For all the publicity they get, it's easy to forget that they have never had a single MP, and polls indicate they won't get one at the next general election either.
Read up on the Flynn effect before dismissing the post. It seems to be linked to environment, nutrition, childhood diseases and parasites in particular but there is no doubt at all that children worldwide are, on average, tending to be more intelligent (not knowledgeable) than their parents. It's pretty obvious that if you're fighting serious illnesses every couple of years your body has fewer resources to help to build your brain structure. As childhood diseases have retreated and as children are better nourished, the body has less competition for resources, hence better brains. Read up on it (not just Wikipedia); it's fascinating. Vin
The problem with making sweeping statements like this is that you doing exactly what you are accusing right wingers of doing; that is portraying them as ignorant racisists etc. It ends up just stifling any meaningful debate. People hold different opinions for any number of reasons and, at the end of the day, lets not forget that they are only opinions. There is no one, absolute truth that we are all stumbling towards (or away from). However the left always try and play the moral card. I once made the mistake of mentioning Enoch Powell in a Marxism seminar. Well, no-one will ever know what great insight I was about to give because I was shouted down to they point where I eventually left. That sort of thing is too common. What I want from both left and right wingers is a decent ball into the box!
UKIP get a disproportionate amount of publicity, as did the BNP. Of course the nicer fringe parties, like the Greens, get completely ignored because they aren't controversial and don't sell papers. That being said, the latest episode of Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle focused on UKIP and was hilarious.
Yeah because people (wrongly) treat the European elections as a referendum, and if you're looking for a way to say "no" (despite the question not having been asked), they're your only choice I suppose. You're right of course that it would be wrong to portray right-wingers in that way, but daily mail readers? The prospect of a meaningful debate with one seems pretty remote.
I saw him live in Guildford of all places. Does he talk about the taxi driver too? I'm goiong to look for it now on iplayer.....
The problem with that is that Flynn's own studies suggest the IQs of British teenagers dropped slightly between 1980 and 2008. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/4548943/British-teenagers-have-lower-IQs-than-their-counterparts-did-30-years-ago.html So perhaps kids aren't cleverer than their parents after all. On the benefits question, there's definitely a problem in this country (particularly in London) with the difference between benefits and wages. There's a temp who works in my office and gets paid a reasonable wage (I don't know his exact wage but it's something along the lines of £10-£11 p/h, working 35-36 hours a week). He reckons he only takes home about £30 a week more than he used to get in benefits when he was unemployed. To me that's ridiculous.
I'm a temp and I earn a hell of a lot more than I would on Jobseekers. 4-5 times as much, in fact. As for that bit about IQ dropping in teenagers, the article does also say there was an IQ increase in kids aged between 5 and 10, so that hints at some unknown effect at play which causes IQ to deteriorate at a certain age. The trend of kids being born more intelligent seems to still be present.
You have to take into account housing benefit, etc that he may not now be eligible for though. I don't know if that makes up the difference but you're not 4-5 times better off in work than you would be out of it (thank god). Obvious answer to that is to actually do what the Tories say they want to do and "make work pay" rather than driving down wages, and then complaining when people don't find their job provides what they need.
Some of the 'greens' aren't so nice. They're not all cuddly tree huggers, there are some very dangerous people out there. Ask anyone who has worked in vivisection for example. I'm not a great fan of it but some of the anti's are pretty nasty people.
Yeah, there needs to be an incentive to work otherwise you can't blame them for being unemployed if getting a job isn't a significant increase in pay.
He might be 4 or 5 times better off. Rather depends on what he does. Your second point is spot on, almost. "Need" being the operative word. People describe all sorts of things as necessities these days (mobile phones for example) which should only ever be seen as a 'nice to have'.
Well he did say he is a temp, so I suspect if his income was divided by five he might struggle to make ends meet (and so would 99% of the population for that matter). And mobile phones are typically cheaper than landlines these days, so that's perhaps not the best example! They greens wind me up because while they (quite rightly) decry people in positions of power who ignore (or actively undermine) climate science, they simultaneously cling to ridiculous woo like homeopathy and anti-nuclear/GM scaremongering.
It doesn't matter whether you are better off or not...it shouldn't be an option. Very hard to back pedal now, but something has to be done and it will hurt. I lost my job editing scientific papers...as my son was still at school, I was offered benefits...I said no I want a job. I took two shop jobs to make ends meet. I was proud when my son also turned down job seekers allowance...as he said, if I can't earn more than that there's something wrong with me. He took a couple of temporary jobs and is now back in full time employment. Of course, I do realise that things are a lot harder for a young family. Benefits are supposed to be there to help people in need...sadly some are taking advantage.
You and your son were lucky to be able to get those temporary jobs. Most people who are made unemployed now don't have that luxury.
My situation was years ago, so no doubt things have changed, but my son's job seeking is in the last year (and on the IOW where unemployment is high). He took work at festivals here and on the mainland combining his hobby with work...not full time, but definitely more than on jobseekers (and he didn't have to answer or explain to anyone). I do think that the benefit system should help people by encouraging the taking of risks in employment...never right that you have to come off benefits, then go through the whole application process again. No one with a family can take that risk. I do have sympathy with people who are struggling....sometimes anger at the undeserving can spill over. I apologise if I have offended anyone.
Well it's to his credit that he was motivated to do that, but nobody really sees the dole as a good option. I consider myself fortunate to have never had recourse to the job centre either, but for most people it's a case of "there but for the grace of god go I", and I certainly don't envy anyone in that position. Whether they are "deserving" in your view or not, it's not a lifestyle to be coveted (not least because people hold opinions like yours about them!)
As PTF has pointed out housing benefit would have accounted for a big chunk of the temp's income. He isn't the only example of benefit silliness I've come across either. I worked in the probation service in Tower Hamlets from 2005 until the end of 2006 and at least one of the offenders I was supervising was getting more money in benefits than I was taking home myself. Another example. I have a friend who lives in Highgate in north London. Seriously wealthy area for those that don't know. He works in graphic design (I believe he actually won a BAFTA when he worked for MTV). He was made redundant and was unemployed for about 18 months around 2009-2010. He couldn't claim any benefits to begin with because he had too much in savings. Probably a few thousand. The solution? He immediately went out and spent most of his money on various gadgets - a DVD projector, XBox plus games etc etc - and then went back to the job centre where they arranged to make the minimum interest payments on the mortgage for his very expensive flat. To me he should have been made to use his savings to pay his mortgage and either told to take a lower paid job or given some minimal payment to live on. If he'd had to sell his flat then that would be unfortunate but I really don't think the government should be paying even the interest on someone's mortgage. Presumably that was some sort of scheme put in place to reduce the number of house repossessions and make the financial crisis look a little less bad than it really was. Now whether benefits should be cut or pay increased I'm not entirely sure but, to be fair to the government, at least one of them has said some wages should be increased: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25321113 even if he's since had to resign because his cleaner wasn't permitted to work in the UK! I agree with Lff about "need" being an important word and people's expectations may be too high in some areas. For example, I believe one of the current measures/indicators of child poverty is that a child doesn't have its own bedroom. Now sharing a room may not be an ideal living arrangement but it's hardly poverty!
