Nil desperandum posted by Richard Seymour

Oh, you doom-mongers. You naysayers. You negative normans. Everything's all soooo gloomy as far as you're concerned. Unemployment. Wage cuts. Public sector cuts. A Tory government on the way. Endless war. More Big Brother. The litany of complaints from the stubbornly downbeat is about as long as the lines of coke in a professional footballer's dressing room. Well, shame on you, because Britain's youth are showing you up for the sadsacks that you are, as today's Mirror demonstrates:

They are the million-strong army of youngsters sentenced to life on benefits before they are out of their teens.

According to doom-mongers NEETS - young people not in employment, education or training - are a symptom of all that's wrong with Britain. A third have confesses to suicidal thoughts.

But, as these uplifting stories reveal, many are determined to find jobs and defy the critics. Our three NEETS set out to impress and offered their services for nothing under the government's Work Trials scheme.

Ah, bless. Determined not to lapse into shiftless despondency and dependency, they've taken advantage of a government scheme to give employers free labour. The older generations, who lumpenly expected to be paid for their labour, don't know they're born. And how did these go-getters get going? Well:

[Courtney] refused to spend her days lounging in front of the telly and did six months' unpaid work at a clothes shop, only to be told they couldn't afford to take her on.

Then Courtney found that a 99p store was looking for employees and signed up for a two-week work trial. At the end of it she was offered a job.

You see? A job. Only six months and two weeks of free labour and someone hired her. And all she had to do was work fourteen hour shifts. There's jobs out there for them that wants them. You know how you get it? Bloody hard work, love. No one owes you a wage packet, not even your employer.

Labels: capitalism, exploitation, new labour, rate of profit, recession, ruling class, yoof