[jaysay]

Originally Posted by Gaston

Thanks Susie, interesting viewing, and a very controversial subject.

My views on that are:

1) The bloke who's 56 and never had a job would historically have been put in a sanitorium and thus hidden from statistics. Since they closed them down he doesn't have so many options. Clearly unemployable, I guess society has just got to carry him (although many will resent it).

2) I do have some sympathy with the 59 year old expressing the view that he's worked all his life and benefits should be paid in line with contribution. Fair comment I think.

3) Maundy centre looks like a great cause. The bloke that's too worried to get a job should be volunteering in places like that instead of just going out for cups of tea with social workers.

4) The country's benefits bill went up by 50% (to 30bn from 20bn a year) under the Labour Govt. That's out and out stupid - taxpayers can't afford it and returning it to a sustainable level is going to be painful.

5) UK is bankrupt, and can't pretend that it's not. The reality is that swapping out manufacturing for banking and haircutting (the two remaining UK industries) was a disaster for the country.

6) New tech industry like my own could not be based out of the UK because as a new start business you get no tax breaks at all (VAT in particularly sucking out 20% off everything you make/sell from day 1). I moved my business out of the UK because of this and also because I was competing with the benefits system for employees. I actually had employees move to part time work because they'd earn more in benefits (Single mums in particular). I was paying more than minimum wage, but couldn't compete with the size of handouts for some of my people. I employed 50 people in Berwick a couple of years back, now what remains of the firm I started there runs about 6 people. Simple reality for me is that my business could not have worked out of the UK, needed to move out in order to prosper (mix of couldn't get the skills, and couldn't pay the taxes). Thankfully for me other countries are no so business unfriendly.

7) If I was a young person in Accrington I'd save up for and get a 1 way ticket to the Falkland Islands (full employment, decent wages, shortage of people, Brits loved). Only downside is that the weather is even worse than you get in the UK.

Think you've summed up Britain to a tee there, benefits are a work deterrent, with people better off sat at home than working in a lot of cases