Finally - benefits sense!

[Rico]

Well you've got me on board. I'm tired of parties. All parties. I've decided the key is to vote for change ever few years. So we need Conservatives back for a bit, then just when they get too big for their pants, vote Labour back. Opposition is what causes parties to listen to the electorate.

Unless there is a better idea for getting centre ground, common sense government. I'm frankly open.

[Huguenot]

CWALD! Gerrofit!

'WE think the work YOU want....?'

Firstly you didn't win the election, therefore you have no mandate to misrepresent 'we'.

Secondly, with due respect, you push paper for a living! Underclass oppression can give anyone an identity, but that doesn't mean it's an honest one! Establishing a common grievance is the first step to mob rule, a process in which the final step is democracy. Let's not go through the bloodshed again.

Either way, to claim leadership is to elevate oneself, by definition you become the ruling class.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Birthday cheer to you too H !

[Michael Palaeologus]

I worked in in Jobcentres in the late 80s and worked with the LTU (long term unemployed). I had a conversation with a colleague who had a similar history.

Some people have had genuine problems historically, they become demotivated and do not believe that they will ever be able to work, so they dont try. These people need support to build their motivation, their job search skills and get them used to working again. With guidance they can find work - but sometimes they do need to a firm push to do it. They are not work shy but are out the habit of work.

Some people are work-shy and have got used to living on a low income for little effort. These people need to be forced back into work.

This is the harsh reality that you dont read about in The Guardian, but do see if working with the long term unemployed.

[SeanMacGabhann]

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Odd then that I seem to have read so much about them of late...

Job Centres

comment

Incapacity Benefit

Plus I could see with my own eyes when I was signing on... But my argument is not with the concept of helping people back to work - it's the fact that people are being told they will be given help but the reality is that people will just have money taken away. Some scroungers no doubt but equally many who aren't

[Michael Palaeologus]

OK - I dont actually read The Guardian, more of a Telegraph Man.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Exactly my point. Didnt stop you firing off a generalisation tho did it now. . You naughty minx

[ChavWivaLawDegree]

Huggie darling - you know I've only just joined the paper shuffler brigade cos my poor old body could no longer take all the manual work I'd put it thru in it's younger fitter days and getting a degree as a mature student doesn't bar you from being working class - that was the 'we' I was talking about.

[Marmora Man]

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Huggie darling - you know I've only just joined the paper shuffler brigade cos my poor old body could no longer take all the manual work I'd put it thru in it's younger fitter days and getting a degree as a mature student doesn't bar you from being working class - that was the 'we' I was talking about.

Begs a question - what is the class system that so many bang on about - I can't see it myself?

Do we have working class, middle class( upper & lower) and upper class (including Royalty, aristocracy etc) - which seems to me about 100 years out of date.

Is it - unskilled labour, manual labour, blue collar labour, white collar labour, professionals (doctors, accountants & the like) with perhaps another tier above that of super rich, hedge funders and aristocracy. This seems equally out of date.

I would suggest that all those working for a living, using whatever skills and knowledge they may have, form the majority and suffer from the only other class that seems to matter - politicians. So CWALD, me, Hugenot, ????, Sean MacG all all EDF"ers" are part of this class - we may do different things and be paid at different rates but most of us are just wage slaves.

Politicians are a less experienced but more despised class - few of whom have ever had to create employment, experience redundancy (receiving or giving - both are instructive experiences), justify a business plan, complete a manual job, recruit new staff, meet a real deadline or persuade a bank or other institution to part with cash to back an idea.

I haven't researched Dodd's Companion to the House of Commons but I doubt there are more than 10% of the current MPs that have ever worked at a real job as the majority of the country experiences work(I don't count the many barristers - who are self employed and employ few, if any, others, nor the majority of professional politicians who have graduated from think tanks and / or union posts to Parliamentary researchers, to policy wonks to MPs).