Will the UK Recover From Financial Decline ?

[Guest Andy]

So a change in government at the next election?

Thats whay i am saying, this hopeless government is relying on the support of the countries bums and seeming as there is so many taking advantage of all us tax payers generosity then they may just sneak it, and if that is the case last one out turn off the light!:realmad:

[Guest Cheekysuzie]

Exactly..we are our own worst enemies...all our press do..is ridicule and run the UK down. But Frankly where in the world would you get such a tolerant society like the Brits.

[johnd]

just flicking through the replies to this thread....and it seems to me as if a lot of people, more the people waiting to come to oz, are expecting too much of the place. oz HAS all the problems the uk has, unemployment (southern nsw up to 10%), crime(a women in a wheelchair mugged for a cigarette, wollongong,nsw) and anti-social behaviour, just check out a lot of suburban streets for 'hoon' tyre marks and that is across australia.i could go on but you get the picture. the problems are not as concentrated as in the uk and i suspect that has a lot to do with the large size of the country and the relativley small population, (im no expert). on a positive note the teenagers here dont tend,(much but some do), to hang around drinking or being bloody cheeky, but all the reasons uk kids do it are here, boredom, easy access to booze etc. and my oz cousins all drank underage and mucked around , so again i dont know the reasons for this.in saying that there were australia day problems at a beach in kiama in nsw. kiama is a beautiful little seaside town , quite affluent, anyway last oz day there were a lot of teens drinking and fighting on the beach, police involved etc. so as i have said you get it everywhere.

we havnt settled in oz, but it has given us a new perspective on life in the uk, and elsewhere. i think the uk will recover as will every western economy, they are all linked together thats how they collapsed?. the reason oz is doing 'well' is its resources, coal,ore etc. if or when this resource is unviable what will happen then?. a lot of the local mines here are owned by an indian company, if prices are lowered or the ets is brought in do you think they will hang round for long?. oz has all the dole bludgers you can shake a stick at, just like uk. i feel that myself and my wife 'think' ourselves that we live in a nicer safer society here as we have had no trouble in two and a half years on our estate, but we have a 90,000 pound mortgage, twice what we had in the uk. we still want to go back, for family mainly, and when we get back if we have the same mortgage as here we will probably have decent peace in the uk too.and another thing i dont have kids so i cant comment on schools, but a lot of pio slag off the nhs, well heres my experience, i am a rugby player ,older one, and been to hospital a lot from injuries, uk only good experinces, oz ,well i had to wait over 3 days and 2 x 10 hours wait in the emergency dept, to be diagnosed with a spinal injury, all this getting in and out of the car was f***ing agony!, the docs were great but just as in uk understaffed, this is in a city hospital too.gp's are generally more understanding than uk, then again this is just my opinion.

[KIRK AND CO]

Exactly..we are our own worst enemies...all our press do..is ridicule and run the UK down. But Frankly where in the world would you get such a tolerant society like the Brits.

could not agree more

[KIRK AND CO]

just flicking through the replies to this thread....and it seems to me as if a lot of people, more the people waiting to come to oz, are expecting too much of the place. oz HAS all the problems the uk has, unemployment (southern nsw up to 10%), crime(a women in a wheelchair mugged for a cigarette, wollongong,nsw) and anti-social behaviour, just check out a lot of suburban streets for 'hoon' tyre marks and that is across australia.i could go on but you get the picture. the problems are not as concentrated as in the uk and i suspect that has a lot to do with the large size of the country and the relativley small population, (im no expert). on a positive note the teenagers here dont tend,(much but some do), to hang around drinking or being bloody cheeky, but all the reasons uk kids do it are here, boredom, easy access to booze etc. and my oz cousins all drank underage and mucked around , so again i dont know the reasons for this.in saying that there were australia day problems at a beach in kiama in nsw. kiama is a beautiful little seaside town , quite affluent, anyway last oz day there were a lot of teens drinking and fighting on the beach, police involved etc. so as i have said you get it everywhere.

