Is it the attitude or the system that's at fault? In theory, benefits are calculated to provide just enough to prevent hardship until gainful employment is available. If people are offering a wage below that, then either the benefit system or the employer has got it wrong. Bringing in cheap external labour simply compounds the cock up. Also, the lack of information on the people used to fill the gap and then seemingly disgarded tells a story.
I think both are at fault. The theory about keeping people just out of hardship would be fine, if that's what it actually did, but many are nowhere near hardship. Look at that ****er family in Wales(the Davey's), neither of the parents worked, they had nine kids and received £42k a year in benefits. He drove a Merc ffs, what's considered hardship nowadays, having to drive a Vauxhall?
I reckon we all know career doleys and yes, they need adressing, but in my opinion, this can only be done at the same time as addressing companies that underpay and Governments that encourage immigration as a way of keeping private companies profits high at the expense of tax payers. I know the figures are debatable, but the whole lot's made worse by the tax avoidance of many of the people paying the low wages.
I suspect that something will be done shortly with regard to the Ken Bates and Phil Green's of this world, who generate their wealth here, but stick it all in Monaco without paying any tax on it, though the average successful bloke who's a bit hacked off with having to pay 50% in tax will probably continue to try and find ways round paying it. Getting more money out of multi-national companies who can make their profits anywhere is a far more difficult proposition, that's where the real money is and in reality, the only way to get a slice of that action is to offer tax rates that make it worth their while to declare their profits here. Lower tax rates generate more income, as people are generally more willing to pay them and they promote entrepreneurship. In Hong Kong, business rates are 16.5%, most people don't pay income tax(only the highest earners qualify for income tax and even then only to a limit of 15%) and there's no VAT on anything. As a consequence, everyone declares everything, nobody moves anything off-shore, people work harder as they get to keep all their earnings and unemployment averages around 4%, despite the many people coming from the mainland trying to get work. It would be a brave government that took the leap, but if the UK became Europe's answer to Hong Kong, we'd probably be the biggest economy in Europe in a few years.
