'The amazing issue today was that in responding to David Cameron's EU report Corbyn went into a mantra about accepting more migrants into the UK followed by Yvette Cooper, Tim Farron and the SNP. The left are simply out of touch with mainstream opinion on the migration crisis'
Has Cooper accommodated a Syrian family in her spare home as she promised at the time of the Labour leadership election ?
Corbyn's response was pathetic as ever, but I don't really get why lefties should be in despair over that. At the end of the day, cuts have had to be abandoned by the Tories, and they're gradually being boxed into a position where further welfare cuts are impossible and they have to start actually cutting into rich pensioners' perks instead.
And frankly, I do think Corbyn is partly responsible for that -- he has moved the overall political debate to the left and has left the government with no margin for error if any of their own side speak out against government policies. That for me is preferable to Kendall/Umunna/Reeves etc. who would probably be posturing as "tough on welfare" and giving the Tories the political space to push on with cuts.
This has been a disastrous episode for the Government. They have effectively conceded that they won't be trying to reduce spending from now on. In which case, what is the point of them? What fiscal policies do they stand for? Is there any fiscal programme that 99% of Tory MPs can bring themselves to vote for?
I'm not really convinced that Corbyn has helped the left cause though. Sure, he has removed the "but the other side would cut too" argument. On the other hand his Labour Party doesn't look like a credible alternative government and so is not really able to cash in on this.
Surely the problem is that they have ringfenced so many areas they can't spread the load.
Cameron is raking it easy on Corbyn so that Corbyn doesn't get kicked out.
Corbyn is taking it easy on Osborne so that Osborne doesn't get kicked out.
Farron is taking it easy on the electorate, so that they don't remember he's a Lib Dem, and kick him out.
All three main English parties are pretty poor at the moment. Farage must be scratching his head at where it all went wrong. Sturgeon must be happy as a pig in shit.
Corbyn's response was pathetic as ever, but I don't really get why lefties should be in despair over that. At the end of the day, cuts have had to be abandoned by the Tories, and they're gradually being boxed into a position where further welfare cuts are impossible and they have to start actually cutting into rich pensioners' perks instead.
And frankly, I do think Corbyn is partly responsible for that -- he has moved the overall political debate to the left and has left the government with no margin for error if any of their own side speak out against government policies. That for me is preferable to Kendall/Umunna/Reeves etc. who would probably be posturing as "tough on welfare" and giving the Tories the political space to push on with cuts.
This has been a disastrous episode for the Government. They have effectively conceded that they won't be trying to reduce spending from now on. In which case, what is the point of them? What fiscal policies do they stand for? Is there any fiscal programme that 99% of Tory MPs can bring themselves to vote for?
I'm not really convinced that Corbyn has helped the left cause though. Sure, he has removed the "but the other side would cut too" argument. On the other hand his Labour Party doesn't look like a credible alternative government and so is not really able to cash in on this.
Surely the problem is that they have ringfenced so many areas they can't spread the load.
Yes, that's what I was getting at. If welfare is now also effectively ring-fenced there is almost nothing left. The reason welfare was in the firing line was that every other major area was already protected.
I'm not really convinced that Corbyn has helped the left cause though. Sure, he has removed the "but the other side would cut too" argument. On the other hand his Labour Party doesn't look like a credible alternative government and so is not really able to cash in on this.
I guess that depends on what you define the "left cause" as. I agree that, looking at it purely in terms of the Labour Party's prospects (their "brand", their chances of getting into government, etc.), Corbyn hasn't helped at all. If he is still the leader in 2020, Labour have a <5% chance of winning (although I still personally think the Tories are nowhere near popular enough to get a total landslide no matter how unpopular Labour are). However, at the end of the day, there are still disabled people and tax-credit claimants who are going to have their benefits saved, in part because of the stance Labour took. That for me is a better situation than Labour waving through Tory cuts but having better poll ratings as a trade-off.
Of course, it shouldn't be the case that Labour has to choose between those two extremes: I would still enthusiastically vote for a "Soft Left" leadership option which offered some compromises on purity and a chance of winning in 2020, in addition to clear red-lines on things like opposing welfare cuts (personally I would still favour Hilary Benn: although I disagreed with him on Syria, I do think he did it because he genuinely thought it was the right thing to do, and I generally trust his instincts on other things). But after last summer's Welfare Bill fiasco, it's hardly surprising that many Labour members think that the only alternative to Corbyn would be the PLP offering no resistance to Tory policies at all and allowing them to do the damage we all hate.
I'm not really convinced that Corbyn has helped the left cause though. Sure, he has removed the "but the other side would cut too" argument. On the other hand his Labour Party doesn't look like a credible alternative government and so is not really able to cash in on this.
I guess that depends on what you define the "left cause" as. I agree that, looking at it purely in terms of the Labour Party's prospects (their "brand", their chances of getting into government, etc.), Corbyn hasn't helped at all. If he is still the leader in 2020, Labour have a <5% chance of winning (although I still personally think the Tories are nowhere near popular enough to get a total landslide no matter how unpopular Labour are). However, at the end of the day, there are still disabled people and tax-credit claimants who are going to have their benefits saved, in part because of the stance Labour took. That for me is a better situation than Labour waving through Tory cuts but having better poll ratings as a trade-off.
Of course, it shouldn't be the case that Labour has to choose between those two extremes: I would still enthusiastically vote for a "Soft Left" leadership option which offered some compromises on purity and a chance of winning in 2020, in addition to clear red-lines on things like opposing welfare cuts (personally I would still favour Hilary Benn: although I disagreed with him on Syria, I do think he did it because he genuinely thought it was the right thing to do, and I generally trust his instincts on other things). But after last summer's Welfare Bill fiasco, it's hardly surprising that many Labour members think that the only alternative to Corbyn would be the PLP offering no resistance to Tory policies at all and allowing them to do the damage we all hate.</p>
Imagine Labour leader Liz Kendall supporting the government to get the cuts through, like Blair's academies, because it's the responsible thing to do.
