Britain is broke...

[max_tranmere]

muffinman, you say the EU is undemocratic. So is Britain. Do the people really have any input into anything? Governments are elected on about 20% of the vote (if you include all the absteiners), and 36% of those who voted at the last election voted for the Labour Party. It does largely whatever it likes, just like the Tories used to do.

[max_tranmere]

Guilbert, the Benefits system is certainly there for people who dont want to work and want to be supported for life. Obviously people who need it should get it but a lot of receipients are just on a long holiday. Apparently if you are on Incapacity you can get about ?200 a week to live on. This comprises Incapacity Benefit, Disability Living Allowance, and a third one that I cant remember the name of. I personally have worked since I was 18 so have only heard about these things. Add to all that your rent in a city as expensive as London, your council tax and National Insurance paid, and you will be getting something like ?400-?450 per week off of them. If you earn ?30,000 a year you will take home about ?1,800-1,900 a month, these people are on the equivilant of a 30k a year salary basically. And that is just if the person is single and lives in a one-bedroom place. Imagine a couple, numerous kids (and all the money they will get), a house paid for by the State (big money to rent in London), free school meals, free school uniforms, etc, for the kids, and the figure is HUGE! Social Security, just like the NHS, is a very good thing, but is abused and is a bonfire of money for the Government. I genuinely wonder whether the people who set both of these things up in 1948 would have done so if they knew the vast monies the two would come to cost in later years.

[max_tranmere]

What I find really ironic is that it was Maggie who started our deep immersement in Europe, something she was fundementally against, but did it for political reasons to keep her job. Nigel Lawson had resigned as her Chancellor and John Major was the new Chancellor. He was really adamant about us joining the ERM. This was the late-1980's. Kenneth Clarke spoke about this some time later, he said "she couldnt lose two chancellors, that would have finished her, so into the ERM we went..." Incredible that she did something she was passionately against, but saw saving her own neck as more important than what was best for the country. And look at the problems it caused - when we were ejected from the ERM in September 1992 the country lost more money in one afternoon than would have been sufficient to build FORTY FIVE district hospitals! Mayor, who was PM by then, and his Chancellor Norman Lamont, didn't apologise and didnt seem to care.

[max_tranmere]

Reggie, I was referring to people who are 'on the sick'. Look at the figures I gave, you can be on the equivilant of a 30k annual salary and it is harder for them to move you off it - unlike if you are on the dole. I think you have an annual review, but the person then just says they still have the problems they had and they stay on Benefit. It is well known that many people who are 'on the sick' are on it for life.

[max_tranmere]

Reggie, obviously there are genuine cases and some people who just take the piss, but they always refer to the 'hidden unemployed' as being a large chunk of those on disability. Thatcher encouraged this in the 1980s, I remember seeing a programme not so long ago about this and a former dole office worker from that period said they were told that people coming in who had just lost their jobs - this was in a region where Thatcher had pulled the plug on an industry and everyone was suddenly out of work - they should be asked whether they have any physical ailments. Apparently if someone even 'suffered' from headaches or had a pain in their ankle that gave them jip, the dole people were told to immediately put them on Incapacity. Even if those very mild things never prevented them from working previously. This was nothing short of a scam by Thatcher to keep the unemployment figures down. Also, those who are on the sick can just say they have this or that wrong with them - like they are depressed, traumatised, have a bad back, constant stomach pains, or whatever, and the DSS has to beleive them. There is no way the DSS can prove they are not telling the truth. They can not get inside their head and discover this person does not really have an issue so they have to honour their claim. This way many people can fake it and get Incapacity for as long as they want to.

[belfast_birty]

Definition of a politician-Someone who can spend your and my money,faster than we can make it!