used to con you all with. And you fell for it, en masse. Why? Because he knew, amongst other things, that you were and are susceptible to it.

The prejudice of the Left is class hatred. And in any given society that is just as divisive and destructive a prejudice as either racism or religous hatred. Only the Left are in denial that it is a "prejudice" at all...*laughs* In short, the Left have got nothing to feel either morally or ethically superior about.

So the next time you catch the Right sneering in your direction, try to show a little more understanding of the reasons why...

Random

Why should we the taxpayers pay for any jobs?

PauL

Soft jobs - I suspect a term for positions in tax-payer subsidised industry, or in an industry created by the government for the purposes of raising cash (for the government) - rather like the whole HIP inspectorate - or working for the government in one way or another. In short, a job that does not create wealth.

I prefer to use the term Non-job. If you don't know what that means, then I suggest you read Littlejohn, that well-known sneering pompous right-wing philistine. He identifies the type on a weekly basis. But then, with him being a philistine, and writing in the Daily Mail and all, I guess that that might be beneath you.

David Moore

Perhaps soft refers to the sums. 47,000 workers for £1 billion and you say this is the first tranche implying the number will be higher. That money will pay each of those workers around £21k even assuming a vast sum isn't lost in the process (of course, it will).

How are you going to hire and train solar panel engineers (whatever they are) for that money?

These are nothing jobs being created simply to bandaid the real issues.

David Bouvier

Martin I find my self wondering if you wilfully misunderstood the term to create faux outrage. Is the term soft money unfamiliar to you from WestWing if nothing else. Hint - you can still spend it

Ganpat Ram

What a world !

On the one hand you have hitherto leftwing people like those of the New Staesman selling their souls to Islamists like Mehdi Hasan who spit abuse of "unbelievers" - and on the other you have the Tories gloating about their imminent triumph and trotting out all their favorite vicious superstitions.

Where does a geninune leftist go in these days?

As the historian E H Carr noted sadly: "The Left is stupid and the Right is vicious."

So much for Bright as a "Neocon!

eeyore

"Sneering philistine right-wing pomposity"? I say!

If I recall the Bible correctly, a Philistine was a gentleman attacked with the jawbone of an ass. Plus ca change.

A soft job is one subsidised by dipping your fingers in someone else's pocket. One that doesn't pay for itself. What's philistine about deploring that?

As for stupid headlines, any journalist with the smallest knowledge of his trade would award the accolade to the Bolton paper's masterpiece "Man had sandwich in briefcase".

Praguetory

Is this the most stupid headline ever?

Probably not, Martin, but your headline to this article is a contender.

aristeides

Don't expect such willfull dissembling on the pages of the Speccie, paper or electronic. Pathetic.

Nicholas

"Where does a genuine leftist go in these days?"

Perhaps to North Korea or Cuba? They seem to be doing a pretty good job of staving off the reality that socialism is the archaic ideology of the last century and has no place in the modern world.

When an ideology ends up doing more harm than good it is time for those who promote and implement it to take a long hard realistic look at it, Ganpat Ram, something that socialists, who prefer to tilt at windmills, seem incapable of. The speck of sawdust in their neighbours eye is always of far more earnest interest to them than the great beam clogging up their own view of the world. Witness the piece of tosh above.

I don't agree that the Right is vicious. Realist yes. Pragmatic yes. Some realism and pragmatism may indeed result in vicious outcomes but so does much socialist ideology. In fact history is littered with many more examples of vicious socialist outcomes than those from the Right. E H Carr's note is, sadly, vacuous and subjective. He was left wing, a Soviet apologist and appeaser, so his judgement of the Left as stupid was benign and rooted in the obsession with in-fighting that characterises it.

And on the subject of soft jobs. Jobs created by government in local authorities are a centrist imposition and we have seen enough of that in the last 12 years to know what that means. Far from being paid for by the government they will actually be paid for by the taxpayer, which is why the taxpayer has every right to comment on them.

Andy Carpark

If the slogan "A New Deal of the Mind" were going to live up to its (considerable) pretension then it would denote technical education which would help this derelict country to sell goods and services competitively abroad. Raising the proportion of physics teachers with a degree in the subject above the current slightly dismal 1 in 4 would be a start.