Incidentally, I do not understand why the stop Trump brigade are focussing on squeezing every delegate out of Utah, when a defeat for Trump in Arizona would be far more damaging.
Because Trump is too far ahead to catch in Arizona.
13 points according to the last poll.
And Cruz is likely to outperform in Utah, as it's a midwest caucus . Motivation is key and the most motivated people will be the Mormons.
They could literally swing Arizona, and yet they do not. Baffling.
Corbyn's response was pathetic as ever, but I don't really get why lefties should be in despair over that. At the end of the day, cuts have had to be abandoned by the Tories, and they're gradually being boxed into a position where further welfare cuts are impossible and they have to start actually cutting into rich pensioners' perks instead.
And frankly, I do think Corbyn is partly responsible for that -- he has moved the overall political debate to the left and has left the government with no margin for error if any of their own side speak out against government policies. That for me is preferable to Kendall/Umunna/Reeves etc. who would probably be posturing as "tough on welfare" and giving the Tories the political space to push on with cuts.
This has been a disastrous episode for the Government. They have effectively conceded that they won't be trying to reduce spending from now on. In which case, what is the point of them? What fiscal policies do they stand for? Is there any fiscal programme that 99% of Tory MPs can bring themselves to vote for?
I'm not really convinced that Corbyn has helped the left cause though. Sure, he has removed the "but the other side would cut too" argument. On the other hand his Labour Party doesn't look like a credible alternative government and so is not really able to cash in on this.
Surely the problem is that they have ringfenced so many areas they can't spread the load.
Yes, that's what I was getting at. If welfare is now also effectively ring-fenced there is almost nothing left. The reason welfare was in the firing line was that every other major area was already protected.
Ringfencing is complete nonsense because (amongst other things) it undermines the message in areas being cut that they can make savings without damaging services. The Govt likes to boast that they have made huge cuts to local government funding at the same time as approval ratings of local government performance have been rising. And this is an area of spending that was lauded pre-austerity as the most efficient area of public spending. One is entitled to ask what wastage is going on, being ignored, and having been "protected" from the start, in ringfenced areas such as Education...
Corbyn's response was pathetic as ever, but I don't really get why lefties should be in despair over that. At the end of the day, cuts have had to be abandoned by the Tories, and they're gradually being boxed into a position where further welfare cuts are impossible and they have to start actually cutting into rich pensioners' perks instead.
And frankly, I do think Corbyn is partly responsible for that -- he has moved the overall political debate to the left and has left the government with no margin for error if any of their own side speak out against government policies. That for me is preferable to Kendall/Umunna/Reeves etc. who would probably be posturing as "tough on welfare" and giving the Tories the political space to push on with cuts.
This has been a disastrous episode for the Government. They have effectively conceded that they won't be trying to reduce spending from now on. In which case, what is the point of them? What fiscal policies do they stand for? Is there any fiscal programme that 99% of Tory MPs can bring themselves to vote for?
I'm not really convinced that Corbyn has helped the left cause though. Sure, he has removed the "but the other side would cut too" argument. On the other hand his Labour Party doesn't look like a credible alternative government and so is not really able to cash in on this.
Surely the problem is that they have ringfenced so many areas they can't spread the load.
Yes, that's what I was getting at. If welfare is now also effectively ring-fenced there is almost nothing left. The reason welfare was in the firing line was that every other major area was already protected.
Ringfencing is complete nonsense because (amongst other things) it undermines the message in areas being cut that they can make savings without damaging services. The Govt likes to boast that they have made huge cuts to local government funding at the same time as approval ratings of local government performance have been rising. And this is an area of spending that was lauded pre-austerity as the most efficient area of public spending. One is entitled to ask what wastage is going on, being ignored, and having been "protected" from the start, in ringfenced areas such as Education...
Welfare is not ring-fenced. The government has only said there are no cuts planned.
Incidentally, I do not understand why the stop Trump brigade are focussing on squeezing every delegate out of Utah, when a defeat for Trump in Arizona would be far more damaging.
Because Trump is too far ahead to catch in Arizona.
13 points according to the last poll.
And Cruz is likely to outperform in Utah, as it's a midwest caucus . Motivation is key and the most motivated people will be the Mormons.
They could literally swing Arizona, and yet they do not. Baffling.
There are over five million recipients of non contributory disabled benefits such as Attendance Allowance, Personal Independence Payments or Disability Living Allowance.
There are 2.5m recipients of Employment and Support Allowance. (sickness benefit)
There are individual constituencies in the UK where the disability claimant rate is one in six working age adults, and regions or nations where it is one in ten.
IDS should have been cutting all this crap. I quite like the man, but if he can happily preside over such widespread fraud then I've no interest in his views.
Where is the fraud?
5 million people aren't disabled, 2.5 million aren't sick (or at least not sufficiently that the state should be helping them).
If there are 5 million 'disabled' then most 'disabled' people are fraudsters.
Don't be a silly boy. According to 'ealth and Safety if you trip and twist your ankle you're disabled, at least temporarily. That statistics in the modern age, for you.
Not relevant for PIP, where you need to have had your current level of needs for at least three months and be likely to continue having them for a further nine months.
I'm not really convinced that Corbyn has helped the left cause though. Sure, he has removed the "but the other side would cut too" argument. On the other hand his Labour Party doesn't look like a credible alternative government and so is not really able to cash in on this.
I guess that depends on what you define the "left cause" as. I agree that, looking at it purely in terms of the Labour Party's prospects (their "brand", their chances of getting into government, etc.), Corbyn hasn't helped at all. If he is still the leader in 2020, Labour have a <5% chance of winning (although I still personally think the Tories are nowhere near popular enough to get a total landslide no matter how unpopular Labour are). However, at the end of the day, there are still disabled people and tax-credit claimants who are going to have their benefits saved, in part because of the stance Labour took. That for me is a better situation than Labour waving through Tory cuts but having better poll ratings as a trade-off.
