Now I'm back off holiday I'm having a more detailed look at Reform's welfare policy. I'm just looking at the Welfare to Work section first (welfare chain gangs). For a document padded out to fifty pages, they don't actually provide much detail on this, and of what there is, I don't get the feeling they ran this past anyone with genuine field experience.
As a member of the ex- forces community I can say without any fear of doubt that any serviceman or woman would not take kindly to serving along side anyone who doesn’t want to be there. The reason our armed forces are one of the best in the world is because they are disciplined professionals. That means that they are motivated to be there of their own free will, they chose this path.
It only takes one individual to bring down fighting effectiveness in any unit. This weak cog in the machine can get people killed. One motivated soldier is far more effective than 50 resentful slackers in uniform.
As an ex-forces member I'd say the 'best in the world' meme is wearing thin as the government and Top Brass have failed for 20 odd years to honour the Armed Forces Covenant and with their ruinous policy of supporting the LGBTQ agenda leaving retention and recruitment at an all time low.
Successive governments have been doing nonsense like this for decades. As you imply, it becomes a grant farming exercise with highly fake "training" that leads nobody anywhere. What I find baffling is that it's blatantly far more expensive than leaving the people to their own devices on the dole. What happened to all this talk of UBI?
This is all fake. China admits to 20% youth unemployment and it's the manufacturing hub of the world. There simply aren't the jobs. All the nurses in the NHS are foreigners because countries in the global south have an enormous surplus of population and no jobs for them, so the NHS can hire nurses supposedly trained at the other countries expense.
In Arab countries flush with oil money, all the indigenous population work in fake government jobs and slave labour is imported from places like the Philippines and India to do the actual work on temporary work visas.
In the UK most jobs that have some kind of need for workers, like food delivery, shelf-stacking, hotel work, cleaners, are taken by migrants and that's how the wages are kept low enough that only those with no alternative will take them.
It would be cheaper to sack most council "workers" and civil servants and pay them to sit on the dole, most "jobs" in the public sector are not value added. Godfrey Bloom is found of pointing out that a thousand British civil servants ran colonial India yet, apparently, it needs millions to run England today.
Maybe we should just do Sweet Fanny Adams and allow the 1.5m to 9m long term inactives (unemployed in old money) to live off the state with nothing required in return? Is it no wonder with this “let’s do nothing as it’s too hard” attitude that our social contract has evaporated? Anyway, Labour and the Tories tried doing nothing and just paying out large amounts of cash and guess what? It was never enough but even so led to far higher number of claimants. IT’S WORTH A TRY SURELY?
We have to face facts here. A LOT of people do not want to work. That's over and above those who cannot. I'm not judging: commuting; bad bosses, low pay; offensive colleagues; drudge work; above all TAXES - are cumulatively a huge deterrent. People at the bottom get used to it. There's a community effect. It's better to get by than to sweat and still be poor. We are managing for bludgery.
I agree that linking back to work policies with a National Service agenda makes good sense while accepting the role of the National Service personnel, after training, would be for internal and not external use.
An increased body of well trained disciplined individuals can only be a good thing for society.
I would expect some acknowledgement of the current work force, estimates of future requirements, areas of skills shortfall, training needs and tax incentives for small and medium sized businesses doing the training.
With some 30 million UK FTE in employment compared to a Singapore that needs only half that number to do the same work, there is a need for massive investment.
Of course we have AI and robotics on the horizon so that has to be added to the mix.
AI requires massive hydrocarbon energy supply and with much of the gas being onshore, the energy cost will fall from the top of the expense table to the bottom.
In other words we end up with a virtual circle of investment - higher efficiency - lowering costs - increased standard of living and the ability to pay back the £3 trillion debt (although by removing the Bank of England’s red figures it would drop to £2.1 trillion).
There is indeed a lot to do and the current offerings from all the parties is uninspiring if not abysmal.
As a member of the ex- forces community I can say without any fear of doubt that any serviceman or woman would not take kindly to serving along side anyone who doesn’t want to be there. The reason our armed forces are one of the best in the world is because they are disciplined professionals. That means that they are motivated to be there of their own free will, they chose this path.
It only takes one individual to bring down fighting effectiveness in any unit. This weak cog in the machine can get people killed. One motivated soldier is far more effective than 50 resentful slackers in uniform.
As an ex-forces member I'd say the 'best in the world' meme is wearing thin as the government and Top Brass have failed for 20 odd years to honour the Armed Forces Covenant and with their ruinous policy of supporting the LGBTQ agenda leaving retention and recruitment at an all time low.
Successive governments have been doing nonsense like this for decades. As you imply, it becomes a grant farming exercise with highly fake "training" that leads nobody anywhere. What I find baffling is that it's blatantly far more expensive than leaving the people to their own devices on the dole. What happened to all this talk of UBI?
This is all fake. China admits to 20% youth unemployment and it's the manufacturing hub of the world. There simply aren't the jobs. All the nurses in the NHS are foreigners because countries in the global south have an enormous surplus of population and no jobs for them, so the NHS can hire nurses supposedly trained at the other countries expense.
In Arab countries flush with oil money, all the indigenous population work in fake government jobs and slave labour is imported from places like the Philippines and India to do the actual work on temporary work visas.
In the UK most jobs that have some kind of need for workers, like food delivery, shelf-stacking, hotel work, cleaners, are taken by migrants and that's how the wages are kept low enough that only those with no alternative will take them.
It would be cheaper to sack most council "workers" and civil servants and pay them to sit on the dole, most "jobs" in the public sector are not value added. Godfrey Bloom is found of pointing out that a thousand British civil servants ran colonial India yet, apparently, it needs millions to run England today.
Maybe we should just do Sweet Fanny Adams and allow the 1.5m to 9m long term inactives (unemployed in old money) to live off the state with nothing required in return? Is it no wonder with this “let’s do nothing as it’s too hard” attitude that our social contract has evaporated? Anyway, Labour and the Tories tried doing nothing and just paying out large amounts of cash and guess what? It was never enough but even so led to far higher number of claimants. IT’S WORTH A TRY SURELY?
We have to face facts here. A LOT of people do not want to work. That's over and above those who cannot. I'm not judging: commuting; bad bosses, low pay; offensive colleagues; drudge work; above all TAXES - are cumulatively a huge deterrent. People at the bottom get used to it. There's a community effect. It's better to get by than to sweat and still be poor. We are managing for bludgery.
I agree that linking back to work policies with a National Service agenda makes good sense while accepting the role of the National Service personnel, after training, would be for internal and not external use.
An increased body of well trained disciplined individuals can only be a good thing for society.
I would expect some acknowledgement of the current work force, estimates of future requirements, areas of skills shortfall, training needs and tax incentives for small and medium sized businesses doing the training.
With some 30 million UK FTE in employment compared to a Singapore that needs only half that number to do the same work, there is a need for massive investment.
Of course we have AI and robotics on the horizon so that has to be added to the mix.
AI requires massive hydrocarbon energy supply and with much of the gas being onshore, the energy cost will fall from the top of the expense table to the bottom.
In other words we end up with a virtual circle of investment - higher efficiency - lowering costs - increased standard of living and the ability to pay back the £3 trillion debt (although by removing the Bank of England’s red figures it would drop to £2.1 trillion).
There is indeed a lot to do and the current offerings from all the parties is uninspiring if not abysmal.