the return of the workhouse

[dakyras]

Having gaps in one's employment history is a huge ironic cause of unemployment.

But you should be paid for the work you do.

[OneLittleFish]

Yep - a frightening bit of legislation. That's thirty hours a week that they could be looking for work, and if you're being paid peanuts for shite jobs like picking up litter, is that really going to persuade those who don't want to work back into the workplace? Is it f**k.

It's the same old Tories as ever, looking after the middle and upper classes whilst hammering the poor and unfortunate. All because the public fell for a smug grinning c**t and promises of change. f**king idiots.

Edited November 9, 2010 by OneLittleFish

[Steve P]

How are we going to get our "Big Society" going with the attitudes of you lot?!

[mikeb]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11706545

Cos everyone of the 4 to 5M who don't have a job and who will be forced to look for one will get a job, won't they?

They're fooling no one by sacking council employees and then getting the unemployede to do those same jobs for just dole money.

Edited November 9, 2010 by mikeb

[eFestivals]

In principle it's by no means a bad idea

I agree.

But it's only possible for people to get jobs when there are jobs.

And so the real wide-spread effect of this won't be to encourage people into work, it'll be 'punishment' for being unemployed for those who are desperate to get a job, and their demonisation by those who have a job.

[Jaybles]

Why shouldn't they do work for their dole money?

If they are capable and have been out of work long enough then not only does it benefit the community but it also benefits the people doing the work.

They get back into a work routine, get some work experience.

The complaint "how can i look for a job if i have to work for my dole" doesn't work flush with me.

If i can work more hours than a 9-5 every week and have time to search for a job than these people doing community work for 30hrs can too.

[eFestivals]

Why shouldn't they do work for their dole money?

If they are capable and have been out of work long enough then not only does it benefit the community but it also benefits the people doing the work.

They get back into a work routine, get some work experience.

The complaint "how can i look for a job if i have to work for my dole" doesn't work flush with me.

If i can work more hours than a 9-5 every week and have time to search for a job than these people doing community work for 30hrs can too.

It's not the "Why shouldn't they do work for their dole money?" bit that's the issue here.

It's a scheme that's going to be used to penalise and punish people for the 'heinous' crime of not having a job at a time when there's no jobs to be had. Until the number of jobs available about matches the number of people unemployed, it's trying to make people find something that isn't there to be found.

Added to that is the fact that many of the tasks they'll be asked to do are tasks that right now are being done by properly paid people in full-time work, but after the mass redundancies that are coming won't be done by those properly paid people. So some of those unemployed will be asked to do what they used to do but at a fraction of what they used to be paid.

But I'm sure you'd be thinking being sacked from your job, being labelled as worthless scrounging scum, and then being made to do the same job as you've just lost but at a fraction of the pay is all totally fair and reasonable.

[rachbon]

doing a little voluntary work of some form or other rather than generally sitting about doing nowt isn't exactly unreasonable

[Jaybles]

because dole money is paid to people who are unemployed. if they are working, then they should be paid for it.

i find it really depressing that people are actually agreeing with this.

[lost]

This has been going on for years and happened under the last government, on the new deal claimants who had been on JSA for over 12 months could be put into 'Mandatory Work Related Activity' a full time work experience placement as a condition of continuing to receive benefits.

[barrychuckle]

This was very badly pitched by the government, a case of poor PR management, announced over a weekend with no government ministers elaborating, allowing the opposition to spin it as workhouses for the poor, returning to victorian slavery etc etc etc.

If you are long term unemployed you get out of the habits of getting up early, being disciplined, having self respect and most importantly being social, I should know I have been there. If this scheme goes some way to instilling these habits then what is wrong with that?? Sat at home feeling utterly useless is far more humiliating than feeling you are contributing to society.

In the grand scheme of things this is a small nudge in the right direction as things are about to get really bad for everybody.

The fact is the UK, US, and most EU governments have all run out of money and have run out of fiscal and monetary levers to stimulate their respective economies. If you think it is bad now with the cuts, it is going to get really bad in the near future.

The US is now printing money to try and dig themselves out a balance of payments hole, a technique last practised by Mugabe in Zimbabwe. UK is bankrupt when you include all the hidden PFI (essentially a big mortgage we have no hope in hell in paying off) and public sector pension liabilities. Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy are all technically bankrupt, when they finally own up to the IMF, they will drag the rest of the EU (And accompanying EU socialist policies) down with them.

