Journalists to get an Apprentice-style makeover – without the perks

I’m popping back – between marking assignments and exam papers – to rant about this now advertised on telly:

“ITV is set to broadcast a seven-part series in the second half of 2012 featuring aspiring journalists vying for a 12-month contract at Bauer Media’s magazine portfolio, which includes Heat, FHM, Closer, More! and Empire” (Media Week).

Yes, journalism now has its own Apprentice-style competition – ‘cept our six young workers aren’t likely to get a six figure salary or a day in a spa courtesy of Alan Sugar – in fact, they’re not even getting a job but a “12-month journalism contract”.

It looks like they’ll be in the losers’ greasy spoon because a short-term contract means they is unlikely to mean they are able to afford Apprentice-style living.

Even when journalists are asked to commit to such a money-making process they’re treated with contempt.

What makes the competition all the more sinister is research from Press Gazette published in May revealing that at least 242 local newspaper closed between 2005 and the end of 2011.

Now, instead of being trained on a weekly newspaper as has been tradition, Media Week explains: “The cameras will follow the trainee journalists as they hone their skills and are coached and mentored in interviewing, organising photo shoots and connecting with their readers.”

This used to be what real trainee journalists did, on the job, while paid without having to compete with other journalists for a job at the end – no doubt on all those newspapers which have closed.

The Drum quotes Abby Carvosso, managing director of Lifestyle & Advertising at Bauer Media, saying: “We’re on the hunt for a gutsy, fearless and talented individual who stands out from the crowd and we’re sure it will be a great watch!”

Since when has being “a good watch” been an essential skill for print journalists. I mean, whatever happened to the phrase “a face for radio and a voice for print?”

Competing on television is no way to start a journalism job: imagine a death-knock where they’re grieving and trying to place your face; a court appearance where the photographers outside recognise you so take a few snaps; conducting any serious interview where your ability to get people to talk is more important than your ability to get into some posh nightclub for free; or being asked for your autograph at the police station.

Bauer Media had a run-in around “journalism contracts” with the National Union of Journalists back in 2010 when there were protest against new contracts which they claimed removed copyright from contributors, as reported by journalism.co.uk. It was reported at the time as ” a ‘rights grab’ against freelance writers and photographers at Kerrang!, Mojo and Q magazines has been condemned by the NUJ as ‘vicious, venomous and vindictive’. The music division of  publishers Bauer Media is seeking to impose ‘all rights’ contracts on freelance contributors, and also to make them responsible for damages and costs in cases of legal action against the magazines.”

Now, as hundreds of newspapers face closure, making a genuine break into the industry much more difficult, Press Gazette reminds us of journalist Susy Macaulay who launched a new monthly newspaper for the Outer Hebrides called Island News and Advertiser in March. She says: “I would encourage any journalist out there who sees a gap in their local areas to give it a go. It can be done on a shoestring and your community will soon get behind you if you do it right.”

This is the right attitude to journalism. I’ve written my fair share of “my husband left me for the neighbour’s babysitters’ best friends’ cousin so I married my cat” and think it’s a form of entertainment – but I also want aspiring journalists to aspire to journalism.

It is also the sort of journalism produced by Manchester Mule, Salford Star, Stoke’s Pits ‘n’ Pots among others nationwide.

My own contracts will come to an end soon. I’ve no idea as yet whether more are to come. I hope so. The thought of going back in the dole makes me want to hide in Chaplin’s cardboard box with him. I’ve not forgotten counting my pennies and drinking tea to avoid hunger pangs – or, worse still, not having money for tea bags!

Watching young journalists being exploited in this way while I’m skint, stuck on the settee with Chaplin would be more than I could stand.

Update: Chaplin is doing well and currently sitting in the sun with what appears to be a grin on his face. I’m set to be skint this month, I think, as contracts haven’t materialised. I’ve lots of food in – but have run out of Harry Ramsden’s Mushy Peas. Onwards and upwards.

Fine dining and whining …

I’ve no qualms admitting that I spent the past half hour fighting with The Orwell Prize website to see if I’d been longlisted. I haven’t. I’m taking it well but Chaplin is pacing the floor shaking his head at his flatmate having been cast aside in favour of Toby Young.

