Muammar Al Khadafi

What a strange week in the world of jobs and unemployment.

On the one hand ConDem are proposing that jobseekers should prove that they've spent so many hours a day looking for work, on the other hand ConDem are also proposing that companies should reveal the numbers of foreign workers whom they employ*.

Anyone see an obvious link there?

For the easiest first, yes, some companies - far too many companies - use cheaper, foreign labour, and cloak it under the excuse of no skilled Britons, Britons are workshy, all the usual bag of make believe. Politicians allowed it to hapen though, and continue to do nothing.

But, whereas the actual numbers may make for an interesting story if true figures are revealed, what will ConDem do with it?

Are they going to order a quota of Brits must be employed with a company? Surely they could, there's precedent with equalities legislation demanding public bodies employ a given number of minority staff, and allowing them to discriminate (positively of course!) in order to reach these targets.

Will they extend that to, for example, all those food shops on the high street where you'll never, ever see a white face other than as a drunken customer?

Of course not, they'll do nothing with the figures, indeed they'll probably choose to hush them up just to hide the reality of the mass scramble for jobs which has seen the British worker disenfranchised.

It will be a pointless paper exercise, and change nothing, it will cost our money, and it will not get one more Brit into a job.

Even if they did do something like that, are they going to boot everyone out of Britain - including those EU workers who enjoy free movement of labour - or just boot them on to the dole queues?

Take your guess, what's your answer, prizes to be won. Only, not if you're British. On the one hand you'll have no jobs, on the other you'll pay for foreigners with no jobs. In fact, either way, you'll probably end up winning both those booby prizes.

Waste of time, move along, nothing to see here, more hollow and pointless shenanigans from the ConDem conspiracy.

Which, brings us to jobseekers having to put in X amount of hours a day in order to get benefits.

Is someone going to check, we've staff and money in the benefits system to do that?

Do companies keep records? I've worked a number of places where speculative CV's went in the bin, no reply sent back. For speculative phonecalls you get a polite sorry, nothing at the moment, send your CV (and read above for what happens when you do).

If companies do keep records, are they going to want to put up with random DSS spotchecks adding to their running costs?

Will we stop the benefits of anyone who cannot speak English, therefore has no chance of meeting the hours requirement since they are unable to communicate with employers on spec?

It's unworkable, and it's beside the point.

God knows how many foreign workers we have now, between legal and illegal not even the government knows, but we do have over 2 million unemployed.

British jobs for British workers, it's as simple as that.

Want to reduce unemployment? Make hiring of foreign workers uncompetitive (eg a tax on companies for using foreign labour). Impose stiff penalties for those using illegal foreign labour - such as jail sentences, not trifling civil fines from UKBA.

Train British people to do British jobs, and create a system whereby British people get priority to do British jobs.

Of course, we can't, Europe won't let us, equalities law won't let us, the human flood will continue and the British worker will become increasingly marginalised and unemployed.

And, all the while, we'll be told it's because the British worker is too workshy or too stupid.

Some may well be, but anyone believing that applies to 2 million people (less whatever of that is foreign unemployment claimants) needs their heads read.

Britain suffers from a surplus of workers and a deficit of jobs - and yet still continues to import workers!

Tackle that, or else any benefit reforms to force people to spend X hours seeking jobs are pointless, the jobs are not there, they've already been taken.

Most of Britain wants to work, those who won't should be penalised - but measures like this are idiocy when the simple fact is that many Britons are denied the chance to work by a moronic system which makes foreign labour more attractive and in plentiful supply, not to mention an education system which is broken.

It is not the unemployeds fault that the labour market is flooded with foreign workers, and that the economy is collapsing.

Why penalise them when it is the politicians, ConDem and Labour alike, who should be having their benefits stopped for not putting in the hours on what should be their primary concern, namely that of caring for Britain and the British people?

*Seems even a day is a long time in politics, looks like ConDem have already dropped the idea between it airing on Monday morning, and this article being posted Tuesday evening.

A survey conducted on behalf of the Committee on Standards in Public Life has warned that public confidence in MPs has plummeted in recent years.

No shock there then. A catalogue of broken pledges, expenses cheats out early after slap on the wrist sentences, illegal wars on the go, a country in tatters, a political culture where soundbites take precedence over substance, we could go on forever here.