we havnt settled in oz, but it has given us a new perspective on life in the uk, and elsewhere. i think the uk will recover as will every western economy, they are all linked together thats how they collapsed?. the reason oz is doing 'well' is its resources, coal,ore etc. if or when this resource is unviable what will happen then?. a lot of the local mines here are owned by an indian company, if prices are lowered or the ets is brought in do you think they will hang round for long?. oz has all the dole bludgers you can shake a stick at, just like uk. i feel that myself and my wife 'think' ourselves that we live in a nicer safer society here as we have had no trouble in two and a half years on our estate, but we have a 90,000 pound mortgage, twice what we had in the uk. we still want to go back, for family mainly, and when we get back if we have the same mortgage as here we will probably have decent peace in the uk too.and another thing i dont have kids so i cant comment on schools, but a lot of pio slag off the nhs, well heres my experience, i am a rugby player ,older one, and been to hospital a lot from injuries, uk only good experinces, oz ,well i had to wait over 3 days and 2 x 10 hours wait in the emergency dept, to be diagnosed with a spinal injury, all this getting in and out of the car was f***ing agony!, the docs were great but just as in uk understaffed, this is in a city hospital too.gp's are generally more understanding than uk, then again this is just my opinion.

milk & honey come to mind but you will find it will fall on deaf ears

[andromeda9]

absolutely 100% correct,most are benefit cheats,seen it all heard it all,lived in an area where it was all around me,so no one having a go(sure many will)but on this subject i couldn't give a stuff

[Guest guest30038]

All this talk about the uk going down the pan re dole bludgers, immigration etc. is nothing new.

 

It may come as a surprise to some of the younger ones (not patronising), but that type of talk has gone on for as long as I can remember. As a boy soldier in '64, I remember some of the lads going into Preston on a Friday night with the sole intention of "battering a few pakis". These were lads aged between 15 and 17. Some of the lads who took leave together mid-week would also target young and old blokes (white or black) for a battering because, "if they're on the streets, they aren't working and are on the dole".

 

45 yrs later, folk are still drawing the same conclusions..........the UK is still being dragged down by immigration and layabouts, (in other folks' perceptions) and racism is still alive and kicking. The only thing different is the scale and the growth of racism and it's opposition, political correctness.

 

So just when exactly do you think the "UK is gone to the dogs" as one poster has put it. Seems to me, if I am to judge what some say now, and what my peers said back in 64, that little has changed...........it's always been going to the dogs............."same as it ever was" as Talking Heads sing.

 

There'll either be a HUGE (eventually) right wing back-lash or, if 45 yrs is anything to go by, folk will still continue to moan, whinge, spew vitriol, and participate in other negative acts towards their fellow citizens who they see as interlopers and nothing will change.

 

Quite frankly, (IMHO) nothing will change until such time as folk feel that disempowered, that they turn to the likes of a Mussolini figure, if only to get the trains running on time. It seems a right-wing backlash is inevitable, if history is anything to go by, unless "moderate" politicians pull their finger out and take unsavoury, but neccessary action via democratic means. If they don't, then action is likely to be taken in an undemocratic manner and history will repeat itself.

 

The UK needs to recognise that it is either part of a global community, or it is not, and stop all the dithering and indecision that has gone on for at least 45 yrs that I can remember.

 

Myself? I'm a socialist (at heart). I believe in the brotherhood of man and fair go for all. Just how we achieve it though, with so much hate in the world, is lost on me.

 

Whatever happened to John Lennon's dream?.........All we need is love?

 

kev

[Irishgirl1]

:notworthy: Kev you are a Legend xx

[janieco]

**** off back ****wit you will be welcomed in open arms , wot a tosser

Hey whats the problem ??? Iam heading back so does that mean i should be glad ****wits like you are leaving .......and just quietly whats your constructive advice for fixing the problems in the U.K.???? Hey heres a thought maybe if all the "tossers" come over to oz and sh*t all over the place then maybe all the sensible people left in the u.k. can get things sorted out, just a thought :daydreaming:

[Guest treesea]

Pablo,

 

Take heart. For anyone with building related skills - brickies, steel fabricators, you name it, there is probably going to be quite a lot of work in the UK in the next few years. Finally - and it's taken the death of a policeman to realise it, God rest his soul - England are waking up to the fact that their infrastructure is in such a state of disrepair that it could be lethal. Six bridges gone in Cumbria alone in the past week and another one on the brink, already condemned. Five others still closed, thought to be unsafe. There's 1800 bridges in Cumbria alone, all now scheduled for a proper inspection. Those ones that have failed will all need to be rebuilt.

