General Election - Who do we vote for

So let's get that right. Labour deserve it, UKIP don't?

 

The work ethic argument is a pure invention of company bosses, it sounds so much better than "migrants are willing to work for 3/4's (and less) of the wages.

 

But you don't want to curb immigration do you?

Poles can obviously work for less money as wages in Poland are much lower. How can you criticise the bosses over here for employing the Poles. Surely you don't expect bosses to discriminate on the basis of nationality, do you?

When you go shopping, all other things being equal, do you go for the cheapest price possible, or do you charitably pay far more money than you have to. If the latter, then you are a t**t!

 

No, as usual, you have it totally wrong!

You give Labour supporters a bad name.

 

I'll add that as mostly young and single immigrants can mostly afford to work for less and when they return to their homeland what savings they have often makes them relatively wealthy. As an example two doors away from my last address there lived six poles all in their early twenties, all agency workers employed at a motor factors in Ellsmere port. Another neighbour, a foreman at the plant told me the company are no longer interested in the locals because only the dregs of society would work for the wages on offer. Those lads shared a two bed terraced with little hardship but honestly what hope can a young resident family have when dad has to work for near minimum wages or face the dole? ... And then the very same greedy bosses are the first to label people forced on benefits as scroungers.

 

You won't criticise UKIP and you sympathise with their hammering at the hands of the media because you prefer them to Labour.

 

:doh: I'm off to bed - my head hurts.

 

This is the crux of the matter, immigrants must not be allowed to work for less than the going rate for doing the same job as locals because it causes more problems than it ever adds to the GDP. The root of it is always 99% greed and genuine shortages of labour exist only in the minds of those that would exploit the situation.

 

Migrants are willing to work for 3/4 of the wage, helping a company to achieve its most efficient point and thus make the most profit. For any company looking to make profit (and the majority are), why would you not pay this wage? Assuming it's at or above the legal minimum wage (and that's a discussion for another time, despite what I'm saying here I still don't believe the minimum wage is high enough) the reason Europeans are employed over British nationals is because, more often than not, European workers are willing to work for that level, whereas the British workers think they're too good for a minimum wage job.

As I said, I firmly believe that the main problem we have with immigration is that British citizens are unwilling to work for the lower wage or in the lowest jobs (cleaners etc) and thus the jobs they could take are filled by Europeans who are willing to work at that level. It's not because of economics, I don't even believe it's because of politics. It's a social problem - too many British citizens expect too much when they don't have the level of qualification or experience to prove they deserve it. It's a false sense of entitlement.

I only read this after I posted the above, so I'll just reply to one point which I believe emphasises my comments above.

Suggesting that 'only the dregs of society' would take the wages on offer sums up the problem I have with this situation. They could take the job, do their best in the job and hope the experience gets them a new, better job. But no, it's easier to sit around collecting benefits.

Aside from those genuinely unable to work, anyone who lives on benefits should be made to do volunteering until they can find paid work. See the number willing to take the jobs previously reserved for 'dregs' rise spectacularly fast, only to find that the sh*tty jobs they thought were too good for before have been filled by people who wanted to work even before they had to do so.

 

This :sign15:

 

Wake up ... the dregs I'm talking about aren't interested in working, only getting paid to replace lost benefits and to buy drink/drugs. For the average debt laden young low skilled family man it's different, it actually costs him more than claiming benefits does I.E he can't afford to take these jobs! ... It's sod all to do with benefits being too high either, not in such cases as this and unfortunately it's quite the norm.

Importing cheap labour is morally wrong it forces residents into poverty and should be banned PERIOD. We don't need quotas or closed borders, just make immigrants compete for jobs on equal terms, for British wages not Polish!

 

I think this is one of those issues where two people with opposing views are never going to see it from the other's point of view. I'm of the belief that, even if you've come out of your education with no qualifications, you should be looking to work for whatever you can get rather than living on benefits, regardless of which is more profitable. Take the sh*t job, get the skills, build your life up. When you've done that, have kids, have a pet dog, have a credit card. Before that, live within your means. There are too many people effectively writing off their own lives once they leave school under-qualified by refusing to take low-paid jobs and are surprised, angered even, when companies hire people who will work at the lower salary or in the socially undesirable roles.

Alternatively, like I believe I suggested above, people willing to live on benefits should be made to volunteer until they can get paid work. 'For the average debt laden young low skilled family man', if the reason for not getting a proper job is not being able to afford it, there should be no issue with volunteering to get what is probably a more generous pay. The issue is that 'the average debt laden young low skilled family man' has convinced society that because he supposedly can't afford to work he has to sit at home doing nothing. There is middle ground, but the people you're referring to refuse to step into it.

I want to stress that this is in no way personal - I know there are people genuinely stuck in relative poverty, just as I'm sure you'll accept that there are people who simply don't want to work. I always worry with discussions like this that I'll say something offensive - these are simply my views on the average person in each scenario.

