Dear Tories, Watch This Video You Fuckfaces

Yeah, I thought about that. But I hardly watch the news, and I'm pretty sure most here don't know about our politics. Plus, I would have to search links in English and etc.

I can understand that you think David Cameron is destroying society (and I myself disgree with even partly privatising the NHS) but Cameron himself believes he is helping our society.
That is an extremely important distinction, too many people think Cameron actually wants to destroy our society, simply because they disagree with him. I'm sure he feels the same way about some of the things you believe.

His party got more votes and more seats in the General Election than any other party. A huge proportion of that vote came from working and middle class people. Therefore, he is perfectly capable of representing them, if that is who they voted for.

I am in support of our welfare state absolutely, I just think there are some changes that need to be made. For example, I don't think that someone who has lived on benefits all their life, and has had an opportunity to take a job, should be able to get more money than someone who chose to work when given the chance.
When I was on work experience at an estate agents in a nearby town, a woman of perhaps 20 years old came in, crying. She was a single mother with one child, and worked at the Subway across the road. She was crying because she could barely afford to pay her rent, and she remarked tellingly, 'I'd be much better off if I was on benefits, wouldn't I'.
Sadly this is true, if she was out of work, her rent would be paid and she could spend much more time looking after her child.
This is fundamentally wrong, our system almost discourages working in low-paid jobs. This is my opinion, and I would hold to it whether or not I was dependant on welfare payments.

My point is to reward those who work, and discourage people from not working when they could be working.

This guy looks and sounds like my uncle...but its not cause my uncle doesn't give a shit about politics.

Oh wait, ignore what I said about Cameron not wanting to cut benefits.
He's just stealing my ideas, that's what.

I'd have to agree with most of what he says in this article.

@UtterlyImpeccable
While I agree that you should encourage unemployed people to actively seek jobs, I don't think you should expect them to take any job that is offered.
I'm going to use the "single mother with children" because it's easy and understandible, but it certainly isn't the only case where this might apply.
Let's say a single mother with three children is seeking a job, but is unable to get one above minimum wage.(or at least not significantly) With this kind of a job she wouldn't be able to properly take care of her three children while she was out working all day. You can't/shouldn't expect the woman to take this kind of a job and the government should indeed provide her with higher than minimum-wage benefits because of her children.

While I would like to agree with what you're saying, I don't believe such thinking would stop the problem, and is in fact what caused it in the first place.
If you tell someone they will get benefits for every child they have, enabling them to look after them, then they will be more likely to have more and more children, and each will be paid for by the state, and this on a large scale is clearly unaffordable.
If every person dependant on benefits was responsible, there would not be a problem, but there is now a culture of people who think it is their right to live of the state. With such people, a policy of more money and a bigger house for every child simply does not work, as there will be no incentive for them to stop having children.

However, I agree that it might be possible to implement a policy whereby they are only told they must take a job if it can support the family they already have. I would not extent this to any more family members they might aquire after the job is taken.

And anyway, if the woman was on minimum wage in this country, she would still get child benefits for each child, and the state would top up her income. My suggestion will certainly not solve the problem on its own.

Woah now, let's not go overboard on this one. Just because the state will pay unemployment benefits and child support doesn't mean it has to give people with several children a lavish amount of money. It's not like people(anywhere) go around thinking that they should get another child to pay for that nice new car. It's a huge strain for a woman to get a child and take care of it, and I don't think anyone is willing to get one just to get a little more money from the state. Besides, by your logic, providing any kind of child benefits should be cut as it makes women, and I qoute, "have more and more children" which is just blatantly wrong in most cases.

So the woman shouldn't have any more children after she has taken a job? Isn't that just punishing people for taking responsibility and counterproductive as it will encourage women to get children before they get a job?
The problem in the UK seems to be that a minimum wage and child benefits is not enough and thus the child benefits for working parents needs to be increased and especially for single parents.

Not exactly that, but giving people more money for every extra child means they don't think about the finanical implications of having a child (as working people have to) and so, already dependant on the state, having another child will not reduce their income overall, and so are more likely to have children, which eventually becomes a burden on the state.

That's plain ridiculous. The entire problem is that unemployment benefits, child benefits, housing benefits and other benfits combined provide a person with more money than they could ever earn in a low paid job. While many people will do the responsible thing and attempt to work regardless, some people are happy to never even bother looking for work and to expect to live their entire lives with the money of taxpayers.

