Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

goldfinger seems like spawn of Fred.

I see that scum Haystacks keeps posting after me. he he he he .

Idiot still hasnt caught on Ive filtered him. (6th months back)

sticky - i've just noticed a long article on the internet courtesy of harriet harman ..... i won't c+p it as it's quite a long read, but clearly your labour buddies have finally woken up to the fact that their welfare state policies just do not stack up and are now all set to change them .... i'll read it all again, but these "new policies" would seem to reflect what the current chaps are proposing, albeit that labour will have its own tweaks - as is to be expected, and would be the case with any opposition party

===========

i may c+p the above and endeavour to edit it it to make it more reader-friendly

Britain's Labour says welfare should be linked to contributions
Britain's opposition Labour Party is set to overhaul its welfare policies to link state help to individual contributions.
Harriet Harman said people in work should go to the top of social housing waiting lists and the unemployed should take up job offers or lose benefits after two years.
Labour's proposals mark a break from the principle that certain social benefits are universal
Labour's welfare policies would ...... provid(e) stronger incentives to seek employment
"Work should pay. Secondly, there should be an obligation to take work," HH said. "There should be support through a contributory principle, for people putting in to the system as well as taking out."

David Cameron said the welfare system had "lost its way" and had become a "lifestyle choice for some".

============

here you are ..... DC's comment at the end is certainly what many people feel and believe, though no doubt some clever statistician would/could prove otherwise - lies, damned lies and statistics!

anyway, reading the above, it's hard to determine any difference in principle to what is already on the table ..... no real surprise there, in all honesty - though when talking politics and politicians, that is something of an oxymoron

Ive read it and its what I would agree with.

Contributution based model.

That means people like you keep your bus pass and cold weather payment. Millionaires if they have paid they get it as far as Im concerned.

Nothing wrong with that if you HAVE PAID FOR IT.

What I cant stand is these foreigners coming in, getting benefits they havent paid for and NHS visits, and also sending it back to Poland etc etc.

The torries tho are hitting the poor disabled worthy WHO HAVE PAID in the NI System.

lOOK at Incapacity benefit, after 1 year those on contributory benefit lose it if they have a private pension whilst those who havent paid for a private pension still will get it.

That cannot be right. And Its I D Smiths policy...........PATHETIC and UNFAIR.

it's a shame you are incapable of reading something objectively and commenting in like manner

there are certainly two people of my acquaintance where disability allowance (refusal actually) has been strangely applied - and i dare say that is equally so with other allowances .... that said, i am far from convinced that the bods doing the dishing out are especially following any party political line

as in law, logic and fairness do not necessarily hold hands

============

actually, i would not think it at all unreasonable if cold weather payments and maybe even bus passes and the ilk were income related or somesuch ...... do ex pats also get these little freebies?

YES they do and have PAID for them or their fathers have. I dont give a toss if they reside in sunny Spain. If you have paid in you get.

If you havent paid in you do not get.

Simple as that and far cheaper to administrate.

As for benefit how wrong you are, a set strict set of rules and conditions to pass.
Cynic I worked 6 years in the system. I now work 10 hours per week as a volunteer counseling advising.

It seems to me you are the one whos getting caught up in all the tory propoganda. Even the Lib Dems part of the government can see through it.

not at all ..... i have always thought for myself ....

on another tack, i do question considerably whether you have the ability to give dispassionate and objective advice to those who seek your assistance in whatever field it is in which you now operate .... your somehwat rabid postings here indicate that you would be incapable of so doing

I suppose at the end of the day it is going to be very difficult for a Conservative voter to agree with a Labour voter and visa versa. You will be arguing till the cows come home and they may not at this rate. :-))

Put it this way, plain and simple - stop letting all these people in who have never contributed, give the abled unemployed something - but make them do some sort of work to pay for their hand outs to at least get them out of their beds and stop penalising the ones who cannot work due to no fault of their own i.e. ill health. As it is Sunday, Amen. Tony Blair took the 4th child allowace remember!!!!! and categorically stated on a TV interview "why shouldn't we". End of sermon. Oh! sorry give any man the snip who wants to produce more than 6 children.