 

Also, finally, the government is starting to build social housing again. There's 3,000 council owned homes being built up here in the Lothians just now. The first significant social housing building project in a generation. I just don't see how you can grow a population a net 400,000 people a year (2008's population growth) - and there's no signs of this abating - and not build housing for them.

 

And what about the rebuilding needed after the recent floods in Cumbria? There's plenty of talk nowadays about people in the building trades being out of work, yet, going back to the Carlisle floods, one of the reasons it took so long to repair and rebuild Carlisle is because they couldn't get enough roofers/brickies/plumbers/electricians etc to do the work. I wonder if Cockermouth will suffer the same fate.

[Guest treesea]

When you have a scenario like in England at the moment where the income tax collected every week barely pays for the benefit system how can things get better. We need to stop making it so easy for certain individuals to doss around all day taking the easy option and start contributing to society then maybe with the money saved in benefit we could start reducing our national debt.

The trouble with the above though is that this government is relying on the vote of the useless of this country in the election so not much chance of any change:no:

 

What exactly is it that you want the unemployed to do? How exactly do you want them to "contribute to society". Get a job? How? They have no skills. The government here doesn't want to invest any taxpayers money in retraining them. Unlike in Australia, where it is almost impossible to be on the dole for any length of time, because you have to retrain if you can't get a job, even if "only" as a security guard (which is well paid in Australia, unlike here). What kind of job, in today's climate, where graduates work for MacDonalds and Pizza Hut, do you think they can get?

 

It's easy to slag off at the poor, isn't it. They're easy pickings. Maybe it's about time the not so poor got off their smug backsides and started their own businesses to employ and retrain some of these people.

[Guest guest30038]

Maybe it's about time the not so poor got off their smug backsides and started their own businesses to employ and retrain some of these people.

 

They'd be the first to do it chook.........employ 'em but not retrain'em......we don't want cheap labour going just anywhere now, do we?

 

kev

[Mongrel]

Why does every body bang on about benefit cheats ,its wrong don`t get me wrong the wicked witch of the east mrs t , vilified the unemployed even tho her policies were the main reason they were unemployed anyhow. More scope should be against the fat cat tax dodgers , corporates with millions of profit who pay sod all tax , example years ago the empire which owned the dewhirst butchers chains found a loophole and paid something daft like a quid a few quid dole thing is small beer to the millions creamed off by tax cheats

[pablo]

Why does every body bang on about benefit cheats ,its wrong don`t get me wrong the wicked witch of the east mrs t , vilified the unemployed even tho her policies were the main reason they were unemployed anyhow. More scope should be against the fat cat tax dodgers , corporates with millions of profit who pay sod all tax , example years ago the empire which owned the dewhirst butchers chains found a loophole and paid something daft like a quid a few quid dole thing is small beer to the millions creamed off by tax cheats

I remember me arl fellah telling me about them years ago mally, the vestey family it was,owned all kinds of shipping,factories,swathes of land in argentina,and the talk was that they basically threatened to pull the plug on all their uk operations losing thousands of jobs,directly and indirectly unless they were "allowed" to get away with this tax scam,so the rumour was anyway.

[Guest Andy]

What exactly is it that you want the unemployed to do? How exactly do you want them to "contribute to society". Get a job? How? They have no skills. The government here doesn't want to invest any taxpayers money in retraining them. Unlike in Australia, where it is almost impossible to be on the dole for any length of time, because you have to retrain if you can't get a job, even if "only" as a security guard (which is well paid in Australia, unlike here). What kind of job, in today's climate, where graduates work for MacDonalds and Pizza Hut, do you think they can get?

 

It's easy to slag off at the poor, isn't it. They're easy pickings. Maybe it's about time the not so poor got off their smug backsides and started their own businesses to employ and retrain some of these people.

