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.

The Chancellor's hidden blow to disabled people.

Category: Latest news
Created: Tuesday, 30 September 2014 21:35

The Chancellor’s Conference speech contained a statement about disabled people and benefits which was misleading, but went largely unchallenged by the mainstream media. Mr Osborne promised a two year freeze on working age benefits if the Conservatives are re-elected but made a point of saying, "disability benefits will be excluded". Is that true?

Well, it all depends on what you consider to be a disability benefit. Included in the proposed freeze are people who receive Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and are part of the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG). These are people who the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have decided are not fit for work at the moment, but are required to undertake work related activity, with a view to returning to work in future.

The public would probably assume that this group was for people who had had an accident or injury from which they would soon recover, or an illness which was expected to get better. No doubt that’s what most of the audience in the conference hall who applauded the Chancellor’s speech would think, if they thought about it at all.

However, this is far from the truth. People placed in the WRAG may have serious disabilities or degenerative conditions, from which (barring a miracle), they will never recover. Last year Parkinson’s UK reported that 43 per cent of people with Parkinson’s, MS, or other progressive conditions, who found they could no longer work and put in a claim for ESA, were placed in the WRAG group. The DWP was telling them they would recover, but as Parkinson’s UK pointed out, "This directly contradicts the definition of a progressive condition, which can only get worse over time."

He didn't mention in the previous heart of manufacturing:


1 October 2014 Last updated at 11:01

UK manufacturing growth at 17-month low in September

And borrowing and DEBT at the highest its been for years.

Dan Hodges

Dan Hodges is a former Labour Party and GMB trade union official, and has managed numerous independent political campaigns. He writes about Labour with tribal loyalty and without reservation. He is on Twitter at @dpjhodges.







Ed Miliband is toast. Only Nigel Farage can stop David Cameron now




By Dan Hodges Politics Last updated: October 1st, 2014

Comment on this Comment on this article




That should be it. Anyone objectively assessing where British politics stands after David Cameron’s speech to the Conservative Party conference could only reach one logical conclusion. It is him, rather than Ed Miliband, who will be Britain’s Prime Minister after May next year.

Talking to MPs and advisers in the wake of the Labour leader’s speech last week, the most optimistic line I could get from any of them was the assessment: “Yes, it’s been a disaster. But the impact of party conferences is overestimated.” They’d better pray long and hard that is indeed the case. Because I’m struggling to recall a conference season – or two leaders' speeches – that have so starkly drawn the dividing line between the two men, and parties, who seek to lead their country.

In what was easily the most political address of his premiership, David Cameron tore the Labour Party to pieces. Its senior leadership were simply eviscerated. Ed Miliband: “Ed – people forget their car keys, school kids sometimes forget their homework. But if you want to be Prime Minister of this country, you cannot forget the biggest challenge we face”. Ed Balls: “A few weeks ago, Ed Balls said that in 13 years of government, Labour had made 'some mistakes'. 'Some mistakes'? Excuse me?” Tristram Hunt: ““Tristram Hunt and I might both have been educated at some of the best schools in our country. But here’s the difference. You, Tristram – like the rest of the Labour Party – want to restrict those advantages. I want to spread them to every child in Britain.”

Labour’s strategy had been to try to bridge the chasm between the two parties on economic credibility by arguing that the macroeconomy could not be divorced from the day-to-day costs being born by ordinary families. Cameron turned that strategy on its head. You can only deliver for ordinary people, he said, if you get the management of the macroeconomy right.

He then proceeded to drive a coach and horses through Labour’s cost of living narrative, by unveiling not one but two dramatic tax cuts. The bottom rate income tax threshold would be raised to £12,500, he announced, while the threshold on the 40p rate would be raised to £50,000.

A strong element of intellectual – not to mention economic – dishonesty underpins this offer. Despite the constant mantra of “tough choices”, it’s nothing more than a good old fashioned pre-election bribe, one that a country staring at a £100 billion deficit mountain can ill afford. But it will work, for the simple reason that over the past four years the Tories have earned the right to be trusted on the economy, and Labour have not.

With every fresh passage he pumped another bullet into the warm corpse of Ed Miliband’s New Politics. “Other parties preach to you about a Brave New World. We understand you have to start with the real world and make it better."

And then, in the most powerful section of his speech, he set out to demonstrate that – unlike his opponents – he was not prepared to accept any political no-go areas. “I am someone who has relied on the NHS – whose family knows more than most how important that is. Who knows what it’s like to go to hospital night after night with a child in your arms, knowing that when you get there you will have people who will care for that child and love that child like their own. How dare [Labour] suggest I would ever put that at risk for other people’s children? How dare they frighten those who are relying on the NHS right now?”

Tonight on your news bulletins, you’ll see Samantha Cameron, moved to tears by that passage. And it will remind the voters – not that they really need any reminding – that David Cameron does not need to go wandering about on Hampstead Heath to connect with ordinary people.