DC sorry I want to make it clear Im a floating voter. Ive voted for both twice.

I dont vote at local elections.

Its just this present lot.........they are useless.

Just look at the last but one budget. Totaly pathetic....... and then you get back benchers having a go at the 2 rich boys.

They have no respect for those lower down the chain than themselves.

Without UKIP this lot are gonners at the next election.

3 monkies yes spot on. I have no time for the real work shirkers like the philpotts etc, they are scum but then again so is George Osbourne for trying to rake it up out of context and trying to divide and rule.

The lowest of the low.

DC - i like to think that i have the ability to think and do not necessarily agree partially or even at all with what a tory gov't may or may not do ..... i am also not incapable of thinking that parties of other hues sometimes or even often have good ideas worth consideration

from my earlier post, it is certainly clear that the labour chaps have suddenly admitted to considerable areas of agreement with the present gov't with regard to its method of overhauling the welfare system .... even HH surprisingly engages her brain from time to time

Labour is panicking over welfare: it's flying by the seat of Ed Miliband's pants, except Ed isn't wearing any




By Dan HodgesPoliticsLast updated: April 7th, 2013

Comment on thisComment on this article



Ed Miliband, absence of underpants just out of shot, has flipped 180 degrees on welfare

This morning the Observer splashes on reports that Labour is getting tough on welfare. “Labour plans radical shift over welfare state payouts”, is the headline above a story from Toby Helm and Daniel Boffey which claims that “A radical shakeup of the welfare state, under which benefit payments to those out of work or on low incomes would vary according to their past contributions to the state, is being considered by the Labour party.”

It’s accompanied by an article from the shadow work and pension secretary, Liam Byrne, in which he says: “These are desperate times for the government and I expected a desperate argument from George Osborne last week. This was when he would slash not only Britain's vital social safety net, but also help for working people – just at the very moment when he hands out tax cuts for the very rich. It's a vicious strategy and horrible politics.”

Is Liam Byrne having a laugh? It’s the Tories who are desperate, is it? It's George Osborne and David Cameron who are guilty of “horrible politics”?

Three months ago the Observer splashed on a rather different Labour welfare story. “Ed Miliband to wage war on George Osborne over benefit cuts”, the paper informed us: “Ed Miliband is to put Labour at the head of a national revolt to kill off the chancellor's latest benefit cuts as church leaders and leading charities unite in protest against the assault on welfare”. Not a word on any “radical shifts” in policy. Nor so much as a peep about “matching rights with responsibilities”.

So what’s changed? What has occurred in the last 12 weeks to bring about this “radical” change in Labour’s stance on welfare?

Mick Philpott. “Shameless Mick” if you prefer. It has taken the killing of six innocent children, public outrage over their deaths, and the spectacle of the Chancellor of the Exchequer making political capital out of the tragedy for Ed Miliband to finally think “Hmmm, I think I might need to do something about this welfare stuff after all.”

Actually, if Labour’s shift in stance was the product of three months' careful deliberation, that wouldn’t be so bad. But it isn’t. It’s the product of a panic that has engulfed the Labour leadership over the past 72 hours.

On Tuesday morning Labour seriously thought they were winning the welfare debate. Ed Miliband’s senior advisors had heard Iain Duncan Smith’s gaffe on the Today program in which he’d claimed he could live on £53 a week, and were heartened. But then they were informed a petition challenging him to make good on his boast had passed 200,000 signatures. And they started to talk about a “defining moment” in the welfare debate.

But then Philpott was convicted, the Daily Mail made the welfare state an accessory to the fact, and Shameless George Osborne moved in for the kill. Labour’s initial response was to downplay the whole issue. Then they lost their heads, and dispatched Ed Balls to launch an hysterical attack on Osborne, driving the Chancellor’s comments to the top of the news bulletins, and making the Labour Party look like they had been employed as Mick Philpott’s defence attorneys.

