My guess is that they'll be defended until the stench becomes too putrid. Then they'll be hung out to dry, teeth will be sucked Frankie Howerd style and there'll be an inquiry. The words "root" and "branch" will probably be used. Often. Brows might even be furrowed.

It's the Tory way. You're out of the club if you transgress rule Number One - "don't get caught".

I call the first witness, Lord John Taylor.

What, that right wing Tory we rejected in Cheltenham in 1992? Obviously the only reason he got less support than his popular predecessor, Charlie Irving, must have been because we were racists. Nothing to do with the economy dying on its arse, or the racist behaviour of some in the local Tory party. Chris Patten lost in Bath, a very similar seat, despite being the incumbent, white and very able.

Sorry, this has bugged me for years/

What's the history of Workfare in the UK?,I ask only because I was talking about it to someone at work about it last week and she told me that it had been around since the 80's because when she was 18 in 1983 she got a 6-month placement at a vet and she loved it she leant a lot and she was getting £25 a week for turning up but when her six months where up she was moved on and another girl was sent in her place,she said the Goverment banned Workfare (Or whatever it was named back in the 80's) because too many big name shops where using it as slave labour I checked Wikipedia but nothing really came up can anyone help?

That was the Youth Opportunities Programme (YOP), which later became the Youth Training Scheme (YTS). The idea was sound - six months on the job training at £25 a week, which was more than dole money at the time. But of course, the reality was that many employers used the trainees as cheap labour and got rid of them after six months.

Filling time when you're out of work isn't easy. Former music student Joseph Wilson had been unemployed for three months when his local Jobcentre told him they had found something for him to do.

It was a work placement at Asda and it was clear in the official letter, he says, that it wasn't voluntary.

If he didn't attend he could have his benefit cut. "We weren't asked anything, we weren't asked, we were told. This is what you'll be doing," he explained.

Joseph and 11 other jobseekers were set to work in the local Asda store in Harrogate in North Yorkshire, over the busy Christmas period. He says they weren't shadowing staff, they were just doing the job.

"We were doing the work itself. For the first week or so I'd have a manager hanging round just to make sure we weren't doing too badly. After that we were basically doing the work," said Joseph.

Joseph said his full-time paid colleagues were less than thrilled.

"At nights when it was quiet and there was no one around to hear it would be like 'This is rubbish. There's no overtime and you're doing our work for us'."

At the end of his five week placement Joseph wasn't offered a job but he was given a reference - a reference that was very much less than personal. It was a pro forma note, with his name added in and an opening line which said: "During this time he/she proved herself/himself to be punctual and hard-working."

Joseph said it would have taken the company two minutes to delete the inappropriate words, but "they couldn't even be bothered to do that."