Religion and politics

[DaveG38 385]

Whilst we are all bearing our souls, I am also an atheist, and as Huss says I also offer no ill feelings to those who hold religious beliefs. For me the problem comes when an individuals religious beliefs affect the lives of others.

In relation to the riots, whilst the initial trigger may have been the shooting, if you think the vast majority of those involved in the riots that followed, were even remotely interested in that incident you would be sadly mistaken. Opportunistic theives running amongst the community was the case for the vast majority. The shooting certainly gave them an excuse when caught, similar to the excuse that they were taking from the capitalistic companies who had made their lives misery.

Peck I am involved in building control as my day career, and have seen countless changes to buildings and their management to accommodate disabled persons and make buildings and their facilities more accessible. Whilst I appreciate that this is an emotive subject, and there will inevitably be those who may not be able to work due to their individual disabilities and requirements, there are now certainly opportunities out there in accessible buildings which may have not been present even 5 years ago, and therefore claimants should be tested on a regular basis to determine whether they can join the working population. There will always be those genuine people who lose out in any benefits system, and those who get away with entitlements to which they should not be eligible. I just would not advocate an individuals rights to life long benefits without routine re-assessment in what is an ever changing society.

As for the shootings, I completely agree with John on this, a very tough split decision has to be made, and I have no doubt if someone I knew was on the receiving end of a wrongful shooting I would be outraged and upset. With the Jean Charles de-Menezes incident if officers had not decided to act and the threat would have been real they would have been subject to public outrage for not acting in the same situation. Damned if they do, damend if they don't!! There is no simple solution to violent crime and by arming police officers mistakes will be made, the same as they will in all other aspects of life, but they should be kept to a minimum and investigated to ensure "lessons are learnt"....my most hated phrase at the moment, spouted by every politician when they cock something else up

I worked in Emergency Planning/Disaster Management for BT plc for most of my working life, and 'lessons learned' was always an absolute when looking at incidents. From the most mundane internal disaster such as fire or flood in an exchange building right up to 7/7 through Lockerbie, Dunblane etc there is ALWAYS a 'lessons learned' meeting or assessment after the event. No exceptions, every single time. It's the only way that process improvements can be made. Same was true for exercises to test procedures. The wash up afterwards always looked at what needed to be changed/improved.

So when somebody stand up telling you that lessons will be learned they aren't talking about some exceptional procedure that has to happen and which they will be putting in place. They are simply telling you what will happen anyway, regardless of whether they say it or not, but obviously they like to give the impression that they are somehow the driving force behind the review that will take place. That's all complte bo**ocks as most of them will have no input or say in the matter, nor will they be included in the review process.

[Debbie 58]

OK so this is the US - but we are not far behind. Warning its a little long winded but I liked the analogy.

here

[Accumulator 52]

You're also right about the banks. I daren't use all the adjectives I'd like to use about them, because Chris would probably (and rightly) ban me. The current austerity is down totally to their greed and profligacy. Nothing to do with Tony Blair or Gordon Brown, everything to do with them. They are the reason the rest of us are suffering from a decreased standard of living, and seeing our incomes squeezed. What's more, as I said a week or two back, not a single word about them paying back what they've shafted the public purse for. I would so like to put Cameron on the spot over the banks and what they owe the British people.

Oh that it was so simple.

The current cutback on public spending is b****r all to do with the banks, but a rebalancing of the state's expenditure. When Brown was Chancellor, he presided over a state spending plan that raised 44% less in tax than he spent over a five year period. This he called prudence. Heaven knows what he would have done had he decided to be imprudent in his eyes, but I suggest the lights would already have gone out. Any Chancellor has to balance the books over the period of a parliament or at least have a plan to do so if the policies are to have any credibility. Failure to do so without a rigged voting system ensuring 5 more years in advance means the government of the day can spend as much as it likes giving lots of freebies to the voter without being held to account and having to rectify the s**t it leaves for the next election victor. Politicians being self-congratulatory animals only want public endorsement of their policies. Playing Father Christmas is the easiest way to win the appoval of Mr Average UK who is on the whole pretty thick when it comes to the wider picture.

