INTERVIEWER

What do you mean by 'clingy'? Surely if you love being with someone you wouldn't describe their reciprocal wish to be with you as 'clingy'?

Ah, Yes. Quite. UKIP is an organisation that is supposedly all for the UK leaving the European Union, but in the European Parliament (safely away from the eyes and ears of the average UK voter) its MEPs have allied themselves with pro-EU membership convicted racists, homophobes and anti-semites...

You mean like A4e, G4S, Serco, Interserve, Capita and others?

We constantly hear about the atrocities, such as the potato famine, in Britain! It is taught in our schools! Tony Blair, a former British prime Minister, publicly apologised for it! Don't know where you get this "very rarely mentioned from"....

And many Irish men were persecuted and blacklisted for deserting the neutral Irish state, and fighting in the British Army against Nazism. These heroes were officially outlawed by a vindictive Irish state after the war, banned from employment, and lost their pensions and other benefits. In May 1945 the Irish Taoiseach, Eamonn De Valera, made a point of personally expressing his personal sympathy at the home of the Dublin German envoy, Eduard Hempel, on the sad demise of his Head of State - Adolf Hitler. The British don't knock the Irish for fighting against the Nazi's - it was the Irish government that did that, and more.

http://http://legendshobbies.com/catalog/popup_image.php/pID/3171/image/2?osCsid=5a3skkhkfhk15a7s86570q6sl1 Something like this????

Benefit is income, and it is this income that is taxed. Unearned income as well as earned income. Pensions are taxed. As is inherited wealth. As is JSA.

I'm afraid that you're only partly right, Anna. Basically, global capitalism has exploited the Third World firstly through imperialism then through debt. In the mid 1960's the major financial organisations lending to the Third World realised that those countries, despite having paid off their original loans many times over, would never ever be able to pay off the interest. This was and is acceptable to global capitalism, as long as the debt is being serviced. The West proved most lucrative to global capitalism in the Twentieth Century, even during the World Wars, but this bunch of parasites have no allegiance to any nation and will move their operations to where ever they can profit the most. The Third World, China and India are simply the next step in the exploitation of nations. Global capitalism long ago bought all of the major parties in every Western industrialised nation. Our politicians raised our standard of living and health to benefit their paymasters - who required a healthier and educated workforce. Once we are no longer needed, standards will drop. And drop sharply. The problem is economic and political - the illusion of political choice in a Western capitalist country.

Various police services have now indicated that they are arresting people stealing the basics to survive, not to sell on for drugs or alcohol. Desperate people are now shoplifting to stay alive, because they simply can't afford to eat...

No. Create real jobs in both the public and private sector. The money exists to fund socially useful work for every able bodied person. Just think, we could have the cleanest streets in the world. The best roads. The best social housing. The best public transport (once nationalised) and the best and cheapest energy and water (again, once nationalised). The jobs created for both skilled and unskilled would ensure that every unemployed person would be able to work, if capable. But the establishment political parties will not fund this massive back to work job creation scheme - they would rather redirect public money towards the EU, foreign aid, bankers and futile wars that are not our concern. And global capitalism (free trade) and the EU prevents us from creating jobs in the private sector due to competition laws regarding the state funding of private enterprise. If the political will existed, mass unemployment could be ended within a few short years...

You know full well that, in reality, two weeks work should be paid at least the level of the NMW. If somebody works for an hour they deserve the NMW. If somebody works for two weeks they deserve the NMW. Previous income (from all taxable sources) before work begins is not taken into consideration - nor should it be. It would completely destroy the concept of a minimum level of income in work.

Do you also believe that the poorest pensioners, or the long term sick, have no 'income'? Why does a benefit payment not constitute a (very low) level of income?

Your employees have various legal protections denied to unpaid work 'experience' conscripts. Your employees have to be paid at least the National Minimum Wage for every hour worked. Unpaid workers such as Cait Reilly do not enjoy such a luxury.

The DWP fully intends financial sanctions to be a form of punishment for benefit recipients. A JSA sanction is a punishment for breaking conditionality. Please keep up.

The HMRC states that JSA benefit is a taxable source of INCOME. To lose it, under a financial sanction, would mean a loss of taxable income. Do you seriously believe that the word 'income' only refers to earned income? Why do you evidently believe that undermining the National Minimum Wage through unpaid work is acceptable? Why do you evidently believe that the taxpayer should subsidise free labour for private companies and wealthy shareholders?

Actually, the answer to your question is YES. Cait Reilly was mandated to carry out work 'experience' (without any 'experience' of being paid at least the miniumum wage for the hours she worked). If she failed to attend without good reason, was disruptive while on work placement or did not satisfy Poundland that she had carried out the tasks required to the best of her ability, then she faced a benefit SANCTION. So it is quite accurate to state that the DWP required Ms Reilly to do unpaid employment at Poundland on pain of punishment - a benefit sanction which would mean a complete loss of income.

Why do some people (especially super rich politicians whose parties created mass unemployment because of their terrible economic policies) believe that the experience of work is valid, but that the experience of being paid for such work is NOT VALID? Go figure!

I support hard work. I support adequate financial compensation for hard work. People who support 'work experience' - as provided by the likes of large corporations and Poundland actually support: Hard work without any salary. Little, or no, in work training. Little chance of a real job paying a real wage at the end of such a scheme. If the experience of work is valid, why is the experience of being rewarded for such labour with a wage not valid?

I support work. I support a financial reward for work.

National Minimum Wage law means that if somebody works a set number of hours in a period of time, for example a day, a week or a month, then they must receive the NMW in pay for those hours. Trying to justify avoiding paying the NMW by using a bizarre calculation that doesn't take into account the number of hours worked but the benefit hypothetically received over 52 weeks is simply gross naivety.

You may pay little tax, I certainly don't. And I object to a tiny minority of super wealthy shareholders in private companies such as Poundland receiving taxpayer assisted free labour which disadvantages their competitors, undermines the minimum wage (which people such as you who pay "little tax" are dependent upon) and distorts the whole capitalist market system.

Work experience without the experience of adequate financial reward (a fair days work for a fair days pay) is in reality just the taxpayer subsidising private companies to make bigger profits. Those on here who support workfare are supporting public money being given to the likes of Poundland through taxpayer funded unpaid workers. This money benefits shareholders, not the community.

How on earth is working wage free to maximise profit for private industry - such as the £millions profit making Poundland - doing "something for the community"? These schemes reduce employment vacancies and the number of hours worked by paid workers. Poundland profits have soared since using unpaid labour to carry out some menial tasks, such as cleaning and shelf stacking (but never any tasks that involve serving customers at the checkout). I would be interested in learning how giving an unfair competitive advantage to the likes of Poundland over its rivals constitutes "doing something for the community"?

Ah. The BNP mkII.

I thought that it was dangerously pro-global capitalist policies which allowed the capitalist elite - the internationalist bankers and financiers - to take huge risks and gamble their banks and our money into financial meltdown and they then had to be bailed out by ordinary working people?