Of course, it shouldn't be the case that Labour has to choose between those two extremes: I would still enthusiastically vote for a "Soft Left" leadership option which offered some compromises on purity and a chance of winning in 2020, in addition to clear red-lines on things like opposing welfare cuts (personally I would still favour Hilary Benn: although I disagreed with him on Syria, I do think he did it because he genuinely thought it was the right thing to do, and I generally trust his instincts on other things). But after last summer's Welfare Bill fiasco, it's hardly surprising that many Labour members think that the only alternative to Corbyn would be the PLP offering no resistance to Tory policies at all and allowing them to do the damage we all hate.</p>
I take your point but I think one should remember that if the Conservatives had another 20 MPs these cuts, and the WTC cuts, would be going ahead. Ultimately what has stopped them is the tiny majority. It wouldn't take a landslide to increase it to a comfortable working majority in 2020 (and I agree that a landslide is not that likely).
Benn would be an outstanding leader. Unlike you I agreed with him about Syria but what really impressed me about him in that episode was that he was under huge pressure to perform and rose to it. He has the mettle of a leader. He would be a very difficult opponent for any of the Tory hopefuls.
Corbyn's response was pathetic as ever, but I don't really get why lefties should be in despair over that. At the end of the day, cuts have had to be abandoned by the Tories, and they're gradually being boxed into a position where further welfare cuts are impossible and they have to start actually cutting into rich pensioners' perks instead.
And frankly, I do think Corbyn is partly responsible for that -- he has moved the overall political debate to the left and has left the government with no margin for error if any of their own side speak out against government policies. That for me is preferable to Kendall/Umunna/Reeves etc. who would probably be posturing as "tough on welfare" and giving the Tories the political space to push on with cuts.
This has been a disastrous episode for the Government. They have effectively conceded that they won't be trying to reduce spending from now on. In which case, what is the point of them? What fiscal policies do they stand for? Is there any fiscal programme that 99% of Tory MPs can bring themselves to vote for?
I'm not really convinced that Corbyn has helped the left cause though. Sure, he has removed the "but the other side would cut too" argument. On the other hand his Labour Party doesn't look like a credible alternative government and so is not really able to cash in on this.
Surely the problem is that they have ringfenced so many areas they can't spread the load.
Yes, that's what I was getting at. If welfare is now also effectively ring-fenced there is almost nothing left. The reason welfare was in the firing line was that every other major area was already protected.
Ringfencing is complete nonsense because (amongst other things) it undermines the message in areas being cut that they can make savings without damaging services. The Govt likes to boast that they have made huge cuts to local government funding at the same time as approval ratings of local government performance have been rising. And this is an area of spending that was lauded pre-austerity as the most efficient area of public spending. One is entitled to ask what wastage is going on, being ignored, and having been "protected" from the start, in ringfenced areas such as Education...
Welfare is not ring-fenced. The government has only said there are no cuts planned.
There could be spontaneous cuts, such as when they're pissed on a Friday night?
Corbyn's response was pathetic as ever, but I don't really get why lefties should be in despair over that. At the end of the day, cuts have had to be abandoned by the Tories, and they're gradually being boxed into a position where further welfare cuts are impossible and they have to start actually cutting into rich pensioners' perks instead.
And frankly, I do think Corbyn is partly responsible for that -- he has moved the overall political debate to the left and has left the government with no margin for error if any of their own side speak out against government policies. That for me is preferable to Kendall/Umunna/Reeves etc. who would probably be posturing as "tough on welfare" and giving the Tories the political space to push on with cuts.
This has been a disastrous episode for the Government. They have effectively conceded that they won't be trying to reduce spending from now on. In which case, what is the point of them? What fiscal policies do they stand for? Is there any fiscal programme that 99% of Tory MPs can bring themselves to vote for?
I'm not really convinced that Corbyn has helped the left cause though. Sure, he has removed the "but the other side would cut too" argument. On the other hand his Labour Party doesn't look like a credible alternative government and so is not really able to cash in on this.
Surely the problem is that they have ringfenced so many areas they can't spread the load.
Yes, that's what I was getting at. If welfare is now also effectively ring-fenced there is almost nothing left. The reason welfare was in the firing line was that every other major area was already protected.
Ringfencing is complete nonsense because (amongst other things) it undermines the message in areas being cut that they can make savings without damaging services. The Govt likes to boast that they have made huge cuts to local government funding at the same time as approval ratings of local government performance have been rising. And this is an area of spending that was lauded pre-austerity as the most efficient area of public spending. One is entitled to ask what wastage is going on, being ignored, and having been "protected" from the start, in ringfenced areas such as Education...
Welfare is not ring-fenced. The government has only said there are no cuts planned.
There could be spontaneous cuts, such as when they're pissed on a Friday night?
I'm not really convinced that Corbyn has helped the left cause though. Sure, he has removed the "but the other side would cut too" argument. On the other hand his Labour Party doesn't look like a credible alternative government and so is not really able to cash in on this.
I guess that depends on what you define the "left cause" as. I agree that, looking at it purely in terms of the Labour Party's prospects (their "brand", their chances of getting into government, etc.), Corbyn hasn't helped at all. If he is still the leader in 2020, Labour have a <5% chance of winning (although I still personally think the Tories are nowhere near popular enough to get a total landslide no matter how unpopular Labour are). However, at the end of the day, there are still disabled people and tax-credit claimants who are going to have their benefits saved, in part because of the stance Labour took. That for me is a better situation than Labour waving through Tory cuts but having better poll ratings as a trade-off.
Of course, it shouldn't be the case that Labour has to choose between those two extremes: I would still enthusiastically vote for a "Soft Left" leadership option which offered some compromises on purity and a chance of winning in 2020, in addition to clear red-lines on things like opposing welfare cuts (personally I would still favour Hilary Benn: although I disagreed with him on Syria, I do think he did it because he genuinely thought it was the right thing to do, and I generally trust his instincts on other things). But after last summer's Welfare Bill fiasco, it's hardly surprising that many Labour members think that the only alternative to Corbyn would be the PLP offering no resistance to Tory policies at all and allowing them to do the damage we all hate.</p>
Imagine Labour leader Liz Kendall supporting the government to get the cuts through, like Blair's academies, because it's the responsible thing to do.
