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.

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

You cannot blame politicians for the flooding that has occurred !....it is extreme....the problem is that it will only get worse...I'm convinced that the artic/polar/greenland ice/caps are starting to melt....it will mean crazy as it is : parts of the globe getting colder ..other parts hotter, drier, wetter....it's nuts...but there is probably no stopping this even if there was zero pollution from now on....

RF.

But Haze and Manuel think Cameron is a god as they are his disciples. He is omnipotent and surely he should be able to turn a few buckets of the water back.

I am not sure whether global warming is or is not the part of our climate problems, but if I had to I would come down on the side of the majority of "climate" scientist who think we are adding to the problems.

However, I do believe that some of the flooding problems and consequences could were and foreseen and could have been prepared for, and sensible precautions and prevention could have prevented the scale and costs of recovering from the present disaster many are suffering.

That is down to action of central government in providing organisation and overall planning and control of the necessary work for infrastructure, as well as raising the taxes to pay for such.

Along with previous governments this government has failed it responsibilities.

Especially, by not doing the work which it was told was necessary.

Is that as opposed to Miliband and Balls who are both impotent.