I do not need to 'read' anything into your post.

Let's examine it again.



"Those of us" – not 'me', but "us". You are not writing about yourself, but about a wider group.

Then: "those that do work" – again, not 'me' or 'I', but a larger group.

You are commenting as though representing a group and not just yourself.



You do not understand pensions, then. See cod'ead's post directly above this one.



Including the three announcement threads, there are 21 threads currently on the front page of this forum. Looking at the titles, I have not absolutely not posted in nine of these. I may have made an odd post in the music, TV, film and 'interesting things on the internet' thread. I cannot recall and, if I have, it's one or two posts out of those entire threads. But then again, if you went through every single page on every thread on the front page of this forum, you'll be able to link to any posts on those threads. Won't you?

Yes, I can understand a little of the frustration of you paying for those who do not want to work.

However, let's look at it realistically ...for most people who find themselves without a job, it's pretty traumatic.
They want to work and most of them actually pride themselves on working. Their job and providing for their families was part of who they feel they are and what sort of person they feel they are.
So, when they find themelves out of work, for many it's like the bottom has fallen out of their world.
I've been there, thankfully not for long, and I know how I felt.

So, I feel that we need to help those in that position and am glad that I live in a country civilised enough to do that.
(Whether we help enough is another matter).

As for the "won't work" people, I don't have much respect for their attitude but I take consolation from the fact that they seem to be a very small proportion of the unemployed.
As long as the unemployed list is greater than the job vacancies list (six times greater, last time I looked), I would find it difficult to tell who is willing to work, who isn't willing to work and who just isn't going about it the right way.
If helping the "genuine" means that some malingerers also get some cash for nothing, it's "a price worth paying" (*).
Not only that but, right now, I'd rather see those who want a job actually get one ... but we don't see much happening in that area and THAT is what frustrates me.

(*) Quote - Norman Lamont May 1991 - ... except he thought [uUN[/uemployment was a price worth paying. The current goverment (I believe) sees it the same way as he did, but they are pointing the finger at the unemployed as though it's their own fault. They seem to forget the "for the people" part of what democracy is for.

^

Add to the list of malingerers all of those currently on health related benefits for its a well known FACT that if you claim for illness or disability then you are malingering and politicians are allowed to point at you and blame you for all sorts of society problems and deficits.

There is an awful lot of mis-information being issued by politicians of various flavours regarding benefits and "cheats" to which the blindingly obvious question is, "If you know that they are cheating then why are you continuing to pay them ?"

To which there is no answer other than "Because we're rubbish at doing our job".

Yep, it's a bit like the furore a few years ago over illegal immigrants. The media didn't half get their knickers in a twist over the fact that government didn't know how many illegal immigrants there were coming into Britain each year.
As if the government had officials stood there in Dover counting the immigrants clinging to lorries as they came out of the tunnel, then waving them through.

From my experiences I think there are plenty of unemployed who could do more to find work. But many are not sure how it all works, think they can't do something other than what they've previously done, and after a long period out of work have simply no enthusiasm left to give to the process.
Some don't have Internet access at home, some don't how to put together a CV, some don't know how to write a covering letter, some don't know how to tailor their CV, some don't how to fill out application forms, some don't have basic qualifications like GCSE English and Maths, some have little or no employment history, some have no idea how to perform in interviews... The list of reasons why some people remain unemployed for a long time is almost as long as the unemployment line.
The job centre isnt totally useless at finding vacancies for people to apply, but is almost entirely useless at adequately preparing people to apply for that vacancy and have a realistic chance of getting it. Now I'm not having a go at the job centre staff, they're cruelly underfunded. The time allotted to each "customer" used to be 7 mins, it's now 5 after cuts to jobcentre staff. Which has to be the most bizarre cut in the history of government. At a time of rising unemployment, lets cut the number of people who help get unemployed back to work.
There is no way that someone can be helped to improve their employability with 5 mins contact every 2 weeks.

Both should be zero. What's your point?

In my own experience, I'd say that there are people out there who are so ... well, the best word I can think of is 'dysfunctional', that it's hard to imagine anyone actually employing them, except in a time of huge job availability and no unemployment. I have no idea whether they actually have mental health issues (I'm not remotely qualified enough to be able to say that), but as an example, one that I know (who has now just passed retirement age anyway), apparently had six miscarriages earlier in her life (she was a cook) and has just been pretty much away with the fairies ever since.

