Full article is here:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20499836

For all the rigmarole, for all the plans to put three million people through this pointless programme (pointless for the people who have to go through it), for all the justified criticism of the likes of Atos, Serco and A4E, the government had the frankly piss poor target of getting 1 in 20 people that go through all of the utter bollocks associated with it to come out with a job that lasts more than six months (this is not the same thing as full-time work, as I worked somewhere that constantly rotated its staff on one year temporary contracts). Not only that, they failed to meet their piss poor target, and only got 1 in 30 people into, what I would not unreasonably assume, were almost without exception minimum wage jobs with no skills or training required, that they would have been qualified for anyway. They could have run a programme in which unemployed people were forced to watch Sky and play XBox all day, and apply for the odd job, which is what happened before, and I'm certain you would have produced identical figures.

So you’re saying that employers are not hiring the employees that the government provided them with for free? Color me surprised!

Now now wub, are you perhaps suggesting this scheme might not actually be about bettering people's lives, creating opportunities and come from a place of social concern?

Its almost as if you're hinting that this scheme was only ever about a hidden helping hand for big business.....

You wouldn't imply anything like that though of course

Slavery! *spits*

dubmeup wrote:

The things that makes me laugh about this is Nick Robinson's little comment is next to the article, and he's 'written' a longer piece which supposedly discusses the issue, although he hasn't bothered to do any real journalism, and doesn't know anything about the issue whatsoever, he's just repeating what some government spokesperson has told him. He probably got a press release, he probably didn't even speak to the spokesperson face-to-face.

You're on benefit yourself, Nick. It's just a very good scheme that you happen to be on. You don't have a real job. You're not a real journalist. The organisation you 'work' for gets over £4 billion of public money every year, much of it coming from people who can ill afford to contribute. It doesn't matter whether or not what you do is any good - which it isn't - because the establishment that you singularly fail to hold to account decides whether or not the licence fee continues every ten years. Admittedly, you could be doing exactly the same useless job for ITN, as you did previously, but at least if you did this you'd merely be sucking on the corporate cock instead of expecting people of modest means to fund your absolutely ridiculous salary. I don't know what your salary is, as unlike every other public sector organisation, the BBC is allowed to keep the salaries it pays its top personnel secret, but it has seeped out that Andrew Marr earns £600,000, so I'm sure the fools who pay the licence fee wouldn't expect too much change from £200,000 for your salary.

And this is the best you can do:

wake_up_bomb wrote: With reference to the above, please see the following:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20465717
The following also relates to what I was talking about the other week; ie. switch to service sector and retail from manufacturing, construction and production:
We don't have a real economy in Britain, it's an absolute joke. We're already living in a vassal state that is subordinate to the multinational banking and corporate system.