I like most of what has been said,but what would you do with kids like my eldest ?
He left school did two years at college,he signed on when he finished his course,he applied for job after job,4 months later he got one....
7 weeks later he was finshed due to lack of work and had to sign back on.
Public transport here is rubbish,there are no buses after 6pm,so he is limited in where he can work and the hours he can work.
Like he said to his advisor at the jobcentre today there was a vacancy 10 miles away from here 10pm till 2am,he could do it but can't because he has no transport.

Jobs around here are hard to come by.

Buy a moped, thats what I had to do when I was 17 to get to a job.

I earnt £40 a week and paid £20 a week to pay off the loan in 6 months.

You have to think outside the box.

I understand what you are saying Sal, but he's a "tryer" isn't he, he actually wants to work, if he didn't want to work he wouldn't have done 2 years at college would he! Times are still hard out there, BUT, we have the good news that there is growth in the private sector, so we can only hope that gets better and there will be plenty of opportunities of more jobs with more companies doing well, employing more people, and if I was DC I would be helping small businesses to get off the ground too with all that money he'll have in the bank accrued from saving on benefit handouts. Perhaps there could be something set up for the likes of people like your son, to rellocate him to an area where there IS plenty of work, and of course, he'll get his very own house coz he's working to earn that , whether it's rented or if he wants to get onto the housing ladder then he'll get help, and lots of it, because he's one of life's tryers instead of a waster!

I'd be keeping this new cap on housing benefit too! I just heard from David Cameron on pm's question time, that some people are claiming £2K a week for a nice little house in London Why should they have a house like that all paid for each week, when we've had to work darn hard all of our lives to get what we have, it's just not fair, not only is it not fair, it's not on!!! I don't care if they've lived there all their lives, and if they're not working, then they can be moved to an area where there isn't any work, and come to that, so can a lot of these people who never intend to work, they're taking up valuable space in areas where people WANT to get a job imo! I'd have a big shift around when I'm left with all the wasters in life, the drug addicts who couldn't care a less where they live, and all those couples churning out sprog after sprog just to get more benefits and live in a big house all for free

Hmmmmmmmm, feel better now that's off me chest lol!

if it was legally binding there wouldnt be a coalition government.
Parties would be elected on truth not lies.

BTW, what about the policies that havent been agreed!

VAT rises
Scrapping uni fees
helping and supporting the 'Family'
Being OPEN and HONEST

to name a few.

We have been sold down the river BIG TIME!

how?
and why is it different to every other gov that hasnt followed its manifesto fully?
(...they all follow them partially)

Crawl under a rock.

...... and another thing I thought of today, if people who are able to work and don't get a job, I'd assign them to council jobs, i.e. grass cutting, street cleaning etc. for a minimum of 3 days a work to earn their benefit money, then let's see how quickly they find one of their own!

k9paw - why? He's got nothing to be embarrassed about??? Growth went UP in the last 1/4 when everybody said it would have gone down, it went up by 0.8% that's better than going down surely?!

Sorry H54 if have offended you or anyone else. I don't and have never really understood politics(my ignorance). If someone can make things happen and change things for the better is good. But I often wonder if the folk making the decisons have any real idea of how it effects other folk. There seems to be far too much money wasted on totally unecesary so called 'improvements and updating' of various things, that in the end just don't work ie. nhs, social services. I agree that folk who are capable of doing work should do so in some way(and there are many who can)whatever it may be. Sorry if sound like an old fogey but many basic principles of everyday living and common sense are lost these days, a hospital doesn't need to be all flash singing and dancing for example to give proper care(can be done in a shed with the right folk and basic equipment much of the time). I often feel very sad that many in todays society have no respect, understanding or compassion for others or the environment they live in, see it every day walking amongst the broken glass, vomit, food cartons and contents etc. Don't think it will ever change here less of all the sport, celebrity, throw away culture and re-introducing some respect and manners instead might be a start) Too many folk waltzing around with badges and clipboards doing b***er all (jmo) Sorry for rant, again.

And you know my son would do that too,he hates been out of work,he was finished just over a week ago.

He has said he's bored at home and is doing everything he can to get another job,he's checking the papers every night,checking online with the jobcentre,he's even prepared to do an apprenticeship.

I couldn't agree more, I feel the very same about everything you have said there! I think it was because of the last Government that we have so many of these unnecessary "improvements" going on, and as I said over and over again, it was all conjured up to make Brown's unemployment figures look good, and sad as it is, with people having to now lose those jobs, I think the time has come to get a real grip on it all and keep all the "vital" in place and I honestly think, if he manages to do that, then we will in effect be in a better position all round, i.e. even with severe cuts in various services, they in turn will get rid of the dead wood lying around and improve on the front line, don'tcha think? I'm really hoping that's the way things will go.

Sal, as I said before, your son is not one of life's wasters, and it's very sad that he's unable to get a job because he actually wants to work and so do a lot of other people, but a lot of benefit receipients out there just don't WANT to do they, so these are the ones I'd pick on to earn their benefit!

Good luck to him if he does want an apprenticeship, but even those are hard to come by nowadays according to hubby. He just told me that it's not like it used to be, these apprenticeship jobs are very hard to come by, a lot of firms just don't want the bother of teaching somebody, they're too busy trying to keep the place going, and another reason is that it costs them to have an apprentice so another reason not to take one on. So my advice would be, if he can get on the ladder by taking on an apprenticeship it would pay dividends in the long run. Dave took one on a few years ago, and now he's a fully skilled technician, and he's actually taken on another young lad to do the same with. He feels so sorry for these dyslexic kids leaving school with not much hope of finding something, that he's now got 2 of them on his payrole, one of which who has now passed all his exams but can hardly read and write at all (so he's sending him for weekly lessons!). Just like me, he believes in those who want to help themselves, and Luke is one of those!