There's No Such Word As Can't

An obscure but doubtless upcoming nasty has been applying Gove mathematics to the workfare situation, and has assured us that there is no shortage of jobs because "there's 400,000 jobs at any one point in jobcentres". Evidently the 2.68 million people who are chasing them - soon to exceed nine million when the Government officially abolishes every legal reason for not seeking work - originate at a different point, inexcusably removed from Planet Duncan Smith.

Duncan Smith's henchbeing, Maria "The Motivator" Miller, whose stints as an advertising executive and marketing manager have served well in preparing her for the Daveybloke style - school assembly meets corporate pep talk, with the Bullingdon kick in the groin for wimps - proclaimed that the country's unemployed are letting the side down on two counts: first, they don't know where the jobs are; and second, even in the face of an occupational locality detectability incidence, there is "a lack of appetite". Though anxious to ensure that employment is "not just a choice", Miller was careful to deny that the Government is punishing people for being workshy: "I think it's not so much workshy as have people got the right skills? Can we overcome their fear of the risk of going into work, or indeed, some of the fear of the problems that it will create for the rest of their family." So there you have it: this is not a political witch-hunt and the Government is not punishing people for scrounging. The Government is punishing people for lacking skills and for being afraid to uproot their family in pursuit of a flexible three-week shelf-stacking contract fifty miles away.