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.

Trouble is its not showing up in pay packets hence the Tories doing so badly in the latest elections.

The problem with Tax Credits where IDS as comitted a crimminal act certainly wont help.

Trouble is its not showing up in pay packets

quite so, and unfortunately (for the tories i guess, but really everyone) this is bound to lag just as employment stays high for a while when the economy is heading south

WOW breaking news THIS IS BIG VERY BIG................

Jayne L ‏@JayneLinney 4minutes ago.

JUDGE ORDERS DWP TO DISCLOSE UNIVERSAL CREDIT DOCUMENTS

More to follow.

JUDGE ORDERS DWP TO DISCLOSE UNIVERSAL CREDIT DOCUMENTS

Documents set to reveal full extent of chaos in flagship scheme
Could provide ‘smoking gun’ showing IDS misled parliament
Tribunal slams “sharp contrast” between DWP spin and reality
Final release of documents could depend on outcome of DWP appeal



A judge has ordered the DWP to disclose potentially damning documents relating to the botched Universal Credit programme. The papers could provide a ‘smoking gun’which proves conclusively that Iain Duncan Smith and the DWP misled parliamentwith their ridiculously optimistic assessments of progress on the programme.

The documents were requested by campaigners, including journalist Tony Collins (@tonyrcollins), under the Freedom of Information Act in March and April last year. The DWP has fought tooth and nail to keep them secret – even sending the director of the programme to court to argue against disclosure.

The documents include:

Project Assessment Review – periodic high level review of large project
Issues Register – details of problems and failures
High Level Milestone Schedule – sequence of activities and timings
The tribunal upheld a decision not to release the project’s Risk Register, a comprehensive assessment of potential risks ranked by likelihood and severity.

Scrapbook has blogged before (here and here) on Iain Duncan Smith’s attempts to disguise his failure. If the documents are published they will be inevitably set against the chronology of statements emanating from the department, a theme picked up by the tribunal:

We are struck by the sharp contrast [of critical independent reports] with the unfailing confidence and optimism of a series of press releases by the DWP or ministerial statements as to the progress of [Universal Credit] during the relevant period. The press release of 1st. November, 2011 quoting the Secretary of State as saying that UCP was “on track and on time for implementing from 2013” and a DWP spokesperson in 2012, refuting criticism from the Shadow Secretary of State -

“ Liam Byrne is quite simply wrong. Universal Credit is on track and on budget. To suggest anything else is incorrect.”

are simply examples of the summary of press releases

Scrapbook understands the department could yet appeal to a so-called ‘Upper Tribunal’.

www.politicalscrpbook.net

http://iainduncansmith.com/2014/03/judge-orders-dwp-disclose-universal-credit-documents/

They can still withhold the documents.

Why what do they have to hide???????????????????????

The only way they can get out of this one now is through an appeal to the 'Upper Tribunal'

Cant see it granted though.

IDS chickens are coming home to roost.

Dont forget Hays £28 billion written off by IDS, that could have been used to get the deficit down.

There are exemptions to the FOI act such as government policy.

IDS is doing a good job of changing the benefit system.

i confess i have never followed this Universal Credit thingy, but even sight unseen, it was always obvious to anyone that changing the entrenched and arguably bloated benefit system was bound to be problematic in the extreme

whether or not the attempted changes have been handled as well as can reasonably be expected is no doubt open to debate, but for sure, any party who took on this gargantuan task was bound to be pilloried endlessly by the opposition - it's just too easy a target

Hays no chance, his (IDS) only way out now is to appeal to the Upper Tribunal .

Hes got no chance given his track record.

Cynic even Osbourne and Francis Maude have said Id Smith is thick and making a real balls up of Universal Credit.

It wont work I can tell you that now. Its too big.

Hes already trashed one computer system and the new one is defunked already, target after target missed.

gf
There is no evidence of Maude or Osborne having those of noons of IDS. There have been IT problems, but they are hardly as anything to do with IDS. Your cost estimates also appear to be wrong. You should stop reading those left wing comics.

