Posted June 15, 200817 yr Don't choke on your toast or spill your coffee but I have some shocking news: the Labour Government has, albeit briefly, told the truth. I know it sounds unlikely but in a momentary outbreak of sanity the Department for Work and Pensions this week published a report in which it admits the real reason so many British people are out of work. It turns out that the explanation for why we have more than six million adults who are economically inactive, including 1.6 million claiming the dole, isn’t because Eastern Europeans are taking all the jobs. No, it’s not the Poles, Hungarians, Romanians and Lithuanians at fault. It turns out (and knock me down with a feather if this comes as a surprise to anyone except a Labour Minister) that it’s because many Britons are too lazy and, well, just plain unemployable. In Whitehall-speak, they have what is known as “issues around basic employability skills, incentives and motivation”. In other words, they are more familiar with daytime TV’s Jeremy Kyle than they are with the ins and outs of an alarm clock. What a pity that, despite this brief liaison with reality, our Government is too dumb to understand that the real solution to this problem is not to import two million Eastern Europeans to do our dirty work. The answer is to get our own layabouts off their sofas and down to the jobcentre. Why are we importing cheap labour with all the social and economic costs that entails, while we pay our own homegrown underclass to do nothing all day? Benefits are supposed to be for people who need them, not people who want them. It might be hard for an ex-coalminer in his 50s to find work in an old mining village but the idea that it’s hard to get a job in most towns and cities in this country is just absurd. Tell me, why does someone with no qualifications to their name think that stacking shelves or sweeping the streets is in some way “beneath” them but claiming benefits paid for by hard-working families isn’t? If half of Eastern Europe can arrive here on a Monday armed with nothing but an English phrasebook and get a job on Tuesday, then surely some of our domestic layabouts could manage it too (although with a worse grasp of English grammar, probably). I know the Government says it has “radical plans” to tackle the workshy but it said that in 1997 too, and in 2001 and 2005 and last year. Surely no one expects it to ever actually “think the unthinkable” and end the free ride, as the one-time Welfare Reform Minister Frank Field was once charged to do? After all, what is “unthinkable” about expecting able-bodied people to do a day’s work and not leech off everyone else? That’s neither unthinkable, nor unspeakable. Source: Sunday Express
June 15, 200817 yr People need a living wage though. Why should anyone stack supermarket shelves for LESS than the dole? Edited June 16, 200817 yr by Crazy Chris
June 16, 200817 yr i agree with chris tbh.... why should anyone work for less then they get on the dole or from benefits?.. either benefits are too high, or the wage is too low.
June 16, 200817 yr People need a living wage though. Why should anyone stack supermarket shelves for LESS than the dole? Totally agree there with Chris on this issue... The minimum wage in this country is an utter joke... It simply does not reflect the real cost of living, particularly in London, the South East, South West, Edinburgh.... To Rabbitfurcoat - when you take into account rent, council tax, child-care, etc, etc, then yes, many people in full-time work are actually worse off than some dolies..... There is NO INCENTIVE to work under the current minimum wage.... Wages for the average working class person have fallen in real terms in the past decade or so to levels which are frankly unnacceptable, so much for the "Labour" party looking after the interests of the common worker... <_<
June 17, 200817 yr Both Grimly and MushymanRob agree with me on something!!! :o Edited June 17, 200817 yr by Crazy Chris
June 17, 200817 yr Both Grimly and MushymanRob agree with me on something!!! :o I'm surprised too mate.... :lol: Just proves that even the most opposites will find common ground somewhere....
June 17, 200817 yr Both Grimly and MushymanRob agree with me on something!!! :o well youre bound to talk sense one day! :lol: :lol: :lol:
June 17, 200817 yr Totally agree there with Chris on this issue... The minimum wage in this country is an utter joke... It simply does not reflect the real cost of living, particularly in London, the South East, South West, Edinburgh.... To Rabbitfurcoat - when you take into account rent, council tax, child-care, etc, etc, then yes, many people in full-time work are actually worse off than some dolies..... There is NO INCENTIVE to work under the current minimum wage.... Wages for the average working class person have fallen in real terms in the past decade or so to levels which are frankly unnacceptable, so much for the "Labour" party looking after the interests of the common worker... <_< Irrelevant Every able bodied person in this country has a DUTY to be working, if it is for less then they are getting in benefits then whatever, not my problem, as a top rate taxpayer I object strongly to my taxes being spent keeping people who should be working on benefits, the whole minimum wage thing is a totally different argument Scott
June 17, 200817 yr the whole minimum wage thing is a totally different argument Scott Bollocks! Mind you, when do you ever talk anything but...? The laughable minimum wage is a totally linked issue.... The fact that people are worse off working in a lot of cases IS relevant... The fact that there is precious little incentive TO work IS relevant....
