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.

George your wrong again, even Thatchers chancellor admits it was Maggies fault.....

Although the "Big Bang" eased stock market transactions there is a debate in the UK about how far it affected the 2007–2012 global financial crisis. In 2010, Nigel Lawson, Thatcher's Chancellor at the time, appeared on the Analysis program to discuss banking reform, explaining that the 2007–2012 global financial crisis was an unintended consequence of the "Big Bang". He said that UK investment banks, previously very cautious with what was their own money, had merged with high street banks putting depositors' savings at risk............ends

Cant be clearer than that.....Maggies own chancellor pinning the blame on Thatchers deregulation of the banks.

Some people have short memories.

And whats more as Hays points out above the economic recovery we HAVE NOW is based on cheap consumer credit.

Food banks started in 2000. They changed their model and expanded as a franchise operation from 2004.

Cynic are you sure you are not mixing up food banks with food/soup kitchens for those of no fixed abode??? are your sure your source is not doing this??.

Perhaps, the problem with the poor, unemployed and feckless is that they wish the pleasures and satisfaction of the more affluent in society, whose wealth is often not based on "ability", hard work and diligence, but due to the beds they were born in and the schools their parents could afford to pack them off to, in order relieve themselves of their responsibility.

(Often, lucky children, even if stunted in many ways.)

no ... just read what i wrote ..... i was commenting on last night's panorama; perhaps you didn't watch it

mind you, there's not a huge difference between foodbanks and old-style soup kitchens - check out the Jewish Soup Kitchen in Brune Street near Brick Lane (now very smart flats!)

YES indeed Fred. Excelent point and we have a few here like that.

Glad Im self made and proud of it and proud to pay responsible taxes, taxes that should protect the most vulnerable in society.

Yes Cyners Ive read it again, very difficult reading your posts shortned down etc etc but agree with most you say but this............

In that respect, Edwina was correct that people have to learn, perhaps very harshly, that if you keep living beyond your means, you will ultimately suffer, and automatic bailout should not be as of right...........................ends

EC is a very silly women who should be ignored at all costs.

I saw her on the first benefits prog saying she had turned up early to catch the F Bank users out saying some were TURNING UP IN CARS.

If the silly women had done her research properly she would find that statistics show that people who are in employment with family credits are in the main the biggest users of food banks. They have been hit harder than any other group by austerity and cannot make ends meet.

Now lads your forgetting what day it is today...........shrove tuesday or pancake day.

I propose we move over to cyners thread on cooking and I will personaly offer a virtual pint of stella to the best recipe on how to make a pancake.

I know Fred and Hays like cooking aswel.

And a few others.

So ready steady cook.

Re 37680
No what I said was--I suppose it was maggie that raided the pension funds leaving millions of near pensioners to survive on a third of what they expected. Times were good for them, not.

Labour created a benefit culture. Labour created nothing jobs,and loaded up the public sector.
Re 37682
In a debate there are conflicting views, Nigel Lawson has his view which may well be right, but the question I would ask is, what did the government of the day do about it.

Cynic, food banks, at our supermarket we just give items we've bought.
2517

edwina
she may be silly and even neaderthal at times, but in this instance, her comment was not without merit



generally
i was taught to be succinct, very much because it is EASIER to read and get the essence!
i'm quite surprised you didn't want to extend discussion on any of the points and comments i made

George.......labour created a benefit culture...........sorry once again you are wrong who started this. it was in fact Maggie yet again.

She created Incapacity Benefit as we know it now she wanted to split the 7 million plus unemployed up in order to fiddle the figures and make the public think she was doing a good job.

I was actually working for the DHSS at that time as a Senior Financial Officer (accountant).

I had to put up with no fewer than 29 changes as to how the unemployment figures were calculated. In other words they were fiddled to make them look better.

In think you would agree Incapacity Benefit is the biggest benefit the public distrust, but their was Maggie promoting it.

The problems have just been passed down the line one government to another and now IDS as the problem and is making the biggest balls up of the lot.

sticky - your comments are much better when you aren't on your "comfort" soapbox!

Well I do try to be as neutral as poss being a floating voter but cant bring myself to support the present group of Tory Bullingdon Boys.

Dont you worry when Labour get in this time Ill be just as bad bringing them down if they make a bad job of it.

What do you mean IF GF? Rely on it!

Not true Chris, something about Milly. Seems to be a lucky politician and you know what they say about lucky PMs....... not good ones.

Anyway nice to see you have conceded labour will form the next government.

Good on you.

Oh yes. Very lucky to have Ed Balls as shadow Chancellor and other dead beats on the front benches.

