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.

It is good to know that Wavy Dave has a "MORAL MISSION" ?????

Jesus Wept.

In the MSN now....I suspect the shit is about to hit the fan!




http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2562518/The-truth-Labour-apologists-paedophilia-Police-probe-child-sex-group-linked-party-officials-wake-Savile.html



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2562555/Labours-child-sex-apologists-How-three-partys-senior-figures-campaigned-vile-paedophile-group-probed-police-abusing-children-industrial-scale.html

You had better send for Wavy Davey to start another moral crusade.

me? .... i was playing golf this morning, and most enjoyable it was too

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

shorter hours or part-time work
i know i've said it before, but i'll say it again ......
it suits many who are on benefits, especially if they have very young children, to only work a maximum of 16 hours pw
any more than that, and their benefits get trimmed

and along the same lines .....
free nursery time is limited to 15 hours a week, but you can't even claim that until your child is 3
if you have to pay for nursery time, i'ld guess - one of you guys will know for sure - it costs ~£90 a day, which actually isn't an unreasonable charge if you stop to work it out
however, to pay your £90 a day means that both of you will have to be working, and even then, there's a danger that the monetary value of both working becomes marginal

£90 quid a day for childcare.

That translates into approx. £23000 pa.

That requires a gross income of about £33500.


Average wage in the Uk is about £25000 gross. (before tax/NI etc)



See the problem?

absolutely .... i assume my guesstimate isn't too far off the mark

Indeed cynic, pointless exercise.

Performing outside No 10 later on to-day.

27 bishops slam David Cameron's welfare reforms as creating a national crisis in unprecedented attack
Feb 19, 2014 22:00 By Jason Beattie

Biggest political move by Church of England in a generation as bishops attack the prime minister's welfare reforms
”
Britain’s leading bishops denounce David Cameron’s welfare reforms for creating a “national crisis”.

In an unprecedented attack on the Tory-led Coalition, 27 Anglican bishops and 16 other clergy accuse the Tory-led coalition of creating hardship and hunger.

For so many leading members of the clergy to launch such a direct attack on the Government of the day is unprecedented.

This is the most significant political move by the Church of England since its Faith in the City report in the 1980s attacking Margaret Thatcher’s cuts.

It underlines the deep concern felt by the churches over the Coalition’s brutal welfare cuts which have left so many facing hunger and hardship.

In a letter to the Daily Mirror, 27 Anglican bishops and 16 other faith leaders say the PM has a “moral duty” to act on the growing number going hungry.

The intervention comes after Britain’s leading Catholic Archbishop Vincent Nichols said the Government’s benefit cuts were a “disgrace.”

A rattled Mr Cameron hit back by claiming the reforms were a “moral mission” and gave people “hope”.

But he is now also at war with the Church of England and other faith groups including the Quakers and Methodists.

In their letter the bishops say “Britain is the world’s seventh largest economy and yet people are going hungry.”

It continues: “We must, as a society, face up to the fact that over half of people using foodbanks have been put in that situation by cut backs to and failures in the benefit system, whether it be payment delays or punitive sanctions.”

Signed by 27 of the 59 Church of England bishops, it notes that half a million people have visited foodbanks since last Easter, while 5,500 people were admitted to hospital in the UK for malnutrition last year.

The church leaders also challenge Mr Cameron’s claim that his reforms are part of a “moral mission.”

“We often hear talk of hard choices. Surely few can be harder than that faced by the tens of thousands of older people who must ‘heat or eat’ each winter, harder than those faced by families whose wages have stayed flat while food prices have gone up 30% in just five years.

“Yet beyond even this we must, as a society, face up to the fact that over half of people using foodbanks have been put in that situation by cut backs to and failures in the benefit system, whether it be payment delays or punitive sanctions,’ the letter says.

It concludes by telling the Prime Minister he has an “acute moral imperative to act.”

“Hundreds of thousands of people are doing so already, as they set up and support foodbanks across the UK. But this is a national crisis, and one we must rise

“We call on government to do its part: acting to investigate food markets that are failing, to make sure that work pays, and to ensure that the welfare system provides a robust last line of defence against hunger,” the bishops write.

Signatories include the Bishops of Durham, Oxford, Manchester, Salisbury, Newcastle, Gloucester and Leicester.

