The Clapson family are crowd funding for the legal challenge against IDS for the death of diabetic ex squad die David, who’s benefits were cut off meaning the electricity ran out and his insulin wasn’t refrigerated, he was found dead with a stack of Cv’s written out ready to be sent, £3 quid in his bank and a tin of tuna in the cupboards

Let’s not forget his other achievements
400 libraries closed in 6 years is good going

20% of museums closed or partially closed

50% of all youth clubs closed

Who cares that those who benefited the most are from the poor end of society
If their parents had kept an offshore trust fund for them, then maybe they could’ve gone to Eton too

He did all that on his own – wow, he was superhuman (in an unpleasant kind of way). Amazing.

No he didn’t, we’re collectively responsible too, for not directly holding our own locally elected representatives to account,and disengaging from politics – not a mistake I’ll ever make again

Yes of course we elected our governance so we are responsible too. I mean it has nothing to do with campaign lying, the nature of power in society or hegemony that allows these things to happen.

As someone once said ….only an understanding of hegemony can make you realise how we (UK) can increade it’s wealth whilst poverty does not decline relatively, food bank usage rises, health and well-being declines etc.

For example…isn’t it strange people calmy walk past food banks in the supermarket. Shouldn’t we as society be standing up and saying WTF is going on to allow this…not only the fact such a rich society needs them but also how have we reached a situation whereby we calmy accept them being used instead of getting out and challenging our government over the need to use them. Shocking state of affairs.

Perhaps we could start with an effective opposition – as radical as that sounds. The last one was the Lib Dems and they were partners in a coalition.

I dont know about calmly accepting them. Mrs THM helps at our local food bank. Its up to individuals to do something to help others in ways that they sit fit.

After all a few years ago, some old bird did warn us that “there is no such thing as society” to fall back on. Unfortunately, that warning was misunderstood as a desire/policy and the core message lost. But those who fail to heed the message are likely to be the ones most at risk.

@thm…without wishing to to reject Mrs THM help…I would argue that by ‘helping ‘out’ on food banks one is complicit in their need. Helping out is to accept their usage and is doing nothing towards trying to get rid of their need. Further, all these helpers are creating a situation whereby the government don’t feel there is an issue. It’s normalising the situation. I would prefer Mrs THM et al spent their time challenging the government to ensure decisons are made that enable society to not have to use them.

As with loddrick’s school thread, I prefer practical solutions to hot air. Probably why I am not a fan of the current HM Opposition. I also think that you credit governments with far too much influence/power/ability. Hence my reference back to Fatcha’s past warnings.

This idea that governments are the solution is quaint but misguided.

The government is not the solution? Er, so who makes the laws, decisions etc? Is it you? 🙄

For someone who spends all his time on political threads what a daft thing to say…

No they make the laws. Why do you ask?

They react to events, they rarely solve issues. Take responsibility and get on with it is a far better solution.

Oh dear…you really have no idea how society works…no wonder we’re in this mess… 🙄

“Whilst I generally support free movement and immigration as a benefit, the original inhabitants of those countries may have an alter-native view.”

I was hoping that Jambalaya would work out why his comments might be embarrassing, butI doubt he possesses sufficient awareness to be able to do so.

I note that once again, Jamba has failed to answer a simple question put to him. I suspect because he doesn’t actually have an answer. Unsurprisingly. 🙄

“I dont know about calmly accepting them. Mrs THM helps at our local food bank. Its up to individuals to do something to help others in ways that they sit fit.”

Charities such as food banks exist to try to solve the failures of society and governments. Whilst it’s commendable that your wife volunteers in such a scheme, the fact is there is more than enough money in this country for food banks and numerous other charities to not be necessary. The massive rise in food bank use highlights yet another of the many failures of Cameron’s government:

Look how steeply the curve rises following the 2010 election. Proof that the tories have completely failed to address poverty and inequality.

I dare say someone like THM or Jamba may now attempt to show why inequality is falling, but the reality proves that our society is now in a much worse position than it was 6 years ago.

