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  Keith (please note lower case so I'm not shouting) I thought I had made a quite reasonable point.
  
  I'm a great believer in the idea of Cameron and his Great Society with communities doing more to help themselves and not relying on the state.
  
  There's no reason the unemployed should not be street sweeping, clearing out the River, swilling out the shelters on the seafront, cutting municipal grass, gardening, decorating or even checking tax discs on cars. All of these would make life a lot more pleasant.
  
  The only question I ask is why I should pay anyone anything approaching a living wage to do these jobs if i can coerce the unemployed into doing them?
  
  Ross,
  
  With relation to b) above this sounds very much like the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) where pupils staying on at school could get up to £30 a week (depending on parental income) to stay on at school. In my experience this tended to give total wasters enough money to keep them in beer and fags as they signed up for non courses whilst building up great resentment from other kids who did not qualify for the hand out and were working their socks off to get A levels.

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