The view from Planet Tory

I'm not a Conservative voter.  (In fact, I'm politically homeless at the moment.)  I don't routinely read stuff on the Conservative Home site - too depressing.  But one blog piece on there popped up in the alerts which is worth reading for the insight it gives into the Tory mindset when it comes to welfare.  It's badly written and nobody has bothered to proofread it.  But when you get past that, you see an attitude which is blind to reality.  It takes as its starting point the ERSA figures published in a pre-emptive strike this week, and the writer, someone called Harry Phibbs, swallows them whole.  The WP "has certainly made progress", he says.  Well, we'll see.  He insists that the programme is "good value for the taxpayer".  "There is an incentive to innovate, to cater to the needs of the individual," he says, oblivious of the fact that this simply hasn't happened.  But "even more important is reality [sic] that for those able to work sitting at home on benefits is ceasing to be an option".  He misses the irony here; that the WP was supposed to solve this problem.  No, "Those who don’t find jobs via the Work Programme will go through a Community Work Programme where they work 30 hours a week for 26 weeks to contribute to their community. For claimants refusing to participate, benefits will be withdrawn for three months for the first offence, six months for the second, and three years for the third."  He is conflating a number of things here, but relishes the punishment to be dished out to these idle people.  His proudest boast, however, and the one displaying the greatest ignorance, is that 150,000 people, and rising, disappeared from the unemployed figures rather than go on the WP.  If this piece is a sign of Tory ideology triumphing over reality, the comments underneath it show that there are plenty of people know the truth.
But that doesn't include Fraser Nelson.  He's the editor of the Spectator magazine and one of the BBC's favourite journalists.  On Thursday he had an article in the Telegraph in which he tried, ridiculously, to show that the Tories are fighting for the "working classes" while Labour would abandon them.  While Nelson is a better writer than Mr Phibbs, his conclusions on welfare are very similar.  The WP seems to be working now.  There's a curious statement that IDS has decided to "hire more private companies to help the long-term unemployed".  That is news to me.  Then the usual laxity with figures starts.  "There are more in employment than ever before."  Of course there are, the population is bigger than ever before.  And of the 1.2 million referred to the WP, 321,000 have found work.  That's the headline ERSA figure, as we know, which is likely to be thoroughly misleading.  Nelson has examples of WP success stories - examples provided by A4e.  An ex-railwayman from Glasgow who got nowhere with the Jobcentre but, "with proper help on job-hunting", is now fixing computers.  And another man who, after 16 years out of work, is now a street-cleaner.  Good for both of them.  Any success is to be applauded.  But what does that prove?  Nelson says that these two stories "are the work of A4e, which was vilified when it said it had caught some of its employees fiddling the figures to hit targets".  Well, there was rather more to it than that, Mr Nelson.  
This, of course, is why the government allowed, or encouraged, the ERSA to put out the headline figures a week before the true statistics.  The myths can take hold, and the media can get bored before the details are published.  And it's these myths which permeate the consciousness of the government and its supporters.

Sinister pressure on the BBC

I don't read the Sun.  I'm proud to say that.  I regard the Sun as having done huge damage to our national culture.  However, yesterday a piece popped up in the news alerts which is worth careful reading.
We know that Iain Duncan Smith doesn't like criticism, and it's possible to read this as merely him jumping up and down in a temper.  But there's more behind it.  First, he "branded the BBC as ridiculous" for its coverage of welfare issues.  Then he "savaged" the Guardian for talking only about cuts, and called it a "campaign rag".  This is the quote:

'He also tore into Beeb coverage of welfare reform. He said: “It’s easier for  them to live with the Guardian than anybody else, that’s to say more money is good, less money is a cut.  The word ‘reform’ very rarely passes their lips but the word ‘cuts’ is always  in their broadcasts.  The phrase ‘bedroom tax’ is a misnomer, it’s a Labour Party name. They never talk about under-occupancy or a spare room subsidy. Evan Davis (presenter of Radio 4’s Today) keeps asking everybody all through the programme, ‘Should Iain Duncan Smith resign?’ What for? Because that’s what the Labour Party was asking for, so he had to  repeat it. It’s a joke.”'

Remember that this is a government minister commenting on the free, independent media they're supposedly keen on, and singling out a presenter who is doing his job.  But George Osborne also gets in on the act:

'Chancellor George Osborne joined in the assault on the BBC, claiming that ordinary working people’s opinions were being ignored because of “lazy journalism”. He accused the Beeb of relying on comments from pressure groups to fill news bulletins, and said: “I don’t think the voices of working people who pay their taxes for this system are heard often enough. They experience in their daily lives the abuse of that system and I don’t think that is often reported.”'

The Guardian is the only paper (with the occasional exception of the Independent) which prints the stuff which IDS and his bunch would like to hide.  And the BBC is vital as our only source of unbiassed reporting on TV and radio.  It may not seem unbiassed at times - that's inevitable - but as long as both right and left are complaining, they must be getting it broadly correct.  

Now read this from Tim Montgomerie on Conservative Home.  He's commenting on what IDS and Osborne have said, and it's really sinister.  

"The last week has shown what is possible when the Conservative Party gets its act together and acts in concert with the centre right press. The consistency of message may be a first sign that Lynton Crosby is delivering the kind of message discipline that he was recruited for."  

Even worse is the suggestion in some of the comments under the piece that the government could put pressure on the BBC by starting a review of the licence fee.

On a day when so many of us have had to switch off all radio and TV to escape wall-to-wall Thatcher (no comments about that, please), and in the wake of the trashing of the Leveson recommendations in the name of freedom of the press, we should remember that it's only a free press and a free BBC which give us the information with which to oppose government - any government.  Bloggers and campaign groups can't do it alone.