Quote Originally Posted by Goodfellers View Post
The other way of looking at it is the people who are fit but not interested in work will ultimatly be forced to work or lose benifits I expect. Within a few months/years these people will get used to getting up and going to work, they will feel better for it and the whole economy improves.

Benifits will go to people who really need them and society will stop labelling people who cannot work as scroungers.

This only sounds good to me.

Also have to remember, there is no cap on skilled people coming to the UK, you only need to be offered a job paying £25K and you will get a visa. I doubt many skilled jobs pay less than that.
People being forced to work does not help. Employers will resist, if not refuse, to take "conscripts". We cannot have the State determining who an employer must employ. Those are the tactics of totalitarian regimes and we are not (quite) there yet. Many "conscripted" employees will feel no loyalty or bond to their employer. They may even view themselves as captive employees and resent every waking moment they are forced to work. Employees in that situation do not make effective workers. As I said earlier the UK has a free market economy and such actions have no place in it. It is not progress to be contemplating what would effectively be forced labour.

I am also worried by your last paragraph; specifically the idea that there "is no cap on skilled people coming to the UK.". That does not tell the whole story. There are plenty of jobs in our care and health sectors, for example, where people need very specific skills to do their jobs but earn nowhere near £25K. I think it is wrong to suggest that people earning less than £25K are not skilled. Many of the palliative care staff who attended my mother in her final days were highly skilled and committed but were not high earners. Roughly half spoke English as a second language but all of them helped make my mother's passing as painless as it could be for all concerned.

It will not be as easy to satisfy the criteria as you make out and we will all suffer as a consequence.