I rather enjoyed being given the opportunity to compare the right wing phalanx of the government of the day to muslim 'fundamentalists'. 'Back to Basics', by the way, was a PR term used by the government to describe a main plank of its policy.

It seems that there's some unusual legislation buried in Peter Lilley and Michael Portillo's new Jobseekers Bill. Jobcentre officers will be able to order claimants to change their dress and appearance, attitude or even lifestyle - on pain of loss of benefit. I wonder, what mode of dress best suits a de-Unemployed Jobseeker? What if the Jobseeker stands a better chance of earning a living in an indie band than qualifying as an accountant?

Perhaps a nation of Jobseeking Portillo/Lilley clones is the intention, but don't sing the death of the human urge for variety just yet. As Free Market champions I'd have thought they'd stress the need for individual difference, the fount of invention, the fact that one person looks at a problem in a different way, and sees a solution that others couldn't imagine. Our variety, our different languages and colours, is what the Qur'an calls a Sign of God for all living beings, saying that we have been created male and female, different races and tribes, so we may know each other, and learn.

For individual creativity is not enough. We need an accessible pool of knowledge in the community, a network of friends sharing information. The Information Superhighway Network may one day overwhelm traditional networks of privilege, but until then, Jobseekers who don't have an Old School Tie may wonder what best suits them for life in the Great Free Market if not a dress code established by market forces. I presume that any Government imposed dress code will be looser than that of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, flogging women who expose their hair, but the principle would seem to remain the same.

At present we leave the job of imposing dress codes to the law, and few people demand the right to walk naked down the high street in our climate, and pretty much anything else is tolerated. Will Jobcentre officers look with less tolerance on minority dresscodes, a ruby stud or a safety pin through some Jobseeker's nose, and will the price of non-conformity be enforced suffering. Is this Back to Basics, or are we actually facing a Return to Fundamentalism?