Counting the Cost

There are several reasons why I don't think campaigning for a report button on Twitter is a good idea. Chief among them - yet barely addressed - is the fact that this is fig leaf politics. It's enabling business leaders and politicians to wriggle out of a much bigger problem, which is this: who is going to pay to fix our broken society and why should women and minorities pay for the cost of leaving it the way it is?

First of all, let me clarify that I am not without sympathy for those who have been hurt by threats made against them online. Whilst I think we need to exercise caution in policing slurs, a threat that places somebody in a state of fear and alarm (or which a reasonable person would assume could do so) would, in other circumstances, be considered a crime, and I don't see why it being made online should be seen as making it less serious. I should note that I've received any number of rape and death threats in my time and I have generally laughed them off (most are, all else aside, terribly badly written), but that's me. I'm not easily intimidated in that way, but we don't say it's okay to go around shoving people in the street because the stronger ones won't fall over. I note that most people saying everyone should laugh this off are not members of those groups who can expect to be threatened in person on a frequent basis. Many women and members of minority groups experience that daily; they may find it hard to brush off online threats if they've been raped and assaulted in the past.

That said, I also have some sympathy for certain kinds of trolling - not the sorts that terrify people but the sorts that aim to provoke people for socially or politically important reasons. We have always needed contrary voices in order to enhance public discussion. Often it is only through this kind of provocation that radical perspectives come to be heard at all, and even if some of it seems inept, our society is richer for it. Furthermore, there are groups out there whose very existence is seen as provocation. I worry for the future of my charity if a report button happens because I know there are people out there who would constantly report it as being offensive simply for advocating that trans people have a right to decent treatment. It wouldn't matter if each instance of complaint was dismissed; if it happened frequently enough, we would not be able to communicate using Twitter. The same could go for any number of socially and politically focused organisations, and indeed for feminist advocates who attract the ire of certain groups of men.

Ultimately, though, what worries me most is that a report button - and similar approaches elsewhere - will allow a symbolic gesture to shut off debate in a really important area. Adding a button does not guarantee that Twitter, or any other organisation, will devote any more resources to following up complaints, or doing so promptly. Facebook has report buttons and yet remains notorious as a home for groups discussing rape and violence. Adding a button or clicking a button will not make the problem go away, it will just boost corporate PR.

Worse than this is the political jumping on the bandwagon (and here I do not include politicians like Stella Creasy who have been campaigning on related issues for a long time). This is a boost for David Cameron's equally ill-thought-out internet porn filter scheme. It allows politicians to look as if they care about violence against women without ever putting their money where their mouths are. If Cameron gave a damn, he wouldn't have taken funding away from battered women's shelters.

Here's the crux of the problem: misogyny wasn't invented by the internet. It may sometimes take more exaggerated forms there but the real reason it's becoming a political issue is not that there's more of it, it's that women are able to raise their voices, en masse, in protest. Projects like Everyday Sexism have helped to demonstrate the scale of the problem, online and off. Men who used to keep their hatred within all-male groups are now expressing it where women can observe it, and are having to contend with the fact that women don't like it. Hence all the nonsensical attempts to drown out women's voices in the name of free speech.

Ever since our society started to recognise that women are human beings with a right to expect the same opportunities in life as men, our society has been heading towards this confrontation. We have reached a point where it is no longer possible to ignore the aggression that many women routinely face from many men. We need to have a social solution, a cultural solution, a political solution - and there will be no persuading women to return to the meek days of accepting their fate. But what really makes this frightening for politicians is that we need an economic solution.

Every debate about dealing with misogyny stops short when it comes to finance. We are at a point where we don't need hand wringing and sympathetic speeches, we need serious investment. We need the police to be adequately funded to follow things up every time a credible threat or rape or violence is made, every time a woman is groped on a bus, every time she faces sexual harassment in a workplace that fails to take action. Restricting follow-up to high threshold cases isn't good enough. It isn't good enough because there is a cost to all this freewheeling abuse and right now women (along with other targeted groups like gay people) are bearing all of that cost themselves. Ultimately, the question must be why our society thinks it's okay for half its members to bear the whole of this cost rather than everyone paying their share, fairly, through the tax system, through government action to tackle the problem.

