Tuesday 19th January 2016

[Tubby Isaacs]

A long read regarding the Living Wage / Dividends payment idea put forward by Corbyn.

http://chokkablog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/0 ... -wage.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A couple of other ramblings.

I notice that the Conservatives (Osborne especially) is cut a lot of slack regarding some of his policy ideas that he has to water down, row back slightly on. Initially these are portrayed as bold, an indication of him being a political chancellor, a reference to wrongfooting Labour is made by the political journalists and correspondents. Rarely is there a mention of whether such (initial) ideas are popular(or not) with the public. If his true aim was claiming half the cake despite his pronouncement to claim three quarters it's job well done.

For Labour, my gut feeling is that if they claim they want three quarters of the cake and row back to claiming half that the spin applied would be that they've still got plans to claim the quarter. Just you wait Joe Public.

Finally. Is it possible for an opposition to follow such a strategy? Do they have to be more rigid in their claimed intentions (irrespective of party) because they don't have control over the fluidity of government policies being implemented?

Kevin Hague is very good (though really hates Corbyn).

We used to hear about this sort of thing under Miliband- simple-law-change-raises-pay etc. It didn't really lead anywhere. I'm sceptical it'll lead anywhere. It sounds to me like naive cub advisor stuff at the moment.

[Willow904]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... d-War.html

Labour has never polled as badly at this point after election since Second World War

.....or has it?

Seriously, they publish this on the same day a report comes out on why pollsters got it so wrong? It's beyond satire.

The polling got it wrong by underestimating Tories...

And in 2010 they overestimated Libdems. I'm not suggesting Labour aren't doing really badly, I'm simply pointing out that using polls to create political stories is part of a long standing problem. We've just had a report on just this kind of issue and yet here we go again - using polls with 3% margin of error to create the sense of something being an actual fact. Shaping perceptions as much as reflecting opinion.

[Tubby Isaacs]

But equally, it doesn't follow that these polls now are wrong just because others were.

[StephenDolan]

Flicking through the Beckett report summary, it's not quite the ZOMG that was anticipated, and dare I say, hoped for by some folks.

[AnatolyKasparov]

But equally, it doesn't follow that these polls now are wrong just because others were.

It also means we shouldn't cite them uncritically just because their present results suit an agenda.

The fact is that most of them would currently be showing Labour doing significantly "better" if the pre-GE methodologies had been retained.

There is no guarantee that what caused them to be "wrong" then will still pertain in the future. They didn't overstate Labour support in 2010, after all (and not by much in 2005)

[ohsocynical]

Paul Lander ‏@paul_lander 51 mins51 minutes ago

Gas dropped below a buck in Michigan and it's safer to drink than the water in Flint.

I've yet to see it below 9.99 pence a litre over here. [That's the supermarkets price.] In the Shell garages, it's still over a pound.

[ephemerid]

Flip chart Rick on self-employment, worth a read as usual.
https://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.c ... ge-closer/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
One of the comments BTL makes ephe's point about the implications of UC.

Thanks, gilsey - and yes, it's always worth a read.

"Florence" is the one BTL you mean, I think - I've had sort of chats with her elsewhere on other subjects.... at least, I think it's her!
And she's quite right. The UC "income floor" is what she's on about and as you say we've discussed it here on many occasions.

A lot of people who were railroaded into "self-employment" by DWP or Work Programme providers (to get them off JSA/IS and off the unemployment figures) don't actually have much work or earnings to show for it - but they're tucked away from the out-of-work statistics and getting enough in tax credits/HB or whatever to get by, so Osborne and IDS are happy.
Those people - like the QT lady - will find that HMRC or DWP will have the right to close down their businesses if they fail to reach the income floor for UC. That's anyone who doesn't earn more than the equivalent of 35 hours at NMW. They'll either have to struggle on with no help, or they'll have to claim UC as JSA again. Then they'll be sanctioned for giving up work......

