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]

[TheCrackFox]

Betsygate

Sorry, I know my link is Wikipedia but it seems fairly in line with how I remember it.

[MiniTheMinx]

We all have an inflated sense of entitlement and have become used to luxuries that were unheard of even a few decades ago.
That's the trouble and that's why the masses never will rise up against the ruling classes. They're do busy surfing the web and planning their next purchase.

[moondog]

I'm surprised you don't remember Betsygate Edam.
You being right on journo and all.

It's true that politicians have a sense of entitlement.
I'm quite friendly with an MP who was a neighbour both before and after he became one and his stories about what goes on are pretty outrageous.

Mind you. so do trade union officilas
They're all as bad as each other.

I'd agree with the concept of a growing super elite who do not feel bound by the rules of the rest of us but again, unless the proletariat put down their remote controls and wake up, they will continue to do so.

I went to the protst outside St Pauls, listened to a few talks and hung out in some of the tents.
Am still amazed that such a raggle taggle tiny group of folk raised so much fear. Think what people could do if they really got organised and put down the Special Brew..

[limitedperiodonly]

I think he has reinvented himself and has had a really noble stab at getting this stuff sorted.

[[http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2002/12_december/19/newsnight_ids_cv.shtml He certainly has. Though some might say that making mistakes on your CV might be interpreted less as noble and more like
lying]]

[moondog]

Limited, I really thoguht you had come up with something slacious there.
He told a few porkies on his CV.
Heinous crime then.

Betsygate was better than that.

[limitedperiodonly]

I enjoyed the Betsy fraud too. But it had been mentioned before and I always go for variety.

I'd really like to see Duncan Smith being asked whether he would advise jobseekers to tell a few porkies on their CVs every time this mediocrity is prating about the unemployed.

[moondog]

Bob Crow can always be relied on

[TheCrackFox]

It is such a shame that most politicians and trade unionists seem to be such a bunch of greedy, entitled, incompetents.

[moondog]

According to my MP friend, surprisingly easy to enter politics if you put up with all the dull weekday meetings, coffee mornings and fund raisers for a few years.
He says the problem is attracting peopel of calibre.

That is evident.
David Cameron and Milliband.
Both utterly pathetic.

[limitedperiodonly]

I don't find Bob Crow to be incompetent, thecrackfox. Greedy, possibly. But if I was a member of the RMT I'd be quite happy with his performance.

[MoreBeta]

Just to enrage you all even further - here is a story in The Sun saying MPs of all parties just voted to block a price rise in the cost of booze and food in House of Commons bars and cafes.

Apparently they think it is not fair to raise prices as they have not had a pay rise for 2 years. They need to work and eat in the real world.

[moondog]

Yes Beta, that is atrocious.

[TheCrackFox]

That is really bad, Beta but not at all surprisinging.

[undercoverhousewife]

I agree with the poster who said an employed shelf stacker is of more use to the country than an unemployed geologist.

Sadly, we cannot afford to keep people on the dole for months and months because they are too grand to take the jobs that are available: nobody has the right to keep taking taxpayer money if they have the choice to be self sufficient. If we assume this graduate was not simply being too grand to take a shelf stacker job (and people on JSA have a moral obligation to take jobs if they are available) then we have to conclude that she lacked the skills but is now able to learn them (still at our expense - we pay the JSA). When she is good enough to actually get a paid job as a shelf stacker (and not just work experience) then she will get the minimum wage or more.

Having said all that, I do feel sorry for her - we are setting up the young to fail when we are sending so many to university when they are not going to gain anything of career value from it. This graduate might well have had a job by now had she, say, begun looking for museum work as a school leaver (if this is the area that interests her).

[plonko]

Housewife, she does currently work, for wages, in a supermarket whilst continuing to volunteer. Museum work is impossible to come by for the unqualified. If her benefits were cut because she refused the offer of paid work I might agree with you, but that's not the case.

[moondog]

'Museum work is impossible to come by for the unqualified.'
Oh please.
Noble as it is, it's hardly neurosurgery.

[PeahenTailFeathers]

I know this thread has moved on a bit but this really makes my blood boil.

I saw IDS on the AM show this morning, making his pathetic excuses for Workfare, and he trotted out the tired old line about Terry Leahy starting his career stacking shelves in an attempt to justify free labour for companies. Terry Leahy got paid!

[ivykaty44]

surely though all this sending our a level students to uzi keeps them off the streets and unemployed lists, it gives more people jobs at uni's to cope with all the extra students, it gives buy to let landlords an income - it is all good for the economy getting these people into large debt which will be written of after 30 years.

[plonko]

Moondog - from personal experience I can tell you that even with a history degree you need extra qualifications in archiving and all sorts if you want to work in a museum. Get off that high horse of yours.

[noddyholder]

Moondog my dp works in museums/historic buildings and you are talking bolleaux.

[MoreBeta]

It seems perfectly OK to me to ask Miss Reilly to take a paid job in a shop while she is looking for her preferred job. That is what she is now doing.

What the Tory Pary dont seem to realise is that it is not OK to force someone to work for nothing if there are no paying jobs and pretend it is 'training' or 'work experience'.

In reality there has been a lot of lobbying from business to get rid of minimum wage and this is one way of doing it. Not only do young people have a lower minimum wage than adults anyway but now this policy effectively sets the minimum wage at zero but without having to actually announce it as a policy.

[ivykaty44]

Plonks, you do not need a degree to work in archiving

[noddyholder]

All archivists where dp works have degrees and masters You may be able to do the job without (like many jobs!) but you will likely be up against a graduate at interview and indeed selection for interview stage.

[limitedperiodonly]

That's true, noddyholder. There are loads of jobs that you can do without a degree, mine for example, but if you want to get a sniff at them these days you must have a degree to get an interview.

And yet we're discouraging young people from studying valid courses by sneering at their unrealistic dreams and saddling them and their parents with debt.

Neat trick to corrall some jobs within the small pool of society that's always done them and doesn't like competition.

[ivykaty44]

Noddy, that is not the case in all archives