I see the Tories (landowners, trust beneficiaries and city boys) want to further reduce the benefits of the under 25 unemployed - in a job environment where kids are being forced into part-time jobs on low wages and 'zero hour' contracts, if they can actually find work.

I wonder if our resident benefits benificary, Richard Benyon, is in support of this? Perhaps as Defra Minister he could look at cutting the biggest benefit bandwagon of the lot, the Farmers Common Agricultural Policy benefits, which have paid Benyons family over £1.5m over recent years. (We don't know what the current figures are - Defra made them secret shortly after Benyon became Defra Minister).

Or perhaps he could accomodate some of the unfortunate young unemployed in some of the tens of bedrooms in his Englefield House.

The current Tories really are living up to the sterotype image of rich toffs who kick the poorest when they are down.

It's time we started cutting the benefits of the REAL parasites in our society. Starting at the top.

'Needs must when the Devil drives' and all that....

Trouble is, the Devil is probably driving a brand new John Deere tractor bought with EU handouts and owns several thousand hectares of land which is used exclusively for 'weekend shoots' for City types....

P'raps the local NEETs (young layabouts wot carnt be boverd wiv edkation, emploimunt or traynin) could be taken on a Beaters for the pheasant shooting season on the Englefield estate which just started yesterday?

Might be a bit of 'collateral damage' but plenty more where they came from..........

I do also think some people like to play with the imagery of those stereotypes for their own benefit when it suits

I do also think some people like to play with the imagery of those stereotypes for their own benefit when it suits...

Trouble is, the Devil is probably driving a brand new John Deere tractor bought with EU handouts and owns several thousand hectares of land which is used exclusively for 'weekend shoots' for City types....

Indeed

I didn't say it like it was a BAD thing....

Anyway.... GET OFF MOY LAND!!

Anyway.... Workfare, will it work? well something has to change.....

Everyone who receives money from the State is in some fashion, a Public Sector employee. That includes, military, medical, police, and Civil service.
It also includes large numbers of Lampreys - suckerfish that come along with the rest for a free ride.

This proposal isn't saying that all the lampreys have to be pulled off the shark - they'll still get their ride and lunch, they just might have to wiggle their tails a bit to look busy. The totally inert ones should however be prised off the body they feed off.......

Although I do worry for Jeremy Kyles daily viewing numbers; has nobody considered that poor chap?!

I have never voted Tory in my life. However I totally agree with spartacus. Most youngsters are responsible & want to earn an honest living, it is the ones that just want to live off the rest of us that we should be weeding out.

On a serious note why only under 25s?
Why not everyone?

Why the push on under 25s, most young people who are not in work desperately want to and are looking.
There are a high proporition of under 25s still living at home with parents who can afford to take zero-hour jobs or part time work.

However you can't just snap your fingers and employ people. There needs to be jobs to get jobs. There ARE jobs out there. But there are not enough to go around.
Youth unemployment has dropped significantly in the last few years - Already without the governments push.

While companies create positions and young people who get jobs through good interview abilities, a will to learn and the relevant qualifications/experience, the government take credit when really they have done nothing.

They should scrap their 2 year benefit thing, reduce it to 1 year and apply that globally to everyone.

Fed up of the toss-pot Cameron picking on Youths.

When he's old in a care home I hope he wees himself.

Quite right.

Trouble this is one of those issues bedevilled by emotion so logic goes out of the window. Without taking anyone's role in the workforce, we all know there are lots of things that would be very useful to our community - if only we had the money to pay. For the most part money equals resource. We just need a little imagination. The works needed would necessarily include planning and administration, so it's not just physical manual labour. For instance, we could have the Control Tower at Greenham turned into a fantastic facility, for very little extra cost. That would also bring some pride back - not 'I'm unemployed' more 'I'm on the Greenham Project at the moment'. Yes, this SHOULD involve everyone, and the sad thing is, it so easily could. We'd then turn the lemon of unemployment into lemonade!

The single farm payment is an EU benefit which the Tories wouldn't change. The rest of Europe were pushing for change recently. It was the UK and Germany that resisted.

Aside from that, plenty of Tory MPs get it directly or indirectly (I don't know of any Labour MPs that do, but sure there must be a few).

IDS is slashing benefits for the poor whilst his family are in receipt of a £3K a week benefit that costs every UK taxpayer £300 a year. He's a hypocrite of man who wants kicking not reelection at the next GE. With people like that in power, it's no surprise that Cameron lied to us all about giving us a referendum on EU membership. Benyons family were geting £3K a week too - probably still are, but now the figures are kept secret.

The EU has just become a conduit for the parasites at the top to fleece us all. Then they set the low-paid against the unemployed, to deflect attention from who are really the greedy exploiters.

