nick

Even the tory MP's and councillors I know don't worship her in the way the media are suggesting some folks do. Someone so divisive in life is hardly likely to draw unequivocal support in death. Interesting (and unsurprising) reports that Mr Speaker is well pi55ed off over the recall of parliament, and had Ed Moribund objected he was minded to refuse the PM's request to do so.

Big error in your words there Dave, you are not a citizen, you are a SUBJECT, never forget that, the government won't!

assuming that by armed it was sticks, batons, bricks etc that was meant then I can certainly confirm it happened as I saw it on several occassions, and narrowly avoided being assaulted by some met police ***** one night when simply walking from Rotherham bus station to a friends house. Luckily back then I could run like the wind...

All land owners owe a duty of care to all people on their land, whether there legally or illegally. If a day ticket angler injures themselves whilst at a fishery then the test would be was the land safe. By it's nature a day ticket fishery is a dangerous place to be (compared to a flat open grassed area for example). If the angler sued for the injury received while on the fishery the test would be had the owner taken all reasonable steps to ensure the safety of people on the land. If they have then it is unlikely that the injured party would win their case. If however it is decided that there was further action which could have been taken to avoid the injury occurring then the land owner would likely be judged as liable for the injury suffered. If the injured party is under the influence of any drug, legal or illegal which makes their hazard perception less than would be expected in a reasonable sober individual then they may well be found to be contributory negligent. This may lead to a lower damages award, however it is unlikely to absolve the land owner of responsibility.

I can almost hear the conversation between gideon and cameron and the editors: "So if you guys continue to smear the reputation of all benefits claimants we'll kick that nasty leveson report into the long grass..."

I do that every few weeks - it's water resistant :-)

as you might guess from other postings of mine I was far from a fan of the iron lady, but I find it quite sad when people feel the need to be so vitriolic. She hurt me and many of my friends very deeply, and for that it is difficult to forgive her. I detested many of her policies, but she was a warm hearted mother and her kids will today be mourning their mother.

my point is that it is NOT just for food :-) I've not even mentioned heat, light, clothing, toiletries, council tax, bedroom tax... In reality I doubt that there would be more than three to four pounds per day for food, if you are very good at budgeting, live somewhere well insulated and in walking distance of places you need to get to...

neither happy nor sad, she did some incredibly good things as PM, however I also believe that had she never been PM we might well be living in a more caring and compassionate society than we are. History will doubtless judge her as one of the great world leaders of her age, a judgement with which I would probably concur. My sympathies to her family.

which just goes to prove that no one could really live on the amount allowed...

don't forget that out of that £7.50 a day you may well need to find bus fare to get to the joke centre for signing on, bus fare to interviews, paper and envelopes and stamps to post applications, newspapers unless you have a library close by where you may be able to find newspapers (but some no longer have them, and many have closed) there's plenty of other costs directly related to "job seeking" and that all has to be paid out of the generous budget of £7.50 per day...

quite a decent over view of benefits, costs, changes over time etc. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/06/welfare-britain-facts-myths?CMP=twt_gu

The minimum level of money required for basic subsistence is actually set by the British Bankers Association. It is then used for setting allowable income and expenses for bankrupts. The minimum required to exist is then used to set the amount for Income Support- which is the real safety net benefit. Other benefits are based on that figure with various additions and subtractions. That figure is then uprated by the amount decided on by the treasury presented in the budget, and approved by parliament, or in the current settlement by presentation of a Bill to Parliament. You may find something about that on-line, but I doubt it, not something that the BBA or Govt want people to know ;-)

