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.

Posted on March 20, 2014

I’d like to see a selfie of that
Walking Trotsky prat
With a whippet and a tankard
And an old flat cap

I’d like to see him at the old
Joanna Lumley playing bawdy tunes
And singing for his supper in
In a working man’s saloon

I’d like to see him do his very
Finest Colin Crompton at the
Wheeltappers and Shunters
And for Susan Boyle to mock
Him

I’d like to see him in the bookies,
Down to his best guess in a worn
Out pair of slippers and a S&M
leather vest , I’d like to see Fred at the Bingo,

then Working hard to find his House after a few pint's

Why is the DWP being so coy about the Work Programme?

It’s amazing how the Department for Work and Pensions will bend over backwards to make it seem one of its madcap schemes has been successful.

It’s also amazing how little evidence DWP press officers will provide to support the claim.

Today we’re being told that more than a quarter of a million people have escaped unemployment via the Work Programme. The fiddle? This is an aggregate figure, including all placements – not people – since the scheme was launched in June 2011.

To register as someone who has achieved a lasting job through the programme, one must stay in work for six months or more (three months in “hardest to help” cases). A figure covering 33 months could include the same person five times over.

Never mind. How many people – who are currently in work as a result of time on this scheme – have, in fact, been employed for six months or more (three months for the “hardest to help”), as this is the only relevant period of time that can be applied?

No comment.

The press release has nothing to say about this.

It seems 44,000 people were “helped” into work during the last three months, but that’s neither here nor there. The DWP does not measure its success that way, and neither should we.

But the figure by which we should be judging this work is conspicuous by its absence.

In a similar vein, we learned yesterday (March 19) that unemployment fell by 63,000 in the last three months. But the number of employees also fell by 60,000, while registered self-employment has risen by 211,000 in the same period.

Remember the scam in which DWP employees at job centres dupe people into pretending they are self-employed when they really aren’t, in order to claim tax credits rather than unemployment benefits?

If you are one of these ‘self-employed’ people, were you told that HM Revenue and Customs might investigate your circumstances and demand repayment of all tax credits paid to you, if investigators decide that you’re not doing the work?

No?

I’d have a little think about what might happen, if I were you.

Strange we were all debating this aspect of employment a couple of days back......

Remember the scam in which DWP employees at job centres dupe people into pretending they are self-employed when they really aren’t, in order to claim tax credits rather than unemployment benefits?

If you are one of these ‘self-employed’ people, were you told that HM Revenue and Customs might investigate your circumstances and demand repayment of all tax credits paid to you, if investigators decide that you’re not doing the work?

No?

I’d have a little think about what might happen, if I were you.

he he he NAUGHTY alders..............I’d like to see Fred and Stan at the Bingo,

then Working hard to find his House after a few pint's........LOL.

New edited version , Stan stood Fred up

LOL. he he.

Sorry Fred.

I think I would only go to Bingo if it was to escape from Alds.

Wheres your 'Little Rag Doll' to play with Fred.????

Im missing the little twerp.

Poor little Chris Leslie always gets given the gigs no one else wants. Yesterday Guido noted that Labour did not include the bedroom ‘tax’ on their list of Tory tax rises, well on the Daily Politics today Andrew Neil asked him why:

He replied, "The Bedroom ‘Tax’ is Not a Tax"

Still going to kick it out whatever its called.

Will be replaced with a Balcony Tax aimed at the rich.

elsewhere in answer to your question :-)
please may we now put the toys back in the pram?

I posted this a little earlier, and wonder if anyone has any (sensible!) thoughts .......

i confess that i am uncomfortable with the ukraine situation, but perhaps not for the obvious reason
my concern is that i have no idea who was pulling the strings of this so-called popular uprising
i do not believe for one minute that it was just internally generated - but then i'm a cynical old fart at the best of times

So Fred Phelps, founder of the westboro baptist church, died today.

At last, Adolf Hitler gets to watch somebody else having a pineapple shoved up his arse.

G
Whatever that means.

Cynic
In this case I don't see any string pulling except by Putin. The current problems started when the Ukraine president suddenly cancelled the expected signing of an EU deal after a visit to Putin in favour of a deal with Russia. Putin seemed to have used some leverage whether it was help in staying president for ever or a bribe. It became clear that he had become Putin's bitch.

Manuel,

Have you ever told a Slav to do anything they didn't want to!

You should try it sometime. I will hold your coat!

As in this country there are probably a small number of individuals trying to manipulate or take advantage of the "political" situation for their own advantages.

It seemed fairly spontaneous quiet revolution against a corrupt ruling body.

Think back to the Carnation revolution and that erupted from the opposition of a small number of officers and then popularly supported by the public led to the downfall of a corrupt dictatorship.

That led to a form of "democracy".

However, my wife thinks slightly differently and is in contact with Ukrainians who suggest that the USA had some part in stimulating the downfall of Yanukovych.

I would think USA and West would have been supportive but not directly involved, but ask yourself, who are manipulating the tories or kipper parties for their own ends and from abroad?

Similar comments were made and suggested regarding the labour party during the 60s and 70s and some worn out commentators still make similar remarks.

But, I think it will settle down with the borders defined by Putin and his thugs.

I hope nobody wants bloodshed to prove a point for the dead!

GF.

You interested me earlier on.

When you said you expected losses.

Are you referring to SBs of similar.

In this market were you leaving the Trades with wider stop losses, or running blind.

I must admit I don't like the market at the moment and only slightly exposed in SBs.

(Think it will recover over next few days to a week.)

I have pretty wide Stop losses than usual.

Just interested in how you are playing it.

There is an Ukrainian proverb that says : a pessimist is an informed optimist !.

The Americans have long history of overthowing left wing goverments , look at what it did in Latin America surporting right wing Dictatorships [ worst case was Chile's Maxist goverment]