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.

Are you sure of that?

Don't think the market is that honest!

Money is no object and spending is Camorons priority Cyners.

How long is a piece of string.

Jail the DWP fraudsters who tried to fix UK unemployment figures!
17
Monday
Feb 2014

Posted by Mike Sivier in Benefits

Iain Duncan Smith and everybody else associated with this scam should be facing charges and the possibility of imprisonment, rather than re-election next year.
Let’s be honest about this: The government hasn’t messed up by omitting Universal Credit claimants from the official unemployment benefit claimant count – the Department for Work and Pensions messed up by admitting this had happened.

It means we may be looking at a long-term attempt to defraud the electorate. The plan seems clear: When the general election finally takes place next year, Iain Duncan Smith would have claimed that his policies have been a brilliant success in creating jobs and cutting down the number of people claiming benefits.

If people are convinced that the DWP has succeeded in cutting the amount of money being paid out in benefits – the burden on the taxpayer – then they are more likely to vote for the Conservatives. Electoral victory means more money for everybody involved – what’s known as a pecuniary advantage.

But the claim has been made by deception. Obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception is the dictionary definition of criminal fraud.

There can be no doubt that the omission was deliberate. When it comes to fiddling the official figures, the DWP has ‘form’ going back for years. Look at the lies about the benefit cap pushing people into work; the way people on ESA were encouraged to say they were self-employed and claim tax credits – even though this is not permitted and they were racking up a huge overpayment.

Look at the abuses of the sanction system; look at the abuses of the IB/ESA work capability assessment; look at the number of successful appeals against the DWP that have been kept out of official figures.

The claimant count, which provides the headline unemployment figure, is the number of people claiming Jobseekers’ Allowance every month – and has been for many years.

But Iain Duncan Smith’s flagship (if the ship was the Titanic) Universal Credit is up and running – on an extremely limited basis – in certain pilot areas of the country, and people without a job in those areas should be included in the claimant count.

This has not happened. It is possible that this is yet another oversight by Mr Duncan Smith, the government’s top bungler (indeed, he was recently voted favourite cabinet minister by ConservativeHome, so he must be doing something right, and the thing he does most often is make mistakes).

Mr Duncan Smith himself would disagree, however. He has claimed repeatedly and vehemently that his department does not make mistakes with statistics; that everything done on his watch has been justified and that everybody at the DWP is entirely competent.

So we must accept that there was a decision to keep Universal Credit claimants out of the claimant count, meaning that there was a decision to make it seem there are fewer people unemployed than is actually the case.

This seems to be supported by the complaint from the Office for National Statistics, which publishes unemployment figures. The wording runs as follows: “The DWP have not been able to supply ONS with this information in a way that has allowed its inclusion within the Claimant Count [italics mine], resulting in the exclusion of UC claims from this measure.”

This implies that the DWP is perfectly capable of supplying the figures in a manageable way but has deliberately done otherwise.

Further indication that DWP officials knew exactly what they were doing comes from a spokeswoman’s response to this affair, published in the Daily Mirror: “We have been fully transparent in publishing the number of people claiming Universal Credit.

“To ensure consistency the Department released these figures alongside the employment statistics. Universal Credit is both an in- and out-of-work benefit so some claimants may be working.”

In that case, the DWP cannot have been “fully transparent”, can it? Transparency would have required the department to separate UC into “in-work” and “out-of-work” claims, and we have no evidence that this has happened. Until it does, neither the ONS nor the rest of us have any way of knowing how many people are unemployed in the UK.

This has been going on for nearly a year, as Universal Credit was rolled out in its first pilot area in April last year. This means that all unemployment statistics since then have been falsified by the DWP and unemployment figures have been higher than claimed.

The Labour Party has tried to paint this as incompetence, but it is wrong to do so.

This was deliberate, premeditated disinformation.

Now the deception has been uncovered, they are unrepentant.

Perhaps someone should remind them that fraud is still a crime.

sticky - 36756 - you're sure off the rails today old bean ...... go and lie down for a few hours :-)

There aren't that many people on Universal Benefits as the scheme is running as a pilot.

Up to end of October there were only 2,720 people on Universal Benefits and that includes people who are working. The figures involved are tiny and the effect on the numbers of unemployment is minute!

errr Hays care to add these groups on.............