The blog makes some very good points about NI contributions. As things are now, under-employment is already a serious issue.
Employers have been cutting peoples' hours for ages - big retail now offers very few full time jobs. Most of the big supermarkets expect people to sign up to contracts that guarantee only very short hours.
Lots of people are working lots of hours but getting no NI conts for their pension or other benefits - we already know that plenty of people will not be earning enough with one employer for their NI conts to be paid - it was discussed here the other day. On top of that, if Cameron does this EU thing and "redefines" what a "worker" is, then goes on to make benefits contributory only, things will get a lot worse for poor people than they are now, working or not.

It's actually quite frightening.

[ohsocynical]

FTAO @Ephermerid

@Roy Bailey
Very, very interesting comments. Would your friend mind if I shared them with Ann Black (one of our NEC reps)? Ann always welcomes feedback and I know she would provide a reasoned response.

@Me.

She'd be happy if you would...

@Roy Bailey
Done! I may also forward it to Angela Eagle.

[ohsocynical]

Faisal Rahim ‏@FaisalRahimIV 19 mins19 minutes ago

By 14 votes, student loans will replace maintenance grants. This will further entrench the inequality gap between poor & rich #GrantsNotDebt

Oh well. There's another evil act passed.

[rebeccariots2]

Joe Murphy ‏@JoeMurphyLondon 3m3 minutes ago
Hilarious! - Shadow Equality Minister Kate Osamor withdraws ad for unpaid intern http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35351456" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

I haven't read the linked report - but only thing I can say based on this tweet is - really disappointing and worrying, seriously should know better than that.

[rebeccariots2]

Toby Perkins ‏@tobyperkinsmp 25m25 minutes ago
So Scots, Welsh & N Irish MPs vote to save English uni grants while English (Tory) MPs vote to scrap them. Good old #EVEL , empowering.

That should be blasted out as widely and loudly as possible. Tory voters need to understand what they are now getting for their votes. Some of them might just decide the other home nations have the right idea and are acting pretty honourably in trying to protect some of the supports for people in England who need them.

[rebeccariots2]

Liz McInnes ‏@LizMcInnesMP 1h1 hour ago London, England
Nick Boles refers to #NUS as the "National Union of Shroudwavers".Disgraceful shows what he really thinks about students #maintenancegrants

[ohsocynical]

Liz McInnesVerified account
‏@LizMcInnesMP

Nick Boles refers to #NUS as the "National Union of Shroudwavers".Disgraceful shows what he really thinks about students #maintenancegrants

Now this strikes fear into my heart. Are these the words needed to win over future voters? No. And it's because the Tory's are quite sure they've got the next and future General Elections in the bag.

[ohsocynical]

@RR2

Snap....Dreadful isn't it!

[ohsocynical]

Toby Perkins ‏@tobyperkinsmp 25m25 minutes ago
So Scots, Welsh & N Irish MPs vote to save English uni grants while English (Tory) MPs vote to scrap them. Good old #EVEL , empowering.

That should be blasted out as widely and loudly as possible. Tory voters need to understand what they are now getting for their votes. Some of them might just decide the other home nations have the right idea and are acting pretty honourably in trying to protect some of the supports for people in England who need them.

It does make you wonder where some of the MPs - yes even Labour ones - have been living.

They certainly haven't been keeping up...

[rebeccariots2]

Right, I've just seen this comment BTL on the judicial challenge re barring heterosexual couples from a civil partnership G report.

PoppaAlcohol 7m ago
In France there has been, for more that 16 years now, an equivalent of civil partnership called PACS which is open to all. It was originally intended, as civil partnership here in the UK, for same sex couples but the French law did not impose the same conditions as the UK. It has proved far more popular with heterosexual couples than same sex (around 95% of PACS couples are the former) the legal rights and responsibilities are not or less the same as marriage as are the routes to dissolutions. It works perfectly well in France and this was known at the time the Civil Partnership legislation was enacted. Parliament had no good reason to impose the limit and has no good reason now to retain it. That the current government does so is because of religious reactionaries like Morgan who have undue influence. Their defence of it is a piece of dissimulation.

