Blaming the poor

[NormanH]

I accept that I haven't lived in the UK for a while, but this article comments more on attitudes in the press and media which I can access than on something I need to observe at first hand

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/07/chav-bashing-bad-joke-bilious-policy

[IMG]http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh80/bfb_album/The-Bullingdon-Club-001_zpsf422601f.jpg[/IMG]

[NickP]

I think it's very funny that "middle class" upper earners who write for the Guardian spend so much time reporting stories on the under privileged. But then the Tax avoiding; expense fiddling class's like a good storey about "real folk" it detracts from what they are up to. I believe I'm right in thinking that there are more old Etonians in the cabinet now than at any time, would be interesting to know how many Grauniad scribblers are public school old boys.

[Quillan]

[quote user="NickP"]I think it's very funny that "middle class" upper earners who write for the Guardian spend so much time reporting stories on the under privileged. But then the Tax avoiding; expense fiddling class's like a good storey about "real folk" it detracts from what they are up to. I believe I'm right in thinking that there are more old Etonians in the cabinet now than at any time, would be interesting to know how many Grauniad scribblers are public school old boys.[/quote]

I look at the Guardian most days, that and the Torygraph plus the DM. I look at about three French newspapers as well but their selection varies from day to day.

I think I view the Guardian in much the same light as you, in fact I see it as the same as the DM but at the opposite end of the political spectrum. Every newspaper in the UK now has a political stance, there are no real neutral ones. The readers comments in both the Guardian, the DM and the Torygraph really do show what the country is becoming as none of them seem to have a clue about real life anywhere let alone in the UK. Mind you a lot of the French papers seem to have gone the same way as well. It is nice to see that the educational standards in the UK and France, based on the quality of comments, is equally as bad.

[idun]

I thought that all newspapers always had a political stance, so there you go.

Apart from maybe the Dauphiné Libere which spends most of it's time reporting village, town and city events throughout the Alpes and usually never gets involved in any whiff of controversy.

[Chancer]

You forgot to add the "innit!" to the end of your "(educational standards) is equally as bad" but very drole nonetheless [:D]

[Patf]

I never liked the Little Britain series and couldn't put my finger on it.

Now I know why.

[Hoddy]

I do not like the tone of the article although I must agree that the government have succeeded in demonising the poor.

The basic problem is the same as it was when the great Poor Law Act of 1834 was passed. There simply isn't enough work to go round. I am uneasy about much of what is going on at the moment so much of it seems unfair to me.

At the moment there are murmurings against pensioners and I am one so I'm fearful of their plans for after the next election.

Hoddy

[Quillan]

[quote user="Hoddy"]There simply isn't enough work to go round. [/quote]

Have a look on the recruitment websites, there is loads of work in all sorts of trades and people. People go to the UK to find work and many do. According to Farrage on the MSN news website today there are around 4M immigrants in the UK of which 350,000 are unemployed and drawing benefits. That means out of all those that emigrated to the UK only 8.75% are not working. He says, and the trade unions also say the same, those that are working are taking jobs from the indigenous population.

I look at it the other way round, many can't be bothered to work, an immigrant takes the job then they can get all righteous and say the immigrants take the jobs. There is also the issue that some are 'picky' about the work they take, a lot want to be managers and don't want to start at the bottom and work upwards, with no experience nobody will give them a job. Then there is the issue of pay, some jobs pay less in some specific circumstances than what the person gets in benefits, in short it's not worth their while to go to work. You also have the institutionally unemployed who have never worked, perhaps have come from a family where their parents have never worked, and have no intention of ever working, bringing up kids who also will probably never work.

I do also understand that in some areas there is no work but perhaps the government should look at assisted relocation for these people in to areas that have work.

[woolybanana]

A little under a year ago the National Office of Statistics suggested there were 400,000 jobs going.

The Guardian article seems to misunderstand: noone has blamed the poor for their situation, just the feckless and those who do not make an atempt.

Even late last month I was talking to French kids who were off to London to work as there were no jobs here. They were prepared to do anything legal.

Q is right that some seem to think they have the right to a job without working up to it, whilst others simply cant be bothered. It is part of an ethic that has been inbred for far too long.

[Quillan]

[quote user="woolybanana"]A little under a year ago the National Office of Statistics suggested there were 400,000 jobs going. The Guardian article seems to misunderstand: noone has blamed the poor for their situation, just the feckless and those who do not make an atempt. Even late last month I was talking to French kids who were off to London to work as there were no jobs here. They were prepared to do anything legal. Q is right that some seem to think they have the right to a job without working up to it, whilst others simply cant be bothered. It is part of an ethic that has been inbred for far too long.[/quote]

As I have said before my neighbour has three daughters two of which already work in the UK and another is probably going shortly. There are at least another three in the village that will be going to the UK in the next couple of months. They are not picky in what they do. Their aim is to get there, get a job, any job and find a place to live, often sharing first. The longest any of them has taken to get work is two weeks, one got a job in two days. OK it was as a waitress in a bar/restaurant but it was work and it gave them the opportunity to hone their English then they got a better job in Amex in Brighton and are doing very well. That's the difference in my opinion, they want a job, any job will do, to get the money to live and eat, then they can look around for the job they want. As an ex-employer I would put such a person at the top part of my list when looking to employ somebody because they are keen to work and show initiative.