I can think of another (similar case) where a local businesswoman (a Tory-voting [iMail[/i reader, as it happens) tried to help and give them work, but again, she was just so utterly dysfunctional that it came to nothing for various reasons. The businesswoman I mention, though, actually has the view, though, that such people really do need help. And I have never, in knowing her for some 12 or so years, heard her say anything other than that she accepts that such people need support.

The obvious one. To put the hysteria about 'benefit scroungers' into context.

I don't know whether he is 'dysfunctional', but there is a lazy across the road from me who, in the 18 years I've known him, as never done a day's work.

He is classed as disabled, though it doesn't stop him from having the best garden in the neighboorhood, all through his own excellent work - He can even scale trees in order to remove any unruly branches. He is also extremely mobile, often being seen walking back and forth to the pub, though he does have a motor vehicle (funded by motability) to help him when he has his tired moments.

Now I know some on here, who have contributed to this thread, will try and defend him and say that in his private moments he may very well be in some sort of pain, but, personally, he is the type of person who needs eliminating from the benefits system.

The problem at the moment is that too many bad apples are ruining things for the genuine disabled, of which I fully accept there are a good amount, and simply labelling these kind of folk as 'dysfunctional' does not give them excuse to simply give up and expect to be looked after by the taxpayer.

One thing I will blame Labour for is failing to address the problem of the tiny minority of the habitual workshy. The time to put most effort into that problem is during periods of high employment, not now, when the fact that so many are chasing so few jobs makes the whole exercise a charade. Unfortunately this bunch of chancers have seized the opportunity to turn the working poor against the non-working poor, whatever the reason for them being unemployed.

Yep. I know of one person who circled 3 jobs in the paper every 2 weeks and took that in to the job centre as "evidence" he was attempting to find a job. He did this for at least the 2-3 years in which I knew him.
He wasn't dysfunctional (though I totally understand the point Mintball was making) and despite poorish grades at school he could have been perfectly competent in plenty of jobs if he'd been forced to actually apply for some jobs. But, like I said, the jobcentres are hugely underfunded.

They bloody well are now, that's a fact. Strangely there still seem to be £squillions to lash around at the likes of A4E, who can claim more from government than the amount of JobSeeker's Allowance the country saves. Something is seriously cockeyed there

At least she got 4% of A4E's unemployed clients back too work, for longer than 6 months, to earn her millions (and she's got the audacity to feel sorry for herself)....

[urlhttp://www.channel4.com/news/emma-harrison-im-a-useful-face-to-have-a-go-at[/url

@rse handed to her in that interview.
Damo was right about the stupid biatch.

Yep, that's the approach they're taking. Just privatise it and all is well. I've had dealings with another company, I think it was Prospect Training, who regularly put people through pointless courses like how to fill in an application form, which I'm sure was of use to some but not to all, because the more people on the course meant they could claim more money from the government for "up-skilling" people.
Don't get me wrong, some of the work they do is great, but that work could easily be undertaken by the jobcentres if they were adequately funded.

On your earlier point, about your mate who simply couldn't be arsed. We all know someone like that but what we then have to do is compare them to the numbers of people we know (or are aware of), who are hard-working grafters. Once we do that, we see that the "problem" really is not that big at all

Spot on!


I wouldn't class him as a mate though, if he was I'd have given him a kick up the backside to get him properly trying to get a job

I remember replying to a very, very similar post on the Daily Mails website not so long ago and I'll tell you the same thing as I did on there; its curtain twitchers like you that I love to hate. You are not a Doctor, you don't know your neighbours medical history. You don't know that after doing his garden he has to lay up for the rest of the day (like I do after I've walked the dogs or cut the grass or had a busy day) but you wouldn't see that. You couldn't possibly know how many pain killers he takes or (like me) how often he has to change his Fentanyl pain killer patches that he wears. You are not present at any of his medical appointments so how could you possibly know that he hasn't been given the ok to do his garden. And since when has been able to do a bit of gardening the disability crime of the centuary???

Jealously is an evil thing.

I've no doubt that we all know of people who have been or who feel badly done to by this Government purge on anyone who claims for anything from the public purse, the next target are those on above average incomes claiming child allowance.