Rhetorical question, but why do people who are rational and live within their means as far as their own household is concerned suddenly throw financial common sense out of the window when it comes to public expenditure. The clarion calls of "Tax the rich" will always appeal to the have nots and many of those on the left, but sequesting the assets of those who on the whole are the main generators of business wealth is not the right way to go about it. Until the left learns to back business and the creation of private wealth generated through exporting this country's products to foreigners, this country is on a hiding to nothing. Yes, that means acknowledging that profit must not be a dirty word. There is no such thing as a free lunch and so if you want benefits for the citizens of this country, then come up with a sustainable plan for them whereby funding is supplied by taxing the profits of ongoing trade surplusses with A, B & C. If this country is in the s**t, then s**t we need to export until the level is low enough to keep our heads above water.

The banks may have lent irresponsibly to developers and whatever, but the biggest problems are going to be sovereign loans. Countries borrow on many multiples of the loans even to large multi-nationals. The only problem is that politicians spend most of their time and government income bribing their electorates to ensure a further ride on the gravy train. This is typically presented as "investment", but is rarely is applied to projects involving private enterprises exporting goods to others, rather it is a way of ensuring that your mates are looked after at the expense of the taxpayer. You can build roads, railways, runways and other infrastructure projects all you like, but none of these will generate income from exports. We need to make the pots and pans that are currently imported. Replace imports with home produced goods. Export the same if you can. When governments are forced to take steps to balance the books they introduce unpopular plans by removing the free lunch, get voted out, and the whole unhappy cycle starts all over again. We've seen it year-in, year-out in Europe. Maximum deficit levels which are broken year after year on the grounds that this year, last year and every year for the forseeable future is/was/will be an exceptional year meaning the rules can be broken ad-infinitum. Until the west gets a real bloody nose to awaken it from the cozy existence it has embraced for the last 60 years, the penny won't drop. If people want social benefits, then set up an industrial and fiscal structure that will deliver year on year rather than introducing things by popular demand without giving due thought to funding. You cannot have a balanced economy based on spending money you neither have, nor are willing to generate. Unless Johnny Foreigner buys the goods and services of this country, people had better scale back their visions of the ongoing free lunch. The biggest danger in the current setup are the politicans who would rarely put country before party re-election - not the banks.

Rant over.

A great rant, Rob. I agree with you 100%.

One of my abiding memories of Labour's last year in power was watching commercial television or listening to commercial radio and realising that more than 50% of all the adverts were placed by the government or its agencies. Everything from public information announcements, through lifestyle advice to how to claim yet another benefit. They couldn't spend other people's money fast enough.

[Accumulator 52]

Whilst we are all bearing our souls, I am also an atheist, and as Huss says I also offer no ill feelings to those who hold religious beliefs. For me the problem comes when an individuals religious beliefs affect the lives of others.

In relation to the riots, whilst the initial trigger may have been the shooting, if you think the vast majority of those involved in the riots that followed, were even remotely interested in that incident you would be sadly mistaken. Opportunistic theives running amongst the community was the case for the vast majority. The shooting certainly gave them an excuse when caught, similar to the excuse that they were taking from the capitalistic companies who had made their lives misery.

Peck I am involved in building control as my day career, and have seen countless changes to buildings and their management to accommodate disabled persons and make buildings and their facilities more accessible. Whilst I appreciate that this is an emotive subject, and there will inevitably be those who may not be able to work due to their individual disabilities and requirements, there are now certainly opportunities out there in accessible buildings which may have not been present even 5 years ago, and therefore claimants should be tested on a regular basis to determine whether they can join the working population. There will always be those genuine people who lose out in any benefits system, and those who get away with entitlements to which they should not be eligible. I just would not advocate an individuals rights to life long benefits without routine re-assessment in what is an ever changing society.

As for the shootings, I completely agree with John on this, a very tough split decision has to be made, and I have no doubt if someone I knew was on the receiving end of a wrongful shooting I would be outraged and upset. With the Jean Charles de-Menezes incident if officers had not decided to act and the threat would have been real they would have been subject to public outrage for not acting in the same situation. Damned if they do, damend if they don't!! There is no simple solution to violent crime and by arming police officers mistakes will be made, the same as they will in all other aspects of life, but they should be kept to a minimum and investigated to ensure "lessons are learnt"....my most hated phrase at the moment, spouted by every politician when they cock something else up

Another great post.

