Wednesday 3rd December 2014

[Spacedone]

#CameronMustGo slipped out of the trending for a while there but it looks like people are rallying again to get it trending.

[TechnicalEphemera]

Not sure what's going on in Brighton but this makes an uncomfortable read

Brighton’s Greens, Council Tax and a disgraceful act of moral blackmail

http://notesbrokensociety.wordpress.com ... blackmail/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Local politics, if the Greens aren't serious about running the council next year it is a shocking piece of grandstanding. If they are then it is just the usual impossible position local government finds itself in. I don't know which view is right.

The answer is devolution.

[citizenJA]

The scale of the implied spending cuts required to drive the country into a surplus of £23bn by 2019-20 in part prompted the Liberal Democrat business secretary, Vince Cable, to write two weeks ago to ask the OBR to distinguish in its forecasts between the spending plans...

Cable’s unprecedented letter, sent on 24 November on his own initiative, was designed to assert the independence of Lib Dem macro-economic policy after the election. However, the OBR rejected his plea, saying it did not have the statutory power to distinguish between the spending plans of individual coalition parties.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014 ... nding-cuts" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Autumn statement 2014: Osborne moves to cut spending to 1930s levels
Chancellor’s plan could require cuts to police, local government and justice amounting to a further £60bn by 2019-20

Patrick Wintour and Larry Elliott
3 December 2014

[PaulfromYorkshire]

Boo

YouGov (fieldwork before Autumn statement) - CON (32%) GRN (7%) LAB (31%) LD (6%) UKIP (17%)

[citizenJA]

Robert Chote, the OBR chairman, conceded the projections sent to him by the Treasury meant there would have to be a “very sharp squeeze” on spending in the next parliament. He added that so far the UK has seen 40% of the necessary cuts in this parliament and the next 60% would come under the next parliament.

The OBR says spending on public services as a share of gross domestic product is set to fall by considerably more over the next five years than it did over the last five years, accounting for the lion’s share of the shift from a budget deficit of 5% of GDP to a surplus of around 1% of GDP. The OBR says that spending in non-protected departments will fall from £147bn in 2014/15 to £86bn in 2019/20 – on top of all the cuts to spending in recent years.

Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, decided to stay away from the Commons for the day so as not to be pictured alongside Osborne, instead travelling to the south west to campaign with his aides.

Oh christ!

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014 ... nding-cuts" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[HindleA]

"The real story of the Autumn Budget The OBR tell the Chancellor to think again"

Nicola Smith


http://touchstoneblog.org.uk/2014/12/th ... um=twitter" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Tubby Isaacs]

The scale of the implied spending cuts required to drive the country into a surplus of £23bn by 2019-20 in part prompted the Liberal Democrat business secretary, Vince Cable, to write two weeks ago to ask the OBR to distinguish in its forecasts between the spending plans...

Cable’s unprecedented letter, sent on 24 November on his own initiative, was designed to assert the independence of Lib Dem macro-economic policy after the election. However, the OBR rejected his plea, saying it did not have the statutory power to distinguish between the spending plans of individual coalition parties.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014 ... nding-cuts" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Autumn statement 2014: Osborne moves to cut spending to 1930s levels
Chancellor’s plan could require cuts to police, local government and justice amounting to a further £60bn by 2019-20

Patrick Wintour and Larry Elliott
3 December 2014

Cable knew that.

Timewaster.

Funny how this came out today, isn't it?

[TechnicalEphemera]

Robert Chote, the OBR chairman, conceded the projections sent to him by the Treasury meant there would have to be a “very sharp squeeze” on spending in the next parliament. He added that so far the UK has seen 40% of the necessary cuts in this parliament and the next 60% would come under the next parliament.

The OBR says spending on public services as a share of gross domestic product is set to fall by considerably more over the next five years than it did over the last five years, accounting for the lion’s share of the shift from a budget deficit of 5% of GDP to a surplus of around 1% of GDP. The OBR says that spending in non-protected departments will fall from £147bn in 2014/15 to £86bn in 2019/20 – on top of all the cuts to spending in recent years.

Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, decided to stay away from the Commons for the day so as not to be pictured alongside Osborne, instead travelling to the south west to campaign with his aides.

Oh christ!

