The Tories

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by cashman

Don't think i can ever recall yeh as a left winger, Though if it suits Jaysays purpose yeh are.

Na she's more of a bungling centre forward

[Margaret Pilkington]

Originally Posted by Guinness

Sometimes, just sometimes... you post something really relevant from a bona fide source. Just a pity you never expand and go for the 'kill shot'.



When I was a whippersnapper, apprentices were people who were taken on to learn a trade..under this and the last two governments they were a way of massaging the unemployment figures and getting around the minimum wage....you can in effect employ a 64 year old on £2.65 an hour as long as you agree to train him and call him an apprentice, you don't have to guarantee him a job and, after twelve months, when his apprenticeship is over you can get shut and repeat. (This practice is scheduled to stop in August 2013..but they said that last year too, so I'll believe it when I see it)
When you were a whippersnapper, an apprenticeship was much longer than a year...I would think. My brother was indentured for 5 years. That is longer than it takes to get a degree these days.
Of course governments use this ploy to massage statistics...this has ever been the case.
Would that C'mon had commented so vociferously when his beloved team were in power....Im sure that if he searches as diligently for their particular follies - he would have found them in abundance...but alas he didn't
I get young kids applying for jobs all the time, they knock on the door, ring up and post cv's..the other week when we had heavy snow, one young lad braved it and hand delivered his cv like he was the Avon Calling lady.....can't even give him a chance because of the constant cuts this damn government is imposing..so now he's one of the 'scroungers' that they are attacking, he'll probably end up being forced to attend a job club overseen by an automaton job centre worker and made to post applications for jobs as a brain surgeon in Lancaster or Leyland just to tick boxes for the government to show he's actively looking for work..and in a few years he'll think 'stuff it I give up' and become part of that % that have never worked.

Those who are motivated and determined, will, eventually find work......it might not be the job of their dreams.....but sometimes dreams have to be out on hold.
My son in law has been made redundant 3 times in the last six years.....he is in his fifties....so not a good age to get a job(even though he has a varied work history).....each time he was out of work he got a job within a couple of weeks.
Why do you think this is? It is because he will take work...any work whatever its suitability...and while he is in a job he looked for something more suitable(and has been successful)......he is a grafter and shows employers that he is worth his wage...he goes the extra mile.

It seems to me that anyone who critiques the system, is seen as a benefits basher.
This is not the case. The welfare system has long needed reform...it should have been done two decades ago, but successive governments have only 'tinkered' with it when root and branch reform was called for...they all have taken the option that is least likely to lose them votes...which should tell you something...that 'something' is that they are only interested in staying in power....not in doing what is right for the electorate as a whole.
I am not going to shout this.......but what I will say is.......It isn't the claimants fault....it is the fault of an inadequately monitored system.

The government have the power to change systems(every government has had the chance to do this and has failed)....the banking system, the tax system, the welfare system...all of them have been allowed to roll unchecked and that is where the problem lies.

Oh yes, and before anyone sees any symbolism in the blue text..it has nothing to do with any political party...it is just that I wanted to answer points made by the original poster in the body of his text...and this is an easy colour to read(less angry looking than red too).

[cmonstanley]

its scary now ,you dont get jobs now like you did a couple of years ago now.employers are now offering zero hours,temporary or just taking your name for their data base.the work is drying up because of lack of exports.we cant keep relying on the service industry,this is single handly keeping Britain out of recession .if i was leader of the labour party.i would be starting with the manifesto.top of my agenda re nationalize the railways using the eastern line as an example .bringing in £650 million for the taxpayer is not to be sniffed at.£40 million plus investment as well.full employment would come back into the equation of my agenda.bring services back into public ownership more robust and accountable.i could go oni think i might start a manifesto thread later.

[cmonstanley]

Department for Welfare and Pensions is the biggest spending department in the UK - spending £166.98bn in 2011-12, which is Of that huge sum, £159bn was spent on benefits - an increase of 1.1% on the previous year. That is 23% of all public spending.

Ask people where that money goes and the assumptions might be on unemployment or incapacity benefit. In fact, 47% of UK benefit spending goes on state pensions of £74.22bn a year, more than the £48.2bn the UK spends on servicing its debt

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by cmonstanley

its scary now ,you dont get jobs now like you did a couple of years ago now.employers are now offering zero hours,temporary or just taking your name for their data base.the work is drying up because of lack of exports.we cant keep relying on the service industry,this is single handly keeping Britain out of recession .if i was leader of the labour party.i would be starting with the manifesto.top of my agenda re nationalize the railways using the eastern line as an example .bringing in £650 million for the taxpayer is not to be sniffed at.£40 million plus investment as well.full employment would come back into the equation of my agenda.bring services back into public ownership more robust and accountable.i could go oni think i might start a manifesto thread later.

You leader of the Labour party, I think even that post would want at least a grasp of the English Language.

[cmonstanley]

Chancellor George Osborne's disgraced brother has bought a £1million townhouse - even though he doesn't have a job.

