Couldn't have said it better myself. The nanny state and lazy Britain that has bred under the previous government plays a massive part in the problems of today. Feel for the people faced with the job losses as they never chose this decision, but the 'why work, won't work ' lot burden everyone with it.

I think you may have ever so slightly swallowed the tabloids pill.

Indeed he has - please enlighted us Jake as to how/ what your business is and how many you employ on I am sure minimum wage - Newsagents, Sweet shop,painter decorator?? - It is certainly not in the Hundreds/thousands I am sure.

[size=50It is virtually impossible to educate pork.[/size

And unfortunately its people like you who will then have a go about a man/women who has to claim from the State when he has lost his job through no fault of his own.

I have friends who work for BA and after been made redundant twice in the early 2000 as well as when i was younger, i do know only to well the feeling of despair and depression they will be feeling right now.
there is more than one single reason for the current situation but it must be pointed out tht the last labour Government has to take a large slice of the blame, they over spent on defence contracts over a number of years and left the MOD with a 38 billion black hole in the defence budget, two examples of such overspending were. An extra £2.7bn on the RAF's Typhoon fighter jets, after it was decided to buy 16 more aircraft to meet the UK's contractual obligations under the four-nation Eurofighter programme with Germany, Italy and Spain and £767m on the Royal Navy's two planned new aircraft carriers.

With regards to someone in an earlier post who blamed the cuts, they like many people dont appear to be able to grasp the extent of the current debt situation in the UK.
When Labour left power in 2010 it left behind a budget deficit of around 1 trillion pounds, approx about 71.3% of GDP and rising at an alarming rate, in fact it was second largest budget deficit of the G7 and the fourth highest of the 26 industrial countries .
Much of this was basicaly down to Gordon brown and his Govt borrowing and spending more than what the country was taking in tax revenues etc, something they were guilty of from the day they took office and also during their previous term in the seventies, if this had carried on as gordon Brown intended, had he remained in power, we would now probably be in the same boat as The USA and Italy who have recently lost their triple AAA ratings and face higher interest rates as a result.

No one likes to have less than what they have been used to in the past but the truth is we dont have any choice, including me, i currently run my own small retail busines and the future is uncertain, i have had to slash my margins considerably to stay in competition with the rest and its getting harder.
Its a hard world out there at the moment and it aint going to get much better for a while yet imo.

Before pontificating in future, perhaps you'd better aquaint yourself with the definition of budget deficit

But you can't blame the people's party of Labour, Jake. It's all Cameron's fault, you mustn't have realised

I don't read the tabloids pal. You need to take your red spex off and see what's really happening in this country

You're right kath, it's not in the 100's and times are tough but I'd rather not discuss my personal situation in a public forum

You're talking rubbish mate. Evrything is fine and it's just those pesky tory supporting newspapers making things up

You might want to have a think about why that is and where the problem in British manufacturing largely lies.