I will take solace in the fact that I was once shortlisted. It was for features in some regional journalism awards. I’d written about posing naked for an artist and, by sharing my humiliation, was awarded a roast chicken dinner at a table covered in a white tablecloth and wine stains. There were also a few gravy spills up my end because I’ve never had great table manners: to this day I wonder if that’s why I was a runner-up.

My first editor – the one who spiked splashes for fun and reduced grown hacks to tears – once told me “those who do, do – others win awards” and I scratched my head wondering what on Earth he was on about. Turns out my colleague had won an NCTJ award and he predicted envy. I predicted being plus-one at a posh dinner celebration and my prediction was accurate. My table manners, unimproved.

Now I’ll have to treat myself to another posh dinner in celebration of my attempt because at least I can temporarily afford to. I have enough work, I think, to sustain me for about four months and then I will either find myself with more work – after chasing commissions and teaching jobs – or find myself back in the Job Centre having my confidence kicked out of me.

For now, I will dine  – I will dine like a rich Tory with a policy idea for Cameron. It’s nice to be able to go into restaurants again. I’ve visited three in the past few weeks and I even ate in two of them.

I also popped into a Waitrose for the first time – that is how flush I have felt! – and was both thrilled at the range of dinners for one and angered that some people shop in these places all the time. They’ve no idea of those who schlep to cheap shops only to be told they don’t eat well because they’re stupid not because they’re poor.

Anyway, I’m now going to have a self-pity snack. I promise I’ll also sort Chaplin out with some posh cat food … because otherwise he’ll bear a grudge.

Chaplin literally just ran in with a mouse. I will interpret this as a kind gesture, an attempt to contribute to my self-pity snack …

Well done to Benefit Scrounging Scum for being longlisted. Good luck.

Stay calm and stuff the Jubilee …

I went to town to see the Queen*. I could tell you, as the Daily Mail describes, that she looked “stylish in pastels” or I could gush that “Her Majesty and Prince Philip stepped off the royal train at Victoria Station to rapturous applause from more than 800 flag-waving fans“

The reality, though, is I walked past Albert Square watching the people holding their camera phones aloft, and I couldn’t be bothered waiting for her to appear. The reality is also that it seemed of little interest to most Mancunians.

I won’t be allowed to miss out on the hysteria though because the Manchester Evening News promises a souvenir supplement on Saturday. The city is told with excitement that Queeny tucked in to “steak and venison pudding [...] served with celeriac mash and buttered savoy cabbage” which was “as all being prepared, cooked and served by town hall staff.”

It sounds like a fine meal and in the glorious surroundings of Manchester Town Hall – built in the mid-1800s to brag about the city’s wealth rather than tackle the slums. I wonder, though, if any of the town hall staff serving up the grub are worrying about potential redundancy or whether they can afford their next meal.

I can see, of course, that Jubilee fever is intending to take our minds off mass unemployment, the destruction of the NHS and the fact that we fund her family’s existence as well as the bonuses for fat cat bosses in banks. It tried much the same in 1977: when firefighters went on strike over pay, there was an International Monetary Fund bail-out, an oil crisis, the Labour government faced a vote of no confidence by Liberals and the Queen wanted us flag-waving for her Silver Jubilee. I didn’t then and I won’t now.

The crowd outside Manchester Town Hall was small as I passed. I like to think that fellow Mancunians see no point in standing in the streets – sunny or not. One website run by journalism students states that HRH was welcomed by “thousands” adding, “hundreds of children, parents and celebrators waved flags”. It also reports on anti-monarchy protesters greeting the Queen.

I can honestly say when I passed it was more like dozens – even the cabbie said he was surprised by how few had turned out, especially considering the sun was shining on this rainy city for a change.

The city’s streets weren’t lined with flag-waving royalists when I walked them. In Albert Square I saw some tourists taking photos; workers having their lunch in the sun; students milling about before they go home to wherever and, of course, photographers up on a statue to ensure a clear view of Her Maj – not a cheering crowd wanting to catch a glimpse of a pastel-wearing parasite.

