Oh, DO pick me

The latest fatuous, misguided slice of fuckwittery has just begun its long waddle down the catwalk. Prior to tripping over its own feet and falling flat on its vacant, drooling face, of course.

The Government today announced their very latest pissing-in-the-wind, fiddling-while-Rome-burns, re-arranging-the-deckchairs style initiative: "The National Talent Bank".

Now, although the word 'Bank' appears in the title, there's no actual money involved. Oh no. That's all gone. Instead, this is:

"part of the Government’s comprehensive approach to tackling the recession and is designed to ‘share the talent' between the private, public and third sector"

Developed by the Prime Minister's Council on Social Action (who?), The National Talent Bank will:

"act as an intermediary between companies, who are reducing their working hours, frontline volunteering opportunities, and third sector organisations who are best placed to deploy this newly-available talent into effective use in the community."

Unless CF is missing the point, this is just a fucking typcially devious way of saying that the unfortunately newly unemployed (as opposed to the vast numbers of long term, career unemployed) will be able to - instead of squandering their time looking for another fucking job - be of value to the economy and end the recession for ever by doing - what? - voluntary work.

At the same time, the companies who've tried to lay off people to reduce costs will be able to carry on paying those costs while receiving less - or even no - fucking work from the people they wanted to fire.

How in the name of fuck does any of that crap help with "tackling the recession"?

Gordon Brown, who appears to still be Prime Minister, said:

"The Government will do all it can to support this very British tradition of volunteering, and National Talent Bank will make it easier for people with valuable skills to volunteer and put their abilities to good use. Volunteers themselves benefit, as do the people they help and the country as a whole. So I welcome the National Talent Bank and wish it every success."

Tessa Jowell, Minister for the Cabinet Office, joins in,wittering:

“Volunteering doesn’t just help disadvantaged groups and communities; it also gives valuable skills to the volunteer, helping them to gain confidence and expand their own CV."

But Tess', love, babes, darlin, that is precisely fuck all use if they're not using that marvellously-expanded CV to look for a real fucking job.

And, inevitably, there's a cheeky soundbite flung in: the National Talent Bank is..

"designed to support existing volunteering programmes to provide additional real help to businesses and individuals affected by the recession"

Real help? Real fucking help? No, real help would be finding the "individuals" a REAL job. Or at least, helping the poor fuckers to look for one. Not dragging them off to paint old ladies fences, or flog suits collected from dead old men. And real help for businesses might perhaps mean giving them some REAL support, not pinching their fucking staff to mentor car thieves.


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