BS: No longer Great Britain?

Subject: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 04:18 PM

Our justice system is to be decimated twice. Decimation is the killing of one tenth of something.

Our health system threatens to be bankrupted by the bills that ineluctably flowed from the Private Finance Initiative.

Our military system is also to be decimated twice. It begins to look as if military equipment will only be able to be financed by similar foolish manoeuvres.

Our welfare system will suffer worse.

The pound is down against the euro and the dollar. The governor of the bank of England teeters on the brink of telling us to fear a double dip because of Osborne's retrenchment, economists say we need quantititative easing but Osborne will not light up the banks' arses to make them lend (yet they report new record profits).

This is starting to look like the beginning of Armaggedon.

Well done the Con-Dems.

Subject: RE: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 04:19 PM

Oh fuck that should have been BS. Would an elf kindly oblige?

Subject: RE: No longer Great Britain?
From: maple_leaf_boy
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 04:21 PM

The U.S. dollar you mean. The pound is still worth more than the CDN
dollar, according to my currency converter.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 04:44 PM

Great Britain is an island, not a country.

That's not just a pedantic point in this context. This kind of Con-Dem political blitzkrieg could well push the Scots towards going leabing the Union, and there'd be two independant countries sharing that island once again.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 04:48 PM

It's the usual Tory Closing Down Sale.
Everything Must Go!!!
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 04:49 PM

Anything to the highest bidder, but Mates' Rates ,for Cameron's friends

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 05:02 PM

And now even, from 2012, the work of audit of local authorities will be outsourced, with the skills built up within the Audit commission -the fifth largest audit body in the UK - either sold off or privatised!

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: akenaton
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 05:18 PM

For Christ sake don't blame the Tories ......Labour ran with it for eleven years, didn't Blair just love those PFIs.

Were getting more and more like America, blaming all our ills on the other party....There is no other party!

Fuckin' wake up!

That rant wasn't aimed at you Em.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 05:43 PM

Tell me ake - from a recent news item

"Health chiefs were today facing demands for an inquiry after it emerged the NHS will have to pay a total of £1.26 billion for the privately built Edinburgh Royal Infirmary - and still not own it.

It means that by 2028, NHS Lothian will have effectively paid for the hospital seven times over but it will remain the property of private operator Consort.

The revelation has prompted fury from unions and politicians, who said it made a mockery of an agreement that was already a bad deal for the taxpayer."

Source: Edinburgh Evening News 21 July 2010

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: akenaton
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 06:02 PM

We are all being asked to pay for the rest of our lives for the crimes of successive govts....Tory and Labour, now the Libs have joined in the robbery.

WE can no longer achieve the growth required to keep this capitalist system sustainable...so the system is taking back what little it has given and screwing the very poorest for all they've got.

I've always known this system was rotten...joined the YCL/ CP in my teens, but whats happening right now is worse than anything I experienced then.

I'm amazed, people seem to be sleepwalking. Has all our spirit really been wasted on fighting imaginary battles about minority rights.....This is about survival!

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 06:03 PM

A big boy did it and ran away!

Prats, blaming things that have been building up for years, on a government that's only been in 5 minutes.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 06:12 PM

Could we please give this new government a chance, they are only in office a few months.

They have promised to get young mums off benefits and back to work, they plan to cut housing benefit and assess everyone claiming incapacity benefit, disability living allowance and get more of the long term unemployed back to work.

Labour diddled the figures for years. They kept saying unemployment figures were down, when in fact they weren't, people just signed on sickness benefits as it paid more.

As I said, it's a young government, please give them a chance.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 06:15 PM

It's a young government? What do they want to be when they grow up?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 06:26 PM

'The opposition', probably. I doubt any of them really wanted to win the last election.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 07:29 PM

Gentle Gaint's second sentence indicates why his suggestion "give this new government a chance" is not such good advice.

Just for starters, forcing mothers to go out to work as soon as their child reaches five is not something which any party would have dared put in an election manifesto.

"New Labour" certainly deserved to lose the election. But nobody deserved to have this government. And nobody voted for the policies it is imposing.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 07:41 PM

"They have promised to get young mums off benefits and back to work, they plan to cut housing benefit and assess everyone claiming incapacity benefit, disability living allowance and get more of the long term unemployed back to work."

Oh fuck again. The rich blaming and penalising the poor again. Go for it "Gentle Giant" - workhouses by this time next year?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 07:48 PM

IKt's all your own fault for not reading Private Eye - the Daily Mail for the sentient being. They told us about this all of ten years ago, must be expecting to be raped by Ajax any minute.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 07:59 PM

Ajax? - taken to the cleaners again?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 08:04 PM

McGrath, the proportion of young mothers the UK has risen from 8 per cent to 29 per cent during the last 20 years.

In the 1980s a single mother typically had separated from a partner after some years of marriage or cohabitation. Now, a growing proportion have never been in a co-resident relationship. It seems that lone motherhood is less a result of relationship breakdown and more a lifestyle choice. The existence of over generous state benefits as source of economic security seems to be encouraging young women not to bother seeking employment, living off benefits with two kids is now a well paid professional. Current policies structured around helping single mothers to become self-sufficient workers are misconceived.

The benefit system is and has been abused for years. The benefits systems should be stricter. Considering the tax payers well earned salary is being injected into it each month, I think WE should have more of a say, as it is OUR money that the government take from us to give to the people who DO NOT want to work.

If there are extreme special circumstances where one does need the help of the benefits system, IE - made redundant, and have a family to provide for then fair enough. But I say NO to all the scroungers that are proud to say they "live off the state" and call their children "Beer Tokens" all because they can't be bothered to work.

Get the percentage down on Britain having the highest rate of teenage mothers in Europe - that would improve the critical housing needs, get tough with the "I can't be bothered to work spongers", and make then work, whether it is cleaning the streets all day - who cares and lastly round up all the drug users and alcoholics , and put them into an institute until they are clean, allowing them the bare essentials to live then make them work for OUR money that the government shell out as we also pay through our tax - £100m yearly to feed their drug habit (Methadone). No one has to sign on weekly these days. Two weeks ago in my local public house a guy sold 600.00 pounds worth of "holiday vouchers" from the Social Security family fund for 150.00, there was no name on them nor did it say "non transferable".

I know Margaret Thatcher wasn't popular, but there is no way she would have stood by and allowed this to happen.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 08:14 PM

Shoot them all, that's what I say. Use the children for medical research. Does anyone know how to remove urine stains from a swastika flag?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 08:21 PM

Up against the wall motherfucker.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 08:26 PM

Ooh stop it, cheeky.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 08:35 PM

Exactly what state benefit includes exactly what entitlement to "holiday vouchers" and how do you redeem them anyway? Everything I know or can find out about "holiday vouchers" leads to some sort of scam to get one to attend a timeshare shale bummel, and having twice obtained and tried to use those sorts of "holiday vouchers" (for different reasons) I can report from first hand experience that they are valueless and useless. I doubt whether the DHSS would be handing them out.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 08:39 PM

That's probably just what the bloke who paid £150 is going to find out..

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 08:39 PM

So, another 'guest' appears from nowhere without any obvious musical interest or contribution - indeed any other contribution of any kind - to comment on the 'abuse' of benefits by single parents/scroungers?

Under the circumstances I make no apologies for quoting this personal account from the 'netmums' website

A personal account by Karen Lewis

"When netmums first suggested I write something for the website I thought 'no problem' however there is nothing quite as daunting as a blank piece of paper. Since then I have alternated between writing nothing much at all and then gabbling on for page upon page and so I have enlisted the help of Cathy at Netmums to rein me in and chop out all of the waffle.

I recently picked up the book "Acid Row" by Minette Walters in a bookshop and the synopsis on the back of the book read:

'Acid Row. The name the beleaguered inhabitants give to the place they live. A no-man's-land of single mothers and fatherless children where angry, alienated teenagers control the streets.'

It is difficult to believe that people still think of all single Mums in this way but then I find it staggering that there are people who can't see beyond the colour of a person's skin.

I am 36 years old and I have been a single mum since I was 18. In the 1920s I would have been sent away or locked up somewhere for being an unmarried mum and my baby would have been taken away. At times it is difficult to believe that we have come very far from those days.

You would be hard pushed to find a woman who intentionally became a single mum. There was a time when it was generally believed that young girls got themselves pregnant in order get a Council House; well, my eldest son was born in 1986 and he was 13 before I was allocated a Housing Association property. Nowadays single mums are seen as lazy benefit scroungers, but with the exception of 3 years (1996 to 1999) when I claimed Income Support, I have always worked full time.

What is true about single mums is that we are all very, very different, we all work hard and battle constantly to stay afloat and not one of us chooses to claim benefits, live on the breadline or fit Minette Walters' description.

Life and experience shape us all and not everyone grows up to be the confident, assertive or inherently cheerful person that we would all love to be. Each of us has our own weaknesses and we all learn from experience. During the past 18 years I have suffered at the hands of one extremely violent partner and another violent and manipulative partner, I have lived at home with my son, with a partner and my son and now alone with my sons. I have suffered terrible postnatal depression which left me hospitalised following several suicide attempts and I have been in the position where the electric has run out, it is a Saturday night and I have just 2p in my purse until Monday morning. It has been something of a journey and I wouldn't want to have to do it again, but I have learnt, I have lived through it and I have survived. I am not a victim, I am just me and I happen to be a single mum.

When my eldest son was born I worked full-time at Hammersmith Hospital as a Medical Secretary, the pay wasn't great and the childminding fees were crippling, but I did it. Having lived through all of the things that I have described I am now a Senior PA, earning a darn good salary, paying my own rent and bills, still struggling with the childminding fees but I am doing it. Sure there are times when I feel lonely, times when I feel beyond exhausted and times when I feel extremely stressed, but the one thing that all of us single mums have is our kids.

My eldest son is now 16 (17 in March) and a huge, strapping great lad with a soft heart and a delightful personality. He is my good friend and I almost burst with pride over him at times. My youngest son is 5 and he is my angel. He got me through the dark days of my depression and he is a joy to both my eldest son and me. We are not the ideal TV, picture perfect family, I still scream, shout and nag at them. Like anyone else the state of my eldest son's bedroom drives me insane as do the biscuit and sweet wrappers, the dirty cups and crockery and Jake seems hell-bent on making it as difficult as possible to get out of the house in the mornings. They don't get £200 worth of Christmas presents from me but they don't go without and I think they benefit from it. They are spoilt in other ways and I wouldn't change them or be without them for all the riches in the world.

So, if you are a new single mum hold your head up, ignore every negative newspaper article or comment and get on with it. OK, so we aren't as free as single people to just decide what we want and go out and get it, it takes us a bit longer and it is always going to be that bit more difficult, but it's not impossible. It is also not impossible to simply enjoy being a single mum. Any single mum who lives on Income Support has my total admiration, they are resourceful, strong, inventive and determined, all characteristics that deserve respect"

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: mousethief
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 08:52 PM

"They have promised to get young mums off benefits and back to work, they plan to cut housing benefit and assess everyone claiming incapacity benefit, disability living allowance and get more of the long term unemployed back to work."

What work? I thought you guys had a job shortage and double digit unemployment like us?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 09:05 PM

We never really count our unemployed, but that'll be about right. There's no excuse for it though, we've been inundated with jobs ever since they shut all the coal mines and stopped us manufacturing anything.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 09:32 PM

I'm afraid Gentle Giant's description and figures are an example of cherry picking from the kind of information in the pages of the Daily Wail mousethief

In Feb 2010 The Daly Mail reported that
"The proportion of mothers who bring up their child alone has risen from 10 per cent to 25 per cent in the past 20 years.
At present, there is no tax incentive for mothers to marry the fathers of their children. A report into the findings for centre-right think-tank the Centre for Policy Studies said there is growing evidence that
'lone motherhood is less a result of relationship breakdown, more a lifestyle choice'.

However it goes on to state for those with the attention span to read that far that

"Around a quarter of all children grow up with a single parent, and a high proportion live below the Government's poverty line."

Hardly the picture of single parenthood as a "well paid profession"?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Teribus
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 02:51 AM

Let me see now, the previous ZANULiebour Government came to power in 1997 and only left in May 2010. According to my arithmetic that means that they were in power for almost 13 years. The current Coalition Government have been in power less than three months and all the ills of the country are THEIR fault!!!

Sorry Richard Bridge that argument is so ludicrous it is not even worth responding to. But go and review the track record of ALL Labour Governments this country has had to put up with, they have all left office leaving the country in a complete and utter mess, although I must admit the Blair/Brown show really ripped the arse out of it even by Labour Party standards.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: akenaton
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 03:03 AM

Discussing the merits of "the new govt", or any govt is waste of time in the situation we now find ourselves.

Our standard of living and public services are going to be attacked whoever is in power and as usual the very poorest are going to be worst affected.

The number one priority for the political classes is to get the economy reset, any suffering involved will nor affect the rich too much.

The oft repeated cry of "were all in this together" makes me sick

If you're in work, with £100'000 in the bank, does the loss of a tenner a week mean as much to you as some poor bastard on the dole?

To make our economy sustainable nowadays, politicians and bankers have to gamble.....with our tax money, and as everybody knows gamblers always lose!

If we as a nation, are to suffer hardship, it should be in the cause of a completely new social and economic system, not to reset the failed and rotten old one.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 04:05 AM

Are we to repay our debts, prior to starting this brave new world, or shall we wipe the slate clean and start again?
This country is deeply in debt, and in order to repay that debt, we must stop spending more than we earn.
It's really as simple as that.
Any change in the tax regime, or revamp of our fiscal system, will ALWAYS impinge more on the poor than on the rich. That is an unfortunate fact of life.
I believe that raising Income Tax, as the fairer way to increase the Treasury's coffers. Then as a retired person, I would say that, wouldn't I? :)
However since the reign of that lady Richard Bridge is so fond of, [She ran the country single handed you know!] direct taxation has been a dirty word, whatever party is in power.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 04:12 AM

"They have promised to get young mums off benefits and back to work, they plan to cut housing benefit and assess everyone claiming incapacity benefit, disability living allowance and get more of the long term unemployed back to work."

Typical Tory thinking, i.e. "People of a lower social status than me are getting more than I believe they're entitled to. Punish them and all will be well! Meanwhile, stand up for the 'rights' of the rich to get richer and richer and doff your cap and curtsy when they pass."

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 04:14 AM

Richard, I hope this helps "Holiday Vouchers" Many local authorities give out these vouchers for holidays for carers. Sometimes these vouchers are called respite grants or carers' grants.

As a carer you may be given your own grant, separate to the payments or services given to the person you care for. Carers allowance is probably one of the most abused of all the benefits. Mothers actually feed their children undiluted orange juice prior to a test for hyperactivity allowance. Theycan use the grant to pay for a short break or holiday whether you're going away with the person you care for or not. The holiday or short break may be in the UK or abroad, these vouchers are not named, so they sell easily enough.

Contact your local Social Security Office Richard to apply for a short-term-break voucher or grant.

