So I'm watching the morning news...

and on the one hand we have the Government proposing that Lone Parents should have their benefits cut to 'encourage' them to go into work.

Yet at the same time one of the newspapers is carrying headlines that childcare costs are already soaring with people spending up to a THIRD of their weekly wage on it. Er, and that's presumably for a married couple with a double income...

(On top of which wasn't there research a while back reporting that children farmed out to nursery places often ended up developmentally backward -or something like that?)

Maybe a lot of these lone parents can pair off and become self-employed child carers and swop over children? - that might work.

So let's run through this: despite there being no evidence that the job market is even there, and given the high likelihood that what few jobs there might be are going to be fairly low-skilled low-paid/minimum waged ones (especially so considering that if there's a sudden influx of people on the job market that employers can pick and choose and pay as little as they can get away with). Yet child care costs are rising -and again if there's to be a massive influx of potential clients - they too can pretty much charge whatever they like. So if that happens there's going to be pressure on the Government to provide some sort of subsidy or tax credits or something equally lame to help people pay for that - which will, given their track record will be a spectacular cock-up and eventually end up costing the taxpayer tons more than just leaving things as they are. So whichever way you slice it - it looks like a lot of people are going to be forced into poverty - whether it's from being penalized for not having a job by having their benefits cut (oh yeah, that'll help a child stay on in school - just as they're also discussing plans to raise the school leaving age!) or force people into the 'working poor' which is a ever growing segment of UK these days. And set to grow further with other brilliant plans to 'force' those with long-term illnesses and disabilities to work (because it's supposed to be good for them or something. (In fact it so isn't.)) along with plans to punish long-term unemployed men by cutting their benefits too. As if the existing benefits were ever enough to live on in the first place (and they're not - not by a long shot. You can expect the crime rates to boom if they follow through on that one. As more and more people will be forced into crime just to make ends meet.)

In short, there's an awful lot of poorly-thought out, non-joined up thinking going on here -and it's going to a lot of people's lives even more miserable than they are now. And at the end of the day it wouldn't surprise if they're just doing this to appeal to the rabid right-wing, Thatcherite-nostalgic crazed 'I'm-all-right-Jack' voter.

Arbeit macht frei...

other links:

Government Policies are Failing Britain's Workforce.