one of the big problems we have in this country is a very high number of owner occupiers, and a very high average level of earnings. Many of those, with great encouragement from the media and this vile government, are losing all sense of social responsibility. They are so far removed from the real struggle than many people in the UK have simply to keep a roof over their head, reasonable warm, and barely adequate food that they stop seeing the underlying reasons for it. When IDS takes £14 from the pocket of a poor family he does not see it as a hardship, for a man that recently claimed £39 in expenses for his breakfast £14 is absolutely nothing. Businesses used to have a sense of social responsibility, now that the prime duty of directors is to maximise profits for shareholders that is out of the window. Titus Salt, The Lever Brother, The Cadbury brothers would I believe detest the modern attitude that the relatively wealthy (and the super rich) have to those less fortunate. Getting on the property ladder is almost impossible for huge swathes of the population, private renting is not an option for anyone without a very clean credit record, and yet we are told that anyone living in social housing is a parasite sponging off the state. New figures show that 200,000 people in work have a zero hours contract, so they cannot budget, they cannot get mortgages, they cannot even rent a house. It really is time that these lie peddling newspapers and ministers stopped their vile hate filled greed fuelled campaign aimed at emulating the worst excesses of the run away capitalism being pursued in the USA and accepted that in a society in which the market is not free (and never has been) there needs to be controls and checks and balances in place. I am totally ashamed at what is being done in this country in my name, I know it won't last for ever, but it is not pleasant to live through a period which history will undoubtedly judge as one of the least humane in modern british history.

here's your old profile phone: http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/forums/index.php?/user/758-phonebush/ early members were here from around march/april 2000 from memory

Judy I don't think that Andrew was having a go at you, or any other OAP (at least that is how I read it) Simply stating a fact that the largest part of the "Benefits Budget" that is so often talked about is that paid to pensioners. Next largest slice is that paid out for in work benefits. Then the segment being target remorselessly by Gideon

If you want the debate to make any sense you guys have got to recognize that there are two different benefits. Housing Benefits is paid to any tenant of social housing that is entitled to it. Local Housing Allowance is payable to private rental tenants. The government don't differentiate because they wish to place the blame for the sky rocketing "housing benefit" budget on social tenants. The simple fact is that LHA is what has caused the massive hike is "housing benefit" costs.

Steve, it is clear that you are arguing from principle rather than any sort of knowledge of social housing in the UK. Nothing wrong with that, do it many times myself. Couple of facts that rather get in the way of your assertion that the cap on housing benefits will force rents... There is no cap on HB per se. The only cap there is is the £26k limit to benefits dependent people. Anyone that is in work and in receipt of Local Housing Allowance (or HB) is not subject to any limit. They can still claim the maximum available under the rules. This government do not want to upset their core vote, and the calculation under this and previous tory governments is that anyone that owns their own home is more likely to be blue than red. So social tenants are blamed for the hike in Housing benefit when in reality it is Local Housing Allowance that has driven the budget through the roof. Again, social housing is NOT subsidised, your assertion based on semantics does not make it true.

did you read the article I referred to describing how the excess income is siphoned off from Local Authorities to the exchequer, subsidy is to the state, not from it! But lets not let facts get in the way of semantics.

you appear to suggest that social rents should be raised in line with private rents. Higher rents = higher benefit payments (that is the reason the housing benefit bill has rocketed of late, high private rents, far higher than costs justify).

pleased to see you agree that more housing benefit needs to be paid out Steve, your coming round to the right side of the argument.

a little reading regarding housing costs to the public purse, you might well find that the social housing sector is a net contributor to the treasury! The article is from 2008, but the factual basis of the piece has not changed in any meaningful way: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jul/03/socialhousing.tenanttax

Ken L - and anyone else that has made the assertion - Council Housing (correctly called social rented housing because most is no longer owned or operated by councils) is NOT subsidised. It is illegal for any subsidy to be provided. Indeed local authorities are required by law to keep a totally separate account for housing. If any of you can provide evidence of subsidy I would be delighted to see it! It is low cost because there is no rip off bastard getting rich at the cost to the tax payer. The reason that "Housing benefit" costs have gone through the roof is simply because there is no limit to what private landlords can charge and therefore prices have escalated beyond reason. OK, people claiming Local Housing Allowance are limited in what they can claim, but it far exceeds social rents in the same area. None of the money goes to the claimant it all goes into the pockets of the landlord. This country has made many multi millionaires over the past 20 to 30 years purely from the payment of LHA and HB. That money would be far better spent building social housing, which creates jobs, adds assets to the balance sheet and provides much needed jobs. Oh it also reduces the bill for LHA and HB.

wronf thread!

Why on earth they didn't just scrap Child Benefit and add money to the Child Tax Credit I cannot understand. Easy to implement, means tested so only going to those that need it...