At the end of last year, Ed Balls suggested that Labour would be ‘taking a tougher approach to conditionality [for benefit claimants]. If people can work, they should work.’ Now the party are starting to outline what that means. As the Independent puts it today, summarising a speech that Liam Byrne has given in Birmingham, ‘The unemployed would be guaranteed the offer of a job but could lose their benefits for six months if they turned it down, under a tough new policy on welfare planned by Labour.’
The paper characterises this as an attempt to ‘outflank the Tories on welfare,’ which is surely true. But the whole thing also reminds me of the Brown era. Not only is there that old, divisive trick — the ‘guarantee’ — which I’ve blogged about before, but we’re also told that ‘Ed Miliband is preparing to fight the next general election on the ambitious goal to create “full employment”’.
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