I know nothing about Mark Duggan except what has been reported. That said, I don't walk the streets wondering if an armed response unit might swoop and take me out tomorrow. Perhaps Mr Duggan and I keep different company?

Re-assesment of disability is a necessary process which should be designed to cause as little inconvenience as possible to the genuinely disabled. I believe it is necessary though, as is the regular testing of all benefits.

[Peckris 579]

Having worked as an armed response officer for 8 years I'll just stop you there.

The former was "bigged up" by witnesses to sound like an IRA terrorist. The mainland was getting hammered at the time. He was challenged by armed officers in the street and reacted by raising the table leg (which was in a bag and reported to police as a sawn off shotgun). I would have dropped him stone cold.

The latter was the subject of a bungled surveillance op and was believed to be a suicide bomber on a packed train with a primed device. The strike team were ORDERED to shoot. I would have taken the shot(s) also because 1 life is definitely worth less than dozens of innocents.

As for Mr Duggan I have no inside knowledge as I am out of the loop now, but "executed"? You need to have a word with yourself Mike. A police firearms officer is faced with split second decisions, life or death ones. I worked on the ethos that the priority was 1) my life, because if I get dropped I cannot protect anybody 2) my colleagues 3) the public and 4) the subject. For a firearms officer to pull the trigger there has to be a genuine or perceived immediate threat to life. There is no shoot to kill, as an AFO you shoot to "stop or incapacitate" the subject. An AFO is also subject to the laws of the land and you always ran the risk of being charged with murder if the wheels came off. Pulling the trigger is the very last thing that any of us wanted to do and it was the very last thing that our training primed us to do.

Forgive me John but I find your priority scale not only truly scary, but it also differs from the Army's seemingly. Now, if you'd said 1) The public 2) Colleagues 3) Me 4) The subject as long as he didn't make a threatening move, I'd feel a lot more confident about armed police. As it is, seeing the public at #3 is terrifying. No, really, I'm not exaggerating.

You're also right about the banks. I daren't use all the adjectives I'd like to use about them, because Chris would probably (and rightly) ban me. The current austerity is down totally to their greed and profligacy. Nothing to do with Tony Blair or Gordon Brown, everything to do with them. They are the reason the rest of us are suffering from a decreased standard of living, and seeing our incomes squeezed. What's more, as I said a week or two back, not a single word about them paying back what they've shafted the public purse for. I would so like to put Cameron on the spot over the banks and what they owe the British people.

Oh that it was so simple.

The current cutback on public spending is b****r all to do with the banks, but a rebalancing of the state's expenditure. When Brown was Chancellor, he presided over a state spending plan that raised 44% less in tax than he spent over a five year period. This he called prudence. Heaven knows what he would have done had he decided to be imprudent in his eyes, but I suggest the lights would already have gone out. Any Chancellor has to balance the books over the period of a parliament or at least have a plan to do so if the policies are to have any credibility. Failure to do so without a rigged voting system ensuring 5 more years in advance means the government of the day can spend as much as it likes giving lots of freebies to the voter without being held to account and having to rectify the s**t it leaves for the next election victor. Politicians being self-congratulatory animals only want public endorsement of their policies. Playing Father Christmas is the easiest way to win the appoval of Mr Average UK who is on the whole pretty thick when it comes to the wider picture.

Rant over.

Sorry rob, but your rant is either naivety, or partisan political. What you call "rebalancing of the state's expenditure" is nothing but Conservative Party economics. You can see this quite clearly in Osborne and Cameron's list of targets, none of which include banks (despite Osborne's publically heralded "slap on the wrist"). But despite the Daily Mail's stereotyping of a sizeable minority of the British population as "workshy scroungers" (based on demonstrably false statistics) it's the poor wot gets the blame and are hit hardest. Twas ever thus. I really do recommend that you read Sebastian Faulks' "Week In December", all the while bearing in mind that he is no leftie. It will then be clear that what individual governments are pallid nothings in comparison to the economic power wielded by the world's banking system. All politicians do is scratch the surface in order to appease the readers of one particular tabloid newspaper or another. They actually make little or no difference. All Osborne's measures, that have heaped misery upon misery on those who can least afford it - have they had any real impact on the deficit? No. Could real measures taken against the banks, at which they would cough and sneeze for a week or two, have a much greater impact on the deficit? Yes. But no politician would dare, because if the banks withdrew their credit on which all governments rely whatever political shade they are - we would be "bankrupt" overnight.

