Benefit scrounging parasites from Europe

[Robinho]

How naive. The Tories changed how unemployment was measured 31 times (!) while in office.
A better stat is what proportion of the working age population is actually working - this fell into the 60s under Thatcher and has remained there with occassional forays into the 70s.
That tells you that the "real" unemployment rate is about 30% - of these some are supported by spouses but quite a few are long term unemployed.

That's a fair point but do you have a link to these figures?

[sasguru]

Answer the question

Why should he? You abandon commenting on facts that conflict with your naive, simple theories all the time.

[Mich the Tester]

That's not an answer to the question.

Answer the question, or concede your point is irrelevant.

No, the question is nonsense.

[Robinho]

No, the question is nonsense.

Please explain why?

[sasguru]

That's a fair point but do you have a link to these figures?

Labour Market Statistics, November 2011
UK: working-age out-of-work benefit recipients - The Poverty Site


The move of people from unemployment to sick was started in a mass scale under Thatcher and continued by Labour.

[Robinho]

I was more hopeful of seeing the proportion of the working age in work figures.

I don't doubt the government skews the figures, as you might have guessed i'm not a big fan of the government.

[sasguru]

So, why does it matter if one person is unemployed in place of another?

I'll answer that.
Because if there is a class of people that is not getting employed on a regular basis for whatever reason, society breaks down.

[sasguru]

I was more hopeful of seeing the proportion of the working age in work figures.

I don't doubt the government skews the figures, as you might have guessed i'm not a big fan of the government.

It's in the first link. Currently 70%. Was 68% in 1994 according to another link I saw.
Tells you headline figures of 8% unemployment are bollux.

[Robinho]

I'll answer that.
Because if there is a class of people that is not getting employed on a regular basis for whatever reason, society breaks down.

So it didn't matter when the original lot were unemployed, but it does matter when the new lot were unemployed.

What is so special with the second "class"?

Why should people with obsolete or uncompetitive skills have jobs in place of the people with competitive skills?

I agree the sudden unemployment was unfortunate for some communities, but that wasn't the fault of Maggie, it was the fault of not following the free market in the first place which would have resulted in a far more gradual decline of the coal/steel industry.

[sasguru]

So it didn't matter when the original lot were unemployed, but it does matter when the new lot were unemployed.

What is so special with the second "class"?

Why should people with obsolete or uncompetitive skills have jobs in place of the people with competitive skills?

I agree the sudden unemployment was unfortunate for some communities, but that wasn't the fault of Maggie, it was the fault of not following the free market in the first place which would have resulted in a far more gradual decline of the coal/steel industry.

I'm not sure what your point is, as usual. Your argument is that people made unemployed eventually get redeployed, mine is that, as many communities in the North show, they don't.