Thread: Conservatives: come off benefits and we'll make work pay

Originally Posted by llech

We used to have thing's called Factories and Coal Mines they paid well regardless of Academic Qualifications was a smashing idea to get rid of soo many of them, an act of infinite foresight don't you think?

So So wise!!
Well done that man. Lets add a manufacturing industry, ship yards and agriculture now we have service industries that pay nowt

Originally Posted by jagman

As much as that might be true, it isn't pertinent to industry of today.
The unions (outside the public sector) are largely a relic and toothless and aren't really a factor for new industries inthe UK.
There are no union problems in any of the mining operations here anymore

what mining operations???

Originally Posted by taylortaylor

So So wise!!
Well done that man. Lets add a manufacturing industry, ship yards and agriculture now we have service industries that pay nowt

Not only that service industries tend to be part time job's too!

Originally Posted by jagman

As much as I despise the unions and what they have done to this country I am pretty much in agreement with you but you must factor in that in 1979 Scargill decided he was going to bring down the government in the name of socialism.
He openly siad as much, Thatcher had no choice but break the unions from that point onwards.

Scargill said it openly, but it was on the agenda a full 15 years before that.

Puke: You defend the indefensible to the point of defending anyone and anything that has ruined our economy and thus cost jobs, and anyone who tries to fix it gets a slagging off. Thatcher took on the destructive force of the unions who were destroying our global competitiveness and thus making entire industries worthless, but she's a bitch for putting those same strikers on the dole queue. You said Gordon Brown was (I'll PARAphrase) top bloke, even though he's spent all the money, plus hundreds of billions more, and still left the UK in recession, with all of us having to pick up the tab - you'll say it was the bankers of course, but the truth is, it was Gordon's 'light touch' regulation (or complete lack thereof) that allowed greedy bankers to mess things up.

When will you grow up and stop living this ideological marxist fantasy of yours? Your entire system of twisted ideals sank like a stone acros the world 20 years ago, and everywhere it's been tried it's resolutely failed to lift people from poverty; it's done the opposite, it's actually put more people into the poor house.

Edited to add: Jagman, I'm sure that's the case. From what I've been looking up, we certainly seem to have rebuilt capabilities (without the militancy) of our mining ops. There's less coal than people are assuming however - latest estimates show considerably less than 1 billion tons in the UK. Left in the ground, like gas, it will accrue a good deal more value than digging or sucking it up while there's still plenty about. Call it a longer term investment.

Originally Posted by jagman

As much as that might be true, it isn't pertinent to industry of today.
The unions (outside the public sector) are largely a relic and toothless and aren't really a factor for new industries inthe UK.
There are no union problems in any of the mining operations here anymore

Originally Posted by taylortaylor

what mining operations???

Alright, I shall bite and repeat myself.....

As I said on page one of this thread-

The UK currently produces over 7 million tonnes of coal from deep mining a year.
Cleveland Potash produce over a million tonnes a year plus half a million tonnes of salt, from deep mining
Carrickfergus and Salt Union produce massive quantities from deep mining
Western United are doing extensive develoment work in Cornwall and will be producing tin and copper amongst other things
Corus have several ironstone mines on care and maintenance which are viable if we can get our head around not paying them to produce elsewher in the world
The UK has serious Uranium reserves underground which could be of serious value to our future
British coal is cheaper than importd and has been for about 8 years now.
There are active gold mines in the UK
Southern Ireland deep mines lead, we have greater reserves here in the UK
We have zinc applently

Originally Posted by llech

The country is bankrupt because the bank's got greedy(as they were allowed to by both colour governments). Fuck all to do with Benefit cheats, Polish immigrants Paedo's or anything else Daily Mail/Sun readers seem to think caused it.

And nothing to do with the government spending more than it was taking in tax?

Time to get out of the Working Mans Club llech and smell the coffee

Originally Posted by llech

The country is bankrupt because the bank's got greedy

Nope. About 30% of UK debt is down to the bank bailouts. The other 70% is "structural deficit" caused by Gordon spending vastly more than his income for years. All those Indian moon rockets don't come cheap you know.

Originally Posted by llech

(as they were allowed to by both colour governments).

Don't recall any widespread banking crisis during the 18 years of Tory rule. They allowed banks like Barings and BCCI to go belly up when they started treating their clients' money like casino chips. Having worked in the City, many Tories were less susceptible to the likes of Fred the Shred stating that the sky would fall in if he didn't get £25 billion in cash by close of business.

Originally Posted by llech

Fuck all to do with Benefit cheats, Polish immigrants Paedo's or anything else Daily Mail/Sun readers seem to think caused it.

According to the treasury, £3.1 billion gets lost in fraud and overpayments to benefit cheats. That would pay for the Trident replacement in a couple of years. The real problem is with legitimate benefit recipients. £200 billion a year. One third of government expenditure. No country could afford that.

