Purnell: more attacks on the unemployed, etc
- Thread starter treelover
- Start date
That makes no sense whatsoever.
Not being able to remember is not the same thing as bullshitting.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Thanks for posting this. It'll be a comfort for the 7-8 hours a day I spend in so much pain that I'm incapable of most things, including posting on here, knowing that the wise and sagacious tbaldwin knows that there are "loads of things" I could do.
You plum.
The whole point that posters such as myself and urbanblues have REPEATEDLY made to you isn't that we're incapable of work per se but that there are few "opportunities" available where conditions are flexible enough to allow us to work, few employers who'll take on someone who can't specify the hours (or days) they'll be available, or what type of work they'll be capable of when they are available.
_angel_
.
Jesus Christ, you are prepared to tell people whom you haven't met, off the internet who can and can't get a job??
(Never mind where these theoretical jobs exist)
I'm sure you know more about VPs medical conditions than he himself does!
And being on benefits doesn't mean you're "written off". Doctors or the DWP do not "write people off". Employers do that when they refuse to employ you.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
His figures are wrong (aren't they always?), but the premise itself isn't bullshit. Of course, he has entirely (yet again, I have to say, as this isn't the first time this has been debated) "forgotten" the percentage of that lump figure that happens to be made up of people claiming the state pension (about 20%, give or take).
BTW, "main source of income" was, IIRC, calculated taking into account Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit, which are not, strictly speaking, "income", but rather a concession.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Thanks for posting this. It'll be a comfort for the 7-8 hours a day I spend in so much pain that I'm incapable of most things, including posting on here, knowing that the wise and sagacious tbaldwin knows that there are "loads of things" I could do.
You plum.
The whole point that posters such as myself and urbanblues have REPEATEDLY made to you isn't that we're incapable of work per se but that there are few "opportunities" available where conditions are flexible enough to allow us to work, few employers who'll take on someone who can't specify the hours (or days) they'll be available, or what type of work they'll be capable of when they are available.
My point has been that to say people like yourself are incapable of work is nonsense. Though you talk loads and loads of shit at times, you are obviously capable of researching and analysing to a preety impressive level at times.
I know your capable of working, you know it. The problems as you say lie elsewhere. But there are employers out there who want the skills you have and are prepared to be flexible. Just not enough....But with encouragement and education you never know....Employers will do whatever is in their self interest.
I expect VP is capable of work, capable of some work anyway.. but that doesn't mean he should be forced into a job he doesn't want or isn't suited for.
I reckon I am too as it happens. The problem is more it seems I can't get the kind of job that I'd be capable of doing and be good at.
I reckon I am too as it happens. The problem is more it seems I can't get the kind of job that I'd be capable of doing and be good at.
I think most people reading VPs posts can tell that he is capable of making a valued contribution in the world of work. Dont you?
Of course i dont know more about VPs condition than he does...What an infantile way of arguing.....
You want to blame employers for writing people off but that is only part of the problem.
Yep. But i have not said that he should be forced to work. I am not against disabled people getting enough benefits to live on. But i am against them being stopped or discouraged from working.
right, fair enough, I was just butting in without having really followed the conversation.
Personally, I'm not convinced that unemployment is such a bad thing myself.
I mean I think it ought to be that as we get more efficient at doing the things we need for a reasonable quality of life, we ought to have more leisure,
-- it seems more like the problem is the leisure isn't very evenly distributed.
I mean I think it ought to be that as we get more efficient at doing the things we need for a reasonable quality of life, we ought to have more leisure,
-- it seems more like the problem is the leisure isn't very evenly distributed.
Have to agree. It is madness that some people have to work very long hours, while others dont work at all.
_angel_
.
You are incredibly arrogant to assume from a message board what someone is capable and not of.
I think your description of people on benefits as being 'written off' is hugely offensive, as if the only useful contribution someone can make to society is when they are being paid for it, and if they're not being paid, they're no use.
And, no I'm sorry employers ARE the problem. Unless they stop insisting on checking everyone who works for them only has taken two days sick a year, or stop freaking out when someone has had a large gap in employment to concentrate on caring duties, things aren't going to change.
To suggest just because I don't think people who are ill should be harrassed translates into "not thinking disabled people can work" is also insulting.
Encouraging people into work does not mean punishing people for not doing so.
