Ex Lion Tamer

If you think you can do better you should stand

A national economy doesn't work in the same way as a household budget, so your comparison is nonsense

Self made billionaires tend to think that because they did it, anyone can. It's not true

His teams always do well for a couple of seasons and then go down the pan

Your grandparents should have worked harder [emoji3]

I can see how bits of responsibility like that are good for morale, but do they really lead to substantial increases in wages?

Is that to me? I just said it helped persuade me. The article is actually critical of the Guardian's reporting on immigration, something I don't think the Mail would allow about itself

But you were lucky you had parents who instilled a work ethic in you. Some of the current problems in the UK black community stem from the fact that the Windrush immigrants were predominantly young men who left home young, didn't have adequate guidance about how to live their lives and therefore didn't pass it on to their kids

Why abolish slavery, they like it, out there singing songs in the fields!

Seriously dude, the people I'm talking about are neither intelligent enough or socially skilled enough for a management role. You just don't want to believe otherwise because it doesn't fit your worldview. We've talked about the minimum wage before and I showed you stats that demonstrate how it has increased wages at the bottom, but you ignored them. The way forward is to increase it further, not get rid of it and hope that wages will miraculously rise. I will throw you a bone though and say that I've changed my view on immigration, having read some things I do think freedom of movement is suppressing wages: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/24/open-borders-fair-wages-left-mass-immigration-britain-economy Tax credits are tricky because they did have an important effect on child poverty under labour, but in the long run they probably do disincentivise employers to pay decent wages

Plus it's much easier to work hard and be motivated if you're being paid well, have a nice warm home to go to, eat well, do the odd leisure activity each week and refresh with a holiday or two each year

No for choosing to be unemployed, if indeed it is a choice. Don't forget we had unemployment of around 3m at the time of the riots, should all these people have worked harder and then jobs would magically appear? Face it, the working poor of Britain got royally screwed by the bankers and the anti regulation elites, and had every right to say we're going to make you notice us. Not to mention a black and Asian community that was six times more likely to be stop and searched by police than if they were white. Seeing Mark Duggan killed by police was rightly or wrongly a flashpoint which caused an eruption of anger about the way the police acts in general

And when a life of low paid checkout drudgery is their alternative, who can blame them?

Well when I worked in sainsburys there were plenty of older people who had been working on checkouts for years and years, and it's doubtful whether they were earning anything near the living wage. In all honesty they weren't particularly intelligent so that's the most they could really hope for. So what did working hard do them? Should they have scanned food quicker to progress in life? All they can do is carry on in their boring jobs while claiming in work benefits and enjoy a minimal life as best they can

Don't really know what you're saying now. The point is that democracy fails those most in need, so sometimes they have to use other means to get heard. And they are the ones that most need to be heard, because their problems are most serious, and comfortable people forget what it's like outside their cosy environs

I'm confused, I actually agree with this

The majority rules in democracy. As long as 75% of people are doing OK, the rest can get to ****

It can be quite an effective way of getting people to sit up and take notice though, even if it is unfair on the people who lose property or are injured. I was in London at the time and it was pretty scary, plus a good friend of mine got badly beaten up. Yet I still can see it as a cry for help from people with no voice in society

Not directly, but even a mild anxiety or depressive personality can make "knuckling down" at school or work difficult and set someone on the road to poverty

But castigating people doesn't solve anything. If we help them out of poverty then the next time the economy tanks there won't be riots

Again you assume people are rational. Kids are dumb and make bad decisions

But it's so hard to do that when you don't have good role models or have mental health problems

All of this assumes that people act rationally. We're talking about people who are sick and tired of living in poverty, don't have any prospects, and feel powerless to change things via formal means. So eventually they lash out in an uncontrolled, directionless way

They decided it was too difficult to explain on the doorstep. It appears to be back now though because the tories' nasty and negative campaign is causing them to fall behind in the polls

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/09/david-cameron-pledges-freeze-regulated-rail-fares-five-years I'm confused about why freezing energy prices is dangerous socialism but freezing rail fares is the big society in action