Because, whether she’s in pretty pastels or polka dots and purple, it’s hard not to resent the expensive tour of an unelected monarch visiting a city facing tough cuts, potentially shedding 50% more jobs than Tory councils and with an average wage of less than £2,000 as the cost of living soars.

It is also particularly upsetting when one considers that the Save the Children revealed in february that 27% of the city’s children live in severe poverty. Its campaign previously called on the Chancellor to Chancellor to announce an emergency plan in the next budget to channel new jobs into the poorest areas and increase financial support for low-income families.

It says that single parents and families are living on less than between £7,000 and  £12,500 a year. Meanwhile the Royals are given hundreds if thousands, according to the British Monarchy website. Even Prince Andrew receives £249,000 per annum.

*I didn’t actually go to see the Queen. I went to the People’s History Museum.

Sharks that look like Chris Grayling …

As incapacity benefit rejects 37% of its claimants,  the jobless total reaches a 17-year high of 2.7million and (un)Employment Minister Chris Grayling tells us “there are new vacancies available every week” … I consider a new way to look at him.

A post inspired by Otters That Look Like Benedict Cumberbatch.

Why Twitter needs to stop journalist-baiting …

A Sunday afternoon spent in the Twittersphere has led me to defend journalism again. The lazy contempt being shown for journalists and journalism is more dangerous than the angry mob seems to realise.

There are, as far as I can tell, three main concerns: telling the truth, media blackouts and press release re-writing. All things which concern journalists too.

I won’t get too deep and meaningful before you tuck into your dinner – you know, the one you made for your mum for Mother’s Day as instructed by endless tabloid features.

I will, though, say that seeking the truth isn’t and never has been a case of opening a newspaper or watching TV news – especially not from profit-driven, politically-motivated newspapers or telly stations. We need to get rid of this idea: truth is and always has been someone’s version of it. It is the case even in those history books on your shelf – the ones that ignore women’s history or black history or write only about the winning side or the rich.

Even Orwell – a journalist to be trusted, most would say – admitted in The Road to Wigan Pier that “nearly all the incidents described happened but they have been rearranged”. What does he mean by “nearly all” and, if he has not reported strictly chronologically, can he be trusted to have told the truth at all? I think he can.

Journalists and readers need to lighten up, intelligently embrace subjectivity, enjoy impartiality and seek the truth of their own political leanings, their own eyes when at events, use their brains rather than rely wholly on newspapers – and not demand from journalists what their bosses won’t allow.

Media blackouts – such as the shocking lack of coverage of yesterday’s NHS demo and the general lack of reporting of legitimate protest of interest to the entire nation – are staggering but, again, nothing new.

A national media defending the status quo or the ruling class is neither new nor a characteristic of only the UK media: journalists die across the globe while reporting, fighting oppression, defending press freedom.

I think it unlikely that journalists at the NHS demo failed to submit any copy, film or photos – but an editor could choose to spike their work.

Maybe we should recognise that our journalists – like many across the world – are struggling to publish and broadcast what is happening despite their best efforts.

What is new, perhaps, is our ability as readers and viewers to spot this and challenge it. Our recognising that we can all report what we think needs to be reported is an exciting shift – we now share our experiences of police brutality, moments of inspirational dissent and the media ignoring it through interesting blogs and citizen journalism or alternative media.

Churnalism is, without doubt, a problem – but not one caused or enjoyed by journalists. We don’t want to rewrite PR guff when we could be conducting interviews, using our own ideas for stories of value to the community or even – imagine! – investigating corruption. The industry is being battered by savage cuts meaning fewer journalists are covering the news and newspapers are closing.

31 weekly newspapers closed last year: this creates a genuine news blackout for many thousands previously dependent on their local paper to know who is standing in the elections, whether the local library is threatened with closure, how much is being spent on regeneration … you get the idea. Meanwhile newspaper owners like Trinity Mirror make huge profits: Trinity Mirror, of course, claims that £74m profit is not enough and so intends to make further cuts and kill more local newspapers.

As NUJ General Secretary Michelle Stanistreet says: “… local papers are having the life-blood sucked from them. Creative and investigative journalism is seriously under threat as journalists no longer have the time or resources.

“It means that local papers cannot fulfil their vital role as a public watchdog, holding local politicians and businesses to account. It means that the special relationship between the reader and their local reporter is being broken.”

