IT SEEMS to me that a lot of job-seeker allowance claimants are using the system as their only means of support, where it was only intended as temporary help while they sought a job (job-seeker equals someone looking for a job).

Now if one million Poles can come and get a job, and presumably, whatever you may hear from official figures, a similar number of Romanians and Bulgarians, then why can’t our people get a job? Are they lazy, or stupid, or totally incapable of work?

Whichever way you look at it, given the state of the economy, we really shouldn’t have to support a lot of long-term claimants. Six months is long enough for anyone to get a job of some sort, and once you are in the work system, you can progress. You will never go anywhere on the dole.

Andy Baldock, Villa Grove, Heworth Green, York