The problems in this country is the work shy. There are people who genuinely need support, and they should get it. Nobody can deny that the benefit system is being raped, by people who lie to doctors about their health. When the pits closed in the early 90's young men who had worked in the mines, suddenly started using walking sticks, convincing themselves that they are disabled while sitting in pubs and clubs all day on state handouts.
Then there are young girls who become pregnant just to get benefits. The government can see what is going on, and they intend to put a stop to it. The majority of the British workforce want it stopped too.

I too can cite umpteen examples of abuse by benefits claimants, and I certainly agree that there has to be a clamp down as we can't go on paying out to the malingerers. My question though is what are we going to do with these people? There are no jobs around to force them back into work.

What is needed is a kind of New Deal that President Roosevelt brought into America during the 1930s. Huge public works were set up like building dams and roads using public funds to kick start the economy. We are going the opposite way and cutting back, laying off thousands of workers who will now also languish on the dole.

Take a look around you at the state of Cynon Valley with the litter and rubbish scattered by unthinking nobrains, as well as builders' rubble dumped everywhere. Tyres and mattresses are dumped in isolated spots, and even Aberdare itself can look like a rubbish tip on occasions.

Now there's plenty of work to be had by organising teams of the unemployed to clean up the valley of this rubbish. We could pay them £10 a week on top of their dole, but with no option to opt out because if they refuse then their dole is stopped altogether.

This work would keep them going for months on end, if not longer, and they'd be contributing to the society that pays them to do nothing at the moment.

I can't see it happening though because the bleeding hearts will start shouting that it's beneath their dignity or they're being exploited etc. etc. In the meantime we just keep paying out to the "economically inactive" and the area slips ever deeper into a dumping ground and a haven for drunks and druggies, and of course no coppers on the streets to keep them under control.

And whilst all this is going on the tax payer is ripped off not just by the malingerers but also by the millionaire tax fiddlers, who are even awarded with peerages for their services to the British economy.

There has to be political will to push this through, but I can't see much of that from the Cameron\Clegg gang. They're just as mesmerised by the rich man's club as Blair and Brown, so the very people who caused this economic debacle in the first place will be allowed to carry on business as usual, and of course it'll be areas like RCT that will be made to suffer the most for the bankers' greed.

As I quoted earlier, we're all in it together? Are the pigs fed, watered and ready to fly?

The answer is so simple. Bring back the Workhouses of the 1800s, and run them the same way as they were then. They are all welcome! Unemployed, Sick and Disabled, Old aged. No benefits. As soon as anybody cannot live within their means the workhouse will be there.

Then another job to be done is to make Prisons into Prisons. Rat invested dungeons. If people still choose crime as a way to live, they will be welcome in the prisons.

Just think about the money the country would save.

There is an excellent webb site www.workhouses.org.uk
After reading that you will all agree.

I don't quite agree with your extreme stance, cocoman123, but I understand the sentiment. Just like all the rest of us you're fed up with seeing freeloaders and criminals living off the backs of the rest of us and laughing at the law. My point is though that what they get away with is nowhere near what the upper echelons, the real thieves and freeloaders in our society, are getting away with.

Take a close look at what tax dodgers, MPs, AMs and councillors are draining from the system and get it into proportion. Of course, it's the criminal element that concerns me more. You often hear about some criminal scumbag who's taken to court time after time and seems to be getting away with thieving, and the law is incapable of dealing with them.

It's at times like that that I too start thinking about the workhouse or a rat infested dungeon as the just rewards for them. We are told that we have to have a little understanding of their backgrounds; how they had a raw deal of an upbringing etc. Well, my response to that is, tough! You break into my house or car and I'm going to make sure you ain't fit enough to break into anyone else's.

The law though says that I'm not allowed to defend myself. I have to leave it to the police to do that. What police? I might ask. Where are they , when it's emerged that most of them are in the police station ticking boxes and filling out reams of forms?

We've got wildly off course somewhere along the line, with drunks and druggies taking over the streets of our towns. David Cameron calls it "Broken Britain". Well, the rot started with his party under Thatcher, and was continued under Blair and Brown. The gap between rich and poor is worse in Britain than any other state in the EU, and is even worse than it was 150 years ago.

