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.

MPs' 11% pay rise set to embarrass party leaders

Independent body will announce increase to £74,000 from 2015 despite opposition from Cameron and Miliband


Daniel Boffey, policy editor


The Observer, Sunday 8 December 2013

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/dec/08/mps-pay-rise-embarrass-party-leaders


David Cameron and Ed Miliband will face embarrassment this week when it is announced that MPs will be paid an annual salary of £74,000 from 2015 despite their calls for "cheaper politics".

The independent parliamentary standards authority, Ipsa, is to reveal its decision to increase salaries by 11% despite a lack of support from the prime minister and the leader of the Labour party. MPs' salaries will then go up annually in line with national wages.

To pay for the increase, Ipsa is imposing greater pension contributions on MPs and clearing up discrepancies in the expenses system. A Whitehall source said the "across the board" reform would not cost taxpayers more.

Funding for the salary increase would come from cuts to MPs' pension schemes that go far deeper than published proposals.

Ipsa was given full statutory control of MPs' pay and pensions in the wake of the 2009 expenses scandal.

Under the rules, parliamentarians do not get a vote on its recommendations but they automatically become law. Ipsa's decision will prove politically difficult for Cameron and Ed Miliband.Earlier this year the prime minister said the cost of politics should fall under the salary review and the above-inflation rise will be seen in sharp contrast to the 1% rise in public sector pay packets.

Miliband has said he will not accept a pay rise and legislate to reduce MPs' annual wage rises, which would inevitably mean the disbandment of Ipsa as an independent body.

Only the deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has accepted the independence of the decision.

Charles Walker MP, vice-chairman of the 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers, who has been championing the freedom of Ipsa to make an unencumbered decision on wages, said "a little more pain" on pensions was acceptable in order to "draw a line under the issue".

Read the comment section, the brothers and sisters are not happy.

Update - Labour lead at 5
by YouGov in Politics
Sun December 8, 2013 6 a.m. GMT

Latest YouGov / Sunday Times results 6th December - Con 34%, Lab 39%, LD 10%, UKIP 11%

That was the first poll since the autumn statement. looks like it went down well with the public.

Just seen a bunch of (dyslexic?) Africans putting flowers at the door of the local Nissan Main Dealers!

Q. Who said, " "I am determined to learn how to tell the time and how to blow my nose."?

Joey

ExecLine, is this part of an IQ test? Answer to the question has to be Ed Balls.

My second guess would be Victoria Beckham.

Ed Balls has repeatedly refused to apologise the way that the national debt built up under the last Labour Government.


In a pugnacious display on national television, the shadow Chancellor said that he “couldn’t give a toss” about speculation that he might be sacked.


The news came as a former Labour frontbencher openly speculated that “ruthless” Ed Miliband might replace Mr Balls with former Chancellor Alistair Darling.


Mr Balls was pressed half a dozen times about whether he would say sorry on behalf of the Labour party for the way that the debt had been allowed to increase.


However he repeatedly declined to apologise, preferring to blame macro-economic factors, such as the global financial crisis.

He said: “I’m not going to apologise that the Labour government spent too much on the National Health Service. Do I think that we didn’t spend every pound of money wisely in that period? Of course not.

“If we had known though, and this is the point, when the deficit went up so much if we had known in advance that was going to happen, would we have decided to have raise taxes or cut spending?

“No, we would have decided to intervene in the banking world to stop that financial crisis happening in the first place. That is why I go back to that as the big mistake of that period.”

Mr Ball was played clips of his speech in the debate following George Osborne’s Autumn statement in the Commons, when he was repeatedly barracked by Tory MPs.

Asked by presenter Dermot Murnaghan if he was worried he might be sacked because of the poor showing, Mr Balls replied: “The thing is, the reason why you’re asking me this question is that you want me to be bothered.

“Frankly, Dermot, I couldn’t give a toss, I couldn’t give a toss. What I’m worried about this is in my constituency people are in real trouble.”

Speaking moments later, Diane Abbott, a former shadow Education minister, said Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, was “absolutely ruthless enough” to sack Mr Balls.

She told BBC One's Sunday Politics: “One thing you should not under-estimate in Ed Miliband is the capacity for ruthlessness. If he feels it is right to bring in Alistair Darling, or whatever, he will do it.”

Miss Abbott admitted that Mr Balls’ Commons speech was “not his best performance”.

She suggested that Conservative MPs had noisily barracked Mr Balls in a bid to try to goad him into stammering, which Mr Balls has admitted to trying to conquer.

She said: “What they know is that under pressure his stammer may come back, and that is what they were trying to incite.”

i'm sure some of our left wing pals here said what a blinder balls had played in the autumn statement debate ..... it's therefore rather strange that everyone, including other labour mps, reckon it was about as good as england's cricketing in oz

His reply of not giving a toss was in reply to being asked his opinion of bookmakers giving odds of his being sacked. As a conservative supporter, I would be pleased if Labour kept him.

MPs' pay authority faces mass defiance over proposal to raise salaries by 11%

Decision to reject calls for restraint branded 'incomprehensible', with many parliamentarians saying they will not accept pay rise


Andrew Sparrow, political correspondent


theguardian.com, Sunday 8 December 2013 13.27 GMT




The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) faces mass defiance from parliamentarians when it presses ahead with plans to increase their pay to £74,000, it has emerged.

Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, said the proposed increase was "utterly incomprehensible", while Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, said he would expect the cabinet to take a collective stand against the Ipsa ruling. Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, said he could not see himself telling Labour MPs to accept the money.


the rest of the cough splutter article is here: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/dec/08/mp-pay-authority-defiance-raise-salaries

The MP pay thingy is a convenient distraction!



Most people classed as being in poverty 'have job'

8 December 2013


More working households were living in poverty in the UK last year than non-working ones - for the first time, a charity has reported.

Just over half of the 13 million people in poverty - surviving on less than 60% of the national median (middle) income - were from working families, it said.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation said low pay and part-time work had prompted an unprecedented fall in living standards.

But it said the number of pensioners in poverty was at a 30-year low.

Ministers insisted that work remained the best route out of poverty and said the government's welfare reforms would further encourage people to get a job.


More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25287068

The 46-year-old, who has taken up trying to learn the piano, took to the stage to show off his skills after being mocked in the week by Tory Chancellor George Osborne. Balls had revealed last month he postponed his Grade III exam because it fell on the same day his opposite number was due give his Autumn Statement.

'Red' Ed takes to the stage to show George Osborne he CAN play the piano (and there's no sign of Chopsticks!)




What can you really say. :-))

That's two jobs he is trying to learn. I hope he can make a good career from his lessons as he may well need too, very soon.

lol :-)

by the way, it was "relative poverty", though i have no idea how that was calculated .... bet the majority still have the latest cell phones, manage to buy cigarettes and eat ready-made meals from the supermarket