True they should get it online. Agree in principal it does lack a bit of freedom, although do we really believe those 65% that didn't vote did it because of a freedom thing or because they were just to lazy and couldn't be asked.
A lot will not vote due to being disallusioned with politics / laziness / having the time to do so. He last thing I wanted to do was get home from a long day at work, prepare and cook dinner for the missus then head out to the polling station. I cannot believe the voting process hasn't been moved to online yet.
I know it's not that simple. My 52 year old dad is struggling for work at the minute as the construction industry in NI is ****ed. There are maybe unskilled jobs in services (such as bar work etc) but his pride and self-respect are on the line, he doesn't want the shame of doing burger-flipping jobs. His problem is that he left school at 13 with **** all qualifications and never had the chance to pick up any skills outside of manual labouring and construction (and to be fair he does have some decent skills there, it's just that economy changes made these skills redundant). If he had, for instance, learned how to use computers and became a computer programmer he would instantly jump from 'struggling working class' to 'medium middle class' taking up one of the several hundred computer programming jobs that are available in Belfast at any one time. It is clear in this case that the problem is a mismatch of skills - someone relatively skilled in a certain industry finds that industry no longer needs his work - if that person had other skills (such as those in computers) he would be absolutely fine. Populist politicians don't state this truism though - they come out and say that it's someone else's fault that your skills are no longer as useful as they once were - that the economy should suit you, rather than point out you need to change to suit the economy. Pointing out these facts to people now might not help my dad's situation (age plays a big part in not being able to adapt for one, and on another point, I think we're therefore ****ed trying to push people into working in their 70's) but educating people on how the economy actually works and making them aware of their own responsibilities in maintaining useful skills might go a bit of the way to fixing the situation, certainly among the (still adaptable) young who are out of work. Also we might fix a load of these twats who do absolutely useless degrees then cry when there's no job waiting for them afterwards.
Voting should be compulsory with the caveat that the ballot paper should have an option which states " I dont want to vote for any of these fuds " .... I`m paraphrasing but you know what I mean
Yeh, yeh, yeh, whatever. So anyway, when everyone's got off their arses and become multi-skilled and high earning, who's going to empty your bins? Or deliver your post, or drive the buses? Are you happy for these essential services to be provided by people on **** wages, because it's their own fault they're part of the "struggling working class"?
1. Computer programmers and engineers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNxjtQtZ4Cc 2. Email - or in the case of packages Computer programmers and engineers http://www.theguardian.com/technolo...ialling-the-use-of-drones-for-parcel-delivery 3. Computer programmers and engineers http://arstechnica.com/cars-2/2014/...-for-testing-self-driving-cars-in-california/
Are you suggesting that everybody needs to be compiuer programmers and engineers Mick? I agree on the retraining but if the government is introducing policies that make certain skills redundant should they not be offering real help to train them in new skills?
I'm saying it's a growth industry In terms of training yes, the Government should put much more focus on education. I think the likes of introducing University fees in England was a huge step backwards -these people should pay the money back in their higher tax returns.
For everyone though Mick - not enough to just say "sorry mate you've had your day now you're on your own."
Fair enough - but how do we find useful things for people to do without education, reverse the economy to suit them? or just pay them money for digging holes then refilling them again? We're sending them to work in Poundland, which is hardly teaching them anything fricken useful.
I'm not sure school or Uni education is the complete answer, some of that education has to come within employment. It's no good having people in education to 20+ years but then they lack the basic social and financial experience in the home and workplace. Like your father Mick I left school at a young age but you can learn to adapt, you make mistakes along the way but no schooling can teach you that. Some of the problem comes from bias and discriminative views of employers, they don't look at what a worker has to offer, they look at what they'v done, age and sex. Not all discrimination is about the colour of skin, it's so blatant within the work environment that your having to overcome those hurdles before even looking at qualifications. Yes, education can help but some Uni students think they are going to walk into jobs when their done, it just saddens me to see those beliefs because it more than likely will mean failure at the first hurdle in reality, when they suddenly realise that job they are after also has another 200+ suitably qualified applicants in some sectors. Sometimes will power and determination will have just as good an affect as any education albeit with a reasonable intellect, meaning basic skills.
I don't actually think a lot University courses teach people appropriate skills - most Uni students I interview have degrees which are mostly irrelevant to the position they are applying for. The key for me is it shows they can learn at a higher level, which distinguishes them from the other candidates who also don't have the relevant skills on paper. For instance, I advertised a junior position last month and had about 25 CVs in - half of them didn't use basic punctuation in their CV (seriously, half of them). I ended up going for a guy who had a degree in Music Production using technology. Not that I think Music Production is particularly relevant to the betting industry, but the fact he had a degree in a technical discipline was enough to sway me that he was able to learn another technical role. It's not an easy choice to make either, I'm going to have to put 6 months to a year into this person before his competency gets to a level that covers his wages. If you pick the wrong person it can be a nightmare as you don't want to sack them (especially if they are a nice person) but you're constantly having to assign resources that could be used elsewhere to cover them.
