The Welfare System and Children

[VILLAFC2000]

Wait for the Spin as well - it will be classic...!

[dont_do_it_doug.]

Cheers, I do tend to go on sometime - Inexperience...!

Apologies,

Up the Villa.

Ah don't worry about it, just me being a prick.

[Awol]

So that excludes most soldiers, then.

Given the number of people who have served in the military (say, 400,000+ over the last ten years) finding a few thousand who have gained a degree before or after their service is not as far fetched as you seem to think.

I'd suggest that this:

My experience of the military is mostly of the rejects.

has coloured your judgement and reinforced your negative view, which, when combined with general prejudice like this:

I'm sure there are other examples, like Lord Fobblepobble, Chief Lieutenant of Huntingdonshire and Master of the Old Queyntes Hunt, generous donor to the WRVS and the local branch of the KKK.

leads to some fairly unsafe conclusions.

Let the educators sort out education, and let the soldiers concentrate on their own shabby treatment.

It seems that the educators have been trying and failing in this respect for some time, I don't see the harm in a pilot project in an area where the absence of this option would likely be filled by a progression from truancy to low level crime, ASBO collection and a bedspace in a YOI.

[snowychap]

New free school to be run by ex-soldiers

I'm not really sure of the point of this.

Is it to have just only ex-military as teachers in the school?

Is it to run some kind of boot camp style effort with kids square bashing everyday?

Is there some assumption that ex-services people will automatically control children simply by being ex-services?

Yes, we need ex-services people as teachers - just as we need former supermarket managers; former political researchers; former chemists; former telecoms engineers; former jockeys, and so on.

As long as people satisfy the criteria required for being a teacher (mainly that they have command of the subject which they are employed to teach, are able to convey that knowledge to children and, hopefully, can help them to get to a point where they can think) then it should surely be welcomed to have people with all sorts of non-educational backgrounds moving in to teaching.

I know it says the following:

Mr Burkard said the reason teachers would all be military was to ensure a “staff room working from a common ethos”, but it would not feature cadet-style training.

Surely the 'common ethos' by the nature of the recruits and what is intended is something CCF style (without the [military] uniforms and kit, no doubt)?

[peterms]

So that excludes most soldiers, then.

Given the number of people who have served in the military (say, 400,000+ over the last ten years) finding a few thousand who have gained a degree before or after their service is not as far fetched as you seem to think.

We don't seem to disagree on the arithmetic. That's good!

I'd suggest that this:

My experience of the military is mostly of the rejects.

has coloured your judgement and reinforced your negative view, which, when combined with general prejudice like this:

I'm sure there are other examples, like Lord Fobblepobble, Chief Lieutenant of Huntingdonshire and Master of the Old Queyntes Hunt, generous donor to the WRVS and the local branch of the KKK.

leads to some fairly unsafe conclusions.

My choice of the word "rejects" was unfortunate. They weren't the rejects. Those are the ones who weren't allowed in. The ones I describe are those who were allowed in, who were valuable and valued members, and who got spat out the other end with no thought or consideration, having been if anything deskilled in their time in uniform. There seemed to be quite a few of them, if my limited experience in one small outpost of the criminal justice system in one small corner of London is anything to go by.

Let the educators sort out education, and let the soldiers concentrate on their own shabby treatment.

It seems that the educators have been trying and failing in this respect for some time, I don't see the harm in a pilot project in an area where the absence of this option would likely be filled by a progression from truancy to low level crime, ASBO collection and a bedspace in a YOI.

Hmmm. Perhaps we should let teachers take over the military. Just as a pilot project, you understand. Artists become air traffic controllers. Traffic wardens as poets. Darts players as nursery staff. Why not? What's the worst that can happen? It's not like you're playing about with someone's entire life prospects! Oh....

[Awol]

I think the point is that if the life propsects of certain, non mainstream compliant indivduals are precisely **** all, and a Free School can offer them a disciplined alternative, then what do they/we really have to lose by giving it a go? Is there a fear that actually it might work out?

[PompeyVillan]

This issue sometimes enrages me and at others it softens me. On the whole I think we get it just about right. I despise that there are people out there that have been made lazy and more importantly entirely demotivated because there are a lack of opportunities and they can just about get a long with JSA or whatever benefit. However, there are people that genuinely need it and there are people who deserve benefits.