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014 ... nding-cuts" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This is what we call over-reach by Osborne.

He has handed the Labour Party all the ammunition it needs to scare the shit out of people on election day. Quite why he thinks people would rather give up the police, health service and care for the elderly to eliminate the deficit quickly is a mystery.

If you work in the public sector you have a 50% chance of losing your job. It is a great election slogan. Burgled, don't bother calling the police - there won't be any. Sick, bring your cheque book.

[PaulfromYorkshire]

Robert Chote, the OBR chairman, conceded the projections sent to him by the Treasury meant there would have to be a “very sharp squeeze” on spending in the next parliament. He added that so far the UK has seen 40% of the necessary cuts in this parliament and the next 60% would come under the next parliament.

The OBR says spending on public services as a share of gross domestic product is set to fall by considerably more over the next five years than it did over the last five years, accounting for the lion’s share of the shift from a budget deficit of 5% of GDP to a surplus of around 1% of GDP. The OBR says that spending in non-protected departments will fall from £147bn in 2014/15 to £86bn in 2019/20 – on top of all the cuts to spending in recent years.

Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, decided to stay away from the Commons for the day so as not to be pictured alongside Osborne, instead travelling to the south west to campaign with his aides.

Oh christ!

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014 ... nding-cuts" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This is what we call over-reach by Osborne.

He has handed the Labour Party all the ammunition it needs to scare the shit out of people on election day. Quite why he thinks people would rather give up the police, health service and care for the elderly to eliminate the deficit quickly is a mystery.

If you work in the public sector you have a 50% chance of losing your job. It is a great election slogan. Burgled, don't bother calling the police - there won't be any. Sick, bring your cheque book.

If Margaret Thatcher is re-elected as prime minister on Thursday, I warn you. I warn you that you will have pain – when healing and relief depend upon payment. I warn you that you will have ignorance – when talents are untended and wits are wasted, when learning is a privilege and not a right. I warn you that you will have poverty – when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a government that won’t pay in an economy that can't pay. I warn you that you will be cold – when fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don't notice and the poor can't afford.
I warn you that you must not expect work – when many cannot spend, more will not be able to earn. When they don't earn, they don't spend. When they don't spend, work dies. I warn you not to go into the streets alone after dark or into the streets in large crowds of protest in the light. I warn you that you will be quiet – when the curfew of fear and the gibbet of unemployment make you obedient. I warn you that you will have defence of a sort – with a risk and at a price that passes all understanding. I warn you that you will be home-bound – when fares and transport bills kill leisure and lock you up. I warn you that you will borrow less – when credit, loans, mortgages and easy payments are refused to people on your melting income.

If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday, I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. I warn you not to get old.

[Tubby Isaacs]

That higher rate of stamp duty- that wasn't prompted by that useless Ed bloke with his Mansion Tax, was it?

[PaulfromYorkshire]

That higher rate of stamp duty- that wasn't prompted by that useless Ed bloke with his Mansion Tax, was it?

Precisely so. Rumour is there will be a vote on it to "trap" Labour but that they will just vote for it and say they'll introduce the Mansion Tax regardless

[TechnicalEphemera]

Oh christ!

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014 ... nding-cuts" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This is what we call over-reach by Osborne.

He has handed the Labour Party all the ammunition it needs to scare the shit out of people on election day. Quite why he thinks people would rather give up the police, health service and care for the elderly to eliminate the deficit quickly is a mystery.

If you work in the public sector you have a 50% chance of losing your job. It is a great election slogan. Burgled, don't bother calling the police - there won't be any. Sick, bring your cheque book.

If Margaret Thatcher is re-elected as prime minister on Thursday, I warn you. I warn you that you will have pain – when healing and relief depend upon payment. I warn you that you will have ignorance – when talents are untended and wits are wasted, when learning is a privilege and not a right. I warn you that you will have poverty – when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a government that won’t pay in an economy that can't pay. I warn you that you will be cold – when fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don't notice and the poor can't afford.
I warn you that you must not expect work – when many cannot spend, more will not be able to earn. When they don't earn, they don't spend. When they don't spend, work dies. I warn you not to go into the streets alone after dark or into the streets in large crowds of protest in the light. I warn you that you will be quiet – when the curfew of fear and the gibbet of unemployment make you obedient. I warn you that you will have defence of a sort – with a risk and at a price that passes all understanding. I warn you that you will be home-bound – when fares and transport bills kill leisure and lock you up. I warn you that you will borrow less – when credit, loans, mortgages and easy payments are refused to people on your melting income.