Emma B, your socialist outburst is admirable, but Official figures reveal that nine out of every ten, long term sick pay claimants are well enough to work. Of the 292,000 work capability assessments carried out since the switch from Incapacity Benefit to Employment and Support Allowance in October 2008, nearly 200,000 were rated fit to work, and 65,000 were told their health problems were not severe enough to stop them from working in some capacity. So over 2 million of the currently 2.6M claiming incapacity to work could indeed be fit for work.

Only a few short years ago it was well known that the Government actively encouraging people onto this benefit, it was certainly making the scrutiny of such claimant's health, somewhat lax. Why? because they wanted to keep the Unemployment figures down.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 05:29 AM

""Tell me ake - from a recent news item

"Health chiefs were today facing demands for an inquiry after it emerged the NHS will have to pay a total of £1.26 billion for the privately built Edinburgh Royal Infirmary - and still not own it.

It means that by 2028, NHS Lothian will have effectively paid for the hospital seven times over but it will remain the property of private operator Consort.

The revelation has prompted fury from unions and politicians, who said it made a mockery of an agreement that was already a bad deal for the taxpayer."

Source: Edinburgh Evening News 21 July 2010""

Tell ME Emma, do you really think this lunatic contract is the work of the current government, carried out in less than two months or, as is much more likely, was it all signed and sealed under the auspices of that wonderful period of waste and imprudence presided over by Gordon the Grimacing Gopher?

The same thing was proposed for Pembury Hospital, but the Trust were smart enough to make sure that they WILL own it in due course.

That one is half built, and I don't think they got that far in two months, do you?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 05:36 AM

And I've just acquired UK Citizenship... Mind you, there is always someone worse off than us. Have you looked at the Greek state of affairs recently?

George "I am not really a rat jumping ship" Papavgeris

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 05:58 AM

Don't tell me you views GG, SHOW me the facts. SHOW me the terms of the vouchers.

Your "official figures" are simply political spin. The government wants to take from the poor to give to the rich, it skews the figures. I know enough people who have had to be assessed for say mobility allowance to know the viciousness of the tests.

PFI was an attempt to continue conservative policies of low direct taxation. A mistake, but the vice was the conservative policy to let the rich keep more. "New Labour" should have scrapped it but its core was something they inherited.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Silas
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 07:23 AM

"And I've just acquired UK Citizenship..."

Not altogether sure that congratulations are in order here or not...

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 07:49 AM

To use your own analogy George, they don't usually leave one sinking ship to join another!

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 08:30 AM

In October 2008 the previous government introduced employment and support allowance (ESA); new sickness benefits claimants were subject to a work capability assessment (WCA), replacing the personal capability assessment test for incapacity benefit, and designed to determine how able people are to work.

More people were being deemed ineligible for sickness benefits and fit to work under this new system and, by mid October 2009, the Department for Work and Pensions statistics showed that over twice the proportion of applicants for employment and support allowance (ESA) were being assessed as fit to work than under ESA's predecessor, incapacity benefit.

This meant that they were being put on to jobseeker's allowance which at £64.30 a week is worth £25 a week less than ESA and involves less support

BUT
THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS ACCUSED MINISTERS OF SIMPLY "SHUNTING" DISABLED PEOPLE ON TO LOWER LEVELS OF SUPPORT.

The then Lib Dem shadow work and pensions secretary Steve Webb (now 'promoted' to Minister of State for Pensions in May 2010 under the new coalition government) said:

"The government is shunting large numbers of ill or disabled people onto a lower level of support by deeming them 'fit to work'. This scheme may simply disguise the problem instead of dealing with it."
He urged the government to track those deemed ineligible for ESA to ensure "they are not left to rot on a benefit with a different name".

Ironically, the DWP figures came out on the day that the NATIONAL AUTISTIC SOCIETY released a report warning that autistic adults were being failed by the benefits system, and that their particular needs were not being picked up by the assessment, leaving them ineligible for ESA.

A PARKINSON'S DISEASE SOCIETY survey of 40 working-age adults with the condition, found 40% had been deemed fit for work - and hence ineligible for ESA - and placed on the lower value jobseeker's allowance or "forced" into early retirement while a further 22% were placed in the "work-related activity group", which means they are required to attend job centre interviews and improve their employability.


ESA represented the 'brave new world' of benefit entitlement, with heavy emphasis being placed on "not writing people off", encouraging "work-related activity" and involving the private sector in providing the support people would need to get into work.

However, the reality was that Jobcentre Plus and the private partners (paid largely by results) trying to operate this new regime in an unfriendly economic environment struggled to cope with the 90% of claimants in some of the most deprived areas of the country who failed this new tougher eligibility test

By March 2010 Jobcentre Plus staff felt many people who pass work capability assessments were not actually fit for work, according to a study by the Department of Work and Pensions.

They believed this was especially damaging for clients with mental health problems and exacerbated their symptoms.

Neil Coyle, director of policy at the Disability Alliance, said he sympathised with jobcentre staff's frustration. In his experience, many were unable to deliver support they felt clients needed because the assessment made them ineligible for ESA

The study also confirmed a large backlog of appeals against work capability assessment decisions

And now Conservatives - with Lib Dem support - want to further cut benefit bills for the long-term sick by getting more into work with even stricter medical tests.

FINDING PEOPLE FIT FOR WORK WHEN THE WORK ISN'T THERE SIMPLY SHUNTS THE PROBLEM AROUND; IT DOESN'T CREATE JOBS!!

Subject: REout taking up Jona: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 08:34 AM

Maybe Jonathan Swift had the right idea, "Gentle Gaint", when he wrote A Modest Proposal...

(What's a gaint?)

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 08:41 AM

errr....according to the Urban dictionary Gaint is a shortage of blood to the brain due to a diversion to create an overly large dick!

then again it could just be a typo :)

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 09:00 AM

Not a nice thing for a lady to say Emma.

Derek Shulman

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 09:54 AM

Listen to this as you read................


For those who've not yet sussed this out yet, the entire WORLD is fucked up, not just this country. In my opinion, we are now living through times that are going to start spreading much sorrow and despair around the planet....

However.......all is not so gloomy or without hope, because with that despair will come the Anger, at long last. God, it's been a long time coming, but it's finally here!   FINALLY that suffocating Apathy Blanket is being lifted off the Human Race..

Who started the lifting?

Was it the Wanker Bankers with their greed, their crookedness, their lack of concern for anything on this planet other than their own bank accounts?

Was it The Native Americans finally getting their messages across to us, after decades of trying to make us hear, make us see what we are doing to the planet?

Was it the arrogance of BP as they stumbled from one disaster to another, media wise, that finally broke through the extra safe and warm blanket that has covered the USA for so long?

Was it our soldiers coming home in their coffins, or in their wheelchairs, their legs left in forgein lands, where the people they try so hard to help, so often make it plain they are not wanted there?

Was it the pensions lost? The lives ruined? The jobs gone? The houses that no-one can afford? The university degrees that mean nothing? The children spilling their souls on to our city streets?

Was it a FINAL AWAKENING that all is not as it should be? That NOTHING is as it should be??????????

Was it the realisation that much of the blame lies with all of us, as a species, for buying the materialistic crap sold by The Corporate Bastards for so long? Was it because they have made their billions from people who've been content to live their lives on that Corporate Conveyer Belt of Life...£20,000 marriages, £3,000 holidays, £10,000 cars, Gap Years, Second Homes, Third Homes, Designer Clothes, Designer Shoes, HELLO magazine.....?

Well, maybe it's time for a new magazine....called simply....

'HELLO??????????'

You can fill it with the likes of Paris Hilton of course, and Jordan too, with every grossly overpaid Football Fug and his tribe of plastic dolly bird girlies who flock around him............

And then, you can have The Other Side as your main feature...

The Other Side is about no more blame, just a realisation that we ARE in this together, from the worst crooked bastard in the world, to the humblest, poorest, kindest peasant who's never harmed a fly....

It's time to actually see how desperately serious this has all become, and also to recognise that the ONLY people who can save this world are You...and Me..and We...and Them..and Us........Because if we don't all start pulling together to overcome this catastrophic state of the planet then we are literally doomed..in every sense of the word...

The choice is ours.....

It's that simple.
It's that bleak.
It's actually THAT EASY too.

The power has always been with us, ALWAYS, but for so very long we have all had our heads shoved into the Corporate Ostrich Arses, been their puppets, their slaves......

We no longer have to be slaves.........We are born Free...all we have to do is shake off our shackles and walk out there...together....


WE ARE AWAKENING.....


Spend time talking about the Solutions, not the problems.
Spend time talking about the words and life of JFK, not his death.
Spend time listening to how he wanted the world to be.....

Realise we've turned away for so long, refused to admit what has been happening for so long, that those in power who wanted more power, who wanted to control and bring all of us to our knees have done exactly that, because we chose to let them...

On Labour Day, in Washington, there is a march going to take place. A march started by just one woman, over on Facebook, who has had enough...thousands are attending...

Be there, if you can....

The time has come to take back our world...

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 10:09 AM

Oh, and by the way, ANY Government that wants mothers to 'get back into work' is crap, because Mothers ALREADY work, doing the hardest and most important job on this planet, and that is raising the next generation....And it's because we have allowed, almost forced, Mother and Child to become so separated that we have many of the problems in our society that we now have...

Children need their mothers (and fathers), but women are designed by nature to be the main carers. Once we looked after our children with love and care, we realised how deeply precious they were. Now, for many women, who themselves have never known real love, their children are nothing more than annoying little brats who stifle their enjoyment and social life...

Bring back Femininity to this world, because the gentleness that once ran through many women was vastly important to the state of this world, to our very communities...

We live in an ever increasing de-sensitised world and it's desperately important to get that sensitivity back again, because if Mothers don't love their Children, then how the hell are those children ever going to learn to love one another, to love this planet, to care for it, to care for each other, to care for *their* children..?


Oh, and GREAT Britain?

Again, the choice lies with us.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: MikeL2
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 10:17 AM

hi

Many people have short memories when it suits them !!!!

Successive governments of both colours have long promised to reduce the number of people on incapacity benefits.

None has achieved anything. It has got progressively worse.

If ( not when ) this government gets around to trying to do it they will find that it is almost impossible to achieve.

As someone said earlier - how can they get people who are judged to be fit to work to come off Incapacity if there are no jobs ??

I know a few people who have been investigated in the past and judged to be fit to work. Each one challenged the judgement resulting in long legal cases costing thousands and thousands of pound and to my knowledge not one of them has moved off Incapacity.

This new government will find it very difficult to make their promises stick. Promises are easy......achieving them isn't.

cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Stu
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 10:23 AM

The current Con-Dems are simply taking Thatcherite policies to their logical conclusion. After the decimation of the nationalised industries and the virtual destruction of our manufacturing base, the current Tory government is now directing it's energies to the complete dismantling of the welfare state.

The Conservatives despise the welfare state, and they will not be happy until it's replaced completely by private sector alternatives; alternatives that are driven soley by the bottom line and have commitment to the betterment of society in any way. This is a disaster of huge proportions and whilst we can rightly blame Cameron et al for their lack of moral responsibility in abandoning the fight for genuine equality in society it's impossible to argue with the fact New Labour are also responsible for bringing this disaster on the country as their pathetic inability to regulate the financial markets (or indeed the fact they courted them) have only added to the yawning gap between the very rich and the rest of us.

And its' the very rich in charge again now - expect no quarter when it comes to making sure their interests are protected and nurtured, at whatever cost to the rest of us. Don't believe me? Their green credentials are a sham, as is demonstrated by the latest proposals to sell off some of globally important wildlife reserves as DEFRA faces 40% cuts. Who's heading the review on public spending cuts? Arch-wanker in non-dom residence Sir Philip "I pay less tax than my cleaner" Green, a man for whom the phrase 'reprehensible piece of shit' is an apt but understated description. This man will be deciding on the care and welfare of some very vulnerable, a risk people, and we know he doesn't give a shit about that sort of thing(after all, he didn't want to fulfil his responsibilities and contribute taxes to help pay for them as the rest of us do).

And what of the Lib-Dems in all this? A complete joke. They've made themselves unelectable for a generation at least.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Stu
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 10:27 AM

Sorry for the very long sentence!

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 10:55 AM

I suppose, 'GUEST, Gentle Giant', we're not going to get any rants out of you about power abusing, non-dom tax avoiders, or grossly overpaid 'Chief Executives' with their massive bonuses for failure, or reckless, greedy bankers who brought the world financial system to the brink, are we? No, thought not! They're probably quite pleased that there are pathological snobs, like you around, engaged in obsessive 'poor-bashing'. But if you're expecting some sort of reward for your slavish 'loyalty',you might have to wait a long time!

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 11:11 AM

The Tories aided by the simple minded wankers from the Lib/Dems hate to see anyone get something for nothing, this means ALL benefits, if you're a single mother, what the fuck it's your fault, if you are disabled, you'll bloodywell have to pay for it and if you're unemployed, you're a scrounger and a waster, no matter that our friends the immensely rich bankers were a bit to blame you working class oiks are going to pay for it all.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 11:29 AM

I have always regarded whinging about the state of the country as proxy for whinging about one's own inadequacies and trying to blame others for your own shortcomings.

Something about the blame culture.

Perhaps if we wanted a government that helped those not in a position to help themselves for whatever reason, somebody would stand for such ideals and get voted in. There is no labour party and Kinnock killed it off, knowing it was unelectable. Caring conservatism is an oxymoron and LibDem is a moron wanting the oxy of publicity.

Live with it.

I get paid a hell of a lot incidentally and am one of those demonised by frustrated losers. No silver spoon, no lucky breaks. Just a kick up the arse whilst working down the pit many years ago and decided to do something about it.

Now, I want to help others and you know what? It ain't easy. there is not a political party that will see beyond dogma to be pragmatic and the public sector agencies there to pick up the pieces are full of value driven protocol led donkeys.

if you really want to know why people like me aren't doing more, it is because middle management is a necessary cog in the gearbox, but sadly not fit for purpose. if we sacked them, it would actually be worse, despite the temptation.

Interestingly, my "quango" is not being killed off, but I suggested that it should. Ain't life a good long giggle......

Britain can be great, just don't think it can be so by whinging from the sidelines. get off your arse and make it so.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 12:23 PM

Many scroungers have no shame over leeching off the public purse, arguing that it is the duty of "those who can earn" to look after people like them. Our twisted benefits system pun­ishes the diligent and rewards the lazy and the feckless. They don't pay rent, council tax or contribute in any way to the local economy.  

Their immorality is a betrayal of the values of the welfare state's architect,William Beveridge. A liberal by instinct, Beveridge had been appalled by the poverty across Britain during the economic depression of the Thirties. His plan was based on the requirement that claimants should have contributed to society through work. He abhorred the idea of dishing out benefits reg­ardless of an individual's record. He said "no one should believe that income for idleness, however caused, can come from a bottomless purse".

Yet what we have today is precisely "a something for nothing" system. Beveridge would be appalled that those who receive the most from the State, such as the 300,000 drug addicts on incapacity benefits,those who have contributed least to society.   