So that should be it. There will be no more relaunches for Ed Miliband or his party. There is no more time. Today was the day that David Cameron finished Labour as an electoral threat. The choice facing voters at the next election will be as glaring as it was when Margaret Thatcher and Michael Foot were last on the ballot paper in 1983.

Or that would be it, if Labour were the only political threat confronting David Cameron. But they’re not. Rumours are currently circulating of a fresh Ukip defection, to be unveiled at 5pm. It could turn out to be a feint. But even if it is, the threat of further defections will remain.

Yesterday, I wrote that the time had come for David Cameron to tackle Ukip directly. In the end, he did tackle them, but only obliquely. “If you vote Ukip that’s really a vote for Labour,” he said, before adding “Here’s a thought. On 7 May you could go to bed with Nigel Farage, and wake up with Ed Miliband."

It was a nice line, and it underpins his central message: “Vote Farage, Get Miiband”. But will it be enough?

David Cameron has drawn a clear dividing line between himself and Ed Miliband. What he hasn’t done is draw a clear dividing line between himself and those malcontents in his party who would be only too happy to get into bed with Nigel Farage, even if it means seeing Ed Miliband taking up residence in the master bedroom of Downing Street.

Perhaps the strength of his speech will give them pause for thought. The Tories are leaving Birmingham emboldened, confident that the election really is there to be won. Maybe that will be sufficient to keep David Cameron's backbenches pacified, if not unified.

But maybe it won’t. The Prime Minister has had conference triumphs before. And when the applause has faded, treacherous figures have again and again been seen flitting through the Westminster shadows.

Last week, Ed Miliband’s supporters were telling anyone who would listen that party conference speeches don’t really matter. After the speech David Cameron just delivered, they will be praying long and hard that they're right. The Prime Minister and his supporters must pray with equal fervour they are wrong.

I have been listening to a number of BBC interviews of Wavy Dave's speech since he gave it.

They are hitting ---- out of the figures and the speech.

It must be embarrassing for others than Hazyone trying to defend him.

Can be seen from a donation to UKIP from a Mr Nobody Arron Banks has been lifted from £100,000 to £1,000,000.

See Cameron is running the party coffers like he has run the UK economy.

I suppose that neither are his, so it doesn't matter.

I wonder if he has shorts on the Cons and the UK.

What I don't agree with is : the referendum on Europe; now is that going to make people vote Tory ?...it's putting me right off !.......but the problem is that in the UK the average person in the street probably doesn't want to be with Europe....but then again perhaps they do.....what is the point of this ?....Britain is part of the common market....what shouldn't have been agreed is that all the riffraff throw-outs of Europe arriving here on our shores....this is why the "you quits" are doing well.....it is too late to debate whether we should be part of the common market, but immigration is a massive problem with all the rubbish from Africa arriving on our doorsteps as well !...do we want that middle east no good lot here ?.....if these people were well educated : it wouldn't be so bad, but they are not...it ends up with: crime...drugs..murders..and puts our own jobs at risk because these people will work for much less than us as their own countries are one big F---up...and British people no longer feel at home in their own country !...

To add to this : I fear that this referendum nonsense is an election loser !...and as far as the markets are concerned : it will create market uncertainty in the UK for years as nothing is clear at all....what difference is yes or no going to make ?.....what is JC going to do if he wins the next election ?.....go back to the Euro big-wigs,,, hey...we want a better deal....they are going to answer....vee shall think about zis and will get back to you....it's all bollocks......and this is what we are governed by....jesus...

Seems similar to the indigenous population.

Should mix easily into the UK.

Didn't Britain, France Italy etc. rule these countries at sometime or other and educated and civilised them to "Western Ways" or was that just to pillage and rape?

Perhaps, I am wrong!

======

It is similar to the whims of the London elite trying to socialise the NE.

(Or was that Harrowing of the North of England.)

http://order-order.com/2014/10/01/there-has-been-no-global-warming-for-past-18-years/

Dan Hodges CHRIS!!!!!!!!LOL LO LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LO LOL LOL LOL LO LOL LO LO LO LOL

Ohhhhhhh he hee ha ha ho ho arr ha ha aha hoo LOL.

You obviously dont know the history.

He's spot on though gf :0)

Aye!

Ashcroft poll this week

CON 32%(+5), LAB 32%(-1), LDEM 8%(-1), UKIP 17%(nc), GRN 4%(-2)

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100288458/does-anyone-think-that-ed-miliband-would-be-the-better-prime-minister-anyone-at-all/

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/27/mansion-tax-ed-miliband-labour-mps-london

Tessa Jowell and other London MPs fear levy on properties worth more than £2m would drive 'asset rich but cash poor' from their homes

Ed Miliband is facing resistance from senior Labour MPs in London – including potential candidates to be mayor – to his flagship plan to impose a mansion tax on properties worth more than £2m, as concern grows that it will hit too many people on average or low incomes.

http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21620260-labour-leader-flunks-one-his-last-opportunities-look-worthy-prime-minister

The dreary world of Ed Miliband

The Labour leader flunks one of his last opportunities to look like a worthy prime minister

.......