If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday, I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. I warn you not to get old.

Thing is Thatcher didn't publish a document detailing she was going to shrink spending back to the 1930s. So Kinnock said it, but it was just his word against hers (and it was 87, 60% of the country were getting rich).

[TechnicalEphemera]

That higher rate of stamp duty- that wasn't prompted by that useless Ed bloke with his Mansion Tax, was it?

Precisely so. Rumour is there will be a vote on it to "trap" Labour but that they will just vote for it and say they'll introduce the Mansion Tax regardless

For added style tack on an amendment introducing a mansion tax....

[PaulfromYorkshire]

This is what we call over-reach by Osborne.

He has handed the Labour Party all the ammunition it needs to scare the shit out of people on election day. Quite why he thinks people would rather give up the police, health service and care for the elderly to eliminate the deficit quickly is a mystery.

If you work in the public sector you have a 50% chance of losing your job. It is a great election slogan. Burgled, don't bother calling the police - there won't be any. Sick, bring your cheque book.

If Margaret Thatcher is re-elected as prime minister on Thursday, I warn you. I warn you that you will have pain – when healing and relief depend upon payment. I warn you that you will have ignorance – when talents are untended and wits are wasted, when learning is a privilege and not a right. I warn you that you will have poverty – when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a government that won’t pay in an economy that can't pay. I warn you that you will be cold – when fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don't notice and the poor can't afford.
I warn you that you must not expect work – when many cannot spend, more will not be able to earn. When they don't earn, they don't spend. When they don't spend, work dies. I warn you not to go into the streets alone after dark or into the streets in large crowds of protest in the light. I warn you that you will be quiet – when the curfew of fear and the gibbet of unemployment make you obedient. I warn you that you will have defence of a sort – with a risk and at a price that passes all understanding. I warn you that you will be home-bound – when fares and transport bills kill leisure and lock you up. I warn you that you will borrow less – when credit, loans, mortgages and easy payments are refused to people on your melting income.

If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday, I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. I warn you not to get old.

Thing is Thatcher didn't publish a document detailing she was going to shrink spending back to the 1930s. So Kinnock said it, but it was just his word against hers (and it was 87, 60% of the country were getting rich).

Agreed. Indeed my reason for quoting it is that it resonates more powerfully now than then. It's in any case a chillingly beautiful passage.

[WelshIan]

If Osborne’s plans are followed, public spending will shrink to 1930s levels
The chancellor did his best to bury the bad news, but the cuts needed to achieve his plan would be huge – and probably impossible

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014 ... CMP=twt_gu" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm glad Larry Elliott has spotted this. I can't see how they can impose on the public sector the level of cuts they plan and still expect government to function.

Government spending (All figures in 2014-15 prices, £ billion)
2009-10 - 351.5 outturn
2014-15 - 316.8 spending plan
2015-16 - 311.9 spending plan
2016-17 - 291.0
2017-18 - 275.4
2018-19 - 265.7
2019-20 - 257.7

These figures do not include welfare. I have taken them from Andrew Sparrow' blog, which has them from the OBR report.
The only way they can make these cuts is mass redundancy (10's or 100's thousand jobs). There are not enough private sector jobs for this number of people and even if there were, they are either minimum wage or wrong sector(I can't imagine too many office workers getting jobs in construction, for example). Welfare spending will rise, including housing benefit, but they have pledged that welfare will be cut by £14bn in the 1st 2 years of the next parliament. How can they square both of these cuts? Unemployment is high, number of jobs available is low now and I see nothing from the Tories that will change this fact significantly.
These spending plans are farcical in one sense and deeply scary in another. They indicate a plan for withdrawal by the state from everything bar the essentials (and withdrawal from some of those, too), and what sort of a country will this look like in 2020 if the Tories are elected next year?
I am hopeful of a Labour victory in May and that we will not see this further destruction take place.

