Times they are a-changing again. I'm to be placed on a two year program designed to get me back into work. A part of me is a bit dismissive. It is after all just about politicians trying to cover their backsides and look as if they're doing something to reduce unemployment, and you have to wonder what this course will do that hasn't already been offered by the others I've been on.

The trouble is that this government is talking tough over things like the dole queue. I'm well aware how many claimants are sitting on their backsides by their own design, but those unlucky enough to suffer unemployment by circumstance risk shabby treatment. Also the agencies that have recently won contracts to supply jobseeking assistance are going to be paid by results. That means that whichever way you look at it, there will be increased pressure and stress on those seeking work.

Some would applaud that idea. Usually that's the section of society with safe secure jobs who naturally deel aggrieved that their labour is paying for other peoples living. It certainly isn't from those of us who have to wade through the minefield of governmental bureaucracy and retribution. Oh yes. And once gain I now have to fill in those stupid forms regularly that ask why I haven't applied for any jobs.

More Hard Lines

Our wonderful Prime Minister has declared that deliberately absent fathers should be treated as social outcasts the same way as drubnken drivers. That doesn't suprise me. I said something like a decade ago that Britain would increasingly return to victorian values. Those who live up to societies ideals get treated reasonably, and those who don't are shunned, despised, reduced to the periphery of our communities.

There's good and bad aspects to this of course. It's all very well punishing a class of society that influential individuals disapprove of, but it also inevitably means that those forced by circumstance into that class will also receive poor treatment unfairly. And it's a short step to witchhunts and persecution.

Anyway, I recommend to those fathers pushed out of marriage and forced away from their kids to avoid drowning their sorrows. Get a taxi home. And don't lose your job. Or else.

Less Fun Time

Statistics just released reveal that 17 million britons will not be going on holiday this year. That's 2.7 million up on last year. I wonder if they remembered to include me on that statistic? Unless of course the statatistician regards us unemployed people as being on holiday by default. But then, who would want a holiday in a country where tourists are regarded as lazy good-for-nothings, asked to attend courses designed to help them leave the country, get fined for not trying to leave, and required to fill in forms regularly that demand to know why they haven't tried to leave?