"Follow the money".

Peck I am involved in building control as my day career, and have seen countless changes to buildings and their management to accommodate disabled persons and make buildings and their facilities more accessible. Whilst I appreciate that this is an emotive subject, and there will inevitably be those who may not be able to work due to their individual disabilities and requirements, there are now certainly opportunities out there in accessible buildings which may have not been present even 5 years ago, and therefore claimants should be tested on a regular basis to determine whether they can join the working population. There will always be those genuine people who lose out in any benefits system, and those who get away with entitlements to which they should not be eligible. I just would not advocate an individuals rights to life long benefits without routine re-assessment in what is an ever changing society.

Colin, I respect your engineering experience, but what you say generally about the disabled and their benefits cannot have any meaning unless and until you are disabled yourself. I hope that day never comes.

However, I agree with what you say about enhancements improving accessibility for disabled people, and if that were the only consideration, I'd agree with everything you said. But it isn't. The following all apply :

1. There aren't any jobs for young people. Why would employers take on someone who can't control peeing and shitting, need regular breaks to rest or recover, have spasms, are getting worse all the time, can't mobilise, etc etc? Give that job to a young person with their working life ahead of them, I say.

2. As for 'leaving claimants stranded on benefits without routing reassessment" - to some extent that is Govt spin. I'd be more sympathetic with that stated view if certain conditions were recognsied as being progressive and incurable, and therefore there is no point subjecting such people to the misery of "assessment" : motor neurone, MS, Parkinsons, Alzheimers, to name a few. Some people should be left alone with their benefits, as they have a full time job already, just managing from day to day, all the activities which you take for granted.

3. Why did successive Govts hand the contract for reassessment to a French IT firm, whose professionals don't have to have medical qualifications (no word of a lie), in centres that are sometimes inaccessible to wheelchairs (ditto), where severely disabled people are routinely found "fit for work" only to have this laughable verdict overturned at an independent appeal, cause a significant number of suicides, cause anxiety and stress to those least able to cope with it, while at the same time issuing statistics that are at best misleading at worst downright false leading to IDS having to apologise to the House of Commons ... ?

4. What is the statistic for fraud among those claiming disability benefits? 0.5% - yes, that's too high, but it's the lowest for any state handout or benefit. Yet, the tabloid press - with the tacit connivance of the DWP - put the fear of god into honest decent folks - such as you - with their scary and made up "facts" about scroungers. In fact, it's harder to claim and get disability benefits than any other. The occasional idiot who runs around refereeing football matches while claiming ESA, is just that - occasional.

I ask you to listen to me. Dig deeper than what you read in the red tops. There are people out here living in fear and anxiety and stress, worrying that no only do they have to struggle with every single aspect of their lives, every day, but that they might lose the pittance paid to them on which they have to survive, and pay for all the adaptions and equipment they need just to get through their own front door, wash, sleep, go to the toilet, cook, etc. Don't tell me there are more job opportunities for disabled people than there were ten years ago. I believe you. Give them to those disabled who CAN work, after first ensuring that all young people have a job first. Don't tolerate the state persecution of people who have incurable conditions. Remember which government it was, that first did that.

Edited May 29, 2012 by Peckris

[argentumandcoins 70]

The priority scale has to be like that for armed police Peck because we worked in pairs, the army work in squads.

If we arrived at a job and put ourselves in a position where the outcome would be death or serious injury there was nobody else left to protect the public (nearest ARV being 20/30 miles away). Obviously if your partner went down you would try to help him/her and that would put you in the firing line.

Your first priority is yourself, then your (armed) colleague(s), the public and finally the subject. We have/had to protect the subject as the aim was always a non-violent solution. The subject also has the "right to life" unnder ECHR.

If an officer does pull the trigger their next action should be to secure the subject and render first aid (we were all trauma first aid trained).

99 times out of 100 there would already be a sterile area around the subject and an unarmed outer cordon in place.