The same applies when it comes to child protection. We get endless soundbites and new schemes to encourage reporting. We don't see the organisations things are reported to getting anything like adequate resources for follow-up. Once again, one group is left to pay the price, in suffering, of society's failure to put its money where its mouth is.

The real reason very little is done to tackle misogynistic aggression is that it's so endemic the cost would be huge. That's a tough thing for politicians to take on, but what they need to understand is that the cost of doing nothing is also huge. Those who are paying it now will not put up with that forever. They are voters too, and politically, they are waking up to this. They will not be placated for long by being given buttons. It is time for real action.

Protection Racket

The latest wave of moral panic around protecting children has inspired David Cameron to announce that, from the latter part of this year, all ISPs will be required to use a opt-in system where users only get access to adult content if they register first. Aside from the general unworkability of this, his evident cluelessness about the technical issues involved and the massive concerns about state control of content that it raises, there's another important point that needs to be addressed, and that's that in some cases, it will do the very opposite of protecting children - it will leave them cut off from resources they desperately need.

It was in the early 'nineties that I first became aware of what filtering out 'adult' content actually means. At that point I was helping to maintain a safer sex advice website and I was shocked when we were told it was being blacklisted by several search engines which deemed it pornographic. There were no images on the site apart from logos and everything was written in a very plain style, with nothing intended to titillate (rather than getting people excited we wanted them to stop and think). But there were those words, 'sex' and 'sexual', and there was some discussion of taboo body parts, and that was enough.

When I got angry about this, a colleague suggested that I look into the status of another site I wrote for, which was aimed at young LGBT people and had no sexual content at all. Sure enough, I discovered this was blocked too. And it wasn't just because certain terms ended in '-sexual' - further research showed that some search engines blocked on the basis of words like 'gay' and 'lesbian', as a matter of course.

Two decades on, much has improved. It's probable that most ISPs will have the sense to keep general LGB sites accessible, at least once the problem is pointed out to them. These sites can be a vital resource to young people facing daily hostility at home or at school. But what about trans people in the same situation? It is, sadly, still the case that the most heavily promoted sites using the terms 'transsexual' and 'transgender' are pornographic. Search engines have got savvy about this but a lazy ISP will find it much easier simply to deem everywhere with those terms 'adult', leaving vulnerable young people without anywhere they can find support, community or access to vital health information.

If the proposed filters come into operation, it is probable that every site on safer sex will have to fight to remain accessible, and the evidence shows us that it is young people who are most in need of the information these sites carry. Furthermore, it will be harder for young people facing sexual abuse to access support online. I can remember how I felt when Childline started, how I wished it had been there for me. There are now lots of places that offer children help but lots are needed, as not every child will be comfortable with the same set of options and not every child will look for help using the same kind of search terms. How many would end up disappearing due to the language they used?

Even when it comes to images, there are entirely appropriate reasons why, sometimes, children should have access to images of genitals. In some cases they're an appropriate part of conversations on safer sex; in others, they're important to helping young people feel comfortable about their bodies and recognise the diversity out there. They are particularly important for young intersex people trying to come to terms with bodily differences that doctors and family members may simply refuse to discuss. It is much better for young people to be able to access educational and support resources online than to rely on peer gossip or take a chance on trusting an adult to give advice when they are in a very vulnerable situation. School advisors and so on are not an adequate substitute because thy often lack training on trans and intersex issues.

By restricting access to legitimate resources, internet filters put already marginalised young people at even greater risk. Yes, online predation is a danger, but so are in-person abuse, bullying, isolation, unplanned pregnancy and lack of access to appropriate medical support. Among the few things research tells us about child molesters in general is that they seek out children who are poorly informed about sexual and bodily issues, and who lack confidence. Internet filters could easily make children more vulnerable in this way, too.

Of course it's possible that any successfully introduced filter will take account of these problems and invest the resources to make sure support and information sites are not affected. Given the history of this area, however, I'm not holding out much hope. Whilst I doubt Cameron's proposals will easily find solid form at all, it's important that we have this conversation, because current discussions are ignoring the complexity of child protection issues and ignoring the fact that the internet provides services that the state itself is failing to provide to certain groups. Any curtailment of access to information must be approached with extreme caution and this matters at least as much when it applies to children as when it applies to adults.

