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.

well, it's been good for me, but I suspect it has not been good for many.

ie, Germany does not have the property bug, most rent long term.

money goes into productive assets...seems to work for them.

different cultures, different tastes or even aspirations, the latter leading to a whole different can of worms

btw, so who owns the properties in Germany which are rented?
3 guesses

Companies for the most part, or so I understand. Plus some very very wealthy toffs.

if it's companies, who owns the companies?
shareholders = individuals = same as property unit trusts
so what's the difference?

personally, i prefer to own my own property or perhaps buy shares in a small hotel property-owning group

And then the clowns, or barrow boys in charge of the madhouse are suggesting regional pay rises for the public sectors.

The tories have always been a party of reactionaries with they heads stuck in the sand with more foreskin than foresight.

That should excuse Manuel, but it hasn't.

The problems for London will increase and the long term trends are not being planned for.

========

"So am I. I rarely leave London unless it is to go abroad." Oh H/S, you do surprise us... not.

"Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."
— Samuel Johnson

And as for that "old" quote, again that was many years ago... please keep up.

As I said earlier it's now the year 2013 and not 1813.

Individuals, family groups, very private and tightly held, not an ordinary shareholder to be seen.


Try this outfit for example:

http://www.bbraun.com/cps/rde/xchg/bbraun-com/hs.xsl/index.html


30,000+ employees.

Not sure about 1813, but the quote was around 1790.

Don't be facetious.

Stan.

It is Hays and he is getting hazy after his diet of mantras from party HQ.

-------------

Tories Only Care About The Rich, Latest Poll Shows
BY STEVEN PREECE · NOVEMBER 26, 2013

A poll by ComRes for the Independent newspaper has confirmed what most of us already knew: the Tories are the Party of the Rich who couldn’t care less about poorer sections of British society.

When asked if “the Conservative Party only represents the interests of the rich”, 51% agreed. This is in stark contrast to just 24% who disagreed. The remainder being unsure.

The poll also revealed that 18% of those who voted Tory in 2010 agreed with the statement, whilst 10% of current Tory voters were honest enough to admit they believe the Tories STILL only care about the rich.

Britain’s super rich have taken the hardest hit in monetary terms as a result of George Osborne’s austerity drive, according to the government. However, it is the poorest 10% who have lost a much greater share of their overall income; and unlike those with inflating banks balances, they can least afford to take the hit, as soaring numbers of food bank users would suggest.

The results of the poll will be a boost for Ed Miliband and the Labour Party who continue to say that the Tories have failed to shake their ‘nasty party’ image. Those hit by draconian cuts to welfare benefits will need little convincing, I suspect?

However, the ComRes poll also discovered that neither Ed Miliband nor David Cameron has the faith of the British public when it comes to protecting the NHS. Only 30% of respondents thought the NHS was safe in Tory hands (higher than some would have expected perhaps?). Ed comes out only marginally on top, with 33% of those surveyed believing Labour could be trusted to safeguard our beloved public health service.

ComRes surveyed 1,002 people by telephone and the results were ‘weighted’ in order to achieve a fair result which was reflective of the total British population.

The latest YouGov/Sun poll (24th November) gives Labour a lead of seven points over the Tories, which would be enough to secure a healthy majority – if current public opinion carries into 2015:

Conservatives 33%, Labour 40%, LibDems 9%, UKIP 11%.

Update on the E petition. Getting near to the 100,000 signatures required and bags of time to get their.

HM Government AccessibilityHome
Search published e-petitions
e-petition
We call for a Cumulative Impact Assessment of Welfare Reform, and a New Deal for sick & disabled people based on their needs, abilities and ambitions

Responsible department: Department for Work and Pensions

We call for:

A Cumulative Impact Assessment of all cuts and changes affecting sick & disabled people, their families and carers, and a free vote on repeal of the Welfare Reform Act.