What do you mean " the not so poor " do you mean all the people that go to work and pay for all the people who cant be bothered? And that is not directed at the guys who genuinly claim benefit because that is what the system is for. Its directed at all those who cannot be bothered and think the world owes them a living and there are plenty of them, you only have to watch Jeremy Kyle to see the type, the tax we pay every week only just pays for these bludgers and it pisses me right off. And for your information i left school with nothing and did not have a pot to piss, spent my first couple of years labouring and when the recession hit i went to college in the evenings and spent the days litter picking as thats all i could get. Now i run my own buisness not making huge profits but i get by and have good capital from the sale of my house, but i am not looking for praise as surley i am just doing what i need. I also trained a lad for 4 years and paid for him to go through college only to have it thrown back in my face. So in answer to your question there are plenty of ways to train or retrain for a career or a new career but its to easy to opt out and let someone else do it.

[heyyu]

yorks who do you think owns your debt GB's that is,i think you'll find china has a huge slab of it.

[Guest treesea]

What do you mean " the not so poor " do you mean all the people that go to work and pay for all the people who cant be bothered? And that is not directed at the guys who genuinly claim benefit because that is what the system is for. Its directed at all those who cannot be bothered and think the world owes them a living and there are plenty of them, you only have to watch Jeremy Kyle to see the type, the tax we pay every week only just pays for these bludgers and it pisses me right off. And for your information i left school with nothing and did not have a pot to piss, spent my first couple of years labouring and when the recession hit i went to college in the evenings and spent the days litter picking as thats all i could get. Now i run my own buisness not making huge profits but i get by and have good capital from the sale of my house, but i am not looking for praise as surley i am just doing what i need. I also trained a lad for 4 years and paid for him to go through college only to have it thrown back in my face. So in answer to your question there are plenty of ways to train or retrain for a career or a new career but its to easy to opt out and let someone else do it.

 

Well, there should be plenty of ways to train or retrain for a career, but if you don't have money in today's Britain, the likelihood is you are going to find getting a place on any training course, let alone one of your choice, quite hard. Look at all the school leavers nowadays who have good enough qualifications from school to get into University or College, but don't get a place because the government simply doesn't fund enough places for all those who want higher education.

 

In principle, I agree with putting time limits on getting unemployment benefit, provided that the government are able to arrange work for those people. Or alternatively, is prepared to pay to retrain the people and arrange work for them at the end of the training? And yes, it annoys me when I see a programme where a reporter walks up to a group of lads who have just signed on and says that there is some work picking vegetables along the road for £7 an hour and would any of them be interested. And the cheery response comes, "Nah, thanks, work with all them immigrants? I'm alright, mate!" or words to that effect. But the reality of that situation is that the farmer doesn't want to employ them anyway, and understandably so, firstly because he probably doesn't like their attutude and secondly because there are plenty of other people who would like the work queueing at his door.

 

What I don't want to see here is the American system, where benefits are limited, and once they are exhausted you are literally homeless, out on the street. All the tent cities springing up over in the States, with no toilets or running water - I just hope that the very low tax "I'm alright Jack, and to hell with everyone else" society that the States have adopted doesn't manage to take root any more than it already has done in Britain. We seem to be turning into a group of countries that wants northern European style infrastructure, welfare, work subsidies and the rest of it, but aren't prepared to pay, via taxes, the price.

[Guest YorkshireLad]

 

What I don't want to see here is the American system, where benefits are limited, and once they are exhausted you are literally homeless, out on the street. All the tent cities springing up over in the States, with no toilets or running water - I just hope that the very low tax "I'm alright Jack, and to hell with everyone else" society that the States have adopted doesn't manage to take root any more than it already has done in Britain. We seem to be turning into a group of countries that wants northern European style infrastructure, welfare, work subsidies and the rest of it, but aren't prepared to pay, via taxes, the price.

I concur.--America has turned into some kind of aristocracy(run by and for the rich).They have turned into an almost 2 class country,rich and poor.--I never want the UK to sink as low as America has.----I also agree that the very rich(people/corporations etc.) in the UK must pay alot more.--Far to much focus is put on people on the dole.However many of those people are good people that need assistance for whatever reasons.Sure there are cheats,as in any good system some abuse it.However at least we do not have an American type system. ----Note:I am NOT referring to third world asylum seekers and similair,they should not even be in the UK and are entitled to nothing except a one way ticket back to thier own countries.

