Wednesday 7th June 2017

[HindleA]

Tarquinpolls according to actual votes cast has

Labour 100%

All other (obviously) zilch

If replicated .....

[ephemerid]

Good evening.

I would like to try to clear up any confusion about how Labour intends to help the poorest.

The Under Occupation Penalty will be abolished. For half a million people, that means an increase in weekly disposable income of at least £12.

Benefit sanctions based on jobsearch or workfare transgressions will be abolished. For more than half a million people annually, that means receiving their full benefit entitlement for the claim period; DWP insists that only a small percentage of the claimant population have a sanction, but neglect to mention that percentage is calculated weekly. Currently, 500,000 have benefit stopped for a minimum of 4 weeks (sometimes more than once) up to a maximum of 156 weeks - that's JSA, ESA, and IS claimants. UC claimants can be sanctioned while working and as yet we don't have figures for them. However, a lot of people will actually receive the benefits they claim which they're not getting now.

The WCA and the PIP assessments will stop in their current form. People will not be constantly re-assessed. ESA claimants allocated to the WRAG will keep the £30 a week that the Tories have cut. Both ESA and PIP will be reformed, and it's possible that the groupings and rates will change.

The built-in delay for Universal Credit, and the cuts to the Work Allowance, will stop. UC will be reviewed and changes made as necessary.

The triple lock on pensions will stay; so will the Winter Fuel Allowance; and a scheme of compensation for WASPI women will be drafted.
Anyone below pension age who lives with a pensioner will benefit from this; the Tories' pensioner bedroom tax will not go ahead.

There are plenty of good ideas and details in the Labour manifesto for disabled people.

Carers Allowance rates will be brought into line with basic rate JSA/ESA.

There is no question that a substantial number of very poor people will be better off from day one of a Labour government on the changes in the manifesto alone. It will take time to reform a system that has become so complicated, and I applaud Labour's efforts.

It is wrong to say that Labour will do nothing for the poorest. In work or out, poor people will be better off. I daresay more will be done in time.

A tenner here, housing benefit that's enough to actually pay the rent, getting to keep thirty quid that was going to be taken away, having a sanction lifted and no fear of another one, knowing that for the first time in years the social security system might actually believe your clinicians when they say you're sick - it may not seem like much to a certain "left-winger" here, but for people who get by on a pittance or nothing, who have spent the past seven years living in constant fear, believe me it is a massive deal.

Thank you.

I hope you enjoy the rest of this election, and may the left party win.

[HindleA]

Well said Eph,indeed the best way is to restore timely support,fairly and restore genuine reciprocity,rather than spunk vast amounts in attempts to deny so Edwina can wet her pants on a tattoo sighting at a foodbank.

[SpinningHugo]

Good evening.

I would like to try to clear up any confusion about how Labour intends to help the poorest.

The Under Occupation Penalty will be abolished. For half a million people, that means an increase in weekly disposable income of at least £12.

Benefit sanctions based on jobsearch or workfare transgressions will be abolished. For more than half a million people annually, that means receiving their full benefit entitlement for the claim period; DWP insists that only a small percentage of the claimant population have a sanction, but neglect to mention that percentage is calculated weekly. Currently, 500,000 have benefit stopped for a minimum of 4 weeks (sometimes more than once) up to a maximum of 156 weeks - that's JSA, ESA, and IS claimants. UC claimants can be sanctioned while working and as yet we don't have figures for them. However, a lot of people will actually receive the benefits they claim which they're not getting now.

The WCA and the PIP assessments will stop in their current form. People will not be constantly re-assessed. ESA claimants allocated to the WRAG will keep the £30 a week that the Tories have cut. Both ESA and PIP will be reformed, and it's possible that the groupings and rates will change.

The built-in delay for Universal Credit, and the cuts to the Work Allowance, will stop. UC will be reviewed and changes made as necessary.

The triple lock on pensions will stay; so will the Winter Fuel Allowance; and a scheme of compensation for WASPI women will be drafted.
Anyone below pension age who lives with a pensioner will benefit from this; the Tories' pensioner bedroom tax will not go ahead.

