General British politics discussion thread

Panthro

I should clarify, He said: 'If after 18 months of intensive support jobseekers have not found a job, we will roll out a programme requiring them to take part in a mandatory work placement to increase their skills and improve their employability. And if they choose not to engage with the work search process for six months, we will close their case and stop their benefits."

So mandatory work placement as opposed to mandatory training. Tomayto tomato

breezy1985

What this will prove is that the numbers of genuinely "no reason" unemployed is actually pretty tiny.

And not the cause of or solution to the nations ills.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121400767#Comment_121400767

Given their track record , what they deem "no reason" will be quite different from what most people would consider.

L1011

Dig deep in to UK long term unemployment and you'll find two trends:

People who should be on disability but can't get it as the Tories outsourced gatekeepers keep everyone out

People who live places that haven't had jobs since Thatcher

I don't think you'll find much else. Scheme will likely cost far more than it ever saves, but goes well with the performance cruelty that appeals to that last 20% of Tory voters. Many of whom are on welfare (pensions).

ancapailldorcha

It's weird that we're back to demonising the unemployed. It feels like when I moved over and George Osborne was on about making work pay by reducing benefits. I've heard more than once that austerity cost the UK a decade of growth and if you add Brexit and the covid disaster, that would seem true.

The permanent loss of economic growth from the recession and the accompanying decline in living standards from 2010 led these years being dubbed by economists as ‘the lost decade.’

The phrase ‘lost decade’ aptly describes the decline in living standards following the Great Recession, but it also captures the chaotic politics and wasted years that followed the referendum. Theresa May’s three-year term in office between 2016 and 2019 was dominated by bitter feuds with her own ministers over the Brexit negotiations. May understood the reasons for the Leave vote and wanted to address the issues of inequality but never had the time or political space to implement a policy agenda. Her disastrous election campaign in 2017, which destroyed her parliamentary majority, sealed her fate.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2022/02/10/understanding-britains-lost-decade/

28064212

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121400720#Comment_121400720

Oh, they'll stop their benefits. That's the problem solved so. Those people will just disappear and never cause any problems again. Great job Conservatives, another plan well thought through from beginning to end

Panthro

I'm guessing Conservatives are aware they won't be in power when the shyt hits the fan in 18months time! 🤣

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121400879#Comment_121400879

It just sounds like they think they've eked out as much benefit from cruelty towards refugees so now they're going back to working class British people. It does help explain the return of Cameron though. It also frustrates me in that it reminds me how ignorant and disengaged so many people here are. I remember a postdoc telling me during the tail end of the Cameron years how the way forward was to cut welfare further. She seemed to genuinely believe that going from 45 to 40 pounds a week or whatever it is would magically end unemployment and that most of those claiming disability didn't need it. My boss' PA at the time owned two London properties but would claim her bread on the NHS.

I was honestly hoping that we'd be past this. The culture wars were even worse but to have to go back to demonising people in areas the Conservatives deliberately ran into the ground is beyond depressing.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121400767#Comment_121400767

It also presupposes such people are physically and mentally able to work a 40 hour week with no difficulty but 'just can't be bothered' . In truth, most of them are probably physically in bits or struggling mentally. They're hardly long term unemployed for motivational reasons.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121401049#Comment_121401049

I'm also going to hazard a guess that a large portion of the genuinely able but "couldn't be bothered" crowd are not really unemployed at all but are either working under the counter, in the black market or selling drugs in which case they won't give a shte about a benefit cut.

ancapailldorcha

Sadly, the media here will never seriously ask why it's a "sh*thole", to borrow Cleverly's adjective.

https://twitter.com/PoliticsJOE_UK/status/1727346110417564137

That man is a potential future PM as well.

There's also a good explainer from Sky News about the fact that the tax burden is increasing despite it being presented as cuts:

https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1727335590742442139

Itssoeasy

https://twitter.com/bethrigby/status/1727450133300646341?s=61

Election footing in the UK.

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121402795#Comment_121402795

Jesus are the finally done so?

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121401092#Comment_121401092

Same thing here. Huge amounts of people who drug deal and contribute nothing to society only misery, crime and addiction.

Cutting their dole seems like the first thing to do.

