Why the Tories are bastards

This is idealogy. Sorry...

Absolutely ttosca this idealogy wrapped up in a big shiney 'austerity' packet to fool the electorate.

The Tories would cut public and privitise public services whether there was a deficit or not. Don't be fooled by the 'tough love' act. They've wanted to get their grimy hands on public services for decades. Now they're trying to privatise the NHS.

Butterfly : I realised that after I posted!

But I just wanted to say the Tories aren't bastards, I think that's a very rude generalisation and mustn't be tolerated.

The Tories and presumably the Liberals also are bastards because they want to stop the current plan where the Government borrows around £150 billion a year to fund Government spending

@Claig they are connected are they not?

Did you see the Newsnight programme recently where Mandelson admitted that they had made a mistake in neglecting Britain's manufacturing industry? Yes I agree the pushed on other more profitable markets. Thatcher pressed the button the consequences of which we are paying for now.

MrPants by your argument re paying below nmw due to regional variation, I suppose you would be equally happy to increase it for the same reason? Living wage is a more useful idea.

Oh I'm not the employer. It's my DD who has a part time job.

I'll be honest MrPants- one of the massive issues I have with citizen's income is ideological. I am employable, well qualified (post grad), willing to work but a Carer and I don't want to be lumped in with the unwilling under one system; it's very important to my self respect that I see myself as separate- perhaps one of the negative sides of the work ethic. I doubt the Government wants to change that either, as they are quite happy to tax carer's allowance.

Also £75 is not going to cover rent, food, council tax etc all of whcih fall into the benefit system. It simply is not. And research shows that poverty of that level costs the state additional money in health, education, long term earning outcomes.

Bluenerties someone said 1 in twenty are not claiming benefits? Sorry I missed that; who exactly? Dh working around me so scanning seemingly ineffective today. Completely against Government estimates, I wonder what source they are using?

adamschic I didn't generalise about young people. What I did say was "if they are successful keep them, and if unsuccessful... sack them". It sounds like you have a successful one. If they are important to your business you will do everything to keep them in your employment. The most obvious way of doing this is to pay them what they are worth - which is what it sounds like you are already doing.

In fact on a not-much household income and a small house she is still contribiting to the one in twenty or whatever it is someone said who are not fraudulently claiming benefit. And she is paying for care for her husband.

So very yanbu.

It's not fair to generalise about young people not being worth x per hour. I have a 17 yr old who in a part-time job that pays above the adult rate for everyone regardless of age. She does get to work on time and is just as valuable after a bit of training as someone older.

Anyway wrt the title, my MIL is a Tory, and while she's been fairly poisonous to me in the past, she is definitely not "a bastard", and has devoted large amounts of her time to Good Works, and she is very kind to lost souls, and has vast reserves of patience.

Yanbu to call my mil a bastard.

I'm fairly sure that most (though not all) Tories are the result of homes where their parents were married at the time of conception. Therefore they cannot, technically, be said to be 'bastards'.

With regard to your first point, yes, I?d be quite happy to pay below it. At some point, the left need to wake up and see that we are all individuals and not some collective block where one size fits everyone. For example, someone earning minimum wage in the South East, who may be struggling to raise a family, is in a totally different position from a young kid, from one of the less expensive areas of the country, helping out at their supermarket for beer money. Looking at those two cases, one would struggle on NMW (if not find life impossible ? so much for curing poverty then); one could probably work for less. That is why only one of them will receive Income Support.

Who knows how many jobs would exist if individuals could compete to secure work by varying the price of their labour and have Income Support ?top up? those incomes.

Regarding harvest time, I live in the farming belt of Hampshire ? I stand by my previous comment.

Onto your final point about what I would do. Firstly, I see low income jobs as stepping stones to better jobs. The state needs to remove as much risk as possible when it comes to employing people ? for this reason the government needs to tread a very careful line when it comes to protecting the rights of the employee. If employers could, in effect, try out new personnel and evaluate them against the job they are required for (and if they are successful keep them, and if unsuccessful easily sack them) the risk in employing a new starter is greatly reduced. In return for such a deal, the least an individual can expect is some experience and something to write on their CV?s. The benefits of this cannot be overstated.

For those who cannot get better jobs and are essentially stuck in low income work until they retire, there is the Income Support mechanism. I appreciate that it has its shortcomings (see below for my preferred alternative) and, for example, doesn?t do much to encourage securing promotions and better paid positions, but it alleviates all but the worst poverty.

If I had a magic wand, the two changes I would introduce (which would make work pay, significantly reduce poverty and be fair to all) would be to firstly increase the personal allowance for Income Tax and National Insurance - Can anyone explain how it can be in any way right, let alone efficient, for the poorest in our society to have to pay tax only to then claw some of their hard-earned back off the state in the form of benefits?
The second major change would be to introduce a Citizens Basic Income - £75 p/w should do it ? and allow the unemployed / low paid to even borrow against it (up to a point). This is a system which doesn?t require much bureaucracy to administer, doesn?t penalise people who seek better paid work, and doesn?t discriminate against those in work or those with young children. I admit that it?s expensive (I did say I need a magic wand) but it could replace all benefits (with additional payments for pensioners and the disabled who would, of course, still receive it) and massively reduce the headcount needed to administer the 72 (may be wrong but that?s a number someone quoted to me the other day) separate benefits that are currently available.

