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

My! The Coalition is really on a breakneck reforming roll!

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


Skipton will be rejoicing I'm sure at this news.

The only way they'll make work pay is to slash benefits. There's no way that people looking at low wage jobs in a high cost location like London would be better off working.

IIRC maximum housing benefit has been cut to £450 a week. You'd need to be earning over 40 grand a year just to cover that. Add on income support, child support for a couple of kids, free everything from prescriptions to school uniforms and you're talking about £60,000 before it's worth getting out of bed in the morning.

The key issue here is employment and accommodation. Work and houses. Can you guess what I'm thinking?

About big tits?

Originally Posted by Ancient_Mariner

The key issue here is employment and accommodation. Work and houses. Can you guess what I'm thinking?

Free houses and no need to work for the masses? Yep! No, wait, I think that might have been tried already... can anyone confirm, before you embarrass yourself?

Unfortunately, the problem is still going to exist while you have people who will refuse to work for less than £25k (on telly a while back, mentioned in a previous thread I think) despite their only qualifications being 7/10 on a spelling test aged 8.

Originally Posted by very-old-git

About big tits?

No. That's not what I'm thinking.

But, speaking of big tits, there's no reason why single mothers shouldn't be able to get a grant for a webcam and start their own internet business.

It's a modern day version of Norman Tebbit's advice in the 1980s. Instead of "Get on your bike and find a job" it's more a case of "You're 22. You've got 8 kids of assorted colours. You are a fekkin' bike so why don't you make a living out of your only skill?"

Originally Posted by Badgertastic

Free houses and no need to work for the masses? Yep! No, wait, I think that might have been tried already... can anyone confirm, before you embarrass yourself?

Unfortunately, the problem is still going to exist while you have people who will refuse to work for less than £25k (on telly a while back, mentioned in a previous thread I think) despite their only qualifications being 7/10 on a spelling test aged 8.

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?

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?

I am hoping, and the signs are positive, that we are going to see a start to re-industrialisation.
The UK still has vast resources under our feet, we still have the skills (but only just) to teach youngsters how to do it. Now we don't have a government opposed to industrial production we might actually see a return to profit making prodiucers in the UK.
The knock on effects of energy security etc are a big bonus.

Originally Posted by jagman

I am hoping, and the signs are positive, that we are going to see a start to re-industrialisation.
The UK still has vast resources under our feet.

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?

Originally Posted by jagman

I am hoping, and the signs are positive, that we are going to see a start to re-industrialisation.
The UK still has vast resources under our feet, we still have the skills (but only just) to teach youngsters how to do it. Now we don't have a government opposed to industrial production we might actually see a return to profit making prodiucers in the UK.
The knock on effects of energy security etc are a big bonus.

I presume by a 'return' to profit-making industrial production in the UK, you don't mean Leyland, the Docks, Shipbuilding or Coal Mining do you? Leyland was never profitable, and the docks, shipbuilding and coal mining haven't been profitable since before WW2.

I think it was rather a good idea to shut down the capabilties of all those militant unions that destroyed the industrial heart of Britain with their endless strikes. Maybe, just maybe, they won't come back and do it all again.

It is about ehtics and how you are brought up. We were poor, 6 kids and both parents worked, my Mum 2 jobs (no not at night up the Barras!). Kids are having Kids, if Mum & Dad (if he is around) are sitting on there arses, doing nothing, still have a widescreen and PS3 in the house and can drink cans of lager all day and night, then what have these kids got to aspire to?

Nothing , absolutley nothing, (small violin starts to play) I had to work YTS after school for £16.50 in a cunting warehouse 40 hours a week or my old man would have shunted me out the door, I have grown up alright and so have my siblings!

We need to get rid of benefits, and make it not worth your while to sit on your arse doing nothing, no work , no money.

Embarrass them back to work says I... If you are getting benfits you have to go and clean a tax payers house 9 (at weekends so they can keep and eye on the theiving cunts)! Or do there garden! Infact why are we paying bin men and road sweepers money when these cunts should be doing it for FREE!

I could go on and on and on and on..... and on, won't make a world of difference though will it!

Originally Posted by jagman

I am hoping, and the signs are positive, that we are going to see a start to re-industrialisation.
The UK still has vast resources under our feet, we still have the skills (but only just) to teach youngsters how to do it. Now we don't have a government opposed to industrial production we might actually see a return to profit making prodiucers in the UK.
The knock on effects of energy security etc are a big bonus.