That's where the true root of our social problems lie, and they're set to get worse, especially in so-called deprived areas like Cynon Valley. This is where getting the unemployed to earn their dole should give them some stake in the society they live in. I'd also legalise all drugs; give them clean needles and properly administerted doses of heroin to keep them away from the dealers and the crimes they commit to get money for their habits. It would save their lives too.

We already know that 70% of thefts aqnd burglaries are drug related, so there's your answer to one major drain on police resources. I'd also make rehab compulsory too. They'd have no choice but to attend clinics because unless we act now then the current example of where it leads to is to look at Mexico, where thousands of people are being killed in drug wars.

Are we going to accept that as our future, or is someone going to have the guts to take the necessary steps to prevent it?

Ha ha, are you for real Coco? Bring back the workhouse?! Chuffs sake, there have been some inane comments on here over the years but yours is up there with the daftest. Whatever next? Why don't we just bring back the concentration camps and do away with all the "undesirables" that exist in Coco World?

Sounds like the House of Lords

I hate the thought of anyone playing the benefit system but does anyone agree that maybe our politicians and leaders should set a better example? Just because you are quite wealthy does that make dishonesty any less dishonest? How can the lawmakers make laws when they break the law. The reference by Coco to a gentleman from the 40s is quite frightening, I hope he doesn't mean who I think he does.There doesn't seem to be any work ethic in the young now, when I was young you always talked about what you wanted to be when you grew up, now children don't have parents in employment to follow on from. When the mines closed they were not replaced with anything, so there is no industry to speak of. We need an MP to fight for some type of manufacturing or production company within the valley to inject some hope back into the up coming school leavers.

What worries me about the clampdown that is surely coming on benefits fraud is that officials will themselves be under pressure to get as many of them as possible off the benefits scheme and into employment. Though as we know, there's not much chance of that here in Cynon Valley. Still, some of these officials are like petty dictators and wallow in the power that's given to them to allow or deny cases of need.

Take a look at the front page of this week's Cynon Valley Leader where the very type of case that I'm talking about right now has come to light. What seems to be a genuine case of need is being denied by petty officaldom, when I too know of leadswingers and malingerers who are thriving on the system because they know all the angles and how to manipulate them. Like that lady and her daughter in CV Leader a lot of people are going to suffer needlessly because of this inconsistency. Thus the genuine people that we all want to help will be denied it.

Of course, the leadswingers who abuse the system are very much to blame for this, but then they don't give a damn anyway about those who are going to suffer.

As for cocoman123 saying that we should accept the fact that the superrich will always get away with paying their just dues; that's a defeatist attitude and is beneath contempt. So we have to accept that the weak and vulnerable have to be persecuted because the government is too gutless to chase these criminals in the upper echelons? It's always gone on therefore it has to be accepted?

All it takes is for a governemnt to have the courage to demand that these people pay for what they get, and to chase them for it. I dread the thought of what might happen if the gap between rich and poor grows ever wider in Britain. When I look at history and see how societies collapse in upon themselves as that gap gets wider then it bodes ill for us too, because it's a symptom that is evident in all such societies. We will not be immune either.

Rising crime, drug and alcohol addiction, child and women abuses all seem to rise as poverty tightens its grip. The rich though hide behind walls and barbed wire fences, protected by hired goons armed to the teeth. Take a look at certain South American countries and South Africa if you want a vision of what may lie in store for us if we allow this trend to continue.

As for the workhouse and the Victorian values so beloved by Thatcher and her crew. Are we progressing or are we becoming retarded? I'm not suggesting that we pussyfoot around with the malingerers either, but there is a much better way to tackle them that will benefit the whole of society, and not leave most of the wealth in the hands of an elite few at the expense of the rest of us, because quite frankly, no matter how rich I was I would never want to live in such a violent and socially divided society as that.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1297048/Limbless-soldier-loses-b...

Check this out, cocoman123. Like you said, they'll be saving us taxpayers a fair amount if they keep this up, just like that unfortunate lady and her daughter in the Cynon Valley Leader this week. Hit enough people like this and we'll soon be on the way to cutting the national debt, eh?

