the ones i’ve seen have all been the same. rich person goes back to roots, is shocked, gives some money, people cry, rich person feels better.

heavy undertones of the notion of the ‘deserving poor’

seriously, you should claim housing benefit. what will you do if you still don’t have a job next month? phone your local council tomorrow.

no need to try to be snug eldridge because you know how to follow the national curriculum. i’m sorry my interpretation differs from yours. when i first read the book it seemed patently obvious that he realised how his world worked but was unable to spot that he was being set up for his eventual fall at the hands of the system

aware, yet still naive and powerless

the lecture he gets near the end is interesting too – revolutions are carried out by the middle classes ‘on behalf of’ the poor. sadly they just replace the ruling elite and do nothing for the poor

well it was never the most efficient organisation was it…

err, no, you have a point there

just re-employing the 30,000 or so they’ve culled over the last few years in an ‘efficiency drive’

when will we see carbon fibre backed pads? that’s what i’m waiting for

heh. working for jcp? grim, but better than nothing…

eh steve? you pissed?

bloody sunday is not a good comparison – i think that the security services in the early 70’s had an attitude (reasonably prevalent in the uk at the time)that the micks were worth less, needed to be controlled and were fair game

i think a lot more of the security services would think more about pulling the trigger on what they view as proper uk citizens. *ponders what might happen today at a moslem riot tho*

LOL – I cannot believe that an STW member with the name WinstonSmith is sceptical about the ability of the state to control our lives. LOL LOL

i am aware of the possible irony. have you read the book though? my fave bit is the treatise on the futility of revolutions. mr smith is an gullible idiot who sees but doesn’t really understand.

the state has a modicum of control over our lives, but i really don’t think it has the will to attempt total control in a n korea stylee. most people in the uk are apathetic enough that there’s not any need to control us

why does nothing much happen at the majority of uk demonstrations then?

do you really think that’s likely?

while we still (just about) have a welfare state that we pay taxes for, there’s really no need to be sending people cash as well 🙂

sorted.

hmmm. daddy or chips?

If you really want benefit / tenancy rights advice, then mail me. happy to help, and i’ll do it for free [;)]

BTW, if you register for benefits monday, you could apply for a crisis loan immediately you would only be able to get enough money to cover for emergency’s, but you would get money.

pfft don’t trust his benefits advice. i’m much better

email me instead

ccleaner?

curve? storm? pearl? bold? niagra? sounds like a list of charlie brooker style pisstake product names

housing benefit?

hey! none of that negative talk mister. it’s the low level of red tape and flexible labour conditions that have helped make britain the economic powerhouse it is today. err…

i don’t care.

do you want me to write to my mp for you?

then tell her to get a second job if she likes it so much

oh and it wouldn’t be tax evasion, it would be fraud

sounds like you can’t afford it, so don’t buy it. hth

numbers eh? can’t live with em can’t live with out them

ah, sorry, i meant you 😮

so this is how an economist’s mind works. interesting

i think age makes a massive difference to this – smoking in your 20’s will make little difference to your health if you are fit and active (there’s more sportsmen who smoke than you’d expect) but the effects only become apparent when you’re older – ageing affects the ability to heal and to resist damage

winstonsmith do you work for eds or the other big company doing government IT projects. Just wondered as I know a few people working on them in Newcastle (DWP, HMRC?)

christ no! i work very much on the other side, giving benefit advice to individuals. i’m scared of my privacy being eroded and worried about the infringement of personal rights and freedoms. i just don’t see this as being that big (aside from collecting credit card details). saying it’s 53 pieces of information collected each time sounds a lot, but it’s probably just 53 fields in a database: ie, mr winston smith is 3 data fields/pieces of info, not 1

lots of countries’ immigration procedures collect info on you and the purpose of visit. i just don’t think this is that sinister

don’t get me wrong JulianA, i have a deep loathing and mistrust of labour and their need for information and control. if i’m forced to have an id card, it’s likely to get accidently microwaved.

but frankly i think this will be too big and unwieldy to do anything useful/sinister with

checking the ons: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/ssdataset.asp?vlnk=4783

in 2002 there were 175,377,000 arrivals and departures from uk airports and ports. i’d imagine it’s a bit higher now. that’s rather a large data set for a government that employs numpties like eds for their it solutions to manage and data mine for anything other than checking a small list of ‘undesirables’ (who are likely to use false id anyway) or to find out what happened after the fact.

oh, and you need to read the para above it to understand the register on the internet bit:

Yachtsmen, leisure boaters, trawlermen and private pilots will be given until 2014 to comply with the programme.

They will be expected to use the internet to send their details each time they leave the country and would face a fine of up to £5,000 should they fail to do so.

well, i tried to see exactly what information they are wanting to collect in the way of ‘travel plans’, but i haven’t quite managed yet. can you tell me more JulianA? hotels you’ll stay at? visits to local museums? any coach tours you plan?

can you tell me what they’ll do with this information?

i’d just assumed this had always been done

*puts tin foil hat on*

maybe just that the 9 months maternity isn’t needed?

it’s an interesting point, might have a look tomorrow in work to see if the law takes account of it

anyway, these beers?…

err, no.
maternity = mother
paternity = father

don’t kids learn any latin these days? tsk

nae probs. i was bored so i searched for women’s rights and the french revolution then found the name in the first link i clicked on. i know **** all about it btw 🙂

condorcet?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquis_de_Condorcet

statutory maternity pay and maternity allowance are both generally a little over £100 pw

a bit of context might help

ever tried books?