AN OPEN LETTER TO CHRIS GRAYLING MP

Dear Chris Grayling,

It used to be the greatest of all slurs to accuse a ‘gentleman’ of lying; indeed there was a time when men fought duels protesting the accusation, some dying in the process. Those times have gone, now recourse is more readily made to the courts in the form of libel actions, to be accused of lying in public still therefore carries some ignominy. So with this in mind I accuse of you of being a liar. I quote you in full:-


“We won’t and don’t force anyone to take a work experience placement. Where we use mandation in our welfare policies, it will be to do useful work on community projects. We will never mandate anyone to work for a big company. They wouldn’t take them if we did."

This cannot be dressed up as being ‘economical with the truth,’ as being disingenuous or telling half truths, it is a bare faced lie. Unemployed persons as I write are being used as unpaid labour under compulsion, i.e. the threat of loosing their benefits, in the following ‘big’ companies Poundland, Tesco, Argos. Cait Reilly is taking the government to court precisely over having faced this kind of compulsion. Just one of several new workfare schemes is called the ‘Mandatory Work Programme,’ (the clue Mr Grayling is in the name).
So just in case any ambiguity can be detected in my remarks thus far I repeat, Mr Grayling you are a liar.

This letter has been e-mailed to Chris Grayling and he has been offered right of reply.





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