As for "ambassadors" (more pretension) to dragoon the young tearaways of Peckham into the latest David Hair [sic] "We are all guilty" abomination, it is difficult to imagine anything more inane. What stroke of genius is your "New Deal of the Mind" going to come up with next - taking in each other's washing?

"Philistinism" is a well-worn leftist smear against those who fail to see why public money should be thrown at mediocre agitprop.

Petulant luvvies presuming to school us on the virtues of honest toil, indeed. I never heard the like.

Ian C

You're displaying chips on both shoulders here, Martin.

CS

I suppose it's only fair. We've had to live with sneering philistine left-wing pomposity for the last two half-decades. Everyone must take their turn.

Nick Cohen

No Martin the most stupid headline ever was,
"Lack of Snow Slows Sales of Snowblowers" Washington Post, Business Section, 30 December 1986.
This, though is a good second.

CS

I think the point you're missing, Martin, is that just because it may be very difficult to persuade the residents of run down estates to attend concerts on the South Bank, it doesn't necessarily follow that it's a hard job.

If your 30 "ambassadors" fail to provide a regular flow of people from these estates to the South Bank, will they lose their jobs? Will the results of their work even be measured?

The reason people are tempted to think of these as non-jobs is that they are essentially non-productive. I don't mean that, to be productive, a job must be materially or economically productive. But they've been given jobs whose purpose seems mainly to make you feel that you've at least made a gesture towards these estates. Not actually improved their living conditions or income. But at least graced them with an "I feel your pain" smile from afar. You've managed to tick a box in your conscience.

What you're really doing here is not giving these "ambassadors" a job. You're giving them an income and something to keep them occupied. They're not the same thing. I agree that this is much better for them than living on the streets, but let's not pretend that it's gainful employment.

Andre

A hard job is where you make something and sell it for a profit. Most of us are happy to pay tax to support the police and the armed forces - so long as they are not required to waste their efforts and indeed their lives pursuing idiotic foreign affairs policies or politically correct social goals. Health, education, all the rest are services, selling a product, and should be bought and sold like anything else.

Tom Pride

Nicholas
July 30th, 2009 10:08am

Excellent post. Takes the inherent moral superiority head on.

“When an ideology ends up doing more harm than good it is time for those who promote and implement it to take a long hard realistic look at it”.

There is no morality in continuing to pursue policies which experience shows will fail or which will make the situation worse through unintended consequences. Good intentions can provide no excuse if previous experience is ignored.

john j jones

they are soft jobs because
1)without the states largess they would not exist.
2)they would not be missed if they didnt exist (unlike Nurses Police etc.)
3)Given 1 and 2 they mean a redistribution from the fiscally productive side of the economy (private sector, exporters etc) to the state via tax. The less money that exists in the private hands the less can be invested in new jobs in the private sphere. More tax also means less money being spent by private individuals in the real economy.
4) I am not a 'philistine'but I do not believe an ever larger state funded by an over burdened taxpayer. I do believe in a lower tax, less regulated economy which encourages people to start businesses and attracts companies from abroad to invest here. High taxes and Harmans proposed equalities legislation, for example, do not.
5)Given the debt situation any job of this kind may be snatched away pretty quickly if things get worse. Is this any kinder than not offering them in the first place?.
6)Not sure why the chippy class war offering re service to the landed gentry/hand-milking a cow etc. Not everyone who opposes unfunded state spending is a selfish blueblood. All those jobs transfer money from private to public. Thus paying for state largess.

Roger

Actually rather a good thing for Martin to be reminded here of who the Spectator's core readership is - an audience whose devotion to the smelly little orthodoxies of Thatcherism is every bit as profound as that of his former audience at the New Statesman's addiction to anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism.

Keep up the good work!

Tom Durkin

A "hard job" is contributing to the profitability of a manufacturing company, and that would include being a contributor from the taxpayers' alliance. Everything else is "soft", particularly those jobs which make the hard jobs harder which would include much of the public sector.
moronic in its simplicity, there are plenty of public sector roles that enable the private sector to act more efficiently. why arent companies climbing over one another to set up in failed states? because bureaucrats make it possible for goods to get to market...

Ganpat Ram

Nicholas:

I hope someone will notice what I wrote under this posting of Bright’s so they don’t call me for a raving rightwinger when I have to criticise Islamism, as I will.

I stand by E H Carr’s verdict that “The Right is vicious and the Left is stupid.”

Long acquaintance with both species has taught me the truth of this dictum only too well.

