An unemployed person is cash poor but time rich. Being time rich is some compensation for being cash poor, and I'm not just talking about enjoyment of life. A time rich person has the time to look around shops and get the best bargains from supermarkets or charity shops. Eating less processed foods and eating seasonally take time but can save money. Finding the cheapest basic foods seasonally takes time (if you walk to most places as I do) and so does cooking.

Some people say that the unemployed should be made to 'do something' with their time. I am already doing things with my time. Growing some of my own food on my allotment, for example. If you make people not only cash poor but time poor too, then you will really drive people over the edge.

If I were offered some kind of work for 40 hours per week at the minimum wage, I would have no problem with that. 20 hours a week is different, because I would possibly be no better off. I would continue to be cash poor but also time poorer.

Some ignorant people think that an unemployed person goes into a job centre and is offered a job. That never happens. They never offer jobs and they never offer interviews. Long-term unemployed people don't turn down jobs. The job centre can tell you about vacancies. 9 times out of 10 when I apply for a job there is no reply from the employer. I am never offered interviews. It is a condition of my Job Seekers' Allowance that I apply for jobs, which I do.

If you were to become unemployed, you would not be able to walk into a jobcentre and be offered a job or an interview for a job. You could get information to contact employers, and you would be expected to do this mostly without the assistance of jobcentre staff. Sometimes they will talk to you and search on the computer system for vacancies but often they will struggle to come up with something.

Some people like to demonize unemployed people, and one of the ways they do this is to make out that unemployed people must have refused offers of jobs. They say this either because they are ignorant and just don't know that unemployed people are never offered jobs by jobcentres, or they want to make out that it is all the fault of the unemployed. It seems reasonable to some people to take away benefits because they think the unemployed have the option to get a job. Politicians are creating myths to try to become more popular, and are encouraging hatred of one sector of the population. This sector is one of the most vulnerable in society and yet they are treated as if they are exploiting society.

You would not be able to ask for a work placement on the understanding that if you worked hard and were good at the job then you would be offered paid employment at the end of several weeks or months. I have completed several work placements and it has always been on the understanding that no matter how hard I work and no matter how good I am at the job, there will be no employment at the end of it. I have met many people in the same situation as me and I have never known anyone to get a job this way. If it is really true that jobs are so easy to get, then why is it that I have never been able to get a work placement that at least had the possibility of a job at the end of it?

If I am told about a vacancy by the job centre I apply for it. It is easy enough to do, and I know that sometimes they will check up on me. They will contact the employer and ask if I have applied for the vacancy. The employer may say that they have no record of me applying for the vacancy. Then I will get a letter threatening to cut off by benefits. What this means I am not sure, does it mean that I will become evicted and homeless?

However, as an intelligent person I can anticipate this eventuality and now I always record my job applications in such a way that I can prove that I have applied for the vacancy. I like to apply by email, because I can print out my Sent messages (with dates) and copies of emails. If I need to phone, then I do it from home because I have an itemized phone bill. I keep proof that I have sent letters. It takes me time to protect myself in this way, time that I could use in job search, but I am not going to let them catch me out in the way they must have done with less intelligent people.

I have tried to sign up with employment agencies. It should be easier to get a temporary job than a permanent one. They will not allow me to sign up with them because of lack of experience and too long a time unemployed. Doesn't matter to them that I have all 7 modules of my ECDL. Possibly they do not know what an ECDL is (it is one of the highest qualifications in computer applications). Someone can be experienced, but they may be experienced at doing things in an inefficient way. You would think that an employer would appreciate having at least one person in their office who knew what he was doing.

Some people would say that the influx of Eastern Europeans into Britain looking for work shows that lots of work is there, and that if British people are unemployed then it must be their fault. Eastern Europeans are employed in large numbers on building sites and in factories, neither of which would employ me. Many have failed to find jobs and have returned home. If it was ever true that there were many jobs, then it is not true now; the shortages have been filled. Also, I wonder about double standards. How often are references and other information checked? Can you imagine an employer contacting a factory in Poland and asking (in Polish) if an applicant really had worked there?

A young British man went to a building site and asked if there were any job vacancies. He was told that they could give him the number of the agency that they use, but that there was not much point in doing so because the agency only used Polish workers. This was filmed using a hidden camera. British people are being discriminated against. This includes British people from ethnic minorities. There are all-white workplaces in our country. How do people feel about this? I don't expect middle-class people to give a fig about the white working class, but what about working-class people of ethnic minorities? They are being blamed for being 'lazy' if they don't have a job when it is not usually their fault. And don't think that I am blaming Eastern European workers; the fault is with British politicians and employers.

