Presenter Chris Bowlby asks whether a state welfare system can ever distinguish between those who deserve help and those who do not.
As the recession bites and public spending cuts loom there have been calls, on both sides of the political debate, for a re-moralisation of welfare. Some say that the entitlement culture has gone too far, others that the hard-working poor should not be footing the bill for those who choose not to take a job. When did the language change and what does a change in vocabulary really mean?
And even if desirable can distinctions between welfare recipients be made in practice? If there are time limits on the receipt of welfare will more people end up better-off in work or worse-off unable to work?
Analysis will look at what history can teach us about making moral distinctions between the poor - both when the economy is booming & when it's contracting. And what of those, such as the children of welfare recipients, caught up in the debate : can it ever right to reduce the money which may give them a better future?
Contributors :
Will Hutton
Executive vice-chair The Work Foundation
Author Them & Us Mark Harrison
Professor of Economics, Warwick UniversityTim Montgomerie
Co-founder Centre for Social Justice
Editor, ConservativeHomeHazel Forsyth
senior curator, Museum of LondonJose Harris
Emeritus Professor of Modern History, Oxford UniversityAlison Park
Co-editor British Social Attitudes SurveyPhilip Booth
Editorial & Programme Director, Institute of Economic AffairsGordon Lewis
Community Project Manager, Salvation ArmyRod Nutten
Volunteer, Salvation ArmyWolfie
Client, Salvation Army Major Ivor Telfer
Assistant Secretary for Programmes, Salvation Army UK & Republic of Ireland Presenter : Chris Bowlby
Producer : Rosamund Jones.
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Analysis Folgen
Programme examining the ideas and forces which shape public policy in Britain and abroad, presented by distinguished writers, journalists and academics.
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Folge vom 15.11.2010The Deserving and the Undeserving Poor
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Folge vom 08.11.2010Criminal rehabilitation: a sub-prime investment?Ken Clarke has promised a "rehabilitation revolution" in which private investors will fund projects aimed at cutting the re-offending rate. If the projects succeed, the government will pay those investors a return. But if the projects fail, the investors will lose their shirts.You can see why the idea is attractive to ministers. In a period of spending restraint - and with a huge and hugely expensive prison population - a 'payment by results' system promises to fund rehabilitation projects from future savings.But will it work? After all, rehabilitation is hardly a new idea. And so far, it seems, most attempts have made little difference. So the question is whether a new way of paying for criminal rehabilitation might deliver better results. There's unrestrained excitement among some of those working with offenders. And deep scepticism among some criminologists. Emma Jane Kirby investigates.Interviewees include: the Justice Secretary, the Rt Hon Kenneth Clarke MP; criminologists Professor Sir Anthony Bottoms and Professor Carol Hedderman; Geoff Mulgan from the Young Foundation; the welfare expert Professor Dan Finn; Toby Eccles from Social Finance; and Rob Owen, chief executive of the St Giles Trust.Producer: Richard Knight.
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Folge vom 01.11.2010Defence: no stomach for the fight?To take successful military action, you do not only need soldiers, aircraft or warships. The support of the society and political leadership is crucial in sustaining armed action. Yet public involvement in current debates about the future of the military has been very limited, as old ideas of 'leaving it to the professionals' prevail.So what happens when society becomes divorced from the business of defending itself? In liberal Britain, some sections of society seem more and more alienated from military action. Using force clashes with modern concerns about human rights and risk-avoidance. New forms of media have cut through the more sanitised portrayal of war in the mainstream media, adding to public concern. And politicians, scarred by the unpopularity of recent military actions, noting the grief which every single casualty prompts, are likely to be ever more wary of future warfare. Within the military too there is change, and friction. New technology is taking armed action further away from old ideas of heroism and codes of conduct. These days lawyers sit in army headquarters challenging military decisions. Many in the military appear frustrated by what they see a lack of popular and political understanding of their role.In this programme Dr Kenneth Payne, military specialist at King's College London, explores how deep these tensions run, and what they mean for Britain's military future. He asks too whether Britain's experience is different from that of other countries, such as the US. Contributors include distinguished military historian and commentator Hew Strachan, and former soldier and senior politician Lord Ashdown.Producer: Chris Bowlby.
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Folge vom 25.10.2010The Secret History of AnalysisAnalysis celebrates its 40th birthday by making its own history the subject of its trademark examination of the facts. The Director General of the BBC, Mark Thompson, recently told the New Statesman that in decades past the organisation's current affairs output had displayed a left wing bias. He could not have had in mind the early years of Analysis. "We tried to avoid received opinion like the plague," says the programme's founder editor George Fischer. He required his producers to look at issues from scratch and to go beyond the bien pensant agenda. In doing so they spotted issues that others missed. Amongst the themes they identified as important were the depth of the Thatcherite project before the term Thatcherism was coined; the tensions likely to emerge in the feminist movement; and the potential for disaster in Zimbabwe if expectations over land reform were not fulfilled. The programme's willingness to question fashionable assumptions attracted some accusations of political bias. Was that fair? Michael Blastland, an Analysis producer from the 1990s and now a regular presenter, looks back at the programme's history and meets some of its early staff and contributors. Follow Analysis on Twitter: @R4AnalysisContributors: George Fischer, founder editor of Analysis Ian McIntyre, founder presenter of Analysis, later Controller of Radio 4 Rt Hon Tony Benn Gillian Reynolds, radio critic, The Daily Telegraph Michael Green, former Analysis producer, later controller of Radio 4 Caroline Thomson, former Analysis producer, now Chief Operating Officer for the BBC Fraser Steel, former Analysis producer Hugh Chignell, Associate Professor of Broadcasting History, Bournemouth University Lord Griffiths Producer: Linda Pressly.