Except Liz Kendall opposes the disability benefit cuts (though hardly unique in that!) She tweeted this before IDS resigned.
Is this the worst political advice ever? Get foreign leaders to hector Britons into staying in the EU because its own leaders won't do it:
"What is more, the Leave campaign has always argued there is a big world beyond Europe that is just waiting to embrace Britain once it leaves the EU. Nobody is better placed than the US president to gently puncture that idea. In the weeks following his visit, Downing Street should encourage other foreign leaders — from Beijing to Vatican City — to make their hostility to Brexit known.
Many foreign leaders will hesitate to intervene in an internal British debate. Some may have been lulled into believing Brexit is highly unlikely, anyway. Like the British political elite, they need to be disabused of that comforting notion — and fast."
Corbyn's response was pathetic as ever, but I don't really get why lefties should be in despair over that. At the end of the day, cuts have had to be abandoned by the Tories, and they're gradually being boxed into a position where further welfare cuts are impossible and they have to start actually cutting into rich pensioners' perks instead.
And frankly, I do think Corbyn is partly responsible for that -- he has moved the overall political debate to the left and has left the government with no margin for error if any of their own side speak out against government policies. That for me is preferable to Kendall/Umunna/Reeves etc. who would probably be posturing as "tough on welfare" and giving the Tories the political space to push on with cuts.
This has been a disastrous episode for the Government. They have effectively conceded that they won't be trying to reduce spending from now on. In which case, what is the point of them? What fiscal policies do they stand for? Is there any fiscal programme that 99% of Tory MPs can bring themselves to vote for?
I'm not really convinced that Corbyn has helped the left cause though. Sure, he has removed the "but the other side would cut too" argument. On the other hand his Labour Party doesn't look like a credible alternative government and so is not really able to cash in on this.
Surely the problem is that they have ringfenced so many areas they can't spread the load.
Yes, that's what I was getting at. If welfare is now also effectively ring-fenced there is almost nothing left. The reason welfare was in the firing line was that every other major area was already protected.
Ringfencing is complete nonsense because (amongst other things) it undermines the message in areas being cut that they can make savings without damaging services. The Govt likes to boast that they have made huge cuts to local government funding at the same time as approval ratings of local government performance have been rising. And this is an area of spending that was lauded pre-austerity as the most efficient area of public spending. One is entitled to ask what wastage is going on, being ignored, and having been "protected" from the start, in ringfenced areas such as Education...
Welfare is not ring-fenced. The government has only said there are no cuts planned.
Listening to David Cameron in the HOC today he seemed very diplomatic and his tone was really good. You do wonder if he thinks that he needs to take a more measured approach to the EU. Also interesting that Boris has said IDS should not have resigned. Maybe the greater good of the party is weighing on conservative mps
There are over five million recipients of non contributory disabled benefits such as Attendance Allowance, Personal Independence Payments or Disability Living Allowance.
There are 2.5m recipients of Employment and Support Allowance. (sickness benefit)
There are individual constituencies in the UK where the disability claimant rate is one in six working age adults, and regions or nations where it is one in ten.
IDS should have been cutting all this crap. I quite like the man, but if he can happily preside over such widespread fraud then I've no interest in his views.
Where is the fraud?
5 million people aren't disabled, 2.5 million aren't sick (or at least not sufficiently that the state should be helping them).
If there are 5 million 'disabled' then most 'disabled' people are fraudsters.
Don't be a silly boy. According to 'ealth and Safety if you trip and twist your ankle you're disabled, at least temporarily. That statistics in the modern age, for you.
Not relevant for PIP, where you need to have had your current level of needs for at least three months and be likely to continue having them for a further nine months.
My father couldn't talk and coukd barely walk with early onset Alzheimers (with Lewy Bodies) though the tests were still pretty rigorous. Two lots of specialists came to the house to verify that he wasn't faking it.
So, from my meagre experience (a sample of one) the tests on new claimants are quite strict. I'm not sure how rigorously we check existing claimants (who may have improved and be newly fit for work )
"Hours before his AIPAC address on Monday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said that as president, he would require Israel to pay back the United States for the foreign aid it received..." read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.710051#701396048
Hilarious that less than 90 minutes after poo-pooing him at less than 50/1 IDS resigns and the next day Crabb takes his job, and everyone starts talking about him as a potential leader.
On Facebook site related to his constituency there has been a lot in the last few days about Crabb being a 'Flipper' during the Expenses scandal. Also seen as lightweight with little personality.
The average price of a property in the UK has gone past £300k for the first time. Of course, this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the population of the country has increased by about 10 million over the last 25 years. Anyone who says so is, self-evidently, a complete moron.
There are over five million recipients of non contributory disabled benefits such as Attendance Allowance, Personal Independence Payments or Disability Living Allowance.
There are 2.5m recipients of Employment and Support Allowance. (sickness benefit)
There are individual constituencies in the UK where the disability claimant rate is one in six working age adults, and regions or nations where it is one in ten.
IDS should have been cutting all this crap. I quite like the man, but if he can happily preside over such widespread fraud then I've no interest in his views.
Where is the fraud?
5 million people aren't disabled, 2.5 million aren't sick (or at least not sufficiently that the state should be helping them).
If there are 5 million 'disabled' then most 'disabled' people are fraudsters.
Don't be a silly boy. According to 'ealth and Safety if you trip and twist your ankle you're disabled, at least temporarily. That statistics in the modern age, for you.
Not relevant for PIP, where you need to have had your current level of needs for at least three months and be likely to continue having them for a further nine months.
My father couldn't talk and coukd barely walk with early onset Alzheimers (with Lewy Bodies) though the tests were still pretty rigorous. Two lots of specialists came to the house to verify that he wasn't faking it.