Tony Blair is hiding behind Government protocols to keep the notes between himself and George Bush secret, the former Prime Minister John Major suggested this morning.

Sir John warned that the decision not to allow the Chilcot Inquiry to publish the full correspondence between the two leaders in the run-up to the Iraq War would would allow conspiracy theories to 'fester'.

He said it was a 'pity' that only the 'gist' of the notes and conversations would be published - and urged Mr Blair to publicly call for the details to be published in full.

Sir John said only Mr Blair and the last Labour Government could overrule the civil service rules stopping the notes from being published.

He said: 'I think it is a pity the papers are going to be withheld for several reasons. Firstly, they will leave suspicions unresolved and those suspicions will fester and maybe worsen.

'And secondly, in many ways I think withholding them is going to be very embarrassing for Mr Blair, not least of course because he brought in the Freedom of Information Act into law when he was in government. But that is the decision that has been reached, effectively by the Cabinet Office.'

He added: 'I suppose the previous Labour government could approach them and say "we’d like to over-rule this, we think it better if they release those papers", but the Government can’t do that.

'Let me make that point - the Government cannot do that, Mr Blair could. The previous Labour Government could – and maybe in their own interests they could think about that because, otherwise as I say, this will fester and I don’t think anybody wishes to see that.'

Sir John's intervention, on BBC Radio 4 this morning, will pile pressure on Mr Blair to publicly ask for the notes to be published.

It comes after the Iraq inquiry was condemned as a whitewash over the deal to keep the notes secret.

Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood has vetoed the release of the letters and phone calls in the run-up to the 2003 conflict, officials revealed.

In them, Mr Blair is said to have promised the US President: 'You know, George, whatever you decide to do, I'm with you.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2642888/Breakthrough-Iraq-War-Inquiry-Blairs-official-reaches-deal-hand-letters-former-PM-George-Bush.html#ixzz33D26bZB7
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Haystack - 30 May 2014 14:45 - 41714 of 41715

gf
There is no evidence of Maude or Osborne having those of noons of IDS.........ends

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh Hays is that so, so pray do tell me what are the articles below about then?????........Scotch Mist????. In your own time Ill await your appology.

1, Iain Duncan Smith was 'not clever enough' claimed Osborne
www.telegraph.co.uk › News › Politics › David Cameron
28 Sep 2013 - I

2,Society daily 8.1.14
Rift delays universal credit scheme
Tensions between the DWP, for which Iain Duncan Smith (left) has responsibility, and the Cabinet Office, overseen by Francis Maude (right), are causing 'high level' risks to the scheme, according to the Whitehall document.

It couldnt be clearer Hays re- to Universal Credit and IDS and his detractors, I await your groveling apology.

