Seems to be the politicians phrase of choice at the moment and I for one am getting a little tired of hearing it said at any and every opportunity by the current government. But I have also noticed that the Labour part have now jumped on the bandwagon as I heard one of their politicians use the phrase yesterday. What does the phrase "Hard working families" actually mean? Are mum and dad beavering away at their jobs, are the kids up chimneys, in mills down mines to earn their keep? Are the rest of us, the sick,disabled the majority of the unemployed now considered worthless members of society? I personally got made redundant at the beginning of the recession at the same time as I was diagnosed with cancer I am also now 59 and although free of cancer,touch wood, am virtually unemployable it seems. I have tried everything from delivery driver to shelf stacker in a supermarket. I have even tried to get a temporary job with the Royal Mail last Christmas when they were moaning they could not get enough people but nope not successful. I was told that in a supermarket near me that when 10 jobs were advertised they had around 500 applicants for each position So come on politicians just because we do not work, the great majority are not work shy layabouts and could you please stop using the meaningless phrase "hard working families."
job market is unbelieveable - the local supermarket to me (where I actually got a job) advertised 60 jobs. for each job they had 120 applications - now this is in a town of population circa 100,000. what gets my goat is the `new` `free meals to infants thing - like lol? those who should get it - families on uber low income - already get free meals! so is for tarquin and Penelope so mummy can get another bottle of gin each week? and don't get me started on the benefits bill - oh we must cut disabled or unemployed... nope- the BIGGEST by a mountain part of the benefits bill is PENSIONS. but your average tory doesn't mention that....... sorry just in rant mode *from a hard working family , working 25 hours a day , 8 days a week down ta mine*
+1 Pensions are about the one thing which I would have thought everyone would unanimously agree are worth fixing and pouring more money into to sort out the shitfest that it is now.
Pensions are paid for by national insurance contributions. They are an entitlement, not a benefit. As for free school meals: we know they improve school performance = better qualifications = better chances of getting a job in a competitive market. Now I don't know if you remember your school days, but social stigma was a happening thing in mine. If Tiny Tim gets free meals while his class mates, like Tarquin and Penelope don't, it singles Tiny Tim out to all his class mates as being poor. Experience shows that Tiny Tim hates this so much that he will forego his free meals for social acceptance. The idea behind everybody getting a school meal is the same as behind school uniforms: everybody is treated and seen as equal. Feeding the occasional Tarquin seems a small price to pay to make sure the majority of Tiny Tims get food in their belly. KRONOS' position sucks, and is the consequence of cancer rehabilitation being yet but a dim concept in the health and social services' tiny brain. But as treatment improves, cancer survivors are becoming a substantial minority so this is about to change. For the healthy unemployed, I humbly venture to suggest that if Central Europeans, with their foreign qualifications and their broken actually quite decent English can come over here and find a job, then why can't the locals? If all you qualify to apply for is supermarket jobs, then possibly you need better qualifications more relevant to the job market.
Its not only the sick,disabled, or unemployed people that this phrase does a disservice to, what about hard working single people. They are arguably less of a burden on society, but get very little in the way of tax benefits, allowances, and free things. What made me laugh is there is even a wiki article on the phrase http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardworking_families
Between privatisation & putting manufacturing to the sword the Tories & bankers to some degree have bankrupted the UK, don't believe the propaganda line 'we inherited the debt from labour' bs, the seeds were sown for that debt by Thatcher. The Tories have managed to convince the population that it's not them and the bankers to blame, has nothing to do with MPs ring fencing their own incomes while making major cuts in public spending, even managed to brush the MPs expenses scandal under the carpet & convinced the nation of who is really to blame for all this ...the sick and unemployed, basically the poorest and most disempowered in society are responsible for all our troubles. The sheeple believed it and voted in the Tories who really only care about 1% of the population. Labour are a joke, so far to the right now you can barley tell them apart from the Tories ..thanks Tony.
That's a really silly thing to say, why not do some research into why UK employers are taking on foreigners over locals & while you are there have a look into how a trade becomes 'qualified' in Poland compared to their UK counterpart, its not the level playing field you are trying to sell.
I have the necessary qualifications/experience gained over many many years in the building trade and heating and ventilation trade but what I don't have is the physical strength to do this type of work. But rather than sit about taking money I would prefer to earn and if it means taking a job as a supermarket shelf stacker so be it. So no a supermarket job is not all I am qualified for but perhaps you can suggest what type of qualifications I should be seeking at almost 60 to increase my employment chances?
QFT Even Nick Glegg said the same thing. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1160054/Nick-Clegg-accuses-Margaret-Thatcher-sowing-seeds-financial-collapse.html Margaret Thatcher - There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families.
I do recruitment for the company I work for from time to time and recently we were filling out our September enrole for uni Applicants. We had 50 Uni Applications for 2 out of uni roles that we offer where i work, Half of those applications where so badly written they went in the bin. Alot of people could use a few lessons in how to write a C.V and how to write a letter to go with it. Also saw alot of people turn up in jeans and trainers for a office based job where a suit is basically the requirement. A bit of research from would be job seekers would be a wonderful thing. The goverment should be providing this help to those that need it, instead of sending people to job courses that last forever so they are not officially claiming something.