There is a far simpler way to help jobseekers overcome their specific problems and that is just to cut off their benefits. We do not need to employ armies of counsellors and consultants to encourage people to take on jobs. All we need to do is remove the option of a life on incapacity benefits or teenage mums getting free party houses and rewards for immoral lifestyles. 

Far from being inhumane Emma, such a step would mark a return to the principles of living a decent life and restoring justice and fairness to the system. 

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Stu
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 12:53 PM

"I have always regarded whinging about the state of the country as proxy for whinging about one's own inadequacies and trying to blame others for your own shortcomings."

So being concerned for the welfare of those less fortunate than yourself and wanting a society based on values such as equality, compassion and fairness is an indication of my personal inadequacies?

I've heard some crap, but that's impressive by any standards. I've run my own business for over six years, on my own, no help from anyone (except the excellent support of my wife) yet still think we should all contribute to our society to make sure those without the advantages I've enjoyed can have a quality of life. I don't like benefit cheats any more than anyone else but sometimes you have to have been there to understand how oppressive and unrealistic the system for getting people back to work is (although it's 25 years since I've been on the dole).

"All we need to do is remove the option of a life on incapacity benefits or teenage mums getting free party houses and rewards for immoral lifestyles.."

Is this a Daily Mail quote? It's this sort of hysterical hyperbole that got the Tories voted in, and is complete and utter shite. Your pseudo-morality GG is a cover for a lack of understanding in how society works. The middle-class utopia you crave doesn't, and never will exist whether you like it or not.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 01:05 PM

Nor yet does the working class/socialist utopia.
Not that I know the answer to the problem, but I do know it must contain elements of both viewpoints. It is therefore a total waste of breath to castigate each other.
It is also short sighted and doctrinaire to reject out of hand, ALL of the doings of the opposition, as not even Mussolini managed to get everything wrong.

Remember the trains? ☺

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 01:19 PM

There is a far simpler way to help jobseekers overcome their specific problems and that is just to cut off their benefits. We do not need to employ armies of counsellors and consultants to encourage people to take on jobs. All we need to do is remove the option of a life on incapacity benefits or teenage mums getting free party houses and rewards for immoral lifestyles.

Yes, let the buggers starve - or they could always become prostitutes.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 01:31 PM

The middle-class utopia

I'd call it a nightmare for all classes.

And it is certainly not what people were offered in any of the party manifestos.   Here's the one the Tories put out (they charged £5 a throw, but the download is free). Here's the Liberal Democrat one.   And here is the Labour one.

To balance out those packages of lies, here is what the Green Party offered.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 01:34 PM

Sugarfoot jack takes my opinion out of context and then lumps it with somebody who he reckons reads The Daily Mail.

Ah well, at least it means I don't have to try and understand what the hell he is on...

I too want a society that is blah blah blah. My point being that finding scapegoats for inequalities is, as I said, usually borne of envy. If it not the case for you, congratulations! You are in the (according to LSE) the 65% of the population. It is the other 35% that seem to populate BBC Have your Say and encourage The Daily Mail by believing half the crap they read.

As most of the country votes as they have traditionally voted, it is from the 35% that politicians do their pandering.

Before I "retired" and joined the public sector, I too ran my own business, (Ok, not just my wife, in fact not with my wife at all, but with our 300+ employees,) and I have no idea if I can relate to Sugarfoot Jack's "being there" but I am willing to learn.

Methinks this whole thread is confusing empathy with sympathy.

Like I said, whinging is borne of envy. In my experience, every ruddy time.

I just wish that instead of rattling on about a Utopia that just ain't gonna happen, that people would focus on how to make things fairer within the constraints that we will always have.

I try to change the world with my guitar, as entertainment. I don't believe I really could though. Even though I don't wear sandals, I doubt I would be taken seriously. No. once the pundits have stopped blaming us "fat cats" we then get on with trying with varying degrees of success to make society as close the aspirations of Ministers as we can.

Success is judged by lack of moaning rather than rushes of gratitude.


ps. Mussolini only ever got one train to run on time, and that was because he was en route to see the President to be asked to run the country.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 02:35 PM

I'd like to ask Gaint just exactly where he gets his figure of "the 300,000 drug addicts on incapacity benefits, those who have contributed least to society" but I think it is probably all too obvious

"350,000 heroin and crack addicts claim a staggering £1.6bn in benefits"
By Daily Mail Reporter

This seems at odds with a statement by Chris Grayling (Minister of State (Employment), Work and Pensions; Epsom and Ewell, Conservative) in Written answers and statements, 20 July 2010

"Drug and alcohol addiction is one of the most damaging root causes of poverty, and helping people who are trapped on benefits through drug and alcohol addiction so that they can recover and find employment is a top priority for the Government.

....we do have data for incapacity benefit and severe disablement allowance where the main disabling condition is listed as drug abuse. We also have estimates for the number of working age claimants who are problem drug users in England.

Incapacity benefit and severe disablement allowance claimants with the main disabling condition of drug abuse As at November:
2005 48,200
2006 49,080
2007 51,220
2008 49,790
2009 41,230 - rounded to the nearest 10

Drug or alcohol dependency does not of itself confer entitlement to incapacity benefits.
To qualify for incapacity benefit/severe disablement allowance, claimants have to undertake a medical assessment of incapacity for work. This assesses the effects of a person's condition on their ability to carry out a number of everyday activities relevant to work.
People with a recorded diagnosis of alcohol or drug dependency may have other diagnoses, for example mental illness, which result in their incapacity for work.

Causes of incapacity are based on the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, published by the World Health Organisation:"

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 02:38 PM

And we are in Copenhagen celebrating our 21st wedding anniversary, and it's been pouring with rain since 1pm. I'm surprised we can afford it after what it costs per month for privare medical insurance!

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 03:44 PM

Thank you Emma,

"People with a recorded diagnosis of alcohol or drug dependency may have other diagnoses, for example mental illness, which result in their incapacity for work."

You just answered your own question.

Regarding your remark "To qualify for incapacity benefit/severe disablement allowance, claimants have to undertake a medical assessment of incapacity for work. This assesses the effects of a person's condition on their ability to carry out a number of everyday activities relevant to work".

Wrong, they collect a form from their G.P. and fill it and write whatever they like, such as "can't walk the stairs unaided" then post it off. They give the name of their G.P. (usually sick to the back teeth listening to them moaning and will do anything for a quiet life) or other health professional such as a Physiotherapist (paid £67.00 to complete their section of form)to support their claim or their act deserving an Oscar. The decision is made to award by a civil servant, not a doctor. Please check facts before posting. The guys in any Scottish public house here will be glad to tell you want to say. It's not unusual to hear someone shout " three cheers for the bloody D.L.A."

May I ask you a question, look around the area in which you live and tell me that all these young single mothers with children to various men are sitting in penniless tonight ? Nope, they are enjoying a night out with similar sorts on a benefits handout collected from the local Post Office and they are not worrying about Council tax, mortgages or even a high electricity bill as they know they will never be cut off, after all their battle cry "I'm a single mother" scares creditors away.

Also don't overlook thousands of free mobility cars. Bring back the three wheeler and see how many want it ?

Derek

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 04:04 PM

Your creative use of stereotypes is a testament to your sociological insight, Derek.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 04:17 PM

Fortunately the proportion of people who share Gaint's obsessions and misconceptions is actually relatively small - that's why that kind of stuff didn't appear in the manifestos.

Unfortunately, thanks to the oddities of the British electoral system, the fanaticism of key Tories, and the cynicism of office-hungry Lib Dems, people who think like that appear to have a firm hold on power for the time being.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 04:33 PM

I'm not sure about 'firm hold'.. although I expect most of them have a well practised one-handed grip. I've given up trying to distinguish between the three parties though.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 05:04 PM

'"People with a recorded diagnosis of alcohol or drug dependency may have other diagnoses, for example mental illness, which result in their incapacity for work."
You just answered your own question.'

Whatever that means - it still only makes the figure from the Minister of State (Employment), Work and Pensions 41,230 and not the 300,000 you asserted

'Regarding your remark "To qualify for incapacity benefit/severe disablement allowance, claimants have to undertake a medical assessment of incapacity for work. This assesses the effects of a person's condition on their ability to carry out a number of everyday activities relevant to work".

Sorry Gaint -

NOT my remark - maybe you didn't notice the quotation marks?
The 'remark' in fact was part of the Written answers and statements, 20 July 2010 by Chris Grayling (Minister of State (Employment), Work and Pensions; Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)

People who are identified as having a SEVERE health condition or disability on paper evidence are eligible for benefit without the need to undergo a face to face assessment.

However, ALL OTHERS are required to undergo a face to face assessment.

This assessment is carried out by approved Atos Healthcare professionals, who are trained in disability assessment.
The assessment assesses a number of physical activities and the mental functioning of the patient.

Additionally, healthcare professionals may be asked to provide medical information if it is considered possible that the person might meet the threshold of incapacity without the need for a face to face assessment.

However I don't consider that is any point in discourse with someone so intent on impugning the reputation and professional ethics of approved health professionals.


As for the motability scheme -
This is restricted to those in receipt of the Higher Rate Mobility Component of the Disability Living Allowance or the War Pensioners' Mobility Supplement.
It is a Contract Hire agreement which includes the cost of maintenance of the car but not fuel charges

For those who prefer to buy their own car, a Hire Purchase lease is also available based on the normal practice of negotiating the actual purchase price with their Motability dealer.
As an owner the disabled person is also be responsible for organising and paying for comprehensive insurance, breakdown recovery, your car tax disc, servicing and repairs.

Mobility allowance is used to cover the cost of a car, powered wheelchair or scooter and in the case of a car it usually takes the whole allowance so it does not also cover the cost of a powered wheelchair or scooter as well.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 07:20 PM

Gaint is a small island in the Menai Strait, near Anglesey. Any relation?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 08:00 PM

No man is an island.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 08:29 PM

Gentle Gaint, you are talking out of your arse, I was put on incapacity benefit after being TOLD to attend for a medical assessment, I had no say in the matter, I did not apply or ask for it, I was physically incapable of working, this is just a simple matter of fact, just fill in a form with from your GP with a load of lies ? you total tosser.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 08:32 PM

Incidently, the reason for my disability was being severely injured in HM Forces in the service of my country.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 08:48 PM

Gaint, you write about Glasgow - here are the words of a son of Govan

"Society and its prevailing sense of values leads to another form of alienation. It alienates some from humanity.

It partially de-humanises some people, makes them insensitive, ruthless in their handling of fellow human beings, self-centred and grasping.

The irony is, they are often considered normal and well-adjusted.
It is my sincere contention that anyone who can be totally adjusted to our society is in greater need of psychiatric analysis and treatment than anyone else.

They remind me of the character in the novel, Catch 22, the father of Major Major. He was a farmer in the American Mid-West.
He hated suggestions for things like medi-care, social services, unemployment benefits or civil rights. He was, however, an enthusiast for the agricultural policies that paid farmers for not bringing their fields under cultivation. From the money he got for not growing alfalfa he bought more land in order not to grow alfalfa. He became rich. Pilgrims came from all over the state to sit at his feet and learn how to be a successful non-grower of alfalfa.
His philosophy was simple.
The poor didn't work hard enough and so they were poor.
He believed that the good Lord gave him two strong hands to grab as much as he could for himself.

He is a comic figure.

But think – have you not met his like here in Britain?

Here in Scotland? I have.

It is easy and tempting to hate such people. However, it is wrong.

They are as much products of society, and of a consequence of that society, human alienation, as the poor drop-out.

They are losers.

They have lost the essential elements of our common humanity.

Man is a social being. Real fulfilment for any person lies in service to his fellow men and women.

To the students [of Glasgow University] I address this appeal. Reject these attitudes. Reject the values and false morality that underlie these attitudes.
A rat race is for rats.
We're not rats.
We're human beings"

extracts from the archive of the University of Glasgow

Jimmy Reid who died this week delivered this speech on his inauguration as rector of Glasgow University in 1972
Sadly, it has lost little of its relevance since.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 10:12 PM

I'd stick to flying kites if I were you, GG..

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 03:38 AM

"Many scroungers have no shame over leeching off the public purse, arguing that it is the duty of "those who can earn" to look after people like them."

They're usually known as fat cats.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 04:24 AM

Well it looks like we have the right government in place to deal with these lower elements in our society. One thing is for certain, the benefits gravy train will be coming to a halt in October.

Derek.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 05:13 AM

Being married to a doctor, I get a bit fed up of hearing her moan over breakfast about the chancers who try to get her to sign forms.

Truth is, (as somebody who helped develop the framework) a doctor who risks their GMC registration for helping people scrounge is a bit illogical.

Now.. where there is a problem, look for the qualifying criteria. That is out of the hands of the doctors, (both GPs and consultants,) but their objective remarks are weighed against benchmarking. That is quite different to "managers making the decisions."

On another front, nice to see Dave MacKenzie feel that fat cats are scroungers.

Two sugars and lots of cream please Dave.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

You can afford cream. After all, it is my taxes that help keep your down. Seeing 50% of what people think you get going straight back to the treasury may be fair in the bigger picture, but it sure does make you think when the pay packet has your name on the top.....

Oh, before you start, I saw the irony of those who think you have to be poor and have a grudge in order to enjoy the folk scene. Luckily, away from those who harp here on Mudcat, I am as accepted now by my mates as when I was fresh out of school with bugger all to my name.

A joke here on Mudcat a while ago went along the lines of "Can the banjo player please go back to his Porsche, he left his lights on."   A joke or were they there?

This so called fat cat was positively purring. (Rotherham circa 1998)

Stop blaming, start resolving. Then society might just, if Darwin is to be credible, evolve a bit.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 06:48 AM

Well it looks like we have the right government in place to deal with these lower elements in our society.

If these are the words of someone who appears to be into "progressive" rock, god save us from reactionary rock!

Then society might just, if Darwin is to be credible, evolve a bit.

You appear not to have the foggiest idea what Darwin wrote, or what evolution means.

Seeing 50% of what people think you get going straight back to the treasury

Should be 95%, like it was in the days of the Beatles.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 07:35 AM

S Willie's joke above about the banjo player's Porsche reminded me of the verse from the old Benny Hill Song:

The folksinger came from America to sing at the Albert Hall
He sang his songs of protest enjoyed by one and all
He sang that the rich were much too rich and the poor too poor by far
And then he drove back to his penthouse in his brand new Rolls Royce car.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 08:03 AM

Paul Burke appears too literal (as opposed to learned in literature) to have a discussion with.

I don't have the foggiest idea what Darwin wrote, you are right. Mind you, my Aunty bought me a dictionary on my 11th birthday and I looked up evolution. Seems evolving is a common theme. (Oh, go on. I have read up on Darwin. I proposed higher order natural selection can be seen in gradual understanding in laws of physics as part of my PhD thesis.) Natural selection? Ok Mr Burke, as you resent my earnings, you do it. Go on. My beak must have a different shape to yours.

