Homebase let cat out of the bag about using workfare to reduce wage bills

Osborne has dubious friends, I was referring to the fact that you are putting money into the pocket of Viscount Rothermere by reading the mail.

workfare is outrageous imo

I am putting money in the hands of the people by giving them employment. Osborne is no fascist, he stood up to the rich elite and told them and their green jesters that he was not prepared to bankrupt Britain to "save the planet".

I only hope that he will accelerate growth and building and infrastructure improvement as soon as possible.

You are still putting money into the hands of a fascist aristo Claig, shame on you.

wannabe, the Daily Mail reported today on a man with a PhD in physics who could only find work in a call centre and ended his life by jumping off a building.

We are witnessing a tragic waste of human potential and lives in our society. Teh bankers put us into this economic crisis and New Labour with their 'light touch' regulation cannot escape all blame. They left a note saying there was no money left. It was meant to be a joke, but it is not funny and has had tragic consequences for millions of people who have lost their homes and jobs.

Jobs don't grow on trees, so we must take action to create them. We need to build new roads and toll roads where the cost of building will be recopued by the revenue stream of the tolls. In the emergency with which we are faced we need to train hundreds of thousands of unemployed people in order to prepare them for an upturn.

Teh kickstart of building toll roads and local airports and fixing infrastructure will get teh wheels of our closed down factories turning, it will fire up our furnaces (and annoy the zero-growth greens and their rich masters) and it will oil the pockets of millions with pound notes and confidence and enterprise will return and people will once again have money to burn (which will yet again annoy teh zero-growth greens and their rich masters).

It will be like the revival of a heart attack victim laid out on a slab by a shot of energy that flows through teh veins of the nation like volts from a coal-fired power station (which will yet again annoy the zero-growth greens and their rich masters).

Where ther's a will, there's a way. We can allocate our resources back to growth rather than zero-growth and low growth and we can improve the lives of millions (which will yet again displease the greens and their rich masters).

Let's adopt teh motto of the Royal Air Force who in teh Second World War never gave up hope.

Per Ardua Ad Astra - Through Adversity to the Stars

Onwards and upwards.

The greens and their rich masters won't like it, but the people will love it, like birds freed from their green cage.

Yes, it would be great to have a more representative democracy with a real PR system as the LibDems rightly wanted. But Rome was not built in a day, let's remain positive and not lose hope for it will surely happen someday.

Did anyone notice Osborne dropping his T's when he spoke to the super market staff in Derbyshire. Twas very funny. If you want the people to prosper Claig, we must first have democracy. The right to recall our MPs when they vote against our wishes and don't represent their constituents instead voting with their party. Here we have Nicolas Soames, lovely man but such a Tory. He saves the local maternity services and then votes with the party to privatise the local hospital he spent 15 years trying to save. doh!

We can train people all we like but if there are no jobs for them to progress to then whats the point?

My DP is a qualified mechanic with a specialty. He will soon be going on workfare. So what? Just ignore his years at college and serving his time and retrain him as a painter decorater? Really?

What a waste of everyones time and money.

My brother did a year of bricklaying just as the recession hit. He couldnt get a builder to give him an unpaid (!) placement to complete the course. He now works for McDonalds.

Workfare is not the answer. And either is training if there are no jobs.

ah, the skye bridge and the massive over investment of some 20 million pounds that went missing! plus the fact that some of the poorest people in the Britain were held hostage on the island by an american bank. George Monbiot Who runs Britain ?

But I digress, we need to stop workfare. Does anyone here know whether shell petrol stations are using workfare? Last week our local petrol station had lots of staff milling about with nothing to do. They were offering to fill the car and were going about with buckets washing all the pumps down. I questioned the staff and the manager who started stuttering and said "well, erm, we have got people, erm, well, from the usual unemployment, erm, list, well, no. not workfare, erm" and then shuffled off. I think they are but I don't know for sure.

Let's innovaye, let's create, let's get people working and building. Let's be positive and let's not accept teh doom and gloom that we are constantly sold by the rich elite and their green jesters.

Let's not accept zero growth, let's not be thrown back into a Dark Ages where they turn out our lights and our heaters and make us pay through the nose for energy with newly installed meters.

Let's have a new Enlightenment just like Voltaire and the giants of old had. Let's not let them close down our ohms and our volts and treat us as dolts.

Let's support Osborne when he stood up and said something to the effect of we are not going to bankrupt Britain to "save the planet".

I'm sure that some of the rich and powerful minority mentioned in the Green document weren't happy when he said that, but the people certainly were (even the ones stacking shelves) because they saw hope and a future on the horizon.

