To think if the goverment want to cut benefits they should also stop cutting jobs?

[poshsinglemum]

No brainer really isn't it? MORE public sector jobs are needed;not less.

newwave, My MIL got drunk celebrated when one of the Balkan Bastards died (not going to say which one, as that will make her look like a nationalist). She was pretty happy about the other one popping off, too!

newwave - extraordinary.

Barmy, glad you think so but please explain why.

newwave - I guess we should all be judged by our enemies. Mrs T's ability to produce such strong responses is, in my view, evidence of how effective she was in reversing the trend of British decline.

Those that disagree are usually net recipients of benefits who resent the idea of standing on their own two feet and, as I always say in these discussions, their opinions count for very little.

Mrs T killed the N of England - reverse the trend of British decline - she fucking killed it up there - working families suddenly found themselves out of work in their droves. Those "lucky" ones of us left for "the south" in a bid to find work.

newwave

Tax evasion is criminal and should be prosecuted.

Tax avoidance is to be positively encouraged. Indeed, sometimes, the government even encourages it - for example, through ISAs. Everyone should try to minimise their tax bill.

That would force the government to simplify the tax code. The simpler the tax code, the fewer ways to avoid tax.

Private profit is an excellent thing. It creates wealth, funds the creation of new jobs, and generates tax to the Exchequer. It is great news when companies make massive profits. If there is a choice between private profits and benefits as a lifestyle choice, I would choose private profits every time.

Indeed, more of those currently on benefits should think about taking a risk, starting up companies and creating profitable businesses and jobs for themselves. The coalition government is making this much easier (at least outside London and the South East) - startups don't have to pay employer National Insurance for the first ten employees for a couple of years!

MaMoTTaT - Nissan.

didn't do her much good - it remained a Labour stronghold - and what about the rest of the NE? The pits, the steelworks, the industry?

MaMoTTaT There is nothing wrong with getting on your bike and looking for work.

That is why immigrants are often far more highly valued by employers than native Brits. Those who are motivated enough to look so hard for work are generally much better employees than lazy layabouts who are happy on benefits as a lifestyle choice.

I really like genuine, high-skilled economic migrants - not those who can't speak English and come here mainly to scrounge off our benefits system though. There should be at least a 10 year moratorium on all benefits for immigrants and their families.

Barmy, thank you for your considered response.

Thatcher did indeed produce strong responses from the British Public but then again so did Adolf Hitler and of course her bosom buddy and war criminal Pinochet.

Still nice to see she passed her exalting standards on to her children.

As a memeber of a two salary household i dont get any benefits (used to have CB but the kids are to old now) but on your good advice I will discount the views of the unemployed and those on minimum wage (which suprise suprise the tories opposed) as of no value, better still lets take the right to vote away from the feckless layabouts

LFN, I probably would disagree with your politics but at least you have ideas that may work even if I find them somewhat simplistic.

What would help is if people like Dyson did not start up companies in this country and then move them abroad to save money, he then gets a Knighthood for services to industry ffs.

I do like the moratorium though.

And yes we need to break the "generations on the dole" problem but that wont happen with the tories putting 1000's extra on the dole.

newwave

Thanks - I am a fairly conventional libertarian conservative.

There is nothing you can do about globalisation. Imposing unilateral quotas and tariffs on goods or labour is a disaster - it just means no inward investment into Britain. Indeed, the worst thing so far about the coalition, from my perspective, is their quota on non-EU skilled immigrants. It makes no sense other than pandering to populism.

Dyson is just doing the rational thing in setting up his factories overseas. If the government took away some of the costs of employment in Britain - for example, by cutting national insurance - then Britain would become more competitive and more low-end jobs might stay here. Britain isn't going to compete on cost with India and China any time soon - but these little things might make all the difference.

I want to get back to teaching asap but am worried that there won't be the jobs.

LFN

If Germany and Japan can still have an automotive and manufacturing industry then why cant we, their pay and conditions tend to be better than the UK with greater job security.

What I mean by simplistic is that someone on benifits can just start a business with next to no capital and probably little if any business accumn.

By the way we some some of the lowest overall business taxes in the developed world it's not just NI.

I have always voted LibDem but that wont be happening again untill Clegg is gone as for Cable I feel badly let down :(

When Chorus in Wales was closed it was one of the most efficient steel plants in the company, however due to our old friend Mrs. T, it was cheaper and easier for the company to close this than more inefficient plants elsewhere in Europe. What she did was make it easier for companies to shit on workers from a high height.

By slashing public expenditure, private companies also suffer greatly: cut the budget for social housing and you cut the jobs of private contrators building and maintaining the houses; when public sector workers lose jobs, shops and service industries lose income; by cutting education not only do more people end up on benefits, but their future employablity is compromised. In times of economic difficulty the government should increase public spending in order to keep the economy moving. The time to cut public exp. is when the economy is doing well and can cope with it.

Sadly, Dione, when the economy was booming, Gordon Brown did the absolute opposite.

longfingernails - funny how that argument is only every used to justify closing companies that employ ordinary workers. Yet when the City fucked up, they were somehow exempt from the rules that they had been hitting everyone else with for years. It's one rule for most people, another for those who cause the damage.

