Conservatives Forcing People To Work

[HeliX]

 

It’s wrong. It shouldn’t be for thirty days, it should be ongoing. Workfare, work to get your “benefits”. No work then no money. Start by bringing back the Winter Work schemes NOW.

 

It’s time to roll back the evil of Socialism and the profligate Welfare State. Let’s see it reduced to providing just what’s need to live, not to live a nice life.

Unless that statement is derived from complete ignorance - which wouldn't be difficult to believe - you are revealed as an extremely nasty, selfish, totally uncharitable pathetic excuse for a human being.

The winter work schemes were devised to help seasonal workers find employment after they'd been engaged in the tourist trade during the summer months. There was competition for those jobs - men waiting in line, desperate to be picked for genuine jobs that enabled them to put food on the table for their families for a few months.

My own father worked on them for many years; on building Marine Drive, on the runway at Ronaldsway and on Jurby Airport. Yes, it was a case of 'don't work-don't get paid' - which is why I saw him one morning leaning against the hedge as he coughed up blood into a handkerchief and why, when I begged him to take the day off and call a doctor he repeated that disgusting mantra.

There may well be aspects of 'socialism' that have gone a bit too far, but there are many which have helped to turn our society into a much more caring one - caring for those who aren't born into privilege, or those who don't have the physical or mental capacity to find work that will earn them a decent standard of living, or those who suffer from disabling illnesses or accidents.

Make no mistake, the real evils existed long before the very watered-down British version of socialism came along.

The Conservative Party is doing what it always does - blaming the nation's troubles on a few scroungers who give the rest of the unemployed a bad name - diverting attention from the real sickness that has gripped the country, which is the culture of greed in which the only kind of charity available is the one that is tax-deductible.

 

As unfortunate as your story is, it's a bit of a strawman to tie that into what was said by the poster you quoted.

The problem in your story was not the "no work no pay" aspect, it was that it was "no work no pay regardless of physical wellbeing". Which is far from the same thing.

[Lonan3]

As unfortunate as your story is, it's a bit of a strawman to tie that into what was said by the poster you quoted.

The problem in your story was not the "no work no pay" aspect, it was that it was "no work no pay regardless of physical wellbeing". Which is far from the same thing.

And your statement confirms what I was saying - that things have changed and that many of them have changed for the better due to the influence of the socialism that the other, hypocritical, poster condemned.

[jimbms]

I think Lonan3 your example is a good one in respect as it shows that a well run welfare state can prevent the incidences you say, what I believe a lot are annoyed at is the fact that people like your father had to fight for this right and suffer yet it has come to the point where people are abusing this and it is these people who need targeting not the genuine ones who wish to work or cannot work due to a number of conditions/reasons.

[pongo]

All systems need a bit of slack.

 

These get-tough govt schemes never achieve anything useful and invariably cost more than they save. This one is about distracting the angry middle classes.

 

It was not dole scroungers who messed up the economy. It was respectable team players and chaps with fat bonuses and huge salaries. The UK should take back some of that money to help fund the current mess.

[Cambon]

 

It was not dole scroungers who messed up the economy. It was respectable team players and chaps with fat bonuses and huge salaries. The UK should take back some of that money to help fund the current mess.

 

I agree - An extra tax on FOOTBALLERS then!

[P.K.]

This sceme will achieve absolutely nothing - except to put a satisfied smirk on the lips of those readers of Tory propaganda sheets such as the Sun, Times, Express, Mail and so on.

If there are jobs to be done, then they should be offered to people at the proper rate for doing them - anything less is little short of criminal and only what's to be expected from aresholes such as Cameron and Osborne.

 

You forgot The Torygraph! Shame on you...

 

IMHO it's complete and utter bollocks. Political PR bollocks at it's very worst. Have you ever tried to sack someone for being useless? I have, according to HR I couldn't do it. Because "useless" is a relative term apparently...

 

So how are you going to "motivate" these folks to get stuck in? Is it going to instil in them a "work ethic" of some kind? Are they going to take "pride" in the way they clear the dogshit up in the local park?

 

Around here they have a scheme I applaud. The local scrotes get handed down "Community Service" where they do menial tasks, exactly as the appalling IDS is advocating, wearing a high-vis with "Community Payback" emblazoned on it. So what's the difference? So yes Terse you are right, it is "criminal", at least that is how it will look around here.

 

Oh, and by the way the number of unemployed is set to grow a great deal in the UK so that Cameron and Osborne can give tax cuts to the well-off tory voters just prior to the next election...

[La_Dolce_Vita]

LDV this to me is quite simple, if you want something from the state you also have to put something back in for others and if the only contribution you can make to society is by picking up litter then so be it.

No, not at all. Take the issue of structural unemployment where people are left without a job but who want one. Do you still believe that they must make efforts to earn State payments?

And you're not addressing the matter of why this policy is supposed to be introduced, only your personal desire to see people work for their benefits. That's not the issue, but your opinion is noted!

 

Ask yourself a simple question. If everyone was given the choice of being able to stop any of their tax or NI contributions going to benifits of the long term unemployed, how many do you actualy think would not do this, then where would your glorious welfare state be.

