The imposition of penalties on those unemployed for 2 years - compelling them to sign on daily or do 6 months free community work - returns us to the medieval punitive approach to unemployment. I have no doubt it will shortly become known as idleness. In 1495, Parliament passed a statute ordering that vagabonds, idle and suspected persons shall be set in the stocks for three days and three nights and have none other sustenance but bread and water and then shall be put out of Town. No remedy to the problem of poverty was offered by this; it was merely swept from sight, or moved from town to town. Moreover, no distinction was made between vagrants and the jobless; both were simply categorised as sturdy beggars, to be punished and moved on. This must be worth at least a page in the Tory manifesto.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 16:05:59 +0000
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