The George Osborne 300m pounds jobs programme, appealing to the electroate's demand for stronger welfare measures, will start in April and will be aimed at 200,000 jobseekers allowance claimants. Polling suggests there is continued public support for ever tougher welfare crackdowns and with the Tories trailing in the polls and in need of a strong response to Ed Miliband's populist conference speech last week, strategists have returned to one of their strongest and most familiar policy areas to push the message that they are on the side of hard-working people. It is significant that Osborne is announcing the plan instead of the work and pensions secretary, lain Duncan Smith, Reports at the weekend suggested Duncan smith and Osborne have clashed over the handling of welfare cuts. The chancellor reportedly described Duncan Smith as "thick", an indication of Treasury frustrations at the management of universal credit, the scheme merging a series of tax credits and benefits.
The Tories have committed a community Job action programme, a six-month scheme of unpaid community work, and Labour has promised asory work scheme, the jobs guarantee for the long-term unemployed. The tories argue that the number of households where no member has ever worked doubled under Labour from 136,000 in June 1997 to 269,000 in June 2010. They claim that in the decade to 2010, 1.4 million people had spent nine out of the previous 10 years on out-of-work benefits. The unemployed people will be transferred to the new Help to Work Scheme at the end of the existing two-year Work Programme if they have not found work.
Cameron used more cautious language to criticise Miliband's plan to freeze energy bills for the first 20 months in office if he wins the 2015 general election. I want low prices not just for 20 months, I want them for 20 years. So what we need to go is go to the reasons why these prices are going up in the first place, we have got to make these markets more competitive, we have got to make sure that companies behave.