Sharpe's Opinion

There’s a difference between providing sustenance to people who have fallen on hard times (which I have no objection to) & a way on life, based on people having children they can’t provide for.

To my mind, the crucial point is whether they have masses of children. I have been on Jobseeker’s Allowance myself, & I recall you once were, & so are a lot of people. I don’t blame the long-term unemployed such as the ex-miners, of whom I know a fair few in Stoke. I am critical of the whole culture of getting a council house & an unskilled job that existed before 1979, as it was obviously never going to last & we didn’t prepare for its end, which was certainly coming in the 70s.

Partly Thatcher behaved insensitively, but it wasn’t as if the legacy she was given was enviable. But I know many a man who has done 10, 20, 30 years in a pit & has no idea how to do anything else. I support not only giving them welfare payments but also any meaningful training & skilled employment, though I do have my doubts as to whether the state is the best vehicle for that as I’ve seen some truly woeful schemes.

The problem arose especially with the building of large council estates, so that all the newly unemployed live in the same place where they are joined by single parents & what have you.

But in the final analysis, an unemployed man is just a man who happens not to have a job & in the majority of cases shouldn’t be censured. The problem comes with those who have children whom, they know in advance, are doomed. La Toynbee goes on about how “birth is destiny” it’s a terrible thing, but why are they having children at all?

Although I see the problems with the welfare state, I probably will not support any given “crackdown”. I find both Purnell & Grayling objectionable, & Freud is truly vile. My only suggestion is that child benefit should not be paid for more than 3 children. Any other policy would harm decent people as well as lowlife.

You see, there are people in any oft-vilified group, whether they be single parents, the long-term unemployed, those receiving disability benefits, asylum seekers, who are absolute top of the range people & I admire what they do with a fairly rough hand dealt to them. Yes, there are also utter vermin in these groups, but you can never measure that. It’s easy to discern, not so easy for the state to make the right decision.

Another problem is that the majority of those who have children they cannot provide for ignore messages about safe sex & responsible living. You may well say “They’ll listen to a good kicking & no benefits”. Yet I see no way of doing that without harming worthwhile but unlucky people.

Well, for such a massively lengthly response, that was fairly lacking in any actual content

The problem is simply that from the Government’s point of view, it’s still cheaper to pay out fortunes in benefits than it is to fix the real, underlying problem.

A proper, long-term solution — the restoration of full employment through rebuilding Britain’s industry — would require massive investment. Once people have jobs, they will have self-respect, and once they have self-respect, they will have respect for others. If you don’t want people acting like life is cheap, then show them it’s worth something.

If you didn’t get a £200 pair of trainers and a mobile phone handed to you on a plate but instead actually had to go out and work for them, you might actually feel some sense of attachment, some duty to protect your property — and you might get the idea into your head that other people don’t particularly like being robbed at knifepoint for their stuff either.

But no. The Government are quite content to let people buy cheap **** made in the third world, where workers don’t have rights and firms can pollute as much as they like; because hey, it’s cheap, and it lets people pretend they aren’t poor anymore. And of course it breaks; and for want of spare parts it ends up in landfill sites. (£10 for a new fuse to mend a microwave oven that would cost £30 to replace with a new one? And that’s bearing in mind that I know how to fit it myself and don’t have to pay a professional repairer. Something’s rotten somewhere.)

The way I see it, one of two things can happen. Either we can invest in British industry — and, if necessary, I am 100% in favour of confiscating money off the super-rich to do this. Nobody needs more than £100 000 a year to live on — and do it right now; or we can wait until the workers in the third world have stood up for their rights and aren’t going to take it anymore, putting an end to cheap imports, and then we’ll have no choice but to invest in British industry anyway.

Yes, but society doesn’t need more children, especially from the types who are currently having more, which are those least able to raise them. How, you ask, is it my place to judge? Because I go to work & pay for their upkeep & live in the society they create.

I am happy with a falling population in this country & worldwide. I am glad that contraception & abortion are available & hate those, such as the Catholic Church & the more reactionary strains of Islam, that stand in the way of further availavility. I find it truly incomprehensible that the likes of Nadine Dorries apparently want people to be born into pointless, miserable lives to parents who don’t want them. Have they given a moment’s thought as to what these unloved babies will grow up to be?

As for this about an ageing population & dependency. Old people are often very healthy & mentally agile. They have a lot of habits which are, on the whole, more commendable than those of young people. They should be encouraged to work- which a lot are keen to do- & employers are often very willing to take them on. The ageism of some will be challenged by the example of over-65s doing well at work, which is all around us & would become more so if the state got out of the way.

The government should accept that, with less immigration & less distorting welfare policies, we will have less people & this is a good rather than a bad. You can’t stop the trend towards lower fertility which is happening worldwide, & why anyone would even want to is beyond me.

Despite having taken on many “conservative” views, I remain on the left because I am a green & because I believe in universally applied human rights. This puts me in opposition to relativists & excuse-makers. But I will not become a Tory or a bloggertarian.