Work for Benefits, or lose them : Wed Sep 04, 2013 8:31 pm  

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/09/04/benefit-claimants-taxpayers-alliance-work-dole_n_3863951.html?utm_hp_ref=uk Sometimes politicians come up with the most ridiculous of ideas and unfortunately sometimes those politicians are in a position of governing power and sometimes they put their most ridiculous of ideas into practice. Fortunately this doesn't apply to The Taxpayers Alliance, they play at being politicians but they aren't really politicians and as such they have to say outrageous things in order to get reported in the newspapers, and hence publicity - and they are very good at publicity as they seem to get more column inches than any other pressure group or pseudo political movement in existence - they have very good publicity agents you have to admit. But now and again even they come up with an idea that take even the feeble minded just a few seconds thought to see the obvious flaw, and today was that day, for today was the day that The Taxpayers Alliance suggested that anyone in receipt of out-of-work benefits who was not willing to do at least 30 hours per week of work, work experience, training, charity work or active job seeking with a job centre aide would have his/her out of work benefits stopped. And you stop and you think for two seconds and then it suddenly hits you - if you can find thirty hours work for an unemployed person THEN THEY WOULDN'T BE FEKKING UNEMPLOYED ANYMORE YOU THICK PILLOCK. There are so many things wrong about this suggestion that its almost immoral to start pointing them out for fear of total humiliation for the authors, but here are a few for starters... 1. The aforementioned requirement to work for "at least" 30 hours in order to be unemployed, if you can find 30 hours worth of work for every unemployed person then you've solved the unemployment problem overnight and we will be back in the realms of the 1950s and full employment again - except that you can't. 2. You can't compel someone to work 30 hours a week for £65 a week, its illegal. HM Government will be paying people less than one third of the national minimum wage and will have to haul themselves off to a court to face charges of breaking employment laws, probably employing their own CPS to prosecute them, possibly using a trainee lawyer who is doing it as work experience for 30 hours a week etc. 2. You can't subsidise thousands of businesses across the land who will be handed as many employees as they like to work 30 hours a week for £65, if you do then you're going to find that a similar number of currently employed folk suddenly become unemployed, so the more you push them out of the front door into pseudo jobs, the more they flood in through the back door - and then the European Courts will suddenly sit up and notice that UK businesses are having their wage bills subsidised by central government to the tune of 75 or 80%, back to court we go with the trainee lawyers on work experience etc etc. For a pressure group who are supposedly right wing in their "light government" approach to problems, they are doing a hell of a good job at revealing their communist answers to all ills, if we follow their guidance it won't be too long before the whole country is working for the government for £65 a week.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/09/04/benefit-claimants-taxpayers-alliance-work-dole_n_3863951.html?utm_hp_ref=uk Sometimes politicians come up with the most ridiculous of ideas and unfortunately sometimes those politicians are in a position of governing power and sometimes they put their most ridiculous of ideas into practice. Fortunately this doesn't apply to The Taxpayers Alliance, they play at being politicians but they aren't really politicians and as such they have to say outrageous things in order to get reported in the newspapers, and hence publicity - and they are very good at publicity as they seem to get more column inches than any other pressure group or pseudo political movement in existence - they have very good publicity agents you have to admit. But now and again even they come up with an idea that take even the feeble minded just a few seconds thought to see the obvious flaw, and today was that day, for today was the day that The Taxpayers Alliance suggested that anyone in receipt of out-of-work benefits who was not willing to do at least 30 hours per week of work, work experience, training, charity work or active job seeking with a job centre aide would have his/her out of work benefits stopped. And you stop and you think for two seconds and then it suddenly hits you - if you can find thirty hours work for an unemployed person THEN THEY WOULDN'T BE FEKKING UNEMPLOYED ANYMORE YOU THICK PILLOCK. There are so many things wrong about this suggestion that its almost immoral to start pointing them out for fear of total humiliation for the authors, but here are a few for starters... 1. The aforementioned requirement to work for "at least" 30 hours in order to be unemployed, if you can find 30 hours worth of work for every unemployed person then you've solved the unemployment problem overnight and we will be back in the realms of the 1950s and full employment again - except that you can't. 2. You can't compel someone to work 30 hours a week for £65 a week, its illegal. HM Government will be paying people less than one third of the national minimum wage and will have to haul themselves off to a court to face charges of breaking employment laws, probably employing their own CPS to prosecute them, possibly using a trainee lawyer who is doing it as work experience for 30 hours a week etc. 2. You can't subsidise thousands of businesses across the land who will be handed as many employees as they like to work 30 hours a week for £65, if you do then you're going to find that a similar number of currently employed folk suddenly become unemployed, so the more you push them out of the front door into pseudo jobs, the more they flood in through the back door - and then the European Courts will suddenly sit up and notice that UK businesses are having their wage bills subsidised by central government to the tune of 75 or 80%, back to court we go with the trainee lawyers on work experience etc etc. For a pressure group who are supposedly right wing in their "light government" approach to problems, they are doing a hell of a good job at revealing their communist answers to all ills, if we follow their guidance it won't be too long before the whole country is working for the government for £65 a week.