Time After Time

As both the Catholic Church and the Liberal Democrats reel before fresh allegations about abuse an institutional failures to investigate abuse allegations, I have to ask, didn't we go through all this just a couple of months ago with the Savile scandal? Whilst I never seriously expected the revolution in attitudes that many people talked about then, even I have been astounded by quite how quickly important lessons have been forgotten.

There is – quite rightly – hesitation about discussing some of these issues just now. The accusations against Cardinal O'Brien and Lord Rennard have thus far been untested in a court of law and we should always give people the benefit of the doubt in such cases. But hiding behind this is another issue with much wider-reaching potential consequences, and that's something that isn't being discussed aggressively enough. Why do we tolerate, again and again, the failure to investigate? Why is so much airtime devoted to people saying “He was a very nice man who wouldn't do that sort of thing,” and so little attention given to the other side of the story?

Being generous, we might say that there re some things so horrific people don't want to talk about them, or don't know how to do so; or we might suggest that these discussions are avoided in order to reduce the stress caused to those who have been abused. The balance of reporting and comment by some institutions, however, suggests something else. Several people have already noted that Nick Clegg's vague statements about having heard something but not having evidence is already reminiscent of that hideous line from the Savile scandal “We had no evidence – only the women.” Similarly Newsnight, so superficially contrite after its failures in the Savile case, couldn't be apologist enough when discussing the Pope's resignation, doing nothing to challenge guests who dismissed allegations about the concealment of child abuse as some sort of mild unpleasantness. Everybody loved the Pope, they said, showing again that footage of people running after his car in Edinburgh which had the sound cut out if it to suggest said people were fans, when they were actually shouting in protest. Literally silencing voices of dissent.

The BBC's initial line on Cardinal O'Brien was similar. There was a huge emphasis on his good work and a focus on how unfortunate it was that he should be accused of unpleasantness (which it certainly is, if the allegations are untrue, but hardly in proportion to the suffering of others if they are not). But the worst came from the Cardinal himself, dismissing historic child abuse with the line “It was a different time,” as if there were, at some point in our recent past, a time when somebody might have inadvertently assumed it was okay to rape a child. In fact, the time when those alleged (and some proven) incidents occurred was much like our own, right down to the preference for covering it up, making it look as if it has all gone away.

It doesn't go away.

Last month I was told by a specialist doctor that I may very well be correct in identifying the abuse I experienced as a child as a factor in triggering the illness which keeps me housebound today. Autoimmune diseases are significantly more common in child abuse victims. So are more obvious things like PTSD which can, in some cases, be equally crippling. So are anger issues that often lead to the breakdown of relationships in adult life. So are difficulties in communicating that make it difficult for survivors to find steady employment, make them vulnerable to prejudice like that displayed in the Daily Mail's hatchet job on poor Steve Mesham – and make it difficult for them to pursue those responsible. For some, it gets better. For others, the damage never goes away. The pain never stops. Why, then, did Cardinal O'Brien think it was okay to talk about things happening “long ago” as if that means we should forget about it?

Simon Wiesenthal said that we should not dismiss historic crimes because that sends a damaging message – not simply that if one evades justice for long enough one can get away with them, but that we, as a society, are prepared to tolerate all kinds of horrors once the pursuit of justice become socially or politically inconvenient. This was true in the 1940s when he began his work and it's true today. It is a different thing from saying that we should not forgive. Forgiveness has its value, but we cannot forgive when there is no repentance – we cannot simply sit back and pretend it never happened and look away as it happens again.

Cardinal O'Brien, whether inspired by contrition or convenience, has at least had the wit to resign. Indeed, there are many who argue that the Pope's surprise exit was similarly motivated. Nick Clegg, meanwhile, won't let go of the shovel, digging himself a deeper hole with every utterance. He doesn't seem to understand that this isn't about the principle of habeas corpus – it's about whether or not those lower down on the social ladder have access to justice at all. The proper thing to do now is to stop trying to explain what happened and support an independent investigation, which must be conducted in as transparent a manner as possible.

