Discipline and Punish – When Housing and Feeding Someone Becomes a Political Act of Dissent
Since the Cameron government of 2010, we have had UK politicians repeat the mantra ‘Make work pay,’ which in translation has been a move towards barbarism for those in receipt of welfare.
Yet, while we are somewhat justifiably proud of our welfare system, don’t those in receipt – Marx’s reserve workforce – deserve to be fed and housed to the point they are fit and healthy once they do come from the reserve and into work?
Tom’s story
Tom (not his real name) was homeless after losing his job as a regional sales manager. He was on good money until his relationship breakdown and is a pretty switched-on kid.
He has the work ethic that few kids of his age (late 20s) do, exhibited in the way he cleared my garden one winter before I sold my house. He didn’t eat and slogged in wet gales and subzero conditions, working from sunrise to sunset, and I ensured he was paid well for it.
When I bought the new place and moved into my now wife’s house, Tom was the natural candidate to be my tenant.
Due to family reasons, he couldn’t leave Weymouth, and due to his trade (B2C sales), he was fairly limited as to what he could take on.
Eventually he went on Universal Credit, where we agreed he would pay me a little rent, but he would have enough money to eat.
After nine months, he got a job.
I drove him to work and then home every day to ensure he would get through his probation period. After the first two months in his £30,000 gross income job, the debtors and Child Support Agency got to him.
Thanks to the government and creditors, he was suddenly receiving less in his pay packet than he would on the dole.
The stress got to him, and he took a total of seven days off (in different periods) due to sickness, holding off until he was sent home.
In one case he had such a bad dose of flu I almost took him to the hospital, and in another he was vomiting at work.
On the pretext of taking too much time off work, they sacked him in his probationary period.
Yes, it went downhill even from there.
He was fired in mid-December, and I now understand that his first payment of Universal Credit will be paid on the 26th of February – something like 12 weeks after he lost his job.
He should be homeless and starving – but he has a landlord who knows the system enough to despise it and refuses to be as barbaric as the politicians who instituted ‘welfare reform’.
Reserve workforce needs to be strong
Those on welfare due to joblessness need to have the physical and mental strength in order to function when they find a job. In Tom’s experience this is far from the case.
Last time he was on welfare, I discovered that more than one of Weymouth’s Jobcentre workers are sadists who denied him his welfare payments (‘sanctioned’ him) due to their own administrative errors.
His income was so low that he could not afford nutritious food and consequently when he went back to work his immune system was too poor to fight off infections and so he fell ill.
The illnesses led to his return to the welfare system.
UN Rapporteur reports
On two occasions since the Cameron government brought about welfare reform and cuts, the United Nations has upbraided the UK for its treatment of those who cannot work.
In the 2018-19 report, Rapporteur Philip Alston found that more than 30,000 people had died due to the reforms. Watching the world through Tom’s eyes I can see why – many would have starved to death.
Alston found that roughly 14 million people in the UK were living in poverty, with ~1.5 million destitute, unable to afford basics like food and heating.
In 2025 the current Rapporteur Olivier De Schutter published an international report that again touched on the UK.
He found that the sadistic acts of sanctions and shame put upon those unable to work now shame and punish those in need, pushing people into unsuitable work under threat of penalties.
My own story
The reason I have gone to great lengths to to support Tom is that I had my own fall in my late 20s in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The welfare system lifted and supported me to the point I would be able to do a Masters Degree and train as a journalist.
It was able to support and encourage, not discipline and punish.
I too had a landlord who spotted my difficulties and when I was introduced to the mental health system, refused to evict me. Others helped me on my way.
This is why I am supporting Tom – the unquestioning support of others helped me to where I am today.
Feeding and housing someone – an act of rebellion?
Seeing the way that the system has gone from support and encouragement to discipline and punish has radicalised me somewhat, bringing up the next point that de Schutter suggested: He linked punitive welfare systems to broader social discontent and the rise of extreme political movements in multiple countries, including the UK.
The Reform Party and the emergence of a powerful radical left movement in the UK is symptomatic, as well as the decline of centrist parties, including the governing Labour Party, in the polls.
Without touching on whom I’d vote for, for me the simple act of feeding and housing someone has become an act of rebellion.
Those who wish to make work pay are failing 14 million people in the UK including several million children.
While at the top table of countries in the world in terms of GDP, around a fifth of the UK population are living in poverty.
How can you not be angry at this?
