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.

fwiw, our annual cycling trip will be around moulins (a little north of vichy) .... looks to have plenty to see and some nice varied cycling

‘Social cleansing’ of London is well under way – BBC documentary
11
Friday
Apr 2014
Posted by Mike Sivier in Benefits, Children, Conservative Party, Cost of living, council tax, Disability, Employment



Cartoon by Martin Shovel.

Leading Conservatives must be delighted with the success of their benefit cap in getting single mothers and people with large families out of London – as depicted in the BBC Panorama special, Don’t Cap My Benefits, yesterday evening. (Thursday)

The change means that nobody in the UK is allowed to receive more than £26,000 in benefits per year. The government has claimed this is the same as the average family income, but readers of Vox Political will know that this is a flimsy lie and average family income is in fact more than £5,000 per year higher, at £31K+. The reason benefits weren’t pegged at that level is that far fewer people would be affected by it. Make no mistake – this measure was enacted to shift people from the capital.

The film shows the effects of the change on a number of families in Brent, one of London’s worst-hit boroughs, during a period of just six months. Some of them were forced to move away from their lifelong homes to other cities, with one person being threatened with deportation to Manchester. Even people with jobs were forced to go, by council workers whose attitude bordered on the offensively hostile.

Partway through, Vox Political received this comment: “I am watching Panorama, about the benefit cap. It is heart-breaking, mothers are being split up from small children, a single mother who is volunteering at a children’s centre – a good tenant, according to her landlord – is evicted, she has gone from a house to a B&B and the council woman said, ”At least you’re not on the street”. What hope is there?”

Very little, it seems.

The strongest message the documentary gave was that the benefit cap targets minorities and drives them out of London to areas, most commonly in the Midlands or the North, where people are already suffering similar social deprivation. Perhaps the Tories who dreamed up this idea believe the axiom that ‘Misery loves company’.

Of the families or individuals featured in the film, only one was of British ethnic origin – and she was painted as a troublemaker by her landlord. Some were people who had immigrated into the UK (many years ago – so let’s not have any anti-immigration propaganda levelled at them); some were black. All had children – including some who had many more than the average (there were seven in one family). Some were single mothers. Some were in work, but were told that the amount they were earning could not keep them housed in London and they had to go. Some said they were in work but were doubted by housing officers who forced them out anyway (only to discover later that they were telling the truth, and move them back into Brent, possibly at great expense to the taxpayer).

Perhaps we were supposed to look down on these individuals. Were we supposed to believe they had brought these troubles on themselves because they had too many children without considering the cost, or because they had split up from the fathers of their children, or because their jobs paid too little or their rent was too high?

That’s not what this documentary showed at all.

It showed the intentionally vicious effects of a government policy specifically designed to inflict suffering, in order to remove these unwanted social dregs (as Cabinet ministers no doubt see them) and make London more available as a playground for the rich. It is a policy that goes back (as many do) to Thatcherism.

Thatcherism relied on a massive increase in unemployment, the lowering of wages and the increase of housing prices to undermine the self-confidence of working-class communities – and succeeded on a massive scale. But these were the economics of “planned misery”, in the phrase of Rodolfo Walsh, according to The Impact of Thatcherism on Health and Well-Being in Britain, a new report – strongly recommended.

The article states: “As the relative value of benefits fell, and as wage rates for increasingly insecure and feminised, unskilled work were held down, the poorest were becoming poorer and increasingly ‘socially excluded’, blamed, and stigmatised for policy outcomes that the government had in fact fully anticipated.”

It continues: “All of this generated – and was designed to generate – sharply increased inequalities of income and wealth across Britain and a dramatic increase in poverty… Thatcher’s governments wilfully engineered an economic catastrophe across large parts of Britain and sowed the seeds… of a subsequent collapse – which ironically has provided the highly spurious legitimation for a new generation of ‘uber-Thatcherites’ in the current Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government to go where Thatcher herself had hesitated to tread – a complete dismantling of the welfare state.”

In other words, this government’s answer to poverty is to remove the safety net – and that is what we saw in the Panorama film.

The answer to the problems it depicted isn’t to ship poor people off to the deprived North! The answer is a cap on rents, so they don’t become so high that people can’t pay them. It’s a living wage, to ensure that working people don’t need to claim state benefits – as someone else recently said, how can any industry consider itself ‘private’ if its employees need funding from the state to survive?

Otherwise, as a commenter on the BBC’s Question Time said, a little later in the evening, there will be nobody left in London to provide services such as education, for all the rich kids the Tories and Tory Democrats are no doubt already inviting in.

Right?

What do you think?

What do I think.

I think this government is stacking up problems for the future.

The problem with fragmenting society and making it obviously into "them" and "us" groupings, is that the "them" may organise themselves and act as a group.

The "underclass" may resort to their own strengths, which may be criminal and physical.

And as they have been set an example by "bankers", business leaders and MPs breaking the rules, laws and regulations and then being defended, or protected by the PM and government, it is difficult to feel that they should be condemned for their actions.

Social anarchy.


However, I think a welfare state should be to support the weak, or vulnerable not to encourage a dependancy.

Another thing, is that I think one should work to live, not live to work.

At the moment this economy seems like one group digging holes in the road and another group filling them in. Working hard utilising resources and achieving nothing useful.