Open question is ... does that mean that a UK couple could get civil partnered in France and would it then be recognised over here? What happens to French couples who have civil partnerships and come over here - are they considered legally partnered or not?

I ask with a certain amount of self interest as Mr Riots and I had decided we were really going to have to get married to protect each other now we are getting on .... but we really don't want to, never have. Love each other to bits and have done so for a long time - but don't want anything to do with marriage really. We would jump at the chance to have a civil partnership - we're going to wait until the outcome of this judicial review before we decide what to do.

[HindleA]

http://www.theguardian.com/social-care- ... utions-atu" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As learning disability institutions close, care in the community must improve

[rebeccariots2]

Mark Carney.

Hmmm.

Need I say more?

[RogerOThornhill]

Well quite. Wouldn't it have been great if they'd been honest and said -

"Well, look, we had a hash of the last bit of school reorganisation and found that LAs were virtually powerless to intervene because we gave schools too much autonomy so...we're having another go so that academy trusts will be able to what they want and schools won't have a choice whether they like it or not"

Instead we got two whoppers.

[ohsocynical]

Re Paying for the Queens birthday bash...Perhaps some of you recognise the poster?

NatashaFatale says:
January 18, 2016 at 9:02 am

The kid is missing a trick. There are at least a quarter million people in the US who would trample each other for a chance to get a ticket. Just the invitation would do for most of them.

[Willow904]

Mark Carney.

Hmmm.

Need I say more?

The Governor said that three factors would be the strongest guide to when interest rates might rise.First, that economic growth in the UK would be higher than the average trend. He said that growth at an average quarterly rate of 0.5% in 2015 had "disappointed".
Second, that wage growth strengthens and productivity improves.
And, third, that core inflation starts to approach the target rate of 2%.

Well, duh!

What doesn't make sense was why he was previously indicating interest rates would rise this year regardless of these factors. I notice this is being reported as " no need for an interest rate rise" as if rising interest rates from such historic lows would be in response to something negative, rather than a sign we're finally out of the woods and there's "no need" to keep them so low. Very biased reporting. "Economy not strong enough to withstand a return to normal interest rates" would be a perfectly accurate way of putting it, but strangely enough the mainstream press have chosen not to put it that way.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Good attack by Simon Wren Lewis on the awful James Bartholomew.

http://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2016/ ... pport.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Wonder if there's a dig at Corbyn and McDonnell though?

There is plenty of this on the left too: people who want to tell you mainstream economics is all wrong. Yet until very recently at least, the influence of this group on politicians on the mainstream left had been minimal, and this group has a far smaller public presence than their equivalent on the right. On the right they are ubiquitous.

With the left in disarray and flirting with non-mainstream economics, the right has an excellent opportunity (when a new Chancellor takes over in the UK, for example) to re-engage with mainstream economics, and cast off the quackery of the Ferguson and Bartholomew ilk.

[rebeccariots2]

Faisal Islam ✔ @faisalislam
Beckett on @Ed_Miliband election loss: "people have unrealistic expectation of how different it would have been had David been the leader"

Who are 'people'? How many of them are there?

[ohsocynical]

Right, I've just seen this comment BTL on the judicial challenge re barring heterosexual couples from a civil partnership G report.

PoppaAlcohol 7m ago
In France there has been, for more that 16 years now, an equivalent of civil partnership called PACS which is open to all. It was originally intended, as civil partnership here in the UK, for same sex couples but the French law did not impose the same conditions as the UK. It has proved far more popular with heterosexual couples than same sex (around 95% of PACS couples are the former) the legal rights and responsibilities are not or less the same as marriage as are the routes to dissolutions. It works perfectly well in France and this was known at the time the Civil Partnership legislation was enacted. Parliament had no good reason to impose the limit and has no good reason now to retain it. That the current government does so is because of religious reactionaries like Morgan who have undue influence. Their defence of it is a piece of dissimulation.

Open question is ... does that mean that a UK couple could get civil partnered in France and would it then be recognised over here? What happens to French couples who have civil partnerships and come over here - are they considered legally partnered or not?

