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.

If the Chilcot report confirms that our troops were sent to war without adequate combat gear who carries the can for that part of the debacle?

Phew! It was a close call for us, guys, with Page 3, eh?

PS. Did I say the Chilcot Inquiry was a waste of time and money?

Miliband blocked Iraq war inquiry again and again, says Cameron... and Labour leader dismisses the delay in two sentences

Labour MPs prevented report being published 'years ago', claims PM

Party's leader Ed Miliband personally voted against inquiry four times 

Issue erupts after it's revealed Chilcot will not report until after election

Former top Labour figures will come under scrutiny when it's published

Ed Miliband delayed the start of the Iraq war inquiry by voting ‘again and again and again’ against it being set up, David Cameron said yesterday.

The Prime Minister said the report’s conclusions would have been published ‘years ago’ had it not been for Labour MPs blocking the plans.

Mr Miliband personally voted against an inquiry on four occasions. The issue erupted in the House of Commons after it emerged that Sir John Chilcot will not report until after the election.

Despite the row dominating news bulletins all day, Mr Miliband skated over the issue at Prime Minister’s Questions – dismissing it in two sentences.

The Labour leader did not even ask Mr Cameron about the issue, saying only that he agreed the report should be ‘published as soon as possible’.

Labour MPs opposed a series of proposals for an inquiry in the Commons until one was ordered by Gordon Brown.

Mr Miliband personally voted against starting an inquiry on four occasions as an MP, first in October 2006, then in June 2007, once more in March 2008 and again in March 2009.

Several former senior Labour figures, including Mr Miliband’s brother David, will come under scrutiny when the report is finally published.

At the start of Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Miliband said: ‘Let me start by saying, on the Iraq inquiry, that it was set up six years ago and I agree with the Prime Minister that it should be published as soon as possible.’


He then moved swiftly on to the economy. The PM countered, saying the report would have been published ‘years ago’ had Labour MPs voted in favour of setting up the inquiry earlier.

‘So perhaps he could start by recognising his own regret at voting against the establishment of the inquiry,’ he said.

Perhaps he could start by recognising his own regret at voting against the establishment of the inquiry
Prime Minister David Cameron 
Mr Miliband replied: ‘The inquiry was established six years ago, after our combat operations had ended, and frankly, my views on the Iraq war are well known and I want this inquiry to be published.’

Unlike his brother, Ed Miliband was not an MP in 2003 in the run-up to the war. At the time he was at Harvard University in the US.

During his campaign for the Labour leadership he said the invasion was a ‘profound mistake’ and claimed to have opposed it in private.

But according to reports, his brother dismissed this claim, saying that the only candidate for the leadership who could say they were against the war at the time was Diane Abbott.

Hays youve been in power 5 YEARS............use your LOAF.

The Page 3 Girls:

The government does no run the Chilcot enquiry. The only power it had was whether to have the enquiry and when it started. Those choices were solely those of the last Labour government. Since that point, neither the last or present government have had any influence or control over Chilcot. It is later than expected because it was not allowed to start by the previous government.

Haze,

But the Tory Elite, some of your friends have been in power nearly 5 years, for crew who thought they could walk on water they are drowning.

Who is holding up the Paedophile inquiry!

What was the responsibility of Maggie for the files being "buried"?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Is Ed Miliband an unlucky general?


A slew of positive economic data gives Ed Miliband an upwards struggle

Napoleon, it is said, wanted lucky generals.

Now Ed Miliband’s troops wonder whether their commander breaks too many mirrors.

For four and a half years, the Labour leader has set out the case to rewire the British economy to make average earners better off.

Oppositions pray for bad news, and a run of positive economic data, the Tories say, has holed their case for radical change below the waterline.

David Cameron at Prime Minister’s Question time yesterday:

