Save the Children launches appeal for children in the UK

[Vagaceratops]

BBC link

And it will get worse :(

What sort of 'significant minority'? 10%? 20%? 30%?

I don't know, I would have to think about it and do research. Which isn't going to happen. My opinion is based on my experience and the people I know or know of.

If she does claim, if she is still even entitled to it that is, what does it matter?

Because Outraged Xenia was the one banging on citing the mythical example of 70/80 year olds not claiming even what they are entitled to and how this "example" has not filtered down to the younger generation.
So i wondered if it had filtered down to her.
im asking if she practices what SHE HERSELF preaches and that is why it is relevant to the thread.

Really surprised that a certain post hasnt been removed from this thread.

Oh and Outraged.... im not the one preaching things i dont practice. Therefore im not the hypocrite. Purchase yourself a decent dictionary. You need one.

I am being misconstrued here. I said many of a much older generation did not believe in taking any support from the state. I have said on many musnet posts that I think it is not the fault of those who claim benefits that the system in some ways is set up to reward them for idleness and it is not their fault to take what the state says they can have. However in their long term interests it can sometimes be worth taking on those 3 cleaning jobs at awful hours because that can and indeed does in some cases lead to the cleaning supervisor job and trhe better paid job in Manchester once you have the experience and references.

As I said above IDS says most people are on benefits for a year after losing a job and then get back into work and he is trying through his reforms to make the system better and it is getting better but certainly even when changed it will still not be perfect becauseo f the dilemma of how you have a welfare state but also do not reward the idle. One answer is workfare and increasingly the labour party introduced that and this Government has continued it. The Socialist republics in Eastern Europe had something similar too. Work seems to give people purpose and get them out of bed and imposes discipline upon them.

I can only speak for my own parents (mid-60s) but less than 3 weeks ago my mum was working part-time and is now in a wheelchair (for life). She has been ill for several years and it's absolutely alien for them to even consider claiming benefits - my dad does simply not comprehend how he can be entitled to "carer's allowance" simply for looking after his own wife and supporting the vows he made 40 years ago. They need help now, to buy a better chair if nothing else and to get a cleaner in. I've spent at least 18 months trying to get them to fill in the forms.

Actually my mum has been very ill for 30+ years with illnesses which would now automatically qualify her for various benefits - but it's just not the way she's chosen to live her life.

I am starting to agree with some of Xenia's ideas, I would call it Xenia-lite. I too think that IDS has got it right, to target very troubled families first. He is actually in touch with these people, he has bothered to spend time on those estates.

I also agree that benefit should be a flat fee which individuals decide what to do with. They get an amount to cover all their costs and it is their choice how to spend it, with an employment income allowance.

I went to the USSR in the old days and there was indeed full employment, workforce works, but is not morally far from slavery and we need to take that into account. People should have enough time left in their workfare week to study and look for other work.

But where I disagree with Xenia is where we accuse people of being weak, greedy or lazy. The assumption that if they really wanted it enough they would make it happen is unrealistic and simplistic.

Im not the one preaching things I don't practice

Maybe, maybe not, but this isn't a tit for tat playground arguement, it's a debate.

therfore, I'm not the hypocrite

We will have to agree to disagree on that one then. I think it is quite hypocritical to support some people claiming what they are entitled to when you believe they are worthy of it, and more, but then to use someone else's claim (if they have one) against them when you disagree with their opinions.

at Xenia-lite!

The people not bothering may well be doing so because they think they will never get anywhere, they think it's minimum wage shit and benefits for them because they are useless.

I really do think people are not understanding the impact telling a whole load of people they are lazy, useless, feckless, scrounging, worthless etc has on people, do you think it motivates people? No it doesn't, tell someone they are a piece of shit all the time a d they will believe it eventually.

Workfare is new deal under another name, and that has about as much in common with work as community service orders, you get treated like shit, ignored by everyone else in the shop because you are just the job centre scrounger and given the dogs body work.

Do you think you learn skills workfare? You are not allowed to go anywhere near the tillsso you are not taught anything about that, you are not customer facing, you are just a free shelf stacker or floor cleaner for a few weeks only ever spoken to when being ordered around or accused of slacking because you are having your lunch break.

I did new deal worked in an animal home and 4 shops, they have about as much in common with having a real job as sleeping in a tent vs a tent has to a five star hotel. It makes you dread work if you've never had a job before and don't know it's different.

Tent vs a 5 star hotel, i really need to find a way to turn this predictive text off.

Workfare (or whatever it is they are calling it) is the New Deal under another name, so I don't understand why it always gets blamed on Tory scum with ideas for workhouses. It's ridiculous.

