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| Britain |
| The tragic scandal of welfare Britain |
| 2005-01-27 |
| Via Freedom and Whisky: There's some big numbers here. DO THE poor really benefit from Labour? It's not such a daft question: welfare payment goes up, certainly, but is Scotland more socially cohesive as a result? Are people escaping sink estates, finding work and helping their children prosper? **SNIP** But dig below the data, step into the housing schemes, and you find that the generosity is breeding tragedy. Under Labour's welfare payments, 266,000 people in Scotland are now categorised as "incapacitated" - claiming dole and deemed unable to work. This figure is staggering. If they all lived together, they would occupy a city greater than Aberdeen or Dundee - yet such people do not show up on unemployment figures. Nor do they work. They are in the invisible zone of the labour market. There are 2.4 million of them across Britain - people who have been effectively decommissioned, and usually ushered into a life of housing schemes, sink schools and social failure. **SNIP** Yet the share of the UK workforce actually in employment remains well below its peak in 1989. Glasgow's unemployment may be 8 per cent, but a third of its adults have no job. The same is true for one in four Scots. Labour has, in part, fought unemployment by finding alternatives to work. One is studying: universities have proliferated, in varying qualities, offering a bewildering array of not always useful courses. Then comes the option of being categorised as permanently sick. Since 1993, the number of Britons considered "incapacitated" has doubled from 1.2 million - a rise not seen since troops returned from the Second World War. There has been no crippling, nationwide epidemic. But there has, instead, been a political disease - where the definition of welfare is entitlement, not empowerment. Where the aim is to write cheques, not to aid careers. **SNIP** |
| Posted by:anonymous2u |
| #7 It can be hard trying to get rid of Bank of Scotland money south of the border. Same goes for Royal Bank of Scotland and Clydesdale Bank. I know. It's not because you're Scottish - it's because it's so damn rare people are either suspicious of it or know they themselves might have difficulty passing it on (like a mangled coin or any torn note). IIUC it's not even a legal obligation to accept other British notes in England. In England we only have Bank of England notes. Much simpler. I dread to think what happens when you try offloading one of the four(?) Northern Ireland issuers' notes... There's a saying about the Scots / English that I think sums it up pretty well: The Scots say they're superior to the English, but don't believe it. The English don't say they're superior to the Scots, but the do believe it... |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2005-01-27 11:39:12 AM |
| #6 when i was stationed there, i got the distict impression that the conditions had as much to do with the culture as anything else (no offense scotland). work didn't seem to be valued like it is here (by here, of course, i mean houston). i'm not passing a value judgment, cuz i don't know that work is what i value most either. no doubt the dole does not help to encourage the (moral) value of work. but then niether does (what seemed to me) to be the view of brits that scots were 2nd class citizens. i still remember the change of attitude when i spent bank of scotland money down south, and it wasn't a positive one. |
| Posted by: Rawsnacks 2005-01-27 10:23:29 AM |
| #5 As ever... |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2005-01-27 8:41:59 AM |
| #4 I wouldn't say it's an exclusively Labour thing or even a Labour invention, but it's been exploited by Blair and his spin machine like by nobody else. The fact that "the share of the UK workforce actually in employment remains well below its peak in 1989" demonstrates that the problem of unemployment is worse than before Blair became PM - yet Blair's actually managed to make the public believe that unemployment has gone down... |
| Posted by: Spike Mylwester 2005-01-27 8:41:36 AM |
| #3 BD: I think incapacity benefit existed prior to the Labour Government being in power and the Tories certainly, like all governments, massaged the unemployment figures in the nineteen eighties to their political advantage. I was given the choice of taking incapacity benefit when I was ill several years ago. The sum offered was pitiful and I got on with things. However, for some it does provide a more lucrative opt-out than unemployment benefit. Although a staunch believer in the need for a welfare state that provides a helping hand, I do, however, think a review of the social security system in the UK is long overdue. |
| Posted by: Howard UK 2005-01-27 8:12:09 AM |
| #2 All of the UK. This is the Labour Government's way of deceiving the British public about the true levels of unemployment here. They get away with it because the media, well, I don't need to go on... |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2005-01-27 7:42:48 AM |
| #1 BD, et al, is this a Scottish problem or all of Britain? |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-01-27 7:16:34 AM |