Iain Duncan Smith really is an arse isn't he?

[MaryMotherOfCheeses]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21490542

"The next time somebody goes in - those smart people who say there's something wrong with this - they go into their supermarket, ask themselves this simple question, when they can't find the food they want on the shelves, who is more important - them, the geologist, or the person who stacked the shelves?"




There is so much wrong with this that I can't even begin. [cross]

[domesticgodless]

So better for her to just settle for a lifetime in poundland after a few months on the dole eh Rhiannon?

What fine forward planning. I think you are a loss to student careers advice :D

[moondog]

Yes, equally do not beleive that peopel out of work can have license to pick and choose their work placements (beyond choosing not to work for huge companies who make £££££)

It means everyone will want to do reiki healing or be professional story tellers or do modern dance.

[domesticgodless]

Hmm moondog I agree with you again :S blimey!! However most people (even graduates!) actually have quite realistic career aspirations which should be nurtured rather than blown to bits. It is a total blow to social mobility if only rich kids can work in a certain field because it requires years of unpaid work. We are already seeing the results of this in our blinkered media.

[domesticgodless]

Duh, Rhiannon. She had worked in retail already. Understandably, being a bright girl it seems, she aspired to better and was working on this.

Your race-to-the-bottom mentality is typical of these times sadly. No one can aspire to better than minimum wage employment unless they are already rich enough to do so, eh?

But it's fine to lavish taxpayer's money on poverty pimps like A4E (did you look them up btw? Really, do, if you don't have a heart attack at the amount of taxpayer's money they are sucking up to 'place' people in work they can already do, I'll eat a copy of the Daily Mail)

[VerlaineChasedRimbauds]

Rhiannon. Did you miss the bit that explained that she DOES have a job in a supermarket? She wasn't expecting to have a lifetime on the dole and volunteering in the museum, she was expecting to get PAID for working in a supermarket. Wouldn't you expect to get paid if you worked in a supermarket?

How do you know she isn't doing exactly that? Looking for a career in a museum work whilst working in a supermarket? The whole point is, she shouldn't have to work in a supermarket for nothing. That's why we have NMW legislation.

[limitedperiodonly]

Museums can be very effective retail environments what with their caffs and gift shops, as I'm sure anyone whose child has been on a school trip can testify.

And then there's that educational nonsense...

[BreconBeBuggered]

How do you square supporting yourself with being forced to work for well below minimum wage?

[domesticgodless]

Duh again Rhiannon.

Cait Reilly was sent to Poundland at the expense of several other people. Taxpayers... oh, and the person who should have been paid to do the job.

Heheh so now aspiration is 'daydreaming'. What a laugh.

[ivykaty44]

So the work fare is not for work experience then it is just free work for the sake of it, nothing at all to do with getting people into jobs that they have qualifications for but no experience

So take a low paid job and we will as the government never see the 40k back you racked up at uni

Seems silly

Why not let her continue her volunteer job and possibly then get a job in the field she has trained and earn more money and pay back her fees

Rather than force her into retail work which she already had experience and will not earn much
So not earn over the level to start paying back her loan

[domesticgodless]

Indeed Verlaine. Rhiannon is just obsessed with her fairytale image of entitled daydreamers sitting in their pretty little museums forever while living it up on £53 a week for the privilege.

Cait Reilly works part time in Morrisons. What a skiver eh.

[ivykaty44]

Why bother going to uni then, why not leave school and do work fare then get job in retail and save all the fees malarkey

[domesticgodless]

Dont' give them ideas ivykaty :D

[domesticgodless]

Tbh the whole point of the university fees thing is to make education eventually unaffordable for the plebs. Later governments will withdraw the loan thing entirely as in the US. So what you are saying will come true. No one but the children of the rich need aspire to anything above retail and fast food work.

[VerlaineChasedRimbauds]

You are still not understanding it, I don't think, Rhiannon. Being forced to work in Poundland whilst on the dole is not supporting yourself, is it? It's not supporting yourself being on the dole and volunteering at a museum either. But one of these scenarios is not using tax payers money to subsidise big business (who already make huge profits) whilst providing far less benefit to the JSA claimant in terms of experience. Can you work out which of these scenarios I am talking about?

I have no problem at all with asking those in receipt of JSA to do work that benefits the community I have a very big problem with forcing them to leave perfectly good community work in order to do a job which should be paid NMW.

[plonko]

Domestic I could not agree more.

[domesticgodless]

Verlaine I would have a problem with the unemployed being forced to do full time charity or community work thus not actually allowing them to look for work they want to do. (I know you're not advocating this btw but no doubt other posters might)

[moondog]

Tbh the whole point of the university fees thing is to make education eventually unaffordable for the plebs

Come now DG. That's utter tripe.
Unfortunately every idiot now wants to go to university and moreover thinks they are perfectly entitled to take a tax payer funded seven year course in friendship bracelet making.

That's the real issue.

[ivykaty44]

There are not enough jobs for school leavers that is why the last government was so keen for everyone to go to uni and spend three more years in education

It delayed the unemployment figures

Now you though there is a problem a delayed problem

[domesticgodless]

I am not aware of any 'friendship bracelet making' courses at my university moondog. But I would agree with you that far too many young people now feel they must have a degree. Arguably however that is not due to sense of entitlement only on their part; employers now demand degrees in god knows what for every job. The last estate agent I met had a 2:2 degree in something or other which he clearly didn't need and by the sound of it didn't enjoy much.

But raising fees was not the way to deal with this. Stupid rich kids will now all have degrees. Clever poor ones won't.

[domesticgodless]

Yes ivykaty v true about the unemployment massaging thing. Unfortunately it just delays the impact of the figures and was ultimately pointless.

[noddyholder]

Oh I think the opposite .The poorer kids are positively encouraged with loans and 'extra' money on top They want them indebted because eventually when they move the student loan goalposts they will 'own' them. The rich will go because they can Its the MC who are dropping out and not even dropping in. I think it will be the very rich and the very poor who go. there is NO WAY the repayment schedule for these loans will stay as is.

[moondog]

I'd actively steer young people away from degrees for the most part these days (and I work in academia too).

A useless degree and a great big debt of ££££££££?
No thanks.