If you want to know how churnalism fills this gap – as money-grubbing media owners work their few remaining journalists into the ground – this film is worth watching and shows how the Media Standards Trust is tackling it.

Lastly, lack of truth, media blackouts and PR churnalism are not the fault of individual journalists – many of whom don’t work for tabloids and/or don’t want to see their role changing, their voices silenced, their writing spiked.

Many others are like me, with qualifications and vast experience, but very little chance of finding a job in the industry.

So let’s not be silly about this: hating journalists and blaming them for the corruption of the British media is short-sighted and lacks intelligence. Put down the pitchforks and burning torches and consider what our journalists face when trying to tell you what is happening.

An Open Letter to Chris Grayling …

Firstly, I’m not nor have I ever been a member of the Socialist Workers’ Party* and, while I’ve heard of Mumsnet, I’d not realised in visiting its site I was colluding with hardened radicals.

I am, though, a job snob who wants to be paid for a day’s work. I have the gall to want to earn a living in a way I might enjoy. I’m also under-employed – along with millions more in the UK – due to a global financial crisis that is not of our making.

While you say young people should be grateful for unpaid work to show them the ropes, to give them experience, to get them a foot in the door, I say they should be paid for the work they do, encouraged to achieve and celebrated for what they can offer.

Our ambition is dismissed as snobbery while yours is celebrated on your website, telling us of your rise from school pupil to Employment Minister via the BBC.

At school I was told I’d never be a journalist, constantly reminded that people who grew up where I did had no chance of “bettering themselves”. I doubt you heard this as you worked your way to the BBC. I doubt you thought for a second that you might end up stacking shelves or see your dream job as just that.

“The industry is too competitive”, I heard at school. “You won’t know anyone who can get you a job through friends,” they would warn. “Those in public schools will be picked, leaving you at the back of the line for jobs,” they’d tell me, urging me to find a job, any job and stop day-dreaming.

I thought aspiration was a good thing, even for a working class child living on a council estate. I worked hard. I got O Levels, then A Levels, then further deferred the gratification of nights out with friends by attending university. I worked most nights and every weekend while at university certain I would never have to do so again, not once I was a journalist.

I did do a week of work experience while studying for my degree but not under the assumption that I didn’t understand what work was: I had the chance to see if I really wanted to work in journalism, not the chance to earn the lower rate of JSA while lining the pockets of big business.

After leaving Royal Grammar School and Cambridge, you went to the BBC. After leaving my inner city school and a northern former polytechnic, I got a job on a local newspaper earning £8,000 a year. I lived in a shared house, struggled to fund the car that was essential to the job, went without meals to do so: fed instead by ambition and a determination not to be at the back of the line for future jobs.

I then worked at press agencies, regional newspapers, national newspapers and magazines. I was good at what I did because I came from a working class background, not despite it.

Then – as the journalism industry was brought to its knees my those seeking bigger and bigger profits – I worked in university outreach, encouraging under-represented young people from working class communities to consider university, to know they were capable.

I tell them it is because life has not been easy for them that they’re sharp as tacks, interesting, articulate, funny and wise to old fools telling them they should work unpaid.

You seem to have concluded that young working class people are illiterate, undeserving of paid training and apprenticeships, and unaware that they’re being forced to work unpaid because of a crisis of capitalism. They’re not.

I worked much harder than you I suspect. I did so because I believed this would secure my future. Now you’re a wealthy politician selling the working class into slave labour and I’m working part-time, as a result of the decimated journalism industry and the savage Tory cuts in education.

I think I’ll be unemployed again soon enough, surviving on £67.50 a week, despite working hard for qualifications and competing with the likes of you for a job in the media. It is all too easy for it to be taken away from us – for us to pay the price for a crisis not of our making.

You should resign. You’re out of touch in defending the indefensible. Your contempt for us is tangible as you line up young people to work for free, demanding their gratitude as they make profits for multi-million pound corporations. You dismiss our desire for financial security and mock us for daring to dream of going day after day to a job we might enjoy.

You’ve stolen the aspiration of working class young people and condemned them to an existence of getting by, letting them take the blame for an economic crisis not of their making.