 

Forced to do voluntary work to receive their benefits!!! I've a better idea; how about we stop the now far to prevalent practice of turning once paid jobs into voluntary jobs!!!

I live in Cornwall and my local paper often has more "Voluntary Posts" advertised than actual "Paid Posts". Furthermore many of the "Voluntary" jobs advertised used to be proper paid jobs!!!

Lets stop this practice and start paying a fair wage to people, and maybe we won't have to consider the "Draconian" ideas you are suggesting!!!

 

Great post.

For me, godfathers view that those who want to work to earn money to replace benefits are the "dregs of society" is unfortunate. Even if they do have drug issues, it is far better that they are trying to get back into a working society than doing nothing and once they make that effort to class them as the "dregs" is unfair.

The minimum wage would probably not be enough to support a family, etc. but as we know, unemployment amongst the youth and young adult is still high - many of whom are still living with their parents. They should be pleased to be working for the minimum wage rather than going on benefits, and if they aren't pleased, then tough.

 

Define a "fair wage" and how is it arrivedat, who decides on it, at and how do you compel an employer to pay it?

 

Alright point taken but then what about all those skilled persons who do work hard but have seen their earnings halved?, tradesmen, mechanics, fitters, welders, HGV drivers, even engineers and book-keepers are losing out to cheaper immigrants. Importing cheaper workers maybe bloody marvelous for a company bosses bank balance but if does little for our economy, quite the reverse, putting resident workers on the dole not only costs the British taxpayer, it causes animosity towards others who let's face it are only trying to better their lives.

 

How do you distinguish a greedy boss and one that can only keep his business going if he uses the lower wage labour? Are you saying that the latter should just close, losing all the jobs? Are you saying profits should be capped? It is fine coming up with these idealistic sound bites, but how are you specifically and practically enforcing these higher wages? Let's have a few specifics, rather than ideals.

 

Stop the practice of only advertising jobs abroad, which definitely goes on!

As for saying the reason this is done is because the average foreign worker has a better work ethic than the average Brit; of course they do! Because they have more incentive, because our minimum wage to many of them is a fortune in the countries they come from.

Therefore they flock to Britain and work hard for a few years, mostly living in cramped and crowded conditions to keep their living costs down whilst living in this country, which in turn enables them to save, then they return home wealthy by their own countries standards. This amounts unfair competition for the average Brit IMO!

As for greedy bosses; I was watching the TV this morning and SSE announced obscene profits, but pleaded that they needed them. Well I think they would be better reducing prices and not taking such humongous profits, which in turn would help the low paid workers, as they might then be able to heat their homes properly.

As for capping profits, yes that would be a great idea IMO! Nobody is worth millions of pounds a year, so yes maybe there should be a maximum wage, with all personal profits of say over £100,000 per annum, being taxed at 100%, which would bring down the overall burden of taxation from the lower paid, and could also be recycled to increase the minimum wage.

I know what I have said is very simplistic, and it would be a lot more complicated to make something like this work, but in principle if structured properly I believe it could. In turn something like this would bring prices down, as nobody would be able to afford to pay silly money for designer wear, sports cars etc., so products would have to be more realistically priced, and life in general would be fairer!

 

"As for capping profits, yes that would be a great idea IMO! Nobody is worth millions of pounds a year, so yes maybe there should be a maximum wage, with all personal profits of say over £100,000 per annum, being taxed at 100%, which would bring down the overall burden of taxation from the lower paid, and could also be recycled to increase the minimum wage."

What could possibly go wrong with this plan?

 

"In turn something like this would bring prices down, as nobody would be able to afford to pay silly money for designer wear, sports cars etc., so products would have to be more realistically priced, and life in general would be fairer! "

Yep. You'll be queuing for toilet rolls and bread.

 

To address your reply to my suggestion that the unemployed work as volunteers - I'm clearly not suggesting they volunteer in trades. The number of unemployed people in the country at the moment could more than fill every charity shop looking for someone to help out, it would allow additional litter pick-ups. Many jobs can be done for free if society benefits as a whole. So long as it were ensured that there was no drop in the number of paid litter-pickers or charity shop workers, the overall benefit is clear.

Also, who is going to employ these minimum wage workers? Try and convince the world's largest firms to come to the country and hire 3000 people, but with the clause that they can only earn £100k/a. Business will move out of the country, our best (British) workers will move with it and we'll end up being Germany's version of Poland, Romania or Bulgaria. You have ideas which, if they worked as you think they would, would revolutionise the country. What you're not grasping is that it's just not this simple. It just wouldn't work. If it was, communism would be much more common and I highly doubt you'd be saying the same if you were living in a communist country.

Not only this - to put a standardised monetary value on an individual's time is nothing short of ridiculous. With your idea, what encourages entrepreneurship? What encourages productivity? What brings the best, most talented workers into the country to pay for the higher wages you want?