“Oh dear…you really have no idea how society works”

That’s probably because he spends all his time on internet forums like this one, and hardly any time actually going out and seeing what’s really happening. The same is true for several people on here, sadly. 🙁

Wrong – I met a real person yesterday.

Interesting use of stats there though. Bravo. But you are right about the failure. Still you (Mrs THM) can do something about it, or whinge on an internet forum. Your/her choice 😉

Is that a bit like when Cameron met a black man in Plymouth?

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/apr/17/cameron-black-man-debate-gaffe

😆

“Interesting use of stats there though.”

Your posting history cannot lie. 😉

Not posting stats – foodbank stats!

From Trussell

We have a strong focus on practical solutions to poverty.

\

Agreed.

Delays or changes to a person’s benefit are two of the biggest causes of referral to a foodbank. In many cases, these are down to problems with the way the Department for Work and Pensions administers benefits.

Unsurprising that inefficiency lies somewhere near the heart of all this

clod the steep rise in foodbank usage is due to the state of the economy which without Tory policies would be in much worse shape. Wouod you rather have Hollande’s free spending and France’s 25% youth unemployment ?

Inequality is the new bandwagon of the left as the reailty is we are all better off than we where 10, 20, 30 years ago. Also freedom of movement increases inequality depressing wages at the lower end and we have a goobal population expanding rapidly providing ultra low cost manufacturing labour. Spending on health nd welfare has risen substantially. Tax free alloance has doubled, minimum/living wage increases etc

As I have posted numerous times we can address inequality by having the top 1% leave the country and take the 30% of income taxes they pay with them. We could stop people like Mark Zuckerberg becoming billionaires etc

Wouod you rather have Hollande’s free spending

Who has the more expansive fiscal policy or highest budget deficit to GDP. Free spending France or Austerity Britain?

Indeed. He has had to reign in his spending as they have hit the debt/gdp limit imposed by euro membership. Our economy is performing much better so we can afford to spend more.

Must reawaken the Corbyn thread regarding the naughty list

“clod the steep rise in foodbank usage is due to the state of the economy which without Tory policies would be in much worse shape. Wouod you rather have Hollande’s free spending and France’s 25% youth unemployment ?”

Classic Jamaba obfuscation; ignore the actual reality of a situation, then carefully select some bit of information and hope it proves a point. Add in some spurious claim based on opinion rather than fact.

“Inequality is the new bandwagon of the left as the reailty is we are all better off than we where 10, 20, 30 years ago.”

Inequality is the reality of our society. We’re ‘better off’? In what deluded world is that true ffs? Steeply rising personal debt (mainly due to massively inflated house prices and huge mortgages), health and education systems left to rot in order to sell them off to line the pockets of the wealthy elites even further, higher education costs massively increasing, with the result increasing numbers of poorer people will either chose not to go to uni, or end up in massive possibly unpayable debt, child poverty increasing, massively increased hardship for millions of disable and vulnerable people, steep rise in xenophobia, increasing fear amongst the population, increasingly inadequate transport system, etc etc etc.

Yeah, we’re better off.

Who’s this ‘we’?

“clod the steep rise in foodbank usage is due to the state of the economy which without Tory policies would be in much worse shape.”

Did you actually look at that graph? If what you say is true, then that curve would have levelled out more, not steepened exponentially! It is absolute proof of the failure of tory policy! Even when presented with incontrovertible facts, you still see something different! 🙄

You are good value entertainment, I must say. 😆

As much as I abhor food banks, I’ll still donate rather than see someone starve

We’re ‘better off’? In what deluded world is that true ffs?

Clod, you are quick to have a crack at Jamba and his facts, but do you ever check stuff before posting.

How about 2% pa real growth in incomes since the late 70s?
How about reductions and then recent stability in inequality?
How about

Over the longer-term, there has been a reduction in poverty rates since the late 1990s for children, pensioners and working-age parents, although the likelihood of being in relative low income has increased for working-age adults without dependent children.

