Is Politics Devoid Of ANY Humanity?

Thank you for that post, Silverbrooks. Its a very good point about 2 in 5 waiting for treatment.

I forgot to ask mum2three again genuine question when you say "we need to bring in a more positive approach" what had you in mind?

mum2three

Reducing the number of people on benefits is obviously necessary. However, for one thing, there are now fewer jobs available, thanks to Ms Reeves actions. Children should be better prepared for employment by teaching them the skills appropriate to them. There was a policy of training schemes. What happened to that?
We have large numbers of young people with nothing to do but take drugs and cause trouble. We need to bring in a more positive approach. The whole atmosphere of the country is a very negative one at the moment.

It's all the more negative if we just write off attempts to make changes, "it will never work anyway". Or label our young people en masse as taking drugs and causing trouble.

This very difficult legislation, as its clear "somethings have to be done"

But we have on the one hand the conservatives saying, "its not going far enough" (without saying what more they think should be done - has anyone seen suggestions from Badenhoch (genuine question)

And on the other hand groups on the left of the LP or disability groups saying "no we can't cut". To me a lot around this area depends on wise and not cruel assessments.

I think instead of immediately saving money it does need to be spent on support. I wish we did have the training schemes we had a long time ago, community based work projects. We have a few, often part or whole voluntary, community schemes.

There are other changes unrelated to benefits that could make a difference, ie proper apprenticeships, some schools able to offer practical/technical alternatives to academic ones.

In general, we have a Green Paper which allows feedback and alternative ideas to come forward and this is a chance to say
"this is what we would do" since its clear things cant be left as they are.

If you look at Ms Reeves actions you will see that the money raised from the rise employers NIC is going to the NHS to try to make some inroads in the number of people of waiting lists for treatment which is keeping them off work.

The economic cost of workplace sickness in the UK, including lost productivity and other factors, is estimated to be over £100 billion annually. That’s four times as much as the NIC rise. So yes, this is an additional burden for employers for now but it should be cost effective in the long run if it gets people back to work. Measures have been put in place to protect small businesses from the rise.

Ministerial Forward

We are investing almost £26 billion of extra funding for the Health and Social Care System so people can get the treatment they need to get back to work instead of being stuck on waiting lists, delivering over 2 million extra appointments 7 months ahead of schedule.

27. … 2 in 5 people on incapacity and disability benefits are on a waiting list for treatment for their health condition(s).

www.gov.uk/government/consultations/pathways-to-work-reforming-benefits-and-support-to-get-britain-working-green-paper/pathways-to-work-reforming-benefits-and-support-to-get-britain-working-green-paper#fn:97

I think RR so far is a disaster for the Labour Party, and I take no joy in saying that.☹️

Even walking an on/off line tho is better than just banging on that your preferred political party is wonderful in all it does and anyone who disagrees is a rag reading near moron.
We need to understand the views of others even if we happen to be chalk and cheese.What often happens on forums is that people don’t simply disagree but get over emotional on subjects and imply that ‘others’ are stupid.

Reducing the number of people on benefits is obviously necessary. However, for one thing, there are now fewer jobs available, thanks to Ms Reeves actions. Children should be better prepared for employment by teaching them the skills appropriate to them. There was a policy of training schemes. What happened to that?
We have large numbers of young people with nothing to do but take drugs and cause trouble. We need to bring in a more positive approach. The whole atmosphere of the country is a very negative one at the moment.

I indicated early on in the thread that generally I support Labour's stance, there are some issues that will need ironing out and I can completely understand people's anxiety. We can't however ignore the figures particularly in terms of young people, it would be immoral and my guess is not what we would want for our own children/grandchildren.

We can of course Oreo, but it’s not possible for anybody to walk that line consistently.

We can try to be both Casdon as far as is possible.

Galaxy, we are all subject to influence and our own prejudices. It’s no more effective trying to operate as an ‘honest broker’ when trying to influence others than it is to be upfront and state what you actually believe.

Although I may just have called Guardian readers stupid which wasn't my intention .
I don't particularly like the Ops 'complaint' but there is something about the condescension of those who are very involved in politics, they too will fall into the traps that everyone else does, the tribal approach, my side are the good guys, etc, we all do it, no matter how 'educated we are.

That might be true if politics nerd hadnt been on another thread implying that GN should be very careful about not falling foul of hate speech laws because we were discussing the fact that men can't become women. I also think that as we have seen many who read every nuance of political debate tend to fail frequently in terms of critical thinking. The Guardian readers are just as prone to that as those who skim the Mail headlines.

