Thetownend.com

What an absolute cunt. How could you do that to your kids.

Fucking wanker.

Cunt...That is all

They should bring back fucking hanging, whether or not he actually meant to kill them he still fucking did and made no attempt to save them.

Some of the revelations on last night's Panorama were quite jaw-dropping to say the least...

He is one fucked up cunt.  He obviously didn’t intend to kill the kids but what sane person puts them in that sort of danger even if his masterplan had of been successfully executed.  The mother isn’t any better, noshing off the other bloke in the days after losing a load of kids.  Yes he seems to have controlled her but she deserves everything she gets as well.

The only positive out of this tragedy is that the surviving kids are out of their clutches, they might stand a chance in life now presuming they are being brought up in a decent environment.

It becomes obvious that both of them are not exactly model citizens when their own families are convinced of their guilt and suggest that the prison terms are fully merited.

The type of people that make this country an absolute joke.  Lived off benefits all their lives repeatedly spawning out kids into what was no doubt a vile family environment.  Utter scum who have offered nothing to this world.

None of them has shown any remorse even if the intention wasn't to kill the children.  I hope their sentence reflects their actions.

Lowest of the low. Complete and utter scum. He at least should have been castrated many years ago.

Have not seen any of the usual hand wringers usually trotted out on the news to defend their actions!

Absolutely disgraceful, just a shame the cunt was only up for a 'manslaughter' charge rather than being officially named as a murderer under the court system!

There are plenty more like him kicking about in our society...what's the answer?  There are plenty in these fair isles of ours who'd happily take the kind of route, you propose. Eugenics has an interesting history, the Swedes an example of a seemingly civilised people very keen on it.

I don't know what this is about.

What Norway and eugenics? They had a law from 1932 to 1977, allowing compulsory sterilisation of "the mentally ill". 

I hadn't heard of Mick Philpott. I am now informed. Sounds unpleasant.

Eugenics in Norway must have gone horribly wrong because it's created a nation of people obsessed with skiing.

Welcome to the new, not so great anymore Britain, reg is spot on, there are a lot more parants out there like them 2 wasters, see it first hand at the job i'm on, fucking dross, give it another 50 years and this country will be fucked

you see people burning their children alive at work?

Think how much it has cost the tax payer to fund that scumbags lifestyle choice and now his prison sentence. Fucking loads of money which could have done so much good.

What the fuck are you babbling about?

[url width=520 height=340]http://urbanhomestead.org/journal/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/washingclothes.jpg[/url]
Here they are. The bastards.

The Daily Mail never ceases to amaze.

Using this story on the their front page as a pawn to push their own political agenda in relation to the welfare system

You're being optimistic. I'll give it 10 max, Sooner the poles flip, or an asteroid hits the better. Let the Ants have it.

Surely not the Poles...more likely the Bulgarians and Romanians.

For everyone of these evil bastards there's millions who are sickened and appalled by their actions. To say the country's going to shit is fucking laughable and the epitome of knee jerk cunts who love to fucking moan.
A terrible crime? Absolutely.  The start of an epidemic of evil cunts murdering their kids? Don't be so fucking stupid.

yes herthab-voice of calm reasoning.

But unfortunately, there is a growing underclass...

Which is only going to get worse with Cameron and co in charge. Civilised society's have to deal with fuck wits like this bloke and invest in social programmes to educate and support these fucked up families. And yes get them out to work and not sponge of the rest of us. The alternative is more of these morons in prisons which costs £50k plus per annum for each of them.

Is there? Really? There's always been scum bags and lowlifes, is there really loads more of them? I don't know any myself. I rely on media such as the daily mail and the tef to educate me on the dangers of this burgeoning underclass that's spreading like a cancer through these fair isles.

yeah-its spreading through this country just like bird flu and aids as the DM once warned us

There have always been cunts breeding like rabbits at the nations expense. Problem now is that we are also inundated with foreigners who are also breeding like there is no tomorrow and the population is out of control. The normal people are footing the bill and have had enough. Paying more and getting less whilst watching the underclass live for free with no restrictions.

Even if philpott wasn't a killer he as still an absolute tosser who should have been reigned in years ago. Part of the Jeremy Kyle generation who should be sterilized.

