Saturday 16th, and Sunday 17th. May Weekend Edition.

[seeingclearly]

Same data from the ONS

UK Labour Market, May 2015
Part of Labour Market Statistics, May 2015 Release
Main points for January to March 2015

There were 1.83 million unemployed people.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labou ... March-2015" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Add to economically inactive wants a job & that's 4,128,000 people without jobs wanting employment &/or meeting the internationally criteria for being classified as unemployed.

Now, don't even get me started about what counts as 'employment'...

Thanks all, that's the figure I knew I had seen. Some of these people are hidden in schemes, but there's quite a lot protected by family. It's an option I took, but three months in I'm wondering how well manage as my unmet needs increase and there's so little spare that a busfare becomes the pivot of how well we survive the day. But it also makes me realise how few choices for people in small families like mine with very little support who are on working age benefits or very low income. And that's quite distressing to think about because the pre retirement me could have done nothing at all to shield or protect, let alone maintain for months of sanction or other denial of benefit.

The holes in the net are widening, and is it just me or have basic shopping costs risen in last few months, it's not just a shrink in income I'm seeing it's very basic stuff, I don't buy many household products at all beyond the absolute minimum, but it's costing more.

[rebeccariots2]

Gemma Doyle ‏@gemmacdoyle May 16
SNP to abstain on fox hunting vote. Standing up to the Tories right enough. Not

Iain Wilson ‏@wilsrka87 40m40 minutes ago
@gemmacdoyle why did Labour not ensure when the ban was put in place that it could not be lifted?

Gemma Doyle ‏@gemmacdoyle 2m2 minutes ago
RT @wilsrka87: @gemmacdoyle why did Labour not ensure when the ban was put in place that it could not be lifted? < #snplogic

What sort of cop out question is that? Do they not understand how legislation and parliament works? #SNPlogic indeed.

[refitman]

Gemma Doyle ‏@gemmacdoyle May 16
SNP to abstain on fox hunting vote. Standing up to the Tories right enough. Not

Iain Wilson ‏@wilsrka87 40m40 minutes ago
@gemmacdoyle why did Labour not ensure when the ban was put in place that it could not be lifted?

Gemma Doyle ‏@gemmacdoyle 2m2 minutes ago
RT @wilsrka87: @gemmacdoyle why did Labour not ensure when the ban was put in place that it could not be lifted? < #snplogic

What sort of cop out question is that? Do they not understand how legislation and parliament works? #SNPlogic indeed.

The ignorance is astounding.

[LadyCentauria]

... The removal of housing benefit from young jobseekers would potentially put around £69m of annual social household rental income under threat,

My major concern with this is that it probably exemplifies another false premise, typical of most of Cameron's argument. You can see why I've queried the strength of his Oxford First, you simply cannot get away with it in more technical or scientific branches (not politics, but I have rubbed shoulders with some Oxford professors).

The argument as presented portrays youngsters leaving parents to establish their own home whilst claiming benefits. I expect there are none doing so whilst claiming JSA and relatively few working then applying for HB to leave home. Typical of Cameron, Osborne and their batman IDS, use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. What they fail to say is that youngsters who have already worked and had the wherewithall to move on shall be in a very precarious position should they for any reason lose their job.

Edit: I forget myself, only should Mummy and Daddy not be rich enough to support them.

It affects supported housing - which affects the vulnerable. And many young people who GET some sort of social housing do so because they are homeless -waiting lists are too long for someone that young to get one without being a priority for some reason.
Youngsters leaving care get some help, though often they're just left to fend for themselves, but those leaving the family home tend to get nothing, and end up homeless.
As someone who was homeless through my teens I automatically read between the lines, and forget that many others don't.
Sadly people still believe the myth that its easy for some groups of people to get social housing, which does need highlighting.

Yep. That's the group of under-21s (who are not parents) who are most likely to be housed by a council, other than those leaving Local Authority care, although some will be nominated to Housing Associations or the private sector.

[seeingclearly]

@SpinningHugo


We didn't do too badly considering. You can't call a majority of ten a resounding success.

No.

It was disastrously bad. Any one of

(i) The rise of the Ukip

(ii) The collapse of the Lib Dems

(iii) Years of incompetence and austerity

Should have been enough to see a majority, let alone some swing back. As it was, the Tories got a majority.

It was shocking.

It takes some doing to completely lose Scotland AND fail to win over the English too.

Not just 5 wasted years, 5 years where we went even further back.

I think you are in very shaky ground when you reference Scotland, Hugo. It's got entirely it's own dynamic, one we have yet to see play out. It also didn't affect the election result.

The party as it stood immediately pre election would do me now. Among the heads that rolled to Scotland's tide was Dame Anne Begg, lesser and unsung heroine of more than a few attempt to hold this pestilent government to account.

You do not mention the many other factors that played into this result, such as the continual overexposure of UKIP, and the shocking way that the Lee Rigby murder way used as a way to encourage far right tendencies, now sizzling away all over the country, angry at their lack of representation, you don't mention the free local papers in Tory marginals that got a special anti Labour wrap just for the occasion, you don't mention the shockingly biased questions in the so called televised 'debates' or the rigged audiences, you don't mention the independents late anti-labour stance, you don't mention the odd Tory invisibility factor as they media tore into Labour, nor a million and one other things, but you mention Scotland!

Which as anyone knows is not and could not be under Labours control. And if you'd have had a little closer look there you might have found a small piece of video where Nicola Sturgeon demolishes labour in the Scottish Parliament by saying that the only people talking about another referendum were labour, to the accompaniment of much mirth, but as we know that is not quite the truth, because actually Scottish voters are gagging for another referendum, she's always referencing it, and swings both ways on it. And is now predictably copying up to Cameron. But it's Labours fault! Which it might be if you take a longer view of Scotland, but certainly they could have done very little about.

I was vey interested to learn today that Jim Murphy is the guy who was on the spot the day that the helicopter went down, because I remember that quite well and would not have recognised him in the Scottish Labour demon I've heard a lot more of, it's funny how things can shift people's perceptions without them knowing it at all.

[rebeccariots2]

SNP fails at first challenge in Westminster
http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2015/05/1 ... stminster/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Some of us knew the Scottish Nationalists were more full of wind than bagpipes, but now we’re all seeing the evidence of it.

It seems the 56 members of the SNP who managed to con their countryfolk into electing them to the Westminster Parliament are set to betray the rest of the United Kingdom in the worst possible way – or betray their own “principled” position – over fox hunting.

Everyone in the UK should be aware, by now, that the Conservative Government is planning to repeal the Hunting Act 2004, in which hunting foxes with dogs was banned in England and Wales.

Scotland banned hunting in 2002, therefore supporters of the SNP merrily told the rest of us that the Parliamentary SNP would be holding to its “principled” position, and would be abstaining from the vote on whether to repeal the ban...

[citizenJA]

thank you everyone
I love you
cJA

[LadyCentauria]

Bloody hell, so glad I'm not religious! The comments under this article are horrible in the lack of any shred of empathy.

An open letter from a disabled Christian to Conservative voters

http://archbishopcranmer.com/an-open-le ... ve-voters/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I felt sick after just a few comments. Brave lady to have written her article, there, and I wish her well – and she'll need all the well-wishes she can get if she dives below the line.