Galaxy

The shivers that go down my spine with the 'educate yourselves' theme. I always associate it with power, control, and general unpleasantness.

Another shivery word is rehabilitation 😲

Ilovecheese

The point of this exercise is to save money for the treasury. The government has said that the amount of money that is given to people who are ill or who are disabled is unsustainable, that is what they have said. Therefore we will have to reduce the amount of money that is paid to people who are ill or who have disabilities .
We either accept that this will reduce the quality of life for people who are ill or disabled, or we pretend that they are not ill at all (over diagnosis, snowflakes, etc.)

It’s a difficult one isn’t it? I see fair points in both what you say and in the comment by silverbrooks
The best and middle way would be to promote work and eliminate any scroungers while making sure that the genuine cases are helped even more.
What will happen in practice rather than theory is another matter.

Galaxy

The shivers that go down my spine with the 'educate yourselves' theme. I always associate it with power, control, and general unpleasantness.

I don’t think that’s fair in this case. I agree that ‘educate yourself’ is often used to mean ‘I don’t really know, but I want to pretend to be superior’, but I think that in this case the phrase is being used literally.

It is true that not everyone reads or thinks beyond headlines, and when those headlines are sensationalist and misleading it can lead to anger about things that aren’t happening. If people don’t want to make an effort to look behind the headlines (or see doing so as an ‘obsession’, as we’ve seen on another thread) then they are not speaking from a position of knowledge.

It’s not being controlling or unpleasant to point that out.

The shivers that go down my spine with the 'educate yourselves' theme. I always associate it with power, control, and general unpleasantness.

in not educating themselves in educating themselves

Casdon

Wanting to reduce the number of benefits being paid by providing employment as an alternative for those who are able to work is different to reducing the amount of benefits that are paid out. The provision of an infrastructure to enable people to work is not without significant cost, but ultimately it should improve the quality of life of the individuals affected.

The problem is Casdon, that so many posters are simply headline readers and are not only not interested in not educating themselves on the detail, they also seem to get a rush of satisfaction repeating misleading information. Sadly, we see a great deal of it on here.

Agreed. It's a long term set of proposals. The overall re set to boundaries of benefits, plus measures to support back to work.

Its massive and bold undertaking that previous governments have just avoided, hats of to Starmer to acting in this crucial area.

To those who doubt - and of course there are doubts - I'd ask -

"Well, what would you have done instead?" and of course - "how could plans be improved upon", since there is time to adjust plans.

Ilovecheese

Casdon

Wanting to reduce the number of benefits being paid by providing employment as an alternative for those who are able to work is different to reducing the amount of benefits that are paid out. The provision of an infrastructure to enable people to work is not without significant cost, but ultimately it should improve the quality of life of the individuals affected.

Yes, I agree. I just don't think that that is what is happening.

It can't happen overnight, Ilovecheese. Passing legislation to say that X is to be done so as to achieve the result Y doesn't mean that on the following day X is fully set up and running smoothly and the result Y is reported in all the media by that evening.

First the theoretical details in the Green Paper have to be considered, and adjusted if necessary, and the proposal has to be debated, voted on, and passed into law. Then the people to head it up have to be appointed, and the other employees to carry it out found and trained. It is guaranteed to have a shaky start, as the actualities of running the schemes are discovered and problems sorted out.

After that you may well find that your fears were groundless.

Casdon

I don’t think we’ll know until the details of how the support systems are configured and funded is clearer Ilovecheese, which won’t be for a while yet. I’m not jumping the gun and being negative until I know how it works, because in principle I think it’s the right thing to do.

I agree Casdon
I don’t expect perfection
I’m keen on the power of positive thinking

I admire your optimism Casdon and I really hope you are right.

I don’t think we’ll know until the details of how the support systems are configured and funded is clearer Ilovecheese, which won’t be for a while yet. I’m not jumping the gun and being negative until I know how it works, because in principle I think it’s the right thing to do.

Casdon

Wanting to reduce the number of benefits being paid by providing employment as an alternative for those who are able to work is different to reducing the amount of benefits that are paid out. The provision of an infrastructure to enable people to work is not without significant cost, but ultimately it should improve the quality of life of the individuals affected.

Yes, I agree. I just don't think that that is what is happening.