Mandatory internment

Published: 9 April, 2010

• I AM coming up for having been unemployed for a year, a qualified college lecturer of psychology but unemployed because there are no jobs in my sector.
I am being forced to attend the “flexible new deal”, two days or more a week “detention” with people less qualified than myself who will attempt to “modify my behaviour” using crude cognitive behavioural techniques to force me into a job other than that which I have trained for to get me off the unemployment register. 
This is mandatory internment. If I refuse, my benefit will be stopped.
GORDON MCINTOSH
Britannia Row, N1