If you are going to make a political point then put it across with humour.
Then offer a solution.
These are the two facets of political life that The Chronic is firmly signed up to.
If all else fails then the third facet is to spoil your ballot paper with a big fat phallic representation, ejaculating droplets of love juice over the name of your least favourite careerist politician. It’s the reverse ferret of proportional representation, Comrades.
Fine work then for We Are the Voiceless, a Sunny Colch campaigning group that will be outside the Jobcentre Plus building along the High Street from 10am on Tuesday morning.
The serious political point being made involves the Mandatory Work Scheme. The gallows humour comes via Tess Gardener, a Sunny Colch performance poet. The solution is to point out how silly the MWS scheme is in often involving job seekers to work, just to maintain their benefits.
Tess explains:
“MWA is a scheme developed to help jobseekers gain experience and references to use when seeking employment. In the East of England, the responsibility falls to Seetec to find these people work placements.
These placements last four weeks at 30 hours a week and are completely unpaid, except for any benefits the jobseeker is already receiving. According to the Government, it is meant to be beneficial to the local community, as well as to empower the worker.
However, we believe that schemes such as MWA actually deny jobseekers and workers paid positions within firms, many of which are national profit-making businesses, who in turn benefit financially from the free labour provided.”
Good point, well made.
What about the performance angle outside the Jobcentre Plus?
“The event we are planning will be a series of spoken-word pieces highlighting the issues raised by MWA, to be performed at regular intervals throughout the day, culminating at 4:15pm in Tess having to sign on at JCP.”
‘cos nobody likes a happy ending.
Ha, bloody ha.
Recent figures released show that Sunny Colch has a slightly lower unemployment rate than some of our Essex neighbours. This is no reason to reduce the figures further by creating what are essentially false jobs.
If you are out and about along the High Street later, say hello to Tess and the rest of We Are the Voiceless. Don’t make a drama out of it, but do have a giggle at how humour can come out of such a hapless situation.