Dunno how they are finding time to do this what with taking all our jobs as well, more productive than most brits.

most are hard working. No disputing that. Brings its own problems though with working conditions in decline, housing shortages, and the rates at which they are breeding.

What is the rate they breed? Is it statistically higher than those that have always lived here? Where did you get these birth rate statistics?

was recently mentioned in the news about the statistics of babies born to foreign women and it was alarming. I cannot remember the exact figures but will try to find them.

Worse than the Catholics?

I'm not having a pop, I genuinely have no idea on birth rates per religion/nationality/etc.

Me neither.  Which was why I asked.

Neither was I but can you imagine the uproar in the Sun.... those Polish,  coming over here taking our jobs and they are even getting more than the Brits!

1 in 4 nationally born in the UK to a foreign born mother. In London it is 6 in 10. Available from numerous sources via Google.
Historically we have needed immigrants here. Do we need unskilled workers here now with a licence to breed? Many fit that criteria

Nail on head IMO.

I don't think you should necessarily conflate the underclass with immigration, as its members are more likely to be home grown.

I know that. Adds to the problem though imo.knock on effects etc

I'm not having a go Arriba, but saying a foreign born mother includes a lot of different possibilities other than 'underclass immigrants churning out babies'. Lots of people meet someone from abroad who they want to have kids with, world's a small place now, it's not all eastern europeans/asians/insert racial stereotype here coming to sponge off the benefits system and raise a brood of criminal children.

Philpotts is a cunt, but what did anyone expect? Doesn't matter how hard you try, there are always going to be people like him. The greeks complained about the 'lazy poor who breed uncontrollably', as did the Romans (I will look up the quotes when I've found my classics books). It's a fact of humanity that for all the people who want to work hard, live right, do their bit, there are going to be cunts like him who sponge off the people who work hard, not make an effort, and feel no remorse for their actions because they're just cunts.

I'm not trying to legitimise his actions, or indeed say that the government/system is not at fault (because if he's a cunt, they're fucking twats), just trying to give some perspective.

Oh, and the Daily mail can go stick its head in a fucking oven. The sooner tabloids like that are made illegal the better.

I didn't explain myself very well. I do not think foreign immigrants are the same as the British underclass. They are better people than them but add to the problems this nation currently finds itself in. Schooling,housing, nhs, etc etc.

I've been seriously considering moving back to the UK recently. The last couple of pages of this thread have given me plenty more to think about.

Don't do it Sonic! It's like an post apocalyptic wasteland in The UK now. Gangs of feral, barely human, animals are rampaging through every town and city.

For got sake, dont click on this link then: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

(that was a fat finger rather than a minced oath)

Yeah, I saw a dog having sex with a cat the other day. It is the End Times.

Loads of fit Eastern European gash though

Fuck off all the Klitchko lookylikies back to where they came and the gash is all ours

Mwwwahahahaha

 :nod:

It's like a cross between The Inbetweeners and Last of the Summer Wine

 :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

Think Fred has always had the hots for Nora Batty...

Got life.

His bint of a mrs and that other cunt got 17 years.

They shouldve all had 6 life sentences imo

Life had to be the only sentence


What a charming bloke

Didn't think you could get life for manslaughter so that sentance is a pleasant surprise

What is a life sentence nowadays? He'll be out in 10 years.

nah that's Norway.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/25/norwegian-prison-inmates-treated-like-people

Anything from absolute discharge to life at Judge's discretion. Murder is mandatory life.

Minimum tariffs are quite often misunderstood, wouldn't have thought he will ever be released.

He's been given a minimum tarriff of 15 years, so won't do any less than that.

I read the other two will serve half their sentences

Yes, they were given set terms which for some reason in Britain, you only serve half of (assuming you don't get into trouble inside).  I've never understood it to be honest.

They will be released on licence,but if they break the terms of that,then they return to prison for the remainder of their sentences.

Just guessed at 10 years, but 15 years for killing six of your own children on purpose just shows how wrong our legal system is! It makes me sad, angry and sick all in one.

He didn't mean to kill them. Not that it excuses him.

A minimum tariff is just that. He won't be out in 15 years.  Be surprised if he's ever released.