[Guest YorkshireLad]

On a slightly seperate note the Yanks are also sinking because of their enormous current population of illegal immigrants.--Do we in the UK want to copy the Yanks in this ie: by continuing our absurd current immigration policies.Whats the difference ,we have asylum seekers and so forth,they have illegal immigrants?One thing I admire about Oz is they have more common sense in this area.

[Guest treesea]

On a slightly seperate note the Yanks are also sinking because of their enormous current population of illegal immigrants.--Do we in the UK want to copy the Yanks in this ie: by continuing our absurd current immigration policies.Whats the difference ,we have asylum seekers and so forth,they have illegal immigrants?One thing I admire about Oz is they have more common sense in this area.

 

But at least in the States they try to do something about finding those illegal immigrants. What is scary over here in the UK is the way you arrive on a visitors visa, become an overstayer, and then the authorities do nothing about following up on people who have overstayed their visas. Australia seems to be better at following up on overstayers. Over here, the authorities don't even seem to know how many overstayers there are.

[Guest treesea]

I concur.--America has turned into some kind of aristocracy(run by and for the rich).They have turned into an almost 2 class country,rich and poor.--I never want the UK to sink as low as America has.----I also agree that the very rich(people/corporations etc.) in the UK must pay alot more.--Far to much focus is put on people on the dole.However many of those people are good people that need assistance for whatever reasons.Sure there are cheats,as in any good system some abuse it.However at least we do not have an American type system. ----Note:I am NOT referring to third world asylum seekers and similair,they should not even be in the UK and are entitled to nothing except a one way ticket back to thier own countries.

 

Well, here we seem to have got three classes - rich and don't pay much tax, poor and don't pay any tax, and then the working class (apparently in today's Britain, to qualify as middle class you have to have a household income of £60K - there can't be many families with that sort of income, given then median income is only £28K) who apparently are the "not poor yet, but being driven that way", given it is their taxes that is expected to prop up both the other sets. On the one hand, subsidising the rich, so that they don't have to pay much tax, and on the other subsidising the poor, so that they don't have to take much responsibility for the dire straits they find themselves in.

[supa]

All I know is that part of OH's work is that he has to go into Housing Association properties. What an eye-opener that is. Probably about 95% are occupied by absolute bloody scroungers - it's outrageous. If the powers that be could get down to grass roots, and actually see what these @>@{)_? are up to, then maybe they would tackle the welfare system and start to redress the balance. So many of the families that he sees are made up of kids who never go to school and astonishingly, loads of them kick their bedroom doors in and write all over the walls, not to mention smoking and even drinking. One day OH was in a living room of one property and a young teenager came into the house, went upstairs and whilst they were talking, an empty bottle of lager was thrown out of the window. The mum gave a "what can you do" look and carried on talking! WTF. I doubt whether this would be allowed if they owned their own properties; certainly wouldn't be allowed in mine. Another house is owned by a buy-to-let landlord (who bought the house for an absolute song) and rents it out, making a tidy sum. Also, how come so many can afford to bloody smoke? :arghh:

 

Unless you are extremely lucky, millionaires are in the main self-made and whilst I think they should be contributing some more than say manual worker, I can't help thinking that they seem to be a soft target for tax rises. Most of them employ people, thus providing a valuable contribution to the system, make investments in others and also make purchases here. I'm not a millionaire (I wish) but I think the how-dare-they be-rich attitude a bit unfair. Look at the hours that Peter Jones and Theo whatsisname put in/have put in each day. I can't see the aforementioned doing that somehow.

 

Just my 2p worth.

