Esther McVey's evidence session

I sat through two hours of this.  She was giving the last evidence, along with a DWP civil servant, Hayes, to the Work and Pensions Select Committee inquiry into sanctions.  After two hours the BBC Parliament channel left the session and I couldn't bring myself to go to it on the computer.  I'd felt myself losing the will to live inside ten minutes.
A bit of the flavour of it is reported by the Guardian here.  But they are trying to be too even-handed.  It was dire.  McVey waffled and fudged, didn't answer the question, cited surveys she then couldn't detail, and turned to Hayes whenever it got complicated.  The Chair, Dame Anne Begg, was tougher than usual, but it was only when the other Labour members of the committee, Debbie Abrahams, Sheila Gilmore, Glenda Jackson and Teresa Pearce, were set loose that McVey showed the gulf between what she (and her boss and the DWP) would like to think is happening and what is actually happening.
One lie has clearly been nailed.  The committee has heard about the way in which Work Programme providers are obliged to refer someone for sanction whenever there is a perceived infringement of the rules.  This is going to be changed, by the way; they are to have discretion, which is what they want.  But it needs primary legislation and a renegotiation of the contracts, so won't happen yet.  But McVey was not reminded of the fact that she has lied about this in Parliament, insisting that sanctions are only used as a last resort.  Another lie was repeated.  McVey was adamant that there are no targets.  This became a bit of a muddle, with Jackson and McVey both referring to the same letter from the PCS union; and in fairness McVey was right.  But, at least while I was watching, we never got to the truth about targets in Jobcentres.

The Guardian and the Independent have been publishing the truth, with articles here, here and here, and the New Statesman has joined in.  All these pieces give the picture which McVey determinedly denied today.  Let's hope that the committee's report doesn't get too watered down by the Tories on it.  They've heard the truth and should report it.  But, as I've said before, it won't make a scrap of difference if the Tories get in in May.

Esther McVey - and related matters

On Wednesday morning, 4 February, if you are not otherwise occupied, I suggest you watch Esther McVey give evidence to the Work & Pensions Select Committee on the whole issue of sanctions.  If it isn't on the BBC parliament channel it will be on the government's own parliament website.  The committee has been taking evidence on the effect and workings of the sanctions regime, and they've been hearing the truth from the right people.  So let's see if McVey will repeat her lie in the House of Commons that "sanctions are only used as a last resort".  Even if the rather restrained Chair, Dame Anne Begg, doesn't go for her I'm sure Glenda Jackson, Sheila Gilmore and Debbie Abrahams will.  Radio 4 did an excellent File on Four programme while the previous evidence sessions were going on, and the mainstream press have begun to see the light.  The sad truth is, though, that nothing will come of this if a Conservative government is elected.

And that brings me to another reason why February is important.  On 5 February it's National Voter Registration Day, a day of action to get people who haven't already done so to register to vote in May.  Please, if you're one of those who haven't bothered, get online and sign up to register.  Go to the www.bitetheballot.co.uk website and it will take you through it.
Oh, I know I'll get comments saying someone wouldn't dream of voting, for all the usual reasons.  But whether you vote or not, you'll wake up on 8 May with an MP in your constituency and a government in Westminster.  If you want change - and don't we all - look at Greece.  Peacefully and democratically the Greek people have voted in an anti-austerity government.  And now Spain looks like going the same way.  It can be done.  Sermon over.

Three Wheels on my Wagon

My older readers may remember the song.  It was a big comedy hit in 1962.  It begins:

Three wheels on my wagon
And I'm still rolling along –
The Cherokees are chasing me
Arrows fly
Right on by
But I'm singing a happy song!