There are plenty of good ideas and details in the Labour manifesto for disabled people.

Carers Allowance rates will be brought into line with basic rate JSA/ESA.

There is no question that a substantial number of very poor people will be better off from day one of a Labour government on the changes in the manifesto alone. It will take time to reform a system that has become so complicated, and I applaud Labour's efforts.

It is wrong to say that Labour will do nothing for the poorest. In work or out, poor people will be better off. I daresay more will be done in time.

A tenner here, housing benefit that's enough to actually pay the rent, getting to keep thirty quid that was going to be taken away, having a sanction lifted and no fear of another one, knowing that for the first time in years the social security system might actually believe your clinicians when they say you're sick - it may not seem like much to a certain "left-winger" here, but for people who get by on a pittance or nothing, who have spent the past seven years living in constant fear, believe me it is a massive deal.

Thank you.

I hope you enjoy the rest of this election, and may the left party win.

Look at the IFS for the overall distributional impact. "Group X are better off" is a Tory trick. Winners for sure, but not only. If you believe the manifestos are credible (I don't) the lib Dems and Greens would help the poorest far far more.

The opportunity cost of that £12bn would be huge.


https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/9257" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[SpinningHugo]

The IFS graph is here.

There is hardly any difference in Tory and Labour for those at the bottom

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We'll just have to assume the manifesto is untrue.

[SpinningHugo]

I think this is true

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... a-tax-tory" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Tories have no sentiment, unlike Labour.

[HindleA]

SH what is the IFS remit,what is missing from their analysis?

[SpinningHugo]

SH what is the IFS remit,what is missing from their analysis?

I don't follow you.

They've taken the tax/spend proposals in the manifestos,and map their overall distributional impact. Labour makes little difference for the worse off.

But, much like you, I don't really believe the manifestos. Theyre mood.

[refitman]

SH what is the IFS remit,what is missing from their analysis?

I don't follow you.

They've taken the tax/spend proposals in the manifestos,and map their overall distributional impact. Labour makes little difference for the worse off.

But, much like you, I don't really believe the manifestos. Theyre mood.

See gilsey's comment from the Bank Holiday weekend:

Assessing the manifestos - the IFS fails the test
http://www.primeeconomics.org/articles/ ... s-the-test" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
A rather more strongly worded critique.

The IFS credibility for sober analysis suffered an own-goal on 26 May during its non-rigorous and biased assessment of the party manifestos. A defender might argue that criticism of both the Conservative and Labour made the event “even-handed”. However, the central message was that expenditure exceeding revenue is irresponsible, an ideological position that parrots the propaganda of the Conservative Party.

[ephemerid]

Hugo.

Don't be a prat all your life. You can take a day off.

What I am talking about is not bloody sodding distributional analysis. I am talking about lived experience - including mine.

What Labour will do is take some of the fear and shame of being a claimant away by simply doing what I outlined above.

Someone whose child dies will not have to worry about finding extra cash to pay the bedroom tax; someone who knows they will never get better from an illness that is slowly killing them will not live in constant fear of being forced into workfare; someone doing the best they can to find a job that pays enough to feed their family will not leave the jobcentre knowing they will get no support for a month or more and suffer the shame of being unable to provide for their children; someone whose job depends on a mobility payment won't have to give it up because their vehicle has been taken away; someone who is known to be dying will not have to undergo re-assessment every six months, scared shitless that their ability to pick up a pound coin will disqualify them from support; someone whose attempts to kill themselves won't be interrogated in intrusive detail.....

I could go on. But anything I say on this, anything that illustrates the sheer inhumanity of what has been done to people like me wouldn't interest you - it's all about graphs and economics and never ever about what is actually happening in this shitty little country thanks to the Tories.

Pretend to be Green. Insist you are left wing. Patronise to your shrunken little heart's content - Labour's manifesto pledges will make my life, and that of millions of others, much better.

An extra tenner a week makes an immense difference for people who have so little. It means not having to ask the social worker (again) for a food bank voucher. Having the security of knowing that, for the first time in years, the government in on your side, will make a massive difference.

