See my previous responses to these points, made several weeks ago.

Well there's a lot more to it than a record of non-repayment. The lender wants some security that if the borrower defaults, they can get something back (ie its secured against an asset, ie their house or their business). If a borrower has neither a house nor a business they are a risk to a lender, whether they have a track record of repayment or not, because if the borrower defaults they can turn round and tell the lender to f off and it's very hard for the lender to actually get repayment. Yes they can use the legal system to slap a CCJ on the borrower and can harass them with phone calls, bailiff visits etc but to actually collect payment on a CCJ is expensive and often not worth it.

Before the crash lenders weren't as bothered about this as they had ways to sell the debt on and disguise how risky it was, so someone else would shoulder the risk, but now that's harder they have become more risk averse.

The consequence is young people are unlikely to get access to credit. Mortgage lenders are worried about giving a young person a mortgage to get a house and without property you won't get cheap credit.

People who need such small loans will, generally, be fairly poor to start with. So £60 interest is a not peanuts.

It's like the whole thing with people who are poor ending up paying more in ATM charges because they usually have to withdraw smaller amounts, possibly more frequently.



That's probably not much of an argument in their favour.

And inevitably those ATM's that charge, in my experience, are always the ONLY ones that can be found in what could be considered to be "poor" areas, mainly because they are kept inside premises rather than being on outside walls.

My office in Leeds is in what I consider a "poor" area, there are no external cash machines in this area and only the post office has an internal one that doesn't charge although the last time I used it it had changed to Bank of Ireland with a message that some cards would be charged for.

My office in Birmingham is also in what I consider a "poor" area (we can certainly pick them

), there are no external cash machines for miles and I have yet to find an internal cash point that does not charge - when you only want £10 then being charge 15% for the privilege of obtaining it is steep.

Indeed. We have a couple of external ones now locally (what with the revival of Broadway Market and there being a lot more quite trendy people visiting the area for lunch, a bit of shopping etc), but they all have charges too. The internal ones are in exactly the shops that have largely served the poorer people in our community for years – and they all charge.

Now the demographic is changing for a variety of reasons, but certainly, if you're poor in our area, you won't easily be able to access cash without paying for it. You'd have to travel at least a mile/mile and a half to reach a bank.

I'd reckon the supermarket chains offer the most widespread access to cash nowadays; most I know of have at least one cash machine (which doesn't charge) outside, and many will do a cashback of up to £50 at the till, again no charge.

Not saying £60 interest on £100 is peanuts and not defending in anyway the practise. Just saying that risk bring it's own rewards and penalties. As for the banks, I made this point to show that although they will not lend directly to high risk customers they will do it indirectly.

To be fair, it was always the case that young people would struggle to get finance. Credit scoring used to be based on 3 simple principles, stability of income, stability of abode and proof of being able to afford the re-payments. These are exactly the things that young people in general can't show.

When we bought our first home, you had to save with a building society for a minimum of 2 years before they would even consider you for a mortgage. If at any time in those 2 years you missed a week or two, there was a stewards enquiry. Remember being questioned by a very severe woman as to why we had a couple of blanks on our savings record and I said we'd been on holiday. I may as well have said I'd killed the queen. She said so if we grant you a mortgage and you decide to go and enjoy yourself in Wales or Cornwall does that mean you wont pay your bills???
Good job I didn't tell her we'd gone to Ibiza.

It's possible to enjoy yourself in Wales?

I think it was her ideal holiday destination, whilst self flagellating and taking cold baths.

Well mate, it appears the PM's back to work 'family champion' has had to bite the bullet and stand down. Stupid patronising fooking bitch!

Not that stupid, she managed to squirrel £8m of taxpayer's money up the leg of her drawers last year

But her company is being investigated for fraud.

Some very dodgy practises, such as hiring out her own home to her own company for events ...
Here's a thing: on a wider level, if you look back at the likes of Dickens and Hogarth (to name but two) there has always been corruption in the UK. But until the expenses scandal, there seemed to be a generalised sense that corruption was what 'they' did.

Was there some (brief) halcyon time when there wasn't any corruption (or much) or is it really all just a myth?

Given some of what has been discussed here, [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17153544payday lenders to be investigated by OFT[/url.

[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17113209What Nick Clegg really thinks of the young unemployed[/url

30 seconds in: "every 18-24 year old c*nt"

He really does say that!

Oh dear!

Clegg's playing the game that we used to when I was doing my student job, one of us would pick a word, and you had to fit it in when talking to the next customer that asked you a question, usually it was "c-t" or "pussy" or "gash" or some other euphemism, and if you put it in the sentence deadpan like Clegg did there and don't react, the person you're talking to doesn't register.

Rather than ponder over whether Clegg did or didn't use the c-word intentionally or otherwise (not in my opinion) I think we are all missing the major point which is wrapped up in the current youth unemployment debate/new initiative, and that is the presentation of the nations 16 to 24 years olds as being idle scroungers who just sit around all day watching TV.

In the same way that the disabled do, idle scroungers sitting around watching TV all day, etc, etc...

The truth is of course that there are very few job opportunities for school leavers of any age or qualification and the window of opportunity to be taken on by an employer and not cast adrift on a scrapheap of unemployability is very narrow, I consider my two 18-24 year olds to be very lucky to be in full time work but I am not so quick to condemn all young people as being unemployable, lazy scroungers, just kids in the wrong place in the wrong era.

I did think something similar at the time, but I was too busy sing about him dropping the c-bomb to make any serious comment.

+28.000. Call me and Gideons private sector job creation policies seem to be going well.

"its a price worth paying" (again)

It's only really hitting part-time women workers badly – and we all know it's just pin money for them ...

Just as Labour told the Tories it would.

If you want to talk about economic gloom - did anyone see Newsnight last night?