Cameron’s ego-boost on Facebook is a costly mistake

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advert, David Cameron, ego, Facebook, fans, like, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, page, pay, Vox Political

Someone should have told David Cameron: If you have to pay for some things, they’re not worth having.

It seems an Eton education isn’t as useful as we’re always being told.

In a desperate bid to make the Conservative leader seem more popular than he really is, the Tories have paid around £7,500 (according to The Independent) on adverts to get more fans on Cameron’s Facebook page.

There has been an increase in the number of fans – they’ve more than doubled to 128,000 – but commentators have questioned the value of the exercise, pointing out that Ed Miliband is the least popular main party leader on Facebook but Labour has led all recent election opinion polls.

The Tories said the strategy was “above board”, pointing out that such campaigns are commonly used by American presidential candidates (another indication of the Conservative love of all things American, even when they are costly and pointless – NHS England users take note).

Meanwhile, according to the Indy, “A Lib Dem insider… branded the campaign ‘pretty pathetic’, while Labour MP Sheila Gilmore added: ‘There is no end to his ego.'”

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Poll result reveals DWP doublespeak on the Bedroom Tax

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accommodation, advert, bedroom tax, Coalition, Conservative, Democrat, Department, doublespeak, DWP, esther mcvey, government, house, housing, housing benefit, Iain Duncan Smith, Ipsos Mori, job, Job Centre, Lib Dem, Liberal, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, overcrowd, Pensions, poll, social, social housing, spare room subsidy, state, Tories, Tory, under occupation, under occupation charge, Vox Political, work

The Department for Work and Pensions is heralding the result of a new poll as proof that a large majority of people support its controversial Bedroom Tax policy – in fact the findings prove nothing of the sort.

Headlined (incorrectly) ‘Poll shows support for removal of spare room subsidy’ – there is no such thing as a spare room subsidy so it cannot be removed – yesterday’s press release relies on some not-so-subtle wordplay and the gullibility of the reader to make its case.

If you want to find out how many people supported the government’s policy, you’ll have to look somewhere else because it is not directly identified anywhere in the article.

“New independent research shows there is strong public support for reducing under-occupation and overcrowding in social housing,” it begins – and this is fair enough.

People do indeed want to reduce under-occupation in social housing – but we have seen, time and time again, that people think there must be adequate social housing available for people who want, or need, to move. This is not what the Conservative and Liberal Democrat government are offering.

Instead, people are being told they can either move into smaller, privately-rented accommodation that will create more expense for the government, or if this is unavailable, pay the Bedroom Tax at 14 per cent of their eligible rent for one room and 25 per cent for two or more. Whatever they do, they end up having to pay more. That is not reasonable.

“In a poll [of 2,021 people] conducted by Ipsos MORI, 78% of respondents said they thought it was important to tackle the problem, which has led to nearly one-third of social housing tenants who receive Housing Benefit living in homes that are too big for their needs,” the article continues.

What problem is this, then? The problem of people occupying social rented properties that are too large for them, as the ConDems want you to believe? Or the problem of successive governments failing to build social housing that is adequate for the needs of the population? The latter seems more likely, don’t you think?

None of the information around that 78 per cent figure suggests that 1,576 people support the Bedroom Tax. I happen to believe it is important to tackle the bottleneck, in order to relieve the overcrowding issue. The Bedroom Tax won’t do that, though. It will just take money from poor people.

Was support for the Bedroom Tax indicated anywhere in these results? No. The closest we get is: “The polling also found that 54% agreed that it is fair that people of working age, who live in social housing, should receive less Housing Benefit if they have more bedrooms than they need.” Even this does not suggest that those questioned agreed with the amount the government is taking from hardworking social tenants.

Curiously, the same proportion of those polled – 54 per cent – said they believed “the coalition government’s removal of the spare room subsidy policy will encourage those receiving less housing benefit to improve their personal situation by, for example, finding work.”

There are a couple of points to make here. Firstly – there is no policy to remove the spare room subsidy because, as previously mentioned, the spare room subsidy has never existed. Secondly, the idea that people can find work (or find better-paying work) is a bad joke.