Of course I am not saying Carr did not make blunders of his own; he did; but he was right about this point.

I don’t expect to convince you.

It is in the nature of things that the vicious will never see their viciousness nor the stupid their stupidity.

With that I rest my case.

The Bellman

Hey, guys, lay off Martin, mmmkay? If The State doesn't employ people to lag our lofts or install those essential solar panels, who will do it? How will people in London find out about the South Bank if we don't send out missionaries to the estates to tell them?

(Mind you, I don't like Martin's suggestion that housing estates are a bit rough. Surely he knows they are a State-provided Paradise that breeds only delight and nobility among their fortunate residents. Mmmkay?)

And dance doesn't just assist itself, you know.

elixelx

Jeez Marty, and I thought the Arts Council's plans were twee!
Ambassadors to the Community indeed! You must mean homeless oafs that you hand-pick! (and I do mean "HAND-PICK"!)
Is this the stupidest columnist writing the stupidest column ever? Actually I reserve that summit of stupidity for your next-door neighbour, Marty!

Andy Carpark

Roger - The refutational content of your own fragrant little post is (drumroll):

Nil.

Now shove off back to Islington and pour yourself a nice bowl of muesli, you sanctimonious twerp.

Ted

Non-jobs = Daily Mail/Telegraph writers who churn out nonsense about celebs every day and toss in a bit of reactionary nonsense like this to try and annoy their ever more hateful readership.

Marcus

So judging from the comments here governments can't create jobs, but if they do and said jobs are part of the military-industrial complex or police force then its brilliant. Otherwise is a terrible waste of money and Socialism. Right.

Nicholas

Ganpat Ram, I just disagreed with you but you descended to an adhominem attack, so no holier than thou posturing please. You give everything away in your use of the term "raving rightwinger" which exposes your bigotry, prejudice and leaning to the left. The fact that you set such store by Carr confirms it.

You are not the only one with long acquaintance with "both species" (they are not species but political groupings and not so clear cut as historians wishfully think) so your assessment at the end of the day is personal and subjective - not proven. I have acquaintance with many on both the left and on the right - none of whom I would describe as "stupid" or "vicious". So Carr's generalisation is asinine as well as unhelpful - as is your defence of it.

Wot

"So what would a "hard job" be in this mad universe. Perhaps it would be working in service to the landed gentry, hand-milking a cow or hand-scything wheat. Or maybe it would mean stoking a boiler with coal till your lungs give out or stuffing bristles in a toothbrush till your fingers bleed -- all jobs done by my grandparents."

Yeah, but you didn't. Whence then this anger, bitterness, rage and insecurity?

Though they did such jobs, I doubt not but that they did them with more diligence, propriety, cheer and heavenly glory than is involved in writing a blog like that.

cuffleyburgers

They are soft josb because the y are not real value adding jobs - oif they were someone would already be paying someone to do them - as the americans say DOH!

Sorry Mr Bright, your views on this are ridiculous.

And marcus - your point about the military industrial complex is stupid as well - soldiering doesn't count as a soft job a) because you risk having your legs blown off or worse, and Mr Ainsworth taking legal action to ensure you can't afford a wheelchair, and b) because one of the few areas where it is legitimate for the govt to act is in the defence of the realm. As any fule kno.

Come on Marcus do keep up, with a bit of work you could be useless - doubtless a product of labour's education establishment.

Barry

"These will take young people off the streets of south London and turn them into hosts at the Royal Festival Hall and other venues at the Southbank."

Don't leave your Stradivarius unattended.

blueharrry

I think The Most Stupid Headline Ever is, 'What Am I Supposed to Say About This?'

See below

luke

Great post martin.

Putting our young people to work at minimum wage, doing socially beneficial things is FAR better than paying them benefits to waste their time.

The fact this is lost on the right is reason alone to pause and think hard before a cameron government gets elected.

mac

Andy Carpark @ 4.12

I assumed "Roger" was a sock-puppeting Mr Bright. On reflection, he might be the eponymous marxist from pb.com.

David Short

No. Headlines which beg the question yes or no are equally stupid.

Written by equally stupid and lazy subs.

D Short

The ones that will get let off these co-erced jobs will be those with criminal convictions, esp those working with children.

So those people who sign on but spend most of their days earning money through criminal activity will be immune.

And that's a lot of them.

