On the Soapbox: Tiernan Douieb ain’t Game for the Olympics

Personally, I can’t wait for the Olympics. So many things to look forward to, including an opening ceremony based on the English Countryside, which means two hours of racism, being blocked by 4x4s, no phone reception and the smell of horseshit. It should be spectacular. Especially as we’ve seen just how the Jubilee Eternity – sorry, weekend – was. Now that it’s finally finished, I think it’s safe to say in retrospect that everyone had a really great time. Especially those who got hypothermia, anyone who tried to get around the city and all those who hungered for any other bit of news or television other than the consistently dull commentary that accompanied a lot of different large, slow moving types of transport. Yes, I include Elton John in that description.

All of the UK enjoyed the spectacle of watching millions of pounds that could have been used fishing our erstwhile dead economy out of its black hole of deficit, instead of being used to provide the sort of party only the kind of people who’d start a neighbourhood watch might enjoy. Those sorts of people. You know the type. The ones who’d spend far too much time pruning a hedge and spent at least six months saying how awful Russell Brand was when he did that thing they’d heard about once and never researched. Many people, who pretend they can actually feel emotion when an Adele song comes on the radio despite it being proven scientifically impossible*, spent four days pretending they didn’t mind dressing like a fool and waving flags. Cameron stated that while the whole shebang wasn’t “good for the economy, it was good for the soul”. Great. We can all relish the fact that while thousands are unable to pay their bills due to unemployment, they can at least enjoy a well nourished mythical notion that will allow them to live in a better post-death nothingness. I am almost tempted to become religious just so I can say I got some sort of measly benefit from it all.

But whose soul was it actually good for anyway? Probably not those at Close Protection UK, who, according to a Guardian expose and a call for an enquiry from former deputy PM John Prescott, hired jobseekers to do unpaid work at the Jubilee celebrations, where they were forced to sleep in the cold, get changed in public and had no access to toilets for 24 hours. All this, apparently, whilst being denied pay as it would affect their JSA. Lucky the same company are hiring the stewards for the Olympics too, eh? There are times when I wish there was a font for sarcasm. However it’d only end up with me constantly upset when I read Tory MPs tweets that didn’t use it, sadly proving they really aren’t just fictional characters invented by Chris Morris.

All the thrills of being at a music festival if you’d had no choice in going, the line-up was awful and you didn’t even have cheap cider and people with poi to punch so you could numb the despair. But in defence of such awful treatment, Downing Street has said this was a ‘one-off’. Molly Prince, head of the company has said it is the “nature of event work” and Abi Levitt at Tomorrow’s People – the charity who set up the placements with CPUK, have said it was all important work experience to help young people get jobs. Backing those views up, several Tory MPs have accused Labour and left wingers of nit-picking about the exploitation of people just to be anti-Monarchy, and the Daily Mail managed to find some named ‘volunteers’ who seemed all too happy with their ‘labour camp’ treatment. So with all those trusted resources, it’d be hard to see why all the complaints, huh? Cue further need for sarcasm font.

There are an awful lot of issues behind this, and I’m not clever enough to coherently delve into the intricacies of Close Protection UK’s financial difficulty, or Molly Prince’s previous five companies’ history. Or that she has allegedly been convicted before for perverting the course of justice. All in all she’s clearly a person to trust for this sort of important position of responsibility. Ahem. Neither will I discuss that it’s perhaps suspicious that the boss of Tomorrow’s People is Baroness Scott, a Conservative peer who contributed to the funding of the Tory Party “manifesto” which she has been reprimanded for by the Charities Commission. But what I do want to point out is that even if – somehow – this is all reasonable, non-exploitative correct practice, then how have we become a nation that presumes doing ‘work experience’ alongside the river Thames in the pouring rain, for an event that happens once in a blue-blooded moon, will in any way lead to a valuable career?

If you are honestly of the opinion that those are qualities that would be revered on a CV that might lead to a decent career, then you’re barking up something that isn’t even a tree in the first place. How can you ‘tackle’ the vast unemployment in the UK by equipping jobseekers with skills that, after the Olympics, will be largely useless? I’ve done awful work experience before, but while all of them made me never want to do those jobs again, they did look after me. I learnt customer service skills, admin abilities – and never to go near ancient artefacts with a massive metal trolley ever again. All, with clever wordplay, ‘transferable skills’. How do you translate ‘standing in the rain’, ‘being forced to change in public’ and ‘sleeping under a bridge’ into qualities? Weather resilient, willing to abandon dignity and adaptable to the environment? Well done, you’ve qualified for homelessness! I can only assume Tomorrow’s People have seen the Conservatives recent take on environmental policies and are training ‘aqua people’ for the coming horrors of climate change.

So while you’re not enjoying the Olympics, spare a thought for those who may be working there for no pay, in order to save their current benefits and any hope of keeping them, in truly awful conditions. It’s incredible how the government keep berating ‘problem families’ for having a ‘something for nothing’ attitude when that is exactly what they are condoning by allowing crooked companies to operate like CPUK did during the Jubilee. Anyone who defends slave labour is and always will be fundamentally wrong, no matter how good the bunting is for your soul.

* It hasn’t. But I bet it will be one day.

By Tiernan Douieb (@TiernanDouieb)