British workers 'among worst idlers', suggest Tory MPs

[Things change I've changed]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19300051

British workers are "among the worst idlers in the world", a group of Conservative MPs have claimed.

The UK "rewards laziness", does not encourage risk-taking and must strive to emulate the work ethic and low-tax culture in parts of Asia, the five MPs argue in a book due out next month.

The authors include Elizabeth Truss and Dominic Raab, both tipped to be promoted in a future reshuffle.

"Too many people in Britain prefer a lie-in to hard work," they argue....

Anyone think there is any truth to this claim?, personally I find it insulting considering that we work longer hours than most of Europe, I think we generally have a pretty good work ethic tbh, not only are the Tories happy blaming our economics woes on the unemployed these days but now also hard workers are being targeted, and a more Asian work ethic?, what does that mean exactly?

 

[OhEsEcks]

It's rich coming from MPs who've done **** all most of their lives and wouldn't know an honest days work if it snuck up and violated them from behind.

 

[Duff-Man]

A somewhat ironic comment coming from MPs, who have six weeks off in the summer and three weeks off at Christmas.

Comments about the laziness of working class people coming from Tories always strike me as being a bit ... uninformed. To say the least.


In reality though, I doubt any of these guys actually believe what they're saying - they're just generating headlines to appeal to the "grassroots" Tories, who are very likely to actually hold these views. A bit like Cameron's "lets cut all council tax to under-25s and force parents to support them instead" comment. Appealing to the Tory base will help to set up their fledgling careers.

... I'm not sure whether that makes the comments better or worse really. Is dishonesty preferable to stupidity?

 

[Theophany]

So you're lazy if you don't work and lazy if you do.

Meanwhile, carry on paying your taxes.

Saprophyte turd fondlers.

 

[Collider]

I think in some cases we work much harder than in other countries and as many hours.

But, conversely, we do have a culture where we have allowed not working to become an industry in itself and have lost the real meaning of benefits and state support (no one who is out of work who has contributed or has genuine need should go without is at the centre of the welfare state but not everyone on welfare is in this classification). We have accepted lower educational standards and a lot of people who don't want to work.

It's a balance to get out of it as it keeps being made so extreme..the solution isn't to get rid of the welfare state and force everyone to work to 90, neither is it to allow everyone to retire at 34 and get up at 1000am but the debate usually polarises into one or the other. It's always Unions will say everyone works like a dog, politicians will say everyone isn't doing anything (well except Liberals who will say whatever they think might suit everyone most).

Some of the points they make are valid, we have lost some of the enterprise, initiative taking culture and that role has increasingly gone to other countries, but we have let them take it by trying to get into services, where we cannot compete on cost.

Deficit reduction has to go with investment.

 

[Zefan]

Totally believable. The armed forces are definitely a load of layabouts, me included \o/

 

[Destination]

Office workers in the USA in govt jobs are by far and away lazier than our lot.
Northern irish civil servants are pretty damn good as ensuring their continued existance by doing work slowly enough and knocking back to approval level sufficiently to keep meetings long and processes protracted.
Those I know working in certain civil service jobs do next to nothing each day, but are seen to be busy, and the same for their managers.

Private sector will always be different, and I would think in any properly run company, the workers will be working harder for longer.

 

[Pestilence]

A somewhat ironic comment coming from MPs, who have six weeks off in the summer and three weeks off at Christmas.

Comments about the laziness of working class people coming from Tories always strike me as being a bit ... uninformed. To say the least.

Indeed.

Just another low-blow attack on the people by politicians whose idea of hard graft is having to coach-class into London for a day full of sitting in seminars with their earphones in.

Easily ignored, really. Perhaps they ought to think why the perceived work ethic is so low... maybe that lie-in is much needed amongst incredibly high working hours and sparse holiday entitlement with ever-diminishing reward but hey, what do we know?

 

[TheLegendOfMart]

Yeah I'm so lazy I get up at 5am to make it into work for 7am, then I'm on my feet all day with two 10 min breaks and a 30 min dinner.

Idiots wouldn't know a hard days work if it smacked them in the face.

For the lazy people can you really blame them, you do long hours for minimum wage just to make ends meet, I'm not saying people should not bother with work but its no fun working long hours and still not being able to afford luxuries when your wage just about covers bills.