The rest will become a drain on the energy of those who have to supervise them, not least encouraging them to turn up.

Beefeater

"New Deal of the Mind"
Is this the Most Stupid Organization Ever?

Why don't you just hand out free concert tickets to the local "community"? Or would that just give them ideas?

Archie

No Mr. Bright, the most stupid headline ever was "Nudist Teacher's Model Girl Wife Runs Off With Chinese Hypnotist From Co-op Bacon Factory"
Do keep up!

Ronnie

Martin, admit it, you just posted this to be controversial. Shaking the tree a bit.

Les

Any idea put forward by Mandy & Cooper is bound to be useless PC nonsense. Neither of them has had a real job.They exist only as parasites on society.

John Thomas

"sneering philistine right-wing pomposity" - well, it'll be a change from the sneering philistine left-wing pomposity we've had to put up with for what seems many decades.

logdon

"Failure to address the issue of entrepreneurship and self-employment"

Isn't that inbuilt into socialism? Browns idea of tackling unemployment is to create yet more public service jobs. Not much entrepreneurial aspiration there.

An own goal here, I'm afraid Martin.

GeoffH

If a job has to be "created" by Mandelson and Cooper then, by definition it's not needed and a waste of taxpayer's money.

Sam Mawson

Gosh, some jobs created to try and help the young unemployed which aren't jobs in the city, or for law firms, or for hedge funds or in top end eateries and expensive shops and the rich employed chuck their toys out the pram and have a good old winge about taxpayers money being wasted. The last time i checked society was more then just a calculation about how much wealth an individual can create...but hey lets reduce the worth of someone to numbers on a balance sheet. I'd prefer to spend an evening with someone who works for southbank or someone who works in a forest then a snout in the trough city tosspot any day!

Paul L

Martin,

Speaking as one of the long term unemployed I have to say that those

"ambassadors to the local community, persuading people who live on the estates in south London that the "high culture" of the Southbank Centre is for them as well as Daily Telegraph readers", are indeed the softest of non-jobs and I'd be embarrassed applying for them.

You must live in the most opaque of metropolitan bubbles to believe otherwise.

MikeSC

Are the Taxpayer's Alliance completely stupid? "The public sector has failed to cut back in a recession"- no shit, that's lesson one of recession economics.

MikeSC

Even more stupidity in the comments than from the Taxpayer's Alliance! On what basis are you people saying that people on the dole get their money through illegal means and so on? It's nothing but mindless prejudice.

You call these "soft jobs"- but history has taught us that when the private sector fails, the public sector has to step in. "Cutting back" is certainly not what the public sector should be doing, that's textbook.

But if the government created what you call "hard jobs"- wouldn't you then whinge that the government is trying to create a nationalised, dare I say "socialised", industry that would compete with the private sector?

Isn't it better from your right-wing point of view that the jobs created are those that the private sector won't and can't do, but are useful to society even if they're not immediately useful to you the individual? You can sneer at increasing the number of carers, but the people who need care certainly won't.

MikeSC

Wow, followed a link not realising this was the Spectator- how did such a sensible article end up here?

David Moore

MikeSC

It's rather telling that you manged to make 2 posts before realising this is The Spectator dispite there being 'Spectator' plastered everywhere you look.

Nicholas

Quiet this afternoon in the diversity outreach department is it MikeSc?

Which particular socialist version of "history" are you referring to? You make the same statements about the public sector as Brown - where are the successful historical examples?

Andy Carpark

Poor old Mike SC sounds like he'd struggle to go three rounds with a revolving door.

Jess The Dog

A reasonable article that misses the point a little...these jobs are arguably soft because they do not contribute to wealth creation.

However, it is right to point out that these jobs can be of value beyond screaming headlines and some community initiatives can indirectly contribute to productivity by encouraging grassroots arts or activities that encourage people to learn new skills...which can in turn develop self confidence and initiative.

The problem is when the public sector goes overboard...I am not certain of the value of many of the initiatives, the main offenders being "nanny statism" (vouchers for giving up smoking) and stifling layers of regime compliance monitoring.

Anthony Fornos

I have a new suggestion for "The Most Stupid Headline Ever." Care to hear it? I am increasingly convinced that in the alternative universe where come commentators exist, anything that can be said WILL been said.

Tiberius

"moronic in its simplicity" -
as are many comments fired from the hip.

