Welfare reform: David Cameron advocates community service for long-term unemployed

Downing Street accused David Cameron of 'flip-flopping' by backing Democrat hopeful Barack Obama after previously supporting John McCain and Rudy Giuliani

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David Cameron threatens the genuine poor, the disabled and chronically sick and tars them all with the same brush.

What a nasty little policy statement/ threat this is; to hit the weakest and poorest first by attacking all people who receive incapacity benefits no matter how ill or disabled they are and make everyone including genuine claimants feel like unwanted leapers, spongers and criminals; talk about tarring everyone with the same brush! He doesn't mention the reality i.e. that anyone receiving incapacity benefits will have had to have paid full national insurance contributions for a minimum number of years, also to have completed at least one 20 page detailed questionnaire, have seen their GP on numerous occasions and sent the incapacity Jobcentre Plus government department several medical certificates, not to mention the full physical examination and interview by a Government approved medical professional. So it is no easy task to qualify for incapacity benefit as Mr Cameron is trying to make out.

I would like to ask Mr Cameron if is this the kind of callous Conservative party we can expect if he manages to win the next election? Help the rich and attack the sick, disabled and the poor. You are starting to sound like a spiteful bully, already targeting the weakest British citizens first; kicking them whilst they are already down on the floor.

- Simon Disabled Conservative Member, Buckinghamshire UK

We have to turn back the clock on the social dependent under-class that Nu Labor has created. Good on David Cameron to be strong enough to say what is needed.

- Georgie, London

well, I'm claiming JSA and I have more than 5 A-C's+, I have 2 good A-levels and studied physics at uni, and I spend a good amount of my days ringing job agencies and searching jobcentreplus website - yes really! And guess what - no jobs! Oh - there are jobs, just that there is always someone with more experience, and their always going to pick the guy more suited. It doesn't matter that I can do them, they seem to have loads of choice!

And I'm not being picky either, it's jobs that are quite low end I'm going for, that I just can't get - "have you done this work before, how long ago, don't you think your a bit rusty?", "I think your a bit overqualified to be honest" (what the hell does that mean?) - are the common responses! I'm in my late twenties - if that means anything.

I am not a layabout, and I need a hell of a lot more money than the JSA (because of student debt - I didn't get a grant like a lot of you more senior grads - so have high motive to find work)!

So ease off with the attacks; some of you fellow grads got tax payers' money to study, let the long-term unemployed do something constructive for their JSA - like training rather than picking up litter if that's not what they want to do! You probably didn't have to pick up litter to have a grant!

And if I have to do extra work for my JSA (I already do 2hr a week voluntary conservation), then it will be in accordance with the minimum wage and not as a slave!

- Geoff, England

Same old Tory rubbish, point the finger and make the unemployed the scapegoat off all our society's ills. Tthey forget that it was a Tory Thatcher government that started the whole benefit culture rolling and created the benefit state.
People and more importantly youngsters need proper jobs and proper training, it would be far better to provide them with this than have them mopping floors, or picking rubbish, or whatever stupid humiliating scheme these Tory morons and their brain dead supporters come up with.

- Brian, Wiltshire

Great. I think this is very fair and who does not think so should move back out of Britain.

- Jacqueline, Hampstead, London

Genuine people who are incapacitated should not fear this proposal.

If people are forced to undertake work or training then that will, inevitably, mean that they gain new skills. New skills means they are more likely gain employment.

However, there are a lot of people who simply do not want to work. It should not be an option. Work or starve! They'd soon get their finger out.

- Ian Gilbertson, Newcastle

I'll believe it when I see it happen, the down right lazy will never go to work, which means the people that really need help will always be ostracised.

- Mick, Wellingborough, UK

As earlier claimed, the 'Tory welfare reform plans are modelled on U.S. reforms.'
"David Cameron moved to copy Obama's vote-winning success today..."
"...Senator Obama's approach should be applied to Britain's welfare problems...."
"What's interesting about Obama is he is saying:'We are America - we can do anything'. We want the same sense in Britain..."

A genuine resolve indeed! The bogus sickness benefit claims must be weeded out and the lazy must be pushed into jobs (at any cost), in the vast British interest!

One might, however, observe:
1) Why such a sudden inclination towards the US?
2) Has Mr Cameron already started sensing election victory (like Obama)?
3) Is the EU devoid of some better Welfare Reform Plans (for Britain)?
4) Like the US, will Britain be in a position to implement its own (US-styled) policies independently; setting aside the EU?
5) Or else, should a major drift from The EU policies, in general, be envisaged in post-election times in case the Tory come to power?

