Hillary et al
My point was not that New Labour and its unemployment
policies should not be subject to criticism (though somehow
I doubt if the crit-geog forum has them quaking in their
shoes) by Paul Treanor or anyone else, merely that PT has
in the past simply made one provocative comment and then
not engaged with the debate which brought the question to
my mind of why he does it.
Oh, and it was partly meant to be a joke..
Dave
On Tue, 23 Jan 2001 17:58:23 +0000 Hillary Shaw
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > My own view is that there is no such person as Paul
> > Treanor, rather its a name for a group of people who
> > delight in trying to be provocative on email lists. No
> one > could spend that much time trawling lists and
> commenting > surely?
> > > Dave
> > I sincerely hope there is such a person as Paul Treanor,
> as I share his suspicions of the real beneficiaries of "New
> Labour"'s unemployment policies. Was i alone in reading
> through the list of Blair's aims for his next term, (he
> hopes!) and finding absolutely nothing in there to which I
> could say "Wow, must have that!" It was all vague
> platitudes, eg "increase visitor numbers to museums, reduce
> the crime rate" - all very good generally but as my burglary
> rate will either be 0% or 100%, there is nothing I can say,
> must have that, to. I would have liked to see something
> like "Police on the beat will rise by 20%, or "pensions
> will be linked to earnings" or "rail will be
> renationalised" but nothing so definite of course. As for
> unemployed, policies like the New Deal could have
> come straight from Thatcher's policy bag. But then it is
> worth reading Bauman's theories on why the unemployed are
> to be kept poor, kept harried by govt for jobs that either
> aren't there or pay so low that the dole is actually a
> better financial prospect(given travel costs, time taken,
> loss of other benefits, need for childcare etc). But if you
> dont want to plough through Bauman, just consider
> how employers must lap up the minimum wage jobs going,or
> even better for them, the 3 month job placements (for
> employers, read free labour) which the unemployed cannot
> avoid on loss of benefits. But these "jobs" rarely lead to
> anything much better - a better New Labour policy would be
> to encourage/coerce employers to offer in job training, to
> allow the unemployed to earn more than a derisory £5 before
> benefits are reduced ( why not say take off 50% of earnings
> whilst on the dole, not 100% over £5, that would encourage
> unemployed to start building a career, and reduce fraud).
> Of course funding this may mean a few % on income tax
> fior the higher earners. But the big MNC's would squeal a
> bit at that, and we can't offend the city fat cat
> shareholders can we, heaven forbid we take another 1 or 2 %
> of those £million plus city bonuses! I just want to know,
> Does new labour exist(or is it just a group of right wing
> politicians trying to be provocative to the poor -
> no-one could spend that much time trawling the country and
> miscommenting on puiblic opinion could they? Hillary Shaw,
> P/G Geography, University of Leeds
----------------------
Professor D.C.Gibbs
Department of Geography
University of Hull
Hull
HU6 7RX
Personal webpage www.hull.ac.uk/geog/html/dgibbs.html
Sustainable Cities Network www.hull.ac.uk/geog/research/html/suscity.html
Tel. 01482 465330
Mobile 0780 8260234
Fax 01482 466340
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