[NormanH]

In my experience of 4 years training young  French people who were hoping to find work in the UK they are very handicapped by the 'little boxes' mentality of French education and training.

They believe they have to find work 'dans ma branche' and  were appalled when I suggested that with their limited English they might be at a disadvantage in a managerial post.

The rich irony of the article is that people such as Osborne who has never held down a productive job in his life are part of a group who aim to stigmatise others for being idle.

As for immigrants filling jobs it is important to ask who might fill these particular ones.

For example programmers, doctors, pharmacists are often from India. Are they really taking jobs from an untrained British person?

Broad generalities allow and feed  exactly the sort of malign misrepresentation that is being manipulated by the Tory owned press.

Divide et impera!

[woolybanana]

Well, Norman, I have been to UK more recently than you and did note the number of non-native speakers of English doing all sorts of jobs, from shop and service work and beyond, as well as the professionals you noted. I think you have to accept that Britain has a feckless group who have been able to live on handouts for rather a long time. Even the Labour Party, as feckless by the way as some of the Tories you so hate, admits this.

[Russethouse]

The fact is that the pharmacist etc who you see as Indian is probably 2nd or even third generation and may consider themselves to be British.

Increasingly being a politician is seen as a career without any job experience , and that seems to be true of all parties

[Frederick]

The rush for the youth of France to upsticks and head for the UK to work . Along with the youth of the East European countries shows just how lucky they are to have a country in the EU that is recruiting . It must appear to be a ray of light in the darkening doom  .

[Mr Ceour de Lion II]

Is that because UK taxes are lower meaning it's cheaper and easier to employ people?

[PaulT]

In the article it states:

On average, people apparently think 41% of the social security budget goes to those who are unemployed, and 27% is spent on fraudulent claims, whereas the true figures are 3% and 0.7% respectively.

Statistically, from number of cases found to be fraudulent you may be able to say that only 0.7% are but could be much higher in reality. It does seem that the effort to detect fraud is a little light hearted.

My OH worked for a hotel and some of the staff would not work a second over 18 hours per week (the work was there) 'cos I'll lose me benefits'. To me these are skivers who instead of working take the tax paid by those working full time.

The newspapers do pick up on the extremes but do highlight the way that people have large number of kids which gives them free housing etc and a large amount of benefits. You then contrast this with those who work and only have the number of children that they can afford.

 

[woolybanana]

Nah, Ramizan, you cant do me no more cause you aint earnin enuf to keep the last 15 kids and more would be a real strain. 'N the haus aint big enuf and last time they sed we'd need a bloody hotel to keep them in. Wat we need is more benefits and less work I say. Wiv you out of the haus for 18 hours I can hardly manage to change the babies and the TV channels, en wat about my bingo nites down the pub then. Got a fag lov.

[Quillan]

Well Fred it's not all the youth of France it's just in particular areas where there is zero employment and there won't be any chance of some soon, like the next 20 years or so.

Where I live there were three types of employment, Formica manufacturing, hats and fruit box's. If you were a man you went to work at Formica which employed around 8,000 people from all round the area. If you were a girl then it was the hat factory or for half the year the fruit box factory although many Spanish women used to come and work at the latter.

Hat making in the Aude is finished now as is Formica manufacturing, wooden fruit box's have been replaced by cardboard ones. There is work as you move towards Toulouse and that area in one of the major employment regions (until Airbus moves out).

So if your a young person who has just finished school your options are pretty grim. If your a girl you might get lucky and find a job in the local hairdressers, if your either sex you might get a job in the local supermarket. The nearest town will replace retiree council workers but over all we are talking about only 10% of those leaving school getting a job. The alternative is to move to another area in France or go to another EU country. The UK is a good choice because the salaries are slightly higher but the tax (or more to the point social contributions) are lower which makes it attractive.

I suspect that it is much the same in Wooly's area although whats left of the traditional occupations will be different as are those that have closed. To put it bluntly if your young in rural France your work opportunities are very small if not nil.

[YCCMB]

I am going to preface my first comment (which, in any case, I've made before) with another one, to avoid any confusion: I think what happened to me is as it should be. Nevertheless, when I (and my husband) was made redundant, we were entitled to almost no benefits at all, because our spouse was working. They didn't ask how much the other person earned. It could have been very little. It wasn't, but we'd both been paying in - NI at the higher rate.Yes, we were better off than many, many people, but nevertheless the only option open to us was to obtain another job, as quickly as possible. We certainly weren't better off, and nor were we able to live on benefits.

