Leading article: True welfare

If Blake were writing ‘Jerusalem’ today, he would find an easy contemporary equivalent for his ‘dark, satanic mills’.

If Blake were writing ‘Jerusalem’ today, he would find an easy contemporary equivalent for his ‘dark, satanic mills’. In our attempt to build a welfare state, we have created a national disgrace: welfare ghettoes, which scar every British city. Over the Labour years, millions of people were shovelled away in edge-of-town housing estates and paid (in benefits) to stay there. They were categorised so as to not show up on the unemployment count. They were replaced in the jobs market by an industrious immigrant class. With no money, no inclination to vote and no incentive to work, they were ignored by the British political elite. Until now.

Next week, Iain Duncan Smith will begin what is perhaps the largest single assault on joblessness ever attempted. Over the next year, a million people will be enrolled on the work programmes run by a series of private companies, which will be paid in full for each work placement that lasts two years. The payment to the companies for each successful placement will be up to £13,700 — generous and prudent, given that someone on incapacity benefit for two years is likely to spend the next eight years on benefits at a cost of £62,000 to the taxpayer.

The human cost of keeping five million people on benefits was always unacceptable, even during an economic boom. But now the monetary cost has become unaffordable. In the bubble years, Gordon Brown could allow the economy to grow through the use of immigrant labour. Unless welfare is reformed, David Cameron will preside over what is, for the British, a jobless recovery and he will pay for it at the ballot box.