Nicholas

" . . anything that can be said WILL been (sic) said"

Unlike here where we have New Labour's fascist speech crime and their Stasi to prevent it.

A J Scott

Mr Bright:
You are fortunate, like myself and countless others, that your ancestors got on with their hard and difficult jobs and improved the chances of their descendants. But why should that fact make you any more relevant or worthy a commentator of today's situation? Stick to the point, friend.

Ian Walker

Where does "champagne socialist blogger" come on the scale?

My TLDR precis of your article is "two generations ago, working conditions weren't very good, therefore taxpayers money should be spent on cultural ambassadors to poor estates"

Not much rigour to your argument, was there?

Malcolm

Any job created by the taxpayer, where the market has not done so, is indeed a 'soft job'. So, this probably qualifies as the silliest thread for a very long time, and certainly not worthy of the Spectator. It also reveals a lamentable understanding of the most basic understanding of economics.

TrevorsDen

Who is going to pay for these dance instructors??

If I want my loft lagged i will look it up in the yellow pages.

"Perhaps it would be working in service to the landed gentry," --- oh dear - your words drip with left wing prejudice.

Have you seen the size of the governments deficit?? have you seen the size of council tax bills?
Instead of taxing and hampering enterprise - have you thought that the best way to create productive jobs is to cut red tape and taxation for companies, especially small companies.

How will dance instructors help our balance of payments?

A 'philistine' Mr Bright is someone who believes in man made global warming.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/04/a-link-between-the-sun-cosmic-rays-aerosols-and-liquid-water-clouds-appears-to-exist-on-a-global-scale/

"A link between the Sun, cosmic rays, aerosols, and liquid-water clouds appears to exist on a global scale…"

"Each Forbush decrease can therefore warm up the Earth by the same temperature change as the effect of all carbon dioxide emitted by the mankind since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution."

James

'Ever'? Careful, that's borderline red-top hyperbole.

I digress. 'Man is Fatally Murdered' wins it for me.

Edward McLaughlin

Martin, have you gone on holiday without informing your chums here?

Mark Cleminson

No, But this might be the most misinformed Blogger.
Soft Jobs are non wealth creating, non-value added. Like Brights.

Tom Norton

I think your account of this headline and the article content are unfair. This was a government scheme being announced - the Telegraph did not comment on the subject matter.

Fraser Brown

"Can't see the woods for the trucking fees"
Australia's monopoly wheat board is outed as paying saddam for wheat deliveries at an exorbitant transport fee (hides the bribe)

Jimbob

You are absolutely wrong Martin, quite clearly the most stupid headline ever written was in Saturday's Telegraph announcement that "A fifth of European Union will be Muslim by 2050", a headline backed up by 3 pages of drivel taken from the hilariously named America's Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Scarily the content of the (two!) articles is even more inflammatory.

Les Patterson

Martin.
Please.
Forget the creation of "Southbank cultural ambassadors". Quite simply a waste of time.
30 such jobs might be "new" jobs, but they are certainly not "real" jobs.
i.e. Not deserving of payment with "real" money.

Who says inhabitants of estates in south London need "persuading" that the "high culture" of the Southbank Centre is for them as well as Daily Telegraph readers ?
If they want "high culture", they'll find it for themselves.

If New Deal of the Mind wants to do something useful, give 30 persons 300 black plastic refuse sacks, and tell them to pick up the litter in and around the South Bank complex, say between Greenwich and Richmond.
When the bags are full, give them another 300.
And so on.

Cultural ambassadors on the estates of south london ?
Whatever next ?

Edward McLaughlin

Les

Too right mate. Isn't there more than enough culture round here? We've got culture right up to our arseholes.

Sasquatch

These are not real jobs, they are artificial creations to massage Labour's the unemployment figures.

If, for example, more loft laggers were needed, they would, like every other job, be naturally created by the effect of market forces. That Labour creates these jobs shows, quite clearly, how unnecessary they are - there is no market for them to supply.

However, by artificially increasing the supply of loft laggers, the Government is making the existence of those already supplying the market far more unsustainable. Will this not, then, result in others becoming unemployed and defeating the supposed purpose of the scheme?

J Bell

You typify precisely why I loather you lefties. You want to take my hard earned money off me and use it to pay some clown who is unable to sort himself out to 'host' people. I bet you are up to every tax avoidance scheme going.