Now we have the spectacle of Labour trying to recast itself as the party of welfare reform. Suddenly it’s Labour that wants to “make work pay”, is talking of responsibility at the bottom and threatening to remove people’s benefits. And good for Liam Byrne, because this is where Labour should be.

But it’s too late. Much too late. The welfare debate is over. And Labour has lost it.

Or rather, it’s Ed Miliband who has lost it. In his Observer report, Toby Helm states, “the Observer understands that detailed work is under way in the party's policy review on how to revolutionise the way the system works and address concerns that it promotes a 'something-for-nothing' culture.”

And he’s right, that work is under way. But it’s been under way for months. For well over a year in fact. And time and time and time again Ed Miliband has been urged to publicly sign up to this agenda. And time and time and time again, Ed Miliband has refused.

Remember that narrative that was being lovingly crafted last year about how it’s Ed Miliband who was making the political weather, Ed Miliband who gets all the big calls right? It’s fantasy. In reality Ed Miliband is terrified of his own shadow, and scared of getting caught in the rain.

Labour’s welfare debacle has revealed the true Ed Miliband. Timid, indecisive, fearful of conflict with the Left. This is not a Thick Of It sketch. Decisions on a major policy like welfare are being shaped by one Radio 4 interview, a poll on the Downing Street website and a conviction for manslaughter. When Hugh Grant was negotiating with Miliband he must have thought he was taking sweets from a child.

It’s a joke. Labour doesn’t have a plan or a strategy. It’s flying by the seat of its leader’s pants. Except its leader isn’t wearing any pants. Labour’s Emperor doesn’t have a stitch on. And yet his activists and his MPs and even some commentators catch a glimpse of a 10-point opinion poll lead and gush, “My, my, isn’t young master Miliband fashionably attired.”

Over the past couple of days the Left has been in ferment at David Cameron and George Osborne’s decision to link welfare to the Philpott killings. But at least Cameron and Osborne are being consistent in their cynicism, and the Philpott case is only being used to drive the presentation of their case on welfare. Ed Miliband’s response to Philpott has been to flip 180 degrees and launch an entirely new policy initiative.

If Ed Miliband wants to shift Labour’s stance on welfare, fine. In my view it’s what’s needed in political and policy terms. If he wants to take a principled stand in defence of welfare, that’s OK too. It will be politically suicidal and could well cost him the next election, but I could at least respect his stance. But Ed Miliband should be displaying the strength of leadership to make his mind up on these issues, not letting Mick Philpott make the decision for him.

This morning Liam Byrne has written “[George Osborne] disgusted me and demeaned the office of chancellor by using the crimes of Mick Philpott to support his attacks on people who claim benefit.” But if he hadn’t done that, Liam, you wouldn’t have written that article, and Ed Miliband wouldn’t have given you the green light to start talking about a new Labour party policy on welfare. It’s George Osborne who is demeaning his office? Really?

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Labour is panicking over welfare: it's flying by the seat of Ed Miliband's pants, except Ed isn't wearing any




By Dan HodgesPoliticsLast updated: April 7th, 2013

Comment on thisComment on this article



Ed Miliband, absence of underpants just out of shot, has flipped 180 degrees on welfare

This morning the Observer splashes on reports that Labour is getting tough on welfare. “Labour plans radical shift over welfare state payouts”, is the headline above a story from Toby Helm and Daniel Boffey which claims that “A radical shakeup of the welfare state, under which benefit payments to those out of work or on low incomes would vary according to their past contributions to the state, is being considered by the Labour party.”

It’s accompanied by an article from the shadow work and pension secretary, Liam Byrne, in which he says: “These are desperate times for the government and I expected a desperate argument from George Osborne last week. This was when he would slash not only Britain's vital social safety net, but also help for working people – just at the very moment when he hands out tax cuts for the very rich. It's a vicious strategy and horrible politics.”

Is Liam Byrne having a laugh? It’s the Tories who are desperate, is it? It's George Osborne and David Cameron who are guilty of “horrible politics”?

