Shelf-Stacking beats Geology / Killer Whale Kills Trainer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21490542

Funniest thing so far this year. According to Ian Duncan-Smith Terry Leahy (former CEO of Tesco and effectively the inventor of the free marketing information device - the loyalty card - where customers give ultra cheap, free and accurate marketing information to companies) came out of his mothers vagina stacking shelves (certainly puts his input into Tescos in context) and that 'many "smart people" overlooked the importance of effective shelf-stacking' - I don't know about you, but I'm always quite relieved to find things to buy on supermarket shelves - though I wasn't aware one could do it any more effectively than actually putting things on the shelf rather than the opposite - not putting things on the shelf. Is Geology more important than stacking shelves? Without Geology the supermarket would probably have been built on a peat bog and have sunk, or a build up of methane would have blown it up - both effecting OECD statistics negatively. Also when a court of law says that something that obviously is forced labour actually is forced labour I guess it's not that surprising to hear an unforced Conservative saying that it isn't. I like the fact that he treats 'emergency regulations' like a terminally ill dog (particularly in the context of 'Poundland') - '"I've already put emergency regulations down, and that's ended it," he added. '

I also like the way unemployment benefit or 'the dole' as it used to be known has changed from being money given to those without work so they can exist, to being money given to people who can actively prove they are looking for work (the clue being the word 'Jobseeker'), to being pay for working at Poundland - which surely then stops it actually being a benefit at all, but rather a new minimum wage - right? He then actually apologies - not for his 'slavery for corporations' policy, but for that fact that people don't want to be slaves - Smith states, 'I'm sorry, but there is a group of people out there who think they're too good for this kind of stuff,' - you know people like Spartacus, and the entire African-American population of the United States. Apparently, without any evidence, and having done no research 'most young people love" their work experience placements.' Hmm, stacking shelves in Poundland, I have some doubts here...

The imaginatively titled 'Back-to-Work' scheme is apparently the government's "most successful," ahem, back-to-work scheme, he said: "It's been so successful that over half of those kids have left benefits." Assuming he doesn't mean 'behind on the bus' or 'to their next of kin' I'd say it is certainly the only 'back-to-work' scheme that I've heard the Department of Work & Pensions implementing, so it clearly doesn't have much competition. He fails to mention what those kids who have left benefits are doing now? Living off bank on mum? Life of crime? Suicide? 'The scheme had been launched to help young people trapped in a vicious circle where they could not get a job because they did not have any experience on their CVs,' now they're trapped in a vicious circle where they could not get a job because they were working for free in a job where the employer is paid by the taxpayer to employ staff and pay them nothing thereby negating the need for that employer to employ paid staff and create jobs. Following on, 'once you commit to doing that programme, because companies have to make arrangements around it, then if you don't do this you may suffer a benefit withdrawal because you have messed them around and they are therefore going to suffer as a result of that."It's a point that anyone out there listening to this will know. You have to learn early that if you commit to something, you stay and do it,"' (like studying at the University per Stranieri I suppose). This implies that employers will be really suffering as a result of losing one free labourer, like they are not used to a high turnover of staff anyway - whereas an individual, without even a basic safety-net, must put up with this belittling experience regardless of their feelings about the experience. This is akin to saying - 'you are an out of work dole scum - work for nothing or we'll make you homeless - your opinion is of no interest to us' - a direct contradiction of his previous anecdotal point about young people loving their work placements.

In this interview he completely fails to acknowledge the DWP's total incompetence in failing to provide adequate regulations to back up this appalling policy, he fails to address the fact that Miss Reilly was doing socially beneficial voluntary work (Big Society anyone?) that has some relevance to her degree that she invested 3 years hard work and tens of thousands of pounds to achieve - surely something that should be commended in a modern society rather than denigrated as being wishy-washy due to not being Economics, Business Studies, Science, Medicine or Engineering, and, fatally, that she was incorrectly told (probably by an unpaid work-placement young person at her job centre) that the work placement was not compulsory. All amusing give the fact the IDS doesn't seem to know what qualification he actually has or where he got them -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2002/12_december/19/newsnight_ids_cv.shtml 

Appalling treatment like this occurs every day as the DWP and hence Job Centre Plus does not have a handle on how (or an incentive) to help people get back to work, and it seems IDS's only interest is giving corporations free labour while creating a narrative that the Conservatives are forcing those 'scroungers' to work for their money like performing whales trapped in a more depressing version of Sea World. Which is saying something. Slave rebellion anyone?
http://www.break.com/usercontent/2010/3/5/sea-world-killer-whale-kills-trainer-video-1769392