Categories
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Scottish Sun to “remain neutral” in next years referend
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Scottish Sun to “remain neutral” in next years referendum
According to a report in the Independent this morning Scotland’s biggest-selling newspaper, the Murdoch-owned, Scottish Sun, will remain neutral in the September 2014 independence referendum.
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
That didn't make much of a difference, I doubt this will.
It's been nearly a decade since I resided there but my reading of the Scottish character is that they'll vote "no" to this, by around 60 / 40; I can't see the campaign making that much of a difference. It's identity politics.
Shame really, As a Scot, I think it'd be the best long term thing for Scotland, although ultimate accountability for financial matters would lead to some tough choices in the near term.
They would have targeted the housing providers instead of the tenants; they would have provided some funds to incentive people to move.
In meta terms it would have cost 3/5th of bugger all, may even have been a way to spin it as cash positive and also solved the problem.
I agree - carrots are better than sticks every time. People's attachment to 'their' home may be irrational, but it's central to what we are and who we are. In addition, many single older people have family who visit and stop over: I can also think of many, many single fathers whose children stay (when the Court permits!) but who are nominally a single occupant of a 2/3/4 bed home.
In addition, the cost of the move itself may be prohibitive.
I'm not one to trot out the 'out of touch' meme on here, but this is one occasion where I think the Govt have good intentions, but have failed to consider the people involved and how they could be bribed, not beaten, into making this decision voluntarily: this smacks of the 'old people who live alone in their own homes should sell up and move to somewhere smaller for the good of the nation' Dictatorial State garbage which was being promulgated late last year.
People's lives are defined by where they live and work and those with whom they interact in both areas of their lives: moving people willy-nilly is NOT a popular thing to do, nor is it even the RIGHT thing to d (though making them pay the full rent, very definitely IS).
I'd also have a sliding rental scale - if you pay 40% tax, you pa 400% of the full commercial rent on your State-provided home, since you clearly have no need of 'social housing' as Council property is now known. If you pay standard tax, you pay the full commercial rent and only if you're on benefits do you pay the Social Rent.
The truth is that social policy, through more divorce, single parent homes, people living longer independent lives, immigration and insane planning laws have combined to prevent the houses which people WANT to live in being built, and only limited numbers of slum housing being constructed ('slum' being defined as small roomed, badly-lit, over-crowded houses in areas of high social deprivation and/or near commercial/industrial premises. A typical modern 'development' on a brown-field site, in fact).
We need many, many, many more low density, green-field, small, locally-designed, built and 'fitting in' homes: not at >16/acre but at 2-3 acre - but that causes NIMBYs everywhere to scream blue murder and Councils/Planners to seek to build the maximum homes (= 'affordable') on the minimum space - which is PRECISELY what the NIMBYs object to - and rightly so.
If you increase demand and artificially restrict supply, you drive up prices, which successive Govts (and the Media) keep regarding as A Good Thing (celebrating house price rises, for example) when the reality is that such rises have been the one defining malady of the post 1970 period: homes should be affordable, FOR CASH, for a couple on a combined income of £50k+ pa who save hard for 3-5 years or so, whilst renting a property - or living with their parents.
That would make a 2 bed modern terraced home with a modest garden priced around £30-£50k, or about one-quarter to one-fifth of its current market price.
As it would have been prior to 1970, relative to incomes. Which came first - the rampant inflation in house prices, the lack of land on which to build suitable homes - or married mothers going out to work full-time to cover the cost of their massive mortgage?
So much that we've done to ourselves over the last 60 years was predictable, preventable, and positively perverse in producing a population in persistent penury. The product of pygmy politicians pathetically pandering for paid-for popularity.
On topic, Murdoch is covering his bets - at Leveson, Brooks repeatedly made the point that "the Sun listens to its readers" and that guides the line it takes.
Nonetheless, no doubt this is "a victory for Eck!"
The Independent's befuddlement on this matter is made clear by this phrase -
"The SNP’s failure to continue being supported by the Sun..."
Clearly they cannot understand the difference between support for the SNP and support for independence. In May 2011, the Sun was explicitly pro-SNP and explicitly anti-independence. There is nothing in this report to suggest that the paper will withdraw support from the SNP at the next Holyrood election.
It believes a strong performance by Britain's service industries during the first three months of the year has kept the economy growing."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21998652
Not a bit of it, Carlotta - if Scotland's biggest-selling newspaper has abandoned its pro-union stance in favour of studied neutrality, what else can that be but yet another "triumph for Dave!!!!"