The Bishop of Chelsmford, the Rt Rev Stephen Cottrell, said: “Food banks provide a fantastic service but it is scandalous that in our society we should need a single food bank let alone hundreds of them.

“It feels to me we are a more divided society than even a year ago and that troubles me deeply.”

Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Rachel Reeves MP said: “This letter should be a wake up call to David Cameron.

“The government have presided over a cost of living crisis and policies like the bedroom tax and cuts to tax credits are hitting the most vulnerable in society. Foodbanks are fast becoming the symbol of this out-of-touch government.”

The Bishops’ letter is part of the End Hunger Fast campaign – which is calling on people to fast during lent in solidarity with the UK’s hungry families.

The campaign will culminate with a vigil in Parliament Square in the run up to Easter.

It comes as figures showed 818,000 benefit claimants have had their payments docked because of tough new sanctions since October 2012.

Campaigners say the sanctions are one of the major factors causing people to seek aid from foodbanks.

The Rev Keith Hebden, founder of the End Hunger Fast campaign, said the Government was “failing in its duty of care” to provide a basic safety net..

“All kinds of circumstances push people to the edges of society where they now face a triple whammy of welfare cuts, wage stagnation, and food price rises. The Government is failing in its duty of care to provide basic safety net for its own citizens.

“We must reconsider urgently the society we are becoming; the hunger we permit. For David Cameron to defend what is happening in the welfare system as a part of his ‘moral mission’, when the reality is that hundreds of thousands of Britains have been left hungry is truly shocking,” he told the Mirror.

Chris Mould of the Trussell Trust, Britain’s largest provider of foodbanks. said it was “unacceptable” that hundreds of thousands of people could not afford to eat.

“We need to wake up to the hunger on our doorsteps, and ask urgent, in depth questions about why this is happening and then be brave enough to take action to stop it. We’d urge people to add their voice to the call to end hunger fast,” he said.

The Daily Mirror has been campaigning on food poverty and the exponential rise in foodbanks for over a year. Over half a million people took three days emergency food from Trussell Trust foodbanks alone during April to December 2013.

Over Christmas, the paper launched a petition with the campaigner Jack Monroe, the Trussell Trust and Unite the Union that was signed by over 140,000 people in less than a week. The petition demanded a debate in Parliament on the rising use of Foodbanks – and to find solutions to the growing crisis of UK hunger.

In December, Mirror readers also raised over £100,000 for British families in need of food aid during the paper’s Christmas Appeal.

The Daily Mirror is also calling on the Department for Food and Rural Affairs to publish a suppressed food poverty report commissioned from academics at Warwick University and delivered almost a year ago to the department.

Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Rachel Reeves MP said: “David Cameron’s so-called ‘moral crusade’ on welfare has been a disaster.

“There’s nothing moral about working people paying more and disabled people being hit hardest.

“This Tory-led Government’s welfare reforms have penalised, rather than helped, those doing the right thing. The idea that disabled people hit by the Bedroom Tax, young people desperate for a job but stuck on benefits, and working families struggling to survive on low pay have been given ‘hope’ by David Cameron is preposterous,” she said.

A Number 10 spokesman said: “Of course many families are facing tough times as a result of the worst recession in a century.

“That’s why, as the Prime Minister stressed today our welfare reforms are about building a country where people are not trapped in a cycle of dependency but are able to get on, stand on their own two feet and build a better life for themselves and their family.

“Our welfare reforms are about giving new purpose, new opportunity, new hope and new responsibility to people who had previously been written off with no chance.

“Seeing these reforms through is at the heart of our long-term economic plan and it is at the heart of our social and moral mission in politics today.”

Here is the letter submitted to The Daily Mirror:

Sir,

Britain is the world’s seventh largest economy and yet people are going hungry.

Half a million people have visited foodbanks in the UK since last Easter and 5,500 people were admitted to hospital in the UK for malnutrition last year.

One in five mothers report regularly skipping meals to better feed their children, and even more families are just one unexpected bill away from waking up with empty cupboards.

We often hear talk of hard choices. Surely few can be harder than that faced by the tens of thousands of older people who must “heat or eat” each winter, harder than those faced by families whose wages have stayed flat while food prices have gone up 30% in just five years.