So, from my meagre experience (a sample of one) the tests on new claimants are quite strict. I'm not sure how rigorously we check existing claimants (who may have improved and be newly fit for work )
The checking of existing claimants, at least for ESA is an issue. There is I believe a massive backlog with some people overdue for review by years. Yet another pile of mess left by IDS for the new boy.
There are over five million recipients of non contributory disabled benefits such as Attendance Allowance, Personal Independence Payments or Disability Living Allowance.
There are 2.5m recipients of Employment and Support Allowance. (sickness benefit)
There are individual constituencies in the UK where the disability claimant rate is one in six working age adults, and regions or nations where it is one in ten.
IDS should have been cutting all this crap. I quite like the man, but if he can happily preside over such widespread fraud then I've no interest in his views.
Where is the fraud?
5 million people aren't disabled, 2.5 million aren't sick (or at least not sufficiently that the state should be helping them).
If there are 5 million 'disabled' then most 'disabled' people are fraudsters.
Don't be a silly boy. According to 'ealth and Safety if you trip and twist your ankle you're disabled, at least temporarily. That statistics in the modern age, for you.
Not relevant for PIP, where you need to have had your current level of needs for at least three months and be likely to continue having them for a further nine months.
My father couldn't talk and coukd barely walk with early onset Alzheimers (with Lewy Bodies) though the tests were still pretty rigorous. Two lots of specialists came to the house to verify that he wasn't faking it.
So, from my meagre experience (a sample of one) the tests on new claimants are quite strict. I'm not sure how rigorously we check existing claimants (who may have improved and be newly fit for work )
The checking of existing claimants, at least for ESA is an issue. There is I believe a massive backlog with some people overdue for review by years. Yet another pile of mess left by IDS for the new boy.
The average price of a property in the UK has gone past £300k for the first time. Of course, this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the population of the country has increased by about 10 million over the last 25 years. Anyone who says so is, self-evidently, a complete moron.
That's the demand side.
The supply side is that new housing stock in the UK is not increasing anything like fast enough.
By contrast I bought my first house in Knutsford Cheshire in 1976 for 11k pounds.
Surely the anti-Israel protesters should be protesting TED CRUZ and not Donald Trump, Cruz is way more pro Israel.
Jewish thought is very nuanced. Some Jews hate Israel - and those Jews who support it - as much as anyone else. "Anti-semitism" is therefore entirely inapplicable to the debate.
According to Peston 10MPs showed up to the PLP tonight.
If they are not careful the Lib Dems meeting will start having more people at them. Unless Peston is confusing the PLP meeting with the meeting of the Labour Parliamentary footy team.
According to Peston 10MPs showed up to the PLP tonight.
Sounds absurdly low -but I'm not sure I know what I'm comparing that number to. What kind of attendance would a Monday night EdM PLP meeting have drawn?
According to Peston 10MPs showed up to the PLP tonight.
Sounds absurdly low -but I'm not sure I know what I'm comparing that number to. What kind of attendance would a Monday night EdM PLP meeting have drawn?
Can only speak from the Blair/Brown period, but then it was typically 10-20 for a routine PLP - lots more if the leader was speaking. But I suspect the real reason was the same reason that only a modest number of Tories came for the urgent question - they are no whipped votes now till after Easter, so people are taking a break.
She states "the top 20% are losing more than everyone else" at the very same time an IFS graph showing the rich are losing nothing is on the screen behind her.
Hilarious that less than 90 minutes after poo-pooing him at less than 50/1 IDS resigns and the next day Crabb takes his job, and everyone starts talking about him as a potential leader.
On Facebook site related to his constituency there has been a lot in the last few days about Crabb being a 'Flipper' during the Expenses scandal. Also seen as lightweight with little personality.
We don't need a "personality" as much as someone to fix the department.
She states "the top 20% are losing more than everyone else" at the very same time an IFS graph showing the rich are losing nothing is on the screen behind her.
I thought Nicky Morgan being useless was an undisputed fact?
The average price of a property in the UK has gone past £300k for the first time. Of course, this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the population of the country has increased by about 10 million over the last 25 years. Anyone who says so is, self-evidently, a complete moron.
Point on "disabled"...It includes things like mental health conditions, learning difficulties etc. Not just tiny Tim on his crutch.
So all those kids with dyslexia (AKA "thick rich kids") and ADHD ("normal kids with crap parents")?
Add the fatties on mobility scooters to that lot...
I hardly see people on mobility scooters in London, but they were everywhere when I went to Nuneaton for a day.
Have you ever tried getting around London with a mobility scooter or wheelchair? Its really quite difficult with something as simple as a baby buggy.
Don't be ridiculous. I don't know about mobility scooters or wheelchairs. The latter must be very difficult. But I managed to scoot around London with 2 children under the age of 18 months in a double buggy without much difficulty. And I had no car. I was pretty fit.
The average price of a property in the UK has gone past £300k for the first time. Of course, this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the population of the country has increased by about 10 million over the last 25 years. Anyone who says so is, self-evidently, a complete moron.
It's equally simplistic to say that is the only (or even the dominant) cause. After all, the inflation adjusted price of housing in the UK rose between 1977 and 1983 by 40%, despite net emigration from the UK. Likewise, it fell substantially between 1989 and 1995, despite net immigration to the UK.
Point on "disabled"...It includes things like mental health conditions, learning difficulties etc. Not just tiny Tim on his crutch.
So all those kids with dyslexia (AKA "thick rich kids") and ADHD ("normal kids with crap parents")?
Add the fatties on mobility scooters to that lot...
I hardly see people on mobility scooters in London, but they were everywhere when I went to Nuneaton for a day.
Have you ever tried getting around London with a mobility scooter or wheelchair? Its really quite difficult with something as simple as a baby buggy.
Don't be ridiculous. I don't know about mobility scooters or wheelchairs. The latter must be very difficult. But I managed to scoot around London with 2 children under the age of 18 months in a double buggy without much difficulty. And I had no car. I was pretty fit.
