Osborne has stated that there will be no tax rises if the Tories win the next election and that the procted large shortfall that commentaors have said would need plugging from tax will be met by further reductions in spending, with welfare being considered an area that could take a bigger hit.

I suspect Ed will now announce that Labour would match Tory pledges if elected.

Welfare gets it in the neck again. Just how does that clown expect people to live ? Maybe he should consider stopping overseas aid instead ?

We have a subsidiary business that deals solely with construction industry subbies (their returns are pretty straightforward usually, even if the clents themselves aren't always!)

That's their going rate for a tax return.

Because the theory goes that everyone who is out of work is a malingerer and they are drawing billions in "unearned" income by sitting on their backsides doing nothing all day. The theory further states that the best way to get these people back to work is to starve them back to work, not in so many words, but basically the over-riding principle is that no-one should receive any money if they are not in work.

So far they seem to be carrying the general population with them thanks to a compliant (mainly printed) media doing all of the propaganda work on their behalf and probably at their bidding.

The fact that the unemployed figures contain people who are unable to work due to disability is also being re-written by the callous principle of simply sticking fingers in ears and repeating the mantra "You are fit to work regardless of what your medics say as they can't be trusted any more", the additional fact that the vast majority of benefits are paid to those IN work in order to bring them up to the "living wage" standard is simply brushed under the rug as you can't vilify those people in quite the same way if they are already doing what you recommend and proving that it still doesn't work.

Osborne said he'd eliminate the deficit in one parliamentary term by cutting spending.
But he didn't, nowhere near.
Why believe more of the same?

Because it suits his ideological aims?

I meant why should anyone believe him the second time?

They won't necessarily. But what's the alternative? A party lead by Clegg who signed the pledge not to increase tuition fees and within an indecently short period decided it was a good thing to treble them? Or maybe Ed Miliband, who owes his position and the very existence of his party to the Trades Unions but wants to have nothing to do with them? Could you trust either of those parties? No sane person could trust them. But at least in Osborne's case you are pretty sure his party would wish to destroy the welfare state (including the NHS, which is already being mentioned in the press as possibly losing its ring-fencing after the election and has suffered a great deal of negative publicity under the current idiot (IMO) of a minister, and previous idiot (IMO) of a minister, who has responsibility for it).

And that's all before you start looking at how much of "welfare" spending goes on current pensioners - the attacking of which would be electoral suicide for a party dependent on the blue rinse brigade.

[url=http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/07/15/iain-duncan-smith-benefit-cap_n_3596984.html?1373875598&utm_hp_ref=ukIDS, school bully of the year, doing what he does best[/url

None of which really matters because as IDS so elegantly points out, he doesn't have to prove anything that he utters to anyone because if you can't disprove it then he is right by default, and to think, he could easily have been PM, this is probably the only time we can all say "Thank god for Cameron".

Just when you think you cannot be shocked much more ...

I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me just how being even more unfair on benefit recipients can be seen as being fair to workers

IDS is fortunate enough to live rent-free in a very large country house owned by his father-in-law, the 5th Baron Cottesloe.
It has a swimming pool, tennis courts and a large number of bedrooms upon which he pays no bedroom tax at all.
It's very easy for him to say that he could live on the benefits level that he dictates for others, largely because he knows he will never have to.

A swift glance at his wikipedia entry (e.g. the lies in his CV about his education and the salary paid to his wife out of the public purse) tells you what a nasty, dissembling, grasping piece of work he is.

I would contend its worse than you make out. The problem isn't that you can't disprove whatever it is, it is even if you [ican[/i disprove it his response is simply to say he [ibelieves[/i otherwise! His gut feeling trumps all else.

So in the face of evidence to the contrary he switches into Victor Meldrew mode "I don't believe it."

The man is an arrogant prig!

You are right and we can all look out for those words "I believe" in all of his statements from now on, not that a Minister should be simply expressing an opinion not based on factual evidence or anything, or indeed refusing to acknowledge that an official government statistical body has refuted his "belief".

If you read the comments below the story in that link I made there is one reply that makes the point quite eloquently

One other point in the comments section of that report is the dodgy claim that 8000 people have moved into jobs rather than face the £500 a week benefit cap - they make a very valid point that to cover that sort of earning in a paid job you'd have to be on a salary of £36k at least, and as we all know those sorts of jobs are two a penny and you can just get up off your sofa having sat there on benefits for the last ten years and simply ask for one of those jobs for it to be so.

As pointed out, the number of claimants entitled to £500 a week is miniscule to the point where in the limited trials that IDS is speaking of there will not have been 8000 people claiming that amount.

The bloke is an idiot but is convinced that he is the most intelligent man in the country and that we are all the stupid ones, in future editions of the Oxford English Dictionary the word "Arrogant" will simply have "Ian Duncan Smith" as its definition.

And erm,

[url=http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/07/15/tory-mps-teenage-mums_n_3597557.html?utm_hp_ref=ukPut teenage mums in hostels to stop them considering benefits claims[/url

And don't forget folks, this is from a select committee of MODERATE Tory politicians, the sole purpose of that committee being to present a more voter friendly face of the party in order to hang on to closely contested seats at the next election, said committee being formed by Members who were getting twitchy bums by their far right colleagues in safe seats hogging the limelight.

So what do they offer in a conciliatory vote-winning swing the voters over to our side sort of manner ?

Stick all the pregnant teenagers who only get up the duff so that they can get a free house and £500 a week to live on, you know, those scroungers again, stick them all in hostels so they will think twice and not claim OUR TAXPAYERS MONEY.

They are of course getting the Daily Express readers to write the next manifesto.

Excellent to see some fairness in the welfare state after so long. Not only that but encouraging people into work.

You're not very good at this trolling lark, give it up while you're still a fair way behind.

How am I trolling by praising a measure which 70% of the public support?

You haven't even read the last page have you, in your haste to post one of your stock phrases you don't even know what the topic is anymore or that no poll exists to support IDS's idiocy or the latest missive from the 40Group.

Your problem is that your trolling account is threadbare now, everyone knows what you are about, we all know that you post comments purely to get a reaction in some cheap thrill for recognition, and we are all too aware that you contribute nothing to any debate at all.

You need to consider dumping that user account and re-register as something else.

Never mind his/her rather obvious unwillingness to answer direct questions.

Either a very obvious troll or someone whose ability to think for themselves was removed by surgery some time ago.

No I post my opinions. Don't like them, don't read them or respond.

Thats the problem - you don't post your opinions.

I'd love to discuss some of the finer points of political strategy with you, so would others, but you don't offer anything to any debate and never have, you're like the kid who pokes a stick in a wasps nest and then runs away without explaining why or wondering what the wasps look like in real life.

Go away and think of another new user name and persona because this one is too obvious now.

I just did - I said it is excellent to see fairness in the welfare state - that is an opinion. Incidentally an opinion shared by the vast majority of the population. Just because you don't like it does not mean it is not an opinion.




No.