The pioneer keeps going as there are two wheels on his wagon, then one - then none.  But he's still singing his happy song.  For the full lyrics see this page; or for the complete musical experience see this video.  (Go on, it's funny.)
I was reminded of the song watching Iain Duncan Smith yesterday.  The Labour MPs had brought the debate on the chaos at the DWP, and they reeled off the list of disasters and accounts of the suffering of real people.  But the few Tory MPs who had bothered to turn up simply chortled, as they always do, and IDS smirked.  His response was so lacking in any acknowledgement of things going wrong, and so devoid of any humanity, that I switched back to the tennis.
The one part of the debate which has been posted online over and over again is the speech by Glenda Jackson.  The video is here.  Note the sneer on IDS's face.  He is utterly contemptuous of a woman who is infinitely his superior.
The wheels have come off Smith's grand project one by one, but he's still rolling along, utterly deluded, singing his happy song about how everything is going to be wonderful.

A damp squib

A lot of people were looking forward to Iain Duncan Smith's appearance in front of the Work and Pensions Committee, believing that there would be an interrogation that would skewer him and expose his sins.  Those people were always going to be disappointed.  By all accounts he got more and more bad-tempered under questioning.  When Glenda Jackson MP had a go at him he accused her of "conflating so many issues here, it's almost becoming risible".  (Yes, I'm sure we were all amused.)  Debbie Abrahams MP was accused of "moaning".  What she raised has only been reported, as far as I can see, in her local paper, the Oldham Evening Chronicle.  She has a whistle-blower, a JCP employee with 18 years experience, who told her about quotas for sanctions and how "claimants are being set up to fail to meet benefits criteria - without regard for justice or welfare".  IDS's response?  He is unaware of the claims.  "I would like to see the evidence for it.  He's making allegations about people who work very hard.  I'd be prepared to meet him to discuss it but there is someone in charge of this they should meet first.  If he's got an issue to raise I would want to know".  Well done for trying, Ms Abrahams, but this is yet another lie from IDS.
As for those dodgy statistics - it wasn't his fault.  Surprise, surprise.  It was actually Grant Shapps' fault.  Well, one story was, let's not talk about the others.
The main focus was on the progress, or lack of it, on Universal Credit.  He admitted to a write-off of £40m on the IT so far, but, hey, what's £40m when you're IDS?
Among all the accounts in the press, the one in the Spectator is the most informative.
One suspects that Margaret Hodge, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, would have given him a worse time and wound him up more spectacularly.  The PAC might even have raised the matter of sanctions, and all the cruelty being perpetrated by the DWP.  But in the end it wouldn't have changed anything.

Questions, answers and entertainment

Iain Duncan Smith appeared before the Work and Pensions Select Committee this morning to answer questions about the status of his Universal Credit project.  There's an account of what happened on The Register website (marred somewhat by lazy language).  UC is, apparently, proceeding slowly.  In October it will be rolled out to six more jobcentres; but these will be in places, including Harrogate and Bath, where unemployment is relatively low; and it will still only take in single people with the simplest of claims.  Despite some scathing questioning by Glenda Jackson MP, IDS and his mate Lord Freud got off lightly.  This afternoon the committee were asking questions about the DWP's misuse of statistics.  Many had anticipated that IDS would be skewered for his blatantly misleading figures.  (See a blog piece here.)  But it was a couple of civil servants who had to face the music.  Apparently the ministers will be called in September.

Remember that spate of TV programmes, culminating in the appalling "Famous, Rich and Jobless", which made entertainment out of poverty?  (There have been a few more since then, I know, but I refuse to acknowledge them.) It couldn't get any worse, you might have thought.  But perhaps it's about to.  On BBC1 tomorrow night (11 July) we have, first, "Great British Budget Menu" "in which leading chefs tackle food poverty by living with three families who are struggling to make ends meet."  What fun.  I should have given them my recipe for carrot and lentil soup.  Having watched that you may be in the mood for "Nick and Margaret: We all Pay your Benefits".  This is a "two-part special in which ...... Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford try to find out how much unemployment benefit is enough to survive on."  They went to Ipswich.  And they pitted workers against claimants.  As we've pointed out before, this is a false dichotomy.  I won't be watching.