The Labour party has yet to pass judgment, but for many hard-working people the immediate reaction to the story of Cait Reilly, the 22-year-old geology graduate compelled to sweep floors for nothing at Poundland, must have been: where can I get one? References, obviously, essential.
Most domestic employers would not, I think, insist on geology – a Russell Group geography degree would do just as well – but let’s not be picky. It would be a pleasure to have any pleasant, highly educated, preferably strong, young girl to assist with tidying and housework, knowing this will progress her career as choreographed by the government’s “sector-based work academy”.
Frustratingly for those of us hoping to mentor the young in this way, the free geology graduates are only being distributed at this time to larger, commercial partners such as Tesco and, of course, Poundland, where Ms Reilly was ordered to fulfil an unskilled placement – ie, one which might have been filled by a less-qualified peer, a process the Department for Work and Pensions has defended as preferable to “leaving people at home doing nothing”.
Now that Ms Reilly is hoping to bring her case for “forced labour” to court, there may be an opportunity for the department to justify its moral spin on supporting the indigent, one reminiscent of the bracing, Salvation Army approach Orwell described in Down and Out in Paris and London. It was the hostel officers’ habit, he reported, to enforce an early night, then rouse the tramps, pointlessly, at seven, “shaking those who did not get up at once”. In some shelters, the guests were required to attend a religious service.