So you can stick your distributional analysis where the sun don't shine, and I hope it pleases you to have pissed someone off again today.
No wonder some of us left.

[GetYou]

Thank you all for your entertaining and informative posts during the campaign.

I'm not optimistic about tomorrow at all, despite the worst Tory campaign since "Are you thinking what we're thinking", which is why I'm going to avoid most of the stress by working on the election on the day.
I think Jeremy Corbyn has done a reasonable job over the last few weeks, and shown May to be the political lightweight that I always thought she was. It reflects badly on the population of this country that they are once again going to be persuaded by selfish arseholes to vote against their best interests.

Hey ho. Maybe someday, eh?

[SpinningHugo]

Hugo.

Don't be a prat all your life. You can take a day off.

What I am talking about is not bloody sodding distributional analysis. I am talking about lived experience - including mine.

What Labour will do is take some of the fear and shame of being a claimant away by simply doing what I outlined above.

Someone whose child dies will not have to worry about finding extra cash to pay the bedroom tax; someone who knows they will never get better from an illness that is slowly killing them will not live in constant fear of being forced into workfare; someone doing the best they can to find a job that pays enough to feed their family will not leave the jobcentre knowing they will get no support for a month or more and suffer the shame of being unable to provide for their children; someone whose job depends on a mobility payment won't have to give it up because their vehicle has been taken away; someone who is known to be dying will not have to undergo re-assessment every six months, scared shitless that their ability to pick up a pound coin will disqualify them from support; someone whose attempts to kill themselves won't be interrogated in intrusive detail.....

I could go on. But anything I say on this, anything that illustrates the sheer inhumanity of what has been done to people like me wouldn't interest you - it's all about graphs and economics and never ever about what is actually happening in this shitty little country thanks to the Tories.

Pretend to be Green. Insist you are left wing. Patronise to your shrunken little heart's content - Labour's manifesto pledges will make my life, and that of millions of others, much better.

An extra tenner a week makes an immense difference for people who have so little. It means not having to ask the social worker (again) for a food bank voucher. Having the security of knowing that, for the first time in years, the government in on your side, will make a massive difference.

So you can stick your distributional analysis where the sun don't shine, and I hope it pleases you to have pissed someone off again today.
No wonder some of us left.

Again, all that is fine. I think the best way for you to try and grasp my point is that the IFS are looking at the *overall* distribution of what is being proposed in tax and spend terms.

Yrs, you can select some groups in the bottom 10 percent who'll be better off. Someone supporting the Tories could do the same as well. It seems the overall distributional impact that mattes. The big ticket expenditure commitments (uni fees and early years places) benefit the better off disproportionately.

So, unless you've got some data showing me where the IFS are going wrong, your just not on point at all.

But, like others, I don't really think the Labour manifesto is all that serious, so it probably doesn't matter.

(I've casted my vote for the Greens already. As I say, the anti Brexit parties are about to be humiliated, which is a great shame.)


As for why you left, I think some see politics as like sport. You like to support a team, and hate any dissent however politely expressed. I think Rusty is a fool, but it is sad that some prefer what he mockingly called an echo chamber.

You'll have lots of chance to mock me tomorrow as the kind of politics I support is going to be humiliated. Brexit here we come.

[Temulkar]

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.

[PorFavor]

Night night.

[HindleA]

Labour didn't mention reversal of replacement of any possible housing support for homeowners by interest bearing loan plus charges plus eligibility removed on one penny income from work,do I (a)assume they wouldn't or (b)make the assumption that previous intentions/attempts in amendments to and no evidence to the contrary(being a follower of such things) that part of looking at UC and holistic approach to disability/illness would come under that rubric and be as sure as I could be,they would.

Is this important in the big scale of things,given the not many "insignificant" numbers and electron microscopic necessity to see effect on "the poor".More so,I humbly suggest.

[HindleA]

Please don't categorise Rusty as a fool.There are far more apt descriptions of people who knowingly bait,demean and encourage others to the sick/disabled he is fully aware,are,for self aggrandisement.

[HindleA]

And an obsession over Roger.