Let's put this into perspective; anyone earning more than £2000 a week would never be able to earn more. Never. Imagine being particularly successful and hitting that at 27, 28 years old. Why stay in the country? Why not move to Germany, France etc where you can keep bettering yourself?

You're over simplifying the way of the world and you'd be giving people a genuine reason for not wanting to work in this country.

 

You can't control wages with regulations, in the same way you can't control house prices. Tinkering with rules creates red tape, administration costs and loop holes. It's simple supply and demand. Bosses will employ the cheapest staff available that adequately fill the role. It can be argued that immigrants can afford to work for less as they are used to lower wages, house share etc. as already stated.

First you need to get the economy running so that jobs are created, (I suggest lowering corporation tax and removing employers national insurance. This will encourage companies to settle here and to offer jobs. Losses in tax revenue will be replaced by income tax paid by newly employed people.

We need a minimum living wage which is a realistic figure. No one can be employed below that level and it should be enforced. It should also be the level that taxation starts.
Total benefits paid to someone should be capped at the minimum living wage. This excludes incapacity benefit which should be means tested (properly) and pensions which have already been paid for in NI & tax by the claimant. Regardless of whether you have 15 kids or not this limit should not be breached. Bearing children is not a right to claim money, they should be planned if they can be afforded in the same way that a working couple would need to.

If you're provided with a council house you pay rent on it at market rate. This is taken from your benefits or salary. It should not be advantageous in any way to not work and not to buy your own home. No need for a bedroom tax if this is in place. People can choose to downsize or move to a cheaper area to reduce their costs, exactly as you would if you were a private home owner. To avoid creating "ghettos or poor people" a mass program of building needs to be undertaken in the areas people want to live in and of a standard of house people want to live in. No need for it to be cheap affordable housing as that just drives down living standards in the same way wages have been driven down.

The crux of the problem is that we have too many people for the jobs and services in the south east. We need to stop the population rising or redistribute to other areas. I'm welcome to suggestions but short of a Chinese style birth control law, immigration is the only way to do it unless you want to make the country unattractive for people to move here. Nothing racist about that, its simply numbers & logistics.

 

Sorry, TVOR, your ideas are far to simplistic, as you yourself admit. They are nothing more than ideals. For example, why would anyone start a business with all the risk it entails, if they cant make more money. Why would an existing business try and get better, if there is a massive tax on the increased profit.

It really is a nonsense.

 

Trying tracing along the lines with your finger as you read. I'm told it helps some people.

 

That's my thought process. Labour is a no-go to me; they'd balls up the economy.

 

I can't believe so many people here have been directly and sufficiently affected in a negative way by immigration that its now the single most important policy cornerstone for them

 

Ed Balls in charge of the Economy, does not even bare thinking about, when he still thinks Labours Spend spend spend spend policy is still the way forward. Be like a kid with a Credit Card. Still refuses to answer the question about Mr Prudence selling all the gold!

Cameroon in Charge of the Country, Public school boy that has never lived in the real World, At least Maggie had to work her way up from her Fathers Corner Shop!

 

Judging by the leaflets coming through my door (not just UKIP, but a range of other single issue, non-EU parties) it's being freely able to trade with Europe which is the biggest concern for British people.

Every day I'm fed up with container loads of British goods being shipped to the continent, with no thought for whether or not they'd be better consumed domestically. It's a farce!

 

I was replaced in my last job by a cheaper to employ South African temp. He was a qualified accountant. I was just good with Excel. I went back 4 weeks later to sign the compromise agreement and in that time he'd single handily already lost the company over 64 grand in fees because "He didn't have time to use the method I'd taught him". This was more than twice his yearly salary.
Needless to say the company almost went bankrupt after a bout a year and has now been bought out. Had I not had any concerns about the solvency of the company I would have taken them to court for wrongful dismissal, but instead I took my payoff and gardening leave and scarpered.

Even though I lost a well paying job ( 5 years later I'm still on half what I used to be paid) due to cheaper immigrant labour (And not European) Immigration is not the most important concern about Europe for me. I have two issues with Europe.

• The millions of pounds it costs the UK a day, for very little in return (and in some cases a negative return). It's a net drain on our resources.
• The loss of control and overriding of laws in our country by a largely unelected and faceless group.

 

Clearly had it been a English temp you'd be enjoying 36k on Portsmouth by now!

 

Where can I find a list of everyone who is standing for election in my area tomorrow? My area being hertsmere.

 

If it was the norm, people would still start a business, because it would still get them to the top of the food chain, it would just mean there was more of the cake for others to share, but everything would be a little better for everybody, rather than the top few percent controlling 90 odd percent of the worlds wealth.

 

You just don't understand human nature.

 

I think you're being too kind. He doesn't understand a lot of things