One the big things the parole board will take into account will be his behaviour over those 15 years.  Based on everything we've heard about him I'm going to go out on a limb and say he won't be the model of a well behaved inmate.

Hopefully he won't be in segregation so he gets some prison justice

He'll be number one on the hit list inside, no worries about him serving out his time.

It's sad that in the wake of such tragedy, Osbourne felt it was an appropriate opportunity to launch another attack on people receiving welfare. He's an utter cunt.

I don't feel any sympathy for him, but the idea of other pieces of scum doling out 'justice' doesn't feel right to me.

Scum Justice! Now that's a TV show I'd watch

A very sensible post if I may say so.

The medicine for the ills of this nation are very bitter and swallowing it even harder. The choice is to carry on and ignore it like has been happening for many years or deal with it. Dealing with it is a complex thing.

You see my politics and I vote conservative (not that that should matter) because i work and believe that everyone who can should provide for themselves. But the welfare system based on it's orginal idea by Bevan was as a safety net and rightly so (see I'm not a hard nosed Tory cunt, well for a working class ex council house kid with fuck all qualifications anyway) that those in need should be helped by the rest. Sadly like an exwife, the more you give the more they want or should I say take?

Even in so called prosperous times we should be putting money away for future generations, but we don't. We spend it on all sorts of shit. Then when the shit hits the fan and we struggle financially as a nation the ones who suffer are those in work irespective of what you do and how much you earn and clearly those at the higher end of the pay scale seem to be less affected than those lower down. However, there will always be higher earners and they should not be taxed to death to pay for everyone else as they will piss off and earn their dosh in another country and pay no tax at all.

Then there are those who appear on benefits to never seem to struggle to meet their obligations. Ok, so you're going to come up with an array of people you know who struggle and get not help in one way or another (there my fellow TEF followers lies a fundamental problem, where do you start and where do you draw the line?) etc. I reckon if I lost my job I'd get little or no help to pay my mortgage or other obligations other than JSA. The likes of Phillpot are I agree at the extreme end of the benefits gravy train and do no justice to those at the other end who would love to get back to work and be able to hold their heads up high by earning their own corn.

It is a tough choice to make and the cake at any point is an ecconomic cycle is only so big to cut up and dish out with so many hands being held out to take a slice.

Phillpot should be hung, but we'd need to be out of Europe to do that, so as I have bored the fucking pants off you so far, don't get me started on Europe.












 

So you think Philpott should be hanged as a deterrent against what exactly? Being on benefits?

I don't follow.

well it would stop people from claiming

This thread is heading into Daily Mail comments section territory.

As someone who's recently signed up for JSA I would not like to be hanged ta.

Firstly the Welfare State came form an idea, by William Beveridge, a sometime Liberal MP. Secondly it was more than a safety net...proposing that this system would provide a minimum standard of living "below which no one should be allowed to fall". It recommended that the government should find ways of fighting the five 'Giant Evils' of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.

Beveridge was also a member of the Eugenics Society...which may seem odd for a Liberal, but if you're looking to have a perfect society, sometimes difficult decisions might need to be taken.

Churchill was a fan of Eugenics too.

Was fashionable and 'modern' back then.

NO IT ISN'T!!!!!!!!!!

Fuck me. You want to get out of Europe so we can hang a fucking no mark.

The people who enjoy the biggest hand outs are the ruling class not the poor. Working class council house dwellers like you then want to turn on your own to protect millionaires, if it wasn't so fucking sad it would be funny.

Rock on comrade. You need to read my post again.

You think the people who are suffering are those in work? Do you have any idea what is happening out there to those who can't find work? Or those lucky enough to be enjoying all those minimum wage, short term, unregular hours wonderful new jobs that have created recently? At the same time the Tories are reducing benefits, removing the social fund etc and privatising the nhs so they can profiteer from it. The safety net is being cut away right now for the vast majority who want to work and contribute to this society.

Tories don't care about the working classes, they are cannon and contact centre fodder. And working class Tories are the worst of the lot.
I'm much more fortunate than most, but I would rather pay even more tax and live in a civilised society where we look after people when they need help, than demonise people who are down on their luck. You won't agree with me, I don't  agree with you, I'm right, you are wrong  :D

I agree with this - I'm an ardent supporter of having a National Health Service and welfare system that protects the quality of life of those who are for one reason and another unable to do so themselves.