Sorry, but many "fat cats" are overpaid, I agree. Also, many lower earnings people are completely bloody useless. But... some of our staff are rather good, and come to think of it, I am only earning what I am because I was lured out of industry where I made my pile to try and sort out parts of the public sector. I can't. tried, but can't.

Mind you, I am having a ruddy good go of it and the more I see, the more I feel I am being useful and have introduced efficient good practice to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds which are now being invested in worthwhile jobs. If the government took 95% of what Ministers think I am worth, I wouldn't be lured out of my gardening and strumming to do it. Horses for courses.

By the way Paul, we have met a few times. You don't sound such an ignorant pillock in person. Methinks it best if you let the social Paul take over from the steam coming out of the keyboard stuff. t least you can't hear me laugh, I suppose....

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 08:21 AM

Frankly, Sweating Cock, until you can set out exactly what you claim to have done in the public sector, you sound like the sort of cunt who takes jobs away from people who are doing their best.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 08:54 AM

Oh dear, Richard!

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: MikeL2
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 09:29 AM

hi

There appears to be some lack of understanding here about how people ( called scroungers here) get on to the Incapacity Benefit list.

Believe me they do not come by simply picking up a leaflet from the benefits office ( or what-ever it is called now ).

Every claimant has to see their own doctor and get a certificate to say that they are ill. As Dave Hanson says then they have to go infront of a panel and be judged on medical grounds as to whether they are fit to work or not.

I can tell you that I was made redundant in my late fifties after almost 45 years of continuous working in various industries and in different positions.

This came as a huge shock to me and at first I just didn't know what to do. An ex-colleague advised me first thing was to go to the job centre and register as unemployed.

I was offered the then going rate of unemployment benefit. No more no less. I received no advice on what jobs were available and how to obtain them.

During this time I was having problems with my throat and I was sent to have the problem investigated. After quite some time during which my throat went progressively worse I was diagnosed with throat cancer and received laser treatments, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

I applied at my doctor's recommendation for the higher rate of incapacity benefit.

I attended two medical boards and was refused on the grounds that I could sit at a desk and do clerical work - even though I had difficuly speaking and could not at that time use the telephone. By the way there were no clerical jobs available in my area.

So if the ( disputed ) number of incapacity receivers are on the list they must have been tested as I was and concious decisions made to put them there.

Of course there are scroungers and people who know how to con officialdom but these are IMHO in the minority.

I wait with interest the supposed start of the removal of claimants in OCtober....

I our local paper only this week over half of the officials who determine Jobseeker allowances and Incapacity benefits are on the list for imminent redundancy. Who pray is going to do the investigations ???

The government live in cloud cuckooland. It will cost them more in trying to clear the list than it costs in paying out the benefits.

Let me say that I don't like scroungers any more than most people do and if we can get rid of the genuine ones I will even help !!

Cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 09:56 AM

Sweaty Cock rides again...

Yeah, that's me. taking jobs off poor deserving blah blah blah.,

Did you read into that from my assertions that efficient public sector means more useful jobs, or just that anybody who's sweaty cock gets more action must be a bad 'un. Oh, of course, anybody working at the perceived top MUST be a bad 'un. After all, that's what all the songs say....

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Ok, I let on about my work (in the same way as many others have by the way) in order to see how it was perceived. You know, until prats like you learn to shut up whilst the adults talk, society will never progress.

Just by saying I am one of those lambasted for trying to get it right has brought out assumptions of job cutting idiots. Sorry, there are many jobs that tax payers have the right to question, and many others that need preserving. In this time of the government making all public sector people nervous, it is the sweaty cocks like me who are trying to keep the good people motivated whilst hoping the worst ones will, for once, be the fall guys.

One problem in the public sector in general I found was that up to a level of seniority, failing people can get promoted out of the way. So.. 10 incompetent middle managers or one performing sweaty cock. Which is worst for taxpayers to stomach?

Sorry, but your victim mentality ain't going to put the Great back into Britain. Suspicion of others is a trait worthy of newspaper editors and people sadly detained under section. Just by admitting that I am one of those splattered across the media for earning more than Gordon Brown earlier this year, I appear to be part of the problem, whilst all the time trying to be part of the solution. Once we start trying to accept that in order to get this country back on an even keel, we can all start doing something. Now.. Not tomorrow, but now.

Your Utopia may just look as good as mine. Except of course, you would resent anybody's Utopia that looks better than your own. Sad bugger.

Off out to wash the car now. Wash or take to car wash? Which car shall I wash? Not easy making decisions when you are a sweaty cock....

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: akenaton
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 11:48 AM

Actually Britain was never "great"...We simply attained power by the exploitation of other nations and the theft of their natural resources.

Managed and sanitised by apologists very much like Steaming Willie, a man who was so furious over my presumed "attack on sexual minorities", yet seems perfectly at ease condemning working people to a life of poverty.....who's the bigot now William.

There's hope for you too Richard, perhaps you are not just the big fanny that I thought you to be.... :0)

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 12:29 PM

Yeah Akenaton.

Whatever.

ZZZZZZZZZZZ

Working people aren't in poverty anyway, because they are working... Minimum wage isn't much but having earned less than that in my time, I know that prioritising is far more important than gazing at others and feeling I deserve their lifestyle too.

Poverty is defined by whatever weird yardstick you wish to measure it by. Somebody whinging that their take home pay ain't enough is doing so because they are comparing themselves to other workers in their country. Using words such as poverty in such comparisons is rather ugly when you look at actual poverty. If you live in The UK, you have won the lottery. If your share of the lottery ain't enough for you, you have the opportunity to do something about it. I did.

The name isn't William in the same way that your attacks on people who fancy other men ain't clever. As you dug it up and brought it to this thread... (Apologies to moderators in advance.) You are a disgusting homophobe whose opinion isn't valid. Even if you told me X toothpaste was better than Y toothpaste, I would have to plump for Y because you have proved your view ain't valid.

Mind you, in the same way that opportunity is there for those who want it, perhaps redemption is too. I suggest you start by looking up bigot in a dictionary and therefore stop using it as an insult when you are the one suffering from it.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 01:38 PM

I'm finding it a bit hard to understand what Steamin' Willie is actually saying. Is this just me?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 02:11 PM

As I understand it, McG of H, S Willie is attacking Akenaton because on another thread Ake once made some assertions that Willie interpreted as homophobic; whence SW leaps to the odd conclusion that, because he disagreed with the views there expressed, he would refuse to agree with Ake on any topic whatever; so that if Ake said 'White', then he [Willie] would reply 'Black' on principle, tho he might really think 'White' all the time.

Bit pathetic really, I fear: unworthy of one of Steaming Willie's evident general intelligence, I should say.

And I am sorry to disagree with Willie so resolutely in this particular, because a lot of what he has said here actually makes quite a lot of sense to me.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: akenaton
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 04:55 PM

Oh what a quandary for the Mudcats! do they agree with a perceived homophobe, or a rabid capitalist/corporatist.....which is the lowest form of life?

I'm so glad I don't have to make these decisions.....isn't "liberalism" soooo complicated   :0)

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 05:28 PM

".......... they plan to cut housing benefit and assess everyone claiming incapacity benefit, disability living allowance and get more of the long term unemployed back to work."

If all government jobs are being cut back (and they most definitely are).... exactly who will do these assessments?

I don't think there will be reassessments. I believe they will make everyone reapply through even more convoluted processes and more of the most needy and vulnerable will just give up applying.

it is all very disheartening.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST, Fido
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 05:51 PM

Maybe for once oppression will put enough spunk into the downtrodden in this country to rise against capitalist corruption. Remember that Marx predicted that Capitalism would be destroyed by its internal contradictions. Maybe we are starting to see them.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 06:10 PM

I wonder what Marx would have said about a country in debt, in which most individuals are not only allowed but encouraged to be in debt, many of them with enviable lifestyles beyond their means, where the only real wealth contributed is by the rich rather than by the 'working classes' actually producing something. This is definitely not a good time for a revolution..

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 07:11 PM

Meanwhile the most cynical cut of all - they are reducing the number of people in the Inland Revenue who have had the job of trying to chase down and outwit the tax-dodgers who rip us off by vastly more than any number of "welfare scroungers".

Of course this is consistent with the way all governments have always made damn sure that there are the maximum number of semi-legal loopholes for their tax-dodger friends and themselves.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 07:11 PM

No one can deny that Labour was responsible for those generous state handouts and that they encouraged young women to become single mothers. The facts are there, an EU-wide study showed a close correlation between the number of single mothers and they level of benefits.

Of 14 European countries, the UK had by far the highest proportion of young single mother households, 11%. By contrast, only 0.9 per cent of households in Spain were run by single mothers.The study suggests women are effectively subsidized to become lone parents. This proves that those generous benefits introduced by a Labour government undermine the family unit.

Fact, Countries with the highest incidence of single mothers are also those with more generous benefit, and vice versa. Spain, Greece and Portugal, with small numbers of single mothers, have lower benefit levels.Only Denmark fails to fit the pattern. It pays out higher benefits even than Britain, but single mothers make up only 2.9 per cent of households! The study supports the arguments of family campaigners that the state is encouraging young women to have children alone.

Why should the British taxpayer have to foot the bill for a deliberate lifestyle choice ? For few, they become single mothers by accident, for most it's a planned choice. I am sick listening to bleeding heart support groups going on about poverty and that battle cry "Single mothers". Call it what it is, scrounging, living of others like leeches or subsidised lone parenthood.

When the government hands out benefits to these promiscuous mothers, they are not giving it to the child, it's straight into the pocket of a beer swilling young women drenched in fake tan counting down the days to the weekend for her nights out on the pull. If you want to end "so called" child poverty, let them do what the decent people of this island did for generations, pay your way and find a job to support your children.

Derek

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 07:22 PM

Spain and Portugal are Roman Catholic. Greece is Orthodox. Denmark is Lutheran. Is there any correlation between denomination and single parenthood?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 07:27 PM

Derek, you're talking shite, and offensive shite at that. Try looking at the whole picture.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 08:09 PM

A single mother's testament and some hard FACTS

"Personally, I keep having flashbacks to 1997, and not merely because of the most memorable election result in recent times. In January that year, I was a single parent with a four-year-old daughter, teaching part-time but living mainly on benefits, in a rented flat.

I had become a single mother when my first marriage split up in 1993.

In one devastating stroke, I became a hate figure to a certain section of the press, and a bogeyman to the Tory Government. Peter Lilley, then Secretary of State at the DSS, had recently entertained the Conservative Party conference with a spoof Gilbert and Sullivan number, in which he decried "young ladies who get pregnant just to jump the housing list".
The Secretary of State for Wales, John Redwood, castigated single-parent families from St Mellons, Cardiff, as "one of the biggest social problems of our day". (John Redwood has since divorced the mother of his children.) Women like me (for it is a curious fact that lone male parents are generally portrayed as heroes, whereas women left holding the baby are vilified) were, according to popular myth, a prime cause of social breakdown, and in it for all we could get: free money, state-funded accommodation, an easy life.

For a while, I was clinically depressed. To be told, over and over again, that I was feckless, lazy — even immoral — did not help.

Gingerbread (now amalgamated with the National Council for One Parent Families), keen to forestall the mud-slinging of the early Nineties, recently urged Messrs Brown, Cameron and Clegg to sign up to a campaign called Let's Lose the Labels, which aims to fight negative stereotyping of lone parents

HERE ARE JUST A FEW OF THE FACTS THAT SOMETIMES GET LOST ON THE WAY TO AN EASY STORY, OR A GLIB STUMP SPEECH:

- only 13 per cent of single parents are under 25 years old, the average age being 36.

-Fifty-two per cent live below the breadline and 26 per cent in "non-decent" housing.

- Single-parent families are more likely than couple families to have a member with a disability, which gives some idea of the strains that cause family break up.

- IN SPITE OF ALL THE OBSTACLES, 56.3 PER CENT OF LONE PARENTS ARE IN PAID EMPLOYMENT.

The experiences of single parent J K Rowling writing in The Times
April 14, 2010


Gaint's post is not merely 'offensive shite' it is deliberately provocative, misogynist and designed, by the use of sickening stereotypes, to stir up very negative emotions against a section of our community

I am disgusted that any kind of forum - short of the likes of Stormfront - allows this kind of offensive posting from a 'guest'

MAYBE GAINT'S RECENT POST IS THE REAL EXAMPLE OF ANY PLEA FOR MUDCAT TO 'CLEAN ITS ACT UP' - NOT THE USE OF A FEW SWEAR WORDS

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 08:28 PM

Hmm.. perhaps we shouldn't have responded..

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 11:55 PM

Emma, I am sure we all sympathise with your predicament, hope you are now over it, and admire the courage and resourcefulness with which you have met your obvious severe challenges. And also accept the statistics with which you support your arguments.

But this does not alter the fact that, quite apart from those unfortunately forced into your situation by marital break-up &c, the 'deliberate single mother who deliberately gets pregnant to get subsidised housing and other benefits' is not a mere invented hate-figure, but does exist, in large enough numbers to give concern; or that Labour policies did for a long time encourage this phenomenon. And these disagreeable facts are not incompatible with your situation or your arguments.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 03:10 AM

Being married to a doctor, I get a bit fed up of hearing her moan over breakfast about the chancers who try to get her to sign forms.

Precisely why I won't apply for a blue badge. I hate begging. So I will just not go out when the RA is crippling me with pain and stiffness.   I will not be out shopping, dining, going to attractions. In short I will not be spending money and supporting others in their jobs and the economy.
I will become more isolated. I will be more depressed and I will have more sick days off work until I am dismissed on capability and then forced to apply for all benefits.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 03:12 AM

"the 'deliberate single mother who deliberately gets pregnant to get subsidised housing and other benefits' "

Another invention by the oppressors. Have you noticed that its (almost always) people who can't get pregnant who criticise single mothers? It's part of the pattern of a wannabee patriarchal oligarchy.

It's nearly as much of a giveaway as the appointment as "waste-cutter" of a major tax avoider (with the assessment of whose character that arose after his third failed attempt to take over Marks and Sparks I agree).

As Thatcher sold off the family jewels, the Con-Dems now plan to waste billions for the future while saving allegedly a few pounds now by giving away what remains of our countryside heritage.

They say that new governments have a 100 day honeymoon. But that requires a marriage. This was a rape, and the 100 days are over. Con-Dom ratings are below the lowest of New Labour - and this is while there is no operating opposition because the career politicians outside the Con-Dems are busy shooting each other in the lip to find a new "leader".

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 03:42 AM

It was no rape Richard, Clegg dropped his trousers, bent over and invited Posh Dave to fuck him.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 03:51 AM

Yep, and now the Toffs are starting to give it up the arse to the rest of us, just as those of us with more than half a brain predicted they would.

Still, it's a comfort to know that at least a few Mudcat members will be having a good time as they're willingly bending over and taking it.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 04:09 AM

It amazes me why so many of you defend benefit cheats. Walk your local High Street this morning and you will see hundreds of chubby teen mums with prams waddling like clones out spending taxpayers money, why the hell should we fund their lifestyle ? Who told her if she put it about and got knocked up that the British taxpayer will play nanny ?