Batten downn the hatches - or move to India or China

[Snufflebutt]

This was very badly pitched by the government, a case of poor PR management, announced over a weekend with no government ministers elaborating, allowing the opposition to spin it as workhouses for the poor, returning to victorian slavery etc etc etc.

If you are long term unemployed you get out of the habits of getting up early, being disciplined, having self respect and most importantly being social, I should know I have been there. If this scheme goes some way to instilling these habits then what is wrong with that?? Sat at home feeling utterly useless is far more humiliating than feeling you are contributing to society.

In the grand scheme of things this is a small nudge in the right direction as things are about to get really bad for everybody.

The fact is the UK, US, and most EU governments have all run out of money and have run out of fiscal and monetary levers to stimulate their respective economies. If you think it is bad now with the cuts, it is going to get really bad in the near future.

The US is now printing money to try and dig themselves out a balance of payments hole, a technique last practised by Mugabe in Zimbabwe. UK is bankrupt when you include all the hidden PFI (essentially a big mortgage we have no hope in hell in paying off) and public sector pension liabilities. Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy are all technically bankrupt, when they finally own up to the IMF, they will drag the rest of the EU (And accompanying EU socialist policies) down with them.

Batten downn the hatches - or move to India or China

[OneLittleFish]

And if they are unemployed, looking for work and able to work, then whats the problem with asking them to contribute to society that is giving them the money

[eFestivals]

The US is now printing money to try and dig themselves out a balance of payments hole, a technique last practised by Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

All you said is wrong, but this is provable as factually wrong.

Since Mugabe, it's been done in just about every European country, including the Eurozone and your beloved UK too. And they'll be more of it coming to the UK very soon.

It's good to know that you have so much to say but aren't paying much attention at all.

[rabid]

This has been going on for years and happened under the last government, on the new deal claimants who had been on JSA for over 12 months could be put into 'Mandatory Work Related Activity' a full time work experience placement as a condition of continuing to receive benefits.

[eFestivals]

I have to say from what I've heard so far it hasn't struck me as anything particularly new. Seems to me like we've been hearing bout 'scroungers' getting their benefits stopped for years.

The thing is, they're targeting the wrong 'scroungers'.

Benefit fraud is thought to cost the govt £2Bn a year. So that means the money given to other scroungers in a couple of months - the banks - could have paid for that fraud for 440 years.

To put the benefit fraud into another perspective, just about every major bank makes more in profit in 3 months than benefit fraud costs the country in a year.

Or put another way: the money given to the banks could have covered the whole of the deficit for 5 years (by which time cuts would not be necessary, as the economy would have recovered to wipe the deficit).

Did we need to bail out the banks? After all, what would have been the real impact of letting the bankrupt banks go down the pan?

It's a 100% certainty that no profitable enterprises would have disappeared. Some might have had to stop trading briefly because of cash-flow problems, but someone would have bought them and put them back in business. So almost nothing different there.

There might have been a bit of drama, with some people having lost some paper money. Shame eh, those people who have got rich off the back of others work would have lost out. .... but seeing your bank account saying 'zero' loses no jobs, nothing physical disappears, little changes. Life goes on.

The simple fact is that the bank bailout was nothing other than about maintaining the wealth of the already-rich - wealth they only had via the con that ended up with us needing to bail them out. It was simple theft, theft from the rest of us, theft that us and our children will pay for without any guarantee of the same not happening again.

We've been robbed once to bail out the banks, and now they're robbing us again - robbing us of the the things we've paid for.

Do people care? Or are they falling for the spin that "we're all in this together", while caring more about trying to protect their own position in society (not that anyone can) than caring about society itself?

Edited November 10, 2010 by eFestivals

[rabid]

The thing is, they're targeting the wrong 'scroungers'.

[eFestivals]

Yes we know but are they introducing anything particularly new with this legislation? Have the details been released yet?

yes, they are targeting new things.

It gets formally announced tomorrow.

[rabid]

yes, they are targeting new things.

It gets formally announced tomorrow.

[barrychuckle]

All you said is wrong, but this is provable as factually wrong.

Since Mugabe, it's been done in just about every European country, including the Eurozone and your beloved UK too. And they'll be more of it coming to the UK very soon.

It's good to know that you have so much to say but aren't paying much attention at all.