S: Official stats

You might be right on xenophobia though!!

As much as I abhor food banks, I’ll still donate rather than see someone starve

+1 better to do something practical than whinge.

Since the turn of the millennium, changes in income inequality have been relatively small compared with previous decades. In the early 2000s, income inequality fell. This was in part due to faster growth in income from earnings and self-employment income at the bottom end of the income distribution. Policy changes, such as increases in the national minimum wage, increases in tax credit payments, and the increase in National Insurance contributions in 2003/04 are also likely to have had an impact.

The most recent peak in income inequality was in 2006/07 or 2007/08 depending on the measure used. Since then the broad trend has been one of gradual decline in levels of inequality on each of the measures.

the biggest source of personal debt and society’s most prominent marker of success? show that things have been getting worse since erm, the ferrous female (dont wanna invoke ninfans law)

the insanity of this compared to wage growth…

“Clod, you are quick to have a crack at Jamba and his facts, but do you ever check stuff before posting.”

Facts? Don’t you mean Jambafacts? 😉

“How about 2% pa real growth in incomes since the late 70s?
How about reductions and then recent stability in inequality?
How about”

How about not entirely relying on ‘official’ stats and figures, which are invariably manipulated/distorted to suit whatever government at the time needs them to say? How about actually opening your eyes and seeing the reality of what’s going on? How about not reducing everything down to basic economics and numbers? How about actually seeing for yourself, the real impact of tory failure on the very people affected by this, who are largely voiceless and mainly without advocacy?

And if you want some stats and figures, Kimbers above has some for you, plus there’s the reality of housing costs being an increasing proportion of income for most people.

“+1 better to do something practical than whinge.”

I agree. It’s nice for some folk to give a couple of hours a week of their time to charitable causes, so they’ve got something to pat themselves on the back about, and gain the approval of their peers, but some of us think it takes a little bit more than that…

@kimbers you need to factor in availability and cost of credit. When I bought my first house the mortgage rate was 10%, when my parents bought their first house you had to save for a number of years and then go into the mortgage queue with that building society (from what I recall house was £1,500 and he made £350pa). House prices have been supporting significantly by the level of immigration, we need 200,000 new homes a year or roughly £50 billion worth – we are not building those either way (private or state) so the prices are rising where the jobs are.

Clod you really are deliberately missing the point if you are trying to suggest that Australia’s treatment of the indigenous population is relevant to today’s immigration policy. I will accept in the 60’s when it was basically whites only it wast great but not now. Now they take more people pa than the UK into a population approx 40% of the size and do so in a focused skills based way. Also it’s quite hard to get a passport. It’s clearly a success. We’ll come back to my point that nowhere else in the world has freedom of movement, that’s because it’s a cr.p idea in such a diverse group of nations. The real strains in the EU have come about after the more recent rapid expansion of the last 10+ years.

I’ll try to give you an explanation of what I’m on about, THM, as I think you’re struggling to understand.

The best way to deal with unemployment, for example, is to provide jobs. Obviously.

The way unemployment is currently dealt with, is by forcing people into zero hour contracts, and by sanctioning people so that they are no longer receiving jobseeker benefits, and are thus removed from the official unemployment figures. The reality will be that less people are effectively employed in terms of being able to fully provide for themselves and their families, and the burden to the welfare system isn’t actually lessened, in many cases, it just gets larger as more in-work benefits have to be paid.

So, a government could claim it’s reduced unemployment (hurray!), but the reality will be that the actual situation isn’t any better, and in many cases, now even worse.

So it wins votes because it’s ‘reduced unemployment’. But society hasn’t got any better, and might have got worse. This is why you have to look beyond mere statistics and figures. To the reality that lies beyond the numbers.

This is just one simplified example. There are many, many more. That prove why Cameron and the tories have been such an abject failure in their duty to serve the best interests of our society.

Hope this makes things clearer for you.