[Spacedone]

Robert Chote, the OBR chairman, conceded the projections sent to him by the Treasury meant there would have to be a “very sharp squeeze” on spending in the next parliament. He added that so far the UK has seen 40% of the necessary cuts in this parliament and the next 60% would come under the next parliament.

The OBR says spending on public services as a share of gross domestic product is set to fall by considerably more over the next five years than it did over the last five years, accounting for the lion’s share of the shift from a budget deficit of 5% of GDP to a surplus of around 1% of GDP. The OBR says that spending in non-protected departments will fall from £147bn in 2014/15 to £86bn in 2019/20 – on top of all the cuts to spending in recent years.

Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, decided to stay away from the Commons for the day so as not to be pictured alongside Osborne, instead travelling to the south west to campaign with his aides.

Oh christ!

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014 ... nding-cuts" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This is what we call over-reach by Osborne.

He has handed the Labour Party all the ammunition it needs to scare the shit out of people on election day. Quite why he thinks people would rather give up the police, health service and care for the elderly to eliminate the deficit quickly is a mystery.

If you work in the public sector you have a 50% chance of losing your job. It is a great election slogan. Burgled, don't bother calling the police - there won't be any. Sick, bring your cheque book.

People need to wake up. I honestly think that some of them believe that this comfortable society with services available to everyone is immutable but that's not the kind of world we will have.

[LadyCentauria]

Interesting LBC poll
Who do you trust most on the economy (yes I know they are easily manipulated but - LBC?) Ha
http://www.lbc.co.uk/vote-who-do-you-tr ... result-320" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Who do you trust most to run the economy?

57.5% Miliband & Balls
42.5% Cameron & Osborne
Thanks for your vote.

Poll: Autumn Statement 2014 Poll

Who do you trust most to run the economy?

72.8% Miliband & Balls
27.2% Cameron & Osborne
Thanks for your vote.

[Spacedone]

And so it begins...

NHS Devon surgery restriction for smokers and obese plan revealed
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-30318546" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[RogerOThornhill]

WTF were Newsnight thinking by getting Arthur Laffer on there?

The man's just a free market loon.

[ErnstRemarx]

Oh christ!

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014 ... nding-cuts" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This is what we call over-reach by Osborne.

He has handed the Labour Party all the ammunition it needs to scare the shit out of people on election day. Quite why he thinks people would rather give up the police, health service and care for the elderly to eliminate the deficit quickly is a mystery.

If you work in the public sector you have a 50% chance of losing your job. It is a great election slogan. Burgled, don't bother calling the police - there won't be any. Sick, bring your cheque book.

If Margaret Thatcher is re-elected as prime minister on Thursday, I warn you. I warn you that you will have pain – when healing and relief depend upon payment. I warn you that you will have ignorance – when talents are untended and wits are wasted, when learning is a privilege and not a right. I warn you that you will have poverty – when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a government that won’t pay in an economy that can't pay. I warn you that you will be cold – when fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don't notice and the poor can't afford.
I warn you that you must not expect work – when many cannot spend, more will not be able to earn. When they don't earn, they don't spend. When they don't spend, work dies. I warn you not to go into the streets alone after dark or into the streets in large crowds of protest in the light. I warn you that you will be quiet – when the curfew of fear and the gibbet of unemployment make you obedient. I warn you that you will have defence of a sort – with a risk and at a price that passes all understanding. I warn you that you will be home-bound – when fares and transport bills kill leisure and lock you up. I warn you that you will borrow less – when credit, loans, mortgages and easy payments are refused to people on your melting income.

If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday, I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. I warn you not to get old.

That Kinnock (best PM we never had) quote resonates down the years, doesn't it? It helped me make my political choice way back when. Perhaps it needs now a much wider readship, as it hits every button that you might press (assuming you're not a rich, thick Tory/Ucrap voter). I've read it many times and it has such power, and, what's more it's true, and now, in our lifetimes, it's coming to pass.

Let's publicise it again. It's so close to the knuckle that even shitrags like The Sun would have difficulty calling him a loony lefty now, seeing as he called it perfectly, 25 years before the final death spiral of capitalism kicked off.

[Tubby Isaacs]

2009-10 - 351.5 outturn
2014-15 - 316.8 spending plan
2015-16 - 311.9 spending plan
2016-17 - 291.0
2017-18 - 275.4
2018-19 - 265.7
2019-20 - 257.7

Indeed, WelshIan. The figures are ludicrous. Add to that the effect of rising interest rates.