I misread that as "I managed to scoot around London with 2 children under the age of 18 in a double buggy"...
Point on "disabled"...It includes things like mental health conditions, learning difficulties etc. Not just tiny Tim on his crutch.
So all those kids with dyslexia (AKA "thick rich kids") and ADHD ("normal kids with crap parents")?
Add the fatties on mobility scooters to that lot...
I hardly see people on mobility scooters in London, but they were everywhere when I went to Nuneaton for a day.
Have you ever tried getting around London with a mobility scooter or wheelchair? Its really quite difficult with something as simple as a baby buggy.
Don't be ridiculous. I don't know about mobility scooters or wheelchairs. The latter must be very difficult. But I managed to scoot around London with 2 children under the age of 18 months in a double buggy without much difficulty. And I had no car. I was pretty fit.
I misread that as "I managed to scoot around London with 2 children under the age of 18 in a double buggy"...
LoL!
Mind you, when I added a third child shortly after, that was tough.... I gave up and got a campervan at that point.
If I parked it outside some of the posher bits of North London I could singlehandledly depress the price of houses. ("Amanda, darling: some gypsies with noisy children seem to have moved next to our drive....")
Shame Obama does not take the same approach as Trump:
Speaking at the Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue – currently being converted into a Trump Hotel – Mr. Trump was asked if he believed that Britain would and should leave the European Union.
He replied: “I think that I don’t want to make a comment about the UK or anything, but I think they may leave based on everything.
“I’m there a lot. I have a lot of investments in the UK and I will tell you that I think it may leave based on everything I’m hearing”.
Pressed on whether he thought British people should vote to leave, he responded: “I don’t know you’d have to ask them, I just think they may leave.”
His hands off approach to the issue is at stark contrast with U.S. President Barack Obama, who is set to give a speech urging Britons to stay in the EU next month.
Trump's percentage of delegates will increase from 48.1% to 50.2% if he wins the winner-take-all primary in Arizona tomorrow, unless I've got my figures mixed up.
FBI announced they think they have JUST found a way to unlock that iPhone....
Yeah yeah, we believe you. JUST found out....I think you mean you already knew, but it was a pain in the ass and probably required a super computer to do some fairly heavy lifting. But the court case ain't looking so hot and probably a way to spin it back on to Apple.
Mariella Frostrup shouting her kid is European on the Agenda - lol
Lol.
I have yet to meet anyone in real life who claims to be European before British. But then again I am not part of the Islington dinner party set.
But what is Europe? Unless you can come up with a universal definition of what Europe actually is, you cannot actually accurately describe yourself as European.
Membership of the EU - not enough. Can participate in Eurovision? No. Can compete in European sports competitions? No.
Europe doesn't really exist - so we can't be European!
Mariella Frostrup shouting her kid is European on the Agenda - lol
Lol.
I have yet to meet anyone in real life who claims to be European before British. But then again I am not part of the Islington dinner party set.
But what is Europe? Unless you can come up with a universal definition of what Europe actually is, you cannot actually accurately describe yourself as European.
Membership of the EU - not enough. Can participate in Eurovision? No. Can compete in European sports competitions? No.
Europe doesn't really exist - so we can't be European!
How about anyone living between the Atlantic and the Oder? Or the Mediterranean and the northern bit of Norway?
Mariella Frostrup shouting her kid is European on the Agenda - lol
Lol.
I have yet to meet anyone in real life who claims to be European before British. But then again I am not part of the Islington dinner party set.
But what is Europe? Unless you can come up with a universal definition of what Europe actually is, you cannot actually accurately describe yourself as European.
Membership of the EU - not enough. Can participate in Eurovision? No. Can compete in European sports competitions? No.
Europe doesn't really exist - so we can't be European!
How about anyone living between the Atlantic and the Oder? Or the Mediterranean and the northern bit of Norway?
Some classifications put Cyprus in the Middle East... so that doesn't quite work
Mariella Frostrup shouting her kid is European on the Agenda - lol
Lol.
I have yet to meet anyone in real life who claims to be European before British. But then again I am not part of the Islington dinner party set.
But what is Europe? Unless you can come up with a universal definition of what Europe actually is, you cannot actually accurately describe yourself as European.
Membership of the EU - not enough. Can participate in Eurovision? No. Can compete in European sports competitions? No.
Europe doesn't really exist - so we can't be European!
Some EU guy (Tusk?) recently said when Schengen was first coming under pressure that without Schengen there really wasn't Europe, or EU anyway
Mariella Frostrup shouting her kid is European on the Agenda - lol
Lol.
I have yet to meet anyone in real life who claims to be European before British. But then again I am not part of the Islington dinner party set.
But what is Europe? Unless you can come up with a universal definition of what Europe actually is, you cannot actually accurately describe yourself as European.
Membership of the EU - not enough. Can participate in Eurovision? No. Can compete in European sports competitions? No.
Europe doesn't really exist - so we can't be European!
Have you read Amartya Sen's Identity and Violence?
I think he makes a very persuasive case that we all have multiple 'identities' that overlap, and give us context. So, if I meet a guy who's Korean and has a mobile game development studio, we'll have the shared context (or identity) that is we're both technology entrepreneurs. Likewise, if I meet an English guy in a bar in Sweden, then it's being English that is the shared bond. We all have multiple things that we identify as being.
Interestingly, one of the reasons that the early Nationalist Germans felt that Jews could never be good Germans was because they had the mixed loyalties towards Judaism and Germany.
Anyway, you are surely right that only a very small number of people primarily identify as "European". But every year when the Ryder Cup is on, that become part of your identity, even as you may loathe the the EU.
Mariella Frostrup shouting her kid is European on the Agenda - lol
Lol.
I have yet to meet anyone in real life who claims to be European before British. But then again I am not part of the Islington dinner party set.
The vast majority of people I know answer "English" to questions about their nationality - as (for that matter) do I.
I suspect that if you asked 100 people in the UK to describe themselves, you'd get lots of English, some Scottish, some Welsh, and very few British.
