Sanctions, sanctions, sanctions

Channel 4 had a programme about the sanctions regime last night which I wasn't able to watch.  I'd intended to catch up on it today, but decided not to bother.  When the producers seek an opinion from the odious Tory front group The Taxpayers' Alliance you know it's not an impartial programme, and posts on Twitter suggest it followed the government line.
The need for truth was highlighted in an extraordinary way in a Twitter exchange this morning.  Kevin Maguire, the Mirror journalist, tweeted: "Imagine being late for work one day and the boss docks your pay for a month.  That's how benefits sanctions work."  Someone replied that he had been 7 minutes late for an appointment and was sanctioned for 3 months.  In came the journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer.  She asked, politely enough, whether he'd been late before and if he'd been given a warning before.  Someone else waded in to point out that there are no warnings in the system and that sanctions are automatic.  Back came the snappy response from Brewer: "not true".  She was asked how she knew that, told politely she was wrong and the point about no warnings was repeated.
Ms Hartley-Brewer obviously doesn't like to be contradicted.  She snarled back: "have you ever tried talking to people who work in the benefits office AND people who've been sanctioned.  It helps."  (She was obviously too cross to pay attention to punctuation.)  The respondent said that she had worked in the system and would like to explain it to her, politely.  But it was too late.  Others waded in, one with a string of obscenities which played into Brewer's hands; she retweeted it.  The polite respondent left the fray and it descended into childish name-calling.  That Brewer was wrong in her original statement was never addressed, and those who were angry and feel themselves provoked were made to look like the baddies.
And that's the trouble.  It's usually impossible to contact a journalist directly, and that's understandable.  But it reinforces the power relationship.  She has a platform.  Whether she is telling the truth about her conversations we can't know.  It seems unlikely, given that she doesn't know what she's talking about.  But like everyone on the right she can ignore all the evidence and repeat government lies.  If she has read the recent reports by various churches she has discounted them.  If she followed the evidence given in the Work & Pensions Select Committee enquiry, she has discounted it.  She prefers to believe IDS, McVey et al because to do otherwise would be to shake her faith in Conservative politics.
There are lots of links I could post, but I'll stick to just one, which is very relevant here, although it's mainly about Universal Credit.  Helen Lewis wrote this excellent piece in the New Statesman last week.
If you haven't yet read Owen Jones' latest book, The Establishment, you really should.  (A4e gets coverage in a section on outsourcing.)  We knew the gist of Jones' argument; but he provides a wealth of facts and figures and pulls the threads together to present a frightening picture.  His concluding chapter contains a hopeful picture of what needs to happen.  But it won't, and that is depressing.

Welfare week

The subject of welfare (which I will stubbornly continue to call social security) has been prominent this week.  It wasn't only Labour's announcement of its policy, although that may well have sparked it off.  The BBC belatedly discovered the scandal of ESA, the delays and the failure of the Work Programme to help those supposedly able to work.  Of course, being the BBC, it headed the story with the speculation that the cost would mean that the government breaches its self-imposed cap on total welfare spend.
Then the Public Accounts Committee reported on the even bigger mess of PIPs.  An embarrassed Mike Penning was allowed to get away with blaming Labour, and insisting that it was now fixed.  But it all added to the impression of government that "something must be done".
Where was Iain Duncan Smith?  He was proudly announcing that Universal Credit is being "rolled out" to 90 Jobcentres in the North West.  But it will still only apply to single unemployed people with no complications, and there are no predictions beyond that.  It was unfortunate timing; another major failure was added to the list.  The Economist, normally Tory-supporting, published a devastating article headed "Universal discredit" rubbishing everything this government has done on "welfare reform".
Last night BBC's Newsnight had a discussion on the subject between Owen Jones and Nadhim Zahawi.  The former is a socialist and columnist who is often critical of Labour.  The latter is an ultra-loyal Tory whose expenses claims caused a furore and who will trot out the party line.  The innate bias of the BBC was evident in the use, several times, of the term "welfare dependency" and in using a clip from Benefits Street as if it was an appropriate illustration.  And IDS's lackey Christian Guy from the Centre for Social Justice was presented on the film as he was an independent expert.  Who "won" the argument depends on who you agree with.  These discussions rarely change opinions.  But at least the subject is now being discussed.

Points of view

There have been some interesting bits and pieces in the media this week which show how the battle to stigmatise those who have to depend on benefits is being won.
The Guardian carried a report on Tuesday of research by a team from the University of Kent.  Not, you notice, a think tank but an academic institution.  It reported that there is "a climate of fear" among people who need to claim benefits which frightens them off.  Government disinformation has meant that 1.8 million people have been "potentially too scared to seek help".  The report lists some of that disinformation (lies, in effect) then examines how the newspapers have systematically branded as scroungers those on benefits.  It's a damning report, but where was the coverage elsewhere?  There wasn't any, because it doesn't fit the agenda of the government and its mouthpieces.  Well done to the Guardian, though.
On Thursday Iain Duncan Smith appeared on BBC's Question Time.  I wasn't able to watch all of this, but I caught the row between him and another panellist, Owen Jones.  Jones tried to talk about the demonisation of the poor, but IDS snapped back at him with a furious face and voice.  And even the usually sensible Deborah Meadon disagreed with Jones.  The truth was outnumbered, as usual.
Plenty of coverage was given this week to Lord Freud, the employment minister in charge of reforming the welfare system.  Radio 4 discussed the "bedroom tax", under which people on benefits and living in social housing (I hate that term) will lose a big chunk of money if they have a spare bedroom.  A reporter went to the North East and discovered that there is a huge shortage of housing which people can down-size into.  So they have to either move far away or go into private rented accommodation which will end up costing much more.  When the reporter put this to Freud he waffled and retreated to the previous question.  Clearly what seems eminently sensible in an office in Whitehall doesn't work in the real world, but nobody wants to know.  Freud again showed the extent of his understanding in an interview in House Magazine, reported in the Guardian.  Apparently people on benefits are too comfortable and have a lifestyle which discourages them from taking risks.  He then made the sort of remark which comes back to haunt you:  "Freud, a former journalist and investment banker, told the magazine that his background did not make him unable to understand the reality of living on benefits. 'You don't have to be the corpse to go to the funeral, which is the implied criticism there,' he said."  The Telegraph also reported the story and the reaction of Liam Byrne for Labour.  The difference in the comments under the two articles speaks volumes about the polarisation of attitudes.
On a lighter note - sort of - was the report of a fake job advert which appeared on the direct.gov website.  It was for a professional killer for MI6, and was so well put together that it was a while before anyone spotted that it was a fake.  Makes you wonder how many other fake jobs are being advertised.