By lunchtime the pubs, off licenses and betting shops will be full of workshy leeches drinking and gambling taxpayers money. If you have the slightest doubt that someone living near you is cheating the benefits system please go to
https://secure.dwp.gov.uk/benefitfraud/

Fill out the report, it will only take a few minutes. I have reported many in this area I am proud to say. Many of them were women claiming to be separated when in fact their partner was living with them, Look at tax discs on cars to see if the driver is claiming Mobility allowance.

Can any of you honestly tell that there is not serial abuse of the Social Security benefits system in the UK ?

Fortunately David Cameron is on the job.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 04:23 AM

Socialism, judging from some of the posters on here, would appear to be low on ideas, and high in hate-filled invective.
No fresh ideas, just the rcycling of old dogmas, statistics, and quotations.
Sorry folks, but the old definition of Socialism, as 'The politics of envy', looks very accurate in so many cases.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 04:57 AM

So you're happy that thousands of civil servants and local authority workers are to be robbed of their livelihoods in order to pay off the huge debts brought upon us by the greed and criminal recklessness of highly-paid people in the financial sector? Those same people in the financial sector who are still being paid huge bonuses - some of those being individual bonuses which are more in one year than a local-authority clerk could make in a lifetime?

Not 'The Politics of Envy', John - more 'The Politics of Laying The Blame Where It Belongs And Punishing The Real Culprits Rather Than Shafting The Easy Targets', methinks.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 04:58 AM

Sorry, forgot to switch of the underlining which should only have applied to the word 'still'.

Oh for an Edit facility.............

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 04:59 AM

Off, not 'of'.

Fer God's sake, give us an Edit facility, Max.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 05:03 AM

'GUEST, Gentle Giant' have you ever stopped to wonder why you are so obsessed with the alleged misdeeds of those who you consider to be your social 'inferiors'? I don't doubt, for one minute, by the way, that 'benefit cheats' exist but their misdeeds pale into insignificance compared with those of the 'higher ups' - the tax dodgers (non-dom and those who can afford to employ devious accountants), reckless, greedy bankers and business leaders on obscene salaries, who have brought our economy to the brink of disaster; not a word about them - why not?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 05:34 AM

Shimrod, it's "Gentle Gaint" not Giant, I understand my handle may look like a misspelling.

You are right in pointing out the salaries of senior bankers, if you don't pay the wages you don't get the staff. Some of these guys turn profits by 100%. There is a big difference in a well educated guy turning the fortunes of a company around and a thick little leech breeding "beer tokens" to gain a party house.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 05:56 AM

'Gentle Gaint/Giant' whatever - but the grossly overpaid 'staff' f**ked up big time, didn't they? And we taxpayers are supposed to pick up the tab, while the 'staff' continue to be paid their mega-salaries. This should make any reasonable person much more angry than the petty fiddling of a few social inadequates - aided and abetted by incompetent welfare authorities, I might add (and no doubt the idiots in charge of welfare payments are also grossly overpaid).

I contend that all of these problems come down to snobbery and social exclusion. You focus your rage on people you consider to be your social inferiors, while those at the top of organisations, like banks, invent spurious 'competencies' in order to pay themselves and their cronies immense salaries; dishonest and recklessness at the 'top' of the social ladder is richly rewarded whilst that at the 'bottom' is condemned.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 06:25 AM

single mother who deliberately gets pregnant

I think Gaint actually means "the single mother who fails to have an abortion.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 06:40 AM

Shimrod, there is a difference in an appointment at board level by a bank or company seeking to improve it's profits or rewarding an individual for doing so, and a layabout too lazy to look a job and provide for their family or a thick little girl without morals living a promiscuous lifestyle and demanding the taxpayer pay her rent, council tax provide beer money and God knows what else her for lying on her back with every Tom, Dick or Harry.

The benefits system in this country needs a drastic overhaul, it's too easy to opt out of employment. I provided for my family, I paid my dues I still pay a mortgage, I see young women and men claiming, scoffing and abusing the system on a daily basis. In my local they boast, they exchange advice what to say to doctors, they know the colour and number of every Social Security form. Sadly too many here still live in the days of protest songs and hold anti establishment views.

Cameron will nudge them into the 21st century.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 06:43 AM

No McGrath, an abortion doesn't prove weekend beer money. They need a birth certificate to get the big dollars !

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 06:56 AM

MtheGM , you are no stranger to pedantic attention to detail so may I please request that you read my post of 15 Aug 10 - 08:09 PM
If you do so you may notice that the 'predicament' I quoted was that of J K Rowlings the author of the Harry Potter books as reported by her in an article in The Times (source to complete article provided)

"No fresh ideas, just the recycling of old dogmas, statistics, and quotations"

- Well sometimes the use of verifiable statistics and quotes from reliable informed sources is preferable to the ignorant, Mail inspired bigoted attitudes hawked by Gaint who I'm sure we have met in previous incarnation here

I have no idea what twisted bitter motives inspire Gaint to denounce people who are disabled, severely physically or mentally ill as 'scroungers' or to depict single parents as binge drinking, promiscuous 'thick little leeches'
However it appears he has found a happy hunting ground on this forum to propagate his calumnies against some of the most vulnerable in our society

So what is the appropriate response?

To allow such ignorant opinions to pass without either moderation or challenge and stand as the 'facts' he would have us all swallow?

What proportion of girls under 16 get pregnant each year?
Well if you believe the kind of stuff that the likes of Gaint, in this or his other incarnations, regurgitates you may be surprised to know that the actual figure is 0.8%
Still too high? - yes, of course

WHAT IT IS NOT!

As quoted in a recent Tory document - "In the most deprived areas, 54% are likely to fall pregnant before the age of 18 compared to 19% in the least deprived area"

It is difficult to know if these figures are an attempt to play on the most disturbing public stereotypes of young women living in deprived areas or merely the fact that someone does not understand basic maths and realize the original DCSF is quoting figures per 1000 population not percentage!!

The fact that teenage pregnacy is however higher in the most deprived areas however requires a seperate study of causes of its own


Lone parents spending benefit cash on booze and fags?

FACT!

Recent social research also undermines this populist suspicion propagated in the more rabid media

Looking at aspects of social exclusion Jane Waldfogel et al studied the spending patterns of low-income families and concluded that single parent families spent just £2.32 a week on alcohol and tobacco, compared to over £8 a week by couple families out of work. When their financial support was increased through tax credits in 1999. these parents didn't spend the extra resources on alcohol or tobacco, but on their children and on household necessities.
I for one do not want to go down the road suggested by John Redwood that single parents should be denied state support until they had first tried to give their children up for adoption

What next - compulsory sterilization for all the unemployed mothers divorced wives etc?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 07:54 AM

Gentle Gaint, what would you have an unmarried mother or mother to be do ? starve to death homeless, you should get your name down as a tory candidate, you are ideal material, not a spark of compassion in you and worships mammon.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 08:01 AM

If Emma expects people to believe her manufactured figures and spin in this day and age when the facts are there to be found on the web then she is living in cloud cuckoo land. Everyone on this forum if they are honest,knows of several people who claim benefits when in fact there is sod all wrong with them, we see them in pubs, we see them in our areas, we see the cases of abuse in the media. There is no point in beating the feminist lib, drum or requesting my factual posts be removed, that is just childish and acceptance of defeat.

Cameron sees it, the government sees it and I see it, matter shortly to be dealt with accordingly.

Thank you

Derek

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Lox
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 08:02 AM

Emma B,

Once again you make a huge impact on the debate in a wholly positive way.

You are the only person on this discussion who has provided actual information.

The rest of the discussion is about discussing prejudices ad preconceptions.

Some support those prejudices and some condemn them.

If I were to get sucked in, I would condemn them.


But thankfully there is no need because you are so good at providing the actual information so that the lies and misconceptions have no tenure.

Well done and thanks for providing the truth.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Lox
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 08:07 AM

Gentle Gaint,


Show us where your information comes from.


You can't can you.



That is because you are a BNP stooge telling lies.



Hey ... remind me ... how's the Barking and Dagenham council coming on?


Oh you don't know? ... because you've lost all your seats?


Never mind - your NOT missed.


Now be a good little twat and fuck off.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 08:09 AM

"Everyone on this forum if they are honest,knows of several people who claim benefits when in fact there is sod all wrong with them"

Unfortuinately, I don't. I know several people who struggle to get the benefits to which they are entitled. I also know quite a few who, as a former manager, I would describe as unemployable (and some of them have jobs).

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 08:22 AM

I'll second Dave on that.

I'm even more fascinated by the guest twat's assertion that only the rich are allowed sex lives.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 08:33 AM

Lox, I do not support the BNP, I voted Conservative. As you say, you have nothing to offer this debate, Cameron will deal with it, your words or the words of others will not chance his course.

Derek

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 08:45 AM

"Welfare and tax credit fraud and error costs the taxpayer £5.2bn a year." or the cost of more than 200 secondary schools or 150,000 nurses David Cameron stressed in an article for the Manchester Evening News, 10 August 2010

BUT…..
THE DEPARTMENT OF WORK AND PENSIONS ESTIMATES BENEFIT FRAUD COSTS £1bn A YEAR ie 0.7% OF TOTAL SPENDING

The taxman reckons fraudulent claims for child and working tax credits cost the public purse £460m in 2008-9 bringing the total still to about £1.5bn

The rest of the shock horror scare headline is accounted for by errors
The DWP says half of the £2.2bn benefit errors are made by claimants simply making a mistake in filling in the forms and half are made by officials or the 'system' i.e. mistakes in the computer

Nevertheless Cameron has declared war on benefit fraudsters in a bid to cut billions from the welfare bill and has won the approval of the tabloid headline-writers by calling in credit check companies to pursue benefit swindlers.
Has anyone actually costed this?

SO……..

The OFFICIAL figure for criminal defrauding the welfare system is £1bn

This compares with the cost to the public purse of illegal tax evasion of £15bn
(This figure of course does not include the unknown billions estimated to be lost to the public purse from tax avoidance)

A recent answer to a Parliamentary Question (from Katy Clark MP) revealed that:

'HM Revenue and Customs spent £633,284 (excluding VAT) on advertising for the purposes of preventing tax evasion last year. There was no expenditure in the previous two years'.

Katy Clark: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much his Department budgeted for advertising tackling benefit fraud in each of the last three financial years

Chris Grayling:
'Budgeted expenditure for advertising tackling benefit fraud

2007-08 £6.5 million
2008-09 £6.0 million
2009-10 £5.0 million
Note: Includes media costs, PR, production and research costs. It excludes VAT.'

SO.....
over three years tackling tax evasion of £15bn was worth just £633,000 but tackling benefit fraud of £1bn was worth £17.5 million.?

Perhaps the headline should be -

"Benefit fraud is 624 times more serious than tax evasion" as reported on the Tax Research UK Website



















But…..
Department of Work and Pensions estimates benefit fraud costs £1bn a year i.e. 0.7% of total spending

The taxman reckons fraudulent claims for child and working tax credits cost the public purse £460m in 2008-9 bringing the total still to about £1.5bn

The rest of the shock horror scare headline is accounted for by errors
The DWP says half of the £2.2bn benefit errors are made by claimants simply making a mistake in filling in the forms and half are made by officials or the 'system' i.e. mistakes in the computer

Nevertheless Cameron has declared war on benefit fraudsters in a bid to cut billions from the welfare bill and has won the approval of the tabloid headline-writers by calling in credit check companies to pursue benefit swindlers. Has anyone actually costed this?

SO……..

The OFFICIAL figure for criminal defrauding the welfare system is £1bn

This compares with the cost to the public purse of illegal tax evasion of £15bn
(This figure of course does not include the unknown billions estimated to be lost to the public purse from tax avoidance)

A recent answer to a Parliamentary Question (from Katy Clark MP) revealed that:

'HM Revenue and Customs spent £633,284 (excluding VAT) on advertising for the purposes of preventing tax evasion last year. There was no expenditure in the previous two years'.

Katy Clark: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much his Department budgeted for advertising tackling benefit fraud in each of the last three financial years

Chris Grayling:
Budgeted expenditure for advertising tackling benefit fraud

2007-08 £6.5 million
2008-09 £6.0 million
2009-10 £5.0 million
Note: Includes media costs, PR, production and research costs. It excludes VAT.

So over three years tackling tax evasion of £15bn was worth just £633,000 but tackling benefit fraud of £1bn was worth £17.5 million.?

Perhaps the headline should be -

"Benefit fraud is 624 times more serious than tax evasion" as reported on the Tax Research UK Website

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 08:49 AM

Don't quite know what happened with that posting; will a mudelf please sort out the mudgremlin

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 09:08 AM

I don't know what happened either Emma, I fell asleep reading it, there is no requirement for such long winded responses, the facts are on our streets today, in post offices, off licenses and pubs.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 09:12 AM

So, Steamin' Willie [I gather you to be above GUEST coming back at me], if Ake asserted that the Earth goes round the Sun, or that 2+2=4, you would disagree on principle would you? Oh, come now. And that really was all I meant: as I said before, I agree with much that you have said on this thread; but assertions of a completely closed mind are surely not going to advance anybody's cause.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 09:29 AM

"the facts are on our streets today, in post offices, off licenses and pubs."

Thnks for the clarification Gaint - I suspected your 'facts' came from equally ignorant mates down the offie and pub rather than official figures that contradict your bigoted deliberate slurs on vulnerable idividuals and expose your offensive calumnies.

Now please be a good Gaint (definition provided by the Urban dictionary) and go back to sleep on your couch

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 09:59 AM

""Not 'The Politics of Envy', John - more 'The Politics of Laying The Blame Where It Belongs And Punishing The Real Culprits Rather Than Shafting The Easy Targets', methinks.""

What would you suggest BWM?

Take away their bonuses, reduce their salaries by 90%, then stand by as as they happily decamp to pastures new, and the whole banking system collapses because there is nobody left to run it?

Then pal, you can starve to death, safe in the knowledge that you stood by your Socialist principles.

And so can the rest of us!

How do you propose we get our money back from the banks by crippling and bankrupting them?

I hate the bastards as much as you do, but I'm not into cutting off my nose to spite my face.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 10:11 AM

OK Don, I understand what you're saying, and you have a valid point.

So what would you suggest - that is, apart from throwing thousands of workers, who are innocent of any wrongdoing, out of work while the Tory Toffs' and their mates continue to behave like the greedy pigs they are, burying their snouts in the trough and getting away with their vile behaviour scott-free?

Surely even a Conservative can see something seriously wrong with punishing the weak, the poor and innocent while the crimes of the strong and rich are ignored? Isn't that what Nazi Germany did in the middle of the last century?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 10:19 AM

A great example was screened recently on Channel 4 in which wives spend time with different families. Call centre worker Emma Spry who swapped places with Lizzie, was shocked to learn how much the family got. The mum of two and husband Colin, an Exeter restaurant boss who works 70 hours a week, are on £10,000 LESS. Emma said, "I am really pleased their benefits are being checked. The Bardsleys are only the tip of the iceberg." Lizzie said it was only right taxpayers should foot the bill for her brood and the £70 a week she blows at bingo.