People say that the British working class are lazy and don't deserve to have jobs or benefits, because they are not prepared to do what Eastern European workers are prepared to do to get or keep a job. But when you see what Eastern Europeans have to do to get jobs then you have to think again. Some Eastern Europeans wait from dawn onwards in a car park hoping that someone will offer them work for the day. They have to pretend to have skills that they do not have. They have no access to toilet facilities. Is this the vision of the future for young British people?

Imagine if a factory closed down. Even if every worker started applying for jobs at the same time, some - just through good luck - would get jobs soon and others not. The ones who through no fault of their own did not get jobs straight away would find their employability affected. The longer they are out of work, the less likely they will be to get a job. Many of these will find work, but those that don't have even less probability of getting a job. And so it goes on.

So even if people start equal, the outcomes can be different, through no fault of their own. But people do not start equal; some people tell lies on their CVs. If you tell lies on your CV, you will be one of the ones who gets a job soon and not one of the ones who drops off the radar. But some people don't like to tell lies.

Another reason why some people are unemployed for longer than others is that a former employer does not write a reference. This happens a lot. It could happen to you. As an unemployed person I am constantly checked up on, and yet no one checks up on the employers. The class system says that poor people are untrustworthy and wealthy people are held up as shining examples of how people should be. My experience is that poorer people are less aggressive and more pleasant.

Employers should be checked up on by the organisations that arrange work-placements. Offending employers should be blacklisted and not allowed to have people come to them on work-experience. The blacklist should be circulated among all of these organisations. If they are not willing to do this, they are wasting the time of people like me (and their own time), and taxpayers' money.

I have heard some people say "I could leave my job and get another tomorrow". Perhaps they can. Employers are obviously going to choose someone who has been unemployed for the shortest possible time, preferably no time at all. If you were an employer and you had 3 applicants for a job, all of whom were the same except that one had been unemployed for a week, one for a month and one for a year, who are you going to choose?

At any one time in Britain there may be hundreds of thousands of job vacancies. To many people this suggests that there are plenty of jobs out there. But these jobs are open only to people who are already working and wish to change jobs or people who have recently become unemployed. They are filled rapidly. The employer has no shortage of applicants, there may be hundreds of people applying for each vacancy. Most applications will go straight in the bin, including the long-term unemployed and maybe people with the 'wrong' postcode. Sometimes employers will say they have problems finding workers, but this will nearly always be because they are excluding most job applicants.

I have often worked for nothing. I have done several months of work placements and I have done voluntary work. I have also applied for a voluntary job and been turned down for it. I applied for a voluntary job just recently and there was no reply to either of my emails. As far as I can see, applying for a voluntary job is very much like applying for paid employment.

If several people apply for a voluntary job, most will be disappointed. The best voluntary jobs are all taken by graduates. I would quite like to have a voluntary job that would make use of my skills, but this has never happened. A voluntary job that allowed me to practice my touch typing and advanced word processing skills would make me more attractive to an employer, but this is not going to happen. I would also like to help people worse off than me, but few people are poorer than I am.

I have done special schemes for unemployed people. I was a trainee market gardener at the Meanwood Valley Urban Farm in Leeds. I worked through a Yorkshire winter outdoors digging the ground with a spade. This was something that a tractor could have done in a fraction of the time. After I left I went back to visit, and I noticed that the land that I had dug had just been left to grow weeds. Not a very good use of my time. Still, as long as it makes grumpy tax-payers feel that the unemployed are 'doing something', that's the important thing, isn't it? Even if they have to pay even more money to have it done.

This was a temporary part-time job for one year only, with no kind of qualification at the end of it. How generous of the tax-payers of Britain. I also didn't like the fact that I learned little because I already seemed to know more than my supervisor. Everything done on the cheap; what a waste of tax-payers' money.

I have done voluntary work, work placements and special schemes. I have advanced qualifications in word processing and the other modules of the ECDL (about the most advanced qualification in office computer skills). I have also in the past worked in jobs that most people would turn their noses up at. I have been an ancillary worker in the NHS, a warehouse worker and a gardener. I also have A levels, and I went back to college to get three extra science GCSEs. So I am none too pleased with people who have always had cushy jobs in offices assuming that people like me are lazy.

I have done a few work placements. This is where someone on benefits works for no extra money, or just a few pounds extra per week. All of the employers made it quite clear from the beginning that there will be no job available at the end of the placement, no matter how pleased they are with my work. If it was really true that getting a job for a long-term unemployed person is so easy, do you not think that an employer would have offered a job to me at the end of a placement?

I'm not asking or expecting sympathy from anyone. I just want to give people the facts so that they stop trying to make life more difficult for the poorest people in society. In this country we look after people. Not like in America, where there are more homeless people, more violence, prostitution, alcoholism, drug taking and untreated mental illness. I have seen too much of this in my own south London neighbourhood. I know that if the long-term unemployed are harassed into 'doing something' - or else - there will be even more of these social problems. What sort of society do you want to live in?