[HindleA]

I cut out the middle person and mock myself,admittedly not hard to do.

[HindleA]

Social SECURITY ie.knowledge that the vagaries of life are adequately accounted for.

[HindleA]

You're talking to yourself again.
I know,and in some danger of agreeing with myself
What happens then ?
I don't know it has never happened before

[NonOxCol]

Lord Sugar is tweeting the Sun front page and saying "says it all, you cannot vote for this man" (Jeremy Cor-bin, oops my sides have fucking split you soulless cunts).

For the record, I always thought Lord Sugar was an irredeemable bellend, even when he sat on the Labour benches.

[HindleA]

To be fair,it is valid to point out non mentioned things,not least the benefit cap /uprating in the Labour Manifesto.

[55DegreesNorth]

Lord Sugar is tweeting the Sun front page and saying "says it all, you cannot vote for this man" (Jeremy Cor-bin, oops my sides have fucking split you soulless cunts).

For the record, I always thought Lord Sugar was an irredeemable bellend, even when he sat on the Labour benches.

He is. I was trying to buy an inner tube in a bike shop in Marbella a few years ago and he was in front of me. Not buying stuff, just telling the staff how the shop should be run, why it was crap, what he would have done if he was in charge. He is a twat, and any Labour gestures are just posturing. Much like one of our barnacles.

[SpinningHugo]

SH what is the IFS remit,what is missing from their analysis?

I don't follow you.

They've taken the tax/spend proposals in the manifestos,and map their overall distributional impact. Labour makes little difference for the worse off.

But, much like you, I don't really believe the manifestos. Theyre mood.

See gilsey's comment from the Bank Holiday weekend:

Assessing the manifestos - the IFS fails the test
http://www.primeeconomics.org/articles/ ... s-the-test" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
A rather more strongly worded critique.

The IFS credibility for sober analysis suffered an own-goal on 26 May during its non-rigorous and biased assessment of the party manifestos. A defender might argue that criticism of both the Conservative and Labour made the event “even-handed”. However, the central message was that expenditure exceeding revenue is irresponsible, an ideological position that parrots the propaganda of the Conservative Party.

That is nothing to do with the distributional impact, it is about growth.

[adam]

If I can offer the most miserable and tarnished of silver linings, the worst that can happen is that they were going to have three more years to do whatever the fuck they wanted and now they're going to have five.

[HindleA]

Two of us have now explained,I could go further and state categorically in personal terms,how indeed under the Tories,should the same circumstances that occurred in 2003,happen now we would indeed have received more income from the State and how that "is not necessarilly a good thing".

[adam]

Good story lurking down the guardian homepage

Kansas abandons massive tax cuts that provided model for Trump's plan

Kansas has rejected the years-long tax-cutting experiment that brought its governor, Sam Brownback, to international attention and provided a model for the Trump administration’s troubled tax plans.

In a warning shot to the Trump administration, even Brownback’s fellow Republicans voted to override his veto of a bill to reverse many of the tax cuts he championed as a way to spur entrepreneurs and the economy, but which have left the state with a $1bn hole in its budget.

Better still...

The governor was advised by Arthur Laffer, the economist who inspired Ronald Reagan’s “trickle-down” economic theory.

[HindleA]

FINAL CALL #GE2017 CON 41.3 LAB 40.4 LD 7.8 UKIP 2.4 SNP 3.6 PC 1.7 GRE 2.3 OTH 0.5 SAMPLE SIZE 2798 F/W 6-7TH JUNE


Survation.

[RogerOThornhill]

FINAL CALL #GE2017 CON 41.3 LAB 40.4 LD 7.8 UKIP 2.4 SNP 3.6 PC 1.7 GRE 2.3 OTH 0.5 SAMPLE SIZE 2798 F/W 6-7TH JUNE


Survation.

Informed comment seems to think that's an outlier...

Evening all - been a little busy today, and spending 8 hours in a library where the wifi is utter shite didn't help - even trying to look maps up to help my research was like being back on dial-up again.

