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.

now now shortie, you really shouldn't hark back to those dark brown days, or even those of happy-clappy bambi ..... after all saints david and george and old nick have held the reins for 4 years now and should surely have sorted everything out if they were any good

We need a PM with some moral fibre and a backbone...... I reckon Prince Harry would do a good job and keep us entertained along the way for our money!!

Be sure to read the second link also Cynic, I'm sure you'll have something to say afterwards..

it would be invidious (or do i mean impossible) to malign the previous incumbents ... after all, they were only in power for 13 years whereas the present crew have been there for a good 4 years and should surely have been able to rectify pretty much everything by now were they up to snuff

It always takes at least 4 years to sort out the problems left by a Labour government. This time the problems are bigger than usual.

But they still haven't rectified anything yet.... Four years on the job and what have they achieved???

David Cameron the great ????????? exactly.

Hays stop talking wet.

Considering it is a coalition, they have done very well. Coalitions round the world always have a poor track record on passing legislation. People's expectations are too great for this type of government. The Conservatives have policies that they cannot put through because of the Libs. They would have tougher immigration controls, but the Libs stop them. One area, you might not like is cuts. If the Conservatives had a clear majority, you would have seen much deeper cuts and a lot of policies that would not be popular with the left. Cameron's hands are tied in a number of important areas by the coalition agreement.

Rubbish, nobody wants further cuts because lets face it they havent worked.

Are the tories anywhere near what they pledged in their manifesto???.......are they heck.

We have an economy and growth built on quick sand.

The DOE and the DSS are in one mighty mess as is the MOD.

This government are the pits the worst in living memory.

Duplicate.

They can only do what is in their manifesto with the agreement of the Libs. In a similar way the Libs cannot do what is in their manifesto. It is constant compromise.

Excuses, this Tory lot are the worst theirs ever been.

Useless.

Mervyn King ex BoE govenor called them light weights.

After they lose the GE and their is one almighty cabinet re- shuffle I might consider returning, but no more POSH BOYS no more ETONIANS.

The Staggering Cost Of One Man’s Delusions: £25 Billion Squandered On Bungled Welfare Reforms

Posted on June 2nd, 2014 by johnny void | 142 Comments

The recent report from the Major Projects Authority, which revealed that Universal Credit is such a fucking disaster they had to invent a whole new category to describe it, also laid bare the astronomical cost of Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms.

Just under £11 billion is budgeted to be squandered on some of the DWP’s largest projects, and that figure doesn’t include Universal Credit. The cost of this hare-brained experiment is shrouded in mystery now it has been classed as ‘reset’, but last year the Major Projects Authority reported that the bill would reach £12.8 billion.

Even this is far from the whole story. Community Work Placements, the latest mass workfare scheme, will cost almost a third of a billion. The costs of other Jobcentre schemes, such as Mandatory Work Activity, are not included in the above figures. At the very least the budgeted costs of welfare reform exceed £25 billion pounds. The true figure is likely to be much higher as reforms such as the Bedroom Tax unravel and start to cost the tax payer even more money.

The good news is that not all of this budget has been spent. It had been assumed by the DWP that the Work Programme would actually help some people get jobs. They thought wrong. Such has been the dismal performance of the payment by results scheme that it is one of the few of Iain Duncan Smith’s pet projects that is actually running under budget.

The bad news is that this kind of crazed optimism has led to ludicrous spending projections in which IDS has decided his reforms will lead to the cost of Jobseeker’s Allowance falling by over a third by 2017. This is likely to be because of all the new jobs that he thinks will be magically created by Universal Credit. What it means is that there is a time bomb in the social security budget for whichever bunch of bastards manages to win the next election.

With all this money being thrown around to bully and harass claimants off benefits it might be expected that spending on social security would fall, especially as those benefits themselves have been subject to huge cuts. This is not the case however and total spending on social security this year is forecast to be £10 billion higher than before the cuts began. This figures includes pensions, but spending on unemployment benefits, housing benefits and tax credits has reached record levels under this Government. Even spending on sickness benefits seems back on the rise despite Atos and the DWP’s attempt at curing people with endless assessments and workfare. It turns out people are still getting sick.

It is genuinely astonishing that a Government obsessed with austerity has given a blank cheque-book to a fucking idiot like Iain Duncan Smith. The real tragedy is that if some of this money had actually gone into to those who needed it then some of the worst impacts of the economic downturn could have been avoided. Instead the opposite has happened. The very poorest have been driven to destitution whilst billions has been shovelled into the pockets of grasping crooks in the welfare-to-work industry like A4e and G4S.

We are all paying the price of this reckless spending spree, and the social costs of child poverty, homelessness and despair that Iain Duncan Smith has spent billions creating will last for generations. One day people will look back in horror that one man’s folly was allowed to run rampant through so many lives. But for now the horror show continues unabated, and the financial cost is nothing compared to the tragedy of future’s destroyed and lives demolished.

To view the Major Project Authority report visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dwp-government-major-projects-portfolio-data-2014

To see benefit expenditure and projections download the spreadsheet: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/310483/outturn-and-forecast-budget-2014.xls

This is not the case however and total spending on social security this year is forecast to be £10 billion higher than before the cuts began. This figures includes pensions, but spending on unemployment benefits, housing benefits and tax credits has reached record levels under this Government.

Smith the useless to go in a re-shuffle sideways no doubt.-

Wheres Max today?, cant remember seeing him.

Stan, party chairman.........LOL.

Fred - Fuck off back to Wales. GF as promised no insults towards you (yet) despite the incessant shite you post. Believe Rooney is playing on the wing tonight, yeah I'll give that five minutes.

Back to the real world, golf finals cancelled tonight greens flooded. Friday 5.30pm weather forecast looking good. See Barkley and Shaw starting tonight.

Fred - Fuck off back to Wales. GF as promised no insults towards you (yet) despite the incessant shite you post. Believe Rooney is playing on the wing tonight, yeah I'll give that five minutes.

Back to the real world, golf finals cancelled tonight greens flooded. Friday 5.30pm weather forecast looking good. See Barkley and Shaw starting tonight.

1-0 lol