Makes me angry...

Unemployed get everything handed to them on a plate. Free laptops/Net Access - what - I pay for that...

Enough is enough...

The Government is going to turn all the unemployed into...

... WoW gold farmers!

GRRRRR

Giving a jobless scumbag with no intention of working, a PC so they can surf for p0rn all day, catchup on Jeremy Kyle on ITV-Player...

Perhaps the goverment also wants to give them a 50in plasma, with a SkyHD subscription, so they can watch the jobs channel.

Of course they also need a new suit, an alarm clock (to get up the interview that never exists), and a monthly bus pass to get to the imaginary job...

Honestly, how out of touch are these people? They should be giving out LESS, not MORE...

Even Paris knows that if someone does not want to work, giving them more toys only makes them want to work even less...

Money from thin air...

From which New Labour sphincterous cash machine would the funding for this latest round of "soundbite politics" spew?

You can tell...

..it's close to an election.

They're so unconfident that those getting free money from the government already might not vote for them they are bribing them with tech.

Makes me sick.

It would be nice if they were Macbooks...

but I suppose you'd have to go to the JobsCentre for those.

@Makes Me Angry

100% agreement.

Nice to see my working hard doing two jobs is paying off... well paying some unemployed lazy arse who abuses the system anyway!

I ain't going to knock the unemployed too much though as my missus is unemployed her self, but us being the age of students, she's struggling to find anything as low as a toilet scrubber at the moment! 50+ CV's have gone out all over the show.

Its not on though.

Kids. Stay in school, go to college / do an apprenticeship and you'll get to my position. IT Tech that often becomes manager, and a DJ. Pays well... and well pays the unemployed too.

Customers

They are not customers, except in PC gov speak land.

In the same way that pupils are not customers and criminals are not service users.

A customer is someone who gives you money in return for services. These are folks who we (Tax payers) give money to in return for no services.

When I had the misfortune to be unemplyed for a shot while (after years of paying 6 figures a year in tax and NI) I got the square root of f* all, off the tax payer.

Makes my blood boil!!!

Nothingnew

Years ago I was involved witha scheme to give a free desktop PC to every household in a certain part of Hull.

If they had a phone line already, the IPS calls (KCom natch) were free. If not, a phone line was installed FOC and calls again were free.

It was an eye opener for sure. How the project ended I don't know, but I do know that several were sold off at the rugby league car boot sale.

Its all a big mess really

Unfortunately all government is populated by befuddled idiots. They heard the internet is great and will solve all their problems.

I bet Gorgon Brown types with one finger as he appears to be one of those blokes with lots of Lever arch files in his office.

Anyone that can use the internet appears to be some sort of whizz kid to this lot.

Little do they realise the internet is what made thier population so monumentally stupid and gullible along with all the useless celeb TV shite.

Anything they learn to do via the internet can be done 10 times quicker and cheaper abroad so wont solve anything.

We need to get back to doing stuff other people cannot easily do.

what this is is the big question and NOBODY in politics knows the answer.

As an unemployed person...

I agree with everyone else, this idea is stupid!

I've been out of work now for over a year and the job centre staff just don't care. To them, we're just another number. They just check we've been applying for jobs and get us to sign the stupid form. They very rarely actually help us find a job.

I'm starting to wonder what the point of the job centre is, I mean they aren't interested in helping us find a job, every job you go for there are shed loads of people going for the same job and when you do go to the job centre to sign on they spend most of the time sitting around talking and making us job seekers wait around.

To be honest, I wish the job centres were more like the job centre on The League Of Gentlemen, at least Pauline and her pens would provide some sort of amusement.

If you ask me, rather than getting a free laptop and free broadband (already have a laptop, already have broadband), I'd prefer to have a intrest free loan to start up a business, of course that isn't going to happen any time soon.

Anonymous, as well who knows who is out there reading this...

3rd time loser?

So, what happens when the lucky unemployed person is caught downloading copyright material for the third time. Which insane government policy wins?

Not again!

I hate being wrong, but every time I think this government can't get any more stupid...

I see a sneaky plan afoot.

Give the unemployed free computers and Internet access.

Then accuse of them of copyright infringement.

Take away their computer and internet connection, and blame the whole file-sharing fiasco on the unemployed.

Good plan.

I think it might just work.

great idea

Government funded Facebook and porn, what more do the unemployed have to do anyway?

Big boost to laptops on Ebay

Why give them a laptop? Half of them will probably just sell it on Ebay. Why not just give them the money to spend how they wish?

another crazy labour idea

Yet another crazy idea from this labour gov, the unemployed can already get free internet access at their local library and for those whose library is too far to travel a better solution would be to open local schools ICT faciltys 'out of hours' to people from the local community and let them do their job searching, emails etc there, as at least the internet access would be filtered and stop them surfing porn, playing games etc and the money they were going to spend on giving all the unemployed free pcs and internet could be spent on the schools instead.

