I know everyone won't find this amusing but I thought it was
And yes I love France and i may ways admire her for her balance.
Maybe if UK had directed herself in a different way and been a
little more financially kind to those who truely deserved her
companionship I may given up flirting with France and remained faithful
to all the culinary children of exploitation...on go the stories.
But France is the Audrey Hepburne of Europe whilst Uk struggles
with Ga Ga glamour ...amazing only in outer Garments only.
Do not be so sure they did not emulate it. Quite a few did. Apart from that, please look at some history of welfarism and you will see Finland had it well before the UK, to some extent so did Imperial Russia in the 18th century, certainly Bismarckian and newly unified Germany had a provisory system and parts of the young USA. The English system had the Elizabethan Poor Laws as an 'ancestor' which, during the famine years of the 19th century, were 'overhauled' for Ireland and included transporation to the colonies for those worst off who were considered worth saving. The model evolved, of course, but it was then designed in what is essentially today's core, in the immediate wake of WW2 when there were things that needed careful consideration rather than throwing together with a few parliamentary bills. It was never designed to create dependency but compliancy, to quieten people down because of the threat of people rising up and doing what the Slavonic people had done in Russia, Jugoslavia, etc. It quietened them down alright and then became managementised and created careers rather than carers but missed its own pitfalls. What politicans are fond of saying is pure nostalgia and mainly bunkum. In the late 1940s and early 1950s it was really something, but for its time and not for long. Gone, done and dusted by half a century. The overblown stories of career scroungers and their ilk in this post do happen. They are a very small minority of an overstretched and outmoded system that like many 'machines' is still running so no repair called in yet. One of the imparities between design and operation is how the original concept was intended to take in a far greater proportion of revenues from 'stamps and income tax' than it ever has in practice. It was to be partnered with an employment service that would be the pride of the world which has never lived up to that. Yes, it is a very much decayed system but it still has some merits which the media that wants to see an end of it undermines further by presenting the exceptional cases of career non-workers with six kids and the failed millionaire with the Roller who both draw large cheques (actually if it is the 26K, then up to £20K of that might be accomodation costs - good old Rachmanism has never gone away) then compare with the bloke who has lost his job of 42 years, never a day off sick, etc who now gets £56 a fortnight JSA and nothing else at all. Somehow or other, every other person suddenly knows a large number of friends, family, neighbours and so on who have been on the scrounge for donkeys' years BUT, note well, never themselves of course. So, what do we believe? Well, probably the best thing to do is forget most of what we hear, wait until we have the misfortune (or with luck fortune) to experience it ourselves. I have not, I shall not and really am relieved not to have but I do have very ill and disabled contemporaries who should get far more than they do who are made dependent on partners and family because of not getting enough and shall do for the rest of their lives. I am not encouraged by what I hear from those people at all. It is mostly like getting blood out of a stone, which for deserving cases is an abberation.
Phil Jarvis you have highlighted all the relavant points.
May I also say that I LOVED UK....most of all LONDON....when
things were moderatly inder control. The welfare organisation with it's
great intentions ...and the hospitals were operated by matrons of conviction.
London to me is like a one night stand...fantastic theatre, restaurants and places to dance.
High energy and zoom aroun d the city ....get your heels caught in a paveing crack, wake up
exhausted. Do you want to do the same thing all week....not really.
Pam, most of the Saturday jobs many of us did are now 'outlawed', child labour legislation plus health and safety regulations have killed them off. Both my wife and I who do lots of international child labour work actually think that some of it has gone too far. The bottom line is that such things are all disappearing into a vague and cloudy past...
Where is the Like button?
Like.
Well said Jackie, i couldn't agree more.
I always worked from Saturday jobs whilst at school, then full time, once i had my children i worked part time, i was lucky to have grandparents to help a couple of days a week. I have always put my children first. My oldest 2 are grown up and left home now, my youngest is 12. As my husband works all over the world on irregular and changing hours, it is important for us as a family for our daughter to have the stability of knowing that i am always there for her, which is just as well with the constantly changing college start and finishing times here in France, and also my husband and i get to spend quality time together when he is home. When we needed 2 wages, i worked, now we are lucky to be in the situation we are in, but we have never claimed benefit instead of working and never will.
We are lucky now that my husband earns a good wage that allows us to have this choice, but we also have to be careful, we don't have as big a house or as many holidays as our friends who both work, or eat out as often, like you we grow our own veg and keep our own chickens, and i do my own cleaning, gardening and cooking. But i wouldn't change it for anything.
We have developed a welfare dependent state and it does need correcting. I have members of my own wider family who have deliberately had several children to get benefits and housing and have hardly ever worked. It is all very well to say we must care for the less fortunate but we have created a system that encourages dependency. Please do not think that the thousands of people, many of whom have no useful level of English language, are clamouring to get into the UK because the weather is wonderful and jobs are plentiful. They come because it is easier to survive in our overgenerous system. All this adds to the misery of people genuinely trying to get jobs because the tax burden is so high that it restrains employment. The NHS needs drastic surgery as well. Politicians are fond of saying we have a system that is the envy of the world so how come nobody has copied it?
I have no axe to grind here. if you read what I have written you'll find I welcome the overdue reform of an unfit system. This is what Tony Blair promised to do in 1977 and appointed Frank Field to produce a radical reform programme. Blair dumped Field and all thought of reform when he saw how difficult it would be to drive through against the prejudices of Old Labour MPs and the voters who had elected Labour. So for 15 years the syswtem was patched up and bandaged, becoming ever more unfit and open to abuse.
Now at last someone has grasped the nettle, and although it's a Tory, Ian Duncan Smith, who has designed and promoted the package, he invited Frank Field's input. In many ways this is Frank Field's 1990s reform proposal resuscitated.
As you have admitted yourself, the line has to be drawn somewhere. IDS and Frank Field reckon £26k is the limit. I think they have studied the problem rather more closely than anyone on this board, so I am prepared to give the benefit of the doubt to their well and conscientiously considered study.
And in my book no pensioner who has paid his tax should be ashamed of using his bus pass, regardless of his income. Bruce Forsyth is probably paying enough tax to fund several thousand pensioners' free travel. Good luck to him.
That was me. And I do.
Indeed.
*yawns*
Then you are a good father, no problem there...
Not at all, just a response to the feeling that some people on here were implying that stay at home parents are by their nature slackers. You definitely never implied that, several other people did.
I am a second time round parent with 30 years exactly between and wnat to a) do a lot of it myself and b) share getting it right this time. I think that is Andrew or Catharine's point in a nutshell too.
Too right. Little bellies cost ackers to fill here too. You will find me from roughly 0530/0600 to about 2200 seven days a week. This is just to break the monotony of work most of the time...
Didn't say you, read again and think back who did. He should not have said it.
and some of us manage to stay at home and work hard and from time to time turn down more lucrative offers/enterprises to be able to continue doing so because we put the kids first. It's an argument that'll make more sense to you once you get out here James, trust me ;-)