Whilst benefits are no doubt a good safety net (we can all hit a bad patch) they ought not be seen as a long-term solution. In all honesty, I don't know the right way to handle mothers with young children, but surely it's quite reasonable for them to work once their children are at school? Of course, that's assuming that there are any jobs!

I believe that benefits are for the needy, not the greedy.

Not everyone in this world has paper qualifications and it is has been that way throughout history. When I ventured into the world of working for a living, aged 15, I knew how to type, understood about invoices, statements, receipts etc and had a reasonable command of English. I started on the bottom rung of the ladder as the office junior and over a period of time added to the knowledge that I already had of working in an office. In those days it included making the tea, serving it to management, washing up, ordering tea/coffee stocks - no teabags, we made big pots of tea using tea leaves. The office junior also did the dusting and the vacuuming. After about 6 months you have a good idea of how an office is run, probably able to cover for other staff when they are away and one day someone leaves. Your opportunity to move up the ladder and have someone else come in as the office junior. Today I doubt there are too many who would be prepared to do the tea making and cleaning along with their office duties, but, we didn't have a tea lady or contracted cleaners except to do the windows, in fact, they can become quite indigent at the very mention of the idea. If we wanted to improve our job opportunities for the future we went to night school. Having to do the jobs that some might consider demeaning or beneath them builds stronger characters and can help make us more grounded in life. Yes. it can be difficult financially, your pay structure is lower but you are also learning to cut your cloth according to the pattern. The difficulty with that line of thinking is as future generations have come along those very basics in life appear to be airbrushed away and in many instances the benefit system can be more attractive than working for a living especially if you know how to use or abuse it as the case may be.

Years ago - not in the UK - I remember a system whereby people could apply to the local council to do manual work for the town. Work such as town beautification eg mowing grass verges, gardening, eradicating noxious weeds, helping the elderly who were unable to pay a trades person. The government gave what they would have paid in unemployment benefit to the council, the council topped it up to make a very respectable wage that was probably about your average labourers rate. To give an idea of comparison I worked as an office clerk and those doing the manual labouring jobs like this were actually earning more.

I'm back! For some reason my account sudedenly disappeared a few weeks ago, and the site wouldn't let me re-register. However, thanks to a sterling effort by Shizara I'm now back with WOL.

I'm back! For some reason, my original account disappeared, and WOL wouldn't let me re-register. However, thanks to Shizara's sterling effort, I'm back with WOL.

[color="#FF0000"]Welcome baaaaack Lex![/color]

Glad everything is ok....and look forward to you posting again.