Tories really don't deserve to win having spent the entire election shrieking "But Jeremy Corbyn!!!" (or hiding the Dear Leader away) and saying hardly anything about what they plan to do but they almost certainly will win by a distance.

[HindleA]

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/ju ... f-employed" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Universal credit is being used as a hit on the self-employed

[HindleA]

"The reason is because of the way UC has been implemented. If her partner has good earnings in one month, their universal credit is reviewed and the award reduced for the following month. If in that month her partner had a low income, then any rebalancing won’t take place for another month. The fluctuation in income has resulted in her family being pushed to use foodbanks when they can no longer make ends meet. Something she had never expected to happen to her and her children."


If SH is genuine and of good faith,he would have "got it" by now.

[HindleA]

Further,we were never at the bottom,however it doesn't tell you much,the sick/disabled have extra costs ie.it isn't just income but also necessary outlay so a graph/chart in such circumstances is about as relevant as a stick of Blackpool Rock.I am now in broadly the same area but have zero housing costs,no extra costs ie better off but" the same."

[tinybgoat]

http://metro.co.uk/2017/06/07/theres-a- ... n-6692180/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

#ShowYourRumpToTrump

[HindleA]

9% at the moment against the idea.

[HindleA]

Suspect one of them being from the person making the comment.

[seeingclearly]

According to Politics Live, Guardian, Theresa May is being interviewed at 7pm (Jon Snow, Channel 4). Jeremy Corbyn (who would have been interviewed on Channel 4 by Krishnan Guru-Murthy) is not going to appear. Not sure that's wise. Still time to change his mind, I suppose?

ITV covered Corbyns final campaign speech in Islington where the battle bus had a hard time getting through the crowds. Corbyn had I belive done 4 other events, the Islington one was the 5th. It was not boring and not weak.

[seeingclearly]

Hugo.

Don't be a prat all your life. You can take a day off.

What I am talking about is not bloody sodding distributional analysis. I am talking about lived experience - including mine.

What Labour will do is take some of the fear and shame of being a claimant away by simply doing what I outlined above.

Someone whose child dies will not have to worry about finding extra cash to pay the bedroom tax; someone who knows they will never get better from an illness that is slowly killing them will not live in constant fear of being forced into workfare; someone doing the best they can to find a job that pays enough to feed their family will not leave the jobcentre knowing they will get no support for a month or more and suffer the shame of being unable to provide for their children; someone whose job depends on a mobility payment won't have to give it up because their vehicle has been taken away; someone who is known to be dying will not have to undergo re-assessment every six months, scared shitless that their ability to pick up a pound coin will disqualify them from support; someone whose attempts to kill themselves won't be interrogated in intrusive detail.....

I could go on. But anything I say on this, anything that illustrates the sheer inhumanity of what has been done to people like me wouldn't interest you - it's all about graphs and economics and never ever about what is actually happening in this shitty little country thanks to the Tories.

Pretend to be Green. Insist you are left wing. Patronise to your shrunken little heart's content - Labour's manifesto pledges will make my life, and that of millions of others, much better.

An extra tenner a week makes an immense difference for people who have so little. It means not having to ask the social worker (again) for a food bank voucher. Having the security of knowing that, for the first time in years, the government in on your side, will make a massive difference.

So you can stick your distributional analysis where the sun don't shine, and I hope it pleases you to have pissed someone off again today.
No wonder some of us left.

Again, all that is fine. I think the best way for you to try and grasp my point is that the IFS are looking at the *overall* distribution of what is being proposed in tax and spend terms.

Yrs, you can select some groups in the bottom 10 percent who'll be better off. Someone supporting the Tories could do the same as well. It seems the overall distributional impact that mattes. The big ticket expenditure commitments (uni fees and early years places) benefit the better off disproportionately.

So, unless you've got some data showing me where the IFS are going wrong, your just not on point at all.

But, like others, I don't really think the Labour manifesto is all that serious, so it probably doesn't matter.

(I've casted my vote for the Greens already. As I say, the anti Brexit parties are about to be humiliated, which is a great shame.)


As for why you left, I think some see politics as like sport. You like to support a team, and hate any dissent however politely expressed. I think Rusty is a fool, but it is sad that some prefer what he mockingly called an echo chamber.