Yet beyond even this we must, as a society, face up to the fact that over half of people using foodbanks have been put in that situation by cut backs to and failures in the benefit system, whether it be payment delays or punitive sanctions.

On March 5th Lent will begin. The Christian tradition has long been at this time to fast, and by doing so draw closer to our neighbour and closer to God.

On March 5th we will begin a time of fasting while half a million regularly go hungry in Britain. We urge those of all faith and none, people of good conscience, to join with us.

There is an acute moral imperative to act. Hundreds of thousands of people are doing so already, as they set up and support foodbanks across the UK. But this is a national crisis, and one we must rise to.

We call on government to do its part: acting to investigate food markets that are failing, to make sure that work pays, and to ensure that the welfare system provides a robust last line of defence against hunger.

Join us at www.endhungerfast.co.uk.

Yours

Anglican Bishops

Stephen Platten, Wakefield
David Walker, Manchester
Tim Stevens, Leicester
Andy John, Bangor
Tony Porter, Sherwood
Paul Butler, Durham
Alan Wilson, Buckingham
Alan Smith, St Albans
Nick Holtam, Salisbury
Tim Thornton, Truro
John Pritchard, Oxford
Steven Croft, Sheffield
Jonathan Gledhill, Lichfield
Michael Perham, Gloucester
Alastair Redfern, Derby
Lee Rayfield, Swindon
James Langstaff, Rochester
Martin Warner, Chichester
Mike Hill, Bristol
Martin Wharton, Newcastle
Peter Maurice, Taunton
Gregory Cameron, St Asaph
Peter Burrows, Doncaster
Stephen Cottrell, Chelmsford
Martyn Snow, Tewkesbury
John Holbrook, Brixworth
David Urquhart, Birmingham
Methodist Chairs of District

Loraine Mellor, Nottingham and Derby
John Hellyer, South East
Jenny Impey , London
Michaela Young, London
Stuart Jordan, London
Bruce Thompson, Lincolnshire
Lionel Osborn, Newcastle Upon Tyne
Revd Richard Teal, Cumbria
Revd Jim Booth, Liverpool
Revd Vernon Marsh. Sheffield
United Reform Church

Paul Whittle, Eastern Synod
Simon Walkling, Synod of Wales
Richard Church, Northwest Synod
Quakers

Clare Wood, Assistant General Secretary for Quaker Peace and Social Justice
Helen Drewery, General Secretary for Quaker Peace and Social Justice


http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/27-bishops-slam-david-camerons-3164033#ixzz2tqw7FyYe
Follow us: @DailyMirror on Twitter | DailyMirror on Facebook

The welfare cuts are a VERY popular policy

Are the churches, in all their forms going to give to the poor?


The CoE, Catholics etc. are fabulously wealthy.


Practice what you preach?

Update - Labour lead at 4
by YouGov in Politics
Thu February 20, 2014 6 a.m. GMT

Latest YouGov / The Sun results 19th February - Con 33%, Lab 37%, LD 10%, UKIP 12%;

MaxK - totally agree, some of these church - holier than thou - people get right up my nose especially when they start preaching about "moral duty".

it's certainly an interesting question as to what involvement the church(es) should have in politics
in the middle ages, the church was very much a political and indeed military (knights of st john etc) force to be reckoned with
rushing forward to 20th century, i think we were all pretty appalled that the catholic church took no steps to condemn the ira and its atrocities, and now when the church does involve itself, we don't care for that either

it's a very fine balance

I vote for no involvement at all. Why do believers in extra terrestrial celestial beings feel qualified to comment on anything?

they are every bit as qualified as you and i, and as spiritual leaders of a great number of people, there is a strong argument that they owe their flock guidance

indeed, i would love to see the leaders of the jewish faith taking a stance against some of the actions perpetrated by the israeli gov't
i find their silence shameful

I suspect the church are getting involved because their is no real opposition from Labour MPs which is a disgrace.

Obviously keeping an eye on fiddled polls which are motivated by Tory lies about the scale of welfare which is very tiny compared to tax evasion and tax avoidance scumsters.

If just a small amount of this money was recovered it would pay for the whole welfare budget.

Brooks acquitted of misconduct in public office on direction of judge.