Compassion deserts Cameron

Aurora · Post by **Aurora** » 24 Apr 2011, 09:32

The Independent - 24/04/11

David Cameron is right, though only up to a point: many people in this country are offended by the thought of workers in poorly paid jobs having to support benefit claimants who can't work because of addictions to drink, drugs or food. Even some politicians on the centre-left have come round to recognising the inherent unfairness of the present system, although I suspect they may have winced when they heard the Prime Minister's language last week. Some of his Lib Dem coalition colleagues certainly didn't like it.

Cameron is still trying to present himself as a compassionate Conservative. But the revelation that just over 80,000 people are living on incapacity benefit because of alcohol, drugs or weight problems sent him into a classic Tory rant. He promised to get tough with claimants who don't deserve benefits – the "undeserving poor" are a perennial Tory theme – and he was clearly addressing his core vote when he talked about the need to get "these people" into work. What he didn't explain is where the new jobs are going to come from, just as he failed to address the question of why employers would take on alcoholics or drug addicts (to put it crudely) when there are 2.5 million unemployed but reasonably healthy potential workers to choose from.

Article continues ...

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 25 Apr 2011, 18:17

Alcoholics and foodaholics keep the economy growing! If the tories legalised drugs, the drug-addicts would, too

Erm but to be a bit more serious, as I understand it most people who do something compulsively (especially drugs) are in some kind of pain. This is probably every bit as disabling, in today's "service" economy where you are constantly having to look happy as you deal with people, as physical disabilities are.

The only problem is, they're difficult to "measure" and probably easy to fake.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 25 Apr 2011, 20:57

Didn't some nut say horse-riding was more dangerous than drugs? I don't want my taxes spent on people who.... oh this could get tricky.

eatyourveg · Post by **eatyourveg** » 25 Apr 2011, 21:22

biffvernon wrote:Didn't some nut say horse-riding was more dangerous than drugs? I don't want my taxes spent on people who.... oh this could get tricky.

I was that nut, and I actually said that statistically speaking horse riding is more dangerous than riding a motorcycle.
You do need to bear in mind though that 67.87% of statistics are a load of old bollocks.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 25 Apr 2011, 22:09

I have relatives who can demonstrate that mountain-biking and speliology are both more dangerous than illegal drugs. But curiously, not as dangerous as legal ones.

JohnB · Post by **JohnB** » 25 Apr 2011, 22:32

RenewableCandy wrote:I have relatives who can demonstrate that mountain-biking and speliology are both more dangerous than illegal drugs. But curiously, not as dangerous as legal ones.

Do the mountain bikers go cycling in caves, under the influence of legal drugs?

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 26 Apr 2011, 07:57

eatyourveg wrote: I was that nut,

Quite possibly, but actually I was referring to Professor David Nutt, the chief drugs adviser who was sacked by the then Home Secretary Alan Johnson. He had compared the dangers associated with cannabis use and horse riding in a way that displeased his political master. Science was the loser but politics lost more.

DominicJ · Post by **DominicJ** » 26 Apr 2011, 09:40

Aurora
Much as Labour acted as it was, disability is not a place to park the long term unemployed.

The welfare budget is £1660 per person per year, thats £7300 for a 2 parents 2.4 children family.
Yet the vast majority goes to providing an eternal "living wage" for those who falsely claim to be incapable of work, at the expense of those who genuinely fall on short term difficulties.

If the NHS is the worlds best healthcare system, why does the UK have so many disabled people unable to work?

Biff
And yet you still insist government knows best and must dictate to people.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 26 Apr 2011, 14:32

We must also address the people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder who keep accumulating silly amounts of money and won't pay any tax.

jonny2mad · Post by **jonny2mad** » 22 May 2011, 22:49

Are we really doing people addicted to drugs or drink or eating so much they cant stand any good by keeping them

We wont be able to keep them in the future.

One wonders if you took these people placed them on a island gave them some tools seeds and books, and said right we are off now you either sink or swim thats up to you, but we are stopping enabling you .

Starvation the cold and the elements might bring them round, it might not but as it is what is bringing them round

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 23 May 2011, 01:43

DominicJ wrote:Aurora
Much as Labour acted as it was, disability is not a place to park the long term unemployed.

The welfare budget is £1660 per person per year, thats £7300 for a 2 parents 2.4 children family.

Yet the vast majority goes to providing an eternal "living wage" for those who falsely claim to be incapable of work, at the expense of those who genuinely fall on short term difficulties.

Except, as the article points out, there are 2.5 million less problematic potential employees to choose from. The people we are talking about may be capable of working but they are not actually capable of getting jobs because there aren't enough jobs. We are talking about people who have either been long-term unemployed or who would otherwise be unattractive to potential employers and there's absolutely nothing they can do at an interview to overcome this. It doesn't matter how hard they try they will not get jobs.

So what do you do with them? Punish them, so they'll be more desperate to get the jobs they still have no hope of getting? And how does this even help us if they do??? Doesn't it just mean somebody else, probably somebody who'd do a better job, joins the ranks of the long-term unemployed....and maybe turns to drink and drugs....?

What Cameron is doing is making an emotional appeal to his own core vote. It has nothing to do with rational thinking.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 24 May 2011, 00:01

There is a saying in aid agencies along the lines of, "If you give a person food you will have a client for life, whereas if you give a person the tools to produce his food he will feed himself for life." That's where we should be going ASAP.

JohnB · Post by **JohnB** » 24 May 2011, 00:44

kenneal wrote:if you give a person the tools to produce his food he will feed himself for life.

Or maybe he'll starve waiting for the food to grow!

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 24 May 2011, 01:35

No! Stuff grows quick in the third world.

2 As and a B · Post by **2 As and a B** » 24 May 2011, 07:39

I agree with Nick - sorry - with UE. The vast majority of current addicts are, unless they have friends who can get them work, beyond hope in terms of formal paid employment.

The imperative should be to prevent more people falling into addiction and, to me, that sounds very much like a need to give the vulnerable a sense of self-worth and self-determination. The question is whether that idea is beyond the comprehension of the core Tory vote.