How about not entirely relying on ‘official’ stats and figures, which are invariably manipulated/distorted to suit whatever government at the time needs them to say?

Do you understand how economic data is collated in the UK and by whom?

How about actually opening your eyes and seeing the reality of what’s going on?

Not everyone has your gift clod.

How about not reducing everything down to basic economics and numbers?

Yes, lets ignore inconvenient facts that falsify your narrative

And if you want some stats and figures,

Hang on, we have given up on those…

Kimbers above has some for you, plus there’s the reality of housing costs being an increasing proportion of income for most people.

Go on then you old tease. True, pretty risky to buy a house these days and odd that “state planning” is artificially propping the bloody prices up. Imagine what might happened if they normalised interest rates to where they should be? Good job they dont believe in free markets eh?

I agree. It’s nice for some folk to give a couple of hours a week of their time to charitable causes, so they’ve got something to pat themselves on the back about, and gain the approval of their peers, but some of us think it takes a little bit more than that…

I will pass your sentiments on, but doubt they will be well received.

edit: thank you for your comments on the UK labour market. Given that people on ZHCs represent less than 3% of the workforce and for some of that vast number it is their choice, I will give you analysis an appropriate level of attention.

“Clod you really are deliberately missing the point if you are trying to suggest that Australia’s treatment of the indigenous population is relevant to today’s immigration policy. I will accept in the 60’s when it was basically whites only it wast great but not now. Now they take more people pa than the UK into a population approx 40% of the size and do so in a focused skills based way. Also it’s quite hard to get a passport. It’s clearly a success.”

😯

My head’s actually starting to hurt with just how blinkered and deluded you are. I’m off out. Hopefully someone else can pick up the baton and deal with this latest bit of delusion.

th of diabetic ex squad die David, who’s benefits were cut off meaning the electricity ran out and his insulin wasn’t refrigerated, he was found dead with a stack of Cv’s written out ready to be sent, £3 quid in his bank and a tin of tuna in the cupboards

That can’t be right – there is no austerity. THM said so!

Which is why his missus spends her free time helping out the victims of non-austerity.

Hopefully someone else can pick up the baton and deal with this latest bit of delusion.

He is a troll no one is this daft

Clod hopefully your trip out will have cleared your head and enabled you to explain to me why Australia’s (or Canada or US) controlled immigration systems are so bad and have not been successful. Asking for help from STW is pointless if the only responder is Junkyard who doesn’t even try and make a token effort.

The use of zero-hours contracts has become excessive imo although I do know people who are happy with thm but thats for “part-time plus” work. We are clearly creating lots of attractive jobs if net migration is in the 300,000 with half that from the EU. I suspect there are very many Eastern Europeans eager to take a zero hours contract than a low paid job at home.

IMO people on benefits imo has become necessary, as I have posted before I have stood behind a lad saying he can’t be bothered to apply for a job advertised in the convenience store we where in as the wages would come straight off his benefits. The US system is brutal, 2 years max claim then zero.

@jamba…is that all the evidence you need to have a viewpoint..’i heard this lad in a queue say once…..’….haha priceless , that level of thought explain alot…. 😀

That prove why Cameron and the tories have been such an abject failure in their duty to serve the best interests of our society.

Other views are available of course.

Dr, don’t worry, you just confusing basic concepts. A glass of water and some Paracetamol will probably do the trick. But even that might be confusing symptoms and causes”

token gesture
an action or a decision that is so small or inconsequential as to be only symbolic

Idiom dictionary for the troll please

The use of zero-hours contracts has become excessive imo

At less than 3% of the workforce? I guess that’s the trouble with headlines…

If 3 % of the population was starving to death or dying in winter due to cold would you call that figure excessive?

It really depends on what we are measuring

So people are using food banks and having their benefits cut due to government largesse. Of course. How silly of me not to realise.

This is why we’re truly up the creek. Pathetic tribal point scoring based on facts which are managed depending on which side of an ideological divide you randomly support.