You're somewhat of a tech head, given that you wouldn't be on here if you weren't.... Sooo....learn a web programming language and do some freelancing on the side? If you get good, I'LL give you some work. How's that for fair? Perfectly possible to do with self education, requires almost no investment, and web programming is amongst the most straight forward of all programming. At this point in time as well, it's a more or less limitless marketplace. I can get awesome developers regularly from eastern europe and India and so on. However having someone with local knowledge of culture and understanding is pretty much priceless - all successful web agencies know that, and I suspect that applies for most businesses. What amazes me is the people I get applying have no concept of leveraging that. In the years I've been working, I've only had one UK developer that can truly match the Eastern Europeans and be competitive. I think the key to his success is that he is a) very hard working/just as hard working, b) not stupid enough to live in London while on a job that doesn't pay London rates [it's amazing how many people do this] and c) does the 10% that no-one else really does, without me having to ask for it. As a result, he is inundated with work in addition to myself and rolling in money...! I kind of get what people are saying when they explain Nexxo's point not being true as it isn't a level playing field - but then I see that as somewhat narrow minded. If anything, British people have the advantage due to inherent experience in our country. The one issue I can think of is that many central and Eastern Europeans are willing to do the same work for less - but I must be honest, as a business owner selling a service to other businesses, we've had to drop our prices too. It's the market unfortunately and there are ways around it. The main one being, differentiate yourself. We are losing business directly to the rest of the EU and Asia every single day. It's still possible to survive though, and I'm sorry to say, but I'm doing it on a much grander and more complex scale. I think you need a lesson on the true causes of the subprime collapse and then consider the results on the UK, before you make wild accusations like that. I'd strongly recommend reading some of Peter Schiff's books, Crash Proof is particularly good at explaining it. You'd be amazed how much of a hand the unions have in ensuring Network Rail (as in, a privatisation experiment that hasn't really worked) cannot function, for example. It's incredibly foolish to think the Tories are solely responsible, or in fact that anyone is solely responsible. Most of the groups that Labour champion as their pillars in society defending the rights of the working man are just as selfish as the worst capitalist.
Being a foreign national myself, I may have a unique take on it. But the fact is: I got a job here because I have qualifications and skills that the locals don't. And yes, I went through the Statement of Equivalence --a tough set of exams and work experience to prove that my qualification is equivalent to a British one. Central Europeans get jobs here because they work harder for less. They have a reputation for being reliable and conscientious. Recently we had our bathroom done; the plumber/project manager had a Polish painter-decorator on his team. He came in, grafted all day with barely a break and left --and did one of the best paintjobs I have witnessed in my life. I mean, it was faultless. For £120,--. I also know some really good British builders, plumbers, carpenters and electricans. I have to book them months jn advance because they are so busy. The work is there --if you have skills and are prepared to work hard.
What language do you suggest? But I think I am more suited to the hardware side of things than perhaps what you suggest. But I am more than willing to have a look. I agree that there are employment issues with certain aspects of the population. In my last job a yearly bonus was paid based on how many days you actually worked in a month. Came in very handy at Christmas, not one of the younger members ever got the full amount, they would take the day off if it was their girlfriend's birthday, hell they would take one off on their birthday and the basic three R's were sadly not as good as they perhaps might have been. But that is perhaps a reflection on teachers. But my thread is mainly about this ridiculous phrase beloved by this government that seems to suggest that if your not in a family where everyone is working you are somehow a second class person.
Extra funding for the actual job of teaching would seem like a better solution but the promise of better teaching for poor kids doesn't appeal to as many voters as the thousand pounds of cost and time saving which free meals offers. Its costs about £3,500 a year to educate a primary schooler. Is spending £300~ on meals (180 days, £2 a day, then rounding down for those already on meals) going to deliver better results than a 10% budget increase.
Only from the pov of the Employer, from the CEs side they are working less for more. The first poles to come to the UK were seeing 10x increase in their income for doing the same job, its of no surprise really they gained a reputation for being 'reliable, conscientious, willing...& cheap'. A lot of foreign workers have few expectations regarding health and safety, pensions, worker rights etc ..this is another reason why Employers like them over the locals. Not to mention the fact they are prepared to sleep 6 to a room, because they know after a few years they can go back home with a nice chunk of money to start a business or whatever. From the British workers pov, they are being expected to work harder for less ..in order to compete. A lot of the polish trades became 'qualified' by doing a 3-6 month course in Poland which allows them to compete with British builders who take 3-5 years to become qualified. Outside the building sector, you have a lot of immigrants that are happy to take jobs that are beneath them due to the relative increase in wages, again the Employer wins here. Expecting the locals to compete( in an already tight jobs market ) with an influx of cheap workers from poorer countries only displays a complete lack of understanding of the situation, trying to pass it off as just the locals being workshy really only displays a complete misunderstanding of the facts. Complete bollocks, trying telling that to all the unemployed graduates who cant find work, record unemployment numbers for qualified young people on the UK books, but according to you the jobs are there if they want them? ...not even the Tories would try promoting that particular fantasy.
Even the best teacher can't teach hungry kids. And yes, they go hungry. I did my time in Child and Educational Psychology in Hull. Not only do they have to compete; they can. Most conscientious employers will pay for good local staff. If you have to feel threatened by unqualified immigrants, you should be ashamed, not angry. Qualifications in what? Media studies? Give me a break. Qualifications need to be relevant.
If Thatcher had not moved the UK's bread and butter income stream from manufacturing to financial services? subsequently making us more reliant on the financial sector, stocks, loans etc the subprime collapse would not have had any great effect on the UK, ergo( regarding my original point ) the 'true causes' of the 'subprime collapse' are neither here nor there, maybe you are the one that needs a lesson in simple diagnostics, but I see your already bleating on about unions so I don't expect any rational, fact based argument from your Tory self any time soon.
