In order to re-connect with voters, the parties need to stand back and ask two questions: What is the welfare state for? And how well is it doing the job?

The answer, I discovered in a JobCentre in South London last week, is not very. I was there with Tuggy Tug, an 18-year-old whom I met when investigating the fate of the youths under New Labour.

I have known him for over a year. Tuggy Tug is a leader of a gang, but a chance encounter with Bobby Cummines, the charismatic head of the ex-prisoners' charity UNLOCK, had recently transformed him. '100 per cent in my heart I want to get working. That's the bottom line,' he declared.

I expected great things from the JobCentre. Here were people trained and paid to care. A typical NEET - person not in education, employment or training - Tuggy Tug is just the sort of young man taxpayers want to see in work.

And, with a million young people like Tuggy Tug out there, I expected a seamless service.
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After all, the cost of keeping Tuggy Tug in the criminal justice system is a lot more than getting him into work. The brightly coloured brochures with photos of beaming ethnic minorities certainly promised that. The reality proved very different.

Far from a seamless service, the JobCentre did not know what to do with Tuggy Tug. We were passed from department to department.

Finally, we were sent away with a telephone number. In order to see anyone from the team who looked after the 18-24 age group and attempt to get a job, Tuggy Tug had to register for benefits.

We spent an hour on the phone answering questions. Without me there, Tuggy Tug would have stumbled on the third one. 'What's your title?' He looked wildly at me. 'Mr,' I said. 'Oh, that's what he's pushin at,' he grumbled.

He was not the only one to be confused. Soon I, too, was lost. Which benefits was Tuggy Tug entitled to? And which would he lose when he started work?

The man on the end of the phone did not know. It is so complicated it has to be sorted out on a computer especially installed by the Government for the purpose.

Halfway through the call, the man announced his shift had ended. We should phone back another time. I grabbed the phone from an astonished Tuggy Tug and exploded. I was a taxpayer, I said, and expected a better service. The man hung up.

Tuggy Tug shook his head knowingly. 'I told you this place fair gives you a headache. That's why me and the others do the robbin, init. We don't like coming here.' He paused. 'You ought to go on one of them anger management courses,' he added kindly.

By our appointment the next day, Tuggy Tug's enthusiasm had drained away - and so, for that matter, had mine.

We waited a long time. Opposite us only half the advisers were actually interviewing people. The rest were chatting on the phone or staring at a computer.

Finally, a large man with untidy hair repeated the questions from the day before. Exasperated, Tuggy Tug went outside for a smoke. I asked for advice about training and jobs - after all, this was the reason we were there.

Far from the 'personal adviser' promised in the brochure 'who will work with customers to create a personalised back-to-work plan with an expanding menu of support,' the large man looked at me pityingly.

'No one has a rat's a*** chance of getting a job here,' he said. He nodded at the other advisers.

'You are not dealing with a system that is designed to help. Anyone who is not prepared to jump through the hoops, like your young man, they [will] use the slightest excuse to blow away.'

I was astonished. Surely, in this target driven culture, they had some sort of target for getting Neets like Tuggy Tug into work? And what about that 'full menu of support'?

He looked at me as if I had landed from the Moon. 'They don't have to prove they get anyone into a job,' he said.

What about training schemes that led to a job, I persisted. 'Oh they are just there to churn the figures,' he said cheerfully. 'They don't lead to a job that will pay a sustainable wage. They are not long enough to do any good.'

It was all about massaging the Neet figures, the JobCentre worker explained, in order to make them politically acceptable. On this he and Tuggy Tug did at least agree.

He and all his friends had already done, as he put it, 'all those little courses that get you nowhere'.

After a third interview and three days in the JobCentre, Tuggy Tug emerged with just one website address - and nothing else.

He did not have a computer, so we went to an internet cafe;. He had no idea how to set up an account or even find the website, Backing Young Britain - an initiative launched by Gordon Brown in January that promises thousands of jobs, work experience and apprenticeships.

It all sounded wonderful until I actually searched for a job. I first tried construction work in South London. I can report that 'currently, there are no opportunities'.

Then I tried catering, horticulture and construction for the whole of London. Then any job that did not require training. Back came the answer. Currently, there are no opportunities.

Tuggy Tug is not the only one stymied by our JobCentres. One man described his treatment on a web forum as 'beyond the limits of acceptability'. He had even written a letter to the manager.

As the countdown to election day begins, the political parties should take note. It looks like the real middle class need an anger management course all round.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1270827/Why-does-165bn-welfare-punish-hard-work-reward-idle.html#ixzz0mzpepglL

This is from Harriet Sergeant's article in the Daily Mail today.