DWP Resorts To Magic.

In keeping with the Tory party's belief in "voodoo economics" the DWP has resorted to magic in order to stop the unemployed from claiming benefits. Bewildered claimants have been told to complete a 48-question "psychoemtric" test introduced by the DWP "Nudge Unit" and, if they fail to do so, they are told that they will have their benefits witheld. The test, which has been rejected in the United States for being unvalidated mumbo-jumbo, contains such statements as "I never go out of my way to visit museums," and "I have not created anything of beauty in the last year". These, the DWP claim, have been "scientifically shown to find people's strengths" and to "help rebuild self-confidence and identify character strength". The Division of Occupational Psychologists, however, said it was unable to find "any concrete evidence relating to proper development and psychometric qualities of the tool" and described the tests as "a sham." This is hardly surprising since this government's entire approach to welfare can best be described in similar terms. In fact such tests have long been considered to be rather dubious and their use by the DWP demonstrates quite clearly that their only goal is to cheat as many genuine claiments out of benefit payments as is humanly possible. Essentially the government is ambushing claiments with irrelevent nonsense, forcing them to jump through humiliating hoops and then threatening them if they protest. In that regard this particular piece of utter rubbish is on a par with all their other policies.

Tories Load The Dice.

There is nothing a Tory enjoys more than humiliating those less fortunate than themselves. For the Bullingdon Boys there was nothing more uplifting and satisfying than burning fifty pound notes in front of homeless people. Turning their worst instincts to fund tax cuts for themselves is, therefore, a natural progression for them and if they can make it sound trendy and scientific at the same time so much the better. That is the basis of their latest wheeze - making the unemployed take psychometric tests. No better than astrology or phrenology, psychometric testing is mumbo-jumbo - pseudo-science of the worst kind on a par with that other trendy corporate nonsense, graphology. The unemployed are also told to investigate the "ethos" of companies they might wish to apply to for employment. For those with above average intelligence this is a fairly simple exercise. All you have to do is read the company's mission statement, the corporate sound-bite thought up by the marketing department to give the illusion that they have a soul. Unfortunately many unemployed people never had the benefit of a private education, never attended Oxford, Cambridge or any other university and rarely consider the "ethos" of the company that they are applying to for a shelf-stacking job. Essentially the unemployed are being divided into two groups, with those not middle-class enough to deserve help being ritually humiliated before being deprived of any state support at all. The Tory party prefaced this nasty bit of business with a prolonged propaganda campaign designed to make us all believe that the unemployed are feckless scroungers who deserve our contempt. In fact the Tories are merely teaching us to enjoy their favourite pastimes - pulling the wings off flies and drowning kittens.