- Nadeem Asghar, London, UK.

An excellent idea. For all those who are making wild accusations about labelling all the sick and disabled as scroungers, please grow up. The proposals would find the genuinely ill and disabled unfit for work and allow continuance of benefit, so what's the beef?

- James Elliott, Eastbourne UK

Apart from the 'incapacity' fraud, practiced by employees of a seriously dysfunctional state, which we all dislike:

what's this guy on about?

How does a working citizen successfuly compete with cheap because unwanted by other societies, when abandoned by his/her government in favour of fodder for the black (Brown) economy that kept Blair et al in power for a decade?

- Jack, London UK

I don't expect for a second that he means you, Robert from Wales. I suspect he means the legion of builders (such as in my area) who drive up to sign on every other Friday and then speed off to their cash in hand jobs. There is a huge problem with skivers milking the system, but if you've nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.

- Paul, London

I fully agree that something should be done to get people back into work, but making people slaves is not it. "The Tories say that community work schemes would be run by independent organisations invited to bid for Government contracts. They would be allowed to insist that participants wear uniforms." What a lovely idea.

A lot of you people who are for this how will you feel if you lose your job in the next couple of years.
The reason that immigrants can do these very low paid jobs is that they have about 100 people living in a 2 bed flat so don't have as many of the expenses that we have to face. The immigrants are also now getting better paid jobs over here, so all of you rubbing your hands in glee at this news beware.

- Gordon, London, UK

There has been a massive increase in the number of people on incapacity benefits. Either our health is deteriorating at an alarming rate or there are more and more workshy people out there. I know which I think is the case.

- Dan, Manchester

This is surely just common sense. With the economy facing troubled times, it's high time to strip out as much dead wood and uneccessary costs as possible.

- Mark, London

It's a good start, if nothing else it would mean that the long term unemployed who deliberately don't work are forced out from in front of the TV, it should also stop those who claim benefits and work cash in hand. However, it will probably taken to the European Court of Human Rights by a bunch of wishy washy Liberals and ruled that it's a skiver's basic human right to sit in front of the TV all day.

- C H, London

People who are genuinely in need of government help, be it financial or medical of course should receive it and I don't think that anyone with a heart or conscience would say differently. I think who it's being aimed at are the people who don't want to work and who don't want to look for work. The 'Shameless' generation if you will.

- S-M Hearmon, London, UK

I think the politicans have been reading these internet discussion boards - this idea has been bandied about for months now. However they came up with the idea, it's a good one.

- Isabel, Woking, England

This is going to be tough on a lot of the "unemployed" who are working for cash and taking benefits at the same time. Hopefully it will weed out all the cheats and push the lazy into jobs if the Eastern Europeans have left any vacant.

- Casperslides, Bath, UK

The unempolyed and those on incapacity benefits are being treated more unfairly than criminals. All this three strikes lark should be administered to those living off other people's misery through crime. The Tories invented the idea of placing unemployed on incapacity benefits to fiddle the figures. People who say they will vote Tory next time must have short memories. God help us.

- Alan, Manchester

This is a step in the right direction. The jobs are there as immigrants are filling them but we need more British people in British jobs. As a taxpayer I find it offensive that I have to subsidise people who treat a life on benefits as a career. That said, there are British people who have paid taxes and have fallen on hard times. We need to be clear about what is and what isn't OK. A line needs to be drawn.

- Jane, London

Love it the Tories return to a Thatcher plan. OK I will ask a question, I have lost the use of my legs, my bowel and my bladder, I have to take morphine every three hours , I have to take drugs because my kidneys and liver are damaged after I fell at work 96ft. I broke my back and have a lesion of the spinal cord on my second operation under a Tory government I caught MRSA, which nearly cost me my life.

I spend ages lying on my back to control the pain, my life expectancy was ten years.

What do you want me to do?

Do not forget to get Incapacity benefits you have to have worked and paid into the Incapacity payment insurance, we have paid for this benefit it's not free it's paid for. To the numbskull's who mouths off about scroungers it could be you tomorrow knocked down by a car.

What do you want me to do?

- Robert, Wales

These welfare policies sound great to the abled people, label all disabled people scoungers ect, political partys gaining vote from voters this way is disgraceful. But of course to abled working people it sounds good, gets votes, society goes with it.