HOWEVER, the system as it is now is fundamentally broken. Rather than being what it should be - a safety net for those who can't find work or are unable to work - it has been overly skewed into incentivising those who conciously choose to stay at home having as many kids as possible rather than contribute to society. Whilst I realise they may be a minority, and one that has more exposure than it should, the allocation of resources needs seriously addressing.

Intentional or not, the fact that he's torched 6 nippers might have something to do with it...

I still don't understand how being on benefits made him do it.

http://newsthump.com/2013/04/05/osborne-blames-taxpayers-for-funding-mick-philpotts-lavish-lifestyle/

Agree 100% with the above.
The Tories are appalling and going after the wrong people hitting those on benefits in the pocket. That doesn't excuse scum like Phillpott who fire kids out for fun and live comfortably at our expense. It needs dealing with. How they have allowed the super rich to be better off is even worse but another issue.

profiteering from the nhs :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick: some people need to get real. we are a country that has been in near constant defecit since the first world war. whether we like it or not, the nhs budget cannot be ring fenced forever!

Unfortunately you along with many other people in the country have fallen for the rubbish being spouted by the Tory front bench. Rather than deal with those who are taking advantage (who are a small minority) they're using them as an excuse to hit everyone at the bottom of the pile financially to help balance the books.

They don't care about getting people in to work, they don't care about being fair, they just want to make sure they win the next election and those at the bottom are unlikely to vote for them so they really don't give a shit about them.

Philpot's crime.............Being incredibly fuckin stupid. When he gets inside I am sure there will be plenty of people who will remind him of his stupidity every day. One good thing which comes out of this is the gene pool will no longer be diluted by this fuckin retard.

How many benefit scroungers do you need to balance the tax a company like Starbucks or Google should have paid if the tax laws were adequately created and enforced at the top end?

Don't get me wrong, I rant about people getting something for nothing, but a sense of perspective is needed.

Careful, you're sounding like a nasty Tory.....

Anyone who feels any real allegiance to any political party is a fucking idiot. Unless you're part of the ruling class, you are deluding yourself if you think any of them have your best interests at heart.
We are constantly lied to, fobbed off and dismissed, yet most of us are too apathetic to give a shit. Even writing the above was a bit of a struggle for me, think I'll have a drink, watch some mindless TV and let someone else worry...

Yeah I'm sure there won't be any profit in £110 Billion of contracted expenditure going into the private sector. :doh:
I must be stupid.

Trouble is,the welfare state was devised in an era when there was real social pressure to try and get a job.

We live in a different era now, where some (not not most) of the unemployed are more than happy to live a life on benefits with no apparent desire to get a job.

So (I don't claim to know the answers), we need a new welfare model that looks after the genuine, and identifies the spongers.

I personally would be more than happy to see the welfare payments to the genuine people rise, but I hate seeing the likes of Philpott living it up at our expense.

Spot on post IMO

I don't doubt it, but that was not my point.  My point was that we will have to get used to it because there is no way on this planet our country is going to be able to afford free healthcare forever.  There is ample motivation to change the system beyond just profiteering.  

In any event, the tories will never make a profit because the lizards have already cornered the market, when they get a free moment from demolishing the world trade centre and assassinating presidents from the grassy knoll  ::)

Again, you're listening to the spin from politicians - there aren't that many real spongers. What you do have is a lot of people that at some point wanted to work but have been let down and had their soul destroyed by the system. Pretty much all the people you could class as spongers were created by the system.

The changes that need to be made are to enable people to better themselves and find work. But the support that is given is pretty much zero, whilst they try to find any excuse they can to stop paying you benefits.

Sorry, but you clearly don't have a clue, the amount of lazy twats out there is out of control, I see it every day, AND they don't hide it either, yes there are genuine people but for fuck sake take off your rose tinted glasses, this scum are fucking this country

Bring back the workhouse...

No stop there benefits, EXAMPLE, one man who I see has 3 cars, smokes, plays darts in a pub league 2 nights a week, BUT claims benefits :no:

What do you do for a living Woolster?