Would I risk my life for a member of the public? Yes, I did, many times. I did not consider personal safety at all when I was in the job UNTIL it was a firearms incident where I had greater responsibilities.

[Peckris 579]

The priority scale has to be like that for armed police Peck because we worked in pairs, the army work in squads.

If we arrived at a job and put ourselves in a position where the outcome would be death or serious injury there was nobody else left to protect the public (nearest ARV being 20/30 miles away). Obviously if your partner went down you would try to help him/her and that would put you in the firing line.

Your first priority is yourself, then your (armed) colleague(s), the public and finally the subject. We have/had to protect the subject as the aim was always a non-violent solution. The subject also has the "right to life" unnder ECHR.

If an officer does pull the trigger their next action should be to secure the subject and render first aid (we were all trauma first aid trained).

99 times out of 100 there would already be a sterile area around the subject and an unarmed outer cordon in place.

Would I risk my life for a member of the public? Yes, I did, many times. I did not consider personal safety at all when I was in the job UNTIL it was a firearms incident where I had greater responsibilities.

Fair comments. My only comeback is this - surely the police wouldn't even attend a firearms situation ("armed response") if they weren't trying to protect the public? Otherwise they could just say, "Oh well, let them shoot it out and we clear up after". Which thank goodness, they - you - don't!

[Colin G. 147]

Colin, I respect your engineering experience, but what you say generally about the disabled and their benefits cannot have any meaning unless and until you are disabled yourself. I hope that day never comes.

However, I agree with what you say about enhancements improving accessibility for disabled people, and if that were the only consideration, I'd agree with everything you said. But it isn't. The following all apply :

1. There aren't any jobs for young people. Why would employers take on someone who can't control peeing and shitting, need regular breaks to rest or recover, have spasms, are getting worse all the time, can't mobilise, etc etc? Give that job to a young person with their working life ahead of them, I say.

2. As for 'leaving claimants stranded on benefits without routing reassessment" - to some extent that is Govt spin. I'd be more sympathetic with that stated view if certain conditions were recognsied as being progressive and incurable, and therefore there is no point subjecting such people to the misery of "assessment" : motor neurone, MS, Parkinsons, Alzheimers, to name a few. Some people should be left alone with their benefits, as they have a full time job already, just managing from day to day, all the activities which you take for granted.

3. Why did successive Govts hand the contract for reassessment to a French IT firm, whose professionals don't have to have medical qualifications (no word of a lie), in centres that are sometimes inaccessible to wheelchairs (ditto), where severely disabled people are routinely found "fit for work" only to have this laughable verdict overturned at an independent appeal, cause a significant number of suicides, cause anxiety and stress to those least able to cope with it, while at the same time issuing statistics that are at best misleading at worst downright false leading to IDS having to apologise to the House of Commons ... ?

4. What is the statistic for fraud among those claiming disability benefits? 0.5% - yes, that's too high, but it's the lowest for any state handout or benefit. Yet, the tabloid press - with the tacit connivance of the DWP - put the fear of god into honest decent folks - such as you - with their scary and made up "facts" about scroungers. In fact, it's harder to claim and get disability benefits than any other. The occasional idiot who runs around refereeing football matches while claiming ESA, is just that - occasional.

I ask you to listen to me. Dig deeper than what you read in the red tops. There are people out here living in fear and anxiety and stress, worrying that no only do they have to struggle with every single aspect of their lives, every day, but that they might lose the pittance paid to them on which they have to survive, and pay for all the adaptions and equipment they need just to get through their own front door, wash, sleep, go to the toilet, cook, etc. Don't tell me there are more job opportunities for disabled people than there were ten years ago. I believe you. Give them to those disabled who CAN work, after first ensuring that all young people have a job first. Don't tolerate the state persecution of people who have incurable conditions. Remember which government it was, that first did that.

Peck the comment that I am not disabled and therefore will never know, is a bit of a generalisation and in my opinion a very negative viewpoint. Hopefully I will never know, but I would much rather it happen in today's society than the ones that have gone before. In fact I would also it rather happen in this country than any other as well.