Cutting employment rights in this country just makes it easier to sack British workers and move production overseas. Notice how car manufacturers are keener to shut British plants than German?

longfingernails - no there's nothing wrong with getting on your bike and looking for work - sadly there were never going to be enough jobs in the south for all of the northerners out of work - and many once they lost their jobs couldn't have afforded to move anyhow.

Huge swathes of the N were left in a fucking great mess.

We were one of the lucky ones where my dad had a fairly decent job and we owned our own house, so were able to (eventually after about 2 1/2yrs on the market) sell and move to rent in the south.

and I'm rather glad that your 10yr idea probably isn't going to be put into place.

my children are part of an "immigrant" family (well half of). Exh worked from 3 weeks after arriving in the UK (first 2 weeks my parents took us on a whistle stop tour of all my family who'd never met him). That was April 2000, he was employed continuously until Jan 2009 - so you'd have left him on the sreeets (ill) because he hadn't been here 10yrs.

Even immigrants lose their jobs (through no fault of their own). Saying those very people who've worked their arse off to get here and work can't use the safety net they'll have been contributing to before losing their job is just bonkers!

Besides - many economic migrants don't even stay for 10yrs.

The City's upset because the quota for non-EU migrants might hamper them importing idiots like that 'Fab Fabio' guy on inflated salaries while failing to tell the FSA they are under investigation by regulators in other countries.

And justifying stupid bonuses with the excuse that they have to compete for employees in international markets. Given that the US and British financial services industry was run by incompetents who plunged the world into chaos and brought capitalism to its knees, I don't think the rest of us should put up with their shit about how they have to reward the greedy.

Litchik, that's as may be, but it will not help for this government to also do the opposite of what is needed. Two wrongs don't make a right. This government needs to do the right thing instead of slavishly following party ideology. They also need to remember that the Conservative party is not in power, it is in coalition. This is hopefully a good thing as if, a year or two down the line, the economy is still in decline despite the punative cuts there will be a LibDem backbench revolt which will bring the government down.

is there actually going to be a saving on benefits if you include housing benefit and council tax benefit that the newly unemployed (as dumped by the public sector) will claim - if you only include JSA - then yes - I should imagine it's a huge saving - but I reckon with rent and council tax thrown in there'll be no savings at all

So just how is someone on benefits meant to find the money to start their own business?? No bank will lend to someone out of work, as they have no way to pay the loan back. Added to that, most people on benefits have no idea how to write a CV, never mind a business plan. These aren't things that are taught in your average inner-city comprehensive school, especially not one that is in a deprived area. How are people on IS, say a lone parent, meant to work if their weekly income is less than the cost of their childcare? In a minimum wage job, you lose so much of your housing benefit etc, that you are actually out of pocket paying for childcare. I think that the poster who said why don't they get out and start a business has never really been on benefits. I have, through no real fault of my own (redundancy without pay when workplace closed down with only 6 days notice), and being unable to find another job that fitted in with the childcare available to me. It's not a barrel of laughs and plasma tv's in reality, not for most people on benefits. It's worrying that you can't afford to pay your electric and gas and water bills if you feed your children their 5 a day. It's not being able to buy them new shoes when they get a hole in them, because a week beforehand you scraped together the money for their school swimming lessons. It's being unable to afford even the cheapest out-of school activities for your children because you just haven't got the £4 a week subs for brownies etc. It's such a barrel of laughs in reality. Even now, my OH works 37.5 hrs a week in a job that he earns £16,500 pa before tax, I'm unable to work due to epilepsy , classed as too disabled to work, (no-one will employ me, been looking for 3 yrs now), but I'm no longer classed as disabled enough to qualify for disability benefits. WHich BTW, I agree with, I'd be happy to work if only some bugger body would actually employ me. I would only be working to pay the childcare in truth though!

I think we're all agreed, the current government, by pushing their 'cut and slash' policies are majorly arsing things up.

Note to Cameron and Osbourne....Stop it.
Note to Clegg...Stop it.
Let's get this country back on its feet. If we can't do that, then let's get this country up a bit so that in a year or two's time we can get back on our feet.

If you lay off millions of workers, at a time when there is a shortage of employment, there will be a huge increase of people claiming benefits.

No brainer, really!

And most of these workers will have been dong a good job, often for peanuts. Take my job for example. TA, in a secondary school. I help several students access school, who otherwise would suffer greatly, or even be unable to even attend school altogether. I get paid 10k a year for my pains, working full time. (A HCA I spoke to recently was shocked about how little we get paid, having assumed that we were on a similar payscale to NHS staff.)

My point is, that the state isn´t really paying any more for me as a working, productive person, who is giving something back to her society, as it would be paying for me to be on benefits, sat watching Jeremy Kyle, feeling depressed.

I am not alone. Most people in the public sector earn low wages, but do an essential job. Yet they will be the ones to lose their jobs, and services will suffer, while the welfare bill will rocket.