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?

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
Carrckfergus and Salt Union produce massive quantities from deep mining
Western United are doing extensive develoment work in Cornwall and will be producing
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.

Once we see an end to government departments and quangos actively preventing mining operations then we will see commercialecxloitation of our resources.

Originally Posted by Biped

I presume by a 'return' to profit-making industrial production in the UK, you don't mean Leyland, the Docks, Shipbuilding or Coal Mining do you? Leyland was never profitable, and the docks, shipbuilding and coal mining haven't been profitable since before WW2.

I think it was rather a good idea to shut down the capabilties of all those militant unions that destroyed the industrial heart of Britain with their endless strikes. Maybe, just maybe, they won't come back and do it all again.

Shall we leave the unions out of the discussion for the moment? The unions have had their day, new industry can and will bypass the problems of old. Mining operations in Cleveland and Cornwall and carplants all over the country are proof of that.
You are wrong about coal, it is profitable today and it always was, only a part f the industry was loss making.
Leyland was an artificial dinosaur and its component parts where largely profitable before nationalisation, today the UK has profitable car plants operating for Toyota, Nissan, Land Rover/ Jaguar and others.
Shipbuilding, without the union menace there is no reason why that cannot be done profitably. We still have much of the infrastructure and our dockyard facilities are as big as anywhere in the world. We still have skiled men available, they are still young enough to teach the next generation the necessary skills.
UK docks handle more freight now than they ever did before, its just much more mechanised than it used to be. Liverpool for example handles more freight through the container port than it ever did through the manpower intensive old docks.

The UK can and does produce minerals and heavy engineering of higher quality and much more efficiently than the rest of the world when we set out minds to it. That efficency means we can be competetive, our innovative skills mena we can stay ahead of cheap foreign labour.
Everyone knows that the days of an entire nightshift being paid to sleep at Swan Hunters week in, week out are dead and buried. The workers know it, the unions know it. All the halfwhit management component are now employed by the NHS and out of the way.

Do not tell me the UK can't make its way in manufacturing. It simply isn't true. All we need is the will and the new government seems to have it.

I dont know about coal but:-

At least one Cornish Tin mine is working to re-open soon (South Crofty). Thanks mostly to the high demand for Copper and Tin. I've heard other mines in Cornwall and Devon are actively being looked at to re-open.

Having a ready source of Brass available inside NATO is seen as being usefull (or so I have been told) as for a start we seem to be expending it in places its hard to recover the last few years...in any case world metal prices have been high for whatever reason.

Originally Posted by Uzbeck

I dont know about coal but:-

At least one Cornish Tin mine is working to re-open soon (South Crofty). Thanks mostly to the high demand for Copper and Tin. I've heard other mines in Cornwall and Devon are actively being looked at to re-open.

Having a ready source of Brass available inside NATO is seen as being usefull (or so I have been told) as for a start we seem to be expending it in places its hard to recover the last few years...in any case world metal prices have been high for whatever reason.

Baseresult/ Western United, the company operating South Crofty had to overcome serious opposition to mining fromthe Labour government and the local RDA (who wanted to build a leisure centre on the site) in order to start operations.
Similar opposition to dirty old industires has occured in various parts of the country.

An end to that kind of shortsighted opposition will in itself allow industry to regenerate off its own back.

Originally Posted by jagman

Once we see an end to government departments and quangos actively preventing mining operations then we will see commercialecxloitation of our resources.

Not a chance. In the third world, miners work for a dollar a day and their employers wont even pay to dig them out when the roof caves in. British workers will never compete with that.

Originally Posted by Ancient_Mariner

Not a chance. In the third world, miners work for a dollar a day and their employers wont even pay to dig them out when the roof caves in. British workers will never compete with that.

That's before we even start thinking about the Chinese, working for bugger all in every country of the world, using western money that we've given them to buy mines for just about every resource in countries all over the world.

While the west has been snoozing, the Chinese have been schmoozing and now own mining facilties all over Africa, South America and Asia. Anyone noted the prevalence of Chinese people working in Afghanistan lately?

Yes, we in the UK can do things very efficiently, and yes, we can do things as well as anyone in the world, but can we do it as cheaply? I'm not sure.