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.

Conservatives most likely to get most seats

http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/next-uk-general-election/most-seats

125,000 sign petition to try and stop Britain's oldest prisoner of war being evicted from his home
Britain's oldest prisoner of war is being forced out of his home of more than 50 years because a council says his care is too expensive

By Agency11:54PM BST 01 Apr 2015Comments240 Comments
Britain's oldest prisoner of war is being forced out of his home of more than 50 years because a council says his care is too expensive, his family has said.
More than 125,000 people are now backing a campaign to stop Second World War veteran Robert Clark, 96, being forced into a care home after his local authority refused to continue paying for his at-home carer.
Brent council claim the cost of a carer coming to his home in Burnt Oak, north London, is too great and they are trying to move him to a nearby facility.
For the past two years, Mr Clark, who is also blind, wheelchair bound, and deaf in one ear, spent his £50,000 life savings on part of the cost of his £960-a-week live-in carer. But the council, which currently pays just £350 towards his care, is refusing to increase its contribution.
• The war hero who gave shelter to the lonely
During the Second World War, Mr Clark was one of the few prisoners of war who survived Hitler’s 1,000-mile “Death March” retreat across Europe in 1945.
His son, Mike, 58, fears that his father will just “give up on life” if he is forced into a care home against his will, because it will remind him of prison.
• From the desert to the registry office: how one war hero left the horrors of Helmand behind
Mr Clark was a gunner in the Durham Light Infantry when he was captured by the Nazis in the Libyan city of Tobruk in June 1942.
He spent the remaining three years of the war in a variety of prison camps in Poland, as well as taking part in the horrific Death March from January to April, 1945. Phil Porter, Brent council’s strategic director of adult social care, said: “We recognise Mr Clark’s contribution to this country and sincerely empathise with the situation that he and other older people like him across the UK are in.
• UK troops must help the Kurds, says Iraq War hero Colonel Tim Collins
“However, the problem arises as the care package that Mr Clark is choosing is not affordable to council taxpayers given the constraints of local government funding and the need to be consistent for the 2,900 people we support.”
The council said the maximum they can spend per resident is £451 a week, but even if he moves into a care home, Mr Clark will require specialist help that costs far more.




Comments :-

I think we need to know if this council's 'leader', who rejoices in the old English name of Mohammed Butt, has any connection to the care homes patronised by his council. If I were a betting man I would give odds on for it.


gave so much to his country and to others for so little in return when most in need.

his country are letting him, like so many other senior citizens and those who have served their country, down.

'Phil Porter, Brent council’s strategic director of adult social care, said: “We recognise Mr Clark’s contribution to this country and sincerely empathise with the situation that he and other older people like him across the UK are in.'

expressing empathy in words is easy. how about demonstrating it is meant with action?

"“However, the problem arises as the care package that Mr Clark is choosing is not affordable to council taxpayers given the constraints of local government funding and the need to be consistent for the 2,900 people we support.”

The council said the maximum they can spend per resident is £451 a week, but even if he moves into a care home, Mr Clark will require specialist help that costs far more."


yes and id like to know how many of the 2,900 were actually born in Britain or how much they have contributed to it over the years.. War Vets should get special funding so that rather than just words of empathy there sacrifice and service can actually be repaid its the least we could do for men and women who gave so much to Britain.


The chief executive's pay scale in Brent is set using the nationally recognized
Hay reward scheme which is used by the majority of local councils around
the country. The chief executive's current salary is £191,159.

strategic director pay rates range from £128,300 to £145,034 (4 posts)

operational director pay rates range from £94,828 to £122,008 (15 posts)

head of service pay rates range from £54,112 to £89,251 (48 posts).

Nice..

fred writes
Your 3rd point I can't remember, but think initially there was some restrictions,which were appealed against.


on that basis, there could equally be no restrictive covenants on council tenants selling their homes

and interesting logic that you reckon it was a very fine gesture indeed for your parents to sell their properties to their tenants for silly money - we'll assume the sale for undervalue was declared to HMRC - whereas for the gov't to give long-term tenants of council properties a similar opportunity was absolutely appalling

would your opinion have been the same had a labour gov't instigated such a programme?

Manuel.

You are getting dafter and dafter.

The "responsibility" of my parents and family with the "personal" goods was to themselves and if they wish to show generosity and thanks that was their personal right to do so. (It may have given them satisfaction to do so in reciprocity for what has been show previously.)

There is a different responsibility for "government" and how the dispense "cash" which doesn't belong to themselves, but those the they raised the tax from and the society as a whole.

As far as taxation, knowing my parents the transactions would have been carried out by a solicitor and any necessary payments would have been appropriate.