You should go and you should take your nasty Tory sidekicks with you. We’re not fooled by your plans and neither are our young people.

* Now that the SWP is said to be solely responsible for a campaign defending young unemployed people and highlighting the exploitation of the disabled and unemployed I’m more likely to join. I’ll also check Mumsnet daily.

Why I’m A Job Snob …

My name is unemployedhack and I am, apparently, a job snob.

I have qualifications for which I worked hard. I retrained in order to stay in employment. I would not be happy working in a job for which I’m over-qualified and in which I have absolutely no interest.

I didn’t get my degrees and professional qualifications in customer service because I’ve no interest in such jobs – and I’m bad at them. As a worker in a bingo hall I was dreadful: I lost money, I missed calls of “house” and risked being lynched by angry old women, and I was bored. I did this job while studying for my first degree with the sole intention of earning money until I was qualified enough to leave.

But I don’t look down on people working in Tesco or elsewhere, nor do I look down on those without qualifications. This was my choice and I was encouraged to do this by teachers who assured me it meant better prospects, more money – going to work and looking forward to it rather counting the minutes till home time.

Now our young people are job snobs if they want more. They used to be lazy if they didn’t choose to sit their GCSEs. They lacked ambition if they wanted to be hairdressers or work in supermarkets. They were dismissed as failures if they didn’t go to university.

Now, if the Tories are to be believed, they’re just snobs who should do any job for any pay and be bloody grateful for it – whether they have qualifications, ambition, aspiration or a big hat.

I wonder if Iain Duncan Smith ever considered working for no pay in a supermarket.

The reality is that Iain Duncan Smith who came up with this new insult will never earn a living stacking shelves – and it was never ever considered as a job option for him as he grew up. He knew what he was entitled to and had both the financial and educational means to achieve it.

He says of us, though, that we are “armed with an unjustified sense of superiority and sporting an intellectual sneer [...] determined to belittle and downgrade any opportunity for young people that doesn’t fit their pre-conceived notion of a ‘worthwhile job’.”

So, the working class are dismissed as chavs and spongers if without work. We’re lacking entrepreneurial spirit if we don’t set up businesses. We’re failures if we don’t get qualifications.

Now we’re job snobs. We’re job snobs if:

• We don’t want to work hard for long hours and little pay.
• We don’t eagerly chase jobs with no training that would bore us senseless.
• We don’t want jobs that offer few opportunities and little hope of a pay increase.
• We want to earn more than minimum wage.
• We want to be able to pay our bills and have enough money for a social life.
• We think everyone has the right to decent pay and conditions.
• We don’t want to work hard for long hours and no pay.

This is just more Tory rhetoric aimed at blaming us for the lack of work, a new narrative intended to hide the fact that the Tories consistently fail to provide jobs and create economic growth. They would willingly see us all shovelling shit for no pay.

The concern about Workfare isn’t about not wanting to be seen working in whichever organisation as failed to drop out (many have distanced themselves from or opted out of using slave labour): it’s about wanting a day’s pay for a day’s work.

Iain Duncan Smith continues, “Sadly, so much of this criticism, I fear, is intellectual snobbery.

“The implicit message behind these ill-considered attacks is that jobs in retail, such as those with supermarkets or on the High Street, are not real jobs that worthwhile people do. How insulting and demeaning of the many thousands of people who already work in such jobs up and down the country!”

We’re not saying such jobs are demeaning – WORKING FOR NO PAY IS DEMEANING.

In a capitalist system we sell our labour and we receive our wage. In a meritocracy we work hard to ensure we can have better pay and conditions through education. This is what the Tories tell us we have to do – but now it suits them to pretend we’re all being job snobs.

Now it suits them to dismiss our qualifications, our experience, our personal preferences because they want us to shut up and do what little work is available – or work for no pay – while they live by their “jobs for the boys” rules.

I am a job snob. I don’t want to work for nothing. I don’t want to work for unemployment benefits. I do want to work in the jobs I’m qualified for: it’s why I worked hard and it’s why I worked hard while paying for those qualifications.

The reality is it doesn’t matter what we do – when they mess up the economy we get the blame.

