Make a million by helping the poor
- 28 Feb 08, 04:32 PM
I wonder how those on the left who yearned for Gordon Brown to replace Tony Blair would have felt if they'd known that he would adopt a policy recommended by a former investment banker which would invite multi-national companies to bid for a share of a 拢1bn market to help get the unemployed back to work? That was what James Purnell, Brown's new work and pensions secretary, confirmed today was his policy.
Today, on a visit to a job placement centre in Newham, I asked Purnell whether he was happy for people to get rich helping the unemployed. "Yes" he answered without so much as a blink.
Purnell, one of the young ministers promoted after Peter Hain left the cabinet, is a Blairite and a Freudian. I refer not to Sigmund - the father of psychoanalysis - but to his great grandson David. It was the report of this former banker which called for the provision of job search, placement and preparation to be privatised and incentivised so that private companies and voluntary organisations are rewarded for how successful they are both in getting the unemployed back into work and ensuring that they stay there.
David Freud recently told the "We can pay masses - I worked out that it is economically rational to spend up to 拢62,000 on getting the average person on Incapacity Benefit into work". He went on to say that "somebody will see a gap in the market and make their fortune''.
The today that many people have already made their fortunes this way including, intriguingly, the wife of the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd whose former company now operates in the UK.
What has happened to Freud's report tells you a lot about how Gordon Brown has changed from the pretender to the throne to the occupier of it and even in the months since he's been in No 10. Freud was commissioned by Tony Blair and the minister he trusted to reform welfare, John Hutton. Gordon Brown, as chancellor, fought against its proposals. As prime minister he sidelined them to focus instead on the promotion of skills.
The Tories saw their opportunity and embraced Freud whole-heartedly promising that they would implement his reforms. No sooner had they done so than Gordon Brown discovered that no-one was a greater admirer of the ideas than he was.
Old Sigmund would have had a field day with Gordon's Freudian slip.