The Building Regulations are formed following extensive consultation with numerous bodies incorporating a wide range of views and opinions in an attempt to ensure the guidance is relative, current and provides the maximum benefit for the greatest number of people. They don't always get it right, but Groups such as the former DRC and disbility organisations across the country, are included in the process, and with the British Standards also running in conjunction, I would personally argue we are in danger of "over provision". Of course provision can not cater for every individuals needs and as I previously said there will never be a "one size fits all" solution because of the unique nature of many disabilities and the way they affect individuals.

In response to your individual points:

1. I find that response quite staggering, why should anyone, young , old, disabled deserve a job more than another person without determining the potential of the candidates to fulfil that role. If an individual has made that decision prior to going for a job what chance have they got. Yes there may be obstacles, and I am not advocating that every disabled person should be forced to work, but they should be fighting for the jobs that are out there like everyone else.

2. I agree with your comments, but you can never say that anything is definite, and I think that would be the wrong approach in all but terminal cases. What sort of outlook would there be for any individual without hope. Society is always changing, as an example I probably spend 3 days a week working from home via a remote network. Working from home is now common practise for many people and would surely overcome a substantial amount of the obstacles faced by many individuals. Yes the career options may be restricted, and the number of available jobs would be limited, but at least there is an option and it gives a certain level of inclusion rather than the isolation many people face. Blindness has historically been perceived as a permanent disability, but Mr Blunkett certainly did not let it obstruct his career, he did not accept a life of being told that there was no hope

3. They always manage to pick on the innocent and let the fraudsters get away with it, that is government for you But it should not be a reason to stop the regular audits/reviews. Lets get the process right not stop it because we cocked it up

4. It may be one of the benefits least subject to fraud, but it is happening, there are people in my locality who bend the rules to suit them. In my opinion all persons should be regularly reviewed when claiming benefits of any kind. If people are choosing not to work or are not able to work due to individual circumstances then the obstacles that stop them should be regularly reviewed to ensure they have not been removed by a change in individual circumstance or a societal change that has removed the barrier in question. In my mind this is as much for the benefit of the individual, although it also sends a signal to the tax paying population. Benefits should not be taken for granted they should be handed out only when all other options are exhausted.

As for reading the red tops, I am not a newspaper person, never have been never will be, I hat the bleeding things!! The thing is if the system worked you would not be going through the stress you are because only those entitled would be claiming and therefore the persecution would not exist.

Now who started this post, we will be attracting passing trolls with topics like this!!

[Rob 3,002]

You're also right about the banks. I daren't use all the adjectives I'd like to use about them, because Chris would probably (and rightly) ban me. The current austerity is down totally to their greed and profligacy. Nothing to do with Tony Blair or Gordon Brown, everything to do with them. They are the reason the rest of us are suffering from a decreased standard of living, and seeing our incomes squeezed. What's more, as I said a week or two back, not a single word about them paying back what they've shafted the public purse for. I would so like to put Cameron on the spot over the banks and what they owe the British people.

Oh that it was so simple.

The current cutback on public spending is b****r all to do with the banks, but a rebalancing of the state's expenditure. When Brown was Chancellor, he presided over a state spending plan that raised 44% less in tax than he spent over a five year period. This he called prudence. Heaven knows what he would have done had he decided to be imprudent in his eyes, but I suggest the lights would already have gone out. Any Chancellor has to balance the books over the period of a parliament or at least have a plan to do so if the policies are to have any credibility. Failure to do so without a rigged voting system ensuring 5 more years in advance means the government of the day can spend as much as it likes giving lots of freebies to the voter without being held to account and having to rectify the s**t it leaves for the next election victor. Politicians being self-congratulatory animals only want public endorsement of their policies. Playing Father Christmas is the easiest way to win the appoval of Mr Average UK who is on the whole pretty thick when it comes to the wider picture.

Rant over.