I'm a plasterer, updating tenants houses, and a lot of these people on benefits have a better standard of living than what I have

It's this kind of attitude that is fucking over the country. Even if there is the high level of people taking the piss, all of the changes the government have made hit EVERYBODY exactly the same. You could be working your bollocks off trying to find a job and willing to accept minimum wage, but you're still going to get caught in the punishments the government claim are aimed to tackle the cheats.


A couple earning £150k each are allowed to claim £1200 child care benefits for each of their children.

I take it these people are the scum you're referring to?

you have gone off the topic, wasn't we talking about people sponging, yes the child care benefits for a £150k household is up for debate, but they are paying into the system,

That's a different issue, and I get your point, it does seem weird on the face of it.

However, two people earning £150k would (should) be paying at least £120k tax a year between them, so claiming £1,200 in child care means they still pay £148,800 in tax a year so it's totally different from the "spongers" or "scroungers" (or "victims" if you prefer) who do nothing at all and get paid handsomely for it.


(I said "should" because I realise some of these people have accountants who reduce this, but tax avoidance is rightly becoming more and more socially unacceptable)

It's all part and parcel of the same welfare system. There are all manner of inequalities and spongers within the welfare system and singling out people that are on unemployment benefits (which most do) is as the very least distorting things.

The paying in to the system argument is bollocks. A lot of people on benefits have paid in to the system for years, but now they're having a hard time they should just go fuck themselves?

I signed on in 2009 when i got made redundant... was a soul destroying experience, you get no assistance and feel pretty useless. Luckily for me, i escaped the recession by going to uni, so when i graduate in June will stroll straight into a job in a bouyant economy... right? Really not looking forward to trying to get employed/signing on again.

I've seen a number of people defending it with the same argument and little in the way of outrage over it.

Yet take the tax rate for someone earning over £150k being reduced by 5% and the same people are going apeshit.

Where does the getting paid handsomely come from? A lot of the people we're talking about live off £70 a week.

The welfare state, was pretty much established to slay the five dragons of poverty at the end of the Second World War, when we were in debt up to our necks, the council housing programme was established at the end of the First World War and we built 300,000 houses a year - houses for heros, a legacy of the sacrifice made by so many, again we were up to our fucking necks in debt.

There is a precedent for investing in infrastructure to get us out of the shit. If you give poor people money they spend it, boosting the economy, if you give the rich money, they save in in off shore tax free investments.

This is the bit that puzzles me.  Even the worst of the worst on benefits, the real can't be arsed and never will, get paid pittance in reality.  People will trot out the having kids thing, to get more money.  Has anyone tried bringing up one kid, let alone a house full? they cost a fucking fortune.

I think there are plenty who are lazy as shit and will never get off their jacksies to find work.  I also have no bloody issue with some guy from Poland coming over and taking that job to better his life and that of his family, someone has to do it.

However, we are not talking the kind of living that makes life a doddle.

Trying to find work in general is a soul destroying experience at the moment.

As I said previously, I signed on to JSA this week after resisting for a while in the hope something would pop up (40 mile round trip to get to the job centre in the first place, but that's a complaint for another time...). Wore a smart shirt to my first interview as I presumed it would be at least slightly formal. Nope. Second interview (which was inconveniently the next day), I turned up, handed the lady my sheet to say I'd applied to some jobs, she checked it, signed, and then I left. Took ten minutes and not one question was asked of me. There was no discussion about what I am doing to get a job, what my background is, what I want to do etc. Here was me presuming the jobcentre was helping to try and find you a job instead of just getting you to tick some boxes so you can take your £50.

Don't get me wrong, I think the welfare system is the single most important thing British politics has ever done, I'm just shocked that, for a system supposedly meant to tailor to individual people's needs and problems, it is so beureaucratic and impersonal. Perhaps if there was an attempt to understand what the people who got benefits spent them on, what they do day-to-day, what their background is, what kind of (realistic) job they'd like to end up in, and there was a slightly more personalised service then it would be obvious who the scroungers/people who don't need it are and who the people who honestly need it are.

I'm fucking depressed about all this now, so here's a pile of beagle puppies.