Even before tax receipts really started to disappoint, the figures were an utter nonsense, basically balancing figures stuck in to yield the appropriate headline surplus.

[PaulfromYorkshire]

WTF were Newsnight thinking by getting Arthur Laffer on there?

The man's just a free market loon.

Perhaps they were having a Laff?

Interestingly, a Lafferesque effect could affect the Tories if they are re-elected. Whereas tax rates are way away from the rate where they might, even if Laffer were right, discourage earning, VAT is apparently near the point where increasing it will significantly reduce sales.

So, if the Tories did put VAT up again, they might find, again, that it doesn't balance the books quite in the way they hoped.

[citizenJA]

Figure 1: Number of acquisitions involving UK companies 1990 - 2014

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/internati ... b-Summary-" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We don't seem to have much going on here unless I'm mistaken - I hope I'm mistaken, please let me be mistaken...

[Spacedone]

Something else that seems to have been sneaked through under the radar today.

A long list of sex acts just got banned in UK porn
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/a- ... 97174.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I can't help but think (and I really don't want to conjure this image in my mind) that some of the items listed in the banned list are the favourite past-times of a number of current serving MPs. Who was that MP who got really friendly with a dominatrix? Had some kind of big speech today... his name slips my mind...

[citizenJA]

Disposable household income peaked in 2008 at £676 (adjusted to 2013 prices), declining to £612 in 2012 and £614 in 2013.

(Standard errors are not calculated for income estimates in Family Spending. Therefore this change has not been tested for statistical significance at the 95% confidence level; refer to the background section of the chapter for further details.)

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/family-sp ... d-spending" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[citizenJA]

Reasons for No Household Internet Access

Of the 4 million households without Internet access, the majority (53%) said that they didn’t have a connection because they 'did not need it'.

This is compared with 34% in 2006.

While this may suggest that many households without the Internet are actively choosing not to subscribe, there is still a large and important minority who state that barriers prevent them from connecting to the Internet.

Of households with no Internet access, 32% indicated that this was due to a lack of skills.

Further barriers included equipment costs and access costs being high at 12% and 11% of households without Internet access respectively.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/rdit2/int ... net-Access" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Internet Access – Households and Individuals 2014
Part of Internet Access - Households and Individuals, 2014 Release
07 August 2014

[ErnstRemarx]

If Osborne’s plans are followed, public spending will shrink to 1930s levels
The chancellor did his best to bury the bad news, but the cuts needed to achieve his plan would be huge – and probably impossible

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014 ... CMP=twt_gu" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm glad Larry Elliott has spotted this. I can't see how they can impose on the public sector the level of cuts they plan and still expect government to function.

Government spending (All figures in 2014-15 prices, £ billion)
2009-10 - 351.5 outturn
2014-15 - 316.8 spending plan
2015-16 - 311.9 spending plan
2016-17 - 291.0
2017-18 - 275.4
2018-19 - 265.7
2019-20 - 257.7

These figures do not include welfare. I have taken them from Andrew Sparrow' blog, which has them from the OBR report.
The only way they can make these cuts is mass redundancy (10's or 100's thousand jobs). There are not enough private sector jobs for this number of people and even if there were, they are either minimum wage or wrong sector(I can't imagine too many office workers getting jobs in construction, for example). Welfare spending will rise, including housing benefit, but they have pledged that welfare will be cut by £14bn in the 1st 2 years of the next parliament. How can they square both of these cuts? Unemployment is high, number of jobs available is low now and I see nothing from the Tories that will change this fact significantly.
These spending plans are farcical in one sense and deeply scary in another. They indicate a plan for withdrawal by the state from everything bar the essentials (and withdrawal from some of those, too), and what sort of a country will this look like in 2020 if the Tories are elected next year?
I am hopeful of a Labour victory in May and that we will not see this further destruction take place.

They actually indicate two things. The final victory of the Ayn Rand school of "thinking" within the Tories, and the concomitent absence of intelligence and common sense. You're spot on. You simply cannot cut that much without causing massively more problems than we currently suffer - and god knows there are plenty of problems caused by the Tories every time they come up with yet another half baked piece of populist crap.