The Tories really are a revolting political party now. They've become a feudal parody of what they used to be.

And no, I'm not a Labour supporter. Labour created a lot of the mess over the past few years too.

Some more info here: http://farmsubsidy.openspending.org and http://eutransparency.org/

Thanks for that

So the EU redacts information on 94% of the UK beneficiaries of CAP, representing 74% of the CAP funds distributed in the UK. (2009/10 figures)

Some wealthy British landowners are getting some HUGE state benefits. I bet you will find many of them (or close relatives, or beneficiaries of the trusts) in the taxpayer-subsidised bars and restaurants of the Houses of Parliament. But then, we aren't allowed to know, anymore, are we?

Very nice if your ancestor was chummy with William the Conqueror, or stole the land from the peasants with the Enclosures Acts, and passed the land down to you. Such landowners no doubt regard themselves as 'deserving'.

So instead, lets kick the under-25 unemployed while they are in the gutter. Even though the benefits they get are a fraction of that of the CAP.

Hear, hear. I understand our Mr Benyon MP's department were only too happy to exaggerate the EU ruling. How about looking in to beneficiaries of farm subsidies then?

Benyon, IDS, et al would really happy to be plantation owners. And the slaves (workfare agricultural workers, or under-25s denied state benefits) would still have to pay taxes like VAT and NI to pay for the plantation owners CAP benefits.

The way these overpriviliged parasites are treating the poor - I can't really find words to express my revulsion now.

I hear that Benyons home (I think inherited without inheritance tax, either due to it being in a trust, or agricultural land excaping death duties) has 22 bedrooms.

So a man living on land with a 22-bedroomed home gets state benefits for occupying it. Nice work if you can get it. Except that it doesn't even involve doing a stroke of work to get the benefit.

Sickening.

What State Benefits are they, then?

All the talk on reforming Europe used to centre on reform of the agricultural policy! That's gone remarkably silent and all we want to do now is rid ourselves of the Human Rights Charter and such things as the working hours directives. I have been wondering why. Up the ruling classes!!!

CAP is still very much on the Agenda.
As, it seems, is expanding the Union by shipping in more 'less well off' countries. Albania is the next target.....

Not mentioned by Mr Cameron or his followers though is it? No, best keep quiet about that one.

Funnily enough, because most Conservative party members (and infact any policitcal party member) is by and large either a right wing, or left wing, biggot/tosser (choose as appropriate)

How true, no one tells the truth.

Exactly.
Being a politician for any major party involves having an agenda.
Having an agenda means being selective in what you are truthful about and what you hide / lie about.
Hypocrisy is a more desirable skill in politicians than integrity.

Until that changes I will never vote and I will never believe anything to come out the mouth of a politician.

How many people who say they will not, or do not bother to, vote would complain if democracy was taken away and instead were provided with a non-elected dictator?

The single farm payment will be abolished on 31 Dec. It will be replaced by a 'Basic Payment Scheme' - as far as I can see the main difference is that larger farms get less cash, smaller ones more.

Richard Benyon must have enjoyed negotiating that one!

CAP is still very much on the Agenda.
As, it seems, is expanding the Union by shipping in more 'less well off' countries. Albania is the next target.....

Shame our rulers don't mention it then isn't it? Might be a vote winner for them, like 'Victorian values' or 'back to basics'.

A few years ago the Conservative Party were very much on 'Back to Basics' and were widely ridiculed, especially when some of their number were found to be acting base.....

Little wonder no mention of CAP then! Lesson learned.

I suppose Gordon Brown did go.....eventually!

Not at all. Very different. You said B2B was a vote winner, but when it was proffered as policy it was ridiculed. The CAP is not something GB has control over......

Different, don't think so. The true blues are campaigning to 'bring bring powers back home'. Making great pay of that policy; all based on getting rid of human rights, working time directive, all the keep the bankers happy stuff, yet never a mention of the CAP!

Ironic, really, that's where the discontent started - French farmers gorging themselves on our cash. Now our big boys have worked out how to join in and it's 'move down the trough please'.

You completely miss my point.

It appears that not all Tory MPs are money-grubbing so-and-so's. I have just read that Liam Fox claimed 3p expenses for a 100 metre car trip.

If true inentirelty, then he is a prat on two counts.

CAP. Benyons mansion is part of the Englefield Estate, a large agricultural organisation. And the state I refer to us the EU superstate.

He's also using the latest excuse, manufactured I think, by our very own PCC. That is 'my staff do my expenses for me'. Incredible! They really don't get it do they

Quite. We taxpayers even pay for his staff to do the milking of taxpayers funds for him.