"Get off your Backside and Become a HP?"

 

Jeremy Kyle, the man once described as a "human bear baiter", justly I think, has been talking about hospital portering on his Talk TV show. (Thanks to a friend who made me aware of this.) He was interviewing Isabel Oakeshott, one of the rare journalists who openly supports Reform UK. They rant with frustration at the double standards in terms of how the government financially supports refugees with enthusiasm at the expense of the native population. That's true and I share their sentiments, but they don't stop there. They then segue to a common notion which is a dangerous train of thought. Kyle argues, and Isabel agrees, that instead of importing foreigners to do service jobs, why not get the British unemployed to do them. I also support this idea and think it's a good one, with one vital condition: these should be proper jobs with a contract and wage. Jeremy and his guest think otherwise. They promote the obscenity of "workfare", an increasingly accepted policy in many countries in which people without work and living off unemployment benefits should be forced into unpaid labour as a proviso for receiving those benefits. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzrdmCzgvTs. (He brings up HPing about three minutes in.)

The practical and ethical problems I have with this proposal are so numerous and vast that I hardly know where to start. Firstly it is beyond insulting to say that the primary cause of unemployment is laziness and if only people "got off their backsides!" to quote Jeremy, the millions on the dole would soon be off it. If this were the case then levels of unemployment would not be directly proportional to the economy. People don't suddenly just become lazy when we get a recession. The government are also effectively saying: "We can't afford to give you a proper job, so can we just pretend we're giving you a job and not pay you? Then it would look as if you were working; that's what matters." We must also refer to previous pilot schemes for such policy that failed. In one, a group of twenty long-term unemployed people were given the chance to live the Jeremy Kyle Dream, unpaid jobs cleaning the streets in a city. However the city's sanitation services had to make twenty of its properly employed staff redundant to create vacancies for the unpaid crews. As a result of workfare being adopted on a grand scale, unemployment skyrocketed as more and more working people were replaced by these civic slaves; and that's not too strong a word to use. In fact an entire sector of this "precariat" has metastasized in societies with workfare. It is unfair, abusive and only makes unemployment worse... unless the government want us all to be slaves for some reason?... What is interesting about this interview is that in the middle of his passionate monologue he mentions HPing as an example of such a profession. Is this a compliment or a slur? Is Jezza saying HP's are such essential workers that our services have to be provided for as a priority, no matter what; or is he listing HPing as one of those menial, invisible, below stairs activities that are so background and unobtrusive that everybody just assumed that they just happen automatically and therefore don't matter, and so can be done by parachuting street urchins into the role and making them do it without a wage? I'm not sure, but knowing Kyle I doubt if he is thinking respectful thoughts as he speaks like this. I do find it interesting that HPing was the first and instinctive occupation that popped into his head as an example. Why? Does he read the HPWA?
See here for background: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2024/09/the-trial-of-jeremy-kyle.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2015/02/cameron-pushes-workfare.html.