By Mike McNabb
“Off with his head” was a rallying call of reproach used first by Shakespeare but made colloquial by Lewis Carroll’s Queen of Hearts in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Today’s government has a similar rallying call: “Off with their benefits!”
Sadly that phrase too is catching on.
February came in with housing minister Caroline Flint threatening to chop the benefits of unemployed public housing tenants who were not actively seeking work.
February is going out with home secretary Jacqui Smith’s plan to chop the benefits of problem drug users who fail to meet a “treatment adviser”.
It is part of the government’s 10-year drug strategy unveiled today.
The most obvious hole in the policy is the lack of awareness that the removal of even small amounts of money from habitual drug users will result in more crime. Already there is evidence that many burglaries and incidents of petty theft occur in order to pay for a drug habit. Why put people in a position where they feel they have no option other than to break the law?
Another flaw is the establishment of yet another target – a specious one in this case. This will measure not the effectiveness of any drug rehab programme but merely the number of people signed up for treatment. What use is that?
Surely targets should measure success, not the ability to get out of bed in the morning to attend a class. If only passing academic exams were so easy.
The government’s proposals are not all bad: sure, there are civil liberties concerns about seizing the assets of suspected drug dealers (who will garner little sympathy in any case) but earlier social worker intervention in families where there are problem drug users and involving grandparents in the care of children whose parents are addicts could prove effective and are issues worth exploring.
But why does the government have to ruin it all with its boot-boy approach to solving society’s ills?
Radio 4 featured the strategy this morning on Today.
Obviously some of those people who are well supplied by the government with benefits, are just abusing and wasting the taxes of the citizens. Some of these people need to be put through a drug and alcohol detox, in order to clear their minds of drug addiction and opportunistic attitudes.