General election/Brexit/politics

I quoted it to show you it was your words.

Maybe you aren't posting what it is you think you are. Maybe you really are a fair minded adult who just happens to write posts that read like right wing reactionary adolescent by accident.

 

Or maybe I do post what I mean , but you’re such a rabid happy clapper you can’t wait to jump down my throat and therefore don’t thoroughly read what I post. Again, where did I say businesses would get free labour ??

 

So I didn't then Donny did I? Ni response because (I know this isnt something you care to admit to) you were wrong. So next question then, whats so terrible about requiring those blighting the town centre daily to do a few hours work a day for their money ? Perhaps they could clear up the mess they leave ? Then perhaps they’d think twice ? Perhaps they’d be out working instead of intimidating young lasses and old folk. Whats wrong wi that ???

 

Who's organising this 'work'?

In case you hadn't noticed, the concept of local or central government doing front line work is all bar dead in 2019. We outsource everything, from school cleaners to work programme, from health assessments to looking after our parks - it's all outsourced, and it's those 'companies' who'd benefit from the 'free labour'.

And remember that was based on the assumption that YOU (not the experts currently doing it) were going to decide who is worthy of benefits for being sick and disabled. I'm not sure how you're finding the time to do that - there were about a million ESA/UC assessments last year and nearly as many for PIP.

 

You’re doing it again Donny, where did you get that I’d be deciding who got what ? And why bring the sick and disabled into it ? You need to calm down pal, read my posts thoroughly and stop ranting like your stereotypical loony leftist.

 

Well you’re obviously aware (as you’re such an expert) that the vast majority of non pensioner benefit is paid to the sick and disabled.
And you bang on about those who are ‘genuinely’ sick, which clearly means that you have some issues with people abusing that system (it’ll be those addicts in the town centre).

You see all I’m doing is taking what you post to it’s logical conclusion. You seem to think that if you’re upset about something then the answer is simple. I’m telling you it’s not simple, if you want to rid the streets of drug users, there’s no point attacking the ‘unemployed’ because those guys are unlikely to be ‘unemployed’, they’re almost certainly ‘sick’
Your solution?

 

So, from each according to their abilities, and to each according to their needs, then?

Sounds like a decent system to me.

 

Thanks

 

I’m not attacking the unemployed Donny, my issue is with those who chose not to be employed, there’s a difference lost on you in your socialist utopia. If all we ever do is take from those who earn ti give to those who won’t where’s the incentive for them to ever get off their arses ??

 

But this is where your lack of ‘knowledge’ trips you up.

you ‘think’ it’s people ‘choosing’ to be unemployed. But the group you continually point at are the junkies etc in the town centre.

the reality is that they’re not likely ‘unemployed’, they’re almost certainly suffering mental health issues, drug and alcohol abuse problems*. likewise your ‘junkie’ relative.

Now I’m not ‘happy clapping’ and I don’t pretend to have the answer, because I understand the problem. Only people who see the problem as simple think the answer is simple.

Most people on the right of politics believe that the government throws money at the undeserving. And many on the left believe that Tory austerity has killed thousands by making benefits harder to claim.

If you wish to claim UC as an unemployed person, you need to look for work for 35hrs and prove that, if your work coach doesn’t believe you, you get ‘sanctioned’. That means you go without any money.

Of course all ‘wastrels’ are aware of that and would rather take their chances being ‘sick’.

Btw I’m neither condoning, supporting, accusing anyone etc, I’m just giving you some detail that might make you see the problem differently.

The welfare budget is split very interestingly, and if you want to ‘make savings’, the unemployed aren’t your best target.

Over 50% of the benefit budget goes to over 60’s, there’s about 3x more ‘sick’ than unemployed and more is spent on ‘in work’ benefits than on the unemployed.

So; back to my original response to you; you mentioned the ‘genuinely sick’ and I rightly suggested that is an important point but you’d misunderstood because ‘unemployed’ even though your actual issue is ‘junkies’.

 

If I can intrude on private grief for a minute, the old trope of the idle skulking loafers on benefits who "don't want work" and have seventeen children at the expense of the state is a bit tired, isn't it? It's a bit like the tax-dodging bosses who sun themselves in the Bahamas and pay their employees nowt a yard while raiding their pension funds and dodging every ounce of tax. I suppose if you look hard enough you'll find examples of either. But doesn't the overwhelming majority of the population lie somewhere in the middle? Isn't it how the needs of those people are addressed that is more important? The extreme stereotypes portrayed by either side are really lazy thinking, to my mind. But (controversial bit coming.....) I think the whole Brexit debate has pushed people towards this way of discourse. The billions we send to tinpot dictators in Brussels who are unaccountable and who festoon us with laws of their own, compromising our Great British sovereignty! What a load of crap! If only we could up the level of debate. No chance between now and 12 December though! Think I might leave the country!