Why Emma Harrison and Workfare must go …

I’m told by a regular reader that being unemployed and in debt in the US means you’re less likely to find work. It seems a bad credit rating could mean your boss decides you’re a bad risk: you need money to clear your debts but those debts stop you from getting work.

I share this not to point out how much worse they may or may not have it in America but to highlight another example of blaming the unemployed for situations beyond their control … and what we might face in the future following the brutal welfare reforms.

A site outlining the history of the US welfare system states, “Throughout the 1800s [...]  there were attempts to reform how the government dealt with the poor. Some changes tried to help the poor move to work rather than continuing to need assistance consisting of caseworkers visiting the poor and training them in morals and a work ethic was advocated by reformers in the 1880s and 1890s.

During the Great Depression, “when one-fourth of the labor force was unemployed” the government stepped in to solve the problem: under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Social Security Act was enacted in 1935. This system is celebrated but it relied upon the Civilian Corporation Corp of unskilled, unmarried men working for $30 a month and giving that money to their parents.

Then in 1996 President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act – giving annual lump sums to the states to use to assist the poor and asking those states to ensure the unemployed were encouraged to move from welfare to work.

Now Obama is being accused of bloating the welfare state by bringing in reforms – and is called a socialist more times than Che Guevara – despite plans to make those needing food stamps work for them.

Even in Australia – where the language is more honest – there is Work for the Dole which started in 1998 intended to help young people develop a work ethic but not looking at the causes of youth unemployment.

The suggestion that workers should not be helped when unemployed is nothing new nor is the talk of personal responsibility or the spreading of blame to the jobless: it is a convenient political trick for which we must not fall.

We’re told we have no need to help out strangers with welfare or taxation – but we do. A global economic crisis and a recession that has put 2.7m in this country on the dole is a national – indeed a global – responsibility, not a personal one.

It is the developing narrative of personal responsibility which gives companies – including Superdrug, Asda, Tesco, Argos, Matalan, Royal Mail, Burger King, Poundland, Top Shop, Boots, McDonalds, Primark, HMV, Evans, Dorothy Perkins, Miss Selfridge, Pizza Hut, WH Smith – the arrogance to employ people to do a full day’s work for no pay.

It is this rhetoric used by charities such as The Salvation Army, Scope and Oxfam to dismiss the fact that instead of finding those who want to volunteer they they are using slave labour.

Boycott Workfare, a UK-wide campaign to end forced unpaid work for people who receive welfare, states “Workfare profits the rich by providing free labour, whilst threatening the poor by taking away welfare rights if people refuse to work without a living wage.”

The system is forcing the unemployed, the vulnerable and the ill to work – providing Jobseekers’ Allowance plus expenses as payment.Rabid Tories would, no doubt, find this acceptable and say people need work experience, people need to have a routine, people need to develop a work ethic, people need to learn not to rely on the state – I say people need to be paid for the work they do.

Marie Curie Cancer Care is among those opting out of the scheme and state, “We participated in this scheme because we believed it could offer volunteers an opportunity to gain valuable experience. However, there is a difference between volunteering and being forced to work and if there is any chance that people with terminal illnesses could be made to take part in this scheme we would take this very seriously.”

Now Emma Harrison, Cameron’s sidekick behind the Work Programme, is under scrutiny herself. It seems the woman who says there are “hidden jobs” and that you just have to find them has a few questions to answer about her own income.

The Daily Mail reports that Emma Harrison “pocketed £8.6 million in one year, mostly from state contracts and [...] MPs said the company’s record in placing the jobless in work was abysmal – with a success rate of only 9 per cent.”

The Guardian points out, “Ministers have been urged to suspend welfare-to-work contracts with a company at the centre of allegations of fraud [...] five shareholders were paid £11m in dividends last year, of which Harrison received 87%.”

This comes as a Daily Mail columnist Sonia Poulton states, “I deplore the Workfare programme for many reasons but primarily because it is deplorable. Trumpeted as a programme that will give the unemployed key skills, it serves nothing of the sort.

