New New Labour

[DimPrawn]

Thats pretty civilised and sensible actually, so I will reply to you in the same spirit.

Well, a few years ago, I was on the dole down south (Newbury) and there was nothing going at Aldermaston, where I had been a contractor for the previous seven years.

Sellafield was recruiting like wildfire, so I uprooted me and my two up here, to bask in the golden glow of the 'nuclear renaissance'.

Then it all went sour. The QANGO that runs Sellafield first did a blitz on contractors like me, and then sacked 800 staffies, so there was no prospect of getting in as a contractor while there was an atmosphere of redundancies.

Lots of promises of good times to come, so we hung on, but the good times never came back.

Hindsight is great, and if I had my time again I would have high-tailed it out of Cumbria two years ago, but now we have exhausted the necessary 'clout' to up-sticks and relocate.

So I'm not a victim, I'm a mug for ever coming up here in the first place.

That's why I WARN other people not to.

OK?

It's grim oop north.

Have you ever considered relocating to a large mansion in Wandsworth. Lovely I here, and so friendly.

[KimberleyChris]

It's grim oop north.

Have you ever considered relocating to a large mansion in Wandsworth. Lovely I here, and so friendly.

That's the only good thing about Cumbria. The people are friendly and unpretentious.

If you come from down south, it catches you off guard when somebody in a bus queue suddenly starts talking to you as though he has known you for years. My son grew up in Berkshire, and he found it very strange at first, because down south they are either after something or trying to sell you something.

You have to talk back, because it is very bad manners not to, and they will think you very 'odd' if you ignore them like you would in London.

The downside is that there is only ONE big employer, and it's like a company town. So if you get benched you STAY benched.

[KimberleyChris]

Hmmm... You've been in London for too long.

Somebody talks to you like a human being, and you don't know what to do......

[AtW]

The downside is that there is only ONE big employer, and it's like a company town. So if you get benched you STAY benched.

Spend more time doing Plan B then and less time posting tulip on here.

If I followed that advice earlier I'd be having a mansion in Wandsworth by now

[KimberleyChris]

Oh yes, plan B.

Well, at least three major major national engineering agencies have local branches.

Between them they have generated three interviews and 10 weeks of work over the last two years. One was for what turned out to be a fictitious job.

I identified one job myself and went for it, and none of the agents had ever heard of the company.

So have a plan C ready too if you come here :-)

[Doggy Styles]

Yes, much better to pay 3 million to sit at home,
and who needs all that Corporation Tax and Income Tax anyway ....

I want a pair of those CUK glasses, the world looks much better through them.

I've been out of work, but I didn't sit blaming the goverment or anyone else. If I learned one thing from Thatcher, it was the spirit of self determination.

Actually I learned two things, the other being prudence (not Gordon Brown's version, which was anything but), which seems to be an alien concept to some.

[KimberleyChris]

I've been out of work, but I didn't sit blaming the goverment or anyone else. If I learned one thing from Thatcher, it was the spirit of self determination.

Well, the Government runs the country, that's what we pay them to do.

So why are there 2.75 million unemployed then? Did they all resign?

So perhaps they are not looking hard enough. Perhaps if 100 people really stare hard at an advert for one vacancy for long enough, it will turn into 100 vacancies by magic ....

[Waldorf]

The tories are the tax cutting party but they will only do so when the country can afford it.

Labour contributed to the mess we are on by spending money we did not have and so borrowed it, when we should have been paying down debt.

Raising the tax threshold to £10,000 will cost a fortune and if we do as Balls says, and borrow the money, what happens after the year is up, do we drop the threshold again! Balls never thinks through these policies, and just makes public announcements, just remember he was the chief of staff for Brown, enough said.

Balls moans that the government has borrowed too much, and his answer.... to borrow more

[AtW]

Raising the tax threshold to £10,000 will cost a fortune

That's not true - as they raise low level threshold high level is going down to more than make up for loss in revenue.

IMHO the only way to get people working is when they can make more money doing so rather than on the dole.

[Waldorf]

Alex Henderson, tax partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, says each £100 increase in the personal allowance costs the government at least £0.5bn, so raising the threshold from £8,105 to £10,000 would cost £11bn.

Sounds a lot to me - even if they tried to lower the higher rate limit i doubt that they could (or would dare) lower it by enough to fund £11 billion.

I agree that work has to be made to pay, I read that over 2 million people have moved to the UK to work, begs the question, why are our own people not doing these jobs?