That's the spirit. Stop their benefits and throw 'em all into the workhouse. Those Victorians, eh; they really knew how to deal with the malingerers.

Yeah and some nutters in the labour party will accuse love me dave of splitting up families by sending people to the streets paved with gold.

You are right, always plenty of jobs in London, even easy jobs but long hours and price of accomodation is the big factor.

You cant get some of the retards to travel to Cardiff let alone across the severn bridge and beyond. Stop the benefits and make them look for work.

Regarding stopping benefits Vs crime increasing - well, we need to get much much tougher on crime then. Easier said than done I admit. I can also see that benefits are still required for those who genuinely require them such as genuine ill health and people who have been made unemployed through no fault of their own, and are activley seeking employment. The key word there though is "Genuine". We all know about the "I can't be bothered" brigade. It is those that need a kick up the backside. I have been working in Cardiff for twenty years now. It costs me money for fuel to get there, money to pay to park, and a great amount of commuting time during the week. All this in addition to the taxes I pay, and to be honest, I am fed up of paying all this to keep the "I can't be bothered" brigade in the manner to which they have become accustomed. If people turn to crime just because they cannot be bothered to work, then maybe some draconian forms of punishement are required. If we just sit back and do nothing, and just accept it, then us workers are the ones being punished for working, which is completely wrong. After all, what if we all had the "I can't be bothered" attitude? They would have to do something then.

I seem to remember when I was a boy (a long time ago) people who were out of work supposedly because of incapacity, getting very jumpy because they had to go in front of a "medical panel". Some were jumpy because they might be found fit to go to work, others in case they were unfit to continue working. Either way, these "panels" seemed to cause much concern and seemed to carry a lot of clout in the decision making. As did most things in the 50s. I wonder what ever happened to those type of panels-it now seems down to the GP to make the decision, many of whom seem to be easily swayed.

I believe from those areas, a recent documantary showed Merthyr to have the highest number of claiments. One of the GPs who had been signing people unfit to work, was interviwed and admitted that he had been less than investigative with the claims due to pressure of work and had simply continued to sign people off based upon what they told him, rather than by examination.He stated that he was starting to toughen up and sending more people to be assessed and stated that in doing so, he received abuse from many of the patients. One claimant who has not worked for 10 years and who had always been signed off by this doctor told the interviewer that the reason he couldn't work was that "he got agressive when he had to deal with people"

I wonder how many similar cases are like this.

I certainly have empathy with Y ddraenen's stance but s/he is far more eloquent than I in stating the case.

All my working life I was happy to pay income tax, in the belief I was fortunate to have a good job, and although my children had no desire to go to University, I believed my council rates and income tax would assist with the fees and subsistence for those in need of grants for Further and/or Higher Education.

In those halcyon days, expectant mothers left work at 7 months' pregnant and their vacancies were filled by those climbing the employment ladder, thus enabling those desiring work to get onto the first rung. There was onward and upward transition of the working populace, with retirement at 60 for women and 65 for men, enabling recruitment of school leavers and development of working ethics.

Then came THATCHER and the 'I'm alright brigade', and the rest is history.

I would not like to be raising children in the current climate and, since retirement, I now resent the erosion of hard-earned pensions by the Inland Revenue. I've never taken a foreign holiday; content to travel from Southern England to Wales for decades. A credit card was unheard of until required for payment of Internet connection!

Unbeknown to me, I had English ancestors in Aberdare over 100 years before I first visited. During genealogical research into the 1860s and 1870s I encountered reports of the social conditions then prevailing. For anyone wishing to return to 'Victorian values' I suggest they spend a bit of time in the local Library - whilst they still have one - and, instead of burying their heads in the sand, they bury their heads in The Times of January 1878 and, in particular, Lord Aberdare’s letters thereto.

How on earth did you come to the conclusion that we are all backing cocoman? I suggest you calm down and read all the posts on this subject very carefully or you fall into the trap you appear to despise: judging others without knowledge and/or understanding of facts.