I ask with a certain amount of self interest as Mr Riots and I had decided we were really going to have to get married to protect each other now we are getting on .... but we really don't want to, never have. Love each other to bits and have done so for a long time - but don't want anything to do with marriage really. We would jump at the chance to have a civil partnership - we're going to wait until the outcome of this judicial review before we decide what to do.

Totally sympathise with how you feel, but don't leave it for too long.

My sis and her partner decided to finally get married after 19 years when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
They set the wedding for May 28th. In late April her partner had a heart attack, so they put the wedding off and reset the date to the end of June because he had to have a triple by-pass. He came home after the op, and dropped dead on May 28th.
Sis is still here.

[rebeccariots2]

Zac Goldsmith's campaign for London Mayor might sound promising - but the devil is very much in the detail
Once you start looking closer, you realise the candidate has very few policies at all
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/zac ... 21736.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

... Goldsmith launched his ‘action plan for Greater London’ in Croydon this week.

And what a limp plan it is. Twelve action points, several of which (the Night Tube and limits on polluting vehicles, for example, as well as protecting neighbourhood policing teams) are mere continuations of Boris Johnson’s policies and plans...

... There’s also very little about how any of Goldsmith’s promises are going to be funded. Can you imagine a general election campaign pledge getting away with that? The Green Party knows they’ll be attacked on financing as soon as Sian Berry opens her mouth, so are keen to provide supporting figures. It is astonishing that the candidate from a party so keen to be seen as fiscally responsible will only say it’ll all be paid for without raising council tax...

Yes I can. The Tories got away with just that at the 2015 election. They made numerous pledges and simply refused to say where they were going to make the cuts to pay for them. And the media didn't push them hard enough - and the public voted for them. Goldsmith will simply be employing a tried and tested tactic of theirs.

[TR'sGhost]

What doesn't make sense was why he was previously indicating interest rates would rise this year regardless of these factors.

It's the principle that if you say you are going to have to do something at some point in the not too distant future, merely saying it will affect what the "players in the market" do as they react to the announcement. Then, after they have reacted, you may well find, surprise, surprise, that you don't "need" to do it in the end and now you need to announce you will do something else.

Of course, the "players in the markets" know you might be bluffing or even have a quite different end in mind to what you have announced. They also know you know that they know this, and you know they know that you know...etc.

So you work out what you want, then try and "persuade" others to react to your announcement in the way you want them to react.

Ludwig von Mises "Austrian school" of economics turned this kind of pop-psychology into the only "principle" of economics. A field, according to them, in which all you can do is assume everyone is motivated by personal self-interest and the only thing that should be done is ensure the maximum possible freedom of the markets, to the point of removing political freedom if it gets in the way of laissez-faire for the only real freedom is the freedom to do business as you wish.

The Austrian School has dominated UK economic policy in particular since 1979. The Centre for Policy Studies, Thatcher's key think-tank, being set up by Baron Freidrich von Hayek and Keith Joseph for the purpose of converting Mises' "thought" into political economy in practice.

Which, as an aside, is why Joseph had a huge dislike of social sciences, including economics, and cut funding for them to the bone. Austrian School disciples typically insist that you can't study society in a meaningful way because as soon as society realises its being studied people will change their behaviour to reflect that. Instead you use "praxeology", which is a posh term for sitting in isolation, ignoring all but anecdotal evidence, assuming everyone has the same "me, me, me and only me" mindset you do and propose whatever promotes the greatest selfishness.

This line of thought lay behind Thatcher's famous comment about there being no such thing as society, just atomised interacting self-interested individuals and groups of individuals. It's also the starting point for many "libertarian" wingnuts of the kind that plagued BTL at the Graun until the astroturfing nationalist, authoritarian far-right squeezed them out.

[rebeccariots2]

Right, I've just seen this comment BTL on the judicial challenge re barring heterosexual couples from a civil partnership G report.