[Guest treesea]

All I know is that part of OH's work is that he has to go into Housing Association properties. What an eye-opener that is. Probably about 95% are occupied by absolute bloody scroungers - it's outrageous. If the powers that be could get down to grass roots, and actually see what these @>@{)_? are up to, then maybe they would tackle the welfare system and start to redress the balance. So many of the families that he sees are made up of kids who never go to school and astonishingly, loads of them kick their bedroom doors in and write all over the walls, not to mention smoking and even drinking. One day OH was in a living room of one property and a young teenager came into the house, went upstairs and whilst they were talking, an empty bottle of lager was thrown out of the window. The mum gave a "what can you do" look and carried on talking! WTF. I doubt whether this would be allowed if they owned their own properties; certainly wouldn't be allowed in mine. Another house is owned by a buy-to-let landlord (who bought the house for an absolute song) and rents it out, making a tidy sum. Also, how come so many can afford to bloody smoke? :arghh:

 

Unless you are extremely lucky, millionaires are in the main self-made and whilst I think they should be contributing some more than say manual worker, I can't help thinking that they seem to be a soft target for tax rises. Most of them employ people, thus providing a valuable contribution to the system, make investments in others and also make purchases here. I'm not a millionaire (I wish) but I think the how-dare-they be-rich attitude a bit unfair. Look at the hours that Peter Jones and Theo whatsisname put in/have put in each day. I can't see the aforementioned doing that somehow.

 

Just my 2p worth.

 

It's easy to say, though, that you wouldn't allow a teenager to behave like that in your house, but then, you are probably not in that situation? Whatever happened to "there, but for the grace of God, go I?" Maybe we as a people, have had to struggle on relatively low wages for so long, struggling to support those on benefits, that we are losing that attitude. I'm not surprised children who are poor get mad and kick in the doors. It's a wonder they don't do a lot worse. Imagine being surrounded by so much wealth and opulence and you can't afford any of it. Children mind being poor. We live in a society where half their classmates probably go overseas during the holidays. That's certainly the case at my children's schools.

 

I don't mind people being rich - yes, the two you mentioned have done well, and Duncan Bannatyne also comes to mind as someone who employs loads of people. What I mind is the tax loopholes that enables someone who, say, has earned £1 million in income through their company, but avoids having to pay the £400K personal rate of tax on it simply by not taking it as a salary. Not to mention the use of transfer pricing on people that some of the larger banks and accounting firms practice, i.e. paying too much money for the people they bring in, just as a way of getting their profits offshore.

 

Sure, many if them employ people directly, but that isn't to say they don't make direct use of the infrastructure their taxes would help to prop up/restore. Why shouldn't they pay proper taxes, just like everyone else? Putting the top rate of tax up to 50p in the pound is just a lazy way of doing it. What the government could be doing instead is closing all the loopholes that enable individuals and companies to defer their taxes or transfer their profits away from Britain.

[supa]

At no point have I mentioned punishing the genuine poor. I simply don't agree that it is OK to behave the way SOME of these people do. Running our own small business we have worked our absolute socks off (11 days, 7 days per week) and have started from absolute scratch. I don't want to go into my upbringing, merely to say that I've gotten where I am not through my family situation but in spite of it. I do not think it fair that my increasingly dwindling profits being robbed from us in stealth taxes is in any way acceptable. I believe we would be considered middle class so yes you are right in that I am not in that situation. I do however know plenty who are and they like me continue to be appalled at how so many of these families get away with what they do.

 

It's also unfair to say "there, but for the grace of God, go I" as I do believe that you can control your own destiny - if you want/try to. Look at the number of "gang members" who turn against that life in extreme poverty and set up clubs to get kids away from that way of life. To adopt the attitude that someone else will bail you out even if you don't try to help yourself is unhealthy both for the parents as well as their next generation. How can you possibly reason that it is acceptable behaviour for children to treat property as though it doesn't matter - to me this is outrageous. How is the cycle to be broken? People have to learn to help themselves and to teach their children the value of helping themselves and not wallowing in self-pity. As I have said, how is it that so many people on these types of estates can afford to smoke and drink? On an estate not too far from me, the rank of shops consists of a bookies, tobaconists, sunbed shop, off licence, cafe and pub. Not the sort of places I would think would survive where people are in poverty.

 

 

 

It's easy to say, though, that you wouldn't allow a teenager to behave like that in your house, but then, you are probably not in that situation? Whatever happened to "there, but for the grace of God, go I?" Maybe we as a people, have had to struggle on relatively low wages for so long, struggling to support those on benefits, that we are losing that attitude. I'm not surprised children who are poor get mad and kick in the doors. It's a wonder they don't do a lot worse. Imagine being surrounded by so much wealth and opulence and you can't afford any of it. Children mind being poor. We live in a society where half their classmates probably go overseas during the holidays. That's certainly the case at my children's schools.

