Letters to the Editor

Marcus L'Estrange

Marcus L'Estrange E-mail: marcusle99yahoo.co.uk F1 / 3 Woonsocket Court St Kilda, Vic, 3182 Ph - (M) In Thailand: 08 7773-4369. Ex Thailand: 66 8 7773-4369. Currently on vacation. 6/11/07 In 'Cameron means business on welfare', 'The Spectator', 3/11/07, a number of points have not been made clear. What is an out-of-work-benefit? Is it just the dole for those unemployed or does it also include those lone parents on a separate benefit and does it also include those on Incapacity Benefit, of which about half (1 million) were placed on that benefit in order to artificially lower the monthly unemployment figure? If the later two benefits are part of the term out-of-work-benefits then the real unemployment figure in the UK is around 8 million or 15% plus (enforced retirees?), certainly not the 5 million plus or 4%-5% as claimed by the Britain's New (Class) Labour Government. The real figure of 15% is about the same as in Germany or France, which for some reason Britain scoffs at. Having said that I am well aware of the tricks Germany and France and indeed all countries get up to in concocting their monthly unemployment figures. Secondly, if David Cameron would have separate private agencies competing to run the welfare systems, paid by results according to how many they get back to work, does that mean these private agencies would compete with the current Job Centers or would they also be privatised? If the Government Job Centers are privatised then a Tory Government would be copying an Australian Tory, sorry 'Liberal' Government when it privatised the old Commonwealth Employment Service and introduce the fully privatised Job Network / Work for the Dole scheme. However there is no point to this exercise because when you look at the REAL unemployment figures and the relative shortage of jobs any private sector agencies would not be able to survive unless... they do what they do in Australia. There are many tricks the Australian Job Network provides get up to in order to financially survive (e.g. phantom jobs, very creative accounting and only helping the cream of the unemployed and ignoring the disabled and long term unemployed who are very hard to place in a job and hence no money from the Government. The two examples below from the newsletter Crikey.com.au, 5/10/07, or Australia's version of 'Private Eye', elaborates even further: Case 1: A young woman eight and a half months pregnant was weeding a traffic island in the heat of the wet season in northern NSW, working for the dole. Tears streamed down her face. She was humiliated and scared. She should not have been there but her private job network provider who wanted to get money for 'placing' her (at any cost) was ignorant of the basic rules. Case 2: Another rural woman became unemployed when her oldest turned 16, as if that made him cheaper to keep. Her mistake was refusing to pull bulrushes from a creek without wearing proper equipment on work for the dole. When her supervisor threatened to breach her she “read him his pedigree” and stormed off. Less forceful women would have hopped into the creek. Nothing happened because what he was asking her to do was illegal. All single Mums who need income support will eventually be at the whim of private workplace providers. The potential for exploitation and corruption is frightening. All Job Networks are doing is shuffling the unemployment queue with no real net reduction in unemployment. Worse than that, the cost of the wasteful Job Network bureaucracy creates even more unemployment by draining money from genuine job-creation schemes. In the UK who will supervise, judge the private agencies? Finally and even more crucially Mr Cameron has to make up his mind about being honest about the real unemployment figures. Author Phillip Knightly, in his article commenting on United Kingdom unemployment figures “Goodbye to Great Britain” noted: “Today, no-one is really certain of how many people are unemployed in Britain. But many experts accuse the government of underestimating unemployment or, worse, of fiddling the figures. It is certainly true that since 1979 there have been 29 changes by the Thatcher Government to the way in which British unemployment figures are calculated, most of which have had the effect of reducing the number – “the biggest conjuring trick since Houdini” says British Labour''. Of course, once in office, New (Class) Labour maintained Thatcher's political definition of unemployment. Out the window went honesty and many other policies. If Mr Cameron is not honest about the real unemployment figures in the UK then his plan for welfare reform will come to nothing because fudged unemployment figures are no basis for sound employment, education and training, economic migration and the taking of UK jobs, election campaign promises, interest rate policies or general economic policy. The whole point of the current migration program is to import cheap manual labour in order to hold down the general wage rate and to provide cheap domestic labour - servants to the middle and upper income classes. Surely Mr Cameron agrees with this assessment and that it's not racist to say so? Dodgy unemployment figures have lead to bad policies, unrestrained economic migration and loss of jobs for British born workers, bad laws and needless human suffering. Marcus L'Estrange Melbourne, Australia Marcus L'Estrange is a former Commonwealth Employment Servioce employee, a whistle blower, a High School Teacher (in the UK and Australia) and a freelance journalist. This article is an extract from: 'Unemployment figures: lies, damned lies and statistics' by Marcus L'Estrange 'Newsweekly', 9/12/2006: www.newsweekly.com.au e-mail: marcusle99@yahoo.co.uk