Since we've not had a 'double dip' either, avoiding a 'triple dip' is rather easy.......
OTOH, with no growth in GDP near-certain for 20-30 years or so, we'd better get used to Welfare cuts on an unprecedented scale.
I'd also postulate, based on 'following its readers' that it will be strongly pro-UKIP in elections up to and including the Euro 2014 elections.
That will then determine their position in GE2015 - pro UKIP, BOOers or room temperature support for the Cameroons.
Sales of high-yield debt have exploded this year as investors chase returns in an environment of historically low interest rates and rising inflation. In both Europe and Asia, high-yield sales have reached all-time highs. In January alone, Asian companies sold just over $9bn (£6bn) of high-yield bonds, a year-on-year increase of more than 6,000pc, according to data provider Dealogic.
Fears have been raised as investors increase the risk they are taking on the bonds by borrowing further. Coutts’ investment strategy committee has become concerned at the use by some wealthy individuals of borrowed money to enhance returns from high-yield investments and is understood to have begun advising clients to avoid the practice.
“If and when yields rise, the impact of these bonds, magnified with leverage, could lead to serious losses,” said one investment manager.
The use of borrowed money to enhance returns has become particularly prevalent in Asia, where local and international private banks have used guarantees of access to loans to win business.
This practice has led to fears of a new bubble in high-yield debt as investors buy riskier bonds using more borrowed money.
Among the products causing most concern are CoCos – contingent convertible bonds – that either transform into ordinary shares or are wiped out when a bank’s capital levels fall below a given level.
One of Britain’s leading bond funds has warned against buying CoCos, claiming they are “dreadful” for investors. “By losing all value prior to existing credit and equity investors, this bond is essentially providing insurance to every other investor. In short, investing in these bonds is like being in a reverse lottery where someone gives you one pound every week and then suddenly turns up demanding millions,” said Christine Johnson, manager of Old Mutual’s corporate bond fund.
Lloyds Banking Group and Barclays have both issued CoCos. Barclays issued a $3bn (£2bn), 10-year bond in November that attracted orders of more than $15bn.
But there are concerns that many investors have little appreciation of the risk. “Many buy based on superficial factors – such as the coupon [interest rate] and name rather than the terms and conditions of the bond,” said one senior investment strategist.
Last week, the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee said it had identified a £25bn capital shortfall in British banks and it is likely that at least some of this will be raised through new sales of CoCos.
“It appeals to senior management at the banks because it doesn’t dilute equity. And it appeals to regulators because it explicitly takes the pain… In short, good for regulators, good for bondholders but dreadful for those who buy it,” said Ms Johnson.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9965629/
This should have been obvious to every one involved.
Germany's banking system is in a sorry state, with institutions saddled with large non-performing and non-core assets on their books. It's no wonder Germany is in no mood for a pan-European bank regulator.
According to consultant PwC, Germany tops the league tables for non-performing debt in Europe with €196 billion loans outstanding in July 2012. But just €4.3 billion of non-core asset sales have taken place in the country this year after negligible activity in 2010 and 2011. Even as banks elsewhere in the region come under growing pressure to shrink their balance sheets those in Germany show little sign of addressing the problem, short of transferring billions of euros worth of assets into state-owned bad banks.
It is of little surprise that the country is so reluctant to see any pan-European bank regulator gain supervision over any other than its largest banks. “Germany’s banking system isn’t in great shape and it doesn’t also want the burden of supporting other countries’ banks,” one banker told Euromoney last month.
“It has a network of co-operative and savings banks that sustain each other through a complex system of cross-guarantees and there is limited appetite to surrender supervision of this or to insure the deposits of other national banking systems.”
Speaking at the Institute of International Finance meeting running alongside the IMF/World Bank meetings in Tokyo last month, Elke König, president of Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), laid bare some of the tensions, while paying lip service to the need for a single European supervisor.
“Banks that are not systemically important should, as a matter of principle, continue to be supervised nationally because national supervisors are better able to assess the particularities of local banks and their environment,” König said. But at some stage the burden of non-performing and non-core assets on their books will have to be addressed by Germany’s banks.
http://www.euromoney.com/Article/3110692/Germany-Europes-hidden-banking-crisis.