 

I don't mind people being rich - yes, the two you mentioned have done well, and Duncan Bannatyne also comes to mind as someone who employs loads of people. What I mind is the tax loopholes that enables someone who, say, has earned £1 million in income through their company, but avoids having to pay the £400K personal rate of tax on it simply by not taking it as a salary. Not to mention the use of transfer pricing on people that some of the larger banks and accounting firms practice, i.e. paying too much money for the people they bring in, just as a way of getting their profits offshore.

 

Sure, many if them employ people directly, but that isn't to say they don't make direct use of the infrastructure their taxes would help to prop up/restore. Why shouldn't they pay proper taxes, just like everyone else? Putting the top rate of tax up to 50p in the pound is just a lazy way of doing it. What the government could be doing instead is closing all the loopholes that enable individuals and companies to defer their taxes or transfer their profits away from Britain.

[Guest treesea]

At no point have I mentioned punishing the genuine poor. I simply don't agree that it is OK to behave the way SOME of these people do. Running our own small business we have worked our absolute socks off (11 days, 7 days per week) and have started from absolute scratch. I don't want to go into my upbringing, merely to say that I've gotten where I am not through my family situation but in spite of it. I do not think it fair that my increasingly dwindling profits being robbed from us in stealth taxes is in any way acceptable. I believe we would be considered middle class so yes you are right in that I am not in that situation. I do however know plenty who are and they like me continue to be appalled at how so many of these families get away with what they do.

 

It's also unfair to say "there, but for the grace of God, go I" as I do believe that you can control your own destiny - if you want/try to. Look at the number of "gang members" who turn against that life in extreme poverty and set up clubs to get kids away from that way of life. To adopt the attitude that someone else will bail you out even if you don't try to help yourself is unhealthy both for the parents as well as their next generation. How can you possibly reason that it is acceptable behaviour for children to treat property as though it doesn't matter - to me this is outrageous. How is the cycle to be broken? People have to learn to help themselves and to teach their children the value of helping themselves and not wallowing in self-pity. As I have said, how is it that so many people on these types of estates can afford to smoke and drink? On an estate not too far from me, the rank of shops consists of a bookies, tobaconists, sunbed shop, off licence, cafe and pub. Not the sort of places I would think would survive where people are in poverty.

 

We are also self employed, and what I would say about Britain is that it is a great place to be self employed, albeit meaning 7 day weeks and long days. But not everyone is cut out to be self employed. For starters it can mean, in the early years, managing pennies rather than pounds. And the long hours do start to take their toll after a while. Until you've been unemployed for a long time, it's hard, imho, to understand how demotivating it is, to send out 200 CVs and hardly get any replies, let alone interviews. Also, you hardly get any money when you are unemployed. By the time you pay the phone - which you have to have just to get work - not to mention the electricity and gas, there's only money left for food. £3.70 for a return bus fare to get to an interview is just pie in the sky. If you can't get a job in Britain, then you may as well have children, because that's the only way you can get enough money to survive.

 

As to the ciggies and booze, I think it is a bit on the nose for taxpayers to have to stump up for either, and there's no council estate bad enough in Edinburgh that would drive me to either. Up here, they don't even wait for the buildings to get to the decrepit state - they just pull them down long before that point (Gracemount, recently). But there are parts of England where living there AND working would drive me to cigarettes or booze or both, let alone living there and not working.

 

As for people destroying property and kicking in doors, sure it's outrageous. But for whatever reason, in Britain it is politically incorrect to require people to work at a job they don't choose to do. And rage at being poor is a consequence of that kind of attitude. We can't afford this level of welfare as a nation. The American model, thank goodness, is never likely to take route here, but I do see a time when the Australian model arrives, as in only part of your rent paid, not all of it, and you have to take whatever training and job they say you have to take, i.e. you don't get to live on the dole forever.

 

The most bizarre thing in Britain we have come across since we got here is the practice of paying more than the actual private rent in housing allowance, in the interests of "fairness". That local housing allowance rort has now changed, but even to this day, the housing benefit is the actual rent plus £15 a week. Fair to whom, for goodness sake?!