PoppaAlcohol 7m ago
In France there has been, for more that 16 years now, an equivalent of civil partnership called PACS which is open to all. It was originally intended, as civil partnership here in the UK, for same sex couples but the French law did not impose the same conditions as the UK. It has proved far more popular with heterosexual couples than same sex (around 95% of PACS couples are the former) the legal rights and responsibilities are not or less the same as marriage as are the routes to dissolutions. It works perfectly well in France and this was known at the time the Civil Partnership legislation was enacted. Parliament had no good reason to impose the limit and has no good reason now to retain it. That the current government does so is because of religious reactionaries like Morgan who have undue influence. Their defence of it is a piece of dissimulation.

Open question is ... does that mean that a UK couple could get civil partnered in France and would it then be recognised over here? What happens to French couples who have civil partnerships and come over here - are they considered legally partnered or not?

I ask with a certain amount of self interest as Mr Riots and I had decided we were really going to have to get married to protect each other now we are getting on .... but we really don't want to, never have. Love each other to bits and have done so for a long time - but don't want anything to do with marriage really. We would jump at the chance to have a civil partnership - we're going to wait until the outcome of this judicial review before we decide what to do.

Totally sympathise with how you feel, but don't leave it for too long.

My sis and her partner decided to finally get married after 19 years when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
They set the wedding for May 28th. In late April her partner had a heart attack, so they put the wedding off and reset the date to the end of June because he had to have a triple by-pass. He came home after the op, and dropped dead on May 28th.
Sis is still here.

What an awful story Ohso. Yes - we are very aware that we can't hang around too long ... Can't stand the nastiness of many of the comments BTL on that G article. Why do some people get so nasty about something that doesn't really affect them?

[ohsocynical]

Right, I've just seen this comment BTL on the judicial challenge re barring heterosexual couples from a civil partnership G report.
Open question is ... does that mean that a UK couple could get civil partnered in France and would it then be recognised over here? What happens to French couples who have civil partnerships and come over here - are they considered legally partnered or not?

I ask with a certain amount of self interest as Mr Riots and I had decided we were really going to have to get married to protect each other now we are getting on .... but we really don't want to, never have. Love each other to bits and have done so for a long time - but don't want anything to do with marriage really. We would jump at the chance to have a civil partnership - we're going to wait until the outcome of this judicial review before we decide what to do.

Totally sympathise with how you feel, but don't leave it for too long.

My sis and her partner decided to finally get married after 19 years when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
They set the wedding for May 28th. In late April her partner had a heart attack, so they put the wedding off and reset the date to the end of June because he had to have a triple by-pass. He came home after the op, and dropped dead on May 28th.
Sis is still here.

What an awful story Ohso. Yes - we are very aware that we can't hang around too long ... Can't stand the nastiness of many of the comments BTL on that G article. Why do some people get so nasty about something that doesn't really affect them?

Yes. It was dreadful. He was only 59. A lovely guy.

I've come to the conclusion some people are born with black on their souls and the internet has given them the chance to annonymously abuse others. I rarely go BTL these days.

[rebeccariots2]

Why Labour lost in 2015 and the lessons for Jeremy Corbyn
Labour seemed to identify the UK as a rotting castle in which it proposed to do little but change the ashtrays
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/why ... 19991.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This might be a more useful and hopeful read than Beckett's report.

[ohsocynical]

Mary Creagh ‏@MaryCreaghMP 2 hrs2 hours ago

Tory plans to scrap student maintenance grants passed 303 votes to 292. On English votes alone it passed 291 to 203. I'm sorry

[rebeccariots2]

Beth Rigby ‏@BethRigby 5m5 minutes ago
Beth Rigby Retweeted James Lyons
Secret ballot very revealing on where the party privately stands. Not with Corbyn leadership

James Lyons
‏@STJamesl
Labour secret ballot on ousting corbyns man from nec yes, 188, no 30 -"we were only suppose to blow the bloody doors off" says lab moderate

Two questions.

Who is the 'party' Rigby is referring to?
What is 'moderate' about that statement?

[Vordy]

Evening All.


DWP plans to harass children.