You got me there.
I should have used British/English.
Question I want to know is are Russians considered European?
Yes but, far more than in the case of Britain, 'it's complicated'. Russia has spent long periods outside the European mainstream, but also sees itself as being at more than one point in history the saviour of European civilisation.
FBI announced they think they have JUST found a way to unlock that iPhone....
Yeah yeah, we believe you. JUST found out....I think you mean you already knew, but it was a pain in the ass and probably required a super computer to do some fairly heavy lifting. But the court case ain't looking so hot and probably a way to spin it back on to Apple.
Surely a brute force unlock is just not feasible, even with multiple super computers working in parallel. You cant break your way through the door, you have to knock on the window while trying to sneak someone down the chimney.
Mariella Frostrup shouting her kid is European on the Agenda - lol
Lol.
I have yet to meet anyone in real life who claims to be European before British. But then again I am not part of the Islington dinner party set.
But what is Europe? Unless you can come up with a universal definition of what Europe actually is, you cannot actually accurately describe yourself as European.
Membership of the EU - not enough. Can participate in Eurovision? No. Can compete in European sports competitions? No.
Europe doesn't really exist - so we can't be European!
Some EU guy (Tusk?) recently said when Schengen was first coming under pressure that without Schengen there really wasn't Europe, or EU anyway
Schengen is such a side show. The truth is the European mainland patchwork - of small countries, with tiny armies, long land borders without geographical features, and thousands of border crossings - are essentially unsecurable. It's like us with the border with the Republic of Ireland during the Troubles; we couldn't secure it, despite the weight of the entire British Army, and low population density.
Schengen is not a grand political ambition. It is a recognition of the bleedingly obvious.
FBI announced they think they have JUST found a way to unlock that iPhone....
Yeah yeah, we believe you. JUST found out....I think you mean you already knew, but it was a pain in the ass and probably required a super computer to do some fairly heavy lifting. But the court case ain't looking so hot and probably a way to spin it back on to Apple.
Surely a brute force unlock is just not feasible, even with multiple super computers working in parallel. You cant break your way through the door, you have to knock on the window while trying to sneak someone down the chimney.
Actually, I would thought a brute force would be easy. iPhone emulators exist. Image the storage, and run 100,000 emulations in parallel.
Mariella Frostrup shouting her kid is European on the Agenda - lol
Lol.
I have yet to meet anyone in real life who claims to be European before British. But then again I am not part of the Islington dinner party set.
But what is Europe? Unless you can come up with a universal definition of what Europe actually is, you cannot actually accurately describe yourself as European.
Membership of the EU - not enough. Can participate in Eurovision? No. Can compete in European sports competitions? No.
Europe doesn't really exist - so we can't be European!
Have you read Amartya Sen's Identity and Violence?
I think he makes a very persuasive case that we all have multiple 'identities' that overlap, and give us context. So, if I meet a guy who's Korean and has a mobile game development studio, we'll have the shared context (or identity) that is we're both technology entrepreneurs. Likewise, if I meet an English guy in a bar in Sweden, then it's being English that is the shared bond. We all have multiple things that we identify as being.
Interestingly, one of the reasons that the early Nationalist Germans felt that Jews could never be good Germans was because they had the mixed loyalties towards Judaism and Germany.
Anyway, you are surely right that only a very small number of people primarily identify as "European". But every year when the Ryder Cup is on, that become part of your identity, even as you may loathe the the EU.
Interesting you use that example. That's the only three days in two years that I feel even remotely European.
FBI announced they think they have JUST found a way to unlock that iPhone....
Yeah yeah, we believe you. JUST found out....I think you mean you already knew, but it was a pain in the ass and probably required a super computer to do some fairly heavy lifting. But the court case ain't looking so hot and probably a way to spin it back on to Apple.
Surely a brute force unlock is just not feasible, even with multiple super computers working in parallel. You cant break your way through the door, you have to knock on the window while trying to sneak someone down the chimney.
You aren't thinking like a hacker ;-) ....various supposedly sound methods have been broken even when in theory they can't be via brute force.
Remember the virus that screwed up Iran nuclear development, that installed itself on windows machines and broke a supposed one way algorithm. Between the time it was written and its discovery, by coincidence academics theorized the one way algorithm it used was vulnerable to a weird work around. Then they discovered that somebody in the US / Isreali spooks had already worked it out and fully implemented it.
Snowdon showed that stuff like OpenVPN has also been comprised.
Comments
https://twitter.com/CBSNLive/status/711999653265276928
'The amazing issue today was that in responding to David Cameron's EU report Corbyn went into a mantra about accepting more migrants into the UK followed by Yvette Cooper, Tim Farron and the SNP. The left are simply out of touch with mainstream opinion on the migration crisis'
Has Cooper accommodated a Syrian family in her spare home as she promised at the time of the Labour leadership election ?
Corbyn is taking it easy on Osborne so that Osborne doesn't get kicked out.
Farron is taking it easy on the electorate, so that they don't remember he's a Lib Dem, and kick him out.
All three main English parties are pretty poor at the moment. Farage must be scratching his head at where it all went wrong. Sturgeon must be happy as a pig in shit.
If he could be leader, anybody could be leader, right?
Now the Labour party is looking wistfully at the glory days of Ed's masterful regime, maybe now is the time for him to make a return?
Nicola is doing it...
@NicolaMurrayMP: Excited to announce I've been selected by @theSNP to run for Mayor of London! Both Votes Nicola Murray #LondonMayor2016
https://twitter.com/nicolamurraymp/status/712012035509391360
Of course, it shouldn't be the case that Labour has to choose between those two extremes: I would still enthusiastically vote for a "Soft Left" leadership option which offered some compromises on purity and a chance of winning in 2020, in addition to clear red-lines on things like opposing welfare cuts (personally I would still favour Hilary Benn: although I disagreed with him on Syria, I do think he did it because he genuinely thought it was the right thing to do, and I generally trust his instincts on other things). But after last summer's Welfare Bill fiasco, it's hardly surprising that many Labour members think that the only alternative to Corbyn would be the PLP offering no resistance to Tory policies at all and allowing them to do the damage we all hate.
And Cruz is likely to outperform in Utah, as it's a midwest caucus . Motivation is key and the most motivated people will be the Mormons.
They could literally swing Arizona, and yet they do not. Baffling.
Jeremy Kyle Show swear word broadcast because producers had not 'understood' guest's Scottish accent
"God Bless Utah" and "I love Arizona".
Benn would be an outstanding leader. Unlike you I agreed with him about Syria but what really impressed me about him in that episode was that he was under huge pressure to perform and rose to it. He has the mettle of a leader. He would be a very difficult opponent for any of the Tory hopefuls.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygKgnd8CrIQ
"You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money. You want to control your own politicians.”
https://twitter.com/leicesterliz/status/710908451023675393
"What is more, the Leave campaign has always argued there is a big world beyond Europe that is just waiting to embrace Britain once it leaves the EU. Nobody is better placed than the US president to gently puncture that idea. In the weeks following his visit, Downing Street should encourage other foreign leaders — from Beijing to Vatican City — to make their hostility to Brexit known.
Many foreign leaders will hesitate to intervene in an internal British debate. Some may have been lulled into believing Brexit is highly unlikely, anyway. Like the British political elite, they need to be disabused of that comforting notion — and fast."
https://twitter.com/GalloVOA/status/712029782393884672
An amendment to the Immigration Bill to let the children come to Britain was adopted by 306 votes to 204 - a majority of 102.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-35865508
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/21/bbc-local-radio-martin-kelner-radio-leeds
I didn't realise that the BBC had let go the Guardianista's Guardianista old time Northern radio personality.
Hope the Government skewers it.
So, from my meagre experience (a sample of one) the tests on new claimants are quite strict. I'm not sure how rigorously we check existing claimants (who may have improved and be newly fit for work )
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.710051#701396048
The supply side is that new housing stock in the UK is not increasing anything like fast enough.
By contrast I bought my first house in Knutsford Cheshire in 1976 for 11k pounds.
But of course you knew that...
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/03/disgusting-hundreds-of-anti-trump-protesters-taunt-jews-at-aipac-with-nazi-imagery/
whiff of panic among the drones at the FT...?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3503079/Ex-Guantanamo-Bay-prisoner-Moazzam-Begg-REFUSES-condemn-stoning-women-university-talk.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/12200225/Jeremy-Corbyn-has-David-Cameron-on-the-ropes...-then-punches-himself-in-the-face.html
She states "the top 20% are losing more than everyone else" at the very same time an IFS graph showing the rich are losing nothing is on the screen behind her.
He means it so sincerely, I guess...
2010 Brown defeated
2015 EdM defeated
2020 Labour defeated
Perhaps you'd like to give your views on how well the 'March of the Makers' is going ?
Or the trillion pound export target ?
Or by how many hundreds of billions Osborne will exceed his borrowing targets ?
Apparently the lawyers are in for a $50 million pay day.
Mind you, when I added a third child shortly after, that was tough.... I gave up and got a campervan at that point.
If I parked it outside some of the posher bits of North London I could singlehandledly depress the price of houses. ("Amanda, darling: some gypsies with noisy children seem to have moved next to our drive....")
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/will-donald-trump-clinch-the-republican-nomination-before-the-convention/
Executive summary: "Dunno."
I have yet to meet anyone in real life who claims to be European before British. But then again I am not part of the Islington dinner party set.
I suspect that if you asked 100 people in the UK to describe themselves, you'd get lots of English, some Scottish, some Welsh, and very few British.
Yeah yeah, we believe you. JUST found out....I think you mean you already knew, but it was a pain in the ass and probably required a super computer to do some fairly heavy lifting. But the court case ain't looking so hot and probably a way to spin it back on to Apple.
Membership of the EU - not enough. Can participate in Eurovision? No. Can compete in European sports competitions? No.
Europe doesn't really exist - so we can't be European!
I think he makes a very persuasive case that we all have multiple 'identities' that overlap, and give us context. So, if I meet a guy who's Korean and has a mobile game development studio, we'll have the shared context (or identity) that is we're both technology entrepreneurs. Likewise, if I meet an English guy in a bar in Sweden, then it's being English that is the shared bond. We all have multiple things that we identify as being.
Interestingly, one of the reasons that the early Nationalist Germans felt that Jews could never be good Germans was because they had the mixed loyalties towards Judaism and Germany.
Anyway, you are surely right that only a very small number of people primarily identify as "European". But every year when the Ryder Cup is on, that become part of your identity, even as you may loathe the the EU.
I should have used British/English.
Question I want to know is are Russians considered European?
Schengen is not a grand political ambition. It is a recognition of the bleedingly obvious.
CBS/NYT
Trump 46 +11
Cruz 26 +8
Kasich 20 + 9
So far so good, here is the problem:
Trump fav/unf 24/57 , among republicans 49/29
Hillary fav/unf 31/52 , among democrats 61/20
Republican party fav/unf 28/66
Democratic party fav/unf 46/48
Republican party unf. with republican voters 39%
Democratic party unf. with democratic voters 13%
Republican voters who think their party is divided 88%.
Democratic voters who think their party is divided 9%.
Which of course leads to:
Hillary 50
Trump 40
There is massive hate within the republican party for their own party.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbsnyt-poll-who-do-gop-voters-blame-for-violence-at-donald-trump-rallies/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-and-hillary-clinton-viewed-unfavorably-by-majority-cbsnyt-poll/
It should be an interesting contest.
Remember the virus that screwed up Iran nuclear development, that installed itself on windows machines and broke a supposed one way algorithm. Between the time it was written and its discovery, by coincidence academics theorized the one way algorithm it used was vulnerable to a weird work around. Then they discovered that somebody in the US / Isreali spooks had already worked it out and fully implemented it.
Snowdon showed that stuff like OpenVPN has also been comprised.