For people in lower paid jobs, there's a fine line between when it becomes financially better to work, or to stay at home. The levels of benefits they receive (and I'm not saying this isn't as it should be, either) ensure that they are comfortable enough not to need to take an effective drop in income by accepting a job. Evidently, the introduction of income support was designed to make it at least as attractive to work as not, but it seems to have had a different effect. If you stay at home, you get £x. If you go to work, you still get £x. To some extent, this could be seen as the fault of employers who, knowing that lower-paid workers will have their salaries topped up by benefits, regard this as a subsidy on wages and have no incentive to pay more. People know they'll certainly be no better off by working, and elect not to do so. Into the gap created by people not taking these lower paid jobs come foreign (not immigrant: a vast majority go home) workers. I'm here to tell you that, at the moment, there's a veritable Tsunami of Spaniards coming into the SE UK.  For these foreign workers, and contrary to the tabloid headlines, there's no income support or benefits, there's just the option to get a job. Thanks to the benefits system there are many available. And so continues the vicious circle..because now the people who don't see any economic incentive to work claim the moral high ground and complain that a) there are no jobs, and b) what few jobs there are, are being taken by "b*** immigrants". Making matters even worse, any "b*** immigrant" with enough employment history can eventually claim income support. And why not? They're doing the jobs that entitle them to claim it!! In the main, however, they'll continue working rather than claim benefits because, and here I may be generalising, but it's what I see, they actually WANT to work! I know, strange people, these "immigrants"...

I can see that there's a whole cohort of people in the UK who will be badly affected by these cuts. The shame, as with so many of these things, is that it will probably hit many well-intentioned, industrious people who are trying their best to make a living. However, I don't see an easy solution to the two underlying problems of feckless, lazy people who prefer to live on benefits, and underhanded employers who are quite happy to pay a pittance for a hard day's work, safe in the knowledge that the Government will take up the financial slack. But, you know what? I don't think it will solve either of these problems if the culprits can just continue to sit back knowing that the benefits paid out will continue to be at or above inflation, when just about everywhere else, pay rises (if they happen at all) are pitifully small.

[Russethouse]

After our experience with carers I think there needs to be some thought as to why people are so poorly paid. The only way I could see the carers even being able to make minimum wage was if all their clients were close together, yet my mothers care was costing around £3000 a month...( 4 double handed calls a day) someone was making a lot of money out of that business and if any of those carers were on income support, the tax payer were subsidising it.

One of the best carers is Bulgarian and she is head and shoulders above some of the British girls we have had, because she looks at what needs doing and does it, not looks at it and leaves it for someone else.

[NickP]

Well put Betty!  Also they should look at the anomaly that part time workers who earn under a certain wage don't pay any NI contributions, therefor making it an incentive for employers to only employ part timers. As for those bashing "benefit Brits", remember there are plenty of Brits working in other countries where the locals just sit on the porch drinking beer. The benefits system in the UK is flawed but it works for those in desperate need, as for the feckless or workshy, unfortunately we have to put up with them or the needy would suffer.

[PaulT]

When I started work some 40 years ago I worked with two people, both doing the same job and on the same pay and both coming up to retirement.

I always remember what one of them said to me:

'When we retire he will get all sorts of benefits because all this life he has p155ed his money up against the wall whereas I have saved so will be entitled to nothing'.

They have perhaps achieved the same thing for the country:

The person who has donated his money to breweries has provided employment and those employees have spent their money providing employment for others, the person who saved has not provided employment directly but has enabled his money to be lent to either individuals who spent it thereby creating employment or to companies to provide employment.

However, at the end of the day it is the person who is prudent who is penalised whilst the reckless are rewarded.

[Hoddy]

I am certain that some workers, particularly immigrants, are exploited by their employers. I've often thought that the same is true of landlords who exploit the vulnerable.

I'm quite clear in my own mind that there is something wrong with the system. I was recently served in a cafe in one of the big London museums by a man whose English was so poor that he didn't understand that I wanted a pot of tea. If he was working a 42 hour week on the minimum wage then his take home pay would have been just under £200. I don't know how one could live on this in central London.

To the argument that those of us who saved should be better off, well we were until the interest rates plummeted.

Unemployment pay is much less than it used to be. I heard it claimed yesterday that in the 1970s unemployment pay was 20% of the national average wage and that it is now 11%.

As for reckless, well it probably isn't the right word to describe the employee of one of the gas companies who was awarded a £13 million bonus yesterday, but it's an equally selfish attitude.

Hoddy

[woolybanana]

The first generation is always exploited but their kids do better and so on.

The problem in UK and France is that people have been brainwashed into believing that they have the right to obtain something for nothing. The idea that taking benefits was somehow shameful may have had the merit that it made people wanna work and help themselves.

[NormanH]

People do want to work and help themselves, that is the whole point.

I don't know anybody who does first-hand and the only ones I read about are the fictitious 'my brother knows someone who' type peddled by the propaganda of  the Tory press to cover up the rapacious greed of those who hide their wealth offshore, and are now stealing from the poor, the disabled and the weak.

Remember  "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please;

they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under

circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past."

On the other hand the Lumpenproleteriat

Alongside decayed roués with dubious means of subsistence and of

dubious origin, alongside ruined and adventurous offshoots of the

bourgeoisie, were vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds,

escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, lazzaroni, pickpockets,

tricksters, gamblers, maquereaux [pimps], brothel keepers, porters,

literati, organ grinders, ragpickers, knife grinders, tinkers, beggars —

in short, the whole indefinite, disintegrated mass, thrown hither and

thither, which the French call la bohème

seem to be in charge