The devil finds work for idle hands. Give idle people something to do, and pay them, even if it costs us more than the JSA would do. Rather than being cynical and financially driven we should look at trying to enrich people's lives, even if it costs us a fortune. Give opportunities to people and then perhaps they won't be so demotivated that the only way they want to exist is by having children and living off benefits anyway. How a government can do this, I don't know. But what I do know is that we have a generation that are so alienated from the rest of society that they riot needlessly and find it acceptable to leach off others rather than find a purpose. It's not necessarily all their fault either.

Perhaps we should adapt our foreign policy a little and spend a few decades concentrating on what we're doing. We need to get our own house in order.

[VILLAFC2000]

This issue sometimes enrages me and at others it softens me. On the whole I think we get it just about right. I despise that there are people out there that have been made lazy and more importantly entirely demotivated because there are a lack of opportunities and they can just about get a long with JSA or whatever benefit. However, there are people that genuinely need it and there are people who deserve benefits.

The devil finds work for idle hands. Give idle people something to do, and pay them, even if it costs us more than the JSA would do. Rather than being cynical and financially driven we should look at trying to enrich people's lives, even if it costs us a fortune. Give opportunities to people and then perhaps they won't be so demotivated that the only way they want to exist is by having children and living off benefits anyway. How a government can do this, I don't know. But what I do know is that we have a generation that are so alienated from the rest of society that they riot needlessly and find it acceptable to leach off others rather than find a purpose. It's not necessarily all their fault either.

Perhaps we should adapt our foreign policy a little and spend a few decades concentrating on what we're doing. We need to get our own house in order.

Class post...!

[Jon]

Indeed. The man from Pompeii speaketh much sense.

[Risso]

I don't know but I don't reckon. I think that, for example, accountants, or tax accountants, work within the law set out by Gov't on taxes. I think that they don't conceal the boss's wealth but they do help the boss legally do with his or her wealth things which allow tax to be paid at legal levels, but most effectively for the person whose money it actually is.

Personally, I don't think looking badly at the likes of accountants and similar on VT is really going to solve much at all. They're (the ones I know) ordinary folks doing their jobs, legally, and I imagine effectively.

Looking at who gets taxed and how much, is another matter. Looking at what the country spends and on what, too.

Your description covers the remit, or part of it, of accountants. Normal, everyday, ordinary accountants.

It doesn't address, in any respect, the remit of the accountants involved in tax-dodging, which is very much about concealing wealth and who it belongs to, bending rules, setting up sham transactions and internal transfers of money to shift it from where it should be taxed to where it will escape tax, and all the other many, many ways they cheat us all.

Without their activities, tax-dodging would be harder, and less profitable. As it would without the Swiss banks, the tax havens, the corrupt links between legislators and tax thieves.

It's a cancer. And the rest of us are paying the price for it. You too.

Is it because their activities are so invisible that they escape censure, while daft kids nicking trainers get shat on?

Are you accusing anybody in particular on here of doing those things Peter? Only "concealing wealth" is tax evasion, which is a serious crime.

[blandy]

I don't know but I don't reckon. I think that, for example, accountants, or tax accountants, work within the law set out by Gov't on taxes. I think that they don't conceal the boss's wealth but they do help the boss legally do with his or her wealth things which allow tax to be paid at legal levels, but most effectively for the person whose money it actually is.

Personally, I don't think looking badly at the likes of accountants and similar on VT is really going to solve much at all. They're (the ones I know) ordinary folks doing their jobs, legally, and I imagine effectively.

Looking at who gets taxed and how much, is another matter. Looking at what the country spends and on what, too.

Your description covers the remit, or part of it, of accountants. Normal, everyday, ordinary accountants.

like the ones on VT, you mean?

It doesn't address, in any respect, the remit of the accountants involved in tax-dodging, which is very much about concealing wealth and who it belongs to, bending rules, setting up sham transactions and internal transfers of money to shift it from where it should be taxed to where it will escape tax, and all the other many, many ways they cheat us all.

Without their activities, tax-dodging would be harder, and less profitable. As it would without the Swiss banks, the tax havens, the corrupt links between legislators and tax thieves.

It's a cancer. And the rest of us are paying the price for it. You too.

