Well said and spot on.

There are a lot of people out there who really do need to be employed in accordance with their experience and qualifications though. When we found ourselves in that situation a few years ago, the first thing we did was sit down and work out how long we could hold out before declaring ourselves personally bankrupt. I was still working full time but the loss of one income inevitably meant the loss of our home. Steve needed time to make the commitment to find the sort of work he needed but no job centre in the land was going to permit him to do that. Fortunately for us we have parents who helped us through the rough times. I have to say though, it gave us such a shake up that once he was back in secure employment we decided to rid ourselves of a hefty mortgage and start living a much more frugal lifestyle. If this ever happens again we'll be ready for it.

No... the government wouldn't be giving them anything. They would be placing them into a job. There are lots of jobs about... not the greatest, highest paying, most satisfying jobs in the world but they would pay the bills till something better came along. And they would pay more than benefits, consequently cutting the bill for tax payers. There are people who are unemployed as a lifestyle, don't try to pretend there aren't.

Why are you amused? I'm amused that you once again totally misconstrued the point I was making and countered it with taking the piss. You're the one who mentioned "dream jobs". I said, till something better came along, something they may be happier doing. I don't see how you could misunderstand that, but you did.

And the latest is, Ian Drunken Smith blows £8.5M on fluffy animated monster as he slashes vital help for disabled people.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...m-6673199#ICID


That's enough to pay for 1,725 young people to get housing benefit for a year.
Or enough to remove 18,813 people from the bedroom tax for a year.
Or enough to let 448 disabled people live independently, instead of in a care home for a year.

Out of interest Livia, what are your views on the continued culling of legal aid? Do you believe we should all have access to the law?

There are not 1.8 million jobs available in the UK Livia. There is, at any one time, about 1/3 of that.

Heaven forfend we should get a third of those people working then. There's always a lot of talk about immigrants claiming benefits but quite honestly, I've hardly met any that don't already have a job, lots of them menial, unsocial hours etc... but they're working.

There are lots and lots of people unemployed and desperately trying to get their lives back on track and they should get all the help they need. But there are a lot who don't intend to work because they're quite comfortable. It's madness...

I deplore it. I continually hear of people who are awarded legal aid despite having huge capital, property, business... and yet ordinary people on an ordinary wage don't seem to qualify. The law should be equally available to everyone, whether you have money or not.

I don't support everything the Tories do. I don't support everything any party does. In my opinion Legal Aid should be untouchable, and so should benefits for the disabled, the NHS, free Further and Higher Education and tax credits for working families.

:clap1:

I'm not denying that there are people who simply have no intention of being in work, I'm just saying that of all of the unemployed, the vast majority desperately want any job. It's obviously not quite as simple as you're making out. For one, I rarely hear of an employer struggling to fill vacancies when they have them... there are plenty of applicants for every position and - certainly around here at least - min wage vacancies are filled within a week of being advertised and have dozens if not hundreds of applicants.

Nowhere is getting "no applicants". If someone is struggling to fill a job position, it's because no one who has tried for the job has been qualified / experienced enough to fill the role. I don't see how the government stepping in to shoehorn a random jobseeker into that job would help anyone either. You'd have someone struggling to do the job, and a business forced to take an employee who is potentially incompetent in the role? I mean, thinking of entry level where I am, which pays only marginally above minimum wage... I can only imagine what would happen if the govt. tried to send in any old jobseeker.

The problem being that "low paid", these days, doesn't mean "anyone can do it". Even at entry level at mine you need to have two things to work where I work; 1) A reasonable level of intelligence (some maths ability, especially) and 2) Skin a foot thick and a decent death stare.

Even being selective we've had really bad hiring decisions. Kids who either struggle with the training and can't be signed off as competent, or ones who are fine with the technical role but crumble as soon as they have to deal with an... *ahem*... "customer query" (AKA deathmatch).

TL;DR - Businesses aren't struggling to fill their vacancies on their own and they don't need the government to step in, blundering around forcing decisions that could damage turnover.

Theres gona be a lot of conservative leaning young families that will be hit hard by these proposals so I'm all for it. Anything to curb Tories popularity.

Great post TS funny how a thread on working people being lied to by the govt has been manipulated to be about the 'feckless' unemployed.
Not considering the fortnightly meetings, the daily job searches, the 13 week review, 26 week review and the work programme.
Here is some information on that.
https://www.gov.uk/government/public...icy-employment

the 15 hour trap though has encouraged people not to work for fear of losing their benefits, it was a system that simply wasn't thought through

http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/624/c...its_624_v3.png

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34572807

Just as expected, working mums will get shafted by these new cuts. Do the Tories realise Working mums tend to vote? A bold step by the Tories that should bounce back very nicely to bite them in the ass.

We can hope for that.

Sadly however, meantime people suffer from having entitlements put in place for them being taken away from them.

Absolute disgrace.

I've said it before and I truly believe they don't care if they are elected next time... they will have bled the country dry and sold anything of any value off by then.

David Cameron doesn't care for sure, because he is off before the 2020 election.
No matter what he does in the next few years, the voters are not getting the chance to kick him out in an election.

At least even being a desperate situation politically John Major still faced the electorate.

I'm suprised by the graph in the link Kizzy provided that shows only the richest will benefit from these cuts. Everyone else pretty much gets shafted. This feels like Thatchers is back.

Surely the Tories realsie they cant do this. This is polictical suicide that should cost them the next election. Particularily when you got the left leaning Corbyn who will be proposing to help all the people who have been hit by these cuts.

There may be many constituents focussed on topics like immigration but when you start taking money out of people pockets then all other issues dont count.

Thatcher looks like a saint next to this lot :/

If they implement this then they are worse than Thatcher.

Laughs, that's exactly what I was going to say Kizzy!

It seems that part of the Scotland deal going through will include the power to "top up" tax credits north of the border. Good news for families in Scotland but also yet another potential source of division and resentment when less well off families in England are struggling just as much. Often more because of things that are already in place such as free prescriptions and of course the big one, University tuition fees.

with respect youre all missing a key point......the minimum wage will not be affordable , a living wage isn't even enforceable, in most areas of Britain for the lowest skilled jobs.
that means thousands of job cuts. how can a small business employing 30 people suddenly afford to pay an extra 25% in wages? in deprived areas? where does this 25% come from? thin air? it wont happen, it cant happen, people will be sacked
meanwhile the number of people arriving on our shores will increase even further when the minimum wage is the highest in Europe and higher than many countries pay their highly skilled workers.....all of which sees more immigration allied to these tens of thousands of job losses in poorest areas because of the unrealistic unaffordable minimum wage rises.

Tax relief for employers will offset it won't it?