Labour in 'lowest ever' poll rating

[Lucy]

Because he is boxed into a corner, wherby he connot defend the welfare system as it is. Instead of backing down he lashes out to try and move the argument onto a new territory that he can feel more comfortable on.

It's obviously time for him to go out and drink some kwality ale and pull a kwality bird.

[OwlHoot]

My argument is that the welfare state has gone so far beyond its brief that it is now creating and perpetuating a culture of individual that is everything as bad as the people that it was supposed to help in the first place. And why? because in so doing it is creating a huge power base for socialists.

Get someone on welfare, ensure that they have no education of any worth, ensure that they do not become independent, strip away their aspirations and ensure that they are kept living with like minded people.. and there's your power base.

Exactly Dodgy - Been saying it for years. It's a modern, secular equivalent of the mediaevil church, and needs someone like a present-day Henry VIII to sweep away the whole ramshackle corrupt edifice (preferably without the tyrannical aspect).

The snag is for decades after the reformation in the 1540s there were hordes of beggars and vagabonds wandering the land. A big upheaval like that would be bound to have a corresponding effect on the unemployment figures, and one has to ask how many jobs there would be for an extra million or more ex-public service "workers" turfed out of their sinecures, many with few practical skills or qualifications, especially with all this outsourcing going on and much more machine automation undoubtedly imminent.