Stephen Ladyman addresses employment

Looks as if local Labour MP (South Thanet) may actually be canvassing some of his potential voters', for in this week's Thanet extra, in his "in my view column", he has broached the subject of agency workers.

Now there will be many of us, who will be familiar with agency work, particularly from my position in the food chain. For many workers skilled or otherwise temporary agencies, have grown and taken the place of traditional employers.

Excluding the higher skilled temporary workers, many now find that it is no longer possible, to have any job protection, since by its very nature it's impossible for agencies to offer employees long-term contracts.

It's great that Stephen Ladyman, should deign to consider such matters but as ever he seems to have missed some of the more pressing issues involved.

The emphasis of his view is concerning the rogue end of the market but I think it's time the government looked at the multinationals, who use temporary workers, purely to avoid their responsibilities as employees.

Mr Ladyman MP for once it looks as if, he is considering real people good, keep it up but I suggest he needs to be acquainted with more of the issues involved.

Many MPs appear to have a superficial touch on real problems, one such area which Mr Ladyman might consider, whilst pontificating about employment, is the assistance available to jobseekers. If as I suspect he finds himself in receipt of a P 45 in the not-too-distant future once Gordon calls his first election (and last), it will be too late to influence such matters.

Here is a typical example of nonsense, concocted by civil servants and New Labour , the Government's JobCentre New Deal, which is more No Deal than Deal because potential beneficiaries have to be in receipt of benefits for 18 months (often an indication that you are not interested in work), quite honestly you might as well take your chances with Noel Edmonds, unless of course, you're 50 plus in which case you only have to be unemployed for six months. Those who live outside of the benefit culture, end up taking poorly-paid agency work because they, rarely receive help and all the Government's doing is creating a propaganda tool, giving the impression they care, when clearly they don't.

Now I'm sure that Mr Ladyman is a perfectly decent bloke, as are many representatives of the Labour Party, however, most working people's priorities are simple they wish themselves and their families to have a decent standard of living and if Labour wish to continue in office, they need to concentrate on this as everything else including Iraqi adventures are secondary.

Labour Party members may consider me harsh, but frankly, their government has done little, for ordinary people and the unfortunate thing will be the prospect of a Tory government looking after their own.