Only yesterday, a staffer at my local Job Centre was heard admitting that their office had received no new job advertisements in several weeks, and there is no evidence that this is a unique case. It is unrealistic to suggest this as a reasonable way out.

The fact that both these questions received 54 per cent support leads one to question how many of the respondents were affected by the Tax. My guess would be 46 per cent or less. The other 46 per cent, of course.

DWP ministerial rentamouth Esther McVey was on hand to provide the commentary (Iain Duncan Smith is still in hiding, one presumes). She said: “This shows that the public agree that action was needed to tackle overcrowding and to make better use of our housing stock.” Except, as already pointed out, it doesn’t show that the public agree with the government.

She added: “We have seen our Housing Benefit bill exceed £24 billion – an increase of 50% in just 10 years – and this had to be brought under control.”

The Bedroom Tax will do nothing in this respect – in fact, the bill may increase (people moving into private rented property would receive more benefit, and people who have been evicted because they can’t pay their bills after the Tax was imposed will be a burden on councils, who will have to put them up in more expensive B&B accommodation).

Also, increasing numbers of working people are being forced to claim housing benefit because companies are making sure their wages are too low to provide a decent living. Almost a million working people were claiming housing benefit in May this year, and that figure seems sure to have been exceeded by the time the next set of statistics is released on November 13 (Wednesday).

Apparently it is bad for unemployed people to claim the benefits they deserve, but perfectly fine for companies to have the lousy wages they pay topped up at the taxpayers’ expense.

That’s government doublespeak for you!

Government ploy claims Universal Jobmatch helps social mobility – why can’t employers help?

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advert, employer, identity theft, James Caan, jobseeker, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, recruitment, sanction, social security, training, unemployment, Universal Jobmatch, Vox Political, welfare, word of mouth

Here’s a fascinating press release that arrived yesterday. It seems to be trying to discourage people from helping friends and family into work through ‘word of mouth’ recruitment, in favour of – try not to laugh – Universal Jobmatch!

It seems the latest wheeze is to say that ‘word of mouth’ hinders social mobility – whereas Jobmatch, as we all know, tries to funnel jobseekers into any available work, no matter how inappropriate. It allows the government to sanction jobseekers who fail to apply for jobs they view.

Oh yes, and there’s also the matter of identity theft; none of the ’employers’ advertising on Jobmatch are vetted by the government, and many have been found to be criminal organisations who want jobseekers’ personal details for illicit purposes. Make no mistake – this is a dangerous system.

That’s not the worst of it, though – the press release misrepresents the information, which in fact shows that employers should be doing much more to help social mobility, by advertising all the jobs they have to offer and providing more and better training opportunities. These are glossed over, in order to put pressure on the jobseeker.

Here’s the text of the release. Let’s go through it together:

“Social mobility and economic growth hindered by word of mouth recruitment

“As the government’s new social mobility ‘tzar’, James Caan, calls on parents not to automatically help their child into a job or work experience, figures published by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) show that word of mouth is now the most common recruitment method.” Doesn’t that mean it’s the most successful? Why is James Caan trying to stop people from using a tried and proven way of getting jobs? And, has anyone heard of this ‘Employment and Skills’ commission before?

Assistant Director at UKCES, Moira McKerracher, said: “Although it’s probably unrealistic to expect people to stop helping their children, Mr Caan raises an important point. Our research shows that the most common way for people to get a job is now word of mouth. That might be cheap, but it’s got a lot of disadvantages. It relies on people having social and professional networks – a ‘grapevine’ – which young people often don’t have. When they do, it’s often through their parents. And it narrows down the potential pool of talent for employers, who could be missing out on some fantastic staff.” Okay, a lot of this seems reasonable, but doesn’t it mean that other ways of getting work have been closed off?

“Using services like Universal Jobmatch, advertising in the local paper, online and using social media or recruitment agencies can be very cost-effective ways of ensuring employers get access to the widest possible pool of talent, and young people are given a fair chance of a job.” Here’s where it all falls apart. Putting a discredited mess like Jobmatch at the top of the list casts a deadly shadow over the others. And aren’t the social media and recruitment agencies just another form of the networking that was being discouraged a couple of paragraphs ago?