Those at the top of the pile should include the frontline staff and families of the lower paid who man our essential services. Nurses, Police, Firemen, those involved in care services, those driving public transport etc etc. The rents don't need huge subsidies, they will end up cheaper than the private sector anyway. Secondly, those who have lived in their areas for all their lives/a greater part of them at least. Again, in most instances, full social rents are affordable. The elderly/sick/disabled etc get the housing benefit to help them anyway. My guess is after these two groups there won't be much left. The private rented sector is available for those choosing to live within London but unwilling or unable to buy. A gradual wind down of benefits (both in real terms and time limited),to all but those genuinely sick/disabled/old as mentioned before, will drive out those who really shouldn't ,due to costs, be living there. An increase in social housebuilding in the south east, at full social market rents can absorb those anyway.
Those who just have their hands out demanding a free ride can have their kids taken into care, be sterilised and go live under Charing cross bridge. Although that should be illegal anyway, so I don't have a real answer for Mr/Ms Ponce, except for letting them all live in Labour Mps homes since they sympathise with them so much.
There will be an inconvenience for those living the high life in the south east countryside, the increased populace must live somewhere. I'm not advocating thousands of caravan parks/travellers sites, far from it, no council should have an obligation to house or provide space for those not contributing to their local community in any meaningful way. But reasonable social housing targets for each area should be set and demanded to be met. And central Government better come up with a good way to pay for it all.
Social housing should also not as a rule be permanent. In most cases it is a medium term solution for those not able to get into ownership or pay private rents. It is however essential. One of the great failures of Mrs Thatchers 'right to buy' scheme was not building enough replacement stock. Britain's population is not sufficiently mobile due to high rental housing costs.
Logically, the measures should be put forward by the same parties and opposed by the same parties.
I can't see any at all except perhaps that mansions have bedrooms. I remember Frank Muir being asked what a cow and a robin had in common and he answered that the only thing he could think of was that they both had four legs except for the robin which had two.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/9123806/After-40-years-why-should-I-be-forced-to-sell-my-property.html
Now the same people who opposed the mansion tax are deaf to similar arguments being put forward by council tenants in relation to the "bedroom tax". But it suits neither side of the argument to point out the parallel.
"not looking to back the SNP ahead of the 18 September vote"
That is not the same as "will not back".
If I was a cynical man I would say it means "willing to back, but my asking price has not yet been reached"
As always, with a leak, ask 'cui boni?' I think Murdoch benefits more than Salmond from this leak.
For example, I consider myself to be of the 'right'. The opposite of which is wrong. Or left. Therefore the left are wrong.
But margin lending? WTF?
The fact the Right is screeching (yet again) so loudly about this shows how they've lost this particular propaganda war.
As for the little old ladies: just charge the tax on the basis of the 'last sold'/probate price. Yes, that will create a temporary anomoly in favour of older people, but it is self-resolving over time.
It all dates back to when Margaret Thatcher decided to sell off nearly all our social housing. The damage she did in so many ways will take generations to work its way through the system.
I see his defence is the "(almost) complete nonsense" meme (Peter Kellner)
You conveniently forget that the state of social housing was appalling. Allowing people to buy their own homes improved dramatically the state of a lot of the nations housing stock as people got stuck into it with DIY. The first think that people did was change the front door.
Nice and sunny, and the snow's melting rapidly. Huzzah!
Be nice to have a few nights of above zero temperatures.
No doubt that means it's a "Triumph for the fops!"
LOL
It caused a housing inflation which has been the bane of everyone's life ever since and indirectly caused the banking crisis. It was one of her most short sighted policies which served no one except the Conservatives desire to hold onto power.
Of course some of the future problems would have been alleviated if they'd built a new house for everyone they sold but that was quite unrealistic.
Swimming pool basement? Not sure I've ever heard of such a thing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/31/we-have-to-talk-why-some-want-benefit-cuts
The left needs to think very carefully about where it makes its stand on welfare matters. If I were Ed Miliband, I would be majoring on competence rather than principle.
No it won't.
But the No campaign will keep rerunning Iain Gray's 'too poor, too wee and too stupid' campaign of 2011. How did that work out for them again from being strong odds-on favourites?
'It is always said that Murdoch likes to back winners'
Usually by Murdoch's editors. Not any more.
Has the useless idiot no self-awareness?
The idiocy and complexity of this one won't take so very long to unravel and blow up in his face yet again.