There used to be a girl on New Deal where I worked. She left the programme in the end to do some formal training because she was barly allowed to do anything, and my work refused to take anyone else.

We were a charity, and we didn't get time or funding to be able to give her particularly productive work experience, we would have had to send her on manual handling courses and take time away from patients to be able to give it to her. The patients, and beneficiaries of the charity were prepared to help with training for new staff members, as they did for me, but they couldn't be expected to do that for someone that would be gone in a matter of weeks. it was a nightmare trying to find things she could do, and it definatly didn't do the charity any favours to have her there. I imagine this is simelar to companies who take on workfare today.

Well the best places i was on where charities at least they talked to you nicely and tried to help, i spent some time in a cancer research UK shop round the back sorting stock, they wouldn't teach me customer service because you have to volunteer with them for 3months before you are allowed near the til, avarage duration of nd 6 weeks.

No ones going to bother, i spent 4 weeks alone in the basement of wh smiths, cleaning all the old vhs tapes out of a stock room, when it was all done i got chucked out and spent the last two weeks in some interview skills place you are only meant to be in two days a week, because they didn't know what to do with me.

There are two reasons some kindo f workfare is sensible.
(1) those of us who work very hard to fund those who don't work want to see those getting those benefits doing something whetehr it benefits them or not - better they stand all day in Oxfam doing very little than sit on the sofa watching televison all day.

(2) it gets people who may not be used to having the baby and toddler ready by 7.15am like the rest of we full time working parents have to do and ourselves ready for work and then leave the house - it imposes that order and discipline and routine and yes it is not fun getting them all up and ready as we had to with 5 children including baby twins by 7.15 when youj've been up most of the night with the babies but it certainly ensures you stay in the habit of work and gives you lots of benefits long term.

People with kids are not on workfare.

The whole system is a scam, onemployment is a big business, when i was on nd, i got 67 a week, the job search places which are awful are contracted bathe government, ministers have shares in them and they charged the dwp 150 per client per week and where often over booked telling clients to fuck off home in the hopes they wouldn't tell the jcp so they could still keep the money.

The shops getting the nd staff where paid 370 per client per week, that was more then the amount they paid the lower staff at the time.

Job search places are a joke, out of date newspapers, just free ones like the metro anyway, half hour slot on the pc a day, can't download application forms because the internet security is too tight and if you ask for it to be turned off they just say no, go to the library.

People to help you make a cv who have English as a second language and no formal training in how to do it, it's laughable, going home with a badly spelled lie filled cv printed on yellow paper to stand out featuring your age, sex and NI number, it would be funny if they where not raking it in.

You know what i want to see? college let them go to college for free and learn something, let them get free driving lession etc.

Only training you did on nd was accredited pc skills and customer service skills courses that gave you an in house certificate at the end not worth the paper it was written on.

UNaccredited*

So I had heard. We could easily have groups of mothers with children looking after each other's children whilst the mothers did very useful work, even just going into old people's homes for 6 hours a day to chat to the old people. There are all kinds of things we need people to do and those on benefits would feel much better knowing they were doing something for the money.

Free driving lessons!? Are you serious? Is there anything else you eat handed out for free on a silver platter?

Lol and how do you propose to do that, you think the jcp should order 10 mothers who don't know each other to leave their kids with one of them, who has no training in childcare, who's character is completely unknown. Get real.

Job centre is full of vacancies that require driving, would you like those vacancies filled, or would you like to continue the merry go round of funding unaccredited basic pc skills courses that are not worth the paper they are printed on.

I've got 3 all the same basic pc skills, from bcg training ltd would you like one?.

The vacancies can be filled by people who are already qualified or whom the company feels is worthy of training so they can pay for it.

There is no way the state should pay for driving lessons! And if they are going to, seeing as how driving is a luxury, they should fund it for everyone. Not just those people who wasted their chance for free education up until the age of 19.

I would not be happy for my taxes to go on free driving lessons. i have just paid for my first dd and it is so expensive and as Freddo says a luxury. should we buy such people a car whilst we are at it.

maybe Xenia's idea is not so bad if the mother was trained as a childminder is.

Lol so no training in something useful but fine to pay service providers hundreds a week for mickey mouse training in pointless crap.

You people are unbelievable, do you really think business are going to train people up?, why do you think they keep going to Poland to recruit bus drivers, they will not train you for the licences only to drive the actual bus once you have the licences anyway, and people in Europe have the licences, training is cheaper and easier there, look at welders for example, most i this country do it as a hobby, they have no degree in it, so the factories look to Europe, where people still train in such skills.