Not content with harassing adults to the point of dispair, the DWP now have plans to come into schools and offer “advice”. This will consist of workshops and one to one sessions to ensure that no child is at risk of “worklessness”.

They’ve already stated that children are at risk of worklessness in their Troubled Families phase 2 scheme. This is terrible. Children should be allowed to be children. To deny them of this ability is in my eyes downright cruelty.

No child wants a DWP official constantly brainwashing them into becoming a drone for the capitalist society. They want to learn standard lessons and to be able to play with their friends. Work should be far from their minds.

The school that has allowed this to happen have stated that they find this “exciting”. I don’t know if it’s just me but I don’t agree with this.

Having witnessed many, many accounts of DWP cruelty, bullying and harrasment I cannot see this as being exciting.

There’s an old saying and I can’t quite remember exactly how it goes, but it does say that to fully indococtrinate society you have to start with the young. They are easily mouldable into new ways of thinking.

Parents need to oppose this. There aren’t enough job positions out there for all young people to become employed in. A lot of previously paid jobs have now been changed to workfare positions. But maybe that’s what they want all our young people to do, to work for nothing. After all they’ve made it impossible for poorer children to attend university and achieve good qualifications so that they can find a good job.

Please read the below post. Oh and my daughter will not be attending any of these DWP sessions if they do start in her school. They aren’t getting their hands on her. After all th DWP wanted my unborn grandson to die.

Do not let this happen folks.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/jobc ... to-schools" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Source:

https://thepoorsideoflife.wordpress.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A bit reminiscent of Hitler Youth.

[RogerOThornhill]

Re the above.

I'd rather see dedicated funding for a careers/uni/college adviser in every secondary school. Let Ofsted assess success or otherwise when they inspect.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The Austrian School has dominated UK economic policy in particular since 1979.

That's a bit strong.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Re the above.

I'd rather see dedicated funding for a careers/uni/college adviser in every secondary school. Let Ofsted assess success or otherwise when they inspect.

A vote of confidence for Gove's careers system!

[ephemerid]

FTAO @Ephermerid

@Roy Bailey
Very, very interesting comments. Would your friend mind if I shared them with Ann Black (one of our NEC reps)? Ann always welcomes feedback and I know she would provide a reasoned response.

@Me.

She'd be happy if you would...

@Roy Bailey
Done! I may also forward it to Angela Eagle.

Wow!

Thanks, OhSo.

Actually, Mr.Bailey - and anyone who he contacts - could do worse than look at all the posts that Refitman cached for us in the section on Welfare and Benefits. There's some good stuff in there from quite a few of us.

You are a star.

[danesclose]

Peter Jukes tweeted earlier that The Sun previously hacked Jerry Hall's voicemails

BREAKING: Rupert Murdoch's @TheSun hacked the voicemail messages of his new fiancee Jerry Hall in 1998

[rebeccariots2]

Get well Toby. Thinking of you.

[rebeccariots2]

Michael Crick ‏@MichaelLCrick 11m11 minutes ago
Unlike Lab, Lib Dems still suppressing "explosive" Gurling report into election. HQ didn't respond when told Clegg main reason losing votes

[rebeccariots2]

Margaret Beckett reports on reasons for Labour’s defeat
http://www.libdemvoice.org/margaret-bec ... l#comments" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Interesting comments / info BTL.

[ChrisDean]

At the risk of repeating myself, which I know I am, many, many thanks to each and everyone of you who contribute to this wonderful forum.

As I've said before, I really appreciate the posts here, I'm not a contributor but I read you all and feel that I know you all in some way.

Much love to HindleA and TobyLatimer, you are in my thoughts.

[ohsocynical]

FTAO @Ephermerid

@Roy Bailey
Very, very interesting comments. Would your friend mind if I shared them with Ann Black (one of our NEC reps)? Ann always welcomes feedback and I know she would provide a reasoned response.

@Me.

She'd be happy if you would...

@Roy Bailey
Done! I may also forward it to Angela Eagle.

Wow!

Thanks, OhSo.