Also what happens if your given a free pc and internet access and then 1 week later you get a job, do you have to give it back or pay for it?

Bloody Typical

My wife and I went self employed using computers that we recovered and repaired from skips, no loans, no grants just 18 hour days and exhausted sleep, punctuated by an endless stream of officialdom that demands money we do not have. There is a moral here somewhere but will look for it later, tax evasion and offshore banking are looking more attractive at the moment.

Of course every cloud has a silver lining and there is almost certainly going to be a catch for the un-fortunate recipients of these laptops. As any webmaster will tell you the server logs speak volumes, so there is going to be no argument whose applied for what and how long they were looking.

Internet Access - pr0n surfing on a govt issue laptop, I doubt it. Odds are you will be blocked from visiting all but a handful of officially sanctioned websites. WOW is unlikey to be among them, unless of course somebody comes up with the idea of selling advertising to a captive audience..

Plus if the govt goes down a mobile internet access path then the physical location of said laptop online can also be found fairly accurately. Job interview in Croyden, laptop at Glastonbury..can you explain... Heaven forbid the laptop has a webcam and microphone built in, they really could be watching you.

Real bummer if you have to webcast your job interview as well;)

Still I forsee a healthy trade in them, virus removal, repairs, specialist erasure and so forth

Another unemployed person here...

I am sure there are people who do not want to work, but please don't paint all unemployed people with the same brush. I have an illness but I want to work, I apply for jobs, I study (using the free lectures from MIT, etc) to keep my brain busy and I do some volunteering work.

The free IT stuff is a joke, nice if I could have some free stuff, but it is not a solution.

There are lots of radical ideas for providing a NEW solution, but as the country is bankrupt (financially and morally) we must start with what we have got.

1. Job Centre: instead of spending 10 mins interviewing people and asking what they have done, why not try and match us with employers and jobs?

Would it be too hard to act as an employment consultant and act on my behalf?

All I get is, "We don't really get much for people like you, y'know with professional qalifications, you're probably better at searching than me." Well, thanks for all your help!

I want to get back to work, help me do it. The service you [don't] provide me doesn't add value.

2. Sort out the jobcentreplus website, it sucks.

Just for fun, try going to the site and search for a job. Post your experiences here.

3. Rationalise the benefits, tax credits, child benefits, etc. That way I don't have to send the same data to multiple places [originals only BTW], and when things change it is all linked up with NI and Tax. This way the right payments are made to the right people at the right time.

4. Provide the same support for people with mortgages as they do for people who rent.

- I have a mortgage, I have to pay it all the time whether I am employed or not.

- If I rented I would get it paid, upto a fixed ammount determined by local rental prices.

- Why not pay me upto that fixed ammount to cover my mortgage interest (2/3rds of the local payment would cover my mortgage interest)

- What is going to happen is that I will loose my house, go onto the housing list, end up in rented accomodation - which will cost the full ammount of the allowed payments [all the landlords know what the going rate is, so that is what is charged], cost the taxpayer more in the long run. Then house prices drop because repossesed properties are sold of quickly and usually less than market value.

- I would even be happy if the payments were made as a loan, which is taken back out of my pay packet when I do get a job.

Being unemployed sucks, but this is the first time in 23 years of work [paying NI and Tax] that I have been unemployed. I never expected to be unemployed, but when it happened I expected that I would be looked after so that I could get back to work quickly without having to jump through hoops to get what I am entitled to.

LMAO

... paid for with virtual money?..

Time to buy shares in MS!!!

Great all these PCs will no doubt will have genuine Windows copies installed, so that's another 3 million Windows licenses! Get some MS shares!

Why not simply install locked down Linux? At least they won't be able to fuck them up in 5 secs flat by installing a load of malware/viruses!

1. They will end up down the "booty-sales"

2. They will get malware in the first 3 mins connected to the free ADSL line

3. They will have some right load of ripped off software pulled off a torrent and Mandy's Gestapo will be kicking in the door and seizing the PC!

Mega City One

The current situation is starting to sound like Mega City One in the old 2000AD progs. A ridiculous jobless rate and the government (along with private enterprise) setting up crazy programs for the idle masses.

Giving laptops and free internet access to people is not the worst idea I've heard, I don't think access should be restricted. How can you learn, research, and build skills on a hobbled system? Though probably those that are really interested in such tech already have it (stolen? Purchased with drug money? Hopefully not) and handing these things out to everybody is probably not effective.

I recall another program where the gov't would give out tools to people who were out of work. I guess so they could swell the ranks of dodgy contractors instead of the unemployment lines. That's didn't go so well, lots of botched home renovations, and many pristine tool boxes for sale at markets in the east end.

I expect similar results here. Though a chav at home playing WoW or networking on facebook is much better than a chav attempting to steal your wallet or car or binge drinking lager in the park and throwing up on your doorstep.

Is the weekly unemployment payout really only around 64 GBP a week? What's the point? I guess that's over and above the dole then? Still scary, guess I better put in a few extra hours while I still have employment...