I hesitate to single out the LibDems for this kind of criticism because, though they are the ones under the spotlight just now, they are hardly the only political party to have had difficulties around such issues. I have written here before of the problematic attitude of some Conservatives towards rape and sexual harassment. I don't know what the Labour Party is like these days but twenty years ago, when I was a member, I encountered individuals there who were notorious for their wandering hands, a problem routinely ignored by those higher up. It would surprise me if any major party were exempt from such problems. Abusive individuals will always be there. The issue is what organisations – and society at large – do about them. When I talk to other people who have experienced abuse, they frequently tell me that they told someone at the time, or that people advised them later that they'd had suspicions. By and large, abusers don't operate completely unseen. They get away with it because other people choose not to look. We need to start challenging that.

The media has a very particular role to play here. Institutions like the BBC need to stop cosying up to establishment figures, acting as if they couldn't possibly do bad things. One of the ways abusers escape justice comes down to people refusing to believe bad things about their friends. Friendship means giving people the benefit of the doubt. It can mean supporting them emotionally if they are distressed to find themselves the target of allegations. It should not mean assuming that they are beyond reproach. The simple fact of the matter is that anybody can hurt others, and the ability to achieve a respectable position in politics or to become a religious leader is meaningless.

Justice, if it is to have any meaning, must apply universally. The assumption of innocence must apply to everyone – not just the accused, but also their accusers. It is not acceptable to write off confirmed institutional abuse as a little late unpleasantness. Those who have done harm, whether directly or through concealment, have a duty to put it right, not least by approaching it with honesty – and until they do so, they don't deserve anybody's respect. They certainly don't deserve to be accorded moral authority.

Joseph Butler argued that God created the conscience so that we can tell for ourselves whether something is right or wrong. It is time certain people stopped hiding behind rulebooks or fellow politicians and started analysing theirs.

Intersectionality, Solidarity and Sense

Sometimes one knows that an idea has finally made it into the public consciousness only when newspaper articles appear and attack it. For me, after years of slogging away in silence, the sudden fuss about intersectionality is itself rewarding. But though it is now visible, it is still poorly understood, and it's a shame to see so many smart people floundering over it. It's also a shame to see it being treated as antithetical to solidarity, when in fact they are mutually supportive concepts.

Perhaps the mos bizarre part of the debate has been the argument that use of the term intersectionality is inherently problematic because it excludes the uneducated. The very fact that this debate is going on means it can hardly continue to be considered obscure. Furthermore, much of said debate is being conducted across a vast international network of computers which would seem to offer the option of just going and looking it up. It's pretty insulting for any of us to suggest our readers aren't capable of doing so. And whilst I'm not about to suggest we all start writing like Judith Butler, she has a point when she notes that sometimes we need to be precise about concepts. Not everything can be effectively explained in words of under three syllables.

I also find it bizarre that intersectionality is supposed to be such a difficult concept to grasp. I've now seen several people argue that people are being asked to waste time trying to understand it when they could be devoting themselves directly to The Struggle. That's like advising an army to go to war without wasting time on training. Anti-intellectualism is never pretty but in this case t borders on the ridiculous. The public is now largely familiar with the concept of people potentially being members of stigmatised groups. The average person understands that some people have a harder time in life because they're female or because they have dark skin. Is it so tricky to grasp that a woman might be black or that a gay man might be disabled? Is it so hard to understand that we all have advantages and disadvantages, and that these might sometimes compound each other? The angst about privilege obscures the real point – that if you're not a dick to people, and if you apologise when you upset someone unnecessarily, you'll get along just fine. Want to avoid causing accidental upset in the first place? Then, as journalists should know, there's this thing called research.

It's particularly ironic that the most recent fuss should have kicked off over trans issues because this is actually one of the easier areas in which to get it right. My charity, Trans Media Watch, is always ready to give free advice and support in this area. We have lots of resources for journalists on our website. We don't expect the people who come to us to understand everything at the outset and we don't get offended if people use clumsy language in their approaches to us. Whilst there are naturally disagreements about things like language between different trans individuals, we can let you know what the majority think and where there are areas of sensitivity. We're not saying that working with us is proof against getting shouted at – there's always someone on the internet looking for a fight – but most people will cut you some slack if they know you've made an effort.

Among other things, we can advise on how trans issues intersect with other areas – for instance, what it might mean to be trans and elderly or trans and a Muslim. These are not trivial issues, not silly little details getting in the way of some greater agenda. They can each bring up specific problems that limit people's ability to participate in wider society – and, if they are so inclined, to participate in political activism.

