LONG-HAIRED and tattooed unemployed benefit seekers are being told to smarten themselves up or lose their dole cash from today.

Under new rules, jobless people claiming state cash can be told to tidy their appearance so that they have a better chance of finding work.

And those who refuse to remove ear and nose rings or have a hair cut could find some unemployment benefit and Social Security cash withheld.

The new rules, part of the government's controversial Job Seekers' Allowance scheme, came into force this morning. They will affect two million unemployed people.

Job Centre staff will assess whether claimants are tidy and presentable enough to get a job.

If they conclude they are too scruffy, dirty or smelly, the civil servants will order the claimants to clean themselves up.

They will be given a reasonable period to have a haircut, iron a shirt, have a shave and remove any obvious body piercing, but if they fail to clean up their act, cash benefits will be stopped.

The Child Poverty Action Group believes many unconventional 18 to 24-year-olds could lose as much as £1,500 a year. The CPAG said: "People should be employed on their merits, not their looks."

The Trades Union Congress, which bitterly opposed the JSA and its smartness tests when it was put through parliament earlier this year, is organising a protest rally.

And Labour Chief Whip and former Social Security spokesman Donald Duear said: "This is a dangerous interference and dictatorship.

"The employment Service should not be in the business of ordering short back and sides." But a spokeswoman for the Employment Department said that people applying for jobs should be suitable for employment and those who are too scruffy or dirty were not fit to be taken on.

She said: "If someone is sent for a job and their hygiene is not up to scratch they will be asked to improve.

"If they don't, then their allowance can be scrapped."

Bolton West Tory MP Tom Sackville said: "This is absolutely right. Anyone genuinely seeking a job instinctively knows that employers want people who are smart and who will not put off customers."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.