Interesting piece but he is being naive if he thinks that contributory systems is the way to go. The sad truth is that generations of educational and aspirational failure have created a significant underclass who simply do not contribute to our society. In times past they would have worked, stolen or starved but politicians have up to now paid Danegeld to buy a quietish life from them by accepting intergenerational welfare.
There are no easy answers to this and there will be hardship but there are two underlying forces supporting IDS's reforms. Firstly, leaving these people and their children to live desperately poor, pointless and miserable lives on benefit is a moral abhorance. On his good days IDS articulates that well.
Secondly, we simply cannot afford it any more. Without the panacea of significant growth we have to cut government spending by at least £100bn a year, even if we increase taxes as well which we will. It is inconceivable that we will accept an ever rising benefit bill in such a scenario. In fact the political pressure to increase benefit cuts will only increase as other budgets get squeezed.
With No ahead 56-44, losing with men already and momentum against the status quo over the last few months as the fear campaign hits a wall and Trident becomes a further issue where YES means nuclear weapon removal and NO means keep spending 100 billion on weapons 30 miles from Glasgow.
The jam tomorrow campaign, no idea what it is but trust us (ha ha ha) seems to be starting very early too; it only came late on in 1979.
Promises are made without clarity and therefore are never to be offered as decentralisationof tax is a threat to Wastemonster full stop, a bit like Corporation tax reduction promises in Northern Ireland
I suspect YES will lead at some stage in 2013, until Kate has her baby and the link between the UK and the danger of an indy vote will be emphasised again. The fact the SNP is on the same side will not get too much coverage in the MSM I suspect.
If Mr. Smithson's about, could he please clarify whether the threads there will be monitored by an existing mod (which worked very well on the last article) or whether I'll be given comment-axing powers? I'm not fussed either way, but it'd be useful to know. Cheers.
And in incredibly unrelated news, just heard a rumour that a GOTY edition of Skyrim will be out in June(ish). To be honest, I'd be somewhat surprised given it came out (famously) 11/11/11 and there might be more DLC ahead.
Unlike Dark Arisen for Dragon's Dogma (which I've decided not to buy, but if you don't have the original you absolutely should) I'd probably get a GOTY edition of Skyrim.
And little Ed the Oxbridge educated multi millionaire completely out of touch with public opinion on benefit scroungers.
"As yet another poll – by YouGov, commissioned by the TUC – proved last year, people seem to hold wildly inaccurate views about the scale of benefit fraud and the proportion of spending that goes on people who cannot find work, and more. But in three years of regularly asking people what they think about the welfare state, I have never heard a single voice echoing the bien-pensant – and factually accurate – view that benefit fraud accounts for a tiny share of social security spending. Instead, people think it is a real, urgent problem, and everyone claims to know someone who does it."
I expect the average man in the street would tell John Harris that the difference between detected benefit fraud and undetected benefit fraud was vast, and that it was the statistics that were wrong, not the general public's perceptions.
They wanted an independence or nothing vote and that's what they've got.
Pity they don't appear to have thought that one through, isn't it?
I suspect it's a tradition going back to the First Baronet but you've succinctly described the Conservative's dilemma. Completely inappropriate people in the vanguard of possibly a worthwhile cause. Reminds me of "How Green were the Nazi's?"
This is a widespread view, though it is very difficult to design a system that benefits the needy while motivating the lazy. IDS is on the right track, though I worry about the implementation.
My house has 4 bedrooms but one is a loft conversion and the other is a garden room with a bath but no central heating - how much do I owe HMRC in tax ?
Agreed. And of course large scale advertising campaigns encouraging people to report benefit fraud increases that perception.
Presumably the last government thought they had to be seen to be tough on the fraudsters to give themselves some cover when trying to explain the increases. They were undoubtedly vastly more alert to perceptions and media images than the present government but that did not make them any more competent and they had even worse policies.
I suspect from my experience that the truth is that the public perception of fraud is rather greater than the reality. The gross abuse of incapacity benefit really annoyed people and probably fed that as will the headlines of the last few days.
There is so much misery and failure behind those headline numbers. How did we create so many incompetents unable to administer their own lives without constant intervention? The welfare careerists have a lot to answer for.
An argument for bubblistas and communists only.
"There is so much misery and failure behind those headline numbers. How did we create so many incompetents unable to administer their own lives without constant intervention?"
You only have to spend some time in any of the big sink estates to get a sense of the general misery people are living in. I can't see how any amount of money given directly to them will improve their lives, but Louise Casey's Troubled Family initiative stands a better chance of stopping the rot.
Where does this £53 figure come from? Is it after a notional deduction for bills and housing costs?
"The wording of the letter that landed on Nick Clegg’s desk almost exactly two years ago makes clear the desperation of its sender.
Complaining about the ‘improper’ behaviour of one of his MPs — renowned womaniser Mike Hancock — it was sent by recorded delivery on March 9, 2011, to the Liberal Democrat headquarters in Cowley Street, Westminster.
‘What he did to me is shocking,’ wrote 37-year-old Annie from Portsmouth in Hampshire — whose real name can’t be revealed for legal reasons.
She had emailed the Deputy Prime Minister three weeks earlier, detailing her complaints about Hancock, whose sexual exploits have been the basis of newspaper stories for the past three decades.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2302606/Mike-Hancock-MP-Sex-pest-Lib-Dem-MP-mother-help-Nick-Clegg-ignored.html#ixzz2PIGn40yq
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/fraser-nelson/2013/04/why-the-left-are-so-angry-about-todays-welfare-reform-because-its-popular-and-right/
"But here’s the thing: the welfare reform is not causing mass outrage. Of course, Polly Toynbee is furious – but to the bafflement of the chattering class, the masses seem to think the reform is long overdue. Study after study confirms this. There was that YouGov/Prospect study suggesting that three in four people (and a majority of Labour voters) think that Britain spends too much on welfare.
In fact, popular opinion seems even more hawkish that the average Tory MP. You’ll struggle to hear any self-respecting MP using the word “scroungers,” for example, but two in five think that applies to a significant minority of welfare claimants. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has found that attitudes to those on welfare are even more negative than attitudes towards the rich."
https://www.facebook.com/SajjadKarimMEP/posts/432093776884079
'According to ComRes, 64% of Britons believe the benefits system either does not work well or is "failing", and 40% of us think that at least half of all benefit recipients are "scroungers". Ipsos Mori reckons 84% of its respondents either agree or tend to agree with stricter work-capability tests for disabled people, and 78% are in accord with the idea that benefits should be docked if people turn down work that pays the same or less than they get in benefits.'
Even the 53 figure has been suggested as 'in total' when retweeted and forwarded on, whereas its 53 after rent and bills, which, while not fun, is not outside of the bounds of possible.
(I don't have a pound sign on the keyboard)
It is tricky and new ideas are desperately needed. A little example. Dundee City Council, like most councils, used to spend huge amounts of money suing and obtaining decrees for eviction from those who fell into rent arrears. This was from many angles completely pointless. The state was paying for lawyers to sue those without money, defended by legal aid solicitors in publically funded courts to get decrees that were not normally enforced (and when they were they would move into private rented accomodation and claim more housing benefit).
The problem was nearly always that the defenders in these cases qualified for Housing benefit but something had gone wrong with their claim. So the Council employed housing officers to go and see these people and fill their forms in for them so they got housing benefit. The council got more rent, the courts wasted less time and the legal aid bill was reduced. Win, win yes?
Except that we are once again accepting that there is a significant chunk of our society that is so functionally illiterate and incompetent that they cannot complete a form correctly without help. We are accepting that it is better just to do things for them. It is better if they are not held responsible for their own lives. I find this difficult: is this a good thing or a bad thing to have done? What will their children learn from this?
At some point, this hyperbole has to come back and bite people on the arse. It is actually mental.
Well, first the tory party elected as leader a second rate Blair impersonator who puts incompetent chums before everything else, then Cammie failed to win a majority, now we see the inevitable result such a course of action created. With omnishambles Osbrowne toxifying everything in sight and a bunch of bumbling incompetent amateurs reliant on their MPs expenses.
Indeed, without their MPs expenses it's a wonder that any of them could manage to go through an entire day, though the trust funds of the most inept do of course help.
The hyperbole about the NHS yesterday was epic - I've no idea what it was supposedly about and therefore totally failed the credibility test as a position by the Left.
So far the NHS has had 24hrs to be saved, 3 months and is now officially dead - yet its still here. Talk about crying wolf - and that's before Stafford et al.
They never ever learn.
"Except that we are once again accepting that there is a significant chunk of our society that is so functionally illiterate and incompetent that they cannot complete a form correctly without help."
It would be interesting to know whether there has been an increase in this part of society or if as society in general has complexified, those unable to cope have become more apparent. Having lived by Easterhouse for a while, the downwards spiral people can take in even a couple of generations is troubling. The individuals who are successful tend to have strong family support from several generations - if you don't have that support then its very hard to recover.
