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.

Q. Wonder what she looks like on holiday ?

A. http://aliceaudley.com/about/

I see a gang of lowlife scumbag Romanian cash machine robbers have been sentenced to a few months in prison. Does anyone know if they will be deported when they get out or , due to the goodness of EUROPE we'll have to provide them with free B&b for the next umpteen years.

Yep this Tory government are useless.

They should get rid of the front bench and put Bill Cash, John Redwood etc etc in place.

Would easily win the GE then, now not a chance in hell.

Update - Labour lead at 4
by YouGov in Politics
Thu August 21, 2014 6 a.m. BST

Latest YouGov / The Sun results 20th August - Con 34%, Lab 38%, LD 9%, UKIP 11%

The great jobs deception

It is sad that many people are likely to see this month’s headline increase in employment and take it as a sign that the British economy really is on the mend, as the Coalition keeps claiming.
Silly, silly people.

Exactly one week ago, the Department for Work and Pensions announced “the steepest annual fall in unemployment in a quarter of a century“, adding that “unemployment fell by 437,000 over the past year – and 132,000 in only the past three months – which is the biggest annual fall in 25 years”.

This blog has already pointed out that it is possible to account for all of the drop in unemployment over the last three months as being due to sanctions placed on jobseekers by the Department for Work and Pensions. The figure is meaningless.

The DWP also stated that the number of people in work was continuing to rise, “with 820,000 more people in a job compared with 12 months ago”. This masks an inconvenient truth that ministers would rather you didn’t know – about self-employment.

Self-employment, the government would have you believe, is one of the great success stories of the Coalition. More people are self-employed now than at any point over the past 40 years - with the total number of people in self-employment rising by 408,000 in the last year, to 4.59 million according to the Office for National Statistics.

The ONS also tells us that the rise in total employment since 2008 is mostly among the self-employed, which may – on the face of it – seem good.

Here’s the hammer-blow: Average income from self-employment has fallen by 22 per cent since 2008-9.

Self-employed people are a lot worse-off than they used to be.

It seems Flip Chart Fairy Tales was absolutely right to say fewer people were leaving self-employment (the ONS confirms this), and we may conclude that FCFT is right in its belief that this is because people have not been able to reach their target in terms of pensions (the number of over-65s who are self-employed has more than doubled in the past five years to reach nearly 500,000), or there is no employed work available for people of their expertise or experience.

These are people who are seeing their business shrink but have nowhere else to go. For them, there has been no economic upturn at all.

Figures also show an increase in the number of self-employed tax credit claimants. This is because claiming self-employment and taking tax credits is easier than signing on the dole and living in fear of being sanctioned.

More people are in work – those figures aren’t wrong, but the reasons behind them are not what the government would have you believe.

Self-employed people are remaining in business, despite dwindling returns, because they simply cannot afford to stop.

Those who are claiming tax credits are not contributing to the economy – quite the opposite, in fact.

So the latest employment figures are nothing to shout about and the government is deceiving you in doing so.

A better indicator of our economic well-being would be to measure the number of people who contributed to the Treasury by paying income tax.

The government does not provide that figure.

Quelle surprise.

20/8/2014

When the economy is recovering from a recession low incomes are very helpful. It is to be expected and welcomed.

Well lets hope your getting a low income then ehh Hays.

But you have obviously misread the above article.

The point is without sanctions unemployment is starting to increase again.

And that brings me onto my next post. ..................

Dying of cancer? Work or starve: the end of the welfare state – Pride’s Purge
21/08/2014

There are now numerous cases of terminally sick cancer patients being told by the DWP they are unable to receive sickness benefit because they are supposedly ‘fit for work’.

The latest victim of the coalition government’s slashing of help and support for the sick, disabled and dying was Chris Smith, a plumber from Leicester with terminal cancer who died last month:

Fit for work?

Help for the sick and disabled in the UK has now effectively disappeared and the welfare state – in England and Wales at least – has already gone.

Here’s the proof that sick people – even cancer patients – are now regarded as malingerers: (the links below need to be activated in the moneyam link icon above).

Thousands of Cancer Patients Wait For Six Months or More For Disability Benefits

Cancer patients to lose up to £94 a week

DWP blames cancer patient for her illness

Mother’s plea for son who lost benefits after missing signing on because of cancer operation

Throat cancer victim – “this is not the England they fought and died for!”