Is it because their activities are so invisible that they escape censure, while daft kids nicking trainers get shat on?

True. It's because the people they work for are the people who run things, or pay others to run things in the way they like, that they are able to get away with it. As for kids nicking trainers getting shat on. Fine by me. Inconsistent, with the treatment of venal MPs and so on, but I have no problem with people guilty of crimes against their own communities being punished. it's the people who are not punished that need to be got, rather than letting off scrotes.

[peterms]

I don't know but I don't reckon. I think that, for example, accountants, or tax accountants, work within the law set out by Gov't on taxes. I think that they don't conceal the boss's wealth but they do help the boss legally do with his or her wealth things which allow tax to be paid at legal levels, but most effectively for the person whose money it actually is.

Personally, I don't think looking badly at the likes of accountants and similar on VT is really going to solve much at all. They're (the ones I know) ordinary folks doing their jobs, legally, and I imagine effectively.

Looking at who gets taxed and how much, is another matter. Looking at what the country spends and on what, too.

Your description covers the remit, or part of it, of accountants. Normal, everyday, ordinary accountants.

It doesn't address, in any respect, the remit of the accountants involved in tax-dodging, which is very much about concealing wealth and who it belongs to, bending rules, setting up sham transactions and internal transfers of money to shift it from where it should be taxed to where it will escape tax, and all the other many, many ways they cheat us all.

Without their activities, tax-dodging would be harder, and less profitable. As it would without the Swiss banks, the tax havens, the corrupt links between legislators and tax thieves.

It's a cancer. And the rest of us are paying the price for it. You too.

Is it because their activities are so invisible that they escape censure, while daft kids nicking trainers get shat on?

Are you accusing anybody in particular on here of doing those things Peter? Only "concealing wealth" is tax evasion, which is a serious crime.

I think it's clear that you and I have a very different view of taxdodging.

You rely on the current legal distinction between evasion and avoidance to justify a lot of taxdodging; I think it's all corrupt, immoral shite. You draw false comparisons with ISAs to suggest that everyone does it and so it's all ok, we can't criticise it; I think that's a mealy-mouthed and self-serving lie. The difference between publicly promoted schemes available to everyone, and dodges available only to the wealthy with expensive accountants, is vast and unbridgeable. To imply otherwise, and tell people with ISAs they are just doing what the Barclay brothers etc do, is a pathetic and transparent lie.

Do people on VT facilitate taxdodging? They will speak for themselves, if the mood takes them. What do you do?

[peterms]

True. It's because the people they work for are the people who run things, or pay others to run things in the way they like, that they are able to get away with it. As for kids nicking trainers getting shat on. Fine by me. Inconsistent, with the treatment of venal MPs and so on, but I have no problem with people guilty of crimes against their own communities being punished. it's the people who are not punished that need to be got, rather than letting off scrotes.

No, it's not ok. The inconsistency is the problem. It's not like one thief gets 3 months and one gets 4 months. That's within an acceptable tolerance.

The problem is that some opportunistic rocket polishers thieving pennies, bottles of water and the like, get months or even years in gaol, while people who for many years have waged a campaign of theft against the rest of us which has netted millions, get away free and untroubled.

That is so grotesquely unfair, that it makes a mockery of the entire legal system. Since our legal system rests on consent, and our policing system rests on consent, and evident unfairness destroys the propensity to consent to being ruled in this way, we can infer that the recent sentencing will make us less safe, even if Torygraph and Mail leader writers and their followers feel reassured in the short term. That's bad news for everyone.

[VILLAFC2000]

True. It's because the people they work for are the people who run things, or pay others to run things in the way they like, that they are able to get away with it. As for kids nicking trainers getting shat on. Fine by me. Inconsistent, with the treatment of venal MPs and so on, but I have no problem with people guilty of crimes against their own communities being punished. it's the people who are not punished that need to be got, rather than letting off scrotes.

No, it's not ok. The inconsistency is the problem. It's not like one thief gets 3 months and one gets 4 months. That's within an acceptable tolerance.

The problem is that some opportunistic rocket polishers thieving pennies, bottles of water and the like, get months or even years in gaol, while people who for many years have waged a campaign of theft against the rest of us which has netted millions, get away free and untroubled.