Unemployed people claiming the new Universal Credit are not the only benefit recipients not to be included in official unemployment figures. Those claiming sickness benefits, early retires, some students of working age and jobseeker’s on the government’s controversial Work Programme, are also not included in the ONS statistics, among a few others......................ends


Everyone knows even Cynic the figures are fiddled.

You Hays are the only one on the planet who doesnt.

Sickness benefit claimants, early retirees are not unemployed. Their description tells you that.

sticky - i'll say it for the umpteenth time ...... if the methodology is consistent for (at least) 12 months, then the numbers are not fiddled .... that they may not give the result or even the picture you would like is a different matter entirely

Weve discussed these fiddled figures before.

I was proved right you 2 Tories WRONG.

if you say so, but (a) you would say that wouldn't you and (b) i probably only bother to read about 5% of the stuff posted on this thread

gf
We have discussed figures before and you have been wrong every time.

same reply to hays :-)

GF,

They only believe what the party HQ tells them to believe.

A bit like having a form of religious belief.

------

When this coalition is out of power and ? a coalition of Labour and Libs is in power, then it would be appropriate to have an inquiry into the tories manipulation of data, financial arrangements and other sponsorship.

Could be interesting.

Coalition former energy minister Chris Huhne on ITV news now saying spending cuts were partly to blame for the floods.

Go on Hays deny that hes said that, carry on denying everything.

I can only rank you alongside Cameron and Osbourne and I D S as a liar these days. If thats the way you live your life you really are the lowlife that you come across as on this site.

electionista ‏@electionista
UK - YouGov/Sunday Times poll:

CON 32%
LAB 39%
LDEM 9%
UKIP 12%

PS.

GF.

Allow for Manuel's deteriorating memory, even if he reads something, he probably won't remember it, especially, if it is differs with his own often ill considered indoctrinated opinions.

His comprehension is rapidly deteriorating.

Have pity on him.

All be careful Cameron is on tour to a place near you with "money no object".

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

Labour says unemployed under-counted.

17 Feb 2014
By Fascia Sinistra

Labour has called for unemployment figures to be updated with the missing numbers. It is disgusting that the DWP has omitted significant groups who are clearly not working.

These 'missing' people include those in hospital awaiting operations, patients who die in hospital and haven't yet been buried. It is a scandal that suicides are not counted, not forgetting fatal victims of car accidents. Soldiers killed in various conflicts should be in the figures at least until they are repatriated.

Among Labour's more controversial suggestions is that those buried and passing through crematoriums in the current financial year should be classed as unemployed. Many of these people could have caused death and burial benefits to have been claimed.

Ed Balls said today, "those in a coma and a persistent vegetative state are clearly candidates for recognition as unemployed." He added, "we are currently looking at the possibility of including inmates of mental institutions and it goes without saying that the population of HM prisons are obviously unemployed."

Labour have already ruled out the possibility of union leaders being counted.

Economic success, or the greater fool theory in action?




First-time buyers struggle as London property prices soar

First and second-time buyers are being repeatedly outbid as investors snap up properties in the capital for well above asking prices



By Nicole Blackmore

7:38AM GMT 17 Feb 2014





Only in “lunatic London” could someone with a budget of £500,000 be outbid on a succession of properties for which rival buyers were prepared to pay tens of thousands of pounds above the asking prices.


Clare Duffy, above, was unable to buy even an ex-council house in Peckham, a neighbourhood made famous by the Eighties sitcom Only Fools and Horses.


The housing market in London is at “fever pitch”, according to some commentators, who fear that possible overheating in the capital could spill into other regions, resulting in an end to Help to Buy and other schemes that aim to boost lending and home ownership.


House price growth is only just being registered in some parts of Britain while London recorded double-digit price rises last year, with prices apparently continuing to rocket in 2014.


This week Adair Turner, the former head of the financial watchdog, added his voice to those calling for the Help to Buy scheme to be reined in, saying it was a “step too far”. Help to Buy is a government-backed scheme aimed at encouraging banks to lend to those with small deposits.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/houseprices/10639072/First-time-buyers-struggle-as-London-property-prices-soar.html