BERLIN, May 30 (Reuters) - Angela Merkel's lukewarm support for Jean-Claude Juncker as the next president of the European Commission has put the normally popular chancellor at the centre of a furious debate in Germany, where she is accused of ignoring the will of EU voters. With one journalist going as far as to call Merkel's tactics "dumb" on national TV, she risks snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in the European Parliament vote. She may also be in for a fight with her so-far compliant German coalition partners. "Merkel's Ingratitude," was the headline on left-leaning Sueddeutsche Zeitung's editorial on Friday. Conservative tabloid Bild insisted: "Juncker must become president." The European Commission chief is selected by EU leaders but must be approved by the assembly, where Eurosceptics from the right made gains in the election ending on Sunday. Politicians are taking note of the spread in anti-EU sentiment. The European People's Party, the centre-right bloc including Merkel's conservatives, won the most seats in the vote and its lead candidate, Luxembourg's ex-premier Juncker, looked in line to succeed Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso. But Merkel emerged from talks with EU leaders two days later saying Juncker faced opposition - from Britain's David Cameron and others - and that the top EU jobs had to be decided in talks that would run until late June. She had also voiced doubts before the vote as to whether Juncker or his centre-left rival Martin Schulz, the German leader of the outgoing European Parliament, should automatically be considered candidates to run the EU's executive body. But her post-election talk of "respecting the treaty", which says heads of state and government must agree on a candidate by a qualified majority, has come up against accusations that she and other EU leaders are failing to respect the will of voters. Merkel told a gathering of Catholics in southern Germany on Friday she was "carrying out all talks in the spirit that Jean-Claude Juncker should be president of the European Commission". But she once again cautioned that it was "not automatic". Broadcaster ARD's Brussels correspondent Rolf-Dieter Krause had set the tone of the debate by warning viewers of "a fraud against you, the voters". The chancellor was playing a game, he said, that "is not just shameful: it is exceptionally dumb". Politicians from the CDU and their Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners are warning against disillusioning the electorate. EU lawmaker Elmar Brok from the CDU said the assembly "will insist on the voters' will prevailing", and the CDU youth wing said "respect for voters requires the European leadership to accept and implement the clear election result". "HIDING BEHIND CAMERON" The SPD's second-in-command, Yasmin Fahimi, accused Merkel of "hiding" behind Cameron's opposition to Juncker, whom he sees as an old-style EU federalist. The CDU and SPD also disagree on who should be the next German member of the European Commission. Merkel, who speaks to the German parliament on Wednesday, is caught between a rock and a hard place. "Either she angers the party bloc by dropping Juncker or she angers some EU partners by pushing Juncker despite their misgivings," said an EU diplomat. For philosopher Juergen Habermas, the moral imperative is clear. "If these talks really do propose someone other than the two lead candidates, it will strike at the heart of the European project," he told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "In future nobody can be expected to vote in European elections."

The Great Debt Lie and the Myth of the Structural Deficit
may 28, 2014

The case for austerity measures rests on the Great Debt Lie and the myth of the structural deficit.

The 2008-9 recession was the worst we have had in this Country, and globally, for sixty years, and it was predicted by no-one – not even Vince Cable. The Labour Government responded to the crisis with fiscal stimulus. From the start of the financial crisis, Labour took decisive and clear action (including temporarily cutting VAT to boost demand), and it has become increasingly clear that it was this decisive action that brought about the green shoots of recovery (Radeke, 2009).

This, combined with the usual effects on GDP of a recession, meant that the budget deficit rose. But without such swift action we simply would not have the signs of tentative recovery that we saw as a result.

So what went wrong? What happened to the green shoots of recovery that were carefully nurtured by the last Labour Government?

That would be the Tory-led Coaliton.

This Government is cutting the very measures that would ensure not only growth in the short-term, but economic security in the future, too. They are portraying their cuts as eliminating “waste” and “necessary”, when in fact they are seriously jeopardising our future economic prosperity: cuts in funding for Regional Development Agencies; scrapping the Future Jobs Fund, which was a success and supported at least 200,000 people back into work through the recession; withdrawing industrial support, for example.

That is before we even begin to discuss the damning, detrimental economic and social implications of the welfare “reforms” (CUTS), and the Localism Bill (more CUTS), and Legal Aid Bill (even more coordinated and carefully planned Tory CUTS that will serve to keep quiet and hide away evidence of the rising numbers of impoverished, destitute and starving victims of all of the other CUTS and subsequent human rights abuses).

And there seems to be very little evidence to support their decisions. No facts, no consultation, no listening to expert advice. Just the ideology of the small state, propped up by notions of “self-reliance” – but only for the poorest of course – being pursued by the Tory right and the Orange Book Liberals.

The Tory budget is highly regressive, hitting the poorest the hardest whilst asking for very little from those at the top.

Here are some facts which demolish the fallacy that the present economic crisis is the result of excessive spending, leading to unsustainable debt:

• Analysis by the Institute of Fiscal Studies has concluded that on the eve of the financial crisis ‘the public finances were in a stronger position than they had been when Labour first came to power in 1997.

• Average annual spending and taxation were both lower as a proportion of GDP under the last 3 Labour Governments (38% and 35.4%) than under the 4 Conservative governments which preceded them (40% and 35.5%).