PS.

I think this period in the Tory party's history will be seen as a shameful one.

set an example by MPs breaking the rules ...... you forgot to add from all sides of the house
but other than that, and as i have written before, it worries me greatly that the great majority of people will feel so disillusioned with politics in general, that they just won't bother to turn out to vote ..... then the nutters will gain disproportionate representation to the detriment of the many

I agree with both of you guys on your posts above.

Well thought out.

God forbid if UKIP got an hold in this country. And yep I like it as a protest vote, and Im just hoping most others do aswel...........especialy at the next general election......WINK.

Hays Hays Hays Hays.............

the MARIA effect now working......a lagging indicator dont forget and Davy Gravy is now being looked upon as WEAK........

electionista ‏@electionista 9hour ago
UK - YouGov/Sun poll:

CON 32%
LAB 38%
LDEM 8%
UKIP 14

6 point lead restored to Labour and more importantly 38% of the vote that would get them over the line with a majority.

Lib Dems getting hammered.

much as you like to tease hays, i really cannot see any way of ukip gaining any more than 5 seats at the general election, and as hays says, probably none ..... however, the collateral damage that votes for ukip may do is something of a worry, and it may well affect both labour and tory

Those 5 seats could be crucial dont forget Cyners.

I wouldnt pay too much attention to hays, he does talk some clap trap.

Probably was saying same thing about the LIB/DEMS when they formed as he is with UKIP now.

Got to be very carefull...............................................................

Off Topic....what a shity week in the market.

Just hope this weekend turns out to be the turnaround. Not done too badly but ive spent a lot of time working out differing senarios on my folio burning the mid night oil searching for hedges/stratergy etc etc for the day after.

ps, .......I meant that about Camoron looking weak after the Miller affair, seems to me hes too dammed loyal to his underlings.

He should engage his boot rather than his heart and a dammed lot quicker than he as historicaly done so.

But with the power the EU has over the laws in the Uk , UKIP will have more power then some Tory MP's

concur sticky ..... a truly pathetic performance by cameron ..... i agree that you can't have the press running the gov't, but as soon as it was clear there were serious questions to answer, mm should either have been leant on hard to resign or at the very least, to be temporarily suspended

on the other hand, the case of nigel evans casts other pernicious shadows

Alders thats a very good point, especially with Euro MPs which will belong to UKIP given their present momentum.

Do you by any chance think at the next election they may form a coalition with the Tories or is this just press talk?

Cyners seems we agree at last on some political things.

Made me laugh when I posted this tweet on twitter thursday after the deputy Culture minister Millers side kick Fabricant who said she should be sacked got the boot himself aswel.

Michael Fabricant favorited your Tweet
Apr 10: @Mike_Fabricant.... Sorry to see you got the boot, F them all Shaps aswel. Miller had to go. Keep the good work up......................ends

Parliament needs more colourfull characters like him than the boring stero type we normaly get.

Lets face it a bloke who wears one sock pink and the other sock green as to be a bit of a character no matter what his background.

GF and SINNER,


I do hope this B. market settles down and finds a direction. Preferably up.

One of the worst weeks I have had for sometime.

Holdings some longs base on fundies, I hope the B. projections are correct and Russia doesn't walk into Ukraine over the weekend.

--------

Both, even all, have a good weekend.



Didn't forget labour sins, just prefer to ignore them and suggest they get a better legal representatives.

I was surprised by "result" in Nigel's case, but where was Cameron in the Rebecca's case.


Why wasn't he giving a character reference, or does she believe in that doing so would be equivalent to a death wish.

(I will stand by my aaarrrrrrrrrH!)

Help to buy?



Garage is most expensive in Britain

Disused garage in London sells for £550,000 making it the most expensive in Britain





By Claire Carter, and agencies

2:53PM BST 11 Apr 2014



A disused garage, with cracks in the walls and debris on the floor, has become the most expensive to sell in Britain after it was bought at auction for more than half a million.


The former coach house, which used to house the Mayor of Southwark’s car, exceeded the average house price by more than £150,000 to sell for £550,000.


The empty building in Camberwell, next to an industrial estate in south London, beat the previous record when a garage under the shadow of Harrods sold for £25,000.


The garage, which has vaulted ceilings, a roller steel door and a cobbled drive, was given an estimate of £200,000 by auctioneers Andrew Scott Robertson – but sold for almost triple that amount.


Jeremy Lamb, associate director and auctioneer, said: “It's an empty shell of a building.



more:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/propertynews/10760415/Garage-is-most-expensive-in-Britain.html

Max......and they say their isnt a Housing Bubble. !!!!

Nutters Nutters, we are totaly surrounded by Nutters.

Nutty as fruit cakes.

Hays Hays where are you.

I know your peeking in. he he.

GF,

No he is not.


He is down at party HQ being indoctrinated, learning the new mantras and picking up his begging hat to go around the city begging for donations!


8-)

Ps.

Keep it to yourself.

Fred, had mine since 2008, just a little Elddis Suntor 100. Very good at getting down very narrow lanes and tight spots on Exmoor/Dartmoor where I Like to walk and wild camp, but anywhere off the main roads and see the villages and countryside we by-pass in normal life. In short, walk, talk, coffee's and pub lunches.