[url width=900 height=602]http://www.tamballa.com/Portals/0/Pile%20of%20Puppies%2015.06.11.JPG[/url]

Can only echo the above post and Lucien's post. Got a family and when I was out of work I didn't have  job for 6 months. It was horrendous signing on each week, spending bare minimum, constantly ignored job applications, the only positive was I spent more time with my son.

The job centre was as above, no consideration for you personally. They just have too many people to see. Just before I got a job I got moved to the "out of work professional" team,  didn't have much chance to see if that was better. I did get on a course though (I asked for), it was a general CV/job search/etc type course. It was fairly common sense but I did pick up a couple of tips, like re-upload the CV every week on jobsites as it appears higher up agents lists (I guess everyone does this now though!)

Mercifully I had a bit of savings and a bit of mortgage protection to help stem the financial bleed.

Most people want to work I'd say. The alternative isn't as a good as some media make out.

Hang in there Honkeytonk, you will succeed.

I have an issue with the way benefits work in Britain, as they're not available for everyone.  My husband falls into the self employed category.  This isn't strictly true, as he doesn't run a business as such, he works for different companies who stop his tax each week and he pays his own national insurance. The construction industry work likethis to avoid having contracts, paying pensions etc. He has no requirement for an accountant and his tax return is a few minute job.  At the drop of a hat he can be laid off when work slows down, generally he finds something else very quickly.  In 2009 however, he only worked for around 6 months of the year, but was unable to even claim JSA, because the self employed don't fit the criteria and as I was working albeit only part-time we didn't fit the bill for other benefits either. 

The woman at the job centre actually told my husband, he'd be better off movibg back to his mum's, because I could then claim benefits as a single parent.  He didn't and we struggled on.  Looking back, the only way we kept our heads above water was with the help if my parents.  So I have an issue that someone who has never paid a penny into society is entitled to help, but someone like my husband who has worked since the age of 16 does not.

I had the same problem when I was living in Coventry, I was contracting and the contract finished but I had nothing else lined up - I wasn't allowed to claim despite no income aside from the student loan my girlfriend received (from the Norwegian state not the UK), 90% of which immediately went on paying her tuition fees. This counted as a £10k pa income and therefore we weren't entitled to anything. The system makes no sense, I'm genuinely surprised how anyone manages to fraud the system.

Like any game, you have to know the rules. The likes of you and me have been so lucky to spend all our working lives working for the benefit of others less fortunate than ourselves we've become detatched form the game and therefore the rules. There are organisations paid for by tax payers to help those less fortunate as i said than ourselves to know the rules and therefore play the game more effectively. Yours and my fault for playing a different game, tsk, tsk.

We are all making valid points, some based on personal morals, others on party political lines and ideology, others a mixture of the first two. What is does show is how skewed the system is and open to abuse. Make no mistake there are thousands who do nicely of the benefit system thanks very much. Then there are those who are captured in a system that does them no favours at all and then there are those who really do get the sharp end of a shitty stick from a benefit system designed to help them?

Sadly labour did their core voting pool the working class, no favours by allowing so many to come in from the new eastern european states at the off that it has decimated the jobs pool for those they perported to represent. Thus putting more people into a system of benefits with which I'm sure is hard to get off.

 "if you give the rich money, they save in in off shore tax free investments"

Like comrade Blair and his "fat cat buddies"?

Some good points being made by people countering each other. With regard to Joteddyreds situation I would guess her husband pays less National insurance. My father and brother in laws work in the construction industry and pay alot less than i do but do not have the same benefits if out of work etc. Quite right too I reckon.

I see where you're coming from Arriba and yes, you are correct in terms of paying less NI.  However, people that have never worked or come in from abroad have payed no NI whatsoever.  Why should they be eligible or benefits?  As fatbasher and SY said, the system is completely skewed.

If you come from an EU country, then you can transfer your equivalent NI across....like you can if going the other way. particularly applies to pensions.

To be fair I didn't know that.  My point still stands though in relation to those born here that have never worked.  As this thread started out in relation to Mick Philpott, I would guess he falls into that category?

People who finished school/college/university without having worked and find themselves struggling to gain employment would be fucked, that's probably why.