“Scaling the Youth Employment Challenge, published by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, notes that word of mouth is now the most common way of getting a job, with 29 per cent of employers using it to recruit compared to 24 per cent two years ago. There has been a corresponding drop in the number of employers formally advertising vacancies.” If the preceding paragraph sounded the death knell for this release’s credibility, that passage set the alarm bells ringing. Aren’t employers under a statutory obligation to advertise job vacancies? I may be wrong but this suggests that it is employers who are causing the problem, not jobseekers.

“It also finds that the major reason employers reject job applications from young people is because they lack experience, yet only one in four (27 per cent) actually offer work experience.” Yes – so it is the employers causing the problem. Why is this not flagged up, rather than the efforts of good parents and friends, trying to help people out?

“The report also finds that even young people with a job are frequently under-employed, with one in five wanting to work more hours. A disproportionate amount of youth employment is in low-skill, low-pay jobs with little training and few opportunities for progression. It calls on employers to do more to help young people into work – for example, by providing work experience, mentoring, apprenticeships, traineeships and entry-level jobs.” Again, all of these are issues for employers, not jobseekers. Why not get on their case, rather than bothering the unemployed over matters they cannot influence?

“The UK Commission for Employment and Skills is a publicly funded, industry-led organisation providing strategic leadership on skills and employment issues in the four home nations of the UK.” Oh – that’s why. It’s a mouthpiece for employers to justify their behaviour.

This press release went out to newspapers and other media outlets across the UK and, knowing the media as I do, I’m sure many of them will have just picked it up and dropped it into a space without even stopping to think about whether the information is correct. That’s how the government gets away with planting misinformation in public perception – reporters are overworked and don’t have time to consider the implications of what they’re publishing.

And readers want to trust news providers. This is why the BBC must be criticised for its distortion of NHS facts and figures – it should not be a propaganda arm of the Coalition government.

It’s time to question what you’re being told.

Former Tory’s full-page rebuke ad fails to hit the mark

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'light touch', advert, bank, benefit, benefits, civil service, Coalition, Conservative, consultant, crisis, David Cameron, debt, deficit, Department for Education, Department for Work and Pensions, disability, Disability Living Allowance, disabled, DLA, DWP, economy, Ed Balls, Ed Miliband, Employment and Support Allowance, ESA, George Osborne, Gordon Brown, government, health and safety, Incapacity Benefit, Labour, Liam Byrne, Martin, Michael Gove, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Pensions, people, PIP, politics, regulation, shadow, sick, slavery, social security, tax, The Times, Tories, Tory, unemployment, union, Vox Political, welfare, work

Not worried: This comedy double-act won’t be worried about ‘Martin’ and his full-page advert attacking them in The Times – his criticism is so wide of the mark that it makes him look more stupid than them!

We need to have a few words about Martin.

It probably did us all a lot of good to learn that a disillusioned Conservative voter calling himself by that name has coughed up around £16,000 to publicise his opinion about David Cameron and George Osborne’s leadership of the UK.

He made his points in a full-page advert in The Times newspaper yesterday, taking the form of a letter to the comedy Tory double-act. It’s just a shame that most of it is an unrelenting flow of bilge.

But then, he is a Tory.

Most of his bile is reserved for the web of regulations which he seems to believe is stifling the economy, and the civil servants who run it. Health and Safety regulations, in particular, come in for a battering.

Martin wants the Coalition to eliminate “whole departments of government whose sole function seems to be to ensure that our children never learn that fires burn you and who, never having climbed a ladder for a living themselves, instruct everyone else on how to both place a ladder, operate a hand tool and wear a harness when cleaning windows. They do all this at great cost to the economy and for no real benefit.”

It’s very easy to mock Health and Safety regulations when it comes to the small stuff, but the simple fact is that ‘light touch’ enforcement of these rules has inflated the numbers of people on sickness, incapacity and disability benefits. Does Martin want his money to pay for his silly one-page ad campaign, or to pay for more of these people to sit at home, doing nothing, when they could be at work, helping to restore the economy?

