UK: We should stop the dole after two years to force jobless to take work, says Labour's Rachel Reeves

The unemployed should be forced to take a job after no more than two years on the dole to end stop them spending a 'lifetime on benefits', Labour will say today.

Rachel Reeves is challenging David Cameron to back Labour's plan for a jobs guarantee to limit Jobseekers Allowance to a year for under 25s and two years for older workers.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, the shadow work and pensions secretary warned the country cannot afford leaving people 'stuck on benefits for years on end'.

Latest figures show the number of people claiming JSA stood at 867,700 in December, down from 1.6million in 2011 but still 90,000 higher than the pre-crash trough in February 2008.

However, there are 133,200 people aged 25 and over who have been claiming JSA for two years or more, and 30,000 people aged 18-24 have been on JSA for over a year.

Under Labour's plan, the government would force those on the scheme to take a job working 25 hours a week, paid at the minimum wage, for six months.

The party hopes that four in five people would be kept on by employers in the job after six months.

It would be paid for using £1.9billion raised through a levy on bankers' bonuses, although the Tories claim it would cost £2.5billion.

MPs will debate and vote on the proposal in a debate in the Commons today.

In a letter sent to Mr Cameron, seen by MailOnline, Miss Reeves calls on the government to back the idea.  She writes: 'Abandoning people to a lifetime on benefits is not only bad for individuals and their families, but bad for the economy, and bad for the taxpayer who foots the bill.

'With youth unemployment up over the past quarter, the need to tackle this issue and get people off benefits and into work is even more urgent.'

She tells Mr Cameron: 'It's time to put an end to your government's rules which allow jobseekers to spend a lifetime on benefits without being offered a day's paid work.'

She says the figures show that the number of over-25s on benefits for more than two years has risen by 224 per cent since 2010.

'By a one-off repeat of the tax on banker's bonuses and restricting pension tax relief on incomes over £150,000, the Government could fully fund a Compulsory Jobs Guarantee to ensure that anyone 25 and over receiving JSA for two years and over, and anyone under 25 who has been receiving JSA for over a year, would be offered a paid job that they will have to take or face losing benefits.

'This is a tough but fair contract, because as a country we simply cannot afford to continue wasting the potential of so many, leaving them stuck on benefits for years on end.'

But a Tory party source said: 'Labour's sums don't add up. They are proposing yet more unfunded spending, meaning more borrowing and more taxes to pay for it. And Labour's bank tax is a short-term political gimmick that they want to spend at least ten times over.

'It's the same old Labour. Ed Miliband has no economic plan. Labour would put the recovery at risk, put jobs at risk and hardworking people would pay the price with a less secure future.'

Mr Cameron has set out a Tory ambition for 'full employment', claiming it means 'more of our fellow men and women with the security of a regular wage; it means you, your family and your children having a job and getting on in life'.

The Conservatives have committed to banning under-21s from claiming benefits, with requirement that they are 'earning or learning'.

'No longer will you have the option of leaving school and going straight into a life on benefits', Mr Cameron said last year.

In her letter to Mr Cameron, Ms Reeves says: 'You recently set out your aim for Britain to become a nation of 'full employment', but despite recent welcome falls in overall unemployment the number of people out of work (25 and over) and claiming benefits for over two years is 224 per cent higher than in 2010.

'I hope you will therefore support Labour and back a Compulsory Jobs Guarantee. It's time to put an end to your government's rules which allow jobseekers to spend a lifetime on benefits without being offered a day's paid work.'

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You're still too soft on migration, say Tory MPs who warn Cameron Britain is at risk of 'immensely serious social dangers'

David Cameron's plans to curb immigration do not go far enough and leave Britain at risk of 'immensely serious social dangers', a Conservative backbench manifesto claims.

Brian Binley, treasurer of the powerful 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, said tougher controls were needed on migrants' access to welfare and the jobs market.

In a pamphlet for the respected Civitas think-tank, he said immigrants' country of origin should be made to pay for social security costs until they have made a significant contribution to the Exchequer.

There would also be automatic deportation for anybody given a one-year prison sentence or two court fines – a far tougher regime than is currently in place.

The document will increase pressure on the Prime Minister to toughen up the Tory Party's position on immigration controls.

In November, Mr Cameron promised to stop EU migrants claiming in-work benefits, such as tax credits, and getting access to social housing for four years.

But he disappointed his backbenchers by stopping short of more robust action, including a temporary ban on migrants – the so-called emergency brake.

It emerged that No 10 dumped the idea after German Chancellor Angela Merkel made it clear it would not win EU support.

The pamphlet by Mr Binley, one of the party's most senior backbench figures, reflects widespread concern among the rank-and-file that the UK has 'surrendered control over its borders'.

It states: 'Emerging policies have failed to be wide-ranging and ambitious enough. Failure to address public immigration concerns would carry immensely serious social dangers.'

Mr Binley, who co-authored the pamphlet with the academic Dr Lee Rotherham, continues: 'The free movement of workers as permitted under EU rules means that the UK has lost control of the supply side of its workforce.

'This would not be an issue but for the fact that it is subsidising its own native workforce to remain unemployed and our long-term uncompetitiveness by hiring in outside labour.

'This may be advantageous to the productivity of the companies in these areas, but it is disadvantageous to the taxpayer who has to effectively subsidise them by dole payments, while the UK workers affected fail to better themselves and rise up the employment ladder.'

He also accuses Labour of 'cynically' encouraging mass immigration, adding: 'Those who endorse a level of mega-immigration that exceeds the ability of society to integrate the newcomers are deliberately attempting social change by different means.'

Mr Cameron sparked controversy this year by excluding immigration from his six key election themes.

The Office for National Statistics is expected to confirm this month that net migration is still 250,000 a year.

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Spontaneous Order

Most of life happens without a central planner. Yet people think we need one.

Suppose you’d never seen a skating rink, and I told you that I want to lay down some ice and charge people money to strap sharp blades on their feet. They will zip around on the ice – young and old, skilled and unskilled. My only rule: Go counter-clockwise.

Hillary Clinton would say the rink needs regulation. She calls herself “a government junkie.” Government junkies like government plans. Hillary’d probably demand that my rink have an official who tells skaters when to zoom left or right, when to slow down.

I actually tried that while doing a TV special on “Spontaneous Order.” I brought a megaphone to a skating rink and bossed people around. Some skaters fell. No one thought I’d made skating safer or better.

That’s because no “planner” knows the wishes and skills of individual skaters better than skaters themselves.

Most decision making works much the same way: Leave people free to make their own choices, and a spontaneous order arises – buyers and sellers adjust to changing prices; inventors invent; families raise kids; musicians create jazz.

Yet control freaks have criticized such spontaneity for at least 2400 years. Plato warned that music should be simple so that it does not stir up passion. In the 1920s, Ladies Home Journal complained that jazz would lead “to a breaking away from all rules.” We’re lucky America didn’t have a U.S. Dept. of Music at the time.

On my TV show, one government-lover said decisions must be made “by technocrats … who have this expertise.”

But no central planner has enough expertise to direct the skaters on the ice. (I tried an expert, too. I got an Olympic skater to direct people. She was no better.)

Central planning creates the kind of inefficiency that brought down the Soviet Union. While Americans shopped in malls full of goods, Russians waited in long lines.

Today in the U.S., innovation tends to occur in the freest sectors of the economy, while sectors most closely affiliated with government stagnate. Because LASIK eye surgery is largely funded by customers, it’s improving by leaps and bounds. Government-subsidized hospitals, by contrast, can barely share equipment without running into a thicket of regulations controlling collaboration.

Eighty years ago, it took workers only 15 months to build the Empire State Building. But this century, using vastly superior construction equipment, building the new World Trade Center took 10 times as long. Eighty years ago, some trains ran faster than 100 miles per hour, but now even the “high-speed” Acela train averages only 90 miles per hour because government safety rules demand that American trains be heavier.

Venture capitalist Peter Thiel says the current state of regulation should frighten us: “You would not be able to get a polio vaccine … approved today.” He’s right. The first batch of Salk vaccine gave polio to 40,000 people. If that happened today, the FDA would immediately stop the research. Salk’s vaccine would not have had a chance to save thousands of lives and prevent so much misery.

Thiel funded startups such as Facebook, PayPal, LinkedIn and Yelp. It’s no coincidence that such wonderful innovation happened in cities far from Washington, DC. By the time regulators woke up, good things had already happened. But now the central planners want control over the Internet. Today, in response, Internet companies spend more on lobbying than Wall Street or defense contractors.

Today’s innovators take for granted that there’s only a short window of opportunity before regulators swoop in and ruin everything by dictating a single, centrally planned formula by which innovation may proceed.

That may not bother CEO’s who get in on the ground floor – their way of doing things becomes the template everyone else must use. But everyone else suffers. Bye-bye, innovation. But innovation was once what America was about.

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A Typical Week in Dhimmi Britain

It is amazing — in a rather horrifying way — to track the antics of the Religion of Peace in what was once Great Britain. News over the last few days serve only to reinforce my belief that British politicians and media journalists have already submitted before Allah, or have large off-shore bank accounts bulging with treacherous blood money as a reward for betraying their country.

If this sounds a bit far-fetched, consider the peculiar behaviour exhibited by our supposedly impartial journalists over the weekend. The EDL held a march in Dudley on Saturday, protesting about the building of yet another mega-mosque which the vast majority of local people are firmly against. Some 1,000 plus patriotic Brits turned out for the event. A peaceful march ensued and a number of speakers outlined why it was not really a good idea to add another propaganda centre for Islam in the town.

Around fifty delightful young chaps from David Cameron’s UAF friends and Antifa also turned out, all dressed in black with balaclavas thoughtfully covering their scowling and hate-contorted faces lest cameras catch their violent behaviour carried out in the name of “anti-racism” — which is something of a misnomer when one considers the virulent racial hatred they feel toward the native British.

Of these fifty upstanding examples of decency and compassion, thirty were arrested (see video) after they attacked the police. Curiously though, all the media headlines were along the lines of “Thirty arrested at EDL demonstration in Dudley”, leading the low-information reader to assume all those arrested were from the EDL. In point of fact, no EDL supporters were arrested at all.

The Birmingham Mail was guilty of blatant propaganda here, but rather foolishly allowed their comment board to remain open. Within a few hours hundreds of people pointed out their story was a tissue of lies and disinformation. Some questioned the ethics of modern day Birmingham Mail journalists and publicly mused as to whether the propaganda they pumped out was in line with the integrity one expects from those who purportedly exist to tell us the unvarnished truth.

Having been caught in-flagrante as it were, the Birmingham Mail took the only course of action available to such an honourable edifice of truth telling… and deleted all the comments whilst making no attempt whatsoever to edit the article in order to reflect truth and objectivity. The editor is a chap called David Brookes who may be contacted at David.Brookes@trinitymirror.com should readers wish to drop him a line…

On Sunday another demonstration occurred, this time held by thousands of Muslims outside Prime Minister David Cameron’s temporary London pied-a-terre in Downing Street. Some people have noticed how hard it is to get large numbers of Muslims onto British streets to state “Not In My Name” regarding paedophile rape gangs, beheaders of British soldiers or blowers-up of London tube trains, and sure enough this large gathering had nothing to say about such errant Muslim behaviour. They were more concerned about abolishing free speech you see, particularly with regard to free speech about lovely, peaceful old Mo by those rascals at Charlie Hebdo magazine.

Along with the black flag of ISIS they carried placards telling us to “Learn Some Manners” and other tactfully cohesive messages such as “Freedom of Speech=Hatred to Muslims.” They swarmed over the Cenotaph and a statue of Field Marshal Montgomery, although to be fair they probably had little idea who he was other than some dead white English oppressor. I don’t expect they know what the Cenotaph symbolises either; after all, they never turn out on Remembrance Sunday unless it is to Islamically demonstrate within earshot of the old soldiers paying their respects to fallen comrades.

The sheer number of these Muslim demonstrators and the disrespectful way they behaved was surely worthy of media coverage, but not with the ghastly BBC, I’m afraid to say. If you go onto their website and search for “Muslim demonstrators Whitehall Charlie Hebdo” you only get this message: “Sorry, there are no results for Muslim demonstrators Whitehall Charlie Hebdo.”

And therein is a tale of two demonstrations. The British media are prepared to lie and mislead about the one supported by the English, and in the case of the BBC to totally ignore the one portraying Islam in a bad light. They claim this is done in order to promote Community Cohesion but I think all those who saw these arrogantly intolerant savages desecrating our war shrines will have little time for Community Cohesion anymore — just as they have little time in believing Lions and Antelopes can co-exist in a thoroughly modern, progressive, non-carnivorous sort of happy-clappy Utopia.

How can we tolerate the intolerant? And is there anything in the world more intolerant than Islam?

I rather doubt it. Their intolerance even goes beyond the grave, as in the case of the non-Muslim “Shady” Shadrack Smith who has been buried in a multi-faith cemetery in Burbage, Leicestershire, without taking into account the multicultural views of a Muslim family’s distaste about the proximity of their own deceased’s nearest and dearest to a nasty old infidel.

Having made their vociferous objections about this flagrant breach of multi-faith tolerance, Burbage Parish Council have contacted Mr Smith’s family asking them if they would mind awfully if they dug up poor old Shady and moved him to another location where he could then stop giving eternal offence to Islam. Or as Councillor Richard Flemming put it:

“Burbage Parish Council provides an award-winning cemetery for the benefit of the whole community…unfortunately the parish council has recently received representation from two families regarding the allocation of adjacent grave plots within Burbage Cemetery…the parish council is sympathetic to the feelings of both families concerned and is committed to working with the relatives and the wider community to reach an amicable and acceptable solution.”

Memo to Councillor Fleming — why don’t you just tell the Muslim family to naff off? It is, after all, a multi-faith cemetery serving the wider community… oh sorry, silly me. I almost forgot the way things work in Britain these days.

Other examples of Islamic intolerance over the last few days are as follows: Brustholm Ziamani was stopped by police on his way to behead another British soldier. Two young female cadets were threatened with a spot of casual beheading as they left an army reserve centre. Channel 4 newsreader Kathy Newman was escorted out of Streatham mosque after naively thinking a national open day for mosques was to be taken literally.

Undercover footage emerged of Muslims torturing sheep in a halal slaughterhouse. Tower Hamlet’s extremist Muslim Mayor has been accused of electoral fraud and of utilising intimidation and threats. He responded with the ubiquitous display of Muslim victimhood and branded his accusers as racists and Islamophobes. Zain Mohammed, a government employee, is being investigated by the police for stating his disappointment with Hitler for not wiping out the entire Jewish race. To date, however, no arrest has taken place. Meanwhile, Anti-Semitic attacks doubled in Britain in 2014.

British police have called for extra funding because they are now arresting multiple Muslims every day for terrorist activity. Perhaps they should allocate their money more wisely and desist from tracking down harmless old English women who had the anti-Islamic temerity to purchase Charlie Hebdo magazines from the local newsagent? The police should really work out which side they are on here, particularly so when they have been warned not to wear their uniform to work, thereby attracting the attention of cop-killing threats from the Religion of Peace.

Churchillian wannabe leader David Cameron bravely stated he was taking the fight against Islamic extremism to soaring new levels. He growled theatrically: “We have got to go after the hate preachers, we’ve got to go after the radicalisation” and then promptly let hate preacher Muhammad Salah into the UK where he could continue to call for murder and mayhem. Meanwhile, the ban on civil rights activists Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller was upheld by the Court of Appeal, so unlike Muhammad Salah they will not be allowed to enter Britain.

Other political news relates to the Labour Party’s Sadiq Khan, a friend of the convicted Al-Qaeda terrorist Babar Ahmad. Mr Khan wants to contest the election for Mayor of London and is progressing very well. He currently stands in second position in terms of voting support from his Labour chums.

The recriminations from the Rotherham gang rape obscenity continue with the Labour Party accused of deliberately covering up the Muslim rape in order to maintain the Muslim vote. The entire Labour council has resigned, but it now transpires many have gone on to lucrative jobs at other Labour councils — some in charge of safeguarding children. The disgraced former deputy council leader Jahangir Akhtar was asked if he wanted to apologise to the victims of sexual abuse. Mr Akhtar said no, he did not…

In the Daily Telegraph, Britain’s last investigative reporter Andrew Gilligan draws attention to the links between Hamas and the large Muslim Brotherhood presence in London, which includes various Muslim “charities” used to funnel money into Islamic extremism.

On a final note, the British government has noticed there are more British Muslims fighting for ISIS than there are British Muslims in the British army. In order to redress this “inequality” there is now a recruitment drive to swell the ranks with Islam. What could possibly go wrong? General Sir Nicholas Carter, chief of the general staff, thinks nothing could go wrong at all if we train Muslims in the use of firearms and explosives. He said: “Our recruitment from the black, Asian and minority ethnic communities has been improving over the years, but it is nowhere near where it needs to be. We have to do more.”

One of the most senior Muslims in the army, Imam Asim Hafiz, Islamic adviser to the chief of staff, said diversity was one of the UK’s strengths and this enhanced the military’s cultural understanding and helped them when deployed. “In my view, the values of the armed forces are fully compatible with the values of Islam as well as other faiths.” Isn’t that just marvellous? I do hope it won’t lead to incidents of “workplace violence” a la Fort Hood.

So all in all, not a bad week really. Not good for Britain of course, but jolly good for Islam. All things considered.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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