Sorry rob, but your rant is either naivety, or partisan political. What you call "rebalancing of the state's expenditure" is nothing but Conservative Party economics. You can see this quite clearly in Osborne and Cameron's list of targets, none of which include banks (despite Osborne's publically heralded "slap on the wrist"). But despite the Daily Mail's stereotyping of a sizeable minority of the British population as "workshy scroungers" (based on demonstrably false statistics) it's the poor wot gets the blame and are hit hardest. Twas ever thus. I really do recommend that you read Sebastian Faulks' "Week In December", all the while bearing in mind that he is no leftie. It will then be clear that what individual governments are pallid nothings in comparison to the economic power wielded by the world's banking system. All politicians do is scratch the surface in order to appease the readers of one particular tabloid newspaper or another. They actually make little or no difference. All Osborne's measures, that have heaped misery upon misery on those who can least afford it - have they had any real impact on the deficit? No. Could real measures taken against the banks, at which they would cough and sneeze for a week or two, have a much greater impact on the deficit? Yes. But no politician would dare, because if the banks withdrew their credit on which all governments rely whatever political shade they are - we would be "bankrupt" overnight.

"Follow the money".

It isn't partisan political because I would never pay any party to be told what to think. Like most people I take the Woolworth approach to politics of 'pick and mix'. Some things I would advocate are left and some right of centre, but I do have a belief that charity begins at home. Some things are sensibly organised on a national basis and essentially constitute a public service. There is no reason to have competition in the water service industry for example - that's a utility. This country needs people to get off their backsides and set up businesses that export to other countries, - waiting for Papa State to provide is not the solution as government jobs rarely improve the trading account of the UK or any other country. Successive governments, both left and right, have failed to support UK exporters with the result that manufacturing has become moribund. Due to the expansion of the public sector under the last government, the UK economy became increasingly unbalanced because the jobs created did not directly address the problem of the trade deficit, and in fact exacerbated the situation because the people concerned all went out and bought their consumer items, virtually all of which were imported. When the state sponsored percentage of employment is on a par with private enterprise, this is unsustainable because ultimately the former jobs represent a cost to the country. Sure we all want healthcare and education etc, but these things have to be paid for from receipts. If money doesn't enter the country, funding is reliant on people's savings. The pot only being so big means this is unsustainable in the long term. That is why we need more entrepreneurs in the UK. There wil never be a grandiose body responsible for solving all the problems of the country, rather it has to come from small businesses collectively. Part of the problem here is the EU which by 'generously distributing aid to poorer regions' also ties the grants to conditions regarding business use. A recent example locally being Liverpool, which has to pay back grants received in order for ships to start and finish their voyages in the city. The crux here is that it is all right to disburse funds because an area is suffering from an economic downturn, but if anyone is imaginative enough to try an economic revival, then the receiving body is penalised. The logic is crass. The funds were supplied to aleviate an economic problem, but any potential solution must not include an economically beneficial one. That is a common theme running through state provision. There is no incentive for recipients to change the status quo if they can survive on handouts. That extends to social benefits paid for from the public purse and is why a free lunch must always be questioned. (And incidently is why I believe the tax free band should not be raised, but rather fall to zero, as it's existence also creates a resistance to earn more on the grounds that nobody likes to pay any tax. If you can survive on tax free handouts, many will do just that).

The best solution for this or any other country is the creation of private enterprises because they are driven by making money. There is no other reason for somebody to be in business. State organisations on the other hand have no incentive to be efficient. The time honoured promotion based on time served still appears to work very well. An employment position's importance is to a large extent determined by how many people you are responsible for. There is no incentive in the state sector to reduce headcount because public opinion always views a public service as something worth expanding. Thererin lies the dilemma. There is no connection made between public services and their cost in the eyes of many, but as you are aware, they do cost a lot of money to every taxpayer. The big problem private enterprise has is that many on the left have tended towards state employment and disdainfully view private business as corrupt, greedy, or almost feudal in its behaviour. For some reason it is ok to pay out benefits to people but not ok to spend money setting up businesses which in the fullness of time would hopefully repay the money and more. Until government recognises that benefits are unsustainable in the long term as they currently stand and that the best way of funding them is by taxing earned profits, this country will remain in a big hole. The money needs to come from overseas in the form of a trade surplus, otherwise you are merely robbing Peter to pay Paul whilst at the same time reducing the investment pot of the inhabitants of this country.