As a disabled person, I find myself at the sharp end of this quite a lot. I've often been excluded from political events simply because I haven't been able to access the venues where they've been held. When there are a limited number of venues for lgbt people in my home city of Glasgow, it matters that I can't get into most of them. I can't be part of a wider movement if it's shutting me out and this – often in subtler ways – is what happens to a lot of people with intersectional issues. Faced with this, it’s pretty frustrating for us to see ourselves treated as the butt of jokes – examples of Political Correctness Gone Mad – first by the right wing press and now by the left. This crops up everywhere from hiring decisions to health service access to safety discussions around 'non-lethal' weapons. We are treated as if, because there are fewer of us, our rights don't matter. The irony is, of course, that whilst there might be fewer of us in any one group, together we constitute the majority of the population.

If we are the majority, we are asked, why do we need special treatment? The answer is that rather than crafting rules with multiple exceptions we need to be better at creating simple rules in the first place – a good rule will take into account people's varied needs. Much of it simply comes down to respect and good manners, and to asking people when we're not sure about things – but there is an underlying responsibility and that is the responsibility to be aware of the diversity of human experience. To not simply assume that one's own experience can be extrapolated to everybody else. To apply a little sensitivity – not just for the sake of trying to look good, but for the sake of becoming better at social interaction.

What works for the individual works for the movement. When we talk about solidarity and the importance of togetherness, we need to understand what that togetherness means. Feminists have complained for a long time about approaches to inclusion that expect women to behave just like men – approaches that take no account of the differing issues they are likely to have to deal with in life. Such approaches end up excluding women and the movements that use them thereby end up missing out on the talents individual women might contribute, as well as the perspective their shared difference of experience might bring. This weakens those movements. An inclusive movement – one that acknowledges and makes room for diversity – is a stronger movement. This is real togetherness.

It is time for people to realise that there need be no conflict between recognition of social minority issues and of class issues, between fighting or social change and upholding liberal values. The belief that such a conflict is necessary has been a gift to the traditionalist right. It is not giving due consideration to intersectionality that divides us – it is getting into petty arguments over it. The way to avoid this is not to shut down minority voices but to listen, learn, and move on. To respect that those voices matter, that they are part of us. To show solidarity.

#MTOS

I don't usually use this space for film work so I hope regular readers will forgive me. I'm hosting #mtos on Twitter this week (specifically, 20:00 GMT on Sunday the 9^th), so it's something of a special occasion, and according to tradition I'm posing the questions here in advance. Any of you should feel free to join in – just follow the hashtag and let us know your thoughts.

I'd like to extend a warm welcome to those film fans finding their way here for the first time. If you're interested in reading my critical work on a regular basis you should check out Eye For Film. I'm also Chair of Trans Media Watch, a charity that works to improve the representaion of trans and intersex people in the media, and I've been involved in LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rights related work for twenty six years. Inevitably, there has sometimes been an overlap between these interests and my work as a critic, and so for my #mtos hosting session I've chosen to focus on queer cinema.

You can interpret the term 'queer cinema' as broadly as you like. I don't intend this discussion to be limited to academics or LGBT people. Queer cinema is interesting in part because it has carved out its own space alongside the mainstream before arriving, latterly, at a degree of integration. This means there are lots of different angles from which to approach it. I hope some of you will find in the course of this #mtos that you know more about it than you thought.

The Questions

• Are there any films that have been pivotal for you in developing your understanding of sexuality and gender diversity?
• Which pre-1980 films do you think were most powerful in their depiction of LGBT characters?
• Does queer cinema have a responsibility to challenge stereotypes? Which films have done this well?
• Has queer cinema helped to push the boundaries of what is acceptable in mainsteam cinema?
• Historically, queer characters have often been hidden in coded roles. Which actors have stood out in this context?
• Which films do you think have done the most to challenge mainstream narratives around the AIDS crisis?
• Do you ever find it hard to suspend disbelief when watching a gay actor play a straight character, or vice versa?
• Queer cinema has often deliberately undermined the notion that minorities must be represented by 'good' characters. Who are its best anti-heroes?
• Does the new realism in films like Weekend and Keep The Lights On indicate that queer cinema is moving into mainstream spaces?
• Are LGBT characters in mainstream cinema starting to have more complex roles? Any examples?