That is so grotesquely unfair, that it makes a mockery of the entire legal system. Since our legal system rests on consent, and our policing system rests on consent, and evident unfairness destroys the propensity to consent to being ruled in this way, we can infer that the recent sentencing will make us less safe, even if Torygraph and Mail leader writers and their followers feel reassured in the short term. That's bad news for everyone.

Totally agree its the way in which certain aspects always seem to get blown out of proportion.

[Jon]

True. It's because the people they work for are the people who run things, or pay others to run things in the way they like, that they are able to get away with it. As for kids nicking trainers getting shat on. Fine by me. Inconsistent, with the treatment of venal MPs and so on, but I have no problem with people guilty of crimes against their own communities being punished. it's the people who are not punished that need to be got, rather than letting off scrotes.

No, it's not ok. The inconsistency is the problem. It's not like one thief gets 3 months and one gets 4 months. That's within an acceptable tolerance.

The problem is that some opportunistic rocket polishers thieving pennies, bottles of water and the like, get months or even years in gaol, while people who for many years have waged a campaign of theft against the rest of us which has netted millions, get away free and untroubled.

That is so grotesquely unfair, that it makes a mockery of the entire legal system. Since our legal system rests on consent, and our policing system rests on consent, and evident unfairness destroys the propensity to consent to being ruled in this way, we can infer that the recent sentencing will make us less safe, even if Torygraph and Mail leader writers and their followers feel reassured in the short term. That's bad news for everyone.

The man from the Mountie is spot on the (fully and correctly taxed) money.

[snowychap]

You rely on the current legal distinction between evasion and avoidance to justify a lot of taxdodging; I think it's all corrupt, immoral shite. You draw false comparisons with ISAs to suggest that everyone does it and so it's all ok, we can't criticise it; I think that's a mealy-mouthed and self-serving lie. The difference between publicly promoted schemes available to everyone, and dodges available only to the wealthy with expensive accountants, is vast and unbridgeable. To imply otherwise, and tell people with ISAs they are just doing what the Barclay brothers etc do, is a pathetic and transparent lie.

A top quality comment.

Superb stuff.

[Risso]

You rely on the current legal distinction between evasion and avoidance to justify a lot of taxdodging; I think it's all corrupt, immoral shite. You draw false comparisons with ISAs to suggest that everyone does it and so it's all ok, we can't criticise it; I think that's a mealy-mouthed and self-serving lie. The difference between publicly promoted schemes available to everyone, and dodges available only to the wealthy with expensive accountants, is vast and unbridgeable. To imply otherwise, and tell people with ISAs they are just doing what the Barclay brothers etc do, is a pathetic and transparent lie.

A top quality comment.

Superb stuff.

But he hasn't mentioned Vodafone's "£6bn" tax let off or Philip Green's [wife's] squillion pound dividend! He's never going to make the UK Uncut website without paying attention to details like that.

[snowychap]

But he hasn't mentioned Vodafone's "£6bn" tax let off or Philip Green's [wife's] squillion pound dividend!

I don't think he needed to. He summed up the position (of those on a crusade to 'relieve' the UK taxpayer of as much money as possible) very well in those few sentences.

[b6bloke]

This issue sometimes enrages me and at others it softens me. On the whole I think we get it just about right. I despise that there are people out there that have been made lazy and more importantly entirely demotivated because there are a lack of opportunities and they can just about get a long with JSA or whatever benefit. However, there are people that genuinely need it and there are people who deserve benefits.

The devil finds work for idle hands. Give idle people something to do, and pay them, even if it costs us more than the JSA would do. Rather than being cynical and financially driven we should look at trying to enrich people's lives, even if it costs us a fortune. Give opportunities to people and then perhaps they won't be so demotivated that the only way they want to exist is by having children and living off benefits anyway. How a government can do this, I don't know. But what I do know is that we have a generation that are so alienated from the rest of society that they riot needlessly and find it acceptable to leach off others rather than find a purpose. It's not necessarily all their fault either.

Perhaps we should adapt our foreign policy a little and spend a few decades concentrating on what we're doing. We need to get our own house in order.

I like this post

[ender4]

If the welfare system was set-up from scratch now (irrelevant of anything gone before), i wonder how it would look?

Would it be fairer, more helpful to those than needed it, and cost less money at the same time?