Dr Adam Osborne, 34, was barred by the General Medical Council from working as a doctor for six months after he prescribed drugs to four people - two family members, a friend and a cocaine-addicted prostitute he had an affair with.

The financial support of baronet father Sir Peter enabled him to buy the four-storey house in West London.

But while big brother George is making swingeing public service cuts and declaring "we're all in this together", his family really are in a class of their own.

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by cmonstanley

Department for Welfare and Pensions is the biggest spending department in the UK - spending £166.98bn in 2011-12, which is Of that huge sum, £159bn was spent on benefits - an increase of 1.1% on the previous year. That is 23% of all public spending.

Ask people where that money goes and the assumptions might be on unemployment or incapacity benefit. In fact, 47% of UK benefit spending goes on state pensions of £74.22bn a year, more than the £48.2bn the UK spends on servicing its debt

Ya servicing the debts of Labours last attempt at running the country

[cashman]

Originally Posted by cmonstanley

Ask people where that money goes and the assumptions might be on unemployment or incapacity benefit. In fact, 47% of UK benefit spending goes on state pensions of £74.22bn a year, more than the £48.2bn the UK spends on servicing its debt

47% Thats easy sorted, execute all pensioners.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Those pensioners are not getting the benefit for nothing. They paid into the system and worked for at least 40 years to get this benefit......if you had less years in, then your pension was docked accordingly.
I remember paying extra into my pension when I worked in a mill......the extra I paid put the equivalent of sixpence, that is two and a half pence onto my pension.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Originally Posted by cmonstanley

Chancellor George Osborne's disgraced brother has bought a £1million townhouse - even though he doesn't have a job.

Dr Adam Osborne, 34, was barred by the General Medical Council from working as a doctor for six months after he prescribed drugs to four people - two family members, a friend and a cocaine-addicted prostitute he had an affair with.

The financial support of baronet father Sir Peter enabled him to buy the four-storey house in West London.

But while big brother George is making swingeing public service cuts and declaring "we're all in this together", his family really are in a class of their own.

How come this post is punctuated and in a readable format........Oh, silly me! It must be a cut and paste job.
C'mon if you cut and paste something do post where you got it from.

Your previous post may have had some salient points in it, but I wouldn't know, because I am not going to bother to try and make sense of some unpunctuated text, that only you know the meaning of.

[Margaret Pilkington]

[QUOTE=cmonstanley;1051615] if i was leader of the labour party.i would be starting with the manifesto.top of my agenda

If you were the leader of the Labour party...I would be scared.

I hope your manifesto would be in intelligible, punctuated English.

[Margaret Pilkington]

47% of benefit spending goes on pensions...which must mean that 53% goes on other benefit spending, I guess that would include incapacity, unemployment and other benefits.
Isn't 53 a bigger number than 47?
Unless the figures are broken down properly, they are a nonesense. Just thrown in to divert attention...or some other political point scoring exercise.
You can prove anything with statistics. Which is why I am very wary of them...and their validity.

[Less]

Originally Posted by cashman

47% Thats easy sorted, execute all pensioners.

Only a short term solution that would create unemployment in the long term.

O.K. it would create a boost for people working at crematoria for a short while, however consider the number of Funeral Directors would suffer? (Pensioners are their regular suppliers of employment.
All the Nursing homes and geriatric wards in hospitals that would no longer be needed, throwing All the ancillary staff, nurses and doctors onto the unemployment nightmare.
Tailors would no longer sell that extra bit of cloth required for the trousers that Granddad wears up to his armpits, (you know the style it has an 18 inch fly zip so his carer can help him in the toilet).
All the dress shops that sell those hideous floral outfits that ladies in there 80's wear (as they wander the streets telling everyone how old they are) would disappear.
Gift Card shops would suffer, if every grandparent only has 2 children and say 4 grandchildren, That's a loss of 6 cards hastily bought without too much care, for birthdays, Christmas, Easter and 60th wedding anniversary's.
Wheelchair, scooter and stair lift companies would have mass layoffs of employees.
Cowboy builders would no longer be able to survive, who would they be able to leech on if there are no old folk suffering from senility? The consequences of this would be dire, if you think there are plenty of scroungers and false claims now just think what would happen if they were forced to use their talents within the benefits system?
The Market stalls all over the country that sell tripe would all have to close down, no-one left to eat it! (An EU tripe mountain? OH NO not another one, there's enough of it in Brussels).
I'm sure others can add to this list and they are welcome to, we need to prove to the Government that rather than a drain on the Country the older folk are actually helping to keep the economy going!

[cashman]

Fair play, i had never considered the unemployment angle. I can only apologise.

[jaysay]

[QUOTE=Margaret Pilkington;1051634]

Originally Posted by cmonstanley

if i was leader of the labour party.i would be starting with the manifesto.top of my agenda

If you were the leader of the Labour party...I would be scared.

I hope your manifesto would be in intelligible, punctuated English.

I'm scared at the thought of two Eds running the country, never C'mon, but even the Labour Party have standards Margaret