But here's a story of a friend of mine, see if you think this is fair because I honestly think this is symptomatic of the whole pogrom now - the wife of a close friend had been an employee of our local council for several decades as a "home help", she had a round of local pensioners homes that she visited once a week or occasionally more often to clean, cook a meal and generally keep an eye on her "clients" for whom she felt personally responsible.

A couple of years ago with her knees knackered after thirty years of hard graft she went in for an artificial knee to be fitted, the operation was not successful and she's ended up unable to walk more than a few hundred yards and unable to kneel down, her employer decided (rightly) that she was unable to continue in her work and offered her redundancy and an appointment at an assessment centre to claim disability allowance, which after several medical tests and a statement from the hospital that did the operation, she was granted.

All was fine until this year when she was asked to attend another interview, and eventually advised that she did not qualify for disability allowance any longer because she was able to do "some work".

The goal posts weren't just moved, they were playing a completely different game.

Two year previous the assessment was based on "can you continue to work in your chosen career" to which the answer was very clearly "No", now the question is "Can you do any sort of work at all ?" to which their answer (you aren't allowed an opinion) is "Yes, you can do office work".

Truth is, she possibly could, other than the fact that she is in her 50s, has no keyboard skills, doesn;t know where to switch a computer on and has never worked in an office at all or had an inkling to do so, in theory yes she could work in an office, in practice you'd probably employ a chimp to do the work before her and she'd certainly be at the back of a very, very long queue if ever an office job arose that was on a bus route with a stop no further than 100 yards away from the workplace.

The sham is that they went through an "assessment", everyone would feel so much better if they just told her to fekk off because they had no money left.

Talking from experience JC the whole thing is one big (mega expensive) charade. I know it, you know it, Atos knows it, IDS knows it, Grayling (ex employment minister) knows it, but we all have to pretend its for the greater good of us ill and disabled people. The system is flawed in a big way. Yes, Labour did bring in Atos and started the whole sorry mess but the assesment was a lot fairer under Labour, off the top of my head instead of what is asked now "can you climb two steps with help" Yes/no.............it used to be "can you climb a flight of stairs without help and if not what sort of help do you need?" And it used to be can you kneel down/crouch down and pick up a cardboard box from the floor, if not describe why"......now its " can you pick up an empty cardboard box from the floor without help, yes/no?" No room for descriptions, just a simple yes/no answer that, by the time you've finished, makes it look like you are as fit as a butchers dog.

The problem is its the tax payers who are baying for our blood, yet its the taxpayers who are paying millions upon millions to put us through this charade.

What we need to move to is a system whereby politicians who make bad, ill thought out and costly decisions are made personally responsible for wasting public funds and jailed if necessary. That's where the waste is not helping the needy and vulnerable. Let's think of a few billions - bad decisions by Brown at the start of the banking crisis, expensive and failed IT systems in the NHS (and others in the preceding decades), enormous wate on consultants' fees, enormous waste on a "review" of everything, wasteful procurement by MOD, including scrapped projects, awarding big infrastructure projects to foreign suppliers, buying second homes out of public funds, being above commuting homes like their constituents, being in the EU, etc, etc. In short politicians are destroying this country whilst not doing the things we want them too - like punish criminals, destroy the drugs trade, get weapons off the streets, arrange free, high quality healthcare, education and help for the sick and disabled, protect freedoms, etc, etc.

Ealier this week I saw a message from an ex-squaddie that went something like this:

Dear Atos,

Thanks for your letters informing me that I am capable of work and my DLA is to be removed. I have read your letters out on numerous occasions but so far my legs have refused to grow back, wjat's left of them are lying in a field somewhere in Helmand

I have no idea about such a case, obviously, but what you're describing doesn't sound like the cases I was specifically thinking of.

Both of those individuals have chaotic lives that certainly don't involve 'nice gardens' or a flash lifestyle.

I have no firm knowledge of what any doctor has ever diagnosed in either case – I could only ever guess. It doesn't change what I posted, though.

Pfffffft, Atos have him on camera.

Me neither, but I'm slightly concerned that Dita's has been watching him for 18 years and knows exactly what is going on in the guy's life. Has Dita's been working at all during that 18 years? I think we need to be told.