That?s the thing with us libertarians; if you stop and think about it most of us don?t really deserve our ?baby-eating? reputations. I too want to help the poor but I would rather that help was aimed at allowing them to help themselves rather than encourage more people to take ever more handouts from the rest of us. Think of it as a hand up, rather than a hand out? Now, where have I heard that before?

Surely sometimes people who "do not deserve a minimum wage" are not undeserving in their "natural condition" - in the sense that changes can be made about themselves, their education, their attitude and so on that can change that.

I don't know if I'm for or against a minimum wage - for, in my instinct - against, if it inhibits employment. In some ways I think working conditions are more important: low wages often go with appalling health and safety.

I think women would suffer unduly were the minimum wage to be abolished - you have to remember one is not just talking about workshy 17-year-olds here and jobs in offices. There are people running for example clothing workshops with dreadful conditions, terrible cash paid, all outside the authorities' knowledge and remit, and often it's women who are employed for this crappy money and in terrible conditions.

Er what? You want to pay below it; OK so my syntax is less that perfect- wowee- but YK exactly what I meant.

LMAO about harvest time; as a Somerset girl I can't remember meeting a farmer who ever approached a job centre!

You did not answer in any of your rebuttals what should be done about people who do not deserve a minimum wage (in your opinion)- state or destitution?

Just a couple of points. Firstly, Peachy says ?£3.68 does not keep a human being.? but then contradicts themselves by saying ?We'd rather pay minimum wage and get fed, housed people who could focus on their job rather than imminent bankruptcy.? So, either the NMW isn?t enough or it is enough. Whatever it is, this isn?t an argument to keep it.

Then FantasticVoyage makes a point about the NMW being used to avoid a benefits trap and about companies no longer being able to pass on their shortcomings to their workers via low pay. I?m sorry, for your first point, I?d argue that there is a benefits trap whereby able bodied people routinely pass over work because they don?t fancy it ? try standing outside a job centre at harvest time and see how many youngsters are happy to pick turnips all day. For your second point, what is Income Support for if it isn?t to subsidise low paying firms (See also Working Families Tax Credits)?

Adamschic I don?t know much about modern apprenticeships, modern apprentices or their personal finances. What I do know is that their next employers, who pay more than minimum wage, will want to see some evidence that the candidate can turn up for work on time each morning. In that respect, a job paying £2.50p/h is analogous with the job that I had when I was 16 which paid £1.80p/h. As I was still living at home and had no outgoings other than the occasional bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 I didn?t consider myself hard done by at all.

ttosca starts off by playing the man and not the ball with their you appear to be a right-wing cock. comment, before making a few assumptions about my knowledge of the benefits system and claiming that ?95% of claimants are legitimate, looking for work, and don't cheat the system.?. So, by your figures, I make that 1 in 20 on the make. Your final point about remunerating the cleaners of Buckingham Palace fails to take into account what the average wage for a cleaner in London is. Incidentally, and getting back on topic, the example ttosca quotes is well above the National Minimum Wage but not above the living wage for London ? This is therefore still not an argument for a NMW.

On their next post ttosca writes ?Every human being who works a full-time job is 'worth' a living wage.?. I think this is where we will, when all is said and done, probably end up having to agree to disagree.

On ttosca?s next post, they start with the ?Numerous studies time and again have shown that the minimum wage has no statistical effects on overall employment figures?. OK, if I?m wrong then the experts at the Low Pay Commission are also wrong, the CBI are wrong, the Adam Smith Institute is wrong and the unemployment rate is misleading us too. If it has no effects on employment why not abolish poverty overnight by doubling or even trebling the minimum wage?
With regards to the straw man post, where did I mention discrimination or sexual harassment? They have no effect on the bottom line of a company so why would I be concerned with them in my earlier post? How could repealing that legislation help this country?s international competitiveness?

ttosca I genuinely like the football analogy ? I don?t agree with all of what you wrote, but love the idea of a cabinet meeting with the Lib-Dems chanting ?You?re going home in a BUPA ambulance!? to a slightly stunned front bench.

niceguy2 quite the op answer to also our woes is to have Wayne and waynetta in charge.

breadandbutterfly yes because Gordon brown and ed creepy milliband are all have been dragged up she pauses and then falls of he chair while she laughs

Yes, that type of political strategy is about trying to win advantage, defeat your opponents and fool the public. But it is human nature to seek that advantage. Spin doctors and pagers are all there to gain an advantage in the battle for the mind of the public.

Labour had the best mind in the business - Peter Mandelson. No one compared to him, he is a political genius. That's one reason that they outwitted the Tories.

Yes, but that's human nature. Very few people blame themselves, they usually blame others. That's why the parties do the usual yah-boo of blaming it all on the other side. They are in power for over a decade and they still blame it on what the other lot did 30 years ago.

No, that's not 'human nature', claig. It's political strategy.

Very few people put themselves up for that level of role; accountability and all that