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Bring back the workhouse

Yes, I know you all will have visions of a gloomy mansion filled with impoverished orphans and sinister looking staff.

But, I don't see why the fundamental basics of the workhouse cannot be applied to a modern-day version:

People who cannot afford to sustain themselves are provided with work (perhaps production work) and in return they are clothed, fed, and sheltered in one large building. The accommodation could be as nice as a council house - like university halls with an en-suite and a shared kitchen, but without the need to provide individual council houses to people which is costly and takes up more land in developing new ones. They would be fed well, and perhaps provided with some pocket money for leisure activities and items.

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Reply 1
Avatar for star_5
star_5
2
Quite a good idea, but you are throwing together benefit frauds or scroungers with the genuinely ill etc. Of course it could have the side affect of making scroungers look harder for work, but then again because you have en suites etc you are overcoming the principle of less eligibility in the workhouses in the 19th to deter scroungers... Also, quite amusing to see that the modern day prison is much more 'pleasant' than those of the 19th C, and it would probably be the same with the modern day workhouse, and we know that most people's attitudes towards prisons is that they are too comfy :p:
Margaret Thatcher
Yes, I know you all will have visions of a gloomy mansion filled with impoverished orphans and sinister looking staff.

But, I don't see why the fundamental basics of the workhouse cannot be applied to a modern-day version:

People who cannot afford to sustain themselves are provided with work (perhaps production work) and in return they are clothed, fed, and sheltered in one large building. The accommodation could be as nice as a council house - like university halls with an en-suite and a shared kitchen, but without the need to provide individual council houses to people which is costly and takes up more land in developing new ones. They would be fed well, and perhaps provided with some pocket money for leisure activities and items.


How very considerate of you. :lolwut:
Reply 3
Avatar for gladders
gladders
16
My chief reservation to this would be that it could be twisted. Initially it would be for the purpose you state, of making the unemployed contribute to the economy, but I can see it all too easily become the ends rather than the means - people will be funnelled toward these workhouses as a source of cheap labour.
Although that's rather extreme, I agree that there needs to be something to persuade people to go to work rather than live off benefits.
Reply 5
Avatar for PoliceStory
PoliceStory
It's called Workfare. : |
Reply 6
Avatar for Ham22
Ham22
15
packed in and kept like a bunch of animals. no.
Reply 7
Avatar for G1lly
G1lly
Reply 8
Avatar for Martyn*
Martyn*
13
Great Lord Xenu
Although that's rather extreme, I agree that there needs to be something to persuade people to go to work rather than live off benefits.
Have you ever tried to live off £51 per week?

No?

Then shut the **** up!
Reply 9
Avatar for MJlover
MJlover
21
Margaret Thatcher
Yes, I know you all will have visions of a gloomy mansion filled with impoverished orphans and sinister looking staff.

But, I don't see why the fundamental basics of the workhouse cannot be applied to a modern-day version:

People who cannot afford to sustain themselves are provided with work (perhaps production work) and in return they are clothed, fed, and sheltered in one large building. The accommodation could be as nice as a council house - like university halls with an en-suite and a shared kitchen, but without the need to provide individual council houses to people which is costly and takes up more land in developing new ones. They would be fed well, and perhaps provided with some pocket money for leisure activities and items.

what about their famiy, eh? And I don't think employers would do it, it sounds too costly.

Sounds terrible, also.
It sounds like a good idea. We could also have a Takeshi's Castle type course people have to go through if they want to leave?
Reply 11
Avatar for werd123
werd123
11
Sounds like a workable idea but I wonder whether it would cost more than benefits themselves.
I agree with the principle (if not your method of "storing" people): govt sponsored work rather than jsa (NOT instead of disability), and subsidised (prefab-esque) housing for people and their families. And a straight wage rather than your unbelievably patronising pocket money system. Keeps people funded and housed and gets necessary services done.

However it wouldn't work.

1. What happens when people refuse to work still? Send them to prison? That won't end well.
It will also increase the number of disability claims as people try to get off it, which screws over my partner who has enough trouble being believed as it is (selfish I know, but this pisses me off like nothing else).

2. Once people are in that system they're stuck there because the second they get another job they're made homeless, and as such unable to keep the job so they just go back.

3. Hitler had a very similar programme. Combined with the public image of the workhouse (a word which I imagine would be used by it's opponents rather than those bringing it in) and public opinion turns against it very quickly.

Just my thoughts, take as you will.
I agree. In fact, id open up a workhouse. That way I too can live out my dream of being Stalin and owning my own Gulag.

COMRADES !
Reply 14
Avatar for sam.day
sam.day
12
Reckon it would probably lose money for the govt. if you're planning on giving these people a comfortable existance. And if you don't, it sounds like an open prison where the alternative is homelessness.

Love the Stalin references.
Just... what? How can anybody believe that just because people are poor, they deserve to be kept together and given petty work, like farm animals? Every person on this thread would hate the lifestyle you're suggesting, and the only you're in favour of it is because you have the misguided view that poorer people are some lesser class of being.
coolmushroom
It sounds like a good idea. We could also have a Takeshi's Castle type course people have to go through if they want to leave?



Or maybe a Crystal Maze type game
aphilpotts
Just... what? How can anybody believe that just because people are poor, they deserve to be kept together and given petty work, like farm animals? Every person on this thread would hate the lifestyle you're suggesting, and the only you're in favour of it is because you have the misguided view that poorer people are some lesser class of being.

You're right, I would hate it. But I have responsibilities, and one of those is keeping a roof over mine and my partners head. If this was the only way to do that (because jsa had been removed) I would do it.

As the OP put it it wouldn't work because that's basically prison. But the idea of variable public employment rather than jobseekers is one that isn't impossible (in my admittedly not very knowledgeable mind at least, I could easily be wrong).
Margaret Thatcher
Yes, I know you all will have visions of a gloomy mansion filled with impoverished orphans and sinister looking staff.

But, I don't see why the fundamental basics of the workhouse cannot be applied to a modern-day version:

People who cannot afford to sustain themselves are provided with work (perhaps production work) and in return they are clothed, fed, and sheltered in one large building. The accommodation could be as nice as a council house - like university halls with an en-suite and a shared kitchen, but without the need to provide individual council houses to people which is costly and takes up more land in developing new ones. They would be fed well, and perhaps provided with some pocket money for leisure activities and items.



we already have one, it's called Buckingham Palace

and the occupants get the biggest benefits going
Ugh. When a tory wants to get the state involved in the economy, why do they have to suggest legalised slavery?

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