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.

Labour’s claim of being the party of council housing is in tatters

As part of the Labour conference focus on the cost of living, the party will be going to great efforts this week to reclaim its presumed title as the party of ‘council housing’.

Expect to hear private builders bashed for squirrelling away land plots rather than piling ‘em high with apartments as they should. And the pillorying of the right to buy policy, ritually chastised as it is each conference as the chief reason for the country’s interminable descent into social housing drought.

What you’re unlikely to hear is a serious admission by Labour of its appalling track record on council housing supply. That local authority housing passed into private hands far faster under Labour than Conservative prime ministers. Or that the true title of council housing champion sits more comfortably in Conservative hands.

Despite the huge building boom under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, only 13 percent of the 2.5 million homes which rose up under their watch were built by ‘social’ landlords. This compares with almost a quarter of 3.8m homes under Margaret Thatcher and John Major’s reign. Even David Cameron appears on track to match his predecessors’ trend, in market share at least. If Labour had caught onto the coat tails of their building boom to the same degree as the Tories, almost 300,000 more social homes would be dotting this land. What a massive missed opportunity.

Whichever way you look at it Labour’s council housing halo has slipped. Investment in housing plunged under Blair and Brown to its lowest level for decades. During their first 12 months in power they spent less than in any year of Thatcher and Major’s 18-year reign. Their poverty of social housing ambition persisted throughout most of their administration. A big increase only arrived in its dying days- as a prop for builders tripped up by the financial crisis.

One council housing crown does belong firmly in Labour’s territory, though not one its grassroots members ever wanted. Council houses and flats passed into private ownership at a far greater rate in Brown and Blair’s 13 years than under two decades of Thatcher, Major and Cameron premierships.

LOL, Hays all those LA houses that Maggie sold off 'on right to buy' 2/3rds are now in the hands of mostly Asian Landlords. The tenants saw Maggie coming LOL LOL LOL.

Dont try to give labour any lessons on Council houses.

Cyners a good bricky up here in the north clears £250 to £300 a day god knows how much they are earning down south.

Do you really think an assembler in an engineering company can match that.

like i said, i don't think he's just an odd-bod; he clearly must have other talents .... but it was a very interesting conversation for all sorts of reasons

with regard to selling off the council houses to the tenants, i don't recollect that there were too many dissenting voices, though it was so long ago, that perhaps i have forgotten about the few

since that time, it is certainly true that no gov't of any hue has made much if any effort to have new council houses built or even to do much about reviving the existing stock ..... much as you might wish to, you really cannot hang that particular canard at anyone's door

After now the Mike Hancock sex claim's [ remember he was also involved with a young East European girl about a year ago ] , Clegg can't remain as leader but it won't save his party.

The next party poll will be interesting

I like this story from a while ago

Broadcaster and food writer Clarissa Dixon Wright has outraged animal rights campaigners by suggesting that badgers killed in the imminent cull should be eaten.

The Two Fat Ladies presenter claimed that badger had once been “a staple food of the population”.

“It would solve the problem. There's going to be a cull, so rather than just throw them in the landfill site why not eat them?” she said.

“I would have no objection to eating badgers. I have no objection to eating anything very much, really,” she added. “There are too many badgers. It's very interesting - the reason at certain times of the year you see so many dead badgers on the road is that the badgers throw out their old and ill that aren't going to survive the winter.”

Ms Dixon-Wright, who is currently publicising her new book and has been a vocal supporter of country sports, claimed that in her youth West Country pubs served badger meat at the bar. She even offered cooking tips for preparing a badger-based meal.

“Either make a ham or treat it like pork - very lean pork because it's got no fat on it. Baste it properly and marinade it properly and cook it in a casserole or whatever,” she said.

And look what a fat lump of lard she is

Maybe she would have been slimmer if she had eaten badgers recently as they are so lean. It sounds quite tasty. I would like to try a badger. Probably tastier than baby seal.

You are what you eat.

In a general sense in that we eat chemicals and we are made of chemicals. It doesn't matter if the chemicals we eat are arranged as a puppy or a carrot.

The Tories' claim that living standards have risen is nonsense on stilts

The claim that almost all earners are better off entirely ignores the cuts to in-work and child benefits. Trying to fix the figures won't work.
BY GEORGE EATON PUBLISHED 24 JANUARY 2014 8:38


The claim that almost all earners are better off.

For all the talk of recovery this week, the unpalatable truth remains that most people are still getting poorer. In the last quarter, average weekly earnings rose by just 0.9 per cent, less than half the rate of inflation (2 per cent). As long as the wage squeeze continues, the Tories will struggle to rebut Ed Miliband's warnings of a "cost of living crisis" - and it could cost them the election. While the Conservatives have established a comfortable lead on who would best manage the economy, they continue to trail Labour on who would do most to improve family incomes (the same trend seen during Obama vs. Romney).

