A Cataclysmic Foul-Up of a Policy Announcement

It's perhaps not so unusual for a new government to make a cataclysmic balls-up of an item of policy.   Or, occasionally, a cataclysmic balls-up of an item of PR.    But both, on the same weekend,  on the same subject, is really pushing the boat out. 

I'm not sure who is formally considered to be in charge of government PR, but whoever it is needs to be spending more time with his family.  Or perhaps spending more time with a beginner's book on PR.     "...Forcing people to work...  for nothing.."  ?      Oh, well done.   What a finely-crafted image that is. 

Poor old Danny Alexander on the World This Weekend sounded like a deputy head prefect trying to explain a new sanction against fourth formers caught smoking.     And 'sanction' - amazingly - was the word he allowed himself to use:  thus opening the door for every left-winger to describe it as "forced work" and elicit all the chain-gang imagery which the redtops will revel in.     What on earth is Iain Duncan-Smith thinking in allowing this garbled, incompetent version (of his presumably originally sensible policy)  to get out ?     Of course it is sensible to nudge the work-shy back to work - and let's not pretend the numbers of those are small, please - but for goodness sake,  the message could be so much better put, than this unbelievable, ham-fisted mess. 

The form of words needed for this policy is surely that,  after a generous period of providing unemployment benefit for those fit and able and out of work to look for work full-time,  we should simply invite people in order to still benefit from that same support and help, to contribute to earning the money they receive, by working for the state for some of the week (and continuing to look for better paid work the rest of the week).    All that needs doing, is to invite people to continue their receipt of benefit by working for the state, at the minumum wage.  So  £65 earned is worth about 11 hours a week (say three mornings).   That will still leave them plenty of time for job applications and it will get them out in the fresh air, in company with others and with the satisfaction of contributing something.