What they receive:
CHILD BENEFIT         £4,747.60 per year (£16.05 for son Elliott and £10.75 for each of their other children)
CARERS' ALLOWANCE         £5,691.40 (For Marky-Jay, who has chronic asthma)
INCOME SUPPORT         £13,710.84 (For Mrs Bardsley and the children)
INCAPACITY BENEFIT         £4,446 (For Mr Bardsley who has had depression since his father died six years ago)
DISABILITY LIVING ALLOWANCE         £5,051.80 (For Marky-Jay)
DISABILITY LIVING ALLOWANCE         £3,754.40 (For Vienna, also registered as a chronic asthmatic)
LIZZIE'S WAGES         £1,000 (She gets £20 a week from a job answering the phone for a taxi firm)
TOTAL         £38,402

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 10:58 AM

For anyone who may not have a clue who 'Lizzy' is.....

Mark and Lizzy Bardsley and their eight children appeared in an episode of the first series of the Channel 4 'reality' programme 'Wife Swap', which was aired on 7 October 2003.
They caused controversy by claiming £37,500 a year in benefits while the other family in the 'swop' had 2 children and an income £10,000 less after tax

In November 2004, Lizzie Bardsley was accused of failing to inform the Department for Work and Pensions that she had earned money from TV and media appearances and was accused of being overpaid £4879.87. She denied the allegations and claimed that all the money she earned had been given to various charities and her sister.
On 27 September 2004, Bardsley was found guilty of benefit fraud and sentenced to 80 hours community service and ordered to pay £2400 costs. She was also told to pay back the money.

In addition Lizzy Bardsley has been charged with 10 counts of child cruelty for alleged offences between 1996 and 2005.

This appears to be a highly dysfunctional family, guilty of criminal actions disgracefully and, IMO, chosen for their 'entertainment' and 'shock' value by a cynical TV show.

However they are not representative of the number of families on benefits any more than the numerous people who pay taxes on their earned income are the same as those CEOs whose tax 'mitigation' ensures they pay less tax than their cleaner

Subsequently Mark Bardlsey who had been made jobless two years before, said, "I've never said I want to stay on benefits. I want to go out and work."

Reporting his remark one website stated
" If ever there was a strong case for compulsory castration this must be it."

(Now THAT does sound familiar!)

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Lox
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 10:59 AM

Emma,

I just looked up "Gaint" in the urban Dictionary.

The definition was "loss of blood to the brain due to overly large erection."

I suspect that the word Gaint may be an inappropriate name at this point as our lying friend clearly has no dick, much less anyone who is affected by that fact besides himself.

Hence his hatred of imaginary promiscuous teenagers.


By the way "limp dick", if you want people to believe anthing you say, you should at least try to quote figures that are less than 5 years old.

I would love to be directed to this documentary as it clearly wasn't on recently and on that basis it seems likely that it never existed in the first place.

But then I've already asked you to back up your claims to no avail.

Anychance of an accredited source?

No?

I didn't think so.

Stupid Gaint!

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Stu
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 11:10 AM

So EmmaB provides citable facts as evidence and Gentle Gaint provides populist reality TV as counter-evidence. I think that says it all.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 11:27 AM

Case Closed, M'Lud.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: leeneia2
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 12:14 PM

Perhaps someone else covered this, so I apologize if I repeat.

There will be a Great Britain for many millions of years, because Great Britain is the name of an island. It is the mass of land with England & Cornwall on the bottom, Scotland on the top and Wales sticking out on the west edge.

If every human there were wiped out, it would still be Great Britain. If the glaciers bury it, it will still be Great Britain. It's not a society, it's a place. It's limestone, marl, volcanics, gneiss, etc, emplaced on a base of granite.

One way or another, it will be around until the sun envelops and vaporizes it, far, far in the future.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 12:16 PM

"Lox,Lox, I say unto you, I give unto you to be the salt of the earth; but if the salt shall lose its savor, wherewith shall the earth be salted? The salt shall be thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men".

Oh dear some people don't like losing the debate, it pleases me to see such comments from those with nothing to offer, not to worry I won't rub salt into the wounds of October when David's review kicks off.


Labour had a teenage pregnancy strategy which fell hopelessly short of its aim to cut rates of conception by half. Figures show that there were more pregnancies among girls under 18 in England in 2008 than there were in 2001. Pregnancy rates among girls under 16 have been virtually unchanged in six years.

The failed Labour party admitted that their target set in 1999 of halving under-18 pregnancy rates by 2010 was out of reach. That was rich of them, at the current pace of progress, it would take another 25 years to get close to it !

Nutty Labour even suggested putting condom vending machines in colleges and schools ! Did they not see these girls go out to get knocked up so they could become professional scroungers ? David Cameron certainly has their ticket marked. So in truth, the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy, set down by Tony Blair in 2001, was supposed to halve under-18 pregnancy rates in England between 1998 and 2010, it failed, so the taxpayer has to fork out for their weekly visit to the hairdresser,their slap of fake tan,cheap tarty clothing and booze to they can go on the pull every weekend.

Anyway, I wrote to my MP a few weeks ago and gained an assurance that this group of scroungers are to first on David's list for an overhaul.This pleases me along with all right thinking individuals with morals, self respect and dignity.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Stu
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 12:25 PM

Yawn.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 01:25 PM

"Shimrod, there is a difference in an appointment at board level by a bank or company seeking to improve it's profits or rewarding an individual for doing so, and a layabout too lazy to look a job and provide for their family or a thick little girl without morals living a promiscuous lifestyle and demanding the taxpayer pay her rent, council tax provide beer money and God knows what else her for lying on her back with every Tom, Dick or Harry."

GG you still haven't given a satisfactory explanation as to why you are so fixated on belabouring those at the bottom of the social scale. You are a snob, aren't you (most Tories are, in my experience)?

And you forgot to mention that many of those appointed "at board level by a bank or company seeking to improve it's (sic) profits" failed miserably and dropped us all in the sh*t. But still they are massively rewarded and haven't suffered one iota for the chaos that they have caused (apart from slightly dented egos, of course).

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 01:31 PM

Setting unrealistic targets may drive people to achieving better results but are probably ultimately counter productive

Before the recent election the previous government admitted that it was highly unlikely to meet its 1999 pledge to halve teenage pregnancies in England by 2010.

FIGURES FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN, SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES SHOW RATES IN ENGLAND WERE DOWN BY 13.3% FROM 1999 TO 2008.

(quoting figures for one single year is deliberately misleading as I'm sure Gaint is well aware)

Reacting to these figures Gill Frances, chairwoman of the Teenage Pregnancy Independent Advisory Group, said it also welcomed the teenage pregnancy strategy being back on its long term downward trend.
Simon Blake, national director of the sex and relationships advisory group Brook said: "It is good news that the teenage pregnancy rates have decreased"

Nevertheless, it remains a fact that the UK has the highest percentage of teenage pregnancies in Western Europe; among OECD developed countries, the United States has the highest level of teenage pregnancy although these figures represent the age of the mother and NOT her marital or partnership status


The debate concerning teenage pregnancy has become symbolic of the electioneering slogan 'Britain's "broken" society.'

In a recent publication**, Simon Duncan, professor of social policy at Bradford University and one of the book's editors argues that

"Teenage mothers and fathers not only do no worse in terms of their future employment or income than any of their peers, in many cases, they do a bit better
They generally become more purposeful and responsible, get more connected to their families and community, try to get better training and a good job, and give up some of their bad habits."

"Overall, however, it should be noted that teenage parenting is a very minor social issue – in fact, it's lower now than it ever was in the 1960s or '70s. The truth is, it's not the teenage bit that's the problem, it's the socioeconomic disadvantage of the parents that's the problem."


For most of history teenage pregnancy has not been perceived as a problem atall

It is a medical fact that physiologically 18 is a better age to begin child bearing than 35 but according to a UNICEF report -

"Teenage births are today seen as a problem   because they are strongly associated with a range of disadvantages for the mother, for her child, for society in general and for the taxpayer in particular

Specifically giving birth as a teenager is believed to be bad for the young mother because the statistics show that she is more likely to drop out of school, to have low or no qualifications, to be unemployed or low paid to live in poor housing conditions to suffer from depression and to live on welfare'


I have posted earlier that it is necessary to look deeper by the explanation of the existence of higher rates of teenage pregnancy in the UK other than the lame claims of the likes of Gaint

An examination of socio-economic deprivation in sections of the UK population has shown that a higher degree of deprivation is associated with a higher frequency of teenage sexual activity
The concentration of social inequality in certain areas of the UK has created a culture of hopelessness in which there is little to lose from teenage parenthood
From - Contextual Effects on the Sexual Behaviour of Adolescent Women published in The Journal of Marriage and the Family


**Teenage Parenthood: What's the Problem? is published by Tufnell Press

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Lox
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 02:19 PM

Gaint,

There is no debate.

There is you making unsubstantiated claims and trying to present them as fact.

And there is Emma providing us with the actual figures and telling us where she got them so we can go and see for ourselves if we want.


So now you say have have some more figures ... ?

... source please ...

oh but you don't have one ... just the BNP party info pack.


Well Gaint, it gives my great pleasure to inform you that I am a single parent, who is also a student and I am in receipt of top up benefits to supplement my grant and student loans.

And Camerons plans for october will not be ffecting me in the slightest.

So before you start posturing as a tory spokesperson of any sort, you might wish to inform yourself of their actual plans.

You are unlikely to find these in the BNP manifesto.

You stupid Gaint!

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: MikeL2
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 02:46 PM

hi gaint

I have just a quick question for you to ponder on and then answer honestly...

Who do you think created the recent recession in the UK ???

Was it -:

a) The teenage mothers..?
b) The greedy banks and their even greedier executives who put personal greed before anything else.?

Most sensible people will know the answer to this; even you but I doubt very much if you will agree.

MikeL2

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 02:47 PM

Gentle Gaint, a few years ago there was a TV programme about a [ failed ] tory MP, Matthew Paris, spending a week existing on what a single unemployed man got paid, his conclusion at the end of the week was that it was impossible to survive on, but he wouldn't recommend changing it, and this after he spent a week with working class people who were very kind to him, buying him drinks and food, you get your name down lad, you'll be in good company.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 02:50 PM

Gaint has comprehensively lost the debate in the face of actual information, but still he trots out his prejudices - and again and again he returns to his fetish - the horrid thought that the poor might have sex lives.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 02:54 PM

I know 2 people not including me who could and probably should claim incapacity but don't. One the wife has worked full time for the last 15 years to support husband who is on oxygen. Lungs damaged by exposure to asbestos while on the job.

The other works half time apart from 6 months off for cancer treatment to supplement family income. Her partner an engineer has Dupuytren's contracture in his drawing hand. Has had several surgeries and was told he can only work part time. The company he had worked for for 12 years went bankrupt and the owner protected all the assets be giving the to his son before 12 months prior to bankruptcy was declared. So workers received no redundancy pay. Dis this family claim any benefits? No!

Oh just remembered another. An over 60 widow with severe rheumatoid and osteo arthritis was told she cannot have her blue badge reinstated, since she purchased the leased motability car provided in her benefits. This happened right after her husband died. He was her carer and often her driver when disease was so bad even the special car was difficult to manage.

I don't see very many teen mothers in various areas of Essex. I would say by and large most I see preggers and pushing prams are between 23 and 26. I presume they have working partners and in the early part of the family making. These women seem to congregate in town shopping centres, especially around Starbucks and Costa. Are you sure you are seeing teen mums GG or are you of an age that even twenty something looks like teenage?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 03:41 PM

I just wish that any one who supported New Labour was NOT called a Socialist ! New Labour dropped ALL reference to Socialism in the 1997 manifesto , and in fact the Tony Blair Cabinet , overall , was more Right Wing than John Majors Tory cabinet !

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 04:07 PM

One of my sons lives in a small town about twenty miles from me, he informs me that there are many teenage single mothers in that town.

Apparently the rationale amongst the teens is that it is "uncool" to live with mum and dad, so the best option is to become pregnant and "homeless".....this spirits them directly to the top of the housing list and opens the door to the benefits culture.

They have a home and an income overnight and the move takes the financial weight off mum and dad.

I'm not trying to make any political point here, everyone as far as I can see, is working the system for all they are worth....the system is rotten why should it only be the rich who are allowed to use it to their advantage?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Sorcha
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 04:16 PM

Ake, I beg to differ. That is a pretty terrible thing to say.



Now, why aren't Joe and Clones all over this anon 'personal attack' against a LOT of un named members?














Oh, right...teen pregancy and welfare/dole are just a Brit problem.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 04:26 PM

Don't understand that post, I'm quite relaxed about you disagreeing, but what's all the rest about?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Sorcha
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 04:36 PM

Well, it just appears that some nutter has come in ONLY for the point of stirring the pot and pretty much attacking personally a lot of un named members....anyone who has welfare benefits, is disabled, etc.

Was just wondering why the Clones are on this was all.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 04:46 PM

I am a great admirer of Ian Duncan Smith. He has done some wonderful work in his "Once-in-a-generation" welfare reform package.

As he so rightly pointed out, "Thanks to years of Labour incompetence people are now better off claiming benefits rather than working in a job paying £15,000 a year or less".

He also said "Those who come from a family living off benefits are most likely to claim benefits also as all you can see when you think about work is risk". How very true Ian.

Ian used a great term when he described scroungers on incapacity benefit, He said they are "parked" there. Well part of Ian's plan is to call the buff of whose 2.5 million recipients, they face a strict status review in the coming months, so now is the time to blow the whistle on those you know that are fit and able to do a days work. Yes hard to believe 2.5 million, most of them living in housing estates or ghettos.

These type of people basically get parked on this benefit and forgotten about. Those that have been on this benefit for more than two years, are likely to die on it !

If you want true facts, read the recent Government report that shows that 1.4 million people in the UK have been on state handout benefits for nine or more of the last 10 years.It also reveals that income inequality in the UK is now at its highest level since comparable statistics began in 1961.

The research shows that social mobility in Britain is worse than in the USA, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Canada, Finland and Denmark, and a higher proportion of children grow up in workless households in the UK than in any other EU country.

The proportion of people parked on inactive benefits has almost tripled in the past 30 years to 41% of the inactive working age population. As Ian said, "We must not underestimate the challenge ahead. One of the biggest problems is that for too many people think work simply does not pay."

These are the facts, like them or not, dislike Ian if you like, but you are just going to have to swallow your medicine, he's in the job, Labour failed drastically and we now have a new government that favours those with principles that work for a living and will come down hard on loafers, layabouts, con artists and young girls that think society owes them a debt for their promiscuous lifestyles, some inherited from their mothers.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 04:48 PM

Oh sorry, I thought you were objecting to my post on the grounds of "personal abuse"

I do agree with you, this has become...along with other threads, very nasty indeed, but much of the personal abuse is coming not from the "nutter" but from the usual abusive members.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 05:28 PM

Admire the quiet man who lost his voice rather than debate?. Blood pressure twat, your "facts" are simply Daily Wail or worse propaganda lies.