 

I don’t ‘think’’ people choose to be unemployed I know they do from personal experience. We were having tea with brother in law and his wife when she announced that her baby brother and his equally feckless partner were trying for a second child. I asked if he’d got a job, no she replied, but they’ve worked it all out they’re entitled to this entitled to that entitled entitled entitled. And now his first born ( who’s also never worked) has two kids based on the same ethos. Now I know that we’re never going to agree on much but I don't know of many people who would see this as a misuse of what the welfare state was set up for, misuse that’s replicated countless times all over the country. All I’m saying is that it’s wrong and must change as the money expended on the feckless comes from the same purse as that for those in genuine need. The answer isnt to blame the evil tories its to dissuade folk embarking on this lifestyle in the first place. I’ll leave it here now Donny as we’ll just go around in circles. Have a good day pal

 

But when we have as near to full employment as we're likely to get, what does it matter?

 

Irish people living in Britain can vote.

 

The only ‘fact’ I’m questioning here is are you absolutely certain that they’re ‘unemployed’?

because as I’ve said, being long term unemployed is both more difficult and less financially rewarding than being long term sick.
And be in no doubt that the ‘workless’ of this country know the detail of that better than you and me.
And again I’m not judging, just laying out some known facts that might help with your understanding.

 

I can't agree with that sentiment enough.

And there are two sides of the coin here. The first, why are we in such a world where extremes and hyperbole exist? (I'd go so far as to say populism has pushed us into a state of post hyperbole. Partly, we've run out of hyperbole, and lies and falsehood just isn't as rare as it seemed to be and is rarely if ever punished. Lying is now acceptable, as long as its not called lies.)

In the political realm, hyperbole and pushing something to an extreme creates division. The wider the division, the more anger can be stirred and more activity stems from anger. If we go back just over 4 short years, the political landscape was so very different. We had Clegg, Milliband and Cameron. All looking similar, all speaking similarly and some overlap on policies. I don't highlight that to say we should be back to such similarity, but as to how far things have shifted in such a short period.

Its clear that both left and right of the current two main parties are very content with this situation. As Johnson whips up one form of anger, Corbyn whips up a different type, but anger is still at its centre. Both of these two parties currently get their power base from generating anger. Around the right, there are enablers in the media. On the left, there is a group (unofficially?) charged with whipping up propaganda and avalanching it through social media in unofficial mechanisms.

These actions, they believe lead to or can generate power.

Secondly, away from the political side, we have us, individuals. Social media, forums like this now give us access to state our views, share points and provide information that we wish to share. We are in control (we believe) of the bubbles we create and the spheres of influence we engage with. When we engage, we do so for particular purpose. Belonging. To learn. To teach. To educate. To be popular. To be important. To be right. Many more reasons too, but many of them as we've seen (and I'm as guilty as anyone else) create defensiveness when scrutinised and put under contest. When challenged, its not an unusual thing to defend a point of view. And given the power we have to share out own words so widely for so many different eyes, and the world that has evolved where shifting as far as possible quickly to prove a point or kill a debate is the norm, its unsurprising every day citizens take on examples set by those in the media and the public eye.

How we shift back from this sort of world of taking things to an extreme, such open brutal division, hate and aggression... I genuinely don't know.

Moderate. Centrist. Considered. Expert. Reasoned. Analysed.

Words that are seemingly endangered.

 

I think one of the key drivers is the collapse of people paying for their news. Previously the competition was between newspapers but now newspapers are struggling to survive at all, leading to clickbait headlines and portraying politics in extremes. Even in simple reporting. There was a long thread on here about the Labour Party conference and the position on private schools. Even the broadsheets were wildly inaccurate and suddenly a sensible manifesto commitment was interpreted as creeping communism. And the same happens to the Conservatives too.

Everyone carries their prejudices and unconscious bias in to any issue, and that often stifles sensible and considered debate. I often get frustrated at myself for doing exactly that. Added to which you have no benefit of face to face contact on here, with all the nuances of tone, facial expression and body language which are key to our ability to understand, reason or compromise.

There is very little in this world that is black and white, and pretty much everything occupies the shades of grey in the middle, whether that be Brexit, BFC's current plight or Keith Hill's tenure.

 

Very much so. My perception is that those differences are preyed upon and aimed to be opened up now more than they ever were. I don't think Brexit caused that to be the case, but its certainly exposed it.

 

My

understanding is fine thanks, I got him a start once at a block manufacturer up near me called Plasmor, a good pal of mine let me know that they were setting on. He’d have to be up at 6 to get there on time on his moped. His words were these - ‘ up at 6, ? thats barbaric, fk that’ easier to lie in bed until noon and live off the sweat of my back than his own. No, he’s not sick. The system is.

 

Well done for missing my point completely. Using 100 words to not answer my question.