[eFestivals]

Besides the central point remains the government is clean out of money and it is going to get a lot worse. Rather than save for a rainy day when the going was good, the previous Labour government went on a debt funded spending spree on their chosen PET projects post the 2005 election.

I see that Dave Moron's idiot spin is working on some. Next up will you be telling me that the £6Bn due in tax from Vodaphone that Dave wrote off for his mates is an 'urban myth'?

Yeah, Labour were pissing money up the wall so much that the Tories promised to piss it up the wall at the same rate right up until exactly 2 years ago. Cos that's the facts.

Why do we have a deficit? Cos the bankers - Dave Moron's mates - stole all the money and for no other reasons.

Dave hates them for doing that - he hates them so so much he's punishing them with lower taxes. Cos that's the facts, tho slimy Gideon will lie and pretend differently. Cos you're a dumb-arse, i'll elaborate: there's a new bank levy, but it brings in less than they save via a reduction on corporation tax.

The "spending spree" has been nothing more than supporting the economy thru a far worse financial disaster than 1929 (in 1929, the total cost to the world of that depression in today's terms was just $499Bn. This recession has cost just the UK over double that). It's been a far worse financial disaster, but a MUCH milder recession, and there's only one reason why - and it's certainly nothing to do with the preferred tory economic policies.

[dakyras]

I don't think David Cameron has mates.

I think people of that class have 'acquaintances', or if they're pretending to be really friendly, 'chums'.

[The_Amazing_Oblong]

For me there should be clear incentives to being employed. That is the way to get people into work. These proposals instead seem to be giving disincentives to being unemployed. At the same time not really helping to get people into worthy employment.

This to me seems arse backwards.

The only thing these proposals will do is up the crime rate as some will simply turn to crime rather than community service (for one the pay is much better). With the tightening of purse strings the black market is already flourishing and in order to supply this ever growing market you need more thiefs, shoplifters, muggers and burglers. With cuts to Police and more illegal than legal opportunities to make decent money, well it's only going to go one way.

Myself, my wife and my eldest all work full time and have no money left at the end of each month once all the bills are paid. Am I not going to buy that games console for my youngest son that he has asked for at Christmas because I can't afford it from the shop or am going to see cutmeownthroat Tony and buy him one at half the price, no questions asked ? I know what a lot of people will choose.

So yeah, to me these proposals are socially retarded.

[Snufflebutt]

The thing is, they're targeting the wrong 'scroungers'.

Benefit fraud is thought to cost the govt £2Bn a year. So that means the money given to other scroungers in a couple of months - the banks - could have paid for that fraud for 440 years.

To put the benefit fraud into another perspective, just about every major bank makes more in profit in 3 months than benefit fraud costs the country in a year.

Or put another way: the money given to the banks could have covered the whole of the deficit for 5 years (by which time cuts would not be necessary, as the economy would have recovered to wipe the deficit).

Did we need to bail out the banks? After all, what would have been the real impact of letting the bankrupt banks go down the pan?

It's a 100% certainty that no profitable enterprises would have disappeared. Some might have had to stop trading briefly because of cash-flow problems, but someone would have bought them and put them back in business. So almost nothing different there.

There might have been a bit of drama, with some people having lost some paper money. Shame eh, those people who have got rich off the back of others work would have lost out. .... but seeing your bank account saying 'zero' loses no jobs, nothing physical disappears, little changes. Life goes on.

The simple fact is that the bank bailout was nothing other than about maintaining the wealth of the already-rich - wealth they only had via the con that ended up with us needing to bail them out. It was simple theft, theft from the rest of us, theft that us and our children will pay for without any guarantee of the same not happening again.

We've been robbed once to bail out the banks, and now they're robbing us again - robbing us of the the things we've paid for.

Do people care? Or are they falling for the spin that "we're all in this together", while caring more about trying to protect their own position in society (not that anyone can) than caring about society itself?

Edited November 11, 2010 by Snufflebutt

[eFestivals]

The Government didnt give money to the banks. They invested in them, and will sell their stake in them when it is deemed a good deal for the taxpayer, at least thats the theory anyway. Giving money to the banks would be actually handing over all that money and not taking a stake in them. The money thats given to those that play the benefits system is lost forever.

They did far more than just that.

They bought a huge amount of the banks 'toxic debt' at face value, as well as providing insurance at a knock-down price on huge amounts more for investments that no commercial insurance company would touch with a bargepoll.