Also, this is not about just the minimum wage, I'm fairly sure very few jobs are actually on the minimum wage, so I'm skeptical as to how much difference that would make. And increasing child benefits would only make the problem I have described worse.

Well, that actually happens here.

Well it's easy to solve that problem. You just decrease the child benefits for each child if the parent(s) are not working.

Fuck, I think you misunderstood me.(or I just didn't make myself very clear)
The child benefits for working parents needs to be increased so that it makes sense to work because your income would increase significantly. This would be even higher for single parents.
I do think tha tthe minimum wage in the UK is too low, but that's not really what we're discussing here.

Well then obviously, people are receiving too much in child benefits. The situation in Argentina is also slightly different than in most European countries...

Alright, I understand what you're saying now, and I agree. I hope our government has the backbone to try something like this, or it will never happen.

Perhaps, but then people here work longer hours than in Denmark. Which you could argue is not fair, but we couldn't afford it any other way, and still stay competitive in the global market.

I think you could stay competitive considering Denmark is number 8 in competitiveness out of all countries in the world while at the same time also having some of the best working(and unemployed for that matter) conditions in the world.
EDIT: My point being; good working conditions and high taxes/big government doesn't exclude a high competitiveness as some people seem to assume.(not you necessarily)

Perhaps not, but it wouldn't be easy to do. If we suddenly just doubled the minimum wage, half of all companies would collapse straight away and we'd be screwed in general. Something that might have something to do with it, though, is how much executives and financiers are paid in the UK, thousands of whom recieve millions of pounds in wages every year. I think something must be done about it.

Interestingly, though, the minimum wages of Denmark and the UK are both 66% of GDP per capita, so it could be argued that reliatively they are the same.

Of course a change in policy would have to be gradual and something that a large part of the country agreed upon so that the progress one government achieved would be destroyed by the next.
We do have the same problem in Denmark with the higher-ups receiving having huge salaries, but not as bad as in the UK and the chasm between the employee and "leaders" is not as big in Denmark.

And I think that this shows the superiority of a fully developed and complete welfare state compared to a, no offence, somewhat half-assed solution that many other European countries including the UK have settled on.

Yes, it certainly is a problem. But a difficult one to tackle without looking really communist (100% tax of salaries over £800,000 or something).

The only offence I have taken is from the horrific misspelling of what was clearly meant to be 'arsed', but turned out as 'assed', which, by the way, is a completely different word, and refers to an animal similar to a horse.

And I agree we've settled at the half way stage, but when you get problems with the welfare state such as we have been discussing, it can often put people off it slightly. (Although I think slowly we will drift closer towards Europe and hopefully further away from America in economic and social terms).

Having said that, in many ways I prefer to be 'in the middle' of Europe and America, it's just a question of getting the best of both worlds, and not the worst.

Yes I deeply apoligize for that

The problem with settling at the half way is that the welfare state is not fully developed and thus not fully functional and effective. You can't(well you could, but it would be stupid) raise taxes on people without providing benefits for them in return, and unless you provide in various(if not all) sectors it's not going to work. Cutting or not providing free/heavily subsidised education(both higher and lower) in a high-tax country will be detrimental for the country's competitiveness in the long run and thus state finances.

Yes, of course, but there are also some benefits to being more American-style in our ways. It's a difficult balancing act and a hard choice. (For the country as a whole, not neccessarily for individual people or for me)

EDIT: I just realised what you did in your last post. 'Apoligize'! You terrible human being.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18575453

More Conservative douchebaggery. Newsflash- you can't expect people to get jobs that don't exist you fucking retards. God, I hope the next election comes soon so we can boot those morons out of office.

How would you solve welfare dependancy, then?

Though I agree there does have to be reform with greater emphasis on ensuring that those on benefits are not better off then those working, I don't think that is achieved by removing what is for many people a much needed safety net. The difficulty comes of course in distinguishing between those who seriously need it and those who don't.

What I am worried about however, is that these two categorise will become blurred in this debate and people who genuinely need it will become stigmatised. Whereas it is easy for people such as myself who don't need benefits to say they need to take a bit of independent responsibility and get off government support, we mustn't forget that for many people on benefits it is a result of circumstances out of their control. It is no coincidence that the areas with the most people on benefits, are the areas with the highest poverty rates, poorest education results and highest crime rates. If we want to get people less dependent on benefits, then we need to solve the issue of poverty and unemployment.

JJ raises a good point though, (even if it was expressed in a partisan manner) ensuring people have jobs means they have no need for the safety net of benefits.

Unfortunately though, there is no magic lever that can be pulled to create jobs.