Three months ago the Observer splashed on a rather different Labour welfare story. “Ed Miliband to wage war on George Osborne over benefit cuts”, the paper informed us: “Ed Miliband is to put Labour at the head of a national revolt to kill off the chancellor's latest benefit cuts as church leaders and leading charities unite in protest against the assault on welfare”. Not a word on any “radical shifts” in policy. Nor so much as a peep about “matching rights with responsibilities”.

So what’s changed? What has occurred in the last 12 weeks to bring about this “radical” change in Labour’s stance on welfare?

Mick Philpott. “Shameless Mick” if you prefer. It has taken the killing of six innocent children, public outrage over their deaths, and the spectacle of the Chancellor of the Exchequer making political capital out of the tragedy for Ed Miliband to finally think “Hmmm, I think I might need to do something about this welfare stuff after all.”

Actually, if Labour’s shift in stance was the product of three months' careful deliberation, that wouldn’t be so bad. But it isn’t. It’s the product of a panic that has engulfed the Labour leadership over the past 72 hours.

On Tuesday morning Labour seriously thought they were winning the welfare debate. Ed Miliband’s senior advisors had heard Iain Duncan Smith’s gaffe on the Today program in which he’d claimed he could live on £53 a week, and were heartened. But then they were informed a petition challenging him to make good on his boast had passed 200,000 signatures. And they started to talk about a “defining moment” in the welfare debate.

But then Philpott was convicted, the Daily Mail made the welfare state an accessory to the fact, and Shameless George Osborne moved in for the kill. Labour’s initial response was to downplay the whole issue. Then they lost their heads, and dispatched Ed Balls to launch an hysterical attack on Osborne, driving the Chancellor’s comments to the top of the news bulletins, and making the Labour Party look like they had been employed as Mick Philpott’s defence attorneys.

Now we have the spectacle of Labour trying to recast itself as the party of welfare reform. Suddenly it’s Labour that wants to “make work pay”, is talking of responsibility at the bottom and threatening to remove people’s benefits. And good for Liam Byrne, because this is where Labour should be.

But it’s too late. Much too late. The welfare debate is over. And Labour has lost it.

Or rather, it’s Ed Miliband who has lost it. In his Observer report, Toby Helm states, “the Observer understands that detailed work is under way in the party's policy review on how to revolutionise the way the system works and address concerns that it promotes a 'something-for-nothing' culture.”

And he’s right, that work is under way. But it’s been under way for months. For well over a year in fact. And time and time and time again Ed Miliband has been urged to publicly sign up to this agenda. And time and time and time again, Ed Miliband has refused.

Remember that narrative that was being lovingly crafted last year about how it’s Ed Miliband who was making the political weather, Ed Miliband who gets all the big calls right? It’s fantasy. In reality Ed Miliband is terrified of his own shadow, and scared of getting caught in the rain.

Labour’s welfare debacle has revealed the true Ed Miliband. Timid, indecisive, fearful of conflict with the Left. This is not a Thick Of It sketch. Decisions on a major policy like welfare are being shaped by one Radio 4 interview, a poll on the Downing Street website and a conviction for manslaughter. When Hugh Grant was negotiating with Miliband he must have thought he was taking sweets from a child.

It’s a joke. Labour doesn’t have a plan or a strategy. It’s flying by the seat of its leader’s pants. Except its leader isn’t wearing any pants. Labour’s Emperor doesn’t have a stitch on. And yet his activists and his MPs and even some commentators catch a glimpse of a 10-point opinion poll lead and gush, “My, my, isn’t young master Miliband fashionably attired.”

Over the past couple of days the Left has been in ferment at David Cameron and George Osborne’s decision to link welfare to the Philpott killings. But at least Cameron and Osborne are being consistent in their cynicism, and the Philpott case is only being used to drive the presentation of their case on welfare. Ed Miliband’s response to Philpott has been to flip 180 degrees and launch an entirely new policy initiative.

If Ed Miliband wants to shift Labour’s stance on welfare, fine. In my view it’s what’s needed in political and policy terms. If he wants to take a principled stand in defence of welfare, that’s OK too. It will be politically suicidal and could well cost him the next election, but I could at least respect his stance. But Ed Miliband should be displaying the strength of leadership to make his mind up on these issues, not letting Mick Philpott make the decision for him.

