 | | | |
The word 'retire' seems to have taken on a whole new meaning.
| 'To withdraw' is the way the dictionary explains it. To withdraw 'to a place for seclusion, shelter or security'; 'to one's usual place of abode'; 'from company'. But in New Labourland, to retire seems to be less about 'withdrawing' than about being re-tired: made knackered, all over again.
| The UK chancellor of the exchequer Gordon Brown announced on Thursday 11 January that he would give charities and religious organisations £100million a year for three years, in a drive to involve more people in voluntary work for their local communities. Sergeant-Major Brown's particular ambition is to recruit a 'Grey Army' of volunteers over age 50.
| Yes, sir. No longer will our parents be able to live out their twilight years juggling the welfare of their ageing relatives with childminding our children - now they will be expected to take on other people's parents, and other people's kids, as well. Retirement 2001 will become one long route-march through schools (helping with literacy and numeracy schemes, and with sports), along hospital wards, and against the sullen tide of angst emanating from teenagers of 'broken homes' (for whom the Grey Army will be asked to act as mentors).
| Phew. But at least we're not talking National Service here. It's all voluntary; it's all up to you. Which would be fair enough - if the New Labour government actually understood the concept of 'voluntary'.
| In a landmark speech at the Active Community Convention and Awards, in March 2000, prime minister Tony Blair celebrated 'the great British tradition of volunteering'. 'I always think how strange it is that the term "do-gooder" became a term of abuse', he mused. 'What's wrong with doing good?' He challenged us all to 'give generously - in the two currencies of time and money', in order to 'make our communities stronger, our nation healthier, our own lives more fulfilled'.
| When we have a self-proclaimed 'do-gooder' as PM, there can be little doubt about the sincerity of his commitment to volunteering. When Chancellor 'Prudent' Brown starts behaving like a spendthrift in introducing new tax benefits for charities, you know that this isn't just rhetoric. But in their enthusiasm to strengthen this 'great British tradition', politicians risk turning volunteering into something that is not, well, voluntary.
| | Volunteering is an important element of citizenship classes, to be introduced as a compulsory subject in schools from September 2002. It may not be compulsory actually to volunteer, but pupils have no choice but to sit through lectures on how volunteers make good citizens (and students of GCSE citizenship will know that 'service to the community' is a more likely route to a grade A than hoping to be assessed on their ideas about citizenship alone). Under the New Deal, the UK government's flagship youth unemployment scheme, the young jobless can only claim benefits if they enrol on an education course, take up a government-subsidised job, join the sinisterly named Environmental Taskforce…or take part in voluntary work. Since when was the milk of human kindness something you were assessed on? How does withholding people's cash nurture the spirit of selfless do-gooding?
| Even those schemes that really do seem to be about genuinely rewarding volunteers for genuine voluntary work pose a problem. The government's Millennium Volunteers scheme, for example, gave awards to dedicated young volunteers. But the point of volunteering, surely, is that you do it for the sake of others, and the impact you make is reward in itself? By turning it into a quasi-qualification, for which you get a government-sponsored credential, the Millennium Volunteers scheme alters the character of the very thing it is rewarding.
| There is no mystery as to why the UK government thinks volunteering is A Good Thing. When fewer and fewer people vote, spontaneous community work seems to show that, at least, some people retain a broader sense of social engagement and responsibility. But for this to work it has to be spontaneous. It has to be voluntary. Surely even the freakiest of control freaks can understand that 'doing good' is not the same as 'doing what you're told', or 'working out what's in it for you'.
| Back on the bowling green, the 'Grey Army' idea has raised some problems of its own. One task the government wants grandma's help on is giving advice to young parents about bringing up children. I can't wait for the reaction to the first Grey Corporal who advises 'slap the little bugger - it never did me any harm', or who instructs the nervous couple that 'children should be seen and not heard'. At the same time as the government is trying to boost do-gooding, the Home Office is under pressure to introduce a vetting scheme to minimise the risk of voluntary organisations recruiting child abusers. As a spokesman for the UK Scout Association pointed out, such a scheme would cost it as much as £700,000 per year. 'If you are trying to encourage people to volunteer at the same time, it isn't going to work', he said.
| Meanwhile, one UK national newspaper reported on 12 January that Downing Street was 'unable to name a single cabinet minister who had fulfilled their pledge to complete a day's voluntary work'. On 10 January home secretary Jack Straw reportedly put his money where his money was, when he gave £10 to a Big Issue seller and demanded the change.
| It might be good to do good - but maybe, for the government, it's better not to bother.
Read on:
spiked-proposals: Pensioners
Going for grey, by Phil Mullan
Grey days for democracy, by Mick Hume
|
|
|
| | |