Originally Posted by Ancient_Mariner

Nope. About 30% of UK debt is down to the bank bailouts. The other 70% is "structural deficit" caused by Gordon spending vastly more than his income for years. All those Indian moon rockets don't come cheap you know.




Don't recall any widespread banking crisis during the 18 years of Tory rule. They allowed banks like Barings and BCCI to go belly up when they started treating their clients' money like casino chips. Having worked in the City, many Tories were less susceptible to the likes of Fred the Shred stating that the sky would fall in if he didn't get £25 billion in cash by close of business.



According to the treasury, £3.1 billion gets lost in fraud and overpayments to benefit cheats. That would pay for the Trident replacement in a couple of years. The real problem is with legitimate benefit recipients. £200 billion a year. One third of government expenditure. No country could afford that.

Allow me:

LA LA LA NOT LISTENING!

Edited to add:

As someone else pointed out, if absolutely have to pay people when they don't work, then have them working.

Here's a list of things that could be done by those on the dole, for a small added bonus perhaps, as well as a bunch of vocational training oppportunities:

Keeping roads and verges clear.
Keeping our parks and open spaces in good order.
Helping the homeless.
Helping the old aged.
Helping the disabled.
Property maintenance for civil properties - like council estates, town halls etc.

The list goes on, but the basics is, if you can't find gainful employment, the government will enable you to work for your benefits.

For those people advocating protectionist policies, do any of you really think this will work? You don't think that the things we can't produce enough of (food, for example) would have levies placed upon them by the governments that export them to us? I'm sure if we opened a bunch of mines and employed some of today's youth while making it difficult for someone to sell Russian/Chinese coal to us, we would see a fall in unemployment. We'd also see a time warp back to the 1970s and everyone spending 1/3+ of their income at the supermarket trying to feed themselves.

It's funny how quickly a person's dedication to the free market falls apart when they're confronted with a horde of international workers who earn less in a day than they spend on coffee at lunch.

Originally Posted by Biped

Allow me:

LA LA LA NOT LISTENING!

Sorry, say somethin?

Originally Posted by Hot-Crumpet

For those people advocating protectionist policies, do any of you really think this will work? You don't think that the things we can't produce enough of (food, for example) would have levies placed upon them by the governments that export them to us? I'm sure if we opened a bunch of mines and employed some of today's youth while making it difficult for someone to sell Russian/Chinese coal to us, we would see a fall in unemployment. We'd also see a time warp back to the 1970s and everyone spending 1/3+ of their income at the supermarket trying to feed themselves.

It's funny how quickly a person's dedication to the free market falls apart when they're confronted with a horde of international workers who earn less in a day than they spend on coffee at lunch.

We do not need protectionism. As I have pointed out several times, UK produced coal is cheaer than imported coal.

Originally Posted by llech

Sorry, say somethin?

We're Marxists, apparently...

Originally Posted by Ancient_Mariner

According to the treasury, £3.1 billion gets lost in fraud and overpayments to benefit cheats. That would pay for the Trident replacement in a couple of years. The real problem is with legitimate benefit recipients. £200 billion a year. One third of government expenditure. No country could afford that.

I think the problem is more to do with the entitlement society, and who is ENTITLED to legitimate benefit help and the level of payments given....... Anyone trying to claim DLA, ESA and the host of other benefits that go along with it on the back of snoozing a bit, being obese or unprovable psychological/stress problems she be laughed out and told to get a job. Benefits for the severely disabled and needy, yes. Benefits for the terminally bone idle, no.

Originally Posted by Biped

As someone else pointed out, if absolutely have to pay people when they don't work, then have them working.

Here's a list of things that could be done by those on the dole, for a small added bonus perhaps, as well as a bunch of vocational training oppportunities:

Keeping roads and verges clear.
Keeping our parks and open spaces in good order.
Helping the homeless.
Helping the old aged.
Helping the disabled.
Property maintenance for civil properties - like council estates, town halls etc.

The list goes on, but the basics is, if you can't find gainful employment, the government will enable you to work for your benefits.

The usual response to that one is:

"but that would take jobs away from people who do those things now"

So my personal preference is a production line, one side assembles very simple boxes, the next part moxes the boxes from the end to the start of the other side, that side then takes the boxes apart and stacks the bits into packs of parts, the packs of parts then get moved to the start of the first line.

£0.10 for each box that makes it round the circuit, total amount split between the 'team' in accordance with a vote.....couldn't be more democratic than that.

S_R

Originally Posted by llech

We've centuries worth of Coal, Yes but no government will upset the green's by daring to re-open coal mines!

As for positive signs otherwise, where and what?

llech
I was back in s wales recently and noticed that they have started open-cast mining at Dowlais. That area has been dormant for 30yrs, so somebody must think FTGs.