“What it is, in actuality, is a benefit system for sections of our work force. And there was I, foolishly, thinking that when you are part of the capitalist work force then the appropriate term for remuneration received is salary. Apparently not. These days, and under Cameron’s stewardship, we receive ‘benefits’ to become part of the job market.“

When Middle England is comparing Cameron to a Nazi even rabid Tories have nowhere to hide. The plans are cruel, selfish, brutal and money-spinners for those running them.

The plans do nothing to help those most in need in our country and fail to recognise that the unemployed are not to blame for a global economic crisis – we should oppose them. Click here to find out how to do just that.

Which unemployed worker stereotype are you?

Are you a slob? Do you deserve nothing but contempt? Are you a so-called chav who should be humiliated at every chance? Well, here’s your chance to find out with this personality quiz asking: which unemployment stereotype are you? The answers are based on a scientific analysis of the Department for Work and Pension’s desired response to your situation no matter what the reality. Good luck.

1. What job did you do?

a: I’ve not worked yet. I’ve just left school/college/university and can’t find a job

b: I was an architect/journalist/middle manager but the company closed down.

c: I had a manual/professional job but struggled to find work at home so moved to the UK.

d: I’ve never worked and I never intend to. Working is for fools like you.

e: I was a qualified, experienced worker who enjoyed working but, sadly, I can’t work now because I’m unwell.

2. If you had to work what would you be willing to do?

a: I’d like to do something I’d enjoy or to use my qualifications because I’ve just graduated and I’m proud of my achievement. I’d do anything to start though.

b: Ideally I’d like to do something I enjoy, closely linked to my qualifications and experience.

c: I’m willing to do anything that’s available but would much prefer not to be here, if I’m honest.

d: I told you, I’m never going to work. My parents didn’t work, my siblings don’t work. No one in my family works, never has and never will.

e: I’d go back to what I like doing. I’d start tomorrow if my health improved.

3. How do you spend a typical day?

a: I look for jobs on in the internet and in papers then I watch David Dickinson or other afternoon television but with a great sense of irony. I’m often bored.

b: I search for jobs online, in newspapers, contact friends then I watch afternoon television with a great sense of dread. I’m often bored.

c: Looking for work: I go to employment agencies, check newspapers, try to make a call home if I’ve enough money. I’m often bored.

d: Hang about with the locals, sleep on the settee for a bit, then I might have something to eat before hanging about again. Take it easy, you know? I get into fights in my neighbourhood sometimes but, seriously, why stress out about stuff.

e: I have a routine around my medication and healthcare which can make doing anything else almost out of the question.

4. What do you spend your benefits on?

a: The essentials. It’s not enough for anything else.

b: The essentials. It’s not enough for anything else.

c: The essentials. It’s not enough for anything else.

d: I want decent food. No store brand rubbish and I can usually get it. If I can’t get it myself I know someone who will.  I also get the drugs I want, the bedding I like. I come and go as I please. I live a charmed life.

e: The essentials. It’s not enough for anything else.

5. How many people do you know who are unemployed?

a: A few people. Some have found bits of jobs others got lucky and have full-time work.

b: Quite a few. These are people who thought they had job security but are now like me.

c: A few, here and at home. We none of us like it.

d: Those I depend on are unemployed. Makes no difference to me. Why would it matter? What is this obsession you have with working? Chilling out is much better.

e: I know more and more people in my situation and many are now being forced to work despite still being really, really ill.

Mostly As: You’re lazy. You’ve just left college/university and not looking hard enough for work. You clearly find living on benefits a suitable alternative lifestyle because it keeps you in luxury accommodation, enjoying fine-dining and enough computer games to keep you awake all night so you can sleep all day. You’re still cheerful and proud of your educational achievements. Stopping your entitlement to benefits will sort you out.

Mostly Bs: You’re lazy. You lack motivation, ambition and the ability to start-up your own business. You’re dependent on the state when you should be out there finding something, anything and lying about your qualifications or experience just so long as you find work. Did you not see The Pursuit of Happyness? That man slept in a toilet while he looked for work and so should you. Workfare will sort you out.

Mostly Cs: You’re lazy. Worse still, you’re foreign. You’ve come over here thinking our benefit system is easy and you can live off the taxpayer. We’ll show you by making sure there’s no work here either. Being scapegoated and blamed for mass unemployment in the UK will sort you out.