Mick Philpott has worked - he used to be a soldier

I am sorry but this is bollocks.

I worked Saturdays from 15 for pocket/beer money and continued to work through education.

I left educational and sought and got myself a job.

I got made redundant,  signed on for 3 months whilst I found myself another job.

The state owes me nothing I got on because I wanted to,  this whole let down my the state business is a simple screen for laziness,  you want a job go and get one,  strangely its often the same saying eastern Europeans stealing jobs don't blame other's,  take responsibility for yourself!

Unfortunately, it isn't that simple now.

Yes of course you can, however, that's not the point and you know it. I like the handgrenade approach you have when you comment. Pull the pin with an open comment and pass the grenade to someone else and stand well back.

So, for the benefit of those who may have missed the point I'll lob the grenade back to Reg. Those pesky east european people who HAD EVERY RIGHT under eu labour laws to come here did so from ecconomies where their labour costs were starting from a much lower base than here. So they come here and get double what they were back home but less than the current rate paid locally. Thus undermining the local employement pool and effectively putting then in a situation where they are better off on benefits! also lots of these guys get paid cash. NO NI no income tax, not paying into the system to contribute to the benefits and NHS coffers etc for the indiginous unemployed folk they have displaced particularly in rural farming areas among others. Other eu countries played the 5 year joker on stopping the new influx of east european workers from flooding into their countries for exactly the reasons I have highlighted. Once that five year rule laspsed most of those who would go have come to us and Ireland. Just you wait till next year when the Bulgarians and Romanians come over here. You think pikey's are are a nusiance, you aint seen nothing yet.

You know those fallen hero's that Levi whats his face was on about? they's be turning in theur graves if they could see the what the freedoms they sacrificed themselves have bought us, what a waste of such young lives. 

As a technical aside the limits on free movement can be up to 7 years

Unfortunately the maths don't work for that idea - for every 1 vacancy there are 5 people out of work.

Which is a major issue with the scroungers argument, even if everyone on benefits wanted a job and tried their best to get one then 4 out of 5 people would still be out of work. I'd argue that even if there are a lot of scroungers it's kind of irrelevant, say they changed their ways and got jobs they'd simply be taking those jobs away from the non-scroungers (who would then be relabelled as the scroungers).

Maybe the politicians should focus on creating jobs, rather than criticising the people for whom there is none.

Maybe the politicians should focus on creating jobs, rather than criticising the people for whom there is none.

Getting out of Europe would be a good start. £53,000,000 per DAY every DAY put back into manufacturing and technology based  jobs would be a good start.

Isn't this what your mate Gideon has been doing...slash the public sector, thus allowing the private sector opportunity to create plenty of low wage, part time or workfare jobs.  When I say slash, some of it is recategorising previously public sector jobs, as now private sector in fields like Health and Education.  For example, Gove's academy program, means people previously employed by a local council are now employed by companies.

The problem with the low wage economy though, is that nobody has much money, so there isn't the necessary drive on consumer spending to create the growth needed to create further jobs.

Ummm yeah. As well as the traditional tory fat cats and ruling class elite. What's your point?

Your comment got ruined by your first sentence. Very childish.

You see, this is the bit I don't like about Euro bashing.  Bash it if you absolutely believe the state should keep it's nose out, full stop, but this argument carries no weight.  Just ask someone from Teeside why they haven't trotted on down to London, which is effectively a separate economy.  They'll probably state family reasons, but that didn't seem to stop the Polish guy.

That's not me trying to undermine the guy from wherever, but merely to point out that as a "Nation" we have loads of regional economies all being subsidised by London.  Should London call to remove the subsidies by retaining their own taxation?  How far do you take it, could Chelsea and Kensington strike out on their own?

The whole point of the EU is to move towards Economic and Social Cohesion - one big state.  Sod trading, sod passport control, it's about everyone being in one big country together.  Within that, you move to the work, and the state should do it's bit to support the poorer areas by distributing the taxation accordingly.  So, Greece and Italy, or The Rhonda Valley should get support to try and stop the flow of jobs out.

I'm essentially pro, but on the above basis can see a good argument for being against, but everyone seems to have a go at Europe for essentially delivering on what it was set-up to do - explicity in the Treaty of Rome.

