British Workers Wanted - Channel 4

[Mark]

So do retired people, and many do. It's not an ideal situation, but it's the way of the world.

I don't accept that idea. There is plenty of incentives to work right now.

[Andrew]

Was it this program where someone remarked that people only go to the Job Centre to get benefits. Those that want to work go to an Agency.

[Andrew]

But if the worker is totally useless, the employer cannot easily get rid of him (or her). This is why they like to use agencies.

[Andrew]

They do. They just go into the job centre and go through the motions of looking for a job or make electronic enquiries about jobs that they are impossibly unqualified to do, just to avoid 'sanctions'.

The females have the ultimate get-out-of-jail weapon. When the youngest child reaches the age that mother is supposed to go back to work, she just accidentally meets up with the 'absent' father(s) and starts another sprog.

[Andrew]

Yes she did, and pointed out the broken glass in the window from a disgruntled benefit cheat who she had said 'NO' to.

[Andrew]

+1

Nothing has changed. Now they can also become elected councillors or (Euro) MPs as well.

[JoeJoe]

The whole of Chelsea and Kensington will be on the market the next day then.

[Andrew]

Hence the astonishing rise in the number of kids being 'diagnosed' with autism or ADHD.

This opens wonderful pathways to riches to single mothers making a career out of milking the benefit system.

[JoeJoe]

The proof is in the pudding: if it weren't generous and provide them with comfortable enough life, then they would be forced to try and find work (which they are not doing).

[The Natural Philosopher]

Excepting terminal political stupidity, Britains problem is that it has too many people and too few natural resources.

employment, as any labour government knows, is assured by employing people to dig holes and fiull them in again, or 'public sector workers' as it's known.

But no amount of make-believe jobs grows potatoes, or builds housing, and the competition of land space is for both.

Higher wages for builders also push up housing costs. As do extreme environmental regulation, and land shoratges.

In the end the nations wealth is what it can produce that is actually wanted. Not how many parking attendants the council employs to tax motorists to pay the attendants wages.

We have too many people on too little land and too many jobs that are makework and not productive in some way.

Limiting immigrations is but one step.

We also need to cut down on stupid public sector work. People don't need to go to university. They dont need to be lectured in gender politics. Nor do they need to spend their lives making other peoples lives miserable.

If half the people the council employs learnt how to fill potholes, instead of dealing with claims from people who have smashed wheels in them the roads would be a better place.

[JoeJoe]

Find me one of those people who doesn't smoke and drink regularly...

[Andrew]

This program was filmed in Bognor Regis, which always was a backwater, not known for large reliable employers.

Apart from the Council and British Rail, I can only think of Butlins and Wileys the technical bookseller.

I was always surprised how many East Europeans had moved to Worthing.

[Andrew]

Why ?. They should be related to how much tax and NI you paid or derived from your own savings.

Why should someone get a 'generous' guaranteed pension, unrelated to how much effort they made when working, and then choose to go and live elsewhere in the world ?.

[Mark]

Who isn't?

[JoeJoe]

My mate left the police last year after 30 years. Sat at home and lived off his pension for 6 months and got more and more depressed.

Picked himself up, went to college for 6 months to train as a heating engineer (as in Gas Safe), had plenty of job offers when he finished, and now earns a very decent wage.

The proof that benefits are too high is that there are young and healthy people who are perfectly comfortable living off them.

[Mark]

Or government ministers.

[Andrew]

I live a house with no heating. It's my house.

I ripped out the Baxi Bermuda G/F back boiler in 2003 after finally discovering the state of the flue blocks in the wall (partially blocked with cement 'snots', and a huge hole in the initial 45 degree block allowing the cavity to become the 'flue'.).

I've become so used to just living in one well-insulated upstairs room for 5 months of thr year, I forgotten what it was like.

[Brian Reay]

Those receiving state pensions are not expected to be looking for work- they've (at least in theory) 'done their bit' and should be enjoying retirement. Hopefully, many will also have other pensions to support this.

Those simply not working from choice should not expect those who do work (or have worked and are still paying tax) to support them beyond a basic level.

Not working from choice includes refusing available jobs, making themselves unemployable etc. In fact, those who decide they don't want a job shouldn't get any benefits.

We've far more EU migrants working in the UK than there are unemployed people. Clearly being unemployed is more attractive than the jobs the EU migrants are filling.

[Mark]

Stop reading the Daily Mail.

[Yellow]

I would love a pensioner's bus pass but am not old enough unfortunately, and was wistfully thinking about them only the other day.

I concluded I would be prepared to pay a couple of hundred quid, if not more, for such a wonderful perk that cannot actually be purchased at any price.