The small state thing, I understand on an intellectual level, but it falls to pieces when you consider who gets hurt ie, rather a lot of people, who then make demands on other services. You've got a choice: service those demands and actually protect the people who live here, or else stoke up social unrest. Where does that end? Well, why has BoJo (that cuddly little fellow) bought water cannon for the London cops? Have a guess. Not that hard.

He won't be the only mayor or PCC suggesting it either. And it won't help in the long run. Riots will occur, people will get hurt and killed, and even the MSM will have to reflect the fact that hardship, penury, neglect and deprivation kills people.

Just like it did in the 19th century, when socialism was born as the cure to this whole fucking madness.

[rebeccariots2]

WTF were Newsnight thinking by getting Arthur Laffer on there?

The man's just a free market loon.

Yes - and that's exactly how he came across. He wouldn't need a Spitting Image puppet - he's already a waxy caricature. Newsnight really does seem to have weird panel picking patterns. They are either like tonight's economists panel which had Laffer on ... almost too polarised to have any proper discussion. Or like the political commentators ... very samey and stale, too much of the bubble. I want to scream every time I see simpering Miranda Green - is there really no one else but her now? And this time they didn't even tag her as a Lib Dem .... does she not want to be seen to be sitting in the Lib Dem rep seat anymore?

[citizenJA]

G'night everyone.
I love you.

xx
JA

[Tubby Isaacs]

the Government’s fiscal plans imply three successive years of cash reductions in government consumption of goods and services from 2016 onwards, the first since 1948. The corresponding real cuts directly reduce GDP. The economy should be able to adjust to such changes over time, but it is unlikely to be a simple process when monetary policy is already very loose and external demand subdued.

The OBR. Basically saying "Get out of here, Osborne".

[PaulfromYorkshire]

Richard Murphy is suggesting that Osborne's fiddle is something to do with that recharging of QE that we knew would come back to trouble us!

[Tubby Isaacs]

Richard Murphy is suggesting that Osborne's fiddle is something to do with that recharging of QE that we knew would come back to trouble us!

Not sure he knows much about macroeconomics- he's an accountant.

[Hobiejoe]

Good night/morning.

I was just furckling around looking at stuff before heading to bed, when I found this:http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014 ... nding-cuts, which I'm sure has been flagged up before, but seeing it's co-written by Wintour and Larry Elliot I thought it would be fun to work out who contributed what.

Turns out to be pretty bloody easy, and the penultimate paragraph is a doozy. You can almost hear the scrape and groan of the crowbar as Rusbridger's legions shoehorn it in.

And with that, I bid you goodnight.

[LadyCentauria]

Did anyone notice this? The Work Allowance in UC, which was frozen in last years Autumn Statement until 2017, is now frozen until 2018.

http://touchstoneblog.org.uk/2014/12/wo ... statement/

Last year it popped up at the Autumn Statement, when he announced that the work allowances would be kept at its current cash level for three years till April 2017, and not increased in line with inflation. Then, the Office for Budget Responsibility estimated that this measure would reduce low-paid workers’ incomes by £600 million a year by 2017-18.

And here we go again, with the freeze extended to April 2018. The Autumn Statement estimates that it will reduce spending by £115 million in 2018-19 (table 2.2). And, from the Chancellor’s point of view, this is the gift that goes on giving: because uprating when it does start will be from a lower base, it delivers savings every year after that too.

I don't know what effect this has on the legacy benefits (those not yet brought into UC) and haven't seen any mention of them – but I haven't read the full OBR report. And I don't recall hearing (or reading) anything telling us by what percentage those very few benefits still subject to any up-rating at all will be increased. That (always) used to be announced in the Autumn Statement, didn't it? And tied to the September rates of RPI, CPI, or some percentage, too. Well, that seems to have gone completely...

[HindleA]

@LC The welfare uprating Act limited most working age benefits to 1% until 2016 ex DLA,CA and the support component of ESA and related premiums of means tested benefits which goes up with inflation.I haven't seen anything beyond that date either.Saves many billions of course exponentially.




( I know that DLA isn't specifically a working age benefit/allowance.)

[HindleA]

Just remembered and read that Osborne wants to freeze working age benefits for two years presumably on same basis as 1% cap.