Let's build whole new towns with homes that are entirely green and have new devices - these magnetic devices that provide almost free energy. Let's attract people to live in these towns where fuel would be esentially free instead of the fuel that has doubled since 2004 and which is still increasing and their green targets where they expect us to reduce our energy consumption by 40%.

Let's not be deindustrialised and priced out of energy and reduced in our standard of living to meet their low-growth carbon targets that will put millions into fuel poverty and make them unable to enjoy a standard of living that was the norm 20 years ago.

Let's create a new industrial revolution, let's use our creative productive engineering capacity and increase living standards for people (rather than reduce them as their green targets demand).

Let's not sit back and allow the negative thinking and doom and gloom of some of the things stated in the Green Party's 'Manifesto for a Sustainable Society' to occur.

"The quality of life of all, except for that of a very rich and powerful minority, will decline. As such problems intensify, it becomes easy for authoritarian regimes to gain control and to impose draconian solutions. It is desirable that peoples should avoid this by voluntarily taking responsible action now so that without repressive measures human numbers are eventually brought into balance."

and

"It should be clearly understood that the Party does not support repressive or coercive population control measures but, rather, is seeking to avoid their imposition

www.sci.sdsu.edu/salton/Immigration_PopGreenParty.html#Population

Let's plan for growth, let's invest for growth, let's build and train our employed, let's not stack shelves while Rome and civilization burns and we descend into a green nightmare of zero-growth, zero prospects and zero hope whiile as the Green document says the quality of life of all, except for that of a very rich and powerful minority, will decline

It's almost as if someone would prefer that to happen.

I agree I would prefer the work to be done in the public sector if we have the skills for it there.

No, I don't know about the Skye bridge.

I agree the private sector are the best to take on building bridges and laying motorways. My father was a civil engineer in the private sector and maintained that councils employed struggling engineers. He worked for a large multi-national travelling all over the globe and most of the workers were supplied by sub-contractors. However when it comes to everyday routine maintenance work LA and tax payer are usually best served by employing directly.

have you looked into the Skye bridge fiasco Claig?

Yes, but I think our building giants, the type of companies who built the Channel Tunnel, really are experts. If they can't train people up and build great things, then we really are stuffed.

Let's demand excellence, let's expect the best, let's build the best and train people with the best, for the best by the best.

They tried to get "experts" to provide the security too and look what happened with that.

'No lets not give tax payers money to corporations.'

You are self-employed. If teh government hired you to train someone, they would have to pay you.

The government, able as this Coalition one is, haven't got the skills to build Olympic stadiums. Trhey had to get experts to do it.

There is nothing wrong with paying for teh services of private business to perform useful roles of training and supervising people. The product of teh labour and teh revenue from teh tolls would all belong to the government and the nation.

'Perhaps we should just fuck workfare out the window and employ people.'

But let's be realistic, that is not going to happen. New Labour sowed teh seeds of workfare by taking on some of the American ideas when they were in power and teh great and the good have decided that there will be workfare. So if there is workfare, let's at least train people up with great skills so that they can gain real employment afterwards and let's have them doing things that help the nation rather than the stores.

No lets not give tax payers money to corporations. The last thing we need is more privatisation. Lets not allow a situation where people are trained at tax payers expense on welfare, only to be employed on minimum wage zero hrs contracts in the private sector and then have to top up their money with tax credits and HB.

Let's train people up on workfare to gain useful skills and to help the community. Let's train people to become plumbers and builders and painters and decorators and roofers by renovating dilapidated buildings and factories and converting abandoned factories into accommodation that will all be bought and belong to the nation.

Pretty sure that theres a whole army of people already qualified in the trades who are going on workfare because there are no jobs in these areas.

Perhaps we should just fuck workfare out the window and employ people.

'No lets employ people directly and cut out the waste of tax payers money going to big contractors.'

But Duncan Smith, able as he is, and the civil servants haven't got the skills to run large-scale building projects. Let's let the experts run them and pay them to train and supervise people on real jobs not just on classes in colleges, and let's let all the things produced belong to the nation.

I agree with the investment into a crumbling infrastructure however government funding should not be used to train people and give them welfare so that at some unspecified time in the future private businesses reap the rewards of tax payers money.

Let's extend hospitals, let's build new schools, let's build a new airport. Let's not wait and talk about it. Let's do it now and let's train unemployed people how to do it.

Building suppliers would provide the goods and make money, engineering firms would be rolling and the whole economy would be active and there would be money in people's pockets, a trained workforce and a benefit to the taxpayer.

Let's let the stores pay for their own shelf-stacking teams, let's put people to productive work for the entire community.

No lets employ people directly and cut out the waste of tax payers money going to big contractors. train them, give them a living wage and supervise them.

The cost of building roads would all be repaid by the tolls and the people on workfare would learn real skills.