June 17, 200817 yr Bollocks! Mind you, when do you ever talk anything but...? The laughable minimum wage is a totally linked issue.... The fact that people are worse off working in a lot of cases IS relevant... The fact that there is precious little incentive TO work IS relevant.... Then the only answer is to bring in big cuts to welfare benefits to encourage people back to work again I still think everyone has a duty to be working, duty to themselves, for their own self respect, duty to their families, duty to taxpayers, it is a sad indictment of the benefits system when people are better off on benefits than working
June 18, 200817 yr You wouldn't be advocating benefit cuts if you were on one Tim. :angry: People struggle to survive on benefits now. The minimum wage needs raising. Grimley's spot on, the two issues ARE linked. Edited June 18, 200817 yr by Crazy Chris
June 18, 200817 yr Then the only answer is to bring in big cuts to welfare benefits to encourage people back to work again clare works for some accountants, because shes training they can get away with paying her £3.30 an hour! ffs.... AND they get money off the government for her training! theres no reason on earth why they cant pay her at least minimum wage... then two nights a week she has to do a second job, two 15 hour days just to survive... she would be better off banging out a couple of bratts and living off us taxpayers.... how can that be right?.. the minimum wage is a joke and can be got around. it needs strengthening.
June 18, 200817 yr You wouldn't be advocating benefit cuts if you were on one Tim. :angry: People struggle to survive on benefits now. The minimum wage needs raising. Grimley's spot on, the two issues ARE linked. Where do you draw the line though mate ? minimum wage at £6 an hour people will want it to be £7, make it £7 people will be wanting it to be £8, there is not a money tree out there, push up wages too high then the employer has to get the money from somewhere and he will get the money by putting up prices and do that across the country = high inflation which will affect the economy and put more people out of work, far better enforcing the existing minimum wage and making sure there are no loopholes to paying it than make it artificially high Benefits are not supposed to be a way of life, they are not meant for people to comfortably live on they are meant to be a financial safety net till the person gets a job and in this day and age there is no reason for an able bodied person not to get one quickly, the only people that should be getting high benefits are the genuinely physically or mentally disabled, benefits take away the incentive to work You are right that I have never claimed benefits Chris, fortunately I am able bodied and have too much pride and self respect to sponge off the state, times I have been made redundant (1 compulsary and 1 voluntary) I got another position within 3 weeks in both cases because I applied for stuff morning noon and night I am not talking about people with disabilities here Chris I am talking about able bodied people so I am not talking about slashing incapacity benefit There are many many unemployed people who still wouldn't work if the minimum wage was £50 an hour mate because they are not motivated and prefer watching daytime tv while picking up my money every 2 weeks Edited June 18, 200817 yr by Tim Barnes
June 18, 200817 yr clare works for some accountants, because shes training they can get away with paying her £3.30 an hour! ffs.... AND they get money off the government for her training! theres no reason on earth why they cant pay her at least minimum wage... then two nights a week she has to do a second job, two 15 hour days just to survive... she would be better off banging out a couple of bratts and living off us taxpayers.... how can that be right?.. the minimum wage is a joke and can be got around. it needs strengthening. That is of course disgusting, the minimum wage should apply to everyone and should be rigorously enforced
June 18, 200817 yr it is a sad indictment of the benefits system when people are better off on benefits than working WRONG!! It's an indictment of how employers exploit the workers..... <_< I think Rob illustrates this perfectly with Clare's position.... I would also imagine that Gordon Broon abolishing the 10p tax rate probably made things even worse for her as well.... Insult to injury.... And she's certainly by no means the only one being fukked-over to this degree both by employers AND the Govt..... A fukkin' disgrace this country has become in how it treats its working classes and working poor...... <_< And, no I don't believe it would be any better under Cameron, he's as big a c/unt as Blair or Brown..... The only solution...REVOLUTION..... -_-
June 18, 200817 yr WRONG!! It's an indictment of how employers exploit the workers..... <_< I think Rob illustrates this perfectly with Clare's position.... Then the amount of the minimum wage itself is not the problem but the enforcement of it is
June 18, 200817 yr Then the amount of the minimum wage itself is not the problem but the enforcement of it is Again, you talk absolute RUBBISH mate.... You try living off £5.75 an hour in London or the SE...... The system is a fukkin' JOKE and it blatantly DOES NOT reflect the real costs of living in these regions, at all..... And people like you talking bollocks and defending this system are part of the problem if you ask me...... People are being MADE poor in this country, they are being MADE an underclass by a system which favours the tiny MINORITY at the top and ignores the vast MAJORITY at the bottom..... A DEMOCRATIC govt "Of the people, by the people, for the people" is surely supposed to represent the interests of the MAJORITY..... N'est Pas....?
June 18, 200817 yr Again, you talk absolute RUBBISH mate.... You try living off £5.75 an hour in London or the SE...... The system is a fukkin' JOKE and it blatantly DOES NOT reflect the real costs of living in these regions, at all..... And people like you talking bollocks and defending this system are part of the problem if you ask me...... People are being MADE poor in this country, they are being MADE an underclass by a system which favours the tiny MINORITY at the top and ignores the vast MAJORITY at the bottom..... Like I said to Chris if wages are put up too high then prices will in turn shoot up so will inflation and this will lead to job losses for the very people you are preaching about protecting, the low paid ones are the most vulnerable in those sort of situations so just jacking up the minimum wage big times will put the very people you are talking about here out of work I am not talking bollocks mate just economic realities, paying say £9-10 an hour or whatever to young, largely unskilled, workers will damage the economy and put them out of work
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