Milly is a back stabbing gobshite, ask his brother. Conceded nowt mate, god help us if that shower are elected!

i suspect another hung parliament or one party with a minuscule majority - but all on a tiny t/o of ~50%
disaster beckons

What The Fu-k Does David Cameron Know About Poverty?
Posted on February 21, 2014 by johnny void | 242 comments

There are few things more vile than listening to a man born into a multi-million pound fortune lecturing the rest of us about whether people are really poor or not.

David Cameron’s pathetic tirade about poverty this week – during which he accused one of the most senior figures in the Catholic Church of lying about the extent of vicious cuts to social security – was exactly what might be expected from an aloof, out of touch Prime Minister who’s never had to do a real day’s work in his life.

Cameron claims that Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols’ statement that the safety net of the welfare state has disappeared for many people is ‘just not true’. After all, David Cameron doesn’t know any poor people and life in Chipping Norton is simply spiffing. He goes on to say how lucky those unable to find a job are to be entitled to just over £70 a week, less than he probably spends on lunch.

What Cameron doesn’t say is that due to the raft of vicious cuts to other benefits, much of that £70 is now likely to be eaten away by the Bedroom Tax, Housing Benefit shortfalls or Council Tax bills. In some cases these expenses could almost cut that money in half, and after utility bills and even modest debts there could be nothing at all left for food.

For those on out of work sickness or disability benefits, the situation is little better. The extra £30 a week is unlikely to go far, and the additional costs of living with an illness or disability will soon eat it up. As rent and bills soar, and benefits are pegged to rise below the rate of inflation, the safety-net has indeed disappeared. There might be just about enough to pay the landlord, the utility companies and depending where you live Council Tax, but not enough for an adequate diet. As for money for haircuts, clothes, travel fares, phone calls and all the other vital expenses which enable someone to successfully look for work, not a chance.

Approaching a million benefit claims were sanctioned in just one year the DWP reported this week. That means people going with nothing at all in some cases, or if they are lucky enough to qualify for Hardship Payments, around £40 a week. Sanctions can now last up to three years. The horrifying toll this takes on individuals has been well documented by charities, foodbanks and by thousands of claimants themselves online. In a move of breath-taking cruelty, even these meagre payments are to be converted to loans under Universal Credit, trapping claimants in debt, potentially for years.

Benefits delays, which could mean waits of up to six months for some disability benefits, also leave people with nothing at all. Once Crisis Loans provided a scant, but vital emergency service for those whose claims were held up, often due to DWP bungling. These small loans, which were repayable and barely cost the tax payer a penny, were scrapped as part of Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms. Short Term Benefit Advances are still available, but the DWP is doing everything it can to hide that fact from claimants. If a claim is held up due to an honest mistake made by a claimant, then they now face a fine of £50 on top of their wait for benefits.

David Cameron was right about one thing in his spittle-flecked rant this week. The changes to benefits are not about saving money. Social Security spending is rising, and measures like the Bedroom Tax, Benefit Cap and the closure of the Independent Living Fund for the most severely disabled people are likely to cost the country far more in the long run. The social costs of this onslaught, which is set to push millions more children into poverty, will be felt for generations.

Billions is being handed out to the private sector to bully and harass the poorest and in some cases the most vulnerable people in the country. Whether by humiliating and constant health assessments or forcing people into unpaid work for hours on end, it is no longer enough for this Government just to make the poor destitute, they must be endlessly abused. Those who had nothing to begin with are now the human sacrifices of austerity, designed to distract from the financial crimes of the rich.

The harder the odds are stacked against you, the harder this Government will kick you. It is people with mental health conditions, severe illnesses or disabilities, struggling single parents, people battling addiction, those fleeing domestic violence or people who have grown up in care who are facing the full force of this Government’s war on the poor.

This is the twisted morality Cameron speaks of when he pretends he is doing all this to help the poor. He knows there will never be enough jobs for everyone and that capitalism – and the huge profits made from it by the obscenely rich – depend on unemployment to keep wages down. David Cameron believes the poor should be punished as a lesson to everyone else. Work hard, take a pay cut and do what your boss tells you, or it could be you being abused, impoverished and harassed.

It is the morality of the school bully and it is a contemptible. David Cameron won the lottery on the day he was born. Yet still him and his band of braying toffs steal away what little poor people have to survive on, and then tell them their hunger is all in their imagination. It is the rich out of control and increasingly even some of the rich and powerful themselves are realising that. But it will only be bloody class vengeance, not Bishops, which can hold these arrogant toffs to account for the suffering they have caused.

do we REALLY need yet another 5,000 word post?
bet it could have been suitable paraphrased in <200