Dragging on

There's nothing to report on the A4e front; no sign of the 2012/13 accounts, and no more information on what is obviously a precarious financial position.
I've bookmarked lots of articles featuring IDS and Benefits Street, which few people would want to read.  One I recommend, though, is by Mark Steel on the Independent's website.  It's titled:  We've had ‘Benefits Street’, so how about ‘Bonus street’? A gritty look at the grim reality of life with an unearned £2m windfall".  Or you could read Nick Cohen's piece in the Spectator, titled The Tories' hunger games. (But don't follow his link to Isabel Hardman's piece in the same magazine - The fight for compassionate Conservatism - unless you want to feel nauseous.)  It's indicative of the way the programme has polarised people.  For the Tories it continues to be splendid propaganda, not least for the drive to lower the benefits cap.  As the Daily Mail reports, a particularly nasty MP, Philip Davies, used it to feed IDS the line in a debate in parliament.  "Mr Duncan Smith also revealed he thought the controversial Channel 4 show Benefits Street was helping to win the argument for reform. The Tory minister said viewers were rightly 'shocked' by programmes such as Benefits Street and On Benefits and Proud, featuring people who spend their benefit money on luxuries such as cigarettes and wide-screen TVs, but that they had enabled the Government to force through measures, which he said would put an end to the abuse. Conservative MP Philip Davies said the documentaries will leave working people 'irritated' by the spending of those living on state handouts."  (Is that "compassionate Conservatism, Ms Hardman?)
For some constructive reading I recommend Guy Standing's book The Precariat, published by Bloomsbury in 2011.  It's an excellent analysis, from a sociologist's point of view, of the plight of growing numbers of people around the world, including many who read this blog.