Just 26% of people now believe that MPs are dedicated to doing a good job for the electorate, down on 46% from the last survey in 2008.

Again, 26% of people think that MPs are competent at their jobs, a fall of 10% from the last survey.

Whether they tell the truth - well, you know the old saying you can fool some of the people.....it's down from 26% to 20%. If their lips are moving then beware might be sound advice for the remaining 20%.

Only 15% of people believe that MPs are in touch with the public, down from 29%.

Much of the fall in public confidence is attributed to ongoing fallout from the expenses scandal, but it is far more than that as mentioned earlier.

It's, well, everything to be honest.

There is something fundamentally rotten with the system, and with politicians, and the result is lost public confidence and huge voter apathy.

Between the three main parties there seems little to choose, they're career politicians with minor cosmetic differences, no real substance to any of them.

Like or loathe Lib/Lab/Con a few decades in the past, at least they had some distinct identity from one another. Now, they all seem to have converged, and they've seemingly met on all the points that will continue to do Britain harm.

It's like we're going through the motions, just trading faces in high places with little in the way of tangible benefits for the British people.

The three party political system has become farce where the only question at an election is who are going to be the faces that continue Britain on the road to ruin, and who is going to enjoy a cushy five years with their hands deep in the expenses swag bag.

Decades of Labour and Tory playing trading places, with the Liberal Democrats - at least until now when they've got the one and only bite of the government cherry they'll ever get - as the always third place party, has failed, and total loss of public confidence in those whom we must trust to run our nation is the result.

Uniquely, we've seen in a few short years all three of those parties in action holding the reins of power - the disastrous Blair/Brown years for Labour, and now the comatose coalition of ConDem - and we don't like what we see.

It's no wonder Britain has no confidence in politicians, and we're unlikely to regain any until we stop going through the motions and keeping on electing the usual suspects.

We know they've let us down time after time, we know nothing will change with them in power, how can we have any confidence in that?

Bankers. Spit. Not popular people, and justifiably so. There's much talk of Vickers legislation to get the taxpayer off the hook on future bailouts, a bit late, and much can - and likely will - get landed on the taxpayers back before it comes into force (if it ever does), but there's talk. Public opinion has to be soothed.

But, what about a Vickers for politicians, and why wait until 2019? The damage has already been done, the public are already on the hook and will be again.

How about something that will disbar crooked politicians and those who betray our nation from within the corridors of power from retiring to a cushy life thereafter?

Think about it.

Commit expenses fraud, sell political questions and push legislation for money, ruin our nation with idiocy and warmongering = no more cushy directorships or envoy jobs, something that will really make the political elite who have ruined us and fleeced us think twice in future.

How about disbarring them from having more than £15,000 income in a year?

Bar them from foreign travel so they can't just flee abroad to some luxurious paradise and escape the Britain they ruined.

What about making that last for life if they betray the offices which they hold and the nation which they represent?

Since many have huge property or commercial interests, not to mention property abroad, how about making it clear that if you rip off the public and wreck the country then you will pay the price - cap too the assets and property which they can hold?

Make sure that they cannot just transfer it off into other names and front companies, make that a criminal offence.

The freezing of assets has much precedence now, it wouldn't be the first time we've done it to people because of political motivations.

Politicians at the top aren't really responsible - they claim that they are responsible to the electorate, they could be voted out. But, that means nothing when there's a cushy job lined up the moment it happens, a seat in the lords, a directorship on some company or other.

They're really no different than the bankers, no matter how badly they do, no matter how much we get screwed by them, they walk away with bonus after bonus and don't have to face up to any consequences whatsoever.

Bankers may have created the banking crisis, but where were palms greased, who relaxed rule after rule to make it possible?

Isn't it about time we had a Vickers for politicians too, about time that they were accountable, that their futures were tied in with ours.

That sounds fair since they are ones making the decisions which will effect our futures, and our childrens futures, for years to come.

No more slaps on the wrist and 9 weeks in prison for defrauding the expenses system, no more - ironically named - Peace Envoy positions for warmongering and ruining a nation with mass immigration, no more swindling mortgages and using political influence for self enrichment, rather consequences to political actions.

Grab up a jury of the British people, and allow them to decide where and to whom should the political Vickers apply.

Maybe that would make politicians give a damn about Britain and the people whom they are supposed to represent, because they sure don't now.