You'll have lots of chance to mock me tomorrow as the kind of politics I support is going to be humiliated. Brexit here we come.

You haven't a clue have you? It isn't only the lower 10% at all. And as Ephie just demonstrated it isn't just the money, it really is the cumulative impact many of us already saw BEFORE the heinous legislative changes ever came into force. The attrition of everything supportive. For younger people too, not just the elderly and very infirm, but those in middle years, those in early adulthood and children too. You must live in some kind of bubble not to be able to see this, or maybe have another agenda altogether. You know if you already have a severe mental health issue for instance, your income gets reduced, you get moved off the group you should be in, then the payment to that group is removed, so you cannot put wnough in the meter to heat and lught your home, and then you also lose the exemption from council tax, and then as life becomes more stressful there is no advice centre to go to. Your symptoms start returning, because after all the support was there in the first place because you needed stability. You try to get help from your community psychiatric nurse, but she has disappeared like a puff of smoke and your psychiatrist has just returned to his home country, and no one has bothered to let his patients know, because his secretary has gone too and no one is in charge of the lists. Then you are put into some bogus reablement scheme that is ANOTHER excuse to get you to write a CV for a job that doesn't exist and you wouldn't get anyway, because basically it is a get rich quick scheme for some bloody tory, by now you are in arrears with everything, cannot claim any help, have no legal access to anything, and your PIP reassessment forms drop onto your doormat again. You are rapidly becoming very unstable indeed, and your condition worsens. I will let you imagine what the next steps are, if indeed you have any kind of imagination. This kind of **** is happening to thousands of people who are rolling off and on this inhumane conveyor belt and you are pontificating. And gloating because you may in your utterly miguided way just perhaps be right. Or maybe not. But one thing I know is that your views are part of the problem, the whole fucking naysaying selfish crowing inability to connect in any way with the suffering of thousands upon thousands of people, preferring instead to reduce them to statistics.

[SpinningHugo]

Hugo.

Don't be a prat all your life. You can take a day off.

What I am talking about is not bloody sodding distributional analysis. I am talking about lived experience - including mine.

What Labour will do is take some of the fear and shame of being a claimant away by simply doing what I outlined above.

Someone whose child dies will not have to worry about finding extra cash to pay the bedroom tax; someone who knows they will never get better from an illness that is slowly killing them will not live in constant fear of being forced into workfare; someone doing the best they can to find a job that pays enough to feed their family will not leave the jobcentre knowing they will get no support for a month or more and suffer the shame of being unable to provide for their children; someone whose job depends on a mobility payment won't have to give it up because their vehicle has been taken away; someone who is known to be dying will not have to undergo re-assessment every six months, scared shitless that their ability to pick up a pound coin will disqualify them from support; someone whose attempts to kill themselves won't be interrogated in intrusive detail.....

I could go on. But anything I say on this, anything that illustrates the sheer inhumanity of what has been done to people like me wouldn't interest you - it's all about graphs and economics and never ever about what is actually happening in this shitty little country thanks to the Tories.

Pretend to be Green. Insist you are left wing. Patronise to your shrunken little heart's content - Labour's manifesto pledges will make my life, and that of millions of others, much better.

An extra tenner a week makes an immense difference for people who have so little. It means not having to ask the social worker (again) for a food bank voucher. Having the security of knowing that, for the first time in years, the government in on your side, will make a massive difference.

So you can stick your distributional analysis where the sun don't shine, and I hope it pleases you to have pissed someone off again today.
No wonder some of us left.

Again, all that is fine. I think the best way for you to try and grasp my point is that the IFS are looking at the *overall* distribution of what is being proposed in tax and spend terms.

Yrs, you can select some groups in the bottom 10 percent who'll be better off. Someone supporting the Tories could do the same as well. It seems the overall distributional impact that mattes. The big ticket expenditure commitments (uni fees and early years places) benefit the better off disproportionately.

So, unless you've got some data showing me where the IFS are going wrong, your just not on point at all.