The reason that social mobility is low in the UK is disempowerment of th less advantaged. Adding to their difficulties will make matters worse rather than better.

What is going on is simple scapegoating. Can we think of a political party in say the 20s and 30s that was playing that game?

Jest idiot, what is your problem with the poor having sex lives? AOK for Tara Palmer-Tonkinson, but not for little Chardonnay from the council estate? Your game is control, and the time for it is past.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 06:17 PM

So akenaton is also repeating unsubstantiated rumours, when the lie is more outrageous than the truth, eh !! repeat the lie.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 06:46 PM

I wonder what the real Derek Shulman, late of "Gentle Giant" and "Simon Dupree and the Big Sound" would think about his identity being used by some wanker with nothing better to do than wind up a few folkies.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 07:03 PM

Dont be silly Dave, this is actually happening on quite a large scale...I have the means to prove that to be correct, but I do not wish to do so on an open forum....but what would be the point in me lying about this?

High earners have always used the devices provided by the system to avoid tax, now those a the bottom of the food chain have worked out how to do something similar....before long....now even, the system becomes unsustainable and we reach the end of the line for the capitalist system.....isn't that what you want?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 09:12 PM

""So what would you suggest - that is, apart from throwing thousands of workers, who are innocent of any wrongdoing, out of work while the Tory Toffs' and their mates continue to behave like the greedy pigs they are, burying their snouts in the trough and getting away with their vile behaviour scott-free?

Surely even a Conservative can see something seriously wrong with punishing the weak, the poor and innocent while the crimes of the strong and rich are ignored? Isn't that what Nazi Germany did in the middle of the last century?""

Every time you compare legitimate British politicians to the Nazis in mid twentieth century, you destroy the credibility of your argument.

None of us, Tory Libdem or Labour, want to see unemployment rise.

It would be great if we could just wish away the quagmire of destruction produced, for the umpteenth time, by so called "Socialist" administrations in this country, BUT WE CAN'T!

What is needed is to allow the investment (W)Bankers to get the system back on an even keel, then tax the bastards till the pips squeak. Once they've made enough to get our money back, grab it, and to hell with them.

High Street banks must be protected. Who in this country get's paid in cash these days?

Incidentally, how do you, or anyone else on this forum, know how many of those "greedy pigs, burying their noses in the trough" vote Tory?

There are plenty of rich Labour voters in all the professions, and I don't suppose they are any less greedy than the Tories, do you?

There's a whole bunch of slavering, rabid, anti Tories on this forum, who really don't give a fuck whether the Tories do a good job or not, as long as they can trot out their hard wired prejudices yet again.

Three months is too short a time to pretend to know what degree of success will be obtained, and change in attitude is possible for Tories, just as it was for Tony B Liar when he fought to be elected. I don't suppose any of you are fool enough to deny the corruption of socialist ideals which led to his election, yet you are fools enough to state that it is impossible for Tories to change in similar but opposite fashion.

The post WW2 history of the Tory party is littered with examples of them being elected and finding themselves clearing up the results of Labour's incompetence. No sooner do they get on an even keel, than along comes Gordon Brown the "Prudent" chancellor, who promptly starts frittering away the contents of the treasury, the Gold Reserves, and any other money he can snatch by stealth taxes, and raids on pensions.

And you lot talk about us Tories bending over to get buttfucked.

What a bloody laugh. New Labour's been doing it to you for thirteen years, and you haven't even noticed.

Gordon Brown refused suggestions of a coalition with the LibDems, and ran away, because he knew exactly what would have to happen if he got in, and didn't have the guts to face the results of his scorched earth policies.

Just one of you admit that Brown would have had to do what Cameron and Clegg are doing, or preside over Britain PLC's descent into bankruptcy, and you'll earn my respect.

But that ain't likely, is it?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 09:23 PM

""Anyway, I wrote to my MP a few weeks ago and gained an assurance that this group of scroungers are to first on David's list for an overhaul.This pleases me along with all right thinking individuals with morals, self respect and dignity.""

Now that is total bollocks!

What David Cameron has said is simply that he will crack down on benefit fraud.

He has also made the more common sense commitment to improve the situation, by making working sufficiently more profitable than collecting benefit, as an incentive to seek employment.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Lox
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 09:31 PM

Well I don't know whether they would have introduced a policy of taking money out of poor schools that need it and giving it to schools that are already doing great, making them unaccountable, and giving them a veto on whether to accept excess pupils.

The consequence, poor schools with less resources functioning in dilapidated buildings, taking on the burden of their quota of excess pupls plus the extra quota of pupils rejected by the exempt schools.

While this is going on, close down a few new playgrounds and pretty soon kids in poor areas have shit schools and nowhere to play.

Good old big society!

And thats before we get on to the new schools created by bored housewives with no experience in education or schools management and spending, who get to design their own curriculum, their own lessons, and to decide how money is used (money that was being used to rebuild poor schools in deprived areas).

Of course these too will be unaccountable, so when they have utterly misspent the money they never needed on overpriced tat with questionable educational value, (money that was taken out of the rebuilding program as part of a "value for money" analysis), there will be noone to regulate them.

Education is my area of concern. Children are the most vulnerable sector of society and the one sector that we owe the most to.

Poor chidren are being punished in this budget.

It is extremely worrying.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 09:34 PM

By the way, Gentle Gaint,

If in fact you are a Tory, I for one would rather you weren't.

If you aren't a member of the BNP, may I respectfully suggest that you join them, because you are doing Tories on this forum more harm than the resident left wingers have ever managed to do.

The crap you are spouting feeds right into the hard wired hatreds of those people, and serves only to cause other Tory members to get slagged off and attacked for nothing they have actually done.


Please leave
Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 02:54 AM

No I don't believe you are lying Ake, just repeating unfounded rumours.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: NormanD
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 02:59 AM

Why are 'Guests' allowed to continue posting? is there no moderation here?

GG's continuing obsession with 'single mothers' tells me more about himself than about the apparent problem. It's either a fetish, or sexual frustration.

I do acknowledge his ability to type with one hand.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Stu
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 05:02 AM

"There's a whole bunch of slavering, rabid, anti Tories on this forum, who really don't give a fuck whether the Tories do a good job or not, as long as they can trot out their hard wired prejudices yet again."

Erm, it sounds like you started that sentence with a hard-wired prejudice.

"But that ain't likely, is it?"

Because it's an opinion Don, and if to earn your respect we all have to have the same as you then you're right, it ain't likely.

It's impossible to post anything that opposes Conservative policy or values without being called a socialist, left-winger etc etc. It works both ways and no-one is guilt-free in this case. I wonder if it will ever be possible to express non-partisan viewpoints without ever being labelled one way or the other?

"New Labour's been doing it to you for thirteen years, and you haven't even noticed."

Plenty of Labour voters noticed Don. That's why they lost the election.

Gentle Gaint has had a wonderful time winding everyone up into a frenzy of utter hatred and anger but these are the sort of divisive political tactics that all parties have used over the years, and boy doesn't it work.

We live in a divided society now, and the gap between those that have and have not is wider than ever - and this occurred under Labour. The problem is, the Tories have a bit of a ropey track record in addressing inequality in society preferring instead to hand over control of the education of our children, prisons, healthcare etc to private companies and as we know, they exist primarily to make money NOT to educate, rehabilitate or nurse those who need it.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 05:13 AM

It's been tough for centuries, and it's not likely to change.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 05:29 AM

Sugarfoot Jack - nice post, you made my response for me, be it intentionally or otherwise. Said all I would have liked to say, but infinitely more eloquently than I could have.

Don, what the ConDems are up to is unjust. That's the grouse. You may be happy to cheerfully support the rape of the innocent while the guilty continue their rampage, but many aren't (and I'm one of them - proud to say it). Labour made themselves unelectable after 12 years in power - I suspect it'll take a far shorter time for the ConDems to perform the same feat.

Ten-Four.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 05:57 AM

I've always considered myself, politically, to be somewhere left of centre - but it's a long time since I supported, or voted for, the Labour Party. Their recent incarnation as 'New Labour' I found particularly unappealing (smug, holier-than-thou pink on the outside, blue on the inside). In addition I see little reason to vote Tory - who I believe are primarily the party of social exclusion and Big Business. In addition both parties are ideology driven and neither's ideology is very palatable. I'm appalled by the behaviour of many voters who either vote unthinkingly along tribal lines or surge madly between the two extremes.

We desperately need a new politics in this country and though I'm depressed that the Tories have got in again - almost by default - perhaps the present coalition will, in the long run, be a step in the right direction.In the meantime standby for much 'poor bashing' and huge chunks of the sytem being handed over to the 'private sector' (i.e. a load of incompetent, greedy crooks and spivs).

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Stu
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 06:22 AM

Agreed.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 06:35 AM

Gaint does indeed go on a bit about the intentionally single mothers & their effect on the economy, & on the general social atmosphere [part of the hoodie·binge-drinking &c gestalt: probably statistically not that significant, but disagreeably upfront & prominent nevertheless as destroyer of the national sense of well-being] to which they unhappily contribute.

So it might be as well to say again that the much-to-be-applauded, courageously coping single mother like Emma B, who is such as a result of misfortune and not of intent [in her case, IIRC, of a marriage break-up], is not the ONLY sort of single mother, as she & others on this thread appear to be urging; but that there is also another, not nearly so admirable, kind; who do, though perhaps not quite to the enormous extent that Gaint appears to think, constitute a social problem in need of solution.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: MikeL2
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 06:57 AM

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T - PM
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 09:12 PM

hi don

I agree with quite a lot of what you say even though I don't and won't vote tory.

I am not extreme and I do try to see both sides of the coin.

There is no doubt that the last Labour reign had it's problems and I make no excuses for them. But is is unfair to blame them all on Gordon Brown. He was not responsisble for the the almost total collapse of the banking systems. That is a world-wide problem.

Naturally Labour and Tory have different policies, otherwise there would be no point in having politicians.

Both parties would attack the problem in different ways. The way the Tories propose to do it is not the way I would have chosen.

But I sincerly hope that the route they are taking is a good one for Britain. It is inevitable that people will have to suffer and I think most sensible people of whatever party would agree that the proposed cuts the present government are proposing will hit the poor more than the rich.

I don't agree with all the proposals but I do agree that something drastic is needed.

I agree that 100 days is too soon to judge the success or failure of the government but as previous governments for centuries have found to their cost; it is easy to make proposals and promises. I await with interest and not a little trepidation on the progress of the government with it's policies for rescuing the Country.

I sincerely hope that their plans can bring some success. To date I have seen only promises and plans but no action. It is not enough to
to just keep on blaming Labour for the "crisis" anyone can do that!!

cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 07:44 AM

MtheGM please PLEASE re read my post of 15 Aug 10 - 08:09 PM
and my previous reply to you on 16 Aug 10 - 06:56 AM

I made it quite clear in both posts that I was not the 'single mother' of the testament I quoted from The Times

I wish I had some of her talent however, as those were the experiences of J K Rowlings

I agree there is no such thing as a typical single parent.

BUT THE MYTHS AND LABELS ARE VERY FAR FROM THE REALITY OF MOST SINGLE PARENTS' LIVES

I have pointed out in a previous post that the average age of single parents (not all of them are female you know) is actually 36 years -only 13% being under 23 years of age
Additionally, 56.3% of lone parents are in paid employment others are actively seeking work that fits in with good child care

Of course there are young mothers (and fathers) there always have been; adolescent parenthood has been a fairly common experience throughout history

In America for example The 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s included the twentieth century's highest teen birth rates (respectively 79.5, 91.0, and 69.7 per thousand).
By 1960, nearly one-third of American females had their first child before reaching age twenty.

And, of course, there are currently socio-economic problems associated with early parenthood in a society where we have extended school age and all but done away with opportunities for independent living and employment until well past puberty (the average age of menarche has now dropped to about 13)


Gingerbread has recently started a campaign entitled Lose the Labels aimed directly at the media and individuals that label single parents, and use language that stigmatises them
As one active member said -

"The media portray us as living from benefit payment to pub."

Why perpetuate this image which is as offensive as it is inaccurate for the vast majority of single parents?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 07:57 AM

But I sincerly hope that the route they are taking is a good one for Britain. It is inevitable that people will have to suffer and I think most sensible people of whatever party would agree that the proposed cuts the present government are proposing will hit the poor more than the rich.

And that's the problem, isn't it Mike. Having bailed out the guilty greedy-pigs once with our money, the (comparatively) poor and weak are now being asked, nay forced, by the ConDems to sacrifice their livelihoods, while the guilty greedy-pigs keep their highly-lucrative, obscenely-bonused jobs because 'we need to keep them in order to rebuild the financial system' - BTW, that would be the financial system that the greedy-pigs themselves brought to its knees.

But the working-class Mucky-Toff Tory supporters around here can see no injustice in that. And they accuse us of being blinkered and brainwashed! Talk about the kettle calling the frying pan "Grimy-Arse".

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 08:12 AM

Emma ~ BUT what about your post of 13 Aug, 0839, though? I agree, as I have said, that the image being postulated by some is "... inaccurate for the vast majority of single parents"; but it is not an image of an entirely non-existent entity, but of, however small a minority, a nevertheless highly visible, and regrettable, one ~ about which, I agree with some posters here, something needs to be done. That is all I am saying. Nor, I reiterate, am I referring to that "Rowling" post of yours, as you appear to think, which I am fully aware does not relate your own experiences; but to the 13 Aug one I have just ref'd back to, which, as I read it, does.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 08:22 AM

MtheGM by my post of Aug 13 which you read as my own experience I presume you mean the one that states

"Under the circumstances I make no apologies for quoting this personal account from the 'netmums' website

A personal account by Karen Lewis ........"

I am not Karen Lewis either, neither am I member of netmums or even a parent!

I'm glad we have that clear now

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Lox
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 08:31 AM

MtheGM,

Your comment that while single mums in general may not be scroungers we cannot deny that some are, applies equally to all other demographics.

Some married mums are scroungers, some couples with no kids are scroungers, some single peole with no kids are scroungers.

This makes your comments on a thread discussing the "issue" of single mothers utterly meaninglesss.

MtheGM, some people called Michael are scroungers - what does that say about you? (answer ... fuck all).

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 09:05 AM

Thanks, Emma. I see now where I got confused; I think there was perhaps a bit of ambiguity in the 13 Aug post; or perhaps I just read it over-hastily. But I too am glad we have got it sorted now.

Lox ~ scrounging Michaels, married mums, &c, are not highly visible demographics attracting specific hostility because part of an antisocial gestalt [see my post 7 back, 0635 AM]; scrounging single-mums are, otherwise this thread would not exist in the form it does. So, without wishing to be truculent, I must observe that I think your last post to be unmitigated bollox.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Lox
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 09:28 AM

Oh Grow up Michael.

The point is that distinguishing Single mothers as scroungers as distinct from any other demographic is not possible as every demographic contains its fair and approximately equal proportion of scroungers.