Thanks for reading. I look forward to your responses on Sunday.

Who Ate all the Pies?

In two years' time, Scotland will be holding a referendum to determine its future as a nation. Watching the news today, one could be forgiven for thinking that, instead, it was holding a bake sale. "Would you buy a used pie from this man?" asks Johann Lamont, pointing the finger at Alex Salmond (one assumes that if Iain Gray were still Labour leader, the offending item would be a sandwich). Whatever one's political inclinations, it's hard to escape the feeling that someone's telling porkies - but to focus on this is to miss the bigger question. Why should anybody contemplating the referendum base their decision on what they think of individuals?

The great man theory of history has always been seductive, and this is certainly a historical moment. It's often easier to contemplate such momentous changes (and there will be changes regardless of which way Scotland votes) by filtering them through the personalities involved. But whilst this may prove useful for students trying to form an emotional connection to the past, it is dangerous on several level when applied to the present.

First of all, we need to take ego out of the equation. The magnetism of particular individuals (whether it attracts or repels) will have little meaningful effect on how events play out after the referendum. Yes, in the short term, it may play a significant role in alliance building (whether that's renegotiating aspects of the union, strengthening our relationship with Westminster or establishing new international relationships), but this decision is much bigger than that. We are voting not just on how issues might be managed in the immediate term but, potentially, about how our country will function for hundreds of years. In that time, everybody involved in today's squabbles will die.

Secondly - and this may seem less obvious - we need to take nationalism out of the equation. Scotland deserves better than to have its future decided by flag-waving, whether that flag is the Saltire or the Union Jack.* This isn't about dead warriors, empire, Team GB, Woolworths or tartan-wrapped fudge. People can feel passionately Scottish and still support the union or can vote for independence without jeopardising their British identity - really, it's okay, that's allowed. I was quite taken aback when I heard members of the No campaign arguing that we shouldn't be independent because people care for each other across the border. Personally, I care for people all over the world (and have family around the world too) but it doesn't influence my political relationship with them. It would be perfectly possible to support an independent Scotland from an internationalist perspective, preferring that option for economic or managerial reasons without according it sentimental value. Similarly, it's possible to support the union without the prerequisite of having best friends who are English.

Thirdly, we need to remember that this isn't about political parties. If it were, why would Labour be working with the Conservatives? The Green Party has allied itself to the Yes campaign alongside the SNP, as has a faction of the Labour Party. Despite their official line, there are LibDems wavering in either direction. And alongside this, of course, there are a great many ordinary people who feel passionately one way or the other but don't worry much about political parties until it comes to marking a cross on the ballot paper on election day (if, indeed, they even do that). Don't like the SNP? Independence would likely lead to them splitting and dwindling as members' other concerns rise to the fore. Don't like Labour? If we stay in the Union you can bet they'll take the blame for every subsequent Westminster-wrought ill. (The Conservatives are probably not long for this world either way.) In other words, it's all rather complicated; and, again, the issue of our country's long term future is bigger.

If we, the Scottish public, allow this issue to be reduced to a spat about personalities, we'll all be poorer for it. So by all means bitch about Salmond (if you don't blame him for the recent confusion over legal advice, you can always remind yourself of his sometime cosy relationship with Donald Trump), but don't base your approach to the referendum on that issue. Despair, if you will, or one or more of the No campaign's strange bedfellows, but remember that they won't be around as long as the consequences of this decision. And let's remember that, when all is said and done, we'll all be eating the same pie, so let's not poison it with spite.

* I realise that, strictly speaking, it's only the Union Jack when it's flown at sea, but I'm trying to keep this simple.

Wolves in Lions' Clothing

There's a lot of concern just now around extremely right wing policies being trotted out at the Conservative Party conference. But how seriously should we take them? How seriously are they intended? And is there a danger that, in steeling ourselves for the worst, we put ourselves in a position where we will too-willingly accede to things that don't seem quite as bad?

With their pre-election promises to protect the NHS and to generally be kind and caring, the Conservatives have been accused of being wolves in sheep's clothing. A savvy wolf, however, has more than one disguise. What's more, it may dress as a lion for more than one reason - to subject the sheep to a different kind of illusion or to make an impression on other wolves. Right now, the Tory Party conference is a battleground in which every wolf is trying to look tougher than the others, scenting the blood of a weak leader and warring over the direction the party might take. This has led to policy proposals that have more to do with machismo than political or economic viability.

