hnd

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...s-in-town.html

Quote

Tomorrow, the honour passes back to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. The town of Carterton, near Brize Norton, is to continue the tradition with the creation of a purpose built repatriation centre.

It is expected to be used for the first time next week when the body of a Royal Marine serving with 42 Commando who was killed on Tuesday is flown home from Afghanistan.

Unquote

Well there you are, the UK needs a "purpose built repatriation centre" for the men and women that politicians have sent abroad to fight battles. Sorry, didn't quite get that right ... the UK needs a purpose built repatriation centre for the bodies of the men and women that their politicians have sent abroad to fight their politically based battles for them.

Is there an icon for 'I despair'?

Norm_uk

Sadly there's nothing new under the sun. Politicians all over the world throughout history have been sending young men to die for their causes.

The issue is whether their causes are just or not. There are always things to fight over - war is as human as love is. We're a poorly evolved mammalian species with underdeveloped pre-frontal lobes and over developed adrenal glands. It's not going to change anytime soon unfortunately.

N.

hnd

Thanks for that - although we already knew it.

On a similar note, but, ok, different note, has anyone seen "Harry's Arctic Heroes"?

Just watched the second of the two programmes - truly fabulous and inspirational. Kind of makes one wish that this would be a standard test for those claiming sickness benefit, or whatever, in the UK. If these four guys (injured in Afghanistan), with a bit of help, can walk to the North Pole - one with a lower leg prosthesis, one with a broken back, one missing the lower part of his left arm and the other with a right arm which is useless - why can't some of the UK's unemployed get out of bed and do something, anything to earn a living rather than rely on State handouts?

goonerseba

hmmmm...not so keen in coventry apprently. According to daily fail recently, local firm advertised for 20 telesales bods and got 2 replies from 10,000 unemployed.

in his justification the owner said "even though we only pay the minimum wage, there is opportunity to earn more from incentives." flogging some "miraculous new security product"...

out of curioisty, what is the minimum wage in UK..anyone know ?

Oyibopeppeh

About six quid an hour isn't it?

OleJanx

Minimum wage at present if over 21 is £5.93/hr, going up in October to £6.08...wheee!

Oyibopeppeh

Which ain't half bad for serving a Maccy at the drive-through

OleJanx

When I got my first job in the U.K., back in 1988, my salary was £13,500 a year, complete with a Sierra 1.6 L. At the time I thought I was doing reasonably well....

hnd

When I got my first job in 1974 salary was GBP2500, paid rent to my parents - with which I agreed - and also paid for my railway season ticket to work. I was earning money so why should they give me free accommodation (but which they kindly returned to me when I moved into a flat with my now husband). The rest was saved.

My husband was then on a salary of GBP - wait for it - 3000 and was paying a mortgage on a small two bed flat in Hammersmith. We both worked in 'the City' and paid, I think, GBP70 per year each for a bus pass which got us to work and back and around London at weekends.

Thinking back it was all great fun being young in London then. Not so much fun now, perhaps, though?

Weren't tax rates through the roof then? Something like 80% or more?

Paracletus

UK salaries are endemically low. I say, have a kid and get your housing benefit and child support. Quids in. It doesn't really take a genius to figure out why teen pregnancy rates are so high in the UK compared to the rest of western europe does it? Having kids and petty crime are all valuable skill sets that pay the way. But **** me, work hard and loose your job..well..you're screwed. There is and always has been a strange culture in the UK among the long term un-employed.

Norm_uk

I was speaking to someone yesterday over brunch who told me her daughter's friend in the UK has four children (different fathers and none seem to be around) and she has a four bedroom house, a four wheel driver car and brings in around GBP60K a year...all from the state. Apparently she is planning to have another child with another man - easy decision to make when Aunty Britannia is picking up the bill for everything.

Not sure how accurate the sixty grand is but it does make me shake my head to think someone like me who works and makes sure there's a bit of money coming in before having children would be supporting irresponsible breeders like her with my taxes if I was back in Britain.

On the flip side I know people who work their whole lives, don't claim benefits and struggle to balance their finances who get bugger all from the government when they are old or sick.

The system does need better means testing and should be geared to reward those to try more than those who don't.

N.

Hello.Kitty

I don't know about that either and would suspect that it's also including benefits in kind. The kind of shocking thing is that most of the benefits are not taxable (kind of logical) so don't get in the way of the tax-bracket/ taxable income related benefits... so basically, even if you're getting £20k in non-taxable benefits, it's counted as "0 income" so unlocks a whole raft of additional lower income benefits, like the free house. In my mind, there's no way that someone getting more than £20k a year in their pocket, by whatever means, should be getting a free house.

And just FYI, they really did try rewarding those who work with the Working Tax Credit... it's just that there was a really fine line whereby you were better off by working the minimum 16 hours a week on the minimum wage, as this allowed you to gain the most benefit and use up just about all the free childcare you were allowed... work more, and you had to start paying out for childcare and got less reward. Earn a decent wage and you got diddly squat.

I worked out that to allow me to take up my old full-time job and to have both kids in childcare to cover that, that childcare would cost around £1.8k/ month, add to that the cost of trains, lunches at al, and I wouldn't see anything of a £35k salary and would be over the limit for any kind of government help... so aside from the career progression and job satisfaction, I would be better off being a part-time shelf-stacker at Tescos.

seven seas

Four kids allowances, plus council tax rebates, plus educational maintenance allowance, plus council -provided flat, all adds up to possibly sixty grand.

Still would you settle for a life of drudgery, child taxiing and nappy changing if it meant you could live in a house for free? No ambitions, no plans, no future?

We've all heard about the dole bludgers living in a seven bedroom house in Kensington coz they have seven kids. Well if the council has to provide suitable housing, it has to have a minimum number of bedrooms. Naturally, there are no council properties with seven bedrooms, so the council has to rent one that's on the market. I bet it's not fun living on 30 or forty ponds a week, even if you are in an expensive property. Without access to the associated perks of living there (having a real income, connections, private education, a rewarding career, etc) , it's just a prison. I bet a lot of people would rather live in a slum near their mates.

Who doesn't get anything when they're old or sick? If they've been working and paying NI and taxes, they should have pensions and access to the NHS at least. Are there exceptions?

Norm_uk

I have to agree with US thinkers like Thomas Sowell and say the dole is the problem...what is essentially a decent idea to help the needy and avoid the poverty nightmares of previous centuries has got out of hand. When Britain has more social welfare than the People's Republic of China we have to sit up and take note (as well as admit we're not very capitalist at all). When you have generations of people who are kept at the lower end of society with handouts you have as much a problem as when no handouts are given (worse really - truly poor people beg, turn to crime or find ways to make money - people on the dole beg, turn to crime or just sit around feeling useless).

I think the motto of policy makers should be clear - reward hard work and punish irresponsibility. People with no means to support themselves who deliberately have babies in a country with freely available contraception shouldn't be raking in more money than people who work full time and try to plan their offspring more responsibly.

I don't blame these people of course -I blame successive governments for proverbially addicting people to handouts. It's going to take a lot of creative thinking to ween people off benefits now without causing massive social unrest.

Regarding exceptions. All I know is the best way to live is to never expect anything from the government. It's amazing how that mindset opens your eyes to oppurtunities to make money for yourself.

N.

OleJanx

If you never expect anything from the U.K. government, then, for most of us, you are never going to be faced with disappointment. Yes, there are exceptions, but a case I'm aware of is someone I went to college with, who has five kids, all with different fathers, and appears ( correctly, it is sad to say) to think that the world owes her a living for being feckless and fertile.
Strange old world when hard work is seen as a misguided prospect...