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.

George Osborne in crackdown on jobless costs

Benefits claimants may be forced to attend jobcentres daily, undertake community work or go on intensive programmes


Patrick Wintour and Nicholas Watt

The Guardian, Monday 30 September 2013


George Osborne will continue the government's push to reduce welfare spending by announcing a nationwide scheme on Monday to force 200,000 long-term unemployed benefit claimants to either undertake community work, attend a jobcentre every day or go on a full-time intensive programme to tackle the underlying reasons for their failure to find work.

In his set-piece speech to the Conservative party conference in Manchester, the chancellor will also repeatedly warn that the battle to secure Britain's recovery is not yet "even close to being over" – a message designed to remind voters of the risk of returning to Labour.

The £300m jobs programme, appealing to the electorate's demand for stronger welfare measures, will start in April and will be aimed at 200,000 jobseekers allowance claimants.

Polling suggests there is continued public support for ever tougher welfare crackdowns and with the Tories trailing in the polls and in need of a strong response to Ed Miliband's populist conference speech last week, strategists have returned to one of their strongest and most familiar policy areas to push the message that they are on the side of hard-working people.

"For the first time, all long-term unemployed people who are capable of work will be required to do something in return for their benefits to help them find work," Osborne will say, adding: "But no one will get something for nothing. Help to work – and in return work for the dole."



More balony here:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/sep/29/george-osborne-crackdown-jobless-costs

GF,

I couldn't remember the figures for the sell off of "council" houses.

Was not against it and thought somebody who had lived in a house for 10 or more years should be able to purchase at approximately the going rate.

What I was against was that with the money raised further "council" housing was not built.

Also, although some of the "council" housing was not upgraded and newer stock and facilities improved.

From what I remember, even at that time although some of maintenance and building of properties was partly by council employed work force and sometimes by "contracted in" private concerns.

No problems with that, but the consequence was the the Skill labour force of council employees was reduced subsequent to the "housing sell offs".
---------------------


Also, relating to this the "bedroom tax" is obnoxious and expecting a person who has lived in a house for 30 years and likely to be in their 65-70s to move to properties which aren't there or outside their support communities is stupid.

It leads to greater fragmentation of society, but I suppose this is what Cameron meant by his "Big Society".

I wonder if Dave and George will give up a few of their state financed properties.

I think both partys can take the blame for not building enough houses Fred.

theirs certainly a supply side weakness and I cant see it being overcome.

Max so if these unemployed our out on the job 30 plus hours per week, how on earth do they get trained in new skills in order to enable them to rejoin the jobs market?.

Personnaly just think its another gimmick by the nasty party in order to try and boost support.

Nigel Farage has made an offer the Tories shouldn't refuse

The Tories are simply too unpopular to turn down a Ukip pact in local elections – it might just keep them in power


Simon Jenkins

theguardian.com, Monday 30 September 2013 09.32 BST

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/30/nigel-farage-tories-ukip-local-elections



'Nigel Farage is not going to win the next general election, but if he can help a few Eurosceptic Tories save their seats, he will win the thanks of many other Tories.' Photograph: Nils Jorgensen/i-Images


Ukip's offer not to stand against local Conservative candidates who agree with its policies should be a no-brainer for the Tories. Bring it on. Why should the party order a Eurosceptic Tory MP to commit suicide, just because David Cameron dislikes the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage? Why should the Tories collectively deny themselves any way of securing a majority in the next parliament for the same reason?

British elections are still in the dark ages. Indirect systems based on electoral colleges, which include the UK and America, are determined by "swing constituencies". An American presidential election is decided in just a dozen states, which means that campaigning is non-existent elsewhere.

British elections are not so clear-cut, but the principle is the same. The overwhelming majority of seats are "safe" and campaigning in them is a waste of time and money. Effort should concentrate on the 50 or so "key marginals". Of these, 32 Tory-held ones have been identified by the party's private pollster, Lord Ashcroft, as meriting total attention. And the most glaring fact about them, he shouts from the rooftops, is that Ukip has roughly tripled its vote share in them since 2010. Forget national swings. Focus on the marginals.

Farage has little to lose in these seats. He is not going to win the next general election – he will be lucky to pick up more than a few seats. But if he can help a few Eurosceptic Tories save theirs, he will win their thanks and the gratitude of many other Tories for being a decent sort of chap, which so far has been his chief electoral asset. Besides, as he says cheekily, "we are a party that believes in localism."

As for the Tories, they have done everything to help Farage's cause, from ineptitude over the EU referendum to anti-rural policies detested by many of their supporters, such as centralised planning, windfarms and high-speed rail. For the Tories to ridicule Ukip just now is senseless. It may be a fly-by-night protest party, but like the SDP in the 1980s, it has the potency to deny its mother party at least one election victory. The Tory watchword just now should be survival.

sticky - i think i heard on the radio this morning that the above applied to those who had already been through some gov't training scheme or other and still seemed disinclined to find a job ..... i could easily be wrong

for all that, i don't hear any squawks from CA (i think) where the unemployed are obliged to pick citrus fruit when in season if they want unemployment benefit

on the other side, reporting to the dole office every day is just nuts if applied across the board, for all sorts of obvious reasons, including swamping the damn place

Manuel,

Interesting choice of words "swamping".