"scrounging Michaels, married mums, &c, are not highly visible demographics attracting specific hostility because part of an antisocial gestalt ... scrounging single-mums are"

This is only because they are easy scapegoats. Not because any of the lies told are true.


I note that once again Ake chooses to refer to that well accredited academic source "my son".

Its a wonder that the charities and political organizations, not to mention select committees and academics bother with real research. They could just go and ask Akes son and they'd get the full picture.

After all, everyone knows ... bah blah ...

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 10:02 AM

What is it to do with 'growing up', Lox, you patronising pillock? Just mind your manners, please, if you wish to address me, my good man.

"This is only because they are easy scapegoats. Not because any of the lies told are true."

What lies? Mere assertion. Remain blind to the existence of a smallish but unhappily prominent problem if you must. But your fatuous, baseless denials are not going to make it disappear.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: MikeL2
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 10:11 AM

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Backwoodsman - PM
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 07:57 AM

Hi BW

Of course you are right but personally I wouldn't have described quite in the way that you did...lol

Regards

Mikel2

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 10:20 AM

MtheGM, there isn't a lot of point trying to reason with this Lox character, do what the rest of us do, ignore it, it eventually goes goes into remission like a tumor.

It would appear that no one is allowed an opinion unless you are a Labour party supporter or one of the great unwashed who can boast about taking part in past protest marches against anything that is decent.

I do not support the BNP, never did, never would. Yes I support the Conservative party, but I am not a party member.

There is serious abuse of the benefits system in this country, but again the smelly woolen jump brigade think it's okay to steal from the taxpayer, "Hey man, it's cool". join the 21st century and be a bit more responsible.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Stu
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 10:30 AM

"tumor"

Are you an American?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 11:29 AM

Of course you are right but personally I wouldn't have described quite in the way that you did...lol

Mike, I've always called a f***in' spade a f***in' spade! It's got me into trouble occasionally, but I'd rather take a beating for being honest than avoid it by being a snake. :-)

And I respect others who also talk straight, even those whose views I vehemently disagree with.

Cheers M'Dears!

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: MikeL2
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 11:33 AM

hi Bwm

Good for you....I hope I wouldn't be classed as a snake though....

cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 11:54 AM

Absolutely not, Mike!

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 01:16 PM

"MtheGM, there isn't a lot of point trying to reason with this Lox character, do what the rest of us do, ignore it, it eventually goes goes into remission like a tumor." (Gentle Giant)

This is obviously an attempt at shit-stirring. Do you really have nothing better to do, Gentle Giant? Go and polish your iron cross or something - or as my dear old granny used to say, fuck off and boil yer 'ead.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Lox
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 02:23 PM

MtheGM,

Thank you so much for clarifying you position.

You stated:

"But your fatuous, baseless denials are not going to make it disappear."

There is no such thing as a baseless denial.

You either have evidence to support an assertion or you don't

I take it you are unable to provide evidence to support your assertion, which puts you in the same category as our brainless ercect penis friend Gentle Gaint whose compant you seem to be enjoying immensely.

Maybe its the thought of his permanently engorged state that has drawn you to him? Or maybe its the fact that you just feel a natural affinity with a drooling onanist with an oxygen starved brain.

The only difference seems to be that little G-G is merely intellectually impotent while your flaccid decay appears to be comprehensive.

I suspect though that little Gi Gi's alleged state of excitement is another baseless assertion though. Strange how fascinations with promiscuous chavs are the order of the day for these old rejects.

Now - Does anybody have any actual information that conflicts with that provided by Emma?

No?

I didn't think so.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: MikeL2
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 02:30 PM

hi gaint

Thought you might like to know that there is a programme on BBC 3 that I am sure will interest you.

Tonight at 08.00pm - Underage & Pregnant.

Sounds right up you street.

MikeL2

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 02:50 PM

Hi MikeL2

Many thanks for that. I will indeed have a look at that, hope a few others do as well,even the lady who seems to live on the dark side of the moon !

Hope you are well.

Derek

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Lox
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 02:52 PM

Yes Gaint,

Mmmmmmm

Lets hope the Lady from the dark side of the moon watches too.

That would be nice wouldn't it.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 03:08 PM

""There is no doubt that the last Labour reign had it's problems and I make no excuses for them. But is is unfair to blame them all on Gordon Brown. He was not responsisble for the the almost total collapse of the banking systems. That is a world-wide problem.""

I'm perfectly happy to agree with almost all of your post Mike, but the above is somewhat disingenuous.

Throughout the twelve years, Gordon Brown was first Chancellor of the Exchequer, then Prime Minister.

Had he been even one quarter as prudent as he claimed on several occasions to be, he would not
1. have emptied the Treasury's coffers of all the money he inherited from John Major's government (and there was a lot of that).
2. have chosen to sell the country's Gold Reserves at the bottom of the market, and fritter away the proceeds.
3. have allowed the investment banks to indulge in uncontrolled high risk ventures (he was warned several times that there was trouble ahead, and did nothing).

If he had not acted as he did, we would have had a sufficient buffer to at least ameliorate, or even negate, the effects of the US bank collapse.

Therefor, I do blame him entirely for our current disastrous position. He was the one man who could have avoided this, and HE CHOSE NOT TO!

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Old Vermin
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 03:16 PM

Had this thread been the first that I looked at when I came across Mudcat, it would probably have been the last.

Just had an agreeable couple of hours outdoors cutting grass and chatting to people. Even had a trotting trap pass by a few times. Daily Mail would no doubt go apoplectic about that on a public road....

Perhaps we all ought to get out more?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 03:16 PM

""But the working-class Mucky-Toff Tory supporters around here can see no injustice in that. And they accuse us of being blinkered and brainwashed! Talk about the kettle calling the frying pan "Grimy-Arse".""

Both inaccurate and unworthy of you BWM.

Of course we see the injustice, and we don't like it any more than you do.

New Labour screwed the pooch, and ran away from facing the consequences. Now unpalatable decisions are forced on the new government, and I don't think you have any more idea how to avoid them than I have.

So, prove me wrong.

Tell me your solution to this iniquitous situation upon which you seem fixated.

Would you really kill the banks and destroy the recovery, or is cutting your own throat a step too far?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 03:38 PM

Interesting programme, well done BBC3. Thanks MikeL2. I rest my case ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Old Vermin
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 03:43 PM

And to respond to the original posters argument, one really can't run an economy on smoke and mirrors. Brown as chancellor may have deluded himself that all was hunky-dory. He certainly had his own party deluded for a while or so they now say. 'We didn't realise that Gordon was spending imaginary money' was an election-night quote.

On the credit side, doing folk stuff is cheap-ish and good for morale. Something has to move into the vacuum created as big football and stadium rock look top-heavy. Which reminds me, when did skiffle re-emerge?

Went to Guilfest - at least three skiffle groups there. Our choir - Guildford Vox - were followed by United Stoats of America and then joined them on stage for their last few numbers. Good fun.

Also Witchdoctors and another skiffle group in one big set in the Unison tent with United Stoats. Excellent fun, which is what we need.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: akenaton
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 04:04 PM

Smokey...disappointed to see you adopting that tone, it certainly doesn't fit the guy whom I have come to admire as a humourous and insightful debater.

Some here rely on hurtful abuse to try to diminish other posters

You're much better than that.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: akenaton
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 04:14 PM

BWM....The last time I used the phrase "call a spade a spade" on Mudcat, I was almost excommunicated for racism!

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Old Vermin
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 04:18 PM

Akenaton - I really shouldn't laugh, but...

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 08:01 PM

Some here rely on hurtful abuse to try to diminish other posters

Oh Ake, I never rely on it..

I'll get me coat..

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: MikeL2
Date: 18 Aug 10 - 05:23 AM

hi Don

OK you have your view and I have mine - that's healthy. Hope our relationship stays the same.

Cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 18 Aug 10 - 05:51 PM

Well today the cat is out of the bag. The BBC ran video recordings of Posh Dave categorically promising that various benefits would be protected. Among them were the Winter Heating Allowance (are you still reading, Don) and Child Benefit. Guess what are today stated to be up for cuts.

It is now wholly clear that what is happening is not class war but the war of the rich against the poor.

Yet over 60% of the terminally stupid believe it is right that they should be screwed.

It is time that the lock of the ruling classes and the oligopolistic media was brought down - by whatever means are necessary.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: akenaton
Date: 18 Aug 10 - 05:54 PM

Bravo!!

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 18 Aug 10 - 06:28 PM

Ake, do you not realise that many of those who you would oppress are as they are because they are dispossessed in one way or another?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: akenaton
Date: 18 Aug 10 - 06:36 PM

I oppress no one Richard.

And I don't really understand what you mean, but I do agree that we must take action against the political system very soon.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 18 Aug 10 - 06:44 PM

Well I told you this news a few days ago (see my post of 16 Aug 10 - 12:16 PM ) which Don Thompson dismissed (poor old soul, he means well).

Excellent news, Child benefit payments in the UK are a joke. There is no incentive for lazy young women to get off their bottom and find a job. Young single mothers or workshy couples are racking it in. Regarding the cuts in Winter Heating Allowance, this is again abuse of the benefits system. Everyone should make provision for their retirement and not depend on the state.

100 days in office and this government is showing it's teeth and I like it, I like it a lot.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 02:43 AM

I see you also failed to take advantage of the educational system, GG. Anyone who writes as well as you do should in a rational society be unemployable.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 04:14 AM

It's not about what you think Gentle Gaint, it's about Cameron and his lackey Clegg instantly reneging on their election promises in order to hammer the poor and worse off people in our society, as tory governments always do, this is fact, not rumour and urban myth like the ones you keep repeating like a mantra.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 04:15 AM

200

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 04:16 AM

It may be a hoary old saying but it is nonetheless true, society is judged by the way it treats its poorest members.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 04:32 AM

Many people work for the satisfaction it brings. Many people work to make ends meet. Many people do the sums and find that working doesn't pay or improve the quality of life for their families so they remain in the benefits system.

It is a disgrace that many people with full-time jobs are the ones below the poverty line.

Oh dear it looks like I upset old Hoff Petrocelli.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Lox
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 08:03 AM

I think the last posts reference to "hoff" is consistent with and confirms that limp dick no brain is our resident BNP troll.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 08:58 AM

Looks like a bust to me too!

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 09:41 AM

But surely this 60% are perfectly happy - they take up space for 6 people standing on buses with their croydon tanks containing babies), they change for the beach even before limbering up for their Easy Jet stampede, they have their own accent - curiously believing that anybody who speaks properly is "posh", at the very mention of Argentina they either say "where's that" or "what about the Falklands?", have never seen a bank statement in their lives, have regular Croydon Facelifts, have a wardrobe full of tracksuits and leggings, have an account with local tattoo artist............

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 09:49 AM

It puzzles me why bonzo/boko the clown doesn't just emigrate to Aregentina he loves it that much, they certainly know how to treat street orphans there don't they boko.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 10:05 AM

Yes they do, and 30 years ago they knew how to drop folks out of helicopters into the River Plate, but what the hell - they do the best steaks in the world.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: theleveller
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 11:15 AM

Actually, I sussed it out earlier when I read this thread - GG is just boko/bonzo by yet another name. The naivety, ignorance and entrenched stupidity give it away. I was just waiting for the "real" bonzobokogentlegiant, to pop up and here he is, right on cue :0

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 01:04 PM

"Actually, I sussed it out earlier when I read this thread - GG is just boko/bonzo by yet another name. The naivety, ignorance and entrenched stupidity give it away. I was just waiting for the "real" bonzobokogentlegiant, to pop up and here he is, right on cue :0"

Wrong I'm afraid.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: theleveller
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 03:28 PM

"Wrong I'm afraid."

Don't be afraid, bokogentlebonzogiant, it can be treated these days.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: MikeL2
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 10:21 AM

Hi

Just testing if I have managed to create a "blue clicky2 right for the first time.


http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/194306/Workers-should-get-tax-holiday-to-get-economy-moving

Hope so. This guy talks a lot of sense to me.

Cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 06:01 PM

Professor Blanchflower sounds like an idiot to me. Anyone who thinks the economy is going to improve by people spending more money is away with the fairies. And he's a Professor of Economics..

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 07:07 PM

Professor Blanchflower [.......] is credited as one of the few economists to have predicted the recession.

That's one of the funniest things I've read in a long time.. Good old Daily Express.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: BTNG
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 04:47 PM

The Daily Express has been printing rubbbish like this for yonks, trouble is the print comes off the paper and gets all over your hands...I really do hope there's nothing catching here.

Professor David Graham Blanchflower CBE has been off with the fairies for years.

BTNG

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Old Vermin
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 02:18 PM

BTNG - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Blanchflower presumably won't come as news to you. The man was chosen for the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee. Had the dismal distinction of seeing recession coming. Also takes a healthily sceptical view of the prospects for the UK housing market. Rightly in my view. Usually to be read in the Statesman.

There is a perfectly valid and respectable argument that if you want to create demand in the UK economy which is perhaps on the verge of dipping into recession again, you do not give tax or NI breaks to the more affluent but to the poorer.

Why? The poor will have spend it here and now and so drive the UK economy, not spend it so much abroad on imports or holidays or pay off debt or squirrel it away for a rainy day as the better-off will.

Why NI not tax - to specifically aim it at wage-earners rather than, say, pensioners? You may well ask.

Whether any sort of NI cut is viewed as feasible is the big question. One suspects not: indeed no bloody way.

Keynesian stimulus is great as long as you can borrow enough without frightening the lenders. Something called a multiplier. Crudely, you put money in and it keeps on going round except for chunks coming back to the Treasury.

Right, where's the Sheppy's?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 08:23 PM

Had the dismal distinction of seeing recession coming.

He needs to get out more..

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: MikeL2
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 05:13 AM

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: BTNG - PM
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 04:47 PM

Hi BTNG

Many thanks for your constructive arguments and comments on my post......!!!

At least it proved to me that finally I managed to create a blue clicky.

cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: MikeL2
Date: 25 Aug 10 - 12:04 PM

hi

I see the IFS has slammed Osborne's Budget as hitting the poor far more than anyone else.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE67O0ZY20100825

Of course this should not be a surprise to anyone who really thought about.

Of course Osborne and The Treasury dispute the findings. Using the excuse about getting people off benefits and into work is the fair way to approach the problem.

Strange because Osborne often cited the IFS when the Tories were in opposition !!

This may sound good ( vague) but nobody - including Clegg and his downcast clan - will tell us where these jobs are going to come from.

I don't know about putting the word "great" back into Great Britain - more like Great ( if you are rich) Britain.

cheers MikeL2

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 26 Aug 10 - 03:21 AM

It will only get worse for the poorer in society when ' Boy ' George Osborne completes his new tax plans,' levelling out the tax burden ' he said, this means the poor will pay more and the rich less, this is because the tories have always believed the rich pay too much tax.

It is always the same in any tory government, the worse off have to pay for it all.

Nick Clegg eh ! what a fucking joke.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Aug 10 - 11:41 AM

Hear hear!