"The fact of the matter is that he told us there would be no growth, and we have had growth; he told us there would be no jobs, and we have had jobs; he told us there would be a cost of living crisis, and we have got inflation at 0.5%."
He added:
"He is wrong about everything."
Mr Miliband replied:
"The Prime Minister thinks everything is hunky-dory. Did he even notice this week the report that came out that said that half of all families where one person is in full-time work cannot make ends meet at the end of the month?"
"You can work hard and play by the rules, but in Cameron’s Britain you still cannot pay the bills—that is the reality."
It has seemed that as the economic tide turns, in the Commons at least Ed Miliband has been forced to fight on an ever-shrinking battlefield.
Return of the dole queue
Back in October 2010, weeks after being elected as leader and as Osborne set out the cuts to come, Ed Miliband warned of mass unemployment due to a “too far, too fast” programme of cuts. He told the CBI:
“I do fear that the path the government is pursuing is a gamble with growth and jobs.
They have a programme which will lead to the disappearance of a million private and public sector jobs but no credible plan to replace them.
And their refusal to accept that a deficit reduction plan has to be sensitive to changing economic circumstances needlessly makes the British economy a hostage to fortune.
Time will tell whether they turn out to be right.”
Alas, Miliband – along with many eminent economists - was not.
Job numbers are up 1.75 million since the election. The surprise of the downturn was how employers chose to cut pay over job numbers, and then how quickly employment rose as the economy picked up. The unemployment rate stands at 5.8 per cent, down from 8 per cent in 2010.
Ed Balls dismissed as “complete fantasty” the idea that the 400,000 job losses planned could be absorbed by the private sector. He was not alone.
Since then, new private sector jobs have outweighed state losses by five to one.
No growth
From 2010 until mid 013, Labour’s line of attack was obvious: month after month of anaemic expansion. The Tories, Labour told a diminished Osborne, had “choked off growth and risk causing permanent damage to our economy.”
The IMF agreed. Downgrading forecasts, its chief economist said the Chancellor was “playing with fire” with a course of cuts.
Then, in spring 2013, the economy roared back to life. Latest annualised figures put growth at 2.4 per cent.
Last week, the IMF’s head said the British recover was “exactly the sort of result” she would like to see with the UK “leading in a very eloquent and convincing way in the European Union”.
A cost of living crisis
As growth kicked in, Labour defly pivoted onto the so-called “cost of living crisis”.
For six years, from mid 2008, inflation outstripped wages almost every month. Pay packets got smaller compared to bills every week. The post-war world of ever-increasing living standards had slipped horribly into reverse.
Some argued it was the inevitable consequence of a major recession. Miliband argued it was the product of the disappearance of high-quality jobs and a system stacked against the middle classes.
Is it all over?
In September 2011 the consumer price index stood at 5.2 per cent. Now, off tumbling oil prices and a supermarket price war, it is at 0.5 per cent – troubling for economists, but a major boost to family finances. Pay has now outstripped prices for two months running for the first time since 2010.
An energy market rampant
Ed Miliband pulled the rug from under the Tories with a pledge to freeze energy prices for two years if he won the General Election. The policy was presented as a bill in an ice cub.
Cameron denounced the price fix as “Marxist” – and then scrambled to match it. The polling was through the roof – as was the reaction from focus groups.
Oil prices have since collapsed, and British Gas has cut prices by five per cent. Others are expected to follow suit. But they warn that the risk of future interventions is discouraging steeper cuts.
Team Miliband are not surprised: the most cuts are pre-election “gaming”; the warnings of black-outs and high prices self-interested sabre rattling.
But the Tories claim Labour’s “freeze” would have locked prices at record highs – a claim Labour deny, pointing to the small print of the policy.
Where to fight now?
As the recovery steams ahead, and the Tories stick doggedly to the mantra of the “long term economic plan”, Ed Miliband has shifted his pitch onto the “1930s-style” cuts to come and the impact this will have on the NHS.
Despite Tory pledges to ringfence funding, the treasured health service cannot exist in its current form unless Miliband wins in May, the argument goes. A slew of bad health data helps.
Does the flow of good news kill the case for Ed?
Labour would tell you no, for two reasons.
One, because after the best part of a decade of job losses and squeeze, cynical voters simply do not feel better off, and do not know about, believe in or recognise the charts of the Office for National Statistics. The debates goes on whether the new jobs are "real", or low-paid, casual labour.
And even if they did, it would not matter, because a month or year of data does not invalidate a project on a far grander scale: to give the state a far greater role in “ordering” the economy, to change the way industry behaves and the job prospects of workers for thirty or forty decades.
The price freeze was, they argue, essentially a device to jolt voters in realising that the rules of the market could be redrawn to their benefit. £30 off a bill is not - to use a Miliband refrain - the "big change we need in our country".
And yet: a general election is little over a hundred days away. Oppositions who form governments need momentum, a dominance over the field of debate - and luck.

Soddem and G'Daffy both made fatal errors in trying to dump the $ as the oil price standard.....Putin is heading along the same road to dumping the dolla.

See any connections?

I did like the following:

"The absence of a Page Three girl on Monday and Tuesday coincided with the report in Tuesday's Times, which is a fellow News UK title, that the Sun had decided to quietly drop the (Page 3) feature.

The Times said it understood that News Corp executive chairman Rupert Murdoch had signed off the decision.

In its latest edition, the Times puts the record straight, saying its sister paper had "made a clean breast of it and admitted there's still some nudes to report". "

Good point Fred........

Fred1new Send an email to Fred1new View Fred1new's profile - 22 Jan 2015 12:24 - 55537 of 55540

Haze,

But the Tory Elite, some of your friends have been in power nearly 5 years, for crew who thought they could walk on water they are drowning.

Who is holding up the Paedophile inquiry!

What was the responsibility of Maggie for the files being "buried"?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

their is going to be a lot of shocks in the coming election

No mention here of Farage looking to dump UKIP for the House of Lords.
2517

And if Cameron stays in he's gonna be nursing one sore arse!

That wont be a problem Shortie, he's ex public skool.

Former Home Secretary Leon Brittan Dies

Hmmm? Now we will never know.....

On the other hand, now that he cant sue...

Typical isnt it, we know what the hold up was now.

Sleazy Tories.