Ed the undeserving

Absent something astonishing, Mr Miliband is not going to change the poor opinion most Britons have formed of him before the election. If he wins power, it will be down to the rise of the UK Independence Party, which has split the right. Weak, accidental, unprepared for the austerity measures it would be forced to undertake and with no popular mandate for Mr Miliband’s bold ideas, his government would have its disadvantages.

That no one in Manchester showed much relish for power may be partly down to François Hollande. Mr Miliband once lauded the French president’s left-wing programme, which has since flopped. Now he is threatening to emulate it—without the sex.

If anybody would think Cameron to be a fit and proper person to be a PM after his proposals in his speech to-day promising falsehoods.

Proposals, which would commencing in 2018. (Relating them to today, but not the effect of inflation.)

I think the majority of votes will see him as a liar and that the NHS and Welfare services are definitely not safe in his hands.

He is a laughing stock and insulting to the public.

I pity the poor party sycophants who are set up to defend his policies.

Yep notice how the slimey creep today didnt put any dates on his proposals, trying to con the public once again.

Hays the best thing about your poll is the UKIP figure.

labour only need it at 9 to have an overall majority.

LATEST UNS PROJECTION
44 Overall Labour seat majority.


UKPR POLLING AVERAGE
32con 36Lab 8lib Dem

Working People Cannot Afford Five More Years of David Cameron
Posted: 01/10/2014 20:47 BST Updated: 4 hours ago

David Cameron and George Osborne have presided over an unprecedented cost of living crisis. Yet listening to the Prime Minister on Wednesday you might be left with the impression that the economy has been fixed and that life is getting easier for most people. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

The truth is that under the Tories working people are £1,600 a year worse off. David Cameron may think that people struggling to make ends meet up and down the country are going to be fooled by unfunded pie in the sky pre-election tax cuts promised for six years time. I think not.

David Cameron circa 2008 had it right. "You can't talk about tax reduction unless you can show how it is paid for, the public aren't stupid". But's that's exactly what we saw on Wednesday.

These "tax cuts" are an unfunded spending commitment of over £7billion.

£7billion.

That's not exactly lose change.

How are the Tories going to pay for it? Will they raise VAT on families and pensioners again? It's no wonder the Tories are so desperate to block Labour's plans to allow the independent Office for Budget Responsibility to audit the spending and tax plans of the main political parties.

The only thing we have learnt for sure this week from the Tories is that they're going to cut tax credits for millions of hard working people. This announcement on Monday means that a one earner family with two children on £25,000 a year will lose £495 by 2017/18. This week, the Institute of Fiscal Studies showed that the changes in the personal allowance will see the same family's income increase by just £176 in 2020/21.

So while working families see their incomes decrease, Wednesday's announcements means that the Prime Minister and Cabinet Minister will see their incomes increase by 2020/21. And let's not forget that the richest one per cent will keep a £3billion tax cut. This doesn't look like "we're all in this together" to me.

And if there is one decision taken by the Tories that tells us all we need to know about their priorities and who they stand for, then their tax cut for millionaires is it. Labour will balance the books as soon as possible in the next Parliament, but we will make fairer choices. A Labour Government would cut taxes for millions on middle and low incomes with a lower 10p starting rate of tax and reintroduce a top rate of 50p for those earning over £150,000.

And we will reverse the neglect of the NHS under the Tories.

Despite everything he says, David Cameron has made it harder, not easier, to get a GP appointment. After the election, it was David Cameron who scrapped Labour's GP appointment guarantee and cut support for evening and weekend opening. The Prime Minister's broken promises on the NHS have now caught up with him.

So the next Labour Government will guarantee a GP appointment within 48 hours or a same-day consultation with a doctor or nurse for those who need it. And, as Ed Miliband and Ed Balls outlined last week, Labour's plan for the NHS means extra funding and a commitment to recruit 8000 more GPs and 20,000 more nurses. But, unlike David Cameron, we can tell you how we will pay for our plans.

The £2.5billion NHS Time to Care Fund will be funded by a mansion tax on homes worth more than £2million, tackling tax avoidance and asking tobacco firms to pay their fair share. This commitment is something the Tories won't match.

The truth is that only Labour will reward people who work hard and only Labour will save the NHS on which we all rely.

The truth is that the Tories will never build a better future for working people because they stand up only for a privileged few.

The truth is that working people cannot afford five more years of David Cameron.