Political spin in full flow

It seems as though the political world we have to endure right now is one of those with vested interests, and no intention of listening to the public, twisting our complaints and trying to make out that it is us, wishing to keep the poor and the destitute from becoming more poor, more destitute, that are the "bad people". In some cases the arguments are being turned from big business taking the piss to big businesses having to endure severe hardship in the face of our laws and regulations.

Here are some of the best examples from this month...

Chris Grayling on Workfare during Channel 4 News 21/02/2012

Chris Grayling, while being expertly skewered by John Snow on various claims he was making in defence and promotion of the work scheme that sees "long" term unemployed people coerced in to basic jobs with little to no value in developing skills, came up with this doozy of a spin in order to sidestep one of the main criticisms of the scheme, that people lose their benefits.

Despite the main companies partaking in this scheme have been those like Tesco, Argos, the owners of Topshop and Topman, Poundland and others that have now sensibly removed themselves from the scheme like Sainsburys and Matalan, Grayling had the clumsy audacity to try and compare them to a "local small bakery business".

You see the taking away of benefits is purely there to protect these poor companies from being screwed over by benefit claimants agreeing to provide labour for free, and then deciding maybe they can do something better with their time for free instead. What is the small bakery business to do when the person just doesn't turn up for work? Well..I imagine the same that they'd have to do if the person failed to keep on going to the scheme within the first week, during which they won't lose their benefits.

And of course, let's not forget, the number of small businesses using this scheme is a pittance compared to those like Tesco who are earning MILLIONS OF POUNDS EVERY DAY and who's only complaint is that instead of paying no-one to do the work that they'd normally pay minimum wage for, they might need to ask someone else to cover those hours....for minimum wage.

Iain Duncan Smith on Workfare "Job Snobs" in the Daily Mail (and other papers) 21/02/2012

I doubt I'm the only person who thinks supermarket shelf-stackers add more value to our society than many of those 'job snobs' who are busy pontificating about the Government's employment policies. They should learn to value work and not sneer at it.

Hah! "Job Snob", it rhymes and everything. You see it is not a problem that people are doing work that, if they were given the job, would be earning at least TWICE the amount that they take on Job Seekers Allowance, no...the problem is us "Job Snobs" who somehow think that people doing labour for another person have a right to be fairly paid for that!

We are not sneering at the jobs that people are taking. It might not be everyone's dream, but for a lot of people minimum wage work at the biggest companies in the UK, like Tesco, means the difference between living in daily worry over choices between food or heating, or only having to worry about budgeting properly. What we want, us "Job Snobs", is for people doing this clearly available work to be PAID A WAGE FOR IT.

We sneer not at people getting work experience in Tesco, though for the life of me I can't think what employer is going to value the skill of taking stock from the back of the store to the front, other than Tesco or it's competitors, we sneer at the politicians that think it's fair to say "Here you go Tesco, feel free to save around £150-200 a week on employing someone, you obviously have the capacity to take on a worker...but we'd rather keep them stuck on benefits than actually in employment! We'll pay!"

Yes, it is us "job snobs" that are the devious bastards...

Liam Fox complaining about workers rights to anyone that'll hear his corrupt self 22/02/2012

"It is too difficult to hire and fire, and too expensive to take on new employees. It is intellectually unsustainable to believe that workplace rights should remain untouchable while output and employment are clearly cyclical.

Too difficult to hire and fire? There are too many people to fill each of the jobs around various parts of the country, and recent law changes mean that no matter how good you are at your job, no matter how well you perform, you are not safe from simply being told to pack your desk up and leave before you've been employed at your company for two years

Let's not have any of this bullshit that companies have it hard right now, and that workers have too many rights.

Also "intellectually unsustainable" is an intellectually unsustainable term.

Stephen Hester in an interview with Laura Kuenssberg on anti-banker mood 23/02/2012

He says he has 'great sympathy' for people who worry about pay gap, but UK won t prosper if we 'stigmatise success'

Who is stigmatising success? The complaints against those like Hester are not complaining about successful people getting paid. We are complaining because unsuccessful people are getting paid extra for being unsuccessful, even if they are slightly better at keeping it from being a complete disaster than the last guy.

We all want people to prosper...at least those of us that aren't spending all of our time demonising the poor...what that means, however, is society reaping the benefits of that success. The problem is that bankers get huge bonuses for very little, it might as well just be called their salary. Advisers get huge sums of money paid in to companies so that they can avoid tax, the highest paid in the land do more and more to avoid paying through these hard times despite still having enough for a great number of families to live off of their spare cash.

Meanwhile the poor are being told they don't deserve their benefits, there are calls for further deregulation of the workplace, a removal of workers rights, the ever present murmurs of removing the national minimum wage.

If anything is being stigmatised it is pricks that think it's ok to skim huge amounts of money off the top, avoid acting ethically on their earnings, and then have the audacity to point the finger at the poor and say that it is those people that need to lose more of their money, their services, their hope, their will.