So where does that leave me?  Sort out tax avoidance first, invest in under performing regions, then sort out the benefit system once the structure is in place to support it.

It seems like it's Fatbasher against the World on here, so Fatbasher, you talk alot of sense, you're not alone

You can see this effect in Wales. Go to Swansea or Cardiff and they've got great big shiny new town centres built with European money. It's helped Swansea's local economy a bit, as there are a lot more independents setting up now, and the new bus station makes it a proper transport hub for the valleys. Add to that the marina development and the decent football club and it's improving massively- I could see it year on year just by going to uni there for 3 years.

Can't say much about Cardiff though, as I've never spent a lot of time there.

More specifically the whole point of the EU is political union - via a process of transferring power, democracy and sovereignty from countries to an unelected bureaucracy. "Economic and Social Cohesion" are mere stepping stones in a process that's ongoing.

Spot on about the EEC/EU doing exactly what it says on the tin. It's often forgotten that the real enemy is Whitehall not Brussels. The EU never invaded us, we choose to join...well more accurately politicians did without a mandate of the British people and have lied to us ever since about the consequences. And we can choose to leave.

Don't get me wrong, I respect anyone who thinks the idea of the EU is not something they want to be part of.  I can completely understand why.
What frsutrates me is that people seem to confuse the EU with a trade agreement, which it is not and was never designed to be.  The whole free market was something we, as in the UK via Politicians, the press and antipathy to understanding of the public, created.  We latched on to a point in time in the development of the EU and liked that bit, but never took the time to appreciate where it had come from and where it was inevitable it would attempt to go.

It was set-up post war to prevent that from ever happening again, which can only occur if the amalgamated countries work as one Political Union.  The EU in coming years will seek to move some taxation policies to Brussels, some further encroachment into legislation full stop.  It's what it is designed for and us being a little bit and a little bit out can't be sustained long term, it defies the principles.  Now, it might be, that the pain of transition and countries behaving like we do will eventually undermine the EU to the point of it crumbling, but we should never confuse it with some sort of Club.  We should not complain that the EU seeks to further centralise policy, that's what it is supposed to do.  The eventual goal being a Central European Govt and Bank followed by Regional hubs which may be smaller than the countries that exist today to react to local conditions.

And that last bit is why I appreciate anyone who thinks they'd want out.

Great post...can you now send it to David Cameron to highlight the fact that repatriating powers is nonsense on stilts because it goes against the compete fabric of what the thing was designed for in the first place

Eugh.

What a horrible thread. I shan't be opening this again.

Here's one for you then Flasheart....just been reading about this lady who's going to be executed for drug smuggling in Bali.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21137649

I believe they still have the death penalty in Thailand....does it act as a deterrent?

So the EU made Philpott kill his children?

Norway isn't in the EU...can you tell the difference?

Yeah, mass murderers in Norway kill 70 odd children instead of just 6.

Interestingly hidden in all the blurb about Thatcher is this little quote which still rings a little true when people are arguing that people have been let down by the state:

"I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand 'I have a problem, it is the government's job to cope with it!' or 'I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!'; 'I am homeless, the government must house me!' and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society?

"There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families, and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.

"It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations."

Is that true ?
Can they do that ?

When were you there, I'm guessing 95ish or just after? They'd just started the centre after the "new" motorway junction when I left then.

Apologies if I've asked you this before..getting old.

No, you haven't asked before. I was there 2009-2012. So pretty recently.

Did they have the roundabout when you were there? I remember people talking about it like it was some great demon that they had vanquished from their town with fire and pitchforks.

Probably. They had lots of roundabouts. Which one?

Anyway apologies, assumed they'd finished the town centre a year or two after they started it! Maybe they did, then did it all again 10 years later :)

They had more than one? I was always led to presume there was a huge one right in the middle of the town that for some reason all Swanseans hated with a passion.

They don't have any now. It's kind of sad.

And as far as the town centre goes, I think there has been two or maybe even three waves of improvements on it.

A quick google suggests the Kingsway one. I don't recall whether it was there or not (pretty sure it was), but having mastered Swindon and the magic roundabout pre-uni I doubt it even registered!