An immediate end to the Work Capability Assessment, as voted for by the British Medical Association.

Consultation between the Depts of Health & Education to improve support into work for sick & disabled people, and an end to forced work under threat of sanctions for people on disability benefits.

An Independent, Committee-Based Inquiry into Welfare Reform, covering but not limited to: (1) Care home admission rises, daycare centres, access to education for people with learning difficulties, universal mental health treatments, Remploy closures; (2) DWP media links, the ATOS contract, IT implementation of Universal Credit; (3) Human rights abuses against disabled people, excess claimant deaths & the disregard of medical evidence in decision making by ATOS, DWP & the Tribunal Service.

This e-petition has received the following response:
As this e-petition has received more than 10 000 signatures, the relevant Government department have provided the following response:

Cumulative impact analysis is not being withheld – it is very difficult to do accurately and external organisations have not produced this either.

The Government is limited in what cumulative analysis is possible because of the complexity of the modelling required and the amount of detailed information on individuals and families that is required to estimate the interactions of a number of different policy changes. In addition, the Government's programme of welfare reform will not be fully implemented until 2017/18 and many policy details are still to be worked through. Equality Impact Assessments are however carried out for individual policies where there is a requirement.

No other organisation produces this analysis in a robust way. The Treasury does publish some cumulative analysis with each Budget but this is a broad brush assessment of all tax, benefit and expenditure changes since 2010 across households. Because the Budget cumulative analysis is so complex, it is not robust enough to break down by family type – so impacts on disabled people cannot be shown separately.

The IFS also produces some cumulative analysis but also do not feel the results are reliable enough to disaggregate for the disabled.

This e-petition will remain open to signatures until the published closing date and will be considered for debate by the Backbench Business Committee should it pass the 100 000 signature threshold.

Number of signatures:
92,691
Created by:
Francesca Martinez
Closing:
12/12/2013 12:12

Please support the sick and disabled and sign the petition......we need your support.

https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/43154/signature/new

Please remember one day it could be you or a member of your family or a freind that as to claim benefits for a disability and would you like the present government riding rough shod over you and threatening your life with their callous cruel Disability policy?.

Having sufficient signatures doesn't guarantee a debate. Look at the rules. It only guarantees it being considered for debate.

The policy is about being fair and not just letting people carrying on claiming without reassessment.

Hays more or less a certainty after this SELECT COMMITTEE meeting on 9th of Dec.

Should make for good television on the parliament channel. ill be watching all of it.

So thats 2 good bits of TV for the likes of yourself and me.
...............................................................................................................

This will be very good . Remember the date DEC 9th

Lets watch the liar get out of this one.

The number is finally up for 'cruel and incompetent' Iain Duncan Smith - alias 'Iain's Dodgy Stats'
20 Nov 2013

The Work and Pensions Secretary is finally being called to account for using inaccurate and misleading statistics to justify his policies

Since being appointed as Work and Pensions Secretary in 2010, Iain Duncan Smith has had so many problems with statistics it’s earned him the nickname ‘Iain’s Dodgy Stats’.

From November 2010, when he was caught out using figures from the website findaproperty.com instead of his own DWP statisticians, to his claim in May 2013 that the benefit cap had driven 8,000 people back to work, he has been censured by bodies including the Office for National Statistics.

This summer, two disabled women – Jayne Linney, 51, a grandmother from Leicester, and Debbie Sayers, 49, a mum from Cornwall – decided enough was enough.

“We felt dodgy stats were being used to take away people’s benefits,” Jayne says, helped into the Commons by Tony, her disabled partner and full-time carer.

“The way ministers tell the story affects how people see our lives. It is one thing to live with the physical challenges of a disability - it is quite another to hear misinformation every day from our own government.”

The women, who both suffer from fibromyalgia and other health problems, had only ever met through Facebook – but they decided to launch a Change.org petition together calling for IDS to be held to account over use of statistics. Within weeks, it had 105,069 signatures.

