And along with that need to not have to worry about your own job comes a vilification of those who are not quite so fortunate and who must inevitably now be milking the system for all its worth.

Why does a drive to "get people off benefits and into work" always seem to coincide with rising unemployment?

It's unfair to say that Tories are unconcerned with unemployment.

They made it a centrepiece of their election campaigns in 1979 and 2010. In Opposition they can always be relied upon to bring up unemployment.

And in government they can always be relied upon to drive up unemployment

It doesn't always - in the late 1990s the drive was for "a hand up not a hand out" and the drive focused on ending the Tories poverty trap, by introducing a minimum wage and working families tax credit to make work pay, unemployment fell.

Spot on. The reason is, of course, that too many of those whose day to day job it is to say yea or nay will pick off the targets of least resistance, leaving alone the professional claimants, the aggressive, the nasty and the abusive. It isn't a trait restricted to benefits agency workers, and their pay may be so low and the job so depressing that the aggro of declining a violent and loud asshole may be a game not worth the candle.

It's a trait often mirrored in modern society. Not that people should be excused from speeding, or parking illegally, but it is always the ones who have registered their cars at DVLA and so can be traced that are the soft target. Whereas the millions who drive illegally, unregistered, uninsured and untaxed and cannot be traced go largely unmolested.


Largely agreed. But it is a while since Thatcher was in charge, and while in the immediate past we have had the Cleggerons foisted upon us, the last lot had no appetite for this either.

In fact the only major noticeable trends which they seem to be getting better at each year are (a) the art of spin, to be spun relentlessly sometimes at teh total expense of actually doing anything; and (b) the quite recent realisation that in fact, if you brazen it out, and let the fuss die down, you can ride out the worst of your excesses, or maybe at worst take a 6 month sabbatical before getting a double pay job back. (New Labour of course became the masters of that).

Britain is now but one (relatively small) element of a larger global economy. I agree that there was a time when the PM & Chancellor wielded tremendous influence over the employment sector (before the sixties) but with half the GDP of America cycled through the global market daily and the powers of politicians such as Osborne increasingly denuded by supra-national (as well as - to all intents and purposes - unaccountable) authorities such as the WTO, IMF, World Bank etc. grand notions of political and economic self-determinism are completely delusional.

Today's Prime Ministers, Presidents and Chancellors are not much more than political executives (managers, even) for a growing business class which claims no allegiance to any flag unless it is expedient to do so and is effectively beyond the reach of (national) justice.

At best Osborne can only hope to tinker with the economy in some modest, non-threatening way. Which will achieve precisely nothing. What we need is radical reform, starting first with shutting the doors to arguably the biggest tax haven in the world - Britain.

But Osborne couldn't even dream about such without being threatened with massive, catastrophic capital flight which would flatline this country. Nope, he's along for the ride like the rest of us. The only difference is he's now set for life whilst the rest of us are sinking deeper and deeper into the mire.

Anyone who had a hand in inventing the 99 ice cream is alright in my book.

"Inventing" ?

Aye, lad. The inventor was one Stephen Arcari.

Who invented the 69?

You and Mrs D only do the missionary, and nothing involving orifices not 'designed' for it, so not you, obviously.

Maybe his son invented it with Raul the pool boy?

Nah... it was Dally's son, David and daughter.

Titan and Titania (queen of the faeries)?

Now I think of it, the Titanic went down, didn't it?

I fear the boards surely can't keep up the standard of the first few days of 2012 but that's 3 times I have nearly wet myself reading a post just today

They say an elephant never forgets!

'fraid we do not have a Titania. Titan moved in with his partner at the weekend.

I hope the two lads will be very happy together

Living in sin? The World's moral compass is going to Hell in a hand cart.

As we say in Yorkshire ... "Livvin' o'er t'brush".

Yes, being from the east I hadn't heard of that until I had the good fortune to move west. I've been at it for eighteen years now, couldn't bare to lose the title.

When we visited tb's parents in South Africa for the first time, his father took great pleasure in shocking assorted people we were having to meet by introducing me as his "common law daughter in law".

It's amazing what we still take from pagan times.
Jumping over the broom (or brush) is still practised in many humanist wedding ceremonies.