GordonBennet

Do they sell six-fingered gloves?

Wouldn't a a solution to this be to pay benefits in the form of vouchers, which can only be used to pay for essentials such as food, rent and gas/electric? However poor council estate dwellers claim to be they can always find the money for booze, fags and weed!

I'm not surprised they're having a go at the Daily Mail, the two guys singing that song look suspiciously like asylum seekers! But this thread is about the story, not the newspaper the story was printed in. We know most local councils are heavily overstaffed and many of the people they employ do the bare minimum of work. What are we going to do about it?

I think Alcoblog is referring to me, in which case you should see it as a compliment! I think he's bitter at losing countless arguments on here with me in the past and still holds a rather childish grudge.

Seeing as the forum's usual loony lefties are launching increasingly bitter and personal attacks on him, I thought it fair to redress the balance. I must admit that I was wrong about Clegg - in the run up to the election I had a go at him for being a hypocrite when it was revealed that he's a regular churchgoer but says he doesn't believe in god. Since coming to power however, my opinion of him has risen. In contrast to the petty playground squabbling of Labour, Clegg has put the interests of his country ahead of those of his party by helping form the coalition government and attempting to undo the last 13 years of disastrous Labour policies. He has also come under attack for rejecting the Forgemasters loan, but Sheffield people have to realise that as deputy PM, he must favour the national interest over the local one. Imagine for example if he was an MP for Leeds and as soon as he got elected he diverted funding from other parts of the country to Leeds - there'd be uproar! Thanks to Clegg's integrity and principles, it's been great to see our Conservative and Liberal politicians working with rather than against each other (and even some of the more mature Labour MPs such as Frank Field are joining in). I doubt very much if Clegg reads Sheffield Forum, but if he does, I'd like to say that the way he's conducted himself since coming to power has earned him an awful lot of respect from me and lots of other Sheffield people. Well done!

This is exactly why I didn't attribute the quote to anyone, as there's conflicting information as to its origins. However, at some point someone did say "The man who is not a socialist at twenty has no heart, but if he is still a socialist at forty he has no head." and that's what I'm wanting to debate. Here's a topical example of a man who's never grown out of socialism. http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/183873/Bob-Crow-calls-for-strike-action-to-fight-Government-cuts A deluded dinosaur who wants to bully and intimidate his members into following his lead? It's like Arthur Scargill all over again.

Just put all your rubbish in your black bin and if it gets full, use your neighbour's. For all these crackpot recycling schemes it all ends up on the same landfill site.

It's not what's on the site, it's what it leaves out. For example, there are no eyewitness reports from anyone which contradict the "official" version, despite the fact there are people on this thread (and previous Hillsborough ones) whose experiences on the day were different to what he describes. Were you there, Darth Vader?

Before you blindly accept that site you keep linking to as fact, please research the author behind it. http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-fc/liverpool-fc-news/2009/03/10/hillsborough-dossier-aims-to-shatter-the-hurtful-lies-92534-23106075/ It's run by a biased Liverpool fan with a clear agenda to smear both South Yorkshire Police and SWFC in any way he can and absolve every single Liverpool fan of any blame for the tragedy whatsoever. Hardly an impartial view, is it?

What sort of turmoil do you mean? Most couples have disagreements and sometimes go through periods of unhappiness, but people never used to run away from a relationship at the first sign of conflict as they do now. If parents knew they would receive greater benefits for staying together and thinking of their children rather than themselves, surely that would create a better, more responsible society.

No, I'm starting a debate about the topical subject of welfare reform. Do you have anything worthwhile to contribute?

The lefties on here seem to be forgetting two things. Firstly that if these non-jobs were really necessary there'd be no need to cut them. And secondly that a significant number of public sector workers leave their jobs voluntarily, either to retire on gold-plated pensions in their 50s, to start a family or to go and get a better job.

I was very heartened the other day to see that the new government is proposing that absent fathers should lose all their benefits, but in my opinion it doesn't go far enough. I would restrict child benefits to co-habiting couples only, as an encouragement to parents to stay together for the sake of their children. It's a well-known fact that children brought up with both a mother and father have happier childhoods and grow up into better, more balanced individuals than those brought up by single parents. Perhaps if this were the case, single mothers might be less inclined to run off from their partners at the first signs of trouble and consider the welfare of their child rather than their own? If you can't keep your man, you shouldn't be having kids in the first place! After the Labour government's hatred for the concept of the family, it would be nice to see the new government redress the balance and offer parents incentives to be a proper family rather than throw free money at those who choose the single life to the detriment of their child's welfare.

Which is the problem with the scouse mentality. With them it's either "you're all innocent" or "you're all guilty". Remember The Sun's infamous "Hillsborough - the truth" story? It never said ALL Liverpool fans stole from the dead or urinated on the bodies, it just said SOME Liverpool fans did so. How can anyone say with absolute certainty that NO Liverpool fans did either of these things?

I think it's more to do with the fact that socialism sounds great in theory but has never worked in the real world, nor can it ever due to man's inherently greedy nature. Look at the last Labour government, to a man they were all socialists at university but look at what corrupt, dishonest, greedy fat cats they became as soon as they got into power!