Let’s be clear – Tory and Lib Dem MPs have decided terminally ill patients should work or starve

A soldier’s tale

40% of cancer patients can’t afford to heat their home properly

Man living on flour and water and woman forced to stop chemotherapy

Life in the PIP queue: One year and counting for claimant with cancer

Cancer sufferer left penniless after waiting six months for vital financial help

Cancer sufferer loses disabilty benefits appeal

Benefits office ‘treating me like a liar’, says Dundee cancer sufferer

The Welfare State as been wiped out by Camoron and his cronies.

.

Everything is creaking under the weight of just too many people.
2517

I'm staggered by those self employed figs.

What are they all doing for a crust?


I suspect the old adage applies:

Self employed = unemployed


What till they try to get a proper loans from a bank (as opposed to a loan shark)

same old rubbish, so i'll follow suit ....
courier drivers and similar are given no choice in the matter

I quite believe you c, but that's not saying it's right and fair.


The rates they are paying couriers is a disgrace (£0.70 - £0.80 a drop) is absurd.

Lord Ashcroft’s poll shows a swing to Labour in Tory-held marginal seats
20 August 2014 16:31

One of the most fascinating things about Lord Ashcroft’s latest poll is not its content, but who in the Conservative party will be reading it. Naturally, those trying to hold onto or win in the marginal seats that the peer has polled will be very interested (but not cheered) by the findings. But besides those with a personal stake in individual seats, there will be two groups of MPs: those who comb through the full datasets that Ashcroft produces, and those who do not. These are, respectively, the pragmatists and the optimists in the party, and they naturally have quite different views of what will happen next May.

The optimists compare the two parties’ momentum, and judge that the Conservatives have the upper hand, with a good drip-drip of statistics that suggest their policies are working, and a better hearing in the press. They may feel that Labour’s summer tour, branded ‘The Choice’, is struggling to cut through, although it would be foolish for anyone to think that this has much to do with Labour’s campaign machine or the Tories’ ability to counter-attack: the simple truth is that with such a febrile international scene, few are paying attention, and rightly so.

But the pragmatists, who are numbers types hailing from the City and have less enthusiasm for feelings, will be reading the latest poll, and feeling even less like optimists than they did before the day got going. Here’s why:

In the eight seats from 13-20 on Labour’s target list, there is a 6.5 per cent swing from the Tories to Labour. This shows, as Ashcroft says, that Labour is marching deeper into Tory territory.

In four Labour seats that the Tories are targeting where Ashcroft previously found the smallest leads – Birmingham Edgbaston, Bolton West, Hampstead and Kilburn and Southampton Itchen – there was an overall swing to Labour of 5.5 per cent.

In Tory seats, 36 per cent said they wanted a Labour government after the next election, with 27 per cent saying they’d like a Tory government.

There are a few more positive kernels hanging about: 30 per cent of voters in Labour seats were satisfied with David Cameron’s performance as Prime Minister (compared to 29 per cent in the Conservative seats), but another 27 per cent preferred Cameron as Prime Minister over Ed Miliband, even though they were dissatisfied with Cameron’s performance. And 33 per cent said they’d rather have Ed Miliband. This is why the Tories want to make this election campaign presidential – because their greatest asset is Ed Miliband’s lack of appeal.

But those pragmatist Tory MPs will turn from the Ashcroft poll to the betting markets. And the bookies have responded to the Ashcroft poll: Ladbrokes have tightened their odds of Labour winning the most seats from 4/5 to 8/11 favourites.

HILARY what were you saying about the BOOKIES???

But those pragmatist Tory MPs will turn from the Ashcroft poll to the betting markets. And the bookies have responded to the Ashcroft poll: Ladbrokes have tightened their odds of Labour winning the most seats from 4/5 to 8/11 favourites.

Still 6 months to go Hays LOL LOL LOL LOL

Actually more like 9 months!

If they catch that British Muslim who killed the American , will he go on trial in the UK were his human rights will be upheld and costly trial and life in jail with the tax payer getting the bill. Or will he be sent to the USA and face the death penalty.

I watched a News program the other night where this muslim council chap was on,saying that these Brit ISIS members would not be allowed back by ISIS as it would be seen as desertion. They would be shot , so they may be in it for life. But I dare say the US will do everything it can to get him first.

I would think our very determined SAS will catch him and kill him 'in action'.

If possable they would try first to get any infomation out of him about the other Hostages and about the other Brits fighting out there