Let's take a closer look at a few of those proposals. Firstly, the idea that some people (variously "the unemployed" and "those who are out of work") should have their benefit entitlement gradually reduced if they fail to find work within set periods of time. This may at first sound like a reasonable way to treat the long term unemployed (rather less so if it includes, say, people who are too severely disabled to work), but it rests on the presumption that they are unemployed by choice. If indeed some are (and research suggests this group is small), that still leaves at least two other groups - those who live in areas where there is no work, and those who are effectively unemployable due to lack of skills. The former group can be expected to grow in size with the removal of housing benefit from younger people forcing them back into their parental homes and making it effectively impossible for them to migrate to areas where their prospects might be brighter (something which will also be damaging to employers). In neither case will the prospects of these people gaining employment be increased by reducing their financial means, as this will not only restrict their mobility further but will make it harder for them to dress and present themselves in a way likely to impress prospective employers, as well as making it harder for them to engage in training programmes. In short, whilst it may function as a political distraction from the real problems facing the country, it is economic nonsense. Its political advantage can exist only in the short term as sooner or later high unemployment figures are going to reach a point where they stop being seen as a consequence of inherited economic crisis and start being seen as a consequence of a Conservative government. No matter how desperate things may be, it's better not to shoot that albatross.

Speaking of increasing the unemployment figures (or at least changing people's perception of them), there's the proposal that everybody should be obliged to work for thirty five hours per week, with pert time workers obliged to take on extra hours or find second jobs. The logic behind this one is encapsulated in Ruth Davidson's speech, in which she made clear that she thinks of economic contributions only in terms of income tax, with no conception of the importance of the informal economy. To put it simply, many people in long term part time work are in that position because they have other commitments. If work obligations (under threat of the withdrawal of benefits) mean that they can no longer pick up their children from school or tend to the needs of their elderly parents, etc., the state will have to step in, at considerably increased cost. Then there are those who work part time because they are too ill to work full time. I'm in that bracket. Just now, if asked if I'm fit for work, I'll say yes (though actually even Atos would most likely rule otherwise); I can write and I am able to make some money that way. But if 'fit for work' came to mean being fit, every week, to do at least thirty five hours, I would have to say no (the physical stress of trying would probably kill me within a month); so I and many people like me would be forced to drop out of work altogether, costing the state more in benefits, reducing our economic input, wasting our talents and making many of us miserable into the bargain - for no gain. And then, of course, there is the fact that there simply isn't enough work around to sustain everybody like this. If the government wants people in this position to be more economically active, the secret is not to demand an impossible increase in hours but to push for an increase in wages.

How do we increase wages? At base, by ensuring that employees are properly valued and that they understand the value of their labour. In contrast to this, George Osborne has proposed that employees agree to waive certain rights in return for shares in the companies for which they work. This is an interesting one. Many people have, understandably, rushed to criticise the erosion of rights (which encourages a rush to the bottom), but even some of them would probably agree that employee-owned companies are a fantastic way of promoting responsible Capitalism (as per the Japanese model). One wonders if Osborne has linked the two in order to toxify the latter. Many Conservatives would traditionally have supported it, but of late the party has increasingly moved away from its focus on supporting aspirational working people. Osborne may think he can sidestep EU red tape by persuading employees to give up their rights voluntarily; the legal reality is likely to be rather different. And there is one other key problem with this policy - the fact that in a recession, when apparently stable companies are going to the wall on a regular basis, employees signing such deals can have no guarantee that the shares they settle for will retain any value at all.

What's likely to come of all this? When the lion sheds its skin, it's all too easy to relax and think, well, it wasn't a wolf after all - it won't maul me too badly. So if we see less drastic benefit reductions that target only those on Jobseekers' Allowance; if we see only a subset of those in part time work forced to take on extra hours; and if we see employees effectively stripped of their rights by being legally disempowered (ref. the ongoing cuts in legal aid) rather than seeing the laws changed outright, a party which had a wolf's agenda from the outset will seem positively ovine.

Meanwhile, David Cameron should be as wary as the rest of us. As teeth are bared in Birmingham, he's in danger of looking woolly to his erstwhile friends.