Yesterday, the petition was placed by Jayne’s MP Liz Kendall, according to tradition, into the green bag behind the speakers’ chair.

Hansard records that “The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Work and Pensions Select Committee to question Mr Duncan Smith at their earliest convenience to hold him to account on his use of statistics and further requests that the House requires Mr Duncan Smith to retract any incorrect statistics...”

Meanwhile, the Select Committee has agreed to “examine the way DWP releases benefit statistics to the media”.

“It feels wonderful to be at the House of Commons,” Jayne says. “And it’s wonderful to finally meet Debbie after all these months. It’s been a painful journey for both of us to get here – but we are determined that Iain Duncan-Smith should have to answer to MPs.”

On Monday, after delivering the petition to Liz Kendall and Kate Green MP, the shadow disabilities minister, I went with the campaigners to the debating chamber – to watch Duncan-Smith answer questions put by his Labour opponent Rachel Reeves.

But even while we were in Parliament, IDS dropped another dodgy statistic. This time, he claimed that child poverty rose under Labour - in fact it dropped by 800,000.

But the Institute for Fiscal Studies now estimates it will rise by 600,000 thanks to IDS’ welfare reforms.

“What really got to us in the beginning was a claim by Esther McVey, then the disabilities minister, that people getting Disability Living Allowance rarely had face-to-face medicals,” says Debbie.

“We knew this wasn’t true. When we looked into it, it turned out only nine per cent of DLA funding was spent on this basis.”

McVey had also made other claims, that Jayne and Debbie could prove were mistaken. They began with an open letter asking her to desist from “persistent use of dubious facts”.

So in April 2013, they launched their petition to bring IDS and the whole department to account, including McVey. The following month, IDS made his claim about the 8,000 people supposedly driven to get a job by the Benefit Cap.

It was true that 8,000 people had gone back to work, but his own department had made it clear they could prove no link with the Cap. The Trade Union Congress made an official complaint.

In July 2013, Andrew Dilnot CBE, Chair of the UK Statistics Authority said IDS had “broken the code of practice for official statistics”, and Jonathan Portes of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research said the DWP boss had gone “beyond spin”.

IDS started to take another tack, that conveniently required no statistics at all. “I have a belief I am right,” he told the Today Programme on Radio 4.

Even with a petition of over 100,000 signatures, the two women have had to fight hard to bring IDS to account. The Select Committee has said it will grill IDS when he appears before them with his department’s annual report – originally due in April.

The appointment been repeatedly cancelled – but will now happen in December, a stunning eight months late.

In the time that the women have been fighting, Debbie’s husband Jon has been through a battle with bone cancer. Now, their family faces even
more disability. Jon has had a total knee replacement with prosthetic bone connecting his leg and foot.

“This petition is so important because it is holding Iain Duncan Smith and Esther McVey to account for their repeated misrepresentations of disabled people’s lives,” says Liz Kendall, shadow care minister.

“They are not just cruel but incompetent – and use them to justify policies like the Bedroom Tax.”

Now, thanks to a disabled mother and grandmother, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will have to face an MPs’ select committee on December 9th – calling an end to Iain’s Dodgy Stats and Esther’s McVague Truths.

You can follow the women’s campaign on their blogs - jaynelinney.wordpress.com and ramblingsofafibrofoggedmind.wordpress.com

And support them and others by signing wowpetition.com

By the way i agree it is about being fair and these people over 450 now who have commited suicide arent the slackers who we see claiming and then going for a round of golf, they are genuinely sick and disabled people.

I like you detest the cheats as it give all the rest a bad name.

Right off for some snooze, been out fishing all day, bloody cold on that dam.

Remember the 2 committees are different.

1. Select committee, passed takes place on 9th December.

2. Backbench Business Committee......to be arranged.

you should go fishing for hammour as you'ld then be in this region and warm! ...... lovely time of year