 

[sxndy]

In general, the UK has very good workers but sometimes poor management imo.

As for politicians, every week there is one in the the paper having been caught lying, stealing or involved in adultery...

They are an embarrassment to the country and I believe little that comes out their mouth or what they write.

 

[Xordium]

It's rich coming from MPs who've done **** all most of their lives and wouldn't know an honest days work if it snuck up and violated them from behind.

I've tried but I can't really express my opinion any better than you have done there.

 

[Things change I've changed]

Private sector will always be different.....

Why though, this is something I've been pondering recently, why are so many government run institutions run poorly and inefficiently compared with private organisation/companies?

I give an example, I can go in to my local bank can speak to a personal banker almost immediately, and if I do have to make an appointment they will usually see me on time, now even if I have only a couple of pence to my name, I'm greeted with respect and dealt with professionally with as much advice I need given, the bank itself looks clean and professional even though it deals with a large amount of public each day.

Now I walk into the local council and it's tip, the people there are often rude and belittling towards you, you have to wait ages to see someone, and I honestly don't think I've seen any of them actually doing any work, every time I've been in there they are usually just chatting amongst themselves with cups of tea in their hands and then look annoyed when they have to deal with someone, why can't these places be run like a private company with stricter disciplinary measures for slacking staff members instead of so much red tape it's ends up not even worth disciplining anyone, imo they need to sort out their own house and work ethic, right from the top down to the desk clerks before critiquing us.

 

[Ricochet J]

This is why we need a working class Prime Minister.

 

[Castiel]

Totally believable. The armed forces are definitely a load of layabouts, me included \o/

Yep..I spend more time sat on my arse waiting for **** to happen than anything else.

 

[ubersonic]

Anyone think there is any truth to this claim?

Yes, its called an inconvenient truth, British workers are, in general, lazier than foreign ones due to a lower work ethic and will spend more time standing around or dawdling.

 

[Ricochet J]

Is this why it takes yonks to fix the M1 between Luton and the M25?

 

[dowie]

It's rich coming from MPs who've done **** all most of their lives and wouldn't know an honest days work if it snuck up and violated them from behind.

???

Raab went to Dr Challoner's Grammar School in Amersham. He went on to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University, where he read law. After graduating, Raab gained a Masters from Cambridge University. Raab started his career as a business lawyer at Linklaters in London. Raab spent the summer of 1998 at Birzeit University (near Ramallah) where he worked for one of the principal Palestinian negotiators of the Oslo peace accords, assessing World Bank projects on the West Bank.

Truss grew up in a left-wing family in Paisley and Leeds, before attending Oxford. She worked in sales and as an economist, before becoming deputy director at the think-tank Reform. She was elected in 2010 for South West Norfolk.

Truss is a leading backbencher on a number of policy areas, including childcare, maths education, and the economy.[4] She founded and convenes the Free Enterprise Group of Conservative MPs. She has authored a number of papers and books, including After the Coalition (2011) and Britannia Unchained (2012).

yeah obviously they've never worked at all - Oxford is well known for admitting slackers and they've not achieved any success then...

 

[Floogie]

Why though, this is something I've been pondering recently, why are so many government run institutions run poorly and inefficiently compared with private organisation/companies?

Likewise, I often wonder why many private sector companies are run less efficiently than public sector organisations...

There are no quick conclusions to be drawn on efficiency by private/public ownership.

This is why we need a working class Prime Minister.

I couldn't agree with you more (although I would happily settle with a massive increase in working class MP's).

 

[Rroff]

Very wide of the mark imo - while there are definitely sub-sections where this applies to there are far more people who work way harder than they should have to just to scrape a basic living.

 

[peige]

It's a big wide brush but he's got a point, especially when your talking about jobs at the lower end of the employment market. Look at Hotel staff, how many of the hard working staff that work in any hotel in England are English, what about builders and site staff?

I for one have been searching for decent staff to run machines in engineering for in excess of 4 years now. Over that time I've seen maybe a dozen staff to through the position and the only one that is still there is Slovakian, the others have been lazy, unreliable and not worth the money. Employed at 7.10 an hour with time and a half overtime you'd think we would have found different. The Slovakian guy is now on over £10 an hour having been promoted due to the fact he works so well.