CON 33%, LAB 34%, LDEM 6%, UKIP 14%, GRN 8% .............yougov

‘Jobs Revival’ In Spotlight As Most Of Those Who Lose Benefits Fail To Find Work
Posted by Steven Preece - Jan 21, 2015

Coalition claims that it has presided over a jobs revival have come under fresh scrutiny with research showing that as few as a fifth of the 2 million jobless people whose benefit has been taken away are known to have found work.

The research, due to be presented at a Commons select committee inquiry into welfare sanctions on Wednesday, suggests that hundreds of thousands are leaving jobseeker’s allowance because of benefit sanctions without finding employment, though the report’s authors decline to provide an exact figure.

Written by academics at the University of Oxford and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the report raises questions about why so many of those losing their benefit then disappear from the welfare system – possibly to rely on food banks.

Prof David Stuckler, of Oxford University, said that benefit sanctions “do not appear to help people return to work. There is a real concern that sanctioned persons are disappearing from view. What we need next is a full cost-benefit analysis that looks not just narrowly at employment but possibly at hidden social costs of sanctions.

“If, as we’re finding, people are out of work but without support – disappeared from view – there’s a real danger that other services will absorb the costs, like the NHS, possibly jails and food support systems, to name a few. Sanctions could be costing taxpayers more.”

However, the Department for Work and Pensions, which is expected to hail a further rise in UK employmenton Wednesday, countered that it was proud that 1 million jobless people were now subject to the “claimant commitment”, which sets out tougher requirements on the jobless to find work or risk losing their benefit payments.

Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, said: “It is only right that in return for government support – and in return for their benefits – jobseekers are expected to do all they can to find work. Although on benefits, they still have a job: the job is to get back into work.

“The claimant commitment, which is deliberately set to mimic a contract of employment, makes this expectation explicit. It has created a real change in attitudes. Already more than a million people have signed up to – and are benefiting from – this new jobseeking regime.”

The Oxford-based research showed that between June 2011 and March 2014, more than 1.9m sanctions were imposed on people receiving jobseeker’s allowance (JSA), with 43% of those sanctioned subsequently ceasing to try to claim the benefit. Only 20% of those who left gave as their stated reason that they had found work.

The Department for Work and Pensions conducts no systematic research into what happens to those sanctioned, so the new findings start to fill an evidential gap in what has been one of the biggest but least publicised changes to the welfare system since the government came to power.

The 1.9m benefit removals between June 2011 and March 2014 represent a 40% increase compared with the previous seven years. The figures are based on official monthly and quarterly data from databases covering UK local authorities between 2005 and 2014.

The highly emotive dispute about a central aspect of government welfare reform centres on whether jobcentre staff, driven by senior management, are following arbitrary and poorly communicated rules that punish not just the feckless but some of the most vulnerable in society, including mentally ill and disabled people. Many independent witnesses have urged the DWP inquiry at least to suspend the sanctions regime for those claiming employment support allowance, the main disability benefit .

Study author Dr Rachel Loopstra, from Oxford University, said: “The data did not give us the full picture of why sanctioned people have stopped claiming unemployment benefit. We can say, however, that there was a large rise in the number of people leaving JSA for reasons that were not linked to employment in association with sanctioning. On this basis, it appears that the punitive use of sanctions is driving people away from social support.”

The study also shows widespread variation in how local authorities used sanctions. In Derby, Preston, Chorley and Southampton, researchers found particularly high rates of people being referred for sanctions. In some months, more than 10% of claimants in these areas were sanctioned – the highest rates nationwide.

Co-author Prof Martin McKee, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: “There is a need for a cost-benefit analysis of sanctioning, looking at it not just in narrow terms of unemployment benefit, but also the bigger picture, focusing on employment, health, and other social costs.”

He added: “The coalition government has embarked upon an unprecedented experiment to reform social security. I hope policymakers will be informed by these findings and see the value of investigating the consequences.”

Separate evidence in front of the DWP select committee inquiry includes witness statements from former jobcentre staff suggesting senior management threaten staff if they do not take a harsh approach to claimants. There is also cumulative evidence that many of those sanctioned have little or no knowledge of why they are being punished.

The main union representing jobcentre staff, PCS – also due to give evidence on Wednesday to the select committee inquiry – suggests: “While there is considerable anecdotal evidence about the inappropriate use of sanctions, there is a lack of empirical evidence. We believe that DWP should publish a more detailed breakdown of sanctions, and specifically more detailed explanations as to why they were imposed. PCS’s survey of our adviser members showed that 61% had experienced pressure to refer claimants to sanctions where they believed it may be inappropriate to do so.”

DWP select committee inquiry member Debbie Abrahams said: “This government has developed a culture in which Jobcentre Plus advisers are expected to sanction claimants using unjust, and potentially fraudulent, reasons in order get people “off-flow”. This creates the illusion the government is bringing down unemployment.”

The government counters that its policies are turning the UK into the jobs factory of Europe, and dismisses the idea that the unemployment figures are being subverted by sanctions.