Aware of this, the Tories have resorted to statistical chicanery that would make even Iain Duncan Smith blush. In an article in today's Times, George Osborne's protégée Matthew Hancock, the skills minister, claims that the "crisis" spoken of by Miliband is a mirage. He writes: "The story is said to go like this: yes, there are a record number of jobs but the rich are getting richer and incomes are falling for everyone else. Right? In fact, wrong."

While the ONS's recent annual survey of earnings (for April 2012 to April 2013) shows that median wages (2.1 per cent) rose slower than inflation (2.4 per cent) for the fifth year running, Hancock claims that the increase in the income tax personal allowance means that almost everyone is better off. He writes:

New facts on take-home pay — the pound in your pocket — are stark. Last year take-home pay grew faster than inflation for every group of earners except the top 10 per cent.

For those in the middle, squeezed by the great recession, take home pay rose by 4 percent. The top tenth were the only group who saw their take home pay grow by less than prices. So the bottom 90 per cent of earners saw the wages they took home rise faster than consumer inflation last year.
He adds: "[T]he monthly average earnings figures measure income before tax and, thanks to our tax cuts, low and middle-income earners are paying much less of it. Last year we cut the tax paid by a typical taxpayer by £320. By this April most people will be paying £705 less in income tax than before the election. Those on the minimum wage will have seen their income tax bill cut by almost two thirds."

Were it true that living standards are rising for most people, the Tories would have a significantly better story to tell on the economy. Unfortunately for them, it's not. The data used by Hancock takes no account of the large benefit cuts introduced by the coalition, such as the real-terms cut in child benefit, the uprating of benefits in line with CPI inflation rather than RPI, and the cuts to tax credits (other major cuts such as the bedroom tax, the benefit cap, and the 10 per cent cut in council tax support were introduced after April 2013). The IFS has consistently shown that almost all families are worse off once all tax and benefit changes are taken into account.

In an attempt to present austerity as progressive, Hancock notes that his figures of choice show that disposable income did not rise for the top 10 per cent. But this was before the government cut the top rate of tax from 50p to 45p in April 2013, handing an average tax cut of £107,500 to the UK's 8,000 income millionaires. The irony is that the one month since 2010 when average earnings rose faster than prices was April 2013, when high earners collected the bonuses they deferred in order to benefit from the reduction in the top rate.

One almost has to admire the Tories' chutzpah; is trying to convince voters who are worse off (and are all too aware of that fact) that they're actually better off really smart politics? On 5 Live this morning, Robert Halfon, the blue collar moderniser, who has pushed harder than any other Tory for an increase in the minimum wage, tellingly chose not to adopt this tack.

Rather than trying to fix the figures to justify their policies, the Tories would be wise to fix their policies to change the figures.

There you go. So it was just another one of Labour's myths and tall stories.

I think this sums up Hazy and Manuel.

Or perhaps this.

Good to see this story is being covered so well

http://news.sky.com/story/1200248/take-home-pay-rising-faster-than-inflation

Nine out of 10 British workers have seen their take-home pay increase in the past year, according to Treasury figures.

In a counter attack on Labour's so-called cost of living crisis, the Tories argued there was "stark" evidence that the economic recovery is for all.

Conservative ministers said nearly everyone except the richest 10% saw their take-home pay rise by at least 2.5% once tax cuts were taken into account.

This is above the Consumer Price Index inflation rate which stood at 2.4% in the year ending April 2013.

It is claimed conditions have improved most for the bottom 50% of earners with take-home pay rising three quarters faster than CPI inflation.

Were it true that living standards are rising for most people, the Tories would have a significantly better story to tell on the economy. Unfortunately for them, it's not. The data used by Hancock takes no account of the large benefit cuts introduced by the coalition, such as the real-terms cut in child benefit, the uprating of benefits in line with CPI inflation rather than RPI, and the cuts to tax credits (other major cuts such as the bedroom tax, the benefit cap, and the 10 per cent cut in council tax support were introduced after April 2013). The IFS has consistently shown that almost all families are worse off once all tax and benefit changes are taken into account.


They seem to have a blind spot as usual these Tory boys.


LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

YET MORE LIES FROM THE TORIES.

HOW MUCH FURTHER CAN THEY STOOP.

NOW THE TRUE FIGURES.......

The IFS has consistently shown that almost all families are worse off once all tax and benefit changes are taken into account.

The BBC are covering it as well

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25869001

UK pay rising in real terms, says coalition

Most British workers have seen their take-home pay rise in real terms in the past year, the government claims.

It has produced figures showing all except the richest 10% saw their take-home wages rise by at least 2.5% once tax cuts were taken into account.

That is more than the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation rate of 2.4% in the year to April 2013.

The government said the figures show only the top 10% of earners fell behind the CPI rate - which excludes the costs of buying and owning a home such as mortgage interest repayments - with an average increase of 2%

hays - i find that very hard to believe, and even if take-home pay has risen in the last year (not impossible), the increase in heating and food bills will have more than wiped that out - i.e. living standards have not (remotely) started to improve yet, even though industrial activity has