This morning Liam Byrne has written “[George Osborne] disgusted me and demeaned the office of chancellor by using the crimes of Mick Philpott to support his attacks on people who claim benefit.” But if he hadn’t done that, Liam, you wouldn’t have written that article, and Ed Miliband wouldn’t have given you the green light to start talking about a new Labour party policy on welfare. It’s George Osborne who is demeaning his office? Really?

Read more by Dan Hodges on Telegraph Blogs
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goldfinger
I do realise that you have filtered me. It is a great blessing not to have to read your silly replies to my posts. I have found that most peope who claim to filter people do not in fact. The use of the 'filter' is for weak minds that say they won't reply and then can't resist to do so.

Cynic what on earth are you talking about.

Labours policy on welfare benefits is nothing like that of the governments.

Have you been on the piss????????????

Either that or you just dont understand it!!!

Labour is panicking over welfare because they have realised that the public are largely behid the welfare cuts. It was the same in the Thatcher era. When the country has high unemployment, the opes in work are generally better off than when there is high employment. I remember it well when all the pundits said that Thatcher would lose due to high unemployment. In fact she won easily.

Cynic,

I am not sure that :

“labour was in power from 1997 to 2010, so they had oodles of time to change anything they didn't like - and felt was in the best interests of the country ..... it pretty much follows, that if they change or reverse something, they figured it wasn't so bad after all ..... not quite fair i will accept”
makes sense, but if my guesses are right

I partially agree with you, but a mistake they made in 1997 was committing to “spending restrictions of the previous government”.

This commitment was partially given to make them electable and probably the awareness of the “rawness” they might have, if they got into power. What effect that had on their policies I am not sure and maybe interesting to read some of the “political and new paper” commentaries of the success of labour government management of the economy for the period 1997-2006.
I came across this, written at time of when disaster was imminent

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/boom-and-bust-britain-2006-465527.html


Boom and Bust Britain, 2006

Boom: city bonuses hit a record £7.5bn; 3,000 workers given at least £1m; sales of penthouses, fast cars and champagne at all-time high.

Bust: house repossessions up 70% to highest level since the 1991 crash; mortgage arrears up 21%; record 70,000 go bankrupt, a 51% rise

SATURDAY 04 FEBRUARY 2006
-------------
I think many people were aware of problems ahead and recall reading postings by some flogging off their housing and looking around for safe havens for their cash etc..
I doubt that the government and was George Brown did not see the impending problems, but they did not expect the “crash” to be so big and also against the “euphoria” of market and those grabbing as much as they could on an expectancy it would go on forever and do what they could do to stem the problem, partially driven from abroad.
The necessary changes would not have been accepted by the City, the political opposition and the public as a whole.

A period of buy a house, paint the wall and buy a few tubs of flowers, take a breath and then sell the house on, for a 10-20% gain. This feast was driven as if it was a party game, by “Buy It and Flog It” programmes on the TV, with modern day gurus telling you how to do it.

The same was being done by the glorified banking services.

However, the government of the day should have tried to stem the craziness and not
doing so partially led to the depth of the UK’s present problems.

The problem now is that George’s policies aren’t working and we have had 25% devaluation without surge any surge in GDP (partially due to world economy), even Japan and Portugal have eventually learnt the lesson of disproportionate austerity.

I think George is digging deeper and deeper and the effects will be on the poorest in the country, and the total wealth of the country is being distributed inappropriately, the rich getting richer and the poor poorer. The poor did not cause the problem but are being made scapegoats by a nasty party and the fellow travellers.
-------------------------

cynic
Now you have upset him by sujecting that Labour might do anything similar to the Conservatives.

This debate on welfare is a last desperate attempt by Cameron and boy George to get themselves out of the poo.

Some of the public have fallen for it just like they did with Camerons lies about bringing down the debt level.

Thing is at the next general election the STUDENTS will make sure Labour win with a overall big majority.

They havent forgotten how they have been saddled with 30 grand debt from the kick off.