His comments are so naive, one has to wonder if he has any experience in this field at all. I do – as has been chronicled many times in the past. Mrs Mike – my partner – used to work at a factory where Health and Safety monitoring was so lax as to be nonexistent – in fact, supervisors actively bullied workers into cutting corners. This regime was supported by Gordon Brown’s ‘light touch’ enforcement of regulations which meant the firm was always given prior notice of ‘surprise’ inspections, allowing time to put safety equipment in place before inspectors arrived.

Eventually – we believe – the repetitive nature of the work, in poor conditions that forced her to adopt an unhealthy posture, damaged my partner’s body. At first she tried to soldier through, but ended up taking so much time off work (in agony, I must add) that the company decided to sack her. She tried to get help from her union, but the shop steward seemed to be in cahoots with company bosses and failed to represent her in a reasonable way.

Now, thanks to the policies of the Coalition government for which Martin presumably voted, she is facing the possibility of having her Employment and Support Allowance cut off by officials who seem to think that her progressively-worsening condition is going to be cured by August, despite there being no evidence whatsoever to support the assumption.

Is this what Martin wants? The relaxation of what little Health and Safety regulation there is, creating a legion of people who are unable to work due to injury, and who are forced into poverty because government policy is determined to say that the damage is all in their mind, rather than admit the facts?

But then, he is a Tory.

Moving on, it becomes clear that Martin would fit in very well as part of Michael Gove’s Education Department, because what he really wants to do is destroy the Civil Service – the professional organisation that actually ensures government runs smoothly and prevents politicians from making fools of themselves on a daily basis. For every briefcase full of secrets that is left in a taxi, there are dozens of other cock-ups that are prevented by a paid officer’s quick thinking, I assure you!

He wants to “get rid of at least one in four of all the senior civil servants who earn more than two-to-three times the national average wage. The remainder can work harder for their lavish salaries and index-linked pensions or go also. And yes, by Civil Servants I mean everyone paid more than 50 per cent of their compensation – directly or indirectly – from the public purse.”

What a disaster that would be for the United Kingdom. Martin is calling for the elimination of the vast majority of the expertise that has been learned over years of service to the national interest (note that I say ‘national’ interest, rather than the interest of any particular political organisation). In one stroke, he would knock one of the most professional and experienced administrative systems in the world back to amateur status – much as Mr Gove is attempting in his own department, to the great despair of most of those working in it.

But then, he is a Tory.

His parting shot, at Cameron and Osborne’s counterparts in the Labour Party, is also wide of the mark. While his opinion that the two Eds could not do a better job is his own, his assertion that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown “got us into this mess by exploding government spending for little positive benefit” is utterly incorrect. For the vast majority of Labour’s 13 years, government spending was less, per year, than during the previous 17 years of Conservative rule. It was only after the banking crisis that government spending increased – due to necessity – and we’ve already discussed whether Martin would have been able to take out his expensive advert if he didn’t have a bank account. Conservatives have been trying to sneak falsehoods like this under our Radar for more than three years, now, and it is up to all of us to be vigilant against it and remind everyone of the facts.

But then, Martin is a Tory.

Some of his comments are right on the money, though. He starts: “I realise… you really cannot afford the time to actually think about us mere taxpayers and citizens.” Absolutely correct – they’re too busy thinking about important people like the bosses of the big firms they are helping to avoid paying UK tax.

On cutting the civil service, he writes, “that DOES NOT MEAN reclassify them as consultants at greater cost – it means TOTALLY eliminating their costs, direct or indirect, from the public purse”. It is true that – for the most part – employing consultants is a huge waste of time and money.

He wants the banking system sorted out (don’t we all?); he wants money spent on capital projects that benefit British firms, rather than “bolting together foreign-bought trains in a new UK factory”; and he rightly says, “let’s cut out this soundbite about the one million new jobs you have created. It is offensive to those desperately looking for employment. Unemployment is appalling, youth unemployment is worse, and your policies encouraging unpaid work experience smack of a clever form of slavery”.

Liam Byrne, please take note of the last comment, remember that it comes from a Conservative, clear your desk and quit as Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary.