Now let me see… by the end of 2009 we’ll probably have 3 million people actively claiming jobseeker’s allowance and far fewer vacancies than the 800,000 or so that are supposed to currently exist (calculated by taking the number of Jobcentre Plus vacancies and multiplying by three). To implement Purnell’s rediculous plan we will need to generate one million jobs for people on Incapacity Benefit by 2015 and a million jobs for unemployed men and women over fifty and another million jobs for people who lost their positions in the recession and a further 500,000 or so jobs for single parents et al. Going out on a limb I kind of think, post credit bubble, that NONE of that is going to happen. So workfare. Are we really going to see unemployed women in their forties, fifties, late fifties – almost at what used to be at pensionable age – forced by private employment agencies to wear orange boiler suits, like petty criminals on a chain gang, and sweep the streets or pick up litter under threat of homlessness and destitution if they refuse? Is this the bold new “socially just” twenty first century England the Conservatives or neo-Conservatives (New Labour) plan for us all to enjoy? If it is it stinks on ice! If Purnell cannot muster a majority amongst Labour MPs and pushes this welfare “reform” through the House of Commons with the help of the opposition surely that will finish him as a potential future leader of the neo-Conservatives? As they say: every cloud has a silver lining. I for one would be delighted to see the smirking charmless amoral and golem-like James Purnell become extinct politically. His welfare reform might cause terrible suffering to so many innocent and helpless men and women in society but if it gets rid of its author, sooner rather than later, it might achieve at least one positive result.