I already know public opinion on the matter. That's why the Tories have brought in such a silly scheme, because people will be chuffed at anything ridiculous to SUPPOSEDLY sorts out the benefits problem. It's a process of focusing attention of public on less important matters.

 

...every person in a society has a duty to contribute to the society theat feeds them, to willingly refuse to do so (with this I exclude those who do try to get jobs or have disabilities that prevent them) is an act that deserves the contempt and scorn of the rest of society.

Interested in what you refer to as this duty. How do you come to the conclusion that such a duty is created?

[La_Dolce_Vita]

I know someone (in UK) who I was at school with and has never worked since the age of 18, he knows the benefits system inside out, spends 2 weeks in Goa every year (Mmmm) has a newer car than me, iphones each, you get the picture!

And I would be quite happy for the benefits to be simplified and for caps set on them. They obviously can't be unlimited.

 

But the system has created this culture to a certain extent and allowed it to grow into the mess we have today.

But it isn't a mess, it isn't even a serious issue that needs addressing. There are far bigger issues that require addressing.

It is only blown out of proportion by the media.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

I agree - An extra tax on FOOTBALLERS then!

That sounds a better idea!

[Cambon]

I agree - An extra tax on FOOTBALLERS then!

That sounds a better idea!

 

Actually, having thought about it, successive uk governments have done all sorts to try to make the unemployment figures look less than they actually are. They unofficially raised the school leaving age to 18 taking the 16-18 year olds out of the figures. They created job seekers allowance which is subtley different from unemployment benefit, so those people are not included in the figures. They tried to start apprenticeships up so those people were removed from the figures. They tried to encourage everyone to go to university, so now 45% of 18-22 year olds are out of the unemployment figures. If you put it all together with the genuinely unemployed, it makes up about 25% of the workforce. That is unacceptible.

 

If ideas like this can "frighten" people into finding a job, so much the better. If the genuinely unemployed can help support the government and help dig the country out of the hole that gordon brown put it into, then so much the better. Money for nothing is not acceptible. The uk cannot afford it.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

If ideas like this can "frighten" people into finding a job, so much the better. If the genuinely unemployed can help support the government and help dig the country out of the hole that gordon brown put it into, then so much the better. Money for nothing is not acceptible. The uk cannot afford it.

It's not their (or your) debt, so why should they pay it off?

[pongo]

help dig the country out of the hole that gordon brown put it into,

 

Surely the problem was caused by the finance sector. So in what way do you think that Gordon Brown was responsible and what could have been done differently - taking into account the following:

 

From this interesting item by Jonathan Freedland at The Guardian.

 

If Labour's spending was so wildly out of control, why did the Tories promise to match their plans, pound for pound, all the way until November 2008? Why didn't Osborne and Cameron howl in protest at the time?

 

This is why Ed Balls was right to declare in his summer Bloomberg lecture .. that "it is a question of fact that we entered this financial crisis with low inflation, low interest rates, low unemployment and the lowest net debt of any large G7 country".

 

Some will say that Labour .. bore some particular responsibility ... through Brown's indulgence of the City and light-touch regulation of finance. Some can say that – but not the Tories. The only problem they had with Brown's deregulation is that there wasn't more of it. One small reminder: Cameron endorsed John Redwood's 2007 report on competitiveness which declared that there was "no need to continue" to regulate mortgage provision – this just as the contagion of sub-prime mortgages was about to take down the world banking system.

 

Which brings us to the real source of the deficit: the colossal borrowing Labour had to undertake in order to prevent the crash of 2008 engulfing the entire economy.

 

So should the banks have been allowed to collapse and the economy with them ? How would that have affected the Manx banking sector ?

[Cambon]

If ideas like this can "frighten" people into finding a job, so much the better. If the genuinely unemployed can help support the government and help dig the country out of the hole that gordon brown put it into, then so much the better. Money for nothing is not acceptible. The uk cannot afford it.

It's not their (or your) debt, so why should they pay it off?

It is as much their debt as anyone elses. gordon brown's policy of low interest rates combined with low inflation for an extended period of time caused borrowing (expecially mortgages) to overheat. A collapse was inevitable and was forecast by many on this very forum. It is ok to try to blame tories, liberals and cousin uncle bob across the atlantic, but at the end of the day, in the uk, this is one man's recession.

[Cambon]

So should the banks have been allowed to collapse and the economy with them ? How would that have affected the Manx banking sector ?

 

The uk was already in such a bad way they could not afford (the compensation) to allow the banks to collapse. Besides, they will be well in profit in 12 months time. They could start the process now by simply selling some of their shares. Even if they did it at a loss, the price would rocket as people dived in to buy in the hopes that ukfi will sell the rest.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

gordon brown's policy of low interest rates combined with low inflation for an extended period of time caused borrowing (expecially mortgages) to overheat. A collapse was inevitable and was forecast by many on this very forum. It is ok to try to blame tories, liberals and cousin uncle bob across the atlantic, but at the end of the day, in the uk, this is one man's recession.

Wait a sec, do you believe the UK's economic situation was caused by something quite different from the global economic crisis? My comments on debt was in reference to the credit and liabilities of the banks.