Saturday 29 October 2011

"The Welfare State" BBC documentary

Saw this on Thursday night, tying in with this article on the news website about their survey of people who back many benefit cuts. It was more of the usual media and politician rhetoric to tar all unemployed people with the same brush, as I expected it would be, then you saw a few interviews with honest people who have sent loads of applications out yet don't get replies.

The comments on the blogs I'm following, Watching A4E and Quacking Plums say it all. Ghost Whistler's (Quacking Plums' author) comment on Watching A4E about the 'kindergarten' environment in the training centre was one I related to from when I did Flexible Routeways with the motivation collage, which seems as much of a timewaster as the paper tower building and role plays about nuclear bunkers.

I did identify with another related BBC article today though, I would agree with measures to "make people who cause trouble feel the full effects of their actions". Interestingly the article admits only 35% of the rioters in August were claiming an out of work benefit though, so as Ghost Whistler has rightly pointed out, over 60% were not.