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Tory MP: make unemployed build Britain's fibre network
http://www.x404.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=13701		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  Amnesia10 [ Wed May 18, 2011 4:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Tory MP: make unemployed build Britain's fibre network
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/broadband/3 ... re-network

Quote:
Conservative MP David Davis has called for the Government to use unemployed workers to build a nationwide fibre broadband network.

Writing in The Times, Davis admits the Government cannot afford to spend £25 billion on a nationwide fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) network, and says the sum is "more than the ponderous, monopolistic companies in this sector are willing to risk".

However, Davis claims that the biggest cost of installing a fibre network is the physical labour of building the infrastructure - a task he claims could be undertaken by the unemployed.

Building a superfast rural broadband network is largely low-skill - digging trenches, laying pipes, filling them in

"Building a superfast rural broadband network is largely low-skill - digging trenches, laying pipes, filling them in," Davis writes. "Only a small fraction of the cost is high-tech materials."

"Why not use use the 2.4 million people who are either jobless or on welfare to build this infrastructure?"

The former Shadow Deputy Prime Minister claims that the Government's current plans to encourage investment in a fibre network are insufficient.

I can agree in principle but if the government try and do this on the cheap it will backfire. If they pay proper wages then yes no prblems, except that they will only want east europeans to do the job. :lol:
Author:  JJW009 [ Wed May 18, 2011 5:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Tory MP: make unemployed build Britain's fibre network
Chain gangs...

The problem is, it's anti-competitive and probably illegal. What about those companies that would offer tender for the work? They'd be priced out because they have to pay wages at the going rate. Using cheap slave labour to do a job which rightly pays well above minimum wage just isn't right.
Author:  adidan [ Wed May 18, 2011 5:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Tory MP: make unemployed build Britain's fibre network
Quote:
"Why not use use the 2.4 million people who are either jobless or on welfare to build this infrastructure?"

Indeed. So long as you create the jobs to employ them why not.

This isn't frakkin Ancient Egypt, slavery was abolished a long time ago.
Author:  tombolt [ Wed May 18, 2011 5:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Tory MP: make unemployed build Britain's fibre network
It's not slave labour, they're just working for their unemployment benefit.
Author:  Amnesia10 [ Wed May 18, 2011 5:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Tory MP: make unemployed build Britain's fibre network
adidan wrote:
Quote:
"Why not use use the 2.4 million people who are either jobless or on welfare to build this infrastructure?"

Indeed. So long as you create the jobs to employ them why not.

This isn't frakkin Ancient Egypt, slavery was abolished a long time ago.

What this gpvernment will do is call it work fare and you get your benefits in exchange for a 40 hour week.
Author:  adidan [ Wed May 18, 2011 5:47 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Tory MP: make unemployed build Britain's fibre network
tombolt wrote:
It's not slave labour, they're just working for their unemployment benefit.

If they're capable enough of doing the job create the job for them to do. Working for your unemployment benefit is nonsensical, you work to be paid, if you're being paid you should get the rate at which that job is worth.

Sure, if people are fit and able to work but refuse to do so (this line is now blurred by the Tories who have made it so that even cancer sufferers are "capable" of work by their new testing, amongst many others) then make them do community service for it. If a job is being do it has to be paid at a legal rate, otherwise it's a very slippery slope. The small % with the most money end up having a slave labour force.

If the Government concentrated on creating growth then jobs would be created. Don't try and mask slave labour as something else.
Author:  gavomatic57 [ Wed May 18, 2011 7:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Tory MP: make unemployed build Britain's fibre network
I wonder where the first Gulag camp will be.
Author:  Linux_User [ Wed May 18, 2011 7:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Tory MP: make unemployed build Britain's fibre network
gavomatic57 wrote:
I wonder where the first Gulag camp will be.

+1
Author:  l3v1ck [ Wed May 18, 2011 7:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Tory MP: make unemployed build Britain's fibre network
This confirms what I was saying the other day in another thread:

All they had to do was cut costs, but they keep coming out with stupid ideas.
Author:  ShockWaffle [ Wed May 18, 2011 7:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Tory MP: make unemployed build Britain's fibre network
This is such a typically unimaginative scheme. We should be giving half the unemployed youth proper jobs to lay fibre cable, and the other half can have less official jobs ripping up the streets and stealing the old copper.
Author:  adidan [ Wed May 18, 2011 8:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Tory MP: make unemployed build Britain's fibre network
So people who pay their taxes to cover themselves for when they become unemployed because the Government is ignoring creating growth, do they have to become State slaves as well in the new Tory plan I wonder?

Thick as pigsh!t. Really, they've come up with one crap idea after another and not dealt with sorting out growth.
Author:  Amnesia10 [ Wed May 18, 2011 8:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Tory MP: make unemployed build Britain's fibre network
adidan wrote:
So people who pay their taxes to cover themselves for when they become unemployed because the Government is ignoring creating growth, do they have to become State slaves as well in the new Tory plan I wonder?

Thick as pigsh!t. Really, they've come up with one crap idea after another and not dealt with sorting out growth.

It makes you wonder what they have been doing with their time for the 13 years they were in opposition. :roll:
Author:  tombolt [ Wed May 18, 2011 9:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Tory MP: make unemployed build Britain's fibre network
Actually, you're right, they need to create growth. They could plant some of those magic growth beans.
Author:  Amnesia10 [ Wed May 18, 2011 10:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Tory MP: make unemployed build Britain's fibre network
tombolt wrote:
Actually, you're right, they need to create growth. They could plant some of those magic growth beans.

Well they are not using any magic beans.
Author:  adidan [ Thu May 19, 2011 7:08 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Tory MP: make unemployed build Britain's fibre network
tombolt wrote:
Actually, you're right, they need to create growth. They could plant some of those magic growth beans.

We can buy them off Germany. They've just made up all the output lost during recession, topping it off with it's 1.5% growth in the last quarter. France grew by 1% for that matter.

Our growth is only better than Greece and Portugal, no matter what the ConDems want you to think their economies and situations are completely different. It fecks me off every time they try to compare the UK to them, it's scaremongering based on incomparables. It also distracts from the fact that we're doing appallingly.
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