Mostly Ds: You’re my cat, Chaplin. You sleep most of the day and think people should run around after you. You’ve no intention of working, can’t begin to understand what it even means. You’re a cat but sometimes your characteristics are forced onto people who are struggling to survive on the least amount of money it is possible to live on.

Mostly Es: You’re lazy. Just because you’re ill doesn’t mean the taxpayer should help you. It’s not our fault you got ill. You should’ve taken better care of yourself or kept on eye on your dodgy genes. If you can walk, you can work, now get up and get earning.

Could UK have Cameronvilles?

I’ve experienced homelessness. Now, as I find my benefits still suspended – meaning I have no Jobseekers’ Allowance, Housing Benefit or Council Tax Benefit – the panic is creeping in that I will experience homelessness again.

I’ve not been told why this suspension has happened beyond “loss of paperwork” but that was said in a phone call, leaving no paper trail, so I suspect either untrue or not the basis of a complaint for me.

I told the unemployment office that I had part-time work, I asked if I was within my rights to take it, I was told to keep signing on until I received my first wage – then my benefits were stopped and I was left with, literally, zero income. I checked my bank account this morning and I am penniless with my rent due in a week.

I’ve effectively been penalised for trying to find work. I would’ve been better off staying on benefits: I would still have my dole payment and still be filling in my Looking for Work booklet and going through a routine which meant I had money for food, bills and accommodation.

I never imagined while working for years as a journalist, while studying hard for all my qualifications, while trying to build some sort of financial stability for myself that I would, one day, be sitting at home panicking that I might not have one for much longer.

As a child I lived through a housing crisis and ended up in a squat in a derelict terraced house. This house was in the middle of a street of squats and became the subject of a BAFTA-winning documentary in which I can been seen dancing happily amid the chaos.

My moment as an early reality TV star didn’t leave a mark – I don’t think I even saw the documentary untiI I was much older – but the experience of homelessness certainly did. My fear of it can quickly lead to panic and depression: if you have no home, you have nothing as far as I’m concerned.

We were of course abused for being homeless: insulted by passers-by, bullied at school as the squatting movement came under attack from the national press – those without homes and income seen as having brought it upon themselves, as not taking personal responsibility for their financial hardship.

Now, some 35 years, later this social problem of too little housing, mass unemployment and increasing poverty is again a growing problem which is creating homelessness.

I watch the BBC news, my fists clenched in fear and anger, as I see Americans make tent cities having lost their jobs and their homes – but still desperately trying to cling to some sort of normality. Just like the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression these settlements are being found on empty land across the country.

Panorama writes, “Conditions are unhygienic. There are no toilets and electricity is only available in the one communal tent where the campers huddle around a wood stove for warmth in the heart of winter.

“Ice weighs down the roofs of tents, and rain regularly drips onto the sleeping campers’ faces.

“Tent cities have sprung up in and around at least 55 American cities – they represent the bleak reality of America’s poverty crisis.”

America is the richest country in the world but people are living in tents and “47 million Americans now live below the poverty line – the most in half a century”.

These people have lost their jobs and had their benefits cut by a brutal system that demands financial independence of individuals while failing to provide a way for them to achieve it – there are no jobs.

Conservative minister Maria Miller says that in the UK there is “no shortage of jobs” and rabid Tories cling to this lie to excuse a lack of compassion and to spread the blame to those of us slung on a scrapheap while the rich get richer.

The reality though is that in Lewisham 34 people chase every vacancy – with over 10,500 unemployed for 300 jobs available. In Hartlepool it’s 21 people chasing every vacancy. In Hackney it’s 22. While in South Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and the City of London it’s fewer than two people for every job vacancy.

Much like the US we find that no jobs followed by benefit suspensions – even for those who have made the effort to find work but failed – means abject poverty. People are cutting back on food and fuel bills to pay their mortgage or rent. And the government not only wants to cut the amount of Housing Benefit people receive but also want to raise the age at which single people become eligible to claim for a one-bedroom property to 35. It doesn’t take a genius to see where this could inevitably lead.

All this while there are no jobs to help people out of poverty: history repeats itself the first time as tragedy, the second as farce and I now hope I won’t get to experience being homeless again.