I dunno how anyone could be 'encouraged' by being forced to perform manual labour for 1/5th of the minimum wage. I think in some cases (especially people depressed or with MH conditions) that kind of thing could finish a few of them off.
The Black Hand
Unclean
Lets not be coy - they KNOW this will happen. They just don't care.
Sorry but that is just pathetic. It is not incredibly arrogant to recognise that somebody who analyses and researches information on the internet, could also do it as a paid employee.
The Black Hand
Unclean
'Travel to work' ring any bells?
Some people do work from home you know in 2008.
_angel_
.
We had this argument before. I'd love a job homeworking. Fact is, most people doing work from home are either highly paid office based workers who get to arrange their own schedules (and have had to work up to that position) or poorly paid manual workers packing tights into a box for less than the minimum wage.
The latter would be unsuitable for someone with mobility problems and constant pain, the former out of most people's reach.
Nigel
For A Degenerates' Workers State
Interesting article in last weeks Socialist(CWI)
".....A new wave of rises in fuel bills were also announced, as was the news, in the last week of the campaign, that Glasgow was to become a laboratory experiment for the effective abolition of incapacity benefit. Glasgow East has 11,000 people on incapacity and this attack on the sick and the poor outraged many."
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/544
Looks like reforms in social security are planned to be tested out in Scotland, similar to the Poll Tax.
".....A new wave of rises in fuel bills were also announced, as was the news, in the last week of the campaign, that Glasgow was to become a laboratory experiment for the effective abolition of incapacity benefit. Glasgow East has 11,000 people on incapacity and this attack on the sick and the poor outraged many."
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/544
Looks like reforms in social security are planned to be tested out in Scotland, similar to the Poll Tax.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
The point you have repeatedly made is that doctors are unable to judge who's able to work or not.
While I'd agree that they can't do so on an "across the board" basis, what they can do, and usually do quite well, is assess the physical ability of a claimant to work.
That's just it, there aren't the employers there.
Oh, there's people who'll happily hire me (and do) to do historical and social background research that isn't time-sensitive (i.e subject to a deadline), and that I can do when I'm able rather than when the client wants, but that doesn't bring in enough to pay a year's worth of utilities, let alone the rent.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
And there, as I've said many times before on this sort of thread, is the rub.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
1 But work is not all about physical ability. I am not saying that Doctors are all completely useless or stuck up twats though plenty are......
2 Disabled persons working tax credits, the minimum income guarantee etc.....
Obvious to me that you are far more capable than lots of people who are supposedly employed to offer support and advice to people that i often come in to contact with.....
Mind you a lot of them really are hopeless parasites.....
Nigel
For A Degenerates' Workers State
Get a proper job then, before you end up picking litter up in the park!!!!
panpete
Blokes name, birds body.
*This post means no prejudice to the mentally ill, out of work, members of society.
Some mentally ill persons can work, some can't.
In my experience, not only will the idea of wrongly forcing work on a mentally ill person harm their health, it puts other colleagues at risk too.
So, dear workers, not only do the unemployed have unsettled insecure times ahead, so do the employed.
^this is in no way, a threat, Its just the best way to word it.
Some mentally ill persons can work, some can't.
In my experience, not only will the idea of wrongly forcing work on a mentally ill person harm their health, it puts other colleagues at risk too.
So, dear workers, not only do the unemployed have unsettled insecure times ahead, so do the employed.
^this is in no way, a threat, Its just the best way to word it.
panpete
Blokes name, birds body.
And look what happened to that.
Tell me, oh Wise One, how you would manage to make a housebound longterm sick and disabled person pick up litter in the park?Get a proper job then, before you end up picking litter up in the park!!!!
Do you think that housebound people will have to pick up litter which has been already collected? Would it be picked up from the park, delivered to the door (by somebody else), posted piecemeal through the letterbox, maybe picked up by the housebound person, and then have to be taken out by a carer / personal assistant (careworkers provided by social services do not take out rubbish, even if people are unable to do so for themselves)?
If so, it might be a highly effective work creation scheme, but neither efficient or productive.
Be very careful what you say about people on benefits. I seem to remember that you're self-employed, and have thus forfeited anything like the safety net available to employees when they lose their jobs. Don't kid yourself that you're immune.
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