Now, in my case I am a career, I have a disabled partner in her late 30's with 7 discs gone due to a disabling disease of the spine. The back is crumbling. She is losing the use of her legs slowly and is laying in bed at this moment in time riddled with pain as I type, her body shakes really badly due to such high pain levels. She can't sleep. She is full of morphine and good knows how many other drugs the doctor has prescribed. There is no cure for this disease at present and by the time there is one it will be to late for her. So when I hear people calling the likes of us scoungers, I am some what angry and dismayed. It's disgraceful. We did not ever think we would be in this situation. It's not our fault this has happened. I am extremely worried now about the incapacity benifits we live on is going to be taken away and we will be left with nothing because politicians think disabled people are the easy target to save money.

I am not saying all people are worthy of the benefits they are getting. A lot of people can work. I know people who really have nothing much wrong with them getting the same and if not more benefits than we are getting. New cars, top money for everything imaginable that we don't get.

- Mike, Bournemouth

Jobseekers and Incapacity Claiments are going to be treated worst than criminals. As people lose their benefits, just watch the crime figure rise. And to think the Tories made claiming dole and Incapacity Benefits the only choice for many. They made both fashionable. You do have short memories.

- Alan, Manchester

Once again the (borrowed again) 3 strikes concept being put in place by the bullies taking on the poor and incapacitated people.
It is so much easier than trying to stop the real cheat:
Carousel traders, money launderers (banks), corporate corruption and fake investigations. Never mind the one who went away with our pension.

My last experience following a serious injury was:
-Incapacity benefit refused, because of X days return policy for new claim. (they forgot to mention it to me. Then told me I couldn't apply again then 3 month later I should have applied again earlier on and on). It never happened regardless of medical certificate.
-Housing benefit refused because not receiving benefit.
-council tax benefit refused because receiving any other benefit.
and the deep scrutiny in every single aspect of one's live (what was this £200 income 9 months ago?)
Add the bills that never stop coming.
Add £0 income as self employed (if I am not doing it, I don't earn it).
We are now looking to a sudden debt of over £4000 to start and that's before food, medication and what either you can think of.

Being exposed to such pressure while tying to recover really doesn't help.

It is obvious that directives were given to misinform the people in most helpless situation.
This new policy will rapidly create a new sub class, of sick and injured people living in the street in abject poverty.
They probably will end up being parked in the suburbs, to pervert the epidemic.

- Laurent, London UK

I am in favour of this improvement.

- Jacqueline, Hampstead, London

If they promise to follow up on this if they win power, they will get my vote. There are too many spongers in the UK currently.

- Rd, Glamorgan

I like what the Conservatives are doing.

- Jonathan, Islington, London

Great. Finally someone is talking about the unthinkable! They will get my vote!

- Peteo, London

Zzzzz... Action speaks louder than words.

- Mike, London

However you dress it up, there are still far too many people on benefits who shouldn't be, full stop.

- Paul, London

Draconian more like, about time. Labour benefit the rich and the lazy and now one in between. Sadly by doing this Cameron will destroy a huge number of voters who Labour have been grooming for the past 10 years to keep them in power i.e. the rich and the lazy.

- Fly, London

This is a great idea. I like it. About time something should be done to reverse the Nu Labor damage done.

- Georgie, London

Cameron's ideas on incapacity benefit are hardly radical. Incapacity benefits can only be claimed after medical assessments under the current system and most claims are subject to periodic review.

His proposal to remove 200,000 claiamants from incapacity benefits is modest. The harsher Work Capability Assessment which comes in later this year will prevent 130,000 new Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claims every year and the existing incapacity benefits case load will fall dramatically as 700,000 people leave the current incapacity benefits each year. Further the government intend to transfer existing claimants to ESA starting with young people and then claimants with children. By the time of the next election it is quite likely that the residual numbers on incapacity benefits (excluding ESA) will be less than a million so Cameron's intention of subjecting the existing 2.6 million claimants of all incapacity related benefits to further medical assessments is complete hogwash. His policies are designed for a situation which will not exist and if this is the best they can come up with the electorate should stay well clear of a party demonstrating such a clear lack of competence however they subsubscribe to its values.

Cameron's proposals seem to be pretty much the existing system. There is no hint of Wisconsin (which partly worked because claimants moved to Minnesota). The Tories have failed to grasp the implications of current reforms for their policies.

- J Midgley, Sandwich, Kent

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