But, like others, I don't really think the Labour manifesto is all that serious, so it probably doesn't matter.

(I've casted my vote for the Greens already. As I say, the anti Brexit parties are about to be humiliated, which is a great shame.)


As for why you left, I think some see politics as like sport. You like to support a team, and hate any dissent however politely expressed. I think Rusty is a fool, but it is sad that some prefer what he mockingly called an echo chamber.

You'll have lots of chance to mock me tomorrow as the kind of politics I support is going to be humiliated. Brexit here we come.

You haven't a clue have you? It isn't only the lower 10% at all. And as Ephie just demonstrated it isn't just the money, it really is the cumulative impact many of us already saw BEFORE the heinous legislative changes ever came into force. The attrition of everything supportive. For younger people too, not just the elderly and very infirm, but those in middle years, those in early adulthood and children too. You must live in some kind of bubble not to be able to see this, or maybe have another agenda altogether. You know if you already have a severe mental health issue for instance, your income gets reduced, you get moved off the group you should be in, then the payment to that group is removed, so you cannot put wnough in the meter to heat and lught your home, and then you also lose the exemption from council tax, and then as life becomes more stressful there is no advice centre to go to. Your symptoms start returning, because after all the support was there in the first place because you needed stability. You try to get help from your community psychiatric nurse, but she has disappeared like a puff of smoke and your psychiatrist has just returned to his home country, and no one has bothered to let his patients know, because his secretary has gone too and no one is in charge of the lists. Then you are put into some bogus reablement scheme that is ANOTHER excuse to get you to write a CV for a job that doesn't exist and you wouldn't get anyway, because basically it is a get rich quick scheme for some bloody tory, by now you are in arrears with everything, cannot claim any help, have no legal access to anything, and your PIP reassessment forms drop onto your doormat again. You are rapidly becoming very unstable indeed, and your condition worsens. I will let you imagine what the next steps are, if indeed you have any kind of imagination. This kind of **** is happening to thousands of people who are rolling off and on this inhumane conveyor belt and you are pontificating. And gloating because you may in your utterly miguided way just perhaps be right. Or maybe not. But one thing I know is that your views are part of the problem, the whole fucking naysaying selfish crowing inability to connect in any way with the suffering of thousands upon thousands of people, preferring instead to reduce them to statistics.

Again, all of which is fine and important.

Just nothing whatsoever to do with the overall distributional impact of Labour's proposals.

[seeingclearly]

Just learned, maybe has already been posted here?, that ATOS is to be rebranded as Independent Assessment Services and will do PIP assessments. ffs are our governments addicted to these companies, that they keep on letting them in again and again. Do they think we won't notice?

[seeingclearly]

You know where ro shove that, Hugo, you have already been told.
The IFS are calling this one wrongly. So are you.

To be a little clearer I have lived through this cycle before,
and the missing piece to it all is an elusive quantity called hope
which is entirely missing from the tory project and entirely present
in the Labour costings and manifesto. It was in 97, and after two decades
of desperate hopelessness many of those for whom the tory right to buy never
touched at all were able to resume a life that became more liveable.

It wasn't perfect but it was better.

[SpinningHugo]

FINAL CALL #GE2017 CON 41.3 LAB 40.4 LD 7.8 UKIP 2.4 SNP 3.6 PC 1.7 GRE 2.3 OTH 0.5 SAMPLE SIZE 2798 F/W 6-7TH JUNE


Survation.

Informed comment seems to think that's an outlier...

Evening all - been a little busy today, and spending 8 hours in a library where the wifi is utter shite didn't help - even trying to look maps up to help my research was like being back on dial-up again.

Tories really don't deserve to win having spent the entire election shrieking "But Jeremy Corbyn!!!" (or hiding the Dear Leader away) and saying hardly anything about what they plan to do but they almost certainly will win by a distance.

Suvation had an unpublished poll that was right in 2015, so who knows?

If the Tories are deprived of a majority, that is unequivocally good.

[HindleA]

Cross purposes,Labour enactment of "reform" made us eventual less than previously the case,would I swap that minimal impact for insecurity-of course not,no sane person would-that's the point.