Getting as bad as your leader's choice of words, with of course, his hasty withdrawal.

It is a pity, his father hadn't done the same.

8-)

It's working....



UK August Mortgage Approvals Highest since 2008 - BOE

Date : 30/09/2013 @ 10:06
Source : Dow Jones News

UK August Mortgage Approvals Highest since 2008 - BOE



By Jason Douglas and Ilona Billington

LONDON--The number of mortgage approvals in the U.K. rose in August to its highest monthly total in more than five years, Bank of England data showed Monday, in the latest sign a recovery in Britain's housing market is gathering pace.

The figures follow Prime Minister David Cameron's announcement Sunday that the launch of a controversial government-backed mortgage-guarantee program will be brought forward to October. The launch was initially planned for January.

The government says the program will help would-be homeowners struggling to afford to buy a property. Critics say the Help-to-Buy initiative risks inflating a bubble in house prices.

The central bank said the number of new mortgage approvals in the U.K. rose to 62,226 in August from 60,914 a month earlier. The total in August is the highest since February 2008 and is higher than the 61,700 approvals economists had expected.

The average annual interest rate on a new home loan fell to 3.15% in August, a new low since records began in 2004.

Total lending to consumers, net of repayments, increased by 1.6 billion pounds ($2.58 billion) in August, as both secured and unsecured borrowing rose.

Lending to businesses continued to shrink, however, underscoring worries about the prospects for fresh investment and new hiring. Net lending to nonfinancial firms shrank by GBP3.8 billion in August, the BOE said.

Write to Jason Douglas at jason.douglas@wsj.com and Ilona Billington at ilona.billington@wsj.com

Cyners them on benefits 3 years or more, ie the long term.

BUT the problem is these long term unemployed have within 3 years usually done 2 training courses in different trades. The problem being these courses arent long enough and give the trainees just the very basic skills after doing 2 months on job search and learning how to fill in a CV or application form.

Employers wont touch them.

Its just not good enough and this was the same under labour aswel so its not a party political issue.

You make a good point about this signing on every day, just how much in bus fares is that.

Problem is aswel it just keeps going on I know a young chap who'd been on 5 of these courses.

Any government IMO has to get these unemployed into work in the first 12 months or they are on the scrap heap and just go from one worse senario to another.

Then theirs the regional annomalies were for example plenty of work down south but none in the north or midlands.

Osbourne should be giving tax breaks etc etc to companys to move up north so that these unemployed can at least be taken on in say semi skilled and unskilled jobs.

Its not right to ask these youngsters to move away from family and freinds to the south.

My local paper used to have 7 full pages of job adverts 5 years ago now its less than half a page, which says it all.

Its no good Osbourne and Cameron being nasty about the matter they should have more sympathy and understanding and get their finger out.

Of course their is always some who just dont want to work, and thats a different matter.

gf

I see that you have been reading that silly lefty Kevin Maguire in the Mirror again. You know that comics like that are bad for you.

I am broadly in favour of tougher benefit rules. The only one that isn't workable is the turning up at job centres every day. The travelling expenses would be a problem., but the biggest difficulty would be the numbers of staff needed to handle the people. At present they have to turn up once every two weeks and staff levels are set for that frequency. I guess that it is a threat to make people take the unpaid work. It does have quite a few good points though. There are large numbers of people on benefits working for cash in hand and claiming benefits. It is certainly a policy that the public will like. The Labour party threatened to do the same, but never had the political will to do it.

Hays, theirs a lot of people in work aswel working for cash in hand and not paying VAT or Income Tax, what are you going to do about them???.

In fact your reply to my point about repeat course after repeat course is very ropey indeed.

Their is aswel the point that some employers are going to have subsidised labour whilst a competitor is not. Certainly a turn off for a potential conservative voter.

Liar NO2 has just taken the Tory Stage.

Very few people do any courses. I know a number of people on benefits and none of them has even been offered a course. The work for benefits is not for employers. It will be community based work. I am less bothered about people not paying VAT or income tax. At least they are working and their earning do feed into the economy. I am not a fan of income tax anyway.

good speech by Osborne so far.

''I am less bothered about people not paying VAT or income tax. At least they are working and their earning do feed into the economy.'' So it's ok to cheat the law-abiding taxpayer, is that what you're saying H?
2517

So weve got Hays saying he agrees with Tax Evasion. ohhhhhhhh dear. Speaks volumes.

Crap speech from Osbourne very little content. All bluster.

Have you ever paid cash for anything with no bill?

Thee is no moral argument for paying tax or against tax evasion.

Youve shown your true colours hays Im afraid.

A tax cheat,is a criminal.