Actually, Mr.Bailey - and anyone who he contacts - could do worse than look at all the posts that Refitman cached for us in the section on Welfare and Benefits. There's some good stuff in there from quite a few of us.

You are a star.

Totally unexpected. Good isn't it!
I hope he can be true to his word. I've given him the link to this site so hopefully he'll read and digest even if he never joins as such.
I don't know any of my local Labour members as such, so never know whether I'm talking to a Corbynite, or Whatever They're Called.

The truth of your posts can't be dismissed and you make a difficult subject much easier to understand so I was happy to pass them on.

You have talent with your writing and wide knowledge of the DWP and I'm dead chuffed to see someone else appreciate it.

[ephemerid]

At the risk of repeating myself, which I know I am, many, many thanks to each and everyone of you who contribute to this wonderful forum.

As I've said before, I really appreciate the posts here, I'm not a contributor but I read you all and feel that I know you all in some way.

Much love to HindleA and TobyLatimer, you are in my thoughts.

Erm.... you are a contributor. You've just contributed.

[ohsocynical]

I bet Toby's fed up with hospital. Hope he's home soon....

[ChrisDean]

@ephemerid

oh, yeah....

[ephemerid]

@ephemerid

oh, yeah....

Yeah. Gotcha.

[rebeccariots2]

Matt Chorley Retweeted
Oli Barrett ‏@OliBarrett 5h5 hours ago
Will the Vote Leave campaign be using the Better Out Than In slogan? Asking for a (schoolboy) friend.

[ephemerid]

OhSo - you are an absolute sweetheart.

I was just having a look at some of the old posts - we did one on DWP "mission creep" and HindleA did some stuff on mortgage help etc.

They were pretty good - and all the things we were saying could (or probably would) happen have happened.

I take no pleasure in that; and I certainly didn't expect things to get so bad that deaths like that of David Clapson and Mark Wood - and all the others - would be the result of these "reforms" the Tories have imposed on us.

What a mess it all is.....


On another note - I hope Toby's OK. He could do with some of my 3-day soup - championship stuff, it is.
I always make it when it's cold.
Sunday - make ham for dinner, keep bones/trimmings; soak split peas and lentils overnight.
Monday - make ham stock; cook peas/lentils in it to mush.
Tuesday - add lots of different vegetables and cook till soft.
We had this for supper. Rib-sticking gorgeousness!

It is now Minus 6 and so foggy we can't see the other side of the estate.
More soup!

Night all - Toby and HindleA in my thoughts and meditations tonight.

[ohsocynical]

OhSo - you are an absolute sweetheart.

I was just having a look at some of the old posts - we did one on DWP "mission creep" and HindleA did some stuff on mortgage help etc.

They were pretty good - and all the things we were saying could (or probably would) happen have happened.

I take no pleasure in that; and I certainly didn't expect things to get so bad that deaths like that of David Clapson and Mark Wood - and all the others - would be the result of these "reforms" the Tories have imposed on us.

What a mess it all is.....


On another note - I hope Toby's OK. He could do with some of my 3-day soup - championship stuff, it is.
I always make it when it's cold.
Sunday - make ham for dinner, keep bones/trimmings; soak split peas and lentils overnight.
Monday - make ham stock; cook peas/lentils in it to mush.
Tuesday - add lots of different vegetables and cook till soft.
We had this for supper. Rib-sticking gorgeousness!

It is now Minus 6 and so foggy we can't see the other side of the estate.
More soup!

Night all - Toby and HindleA in my thoughts and meditations tonight.

Off Topic.
I love boiled ham. I soak the ham overnight, change the water, add half a dozen black and half a dozen white peppercorns and three bay leaves....Boil until it's falling apart. I like to eat it with plain boiled potatoes with a dab of butter and green beans...

Mr Ohso's mum used to remove the peppercorns and bay leaves, and then cook noodles or pasta in the ham water.

[HindleA]

I really didn't think they would target poorer pensioner home owners,this even has the Wail up in arms,although IDS has given himself leeway to apply in any way he wishes.Not even timelimited but complete removal was also a shock.