The quiet man has turned up the volume and the fops aren't going to like it one bit.
A more cynical person might think this was IDS cunningly putting pressure on the likes of Osbrowne and the treasury to open the coffers wider for his reforms, but the banal truth is IDS was never that competent and it's own goal time again for the idiots.
And yet the best the cotton wool balls Unionists on here will offer is evens? Strange...
On topic, assuming one believes the Independent has any real insight into the editorial policy of the Sun, I still think they'll have to come out one way or another in the campaign run up to the referendum or give up any pretence of being a player in Scottish politics. Rupert will wait and see who looks likely to win, he knows the days of making winners (if they ever existed) are long past. I'll take neutrality till then, it's an improvement on what the rest of the MSM are offering.
Polls are against you - take your fingers out of your ears.
Bit harsh on IPSA as their expenses forms have to cater to every MP from the Eric Joyces of the world to the tragic Oliver Letwin's and even omnishambles Osbrowne himself.
tim is missing the point - nobody should want to live on benefits only
As ever you've missed the point that the bloke is working.
As are 93% of new housing benefit claimants.
Wait - you are suggesting people should get to choose how big a house the state provides for them ?
Is rEd going to nationalise Location Location Location ?
Perhaps like me he lurks around here occasionally
“A father who dared Iain Duncan Smith to live up to his claim that he could survive on £53 a week has been revealed as a gambler and a self-confessed 'ducker and diver'.
David Bennett, 51, told the BBC he was struggling to survive after his housing benefit was cut, but it has emerged that the divorced father of two is a regular gambler who used part of an inheritance from his grandmother to play poker.”
...
“On his Twitter account, Mr Bennett's profile says 'Poker player, self-employed ducker and diver', although he changed this yesterday to 'Market trader', and adds that his hobbies are 'football, poker and beer’.”
'Given that the average worker is having to make do with 1pc increase in salary, is it really cruel to impose a 1pc rise to welfare payments? Especially after benefits rose three times faster that salaries last year? It’s no surprise that more a YouGov/Sunday Times poll found the 1pc rise to welfare enjoys a 10-point lead in support. Ironically, welfare reform is one of the most popular things this government is doing. And it’s never more popular than amongst those on low wages, who share housing estates with the welfare-dependent and can see the injustice. You need to look at Britain through the columns of a spreadsheet not to see the wider point of what’s going on.'
The number of people unemployed in the 17 member states rose by 33,000 during the month, to hit 19.07 million, the statistics agency Eurostat said.
The highest rate was 26.4% in Greece, although the most recent figure for the country was from December.
Separately, figures confirmed a deterioration in the eurozone's manufacturing sector in March.
The final Markit manufacturing PMI index for the month fell to 46.8, slightly higher than an initial estimate but below the 47.9 recorded in February. Any score below 50 indicates a contraction in the sector.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22000996
Given that Labour support the 1% benefit rise and have u-turned on the £6k cap for Uni fees - are you predicting that there will be a promise to reverse the bedroom tax will be reversed in the Labour 2015 manifesto ?
http://edconway.tumblr.com/post/46925793421/unemployment-rate-in-spain-26-3-unemployment-in#_=_
RT @jameschappers: Youth unemployment hits 58% in Greece and 56% in Spain. A generation being laid to waste to help save the euro.
Just to let you know, Re my biopsy results, that I got them last week and I DON'T have cancer!
I do, however, have a pre cancerous condition so I'm now lined up for an operation at the end of the month, followed by years of on-going care and possibly more surgery, but given the alternative I don't think it's too bad an outcome.
Thanks to everyone who's shown concern and interest, especially NickP.
Now, on to REALLY important stuff like...
The Bedroom Tax!!!!!!!!!
The UK needs to have millions of extra houses built, with the state becoming a major landlord again. This should reduce the level of rent and therefore the housing benefit bill will reduce as a result. This is definitely something that Labour should be researching now, with a policy ready to be implemented, if they win the next election. The main problem with this policy, is that those who already own homes or live somewhere nice, are not keen on having major developments built near them. Labour should look into having more people living within towns and cities. Where the shops have closed down, they should be looking at building flats to replace them. If we have affordable properties to rent in towns/cities, then the low paid will be living near transport hubs, so they don't have to commute from out of time housing estates.
http://devilsknife.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/ids-and-53-per-week.html?m=1