Benefits cuts...

[max_tranmere]

Most Governments have tried to tackle Welfare dependancy and most have failed. I wonder how Iain Duncan Smith will get on, somehow I can't see how he will "get 5m people back to work" as he says he will. Also there are not that many vacant positions for those people to take up, no way near that many. I personally think he will have little effect - I read that 93% of new jobs created whilst Gordon Brown was PM went to foreigners so it's a bit rich of any Government to complain that there are loads of Brits who 'could be working'.

Also, it is a wonder to me how Iain Duncan Smith is even in the Government - I remember many senior Tories being furious about him being the party's leader when he was, many even used very sly tactics to try and bring him down. I recall that his wife is called Betsy and there was the 'Betsy-gate issue' which continued for a while. People within the Tory party who hated him started whispering campaigns against his wife in the hope she would get so fed up she would ask him to stand down.

I also recall Michael Portillo saying at the time Iain Duncan Smith was leader of the Conservative party that the former PM John Major was very unhappy that he (Smith) had become the leader of the party. Iain Duncan Smith was apparently one of the biggest thorn's in John Major's side, when he was PM, over issues to do with Europe.

Put all these things together and you have to ask yourself why this man is in the Government, and as for his new ideas for welfare reform actually making a differnce I would say he has litttle chance. What do other people think?

[Ned]

IDS is in that job as a sop to the right of the party. They've given him the welfare job so he can stick the boot in....

The thing is, as you say, there are no jobs and even if there were, someone with, for example, mental health problems is going to be way at the bottom of the list.

The governments of all colours and persuasions have never got their heads around the futility and pointlessness of most training schemes. They're of no use and are an expensive way of massaging the figures. They do very little good for the long term sick.

I remember seeing a documentary about a guy who was very highly qualified in his field, but who had developed severe depression which meant he could no longer work. He had no chance of holding down a job, despite his qualifications, because there was no guarantee he would be well enough to work two consecutive days, let alone hold down a contract of six months. He wasn't claiming because he was better off (I think he was an architect, which is not exactly a low paid job) and he was being cut loose from the benefit system just when he needed it. The system didn't care at all about him. What is someone like that supposed to do?

[crofter]

"What is someone like that supposed to do?"

Save up for a rainy day??

But putting money aside then I don't think the benefits system would cut him loose no matter how well off he was - they would still offer him support and help I guess.

[number 6]

This guy duncan smith will make it so hard to get IB you will practiclaly have to be at deaths door,just watch the reaction this have on people in a few years when it really kicks on. It will be like living in victorian england.

[tommy dickfingers]

Now i feel depressed listening to you lot,we have got'n to used to hearing the phrase WHAT AM I ENTITLED TO,ian duncan smith has spent the last 2 years looking into the welfare state and how we can sort it out lets just see what they can come up with over the next few years.look at the problems in europe in greece,portugal and now italy they have been living a lifestyle which the countries cannot afford with a massive dependency on welfare,you cannot keep spending like labour did for the last 13 years throwing money around hoping some of it will stick creating a dependency on big government to run our lives.

[planeterotica]

Well he says he is going to make it so anyone will be better off working than claiming benefits, it wont be easy as it will mean that benefits will have to stay on the breadline as wages increase.

[bogwort]

Whats wrong with wanting to get lazy bone idle fuckers to work for a living instead of poncing of the tax payer?

We all know lazy twats who won't work.

The system is there to give temporary help to those in difficult times and to provide long term for those unfortunate to have a disability that means they are unable to provide for themselves.

I hear "Its not worth my working" "I get more of the social" etc etc to many times.

Peoples needs should be assessed and if its determined that they need ?300 a week to live and theres a job they can do for ?180 they should have to take the job and get it topped up by ?120 benefit.

Easy to say , difficult to implement but thats why they're in politics.

[max_tranmere]

The problem is trying to distinguish between those pretending they are too sick to work and those who actually are.

Also, there are some communities in Britain where it is taboo to have a job, you will be ostricised and viewed as a traitor - you HAVE to be on Benefit to fit in. An example of this is that area up north somewhere where that woman pretended to have her child abducted a year or two ago (Shannon someone?) and it turned out the girl was hidden by the mother and a scammer who were both after the reward money that a newspaper would inevitably put up. A newspaper described that community as being full of "fat birds with large ear-rings, a can of beer in hand, waddling around the estates". EVERYONE is on Benefit and that is the common demoninator between these people.

I've come across communities in London where you have to be on Benefit or you are an outsider - Bermondey and Deptford for example. I knew a lot of people in that region some years ago as an old friend of mine had left University and moved into a house-share there. They never saw me as one of them - all because I had a job. I was a 'sell out' as far as they were concerned. I didn't claim Benefits, turn up at anti road building demonstations, go on about the evils of capitalism, and so on. I worked, and they disliked me for it.

It is the attitudes of whole communites that will need changing if the Government are going to get any of this new legislation to make a differnce.

[Jonone]

If it's a question of morality and work is deemed to be virtuous then you'll have to have a system whereby people jobshare and do jobs on a month about basis because it's patently obvious that there aren't enough jobs to go around. There won't be full employment.

I don't think it's fair that people are demonised for something which isn't of their own making. This is a global recession ... it seems odd to me that we're quick to pour scorn on the unemployed and overlook the culpability of people in the financial sector. I wonder why that is ?

[Bob Singleton]

Yes there are the feckless, who would rather rely on the state to provide them with a living, but even if we forget about these people, there are hundreds of thousands (maybe even millions) who would prefer to work, but can't for the simple fact that there are not enough jobs.

"Full Employment" is no longer a feasible goal.

When government "job creation" advisers like James Dyson start closing factories in the UK to open new ones in the Far East where labour rates and general production costs are far lower, then what hope is there?

We no longer have a diverse manufacturing base because many products can be built more cheaply (and often to a better quality standard) abroad. So what's left? The service industry is contracting too, as more people stop relying on others for services. For example, with unemployment up, where once both parents might have been in work, and therefore reliant on child minding services of one sort or another, now one if not both parents are at home. Technology & Research? At the very highest levels, Britain is still a major center for this, but general, low level R&D can be achieved far better abroad for lower cost. Farming & Food Production? Intensive farming techniques requires fewer people working on the land, except at the very lowest levels, such as pickers and packers, and even much of this can be done mechanically these days.

Whatever industry you can think of, there'll be some level of "outsourcing" which means fewer jobs in the UK for an ever increasing population.

So when IDS claims he can remove millions of people from being dependent of benefits and get them back to work... where EXACTLY are all these jobs going to come from?