It seems the posters here are excusing long term unemployed and don't see any point in trying to get them off the dole. The Tory plan gives them 18 months. It's hardly draconian.

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121402795#Comment_121402795

Perhaps a non story. There is going to be an election there next year. It will either take place in May or October. So it makes sense for them to get ready. Labour are also ready to go.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121402833#Comment_121402833

What do you mean contribute nothing.

All those posh lads would have no coke without them.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121401370#Comment_121401370

I assume that ultimately , poor people pay more taxes and the wealthy get to avoid more?

28064212

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121402833#Comment_121402833

"The Tory plan gives them 18 months" - and then what? What's the rest of that so-called "plan"?

Let's imagine that there's as many as 30,000 in the country that are actual members of the "won't work" brigade, around 0.1% of the eligible working population (which is an absolute nonsense position in the first place, but I'll accept it for the sake of discussion). So in 18 months, 30,000 people will go from receiving the bare minimum survival income to receiving nothing. What then? Have the Tories a plan to deal with the explosion in homelessness, mental health problems and crime that will inevitably result?

It is an absolutely pathetic plan, thought up by someone who either has the economic sense of a Victorian-era 12 year old, or is a completely odious individual who thinks they pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps and that poor people just have to try harder, ignoring the silver spoon that they've had shoved up their arse from the moment they were born

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121408163#Comment_121408163

The rest of the plan is that, after 18 months, the government finds a workplace placement for you, and you have to take it, or have your benefits reduced or cut off.

The obvious weakness in the plan is that the government will have to find workplace placements for a bunch of people that it itself demonises as workshy, lazy, lacking in basic employment skills. I can't see employer queuing up to participate, somehow.

Nody

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121410086#Comment_121410086

Well that's assuming the Tory government would be in place in 18 months (which they know they are not) instead they can whine and complain about the Labour government in power not doing anything to get these people back into jobs. However; assuming that the Tory government somehow remained in power it would create a great oppertunity for "private placement companies" to get big juicy contracts to handle the placement. Said companies happened to be donors and friends of Tory MPs would of course be pure chance because the tender was done according to all the rules...

L1011

This is just a method to hand more money to Atos, Capita, Serco et Al while doing something to appeal to the performative cruelty ghouls that make up the remains of the core Tory vote.

It won't achieve any positive outcome

breezy1985

I have been hearing this "solution" for years from know it all's down the pub.If it was that simple it would have been done ages ago.

If any are ever actually made work it will be in some soup kitchen or community centre owned by a buddy of Sunak's who will get paid per worker and probably won't give a shte if they even show up.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121410261#Comment_121410261

It's good old divide and conquer politics. Nothing more perfectly demonstrates the state of the Conservative party than them having to exhume the worst PM in living memory and implemented his agenda which cost the country a decade of growth.

I read Owen Jones' book Chavs and while he's not exactly impartial, the Atos scandal is one of the most vile things a modern state has done to its citizens. Surely if this had been done in France, there'd be riots instead of peerages and honours.

Water John

Immigration numbers into the UK have more than doubled since Brexit. Instead of EU immigrants, they are now largely coming from India, China and Nigeria. the Tory Brexit was the solution for that too.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121410693#Comment_121410693

Of course they did.

A child could have seen this coming. We need immigrants for the economy and since the Tories cut off Europe as a source of labour, it has become necessary to source it from further afield.

serfboard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121410836#Comment_121410836

No no no, you don't understand. British jobs for British people. There are loads of people queuing up to work as Health Care Assistants in Nursing Homes and as highly-qualified engineers and scientists but they can't get those jobs because of all the foreigners.

Christy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121410836#Comment_121410836

What is that graph out of curiosity? Immigration to England? I ask because it seems to have migration from Britain so guessing NI/Scotland/Wales to England?

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121412619#Comment_121412619

The "British" migration figure is British citizens who were settled abroad (and in some cases may have been born abroad) immigrating to the UK.

kirk.

Britain is going downhill so fast under the conservatives it's sad to see

Exiting Europe , cutting services and abandoning international law

I spent the first 13 yrs of my life there and it's sad to see the British have so many good qualities

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121412804#Comment_121412804

The UK hasn't abandoned any international law.