Its Friday and its been a bad week but I couldn't help smiling at the story that Mr Hain didin't declare some income he had had. In the light of Sec of State v B does anyone fancy writing a submission for him........

Pete.

Well it's pretty obvious isn't it? There's only a duty to disclose income under B if there is an unambiguous instruction referring to income of precisely that type. So we need to see a copy of the instructions actually issued to him whenever it was about the types of income he should disclose, and not just a copy of the instructions they would as a matter of routine issue now but can't actually prove they did issue to him, or at least not in that form, and anyway the rules have quite possibly changed since they told him what to disclose and as we all know a change in the law is not a change of circumstances...but this would only mean if successful that it wasn't recoverable, not that he was allowed to have it in the first place.

What is it about being secretary of state for work and pensions? Gordon has said he has full confidence in Hain and we all know what THAT means. How many is that in the last five years now?

Very good ... perhaps you should put it in the swapshop area so we can all use it!!

Pete.

Anyone happen to know how many people have occupied the post since "New" Labour came to power?

Seven: Harman, Darling, Smith, Johnson, Blunkett, Hutton, Hain. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blair_Ministry

Was'nt Frank Field a DWP Minister with Harman as his deputy - I seem to remember that they resigned at the same time in 1998 ish?

....anyway, they do seem to have somewhat less job security than your average WRA....

My recollection is that Harman was SoS and Field a Junior Minister, and that chimes with wikipedia's article above. Wasn't Field the one told to "think the unthinkable"? ie to come up with ideas to free up tax cuts for the rich at the expense of the poor?

I recall Field not lasting long after appointment in 1997, but I don't remember whether he and Harman went in the same reshuffle. The wikipedia article does say that Darling took over in 1998, so that date is certainly right for Harman going. I ain't got time to look right now, but Field's career details are presumably available somewhere online...

In the mid nineties New Labour officials went to Wisconsin to see how they were to implement Clinton’s Workfare legislation. I’ve an idea Frank Field may have been one (although he certainly approved of the ideas behind “Wisconsin Works”) although I could be wrong.

The link below will give some idea of what Wisconsin did and the underlying ideas and many of the practices have been at the heart of New Labour’s welfare reform.

I don’t imagine for a second that New Labour intends to localise benefit administration through local government organisations as the Centre for Policy Studies document would wish, and I don’t for a minute necessarily endorse the CPS’s proposals but its criticism of the way New Labour is using the private sector makes several telling points.

And by the way “Wisconsin Works” didn’t. Many people (especially blacks and Hispanics were brutalised and driven further into poverty. Lone parents with children over 12 months old were forced into work and fraud and corruption amongst private providers was widespread.

For example, one local provider was pushing people into jobs at a local factory on low pay and non-unionised. Refusal meant benefit sanctions. It turned out that the same company owned both the factory and the local provider. Sweet, eh!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/exclusions/thinklocal/nosplit/localwelfare.pdf

I remember something similar. When the idea of a system of tax credits was first being bandied around in the mid-late 90's, schemes in the US were forwarded in support of the proposals for a move to a system of tax credits in the UK (in the US, reform was called TANF - temporary assistance for needy families. I think I remember Wisconsin being one such example of welfare reform. One of the major criticisms was the system was far too compulsive - especially for single parents - and proved administratively unworkable and left many people in poverty.

Dawn Primarolo thought she could do it better. She didn't listen and she was wrong.

Not sure the intransigence is down to Primarolo; I rather recall it was her boss who kept on making all the speeches about how wonderful the tax credit system was gonna be ... until it became manifest how wonderful it actually isn't.

No point preparing a submission as he will not have the right of appeal!

Of course he'll have a right to appeal! He's in the government and that means he has a right to anything that the rest of us don't!

If not, he can just rewrite the rules or treat his favourite tabloid hack to a slap up meal and a night in the ritz with Miss Snowy Sunshine - that might virtually guarantee public sympathy.

you mean, " No ifs, no buts.." doesn't apply to secretaries of state for W & P? oh yeh...

According to Gordon, he hasn't done anything wrong, he's just incompetent and has a think tank that doesn't..........well that's seems to be a rather jolly qualification for someone who's running a multi million pound government Agency: certainly instills me with a new found confidence.

Despite the DWP holding the government's biggest budget they still haven't sussed that someone would probably have to stay in the job for at least five years before they could even get to grips with the basics.

If they did serve their time they might then be able to look at developing a modern British (not imported) progressive and integrated welfare support system that actually served its purpose, rather than the current organisational centred model that costs a fortune to administer (although even competent administration seems to be going out of fashion now).

Come in Number 8: Number 7 has decided to spend more time with his family/learn Welsh/write his memoirs/become a Guardian columnist/save the planet...

......rejoin the Liberals!

My gosh!!! I didn't realise the situation was so becoming so bad that joining the Liberals was an option......

Paul, that light you see at the end of the tunnel is actually an oncoming train!

If the tories ****** up the rich by mismanaging the economy, and new labour has ****** up the poor by mismanaging the welfare state, what can the liberals do...?

ps. sorry for the *s but we were at a loss for a suitable alternative!!

"at a loss for a suitable alternative" sums it up, just as we had Keynesian consensus now we have errrrr Marketisation of society Consensus.

From BBC News (12:13 today):

"Peter Hain resigns from Cabinet.

Peter Hain has resigned from the Cabinet after his deputy leadership campaign donations were referred to the Metropolitan Police."

1 down, only another 21 to go.

Can I be the first to volunteer a place to the Probation Service (in the unlikely event of any succesful prosecution of an ex-DWP minister) for some extended community service time filling in endless DLA and income support forms. Then a few months of dealing with benefit 'delivery' centres who appear to have lost all their most experienced staff ("efficency" savings), thus leading to massive failure-led demand on my time.

Or Perhpas Mr Hain could use his experience to advise victims of anti-cost effective anti-fraud initiatives on how to deal with interviews under caution?

If not, at least he could instruct then on receiving dodgy-dons so they can pay for legal representation...?

That's what I like to see - as the advert says, No ifs, no buts......a straight and somewhat swift referral from the Electoral Commission to the police.

Now all we need is for someone to recognise that losing acres of highly confidential Data relating to a couple of million citizens (give or take a few) is also a criminal offence and we might see a few others being "referred" to the Constabulary........

In a purely selfish way, I have to admit to being rather annoyed by the timing of this as I have spent the last 3 months arranging for Mr Hain to come and speak at next Wednesday's Social Security Consortium and now he's jumped ship. Ah well, back to the drawing board......

no messing around ....... James Purnell in ......

Ummmm ......James who .........?

Parnell, it sounds like.

Does that mean he'll be SoS for Ireland?

...and I'm sure the former 'New' Labour minister can be assured of total impartiality when the Chief Superintendent turns up on his doorstep, simmering with rage at the government's refusal to backdate his salary increase.

To continue one of the threads from this discussion, from today’s Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2248476,00.html