.

fred - you're contradicting yourself .....

a little earlier you wrote
Never had an objection of selling tenants of council houses buying the properties they are in a market value, as long as it is not to be sold immediately again for personal profit.

not for the first time, you now sing badly and out of tune


and of course you failed to answer ....
would your opinion have been the same had a labour gov't instigated such a programme?

Bullshit!

My opinion is not based on party or dogma affiliation as your seems to be.

Your attachment to the con party appears to me on how much it will fill your pocket.

That is why I do not affiliate myself to any party.

I can see a little further than my own snout!

sorry fred, but your persistent one-way diatribes betray your colours, albeit that labour may not be sufficiently far left for your taste ......

in any case, your bluster does not preclude you from answering my question nor of course from explaining your clear contradictions, except of course you cannot bring yourself to do so

============

your rhetoric and polemics may convince yourself, but they do not seem to have mustered any support from anyone else here

Labour MPs accused of hypocrisy over use of zero-hours contracts

Almost 70 sitting Labour MPs have been accused of using zero-hours contracts to pay their staff, according to reports



By Telegraph Reporter

10:46PM BST 01 Apr 2015





Nearly 70 Labour MPs have been accused of using controversial zero-hours contracts despite Ed Miliband's election pledge to severely limit their use.


Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, Lucy Powell, Labour’s elections chief and Karen Buck, Ed Miliband’s parliamentary aide are alleged to use the employment agreements.


The Sun has reported that 68 Labour MPs are affected - nearly a quarter of the Parliamentary party.





If you work regular hours for three months, Labour will give you a legal right to a regular contract, not a zero-hours contract.
— Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) April 1, 2015


Meanwhile Ed Miliband's flagship proposals to limit zero-hours contracts will threaten jobs and risk higher unemployment, influential business groups have warned.


The Labour leader on Wednesday announced plans to limit flexible contracts to 12 weeks, after which employees would have a right to a regular contract.

The CBI, Institute of Directors (IoD), Adam Smith Institute and manufacturers' organisation EEF all raised concerns about the proposals, warning that flexible contracts were popular with many workers and helped boost employment.

John Cridland, director-general of the CBI warned: "The UK’s flexible jobs market has given us an employment rate that is the envy of other countries, so proposals to limit flexible contracts to 12 weeks are wide of the mark.

"Of course action should be taken to tackle abuses, but demonising flexible contracts is playing with the jobs that many firms and many workers value and need.

"These proposals run the risk of a return to day-to-day hiring in parts of the economy, with lower stability for workers and fewer opportunities for people to break out of low pay."

Manuel.

You are blustering and remind me of Dodgy Dave. Blustering when either he cannot answer the question and squirming.

I am sorry you are too blinkered to understand what I have posted, but that is your problem.


Unlike you I don't pander for support.

But you will be all right Cameron needs fodder like you.
=-=-==-=

Manuel.

You are blustering and remind me of Dodgy Dave. Blustering when either he cannot answer the question and squirming.

I am sorry you are too blinkered to understand what I have posted, but that is your problem.


Unlike you I don't pander for support.

But you will be all right Cameron needs fodder like you.
=-=-==-=

Chris Carson post 58276
That is disgusting but it's Brent council so we could really go in to one here .
However we are now so stretched with the NHS and Schools full of immigrants that the old war vet who fought to save Britain should just be chucked on the heap while we pay for all our new arrivals ..

Where's TANKER when you need him , don't let TANKER get hold of that story eh Fred ?

JB.

Well, well, if you need emergency treatment at this weekend do take your postings with you and put them up on the walls in Casualty before you are seen.

Just watching the ITV political debate...

Well they are all arguing the toss and saying their way is best and the other party's ways are the worst.

How the hell anyone can choose, what party to vote for and which methods are best to manage the very many problems of Britain, beats me.

What a stupid way to run the country! There has to be better way to pick the decision makers than this.

Other thoughts....

1. Since Nigel Farage, as he spouts fact after fact after fact, is winning hands down, then let's put him in charge of any new government.

2. Will Nick Clegg ever get re-elected as an MP? Probably not.

3. Nicola Sturgeon is doing pretty well for her SNP and isn't coming over as being quite as frightening a threat to the Labour Party as she is made out to be.

4. We should geographically move Wales into the UK. Ha Ha. Then it might get a better deal.

5. We certainly need a lot of re-negotiation to change the way the EU is run. I wonder who would get the best deal for us? This TV debate isn't really answering this question for me.

My reflection is that Cameron came over as a bigger creep than I previously thought!

That was some performance by Nicola Sturgeon :0)

That was some performance by Nicola Sturgeon! :0)

I watched what looked like a game show at the Frontline Club (a club for journalists, political journalists, foreign correspondents and war zone journalists). It was interesting to see reactions from the journalists present. Miliband got laughed at a lot.

.

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