Re: Work for Benefits, or lose them : Thu Sep 05, 2013 7:19 am  

You've pretty much nailed it there.
The only thing I would add is that there are people (probably many people) out there who believe that the unemployed should have to work for their benefits in sweeping the streets and tidying-the-community type of projects etc.
The same people who believe this often believe that the public sector is over-staffed ... and can't see the contradiction.

Re: Work for Benefits, or lose them : Thu Sep 05, 2013 9:14 am  

Good post Jerrychicken I agree with everything you wrote. I'm pretty sure if you look into this 'Taxpayers Alliance ' you'll find its funded by corporate interests rather than the average taxpayer!

Re: Work for Benefits, or lose them : Thu Sep 05, 2013 9:31 am  

Agree with every word. Great post.

Re: Work for Benefits, or lose them : Thu Sep 05, 2013 10:34 am  

Great post. But these are the same sort of people who were floating that surely, pensioners should have to work for their pensions.

Re: Work for Benefits, or lose them : Fri Sep 06, 2013 4:11 pm  

I'd suggest the minimum wage would appall even some Asian countries
under 25's get £56.80 per week
Universal credit expects 35 hours a week job searching as part of the contract to get this benefit
now add in 30 hours of additional work
means for every hour of directed activity, you are paid £0.87.

Re: Work for Benefits, or lose them : Mon Sep 09, 2013 10:44 am  

And will they also be expected to pay their own bus fare to get to these jobs.

Re: Work for Benefits, or lose them : Mon Sep 09, 2013 4:35 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

The same people who believe this often believe that the public sector is over-staffed ... and can't see the contradiction.

The economy needs to become less dependent on the public sector, particularly in the north.

1999-2009, something like 400,000 new public sector jobs. No doubt many of them 'non' jobs paying decent salaries.

Re: Work for Benefits, or lose them : Mon Sep 09, 2013 4:45 pm  

The Video Ref wrote:

The economy needs to become less dependent on the public sector, particularly in the north.

1999-2009, something like 400,000 new public sector jobs. No doubt many of them 'non' jobs paying decent salaries.

In which case, you won't be in favour of the sort of local authority jobs that people would have to do to get their benefits?

Re: Work for Benefits, or lose them : Mon Sep 09, 2013 6:35 pm  

The Video Ref wrote:

The economy needs to become less dependent on the public sector, particularly in the north.

1999-2009, something like 400,000 new public sector jobs. No doubt many of them 'non' jobs paying decent salaries.

The suggestion is that "up to" one million employed who work less than 30 hours per week who are in receipt of in-work benefits should spend up to 30 hours per week actively seeking work with a job centre mentor able to confirm that the person has indeed done their servitude this week.

Anyone with any experience of a job centre will know that the job of a job centre member of staff is to point to the computers and the single telephone on the wall and tell you "The jobs are in there", and to repeat that for as many appointments as they have that day (possibly hundreds of times).


So now the suggestion is that the unemployed will be joined by up to one million employed but under-employed people, all of whom will require one-to-one mentoring in order to make up their allocated 30 hours per week and receive their in work benefits.

Sounds like a wonderful fix to the unemployment problem, the job centres are going to need hundreds of thousands of new front counter staff to deal with all of this.