• National debt was lower as a proportion of GDP at the start of the financial crisis in 2008 (36%) than in 1997, the last year of John Major’s Conservative government (42%). The national debt is forecast to hit 74.7% of GDP this year and peak at 79.9 per cent in 2015-16.

• In 2010, the UK’s national debt as a proportion of GDP (52%) was the second lowest of the G7 countries.

The budget deficit is no more “structural” than an overdraft in your bank account when you spend more than you earn. There is either a real deficit or not, and if there is, then it is due to either excessive spending or an inadequate tax take. Since it can easily be demonstrated that the problem is not the former, then it must be the latter – caused by the financial crisis and consequent recession and likely to be aggravated when taxes are cut later during this parliament to the benefit of high earners, corporations and banks. As The Investors Chronicle states (15th February 2010):

“The idea of a structural deficit serves a political rather than analytical function. It’s a pseudo-scientific concept which serves to legitimate what is in fact a pure judgement call – that borrowing needs cutting.”

Osborne began to revive the myth of the structural deficit in June 2010, when it was becoming clear that the deficit would be under £155 billion, well below the Treasury’s £178 billion estimate made six months earlier. In other words, the deficit was narrowing after Labour increased spending in 2009.

The fact that the US, which has made no serious deficit reductions, has suffered almost the smallest recession of any major developed economy, whereas Ireland and Greece have suffered the worst because of drastic spending cuts further undermines the Government’s claim that radical austerity measures are needed – and shows that Osborne’s main aim is not to reduce the deficit but to accelerate the transfer of wealth to the already very rich.

And if anyone still wants to talk about a “structural” deficit, then they should remember that the last 3 Labour Governments managed to earn enough to cover their spending for 4 of their 13 years in office, whereas Thatcher and Major only managed to balance the books for 2 out of 17 years.

The Coalition continue to deny that alternatives to austerity are viable.

As a Tory lie repetition strategy, this is based on the idea Goebbels had – repeated lies will somehow convince people that they are true. Cameron was busted when he repeatedly told the lie “We are paying down the debt.” Despite being rumbled, the Coalition have stuck with this lie doggedly. The bonus of the lie is that it may undermine the Opposition’s economic credibility, and the Tories particularly delight in the lie that it’s all Labour’s fault because they “overspent” as it further justifies austerity measures and starving public services of Government funding, with our paid taxes, as well as stripping our welfare provision away.

It was the Tories that lost the Moody’s Investors Service triple A grade, despite pledges to keep it secure. Moody’s credit ratings represent a rank-ordering of creditworthiness, or expected loss. The Fitch credit rating was also downgraded due to increased borrowing by the Tories, who have borrowed more in 4 years than labour did in 13.

The Coalition have REALLY messed up the economy. We know it’s a big fat Tory lie that cutting spending at a time of economic recession will re-balance public finances. As many academics and economists have stated, cutting spending when the economy is flat is likely to cause further contraction to the economy, and that will negatively affect public finances, rather than help at all.

The Government will never confess to this because they are so tightly ideologically bound to an übertreiben Neo-Liberalism, no matter what the cost is in human terms, or even in economic terms. What we need is Labour’s expansionary fiscal policies, not contractionary ones. Real, sensible economists know that the only way to address a recession is to grow the economy, and that means more public spending in the short term, to stimulate economic activity, and cutting if needed when the economy is back on the up (which needn’t mean absolute cuts, but relative cuts because the economy is growing).

"The budget deficit is no more “structural” than an overdraft in your bank account when you spend more than you earn. There is either a real deficit or not, and if there is, then it is due to either excessive spending or an inadequate tax take."

Clearly this was written for people that know nothing about accounts or economics.... A structural deficit occurs when a country posts a deficit even when the economy is operating at its full potential. A structural deficit means that a deficit will be posted regardless of how well the economy is functioning - recession, boom or anything in between. The flip side to this is a cyclical deficit in that a cyclical deficit only occurs when an economy is not performing to its full potential (for example, if an economy is currently struggling through a recession). In the case of a cyclical deficit, any borrowing that is needed during the low point of the economic cycle will be repaid when the economy turns higher and there is a cyclical surplus.