As far as the banks are concerned, I think that Northern Rock should have been allowed to go to the wall. Victor Blank should have been shot for agreeing to merge with HBOS without conducting due diligence and in the process screwing his own bank which hitherto had been quite well run. The money that has been injected into the banks in the form of QE has not been inflationary to date as it has merely been hoarded to bolster reserves under Basel III. If and when the time comes that history is forgotten and they decide there is too much capital held by the banks, I would seriously advise you to buy index linked protection before it happens. The banks are unquestionably too big because they show time after time that there is too little control over operations in diverse sections of those businesses, but that is not the same issue as blaming the cutbacks in the public sector for the banks' past excesses. The amount of money made by banks is not excessive either in my view. Estimated combined profits this year are forecast at £35bn for Barclays, Lloyds, RBS, HSBC and Standard Chartered, but roughly £20bn of that is accounted for by the last two who do most of their business overseas in Asia. Do you want to penalise them for making money abroad. The two sick men, RBS and Lloyds will probably make less than £8bn combined, which is not a huge amount when put into perspective against the total value of transactions. Reducing the UK element of the profits to say half that total would represent profits of about 1% of UK GDP, not a large amount given many of the transactions will past through their books. Not many businesses could survive on a such a low profit relative to turnover.

The solution for this or any other country is to have a positive trade balance and let someone else finance your spending on the little luxuries in life. Knowing that we can't all be in the black the best we can hope for is a worldwide collective oscillation around parity, but this country has long run a structural deficit. The deficit is money that goes to our foreign suppliers and is lost to this country for good. If you have indigenous industries, at least the money is recycled and imports reduced. In the 80s the typical yearly deficit was in single figure billions, today we do that in a month, every month. The people in this country have to come to their senses and recognise that no foreign country is going to give them their free lunch, it has to be earned. That is not naivety, just a recognition that the solution lies in our own hands in the form of import substitution, exports and a tad less reliance on the nebulous free lunch.

[Peter 615]

Dons his Brodie helmet and retreats to under the table.

[1949threepence 3,366]

You're also right about the banks. I daren't use all the adjectives I'd like to use about them, because Chris would probably (and rightly) ban me. The current austerity is down totally to their greed and profligacy. Nothing to do with Tony Blair or Gordon Brown, everything to do with them. They are the reason the rest of us are suffering from a decreased standard of living, and seeing our incomes squeezed. What's more, as I said a week or two back, not a single word about them paying back what they've shafted the public purse for. I would so like to put Cameron on the spot over the banks and what they owe the British people.

Oh that it was so simple.

The current cutback on public spending is b****r all to do with the banks, but a rebalancing of the state's expenditure. When Brown was Chancellor, he presided over a state spending plan that raised 44% less in tax than he spent over a five year period. This he called prudence. Heaven knows what he would have done had he decided to be imprudent in his eyes, but I suggest the lights would already have gone out. Any Chancellor has to balance the books over the period of a parliament or at least have a plan to do so if the policies are to have any credibility. Failure to do so without a rigged voting system ensuring 5 more years in advance means the government of the day can spend as much as it likes giving lots of freebies to the voter without being held to account and having to rectify the s**t it leaves for the next election victor. Politicians being self-congratulatory animals only want public endorsement of their policies. Playing Father Christmas is the easiest way to win the appoval of Mr Average UK who is on the whole pretty thick when it comes to the wider picture.

Rhetorical question, but why do people who are rational and live within their means as far as their own household is concerned suddenly throw financial common sense out of the window when it comes to public expenditure. The clarion calls of "Tax the rich" will always appeal to the have nots and many of those on the left, but sequesting the assets of those who on the whole are the main generators of business wealth is not the right way to go about it. Until the left learns to back business and the creation of private wealth generated through exporting this country's products to foreigners, this country is on a hiding to nothing. Yes, that means acknowledging that profit must not be a dirty word. There is no such thing as a free lunch and so if you want benefits for the citizens of this country, then come up with a sustainable plan for them whereby funding is supplied by taxing the profits of ongoing trade surplusses with A, B & C. If this country is in the s**t, then s**t we need to export until the level is low enough to keep our heads above water.

The banks may have lent irresponsibly to developers and whatever, but the biggest problems are going to be sovereign loans. Countries borrow on many multiples of the loans even to large multi-nationals. The only problem is that politicians spend most of their time and government income bribing their electorates to ensure a further ride on the gravy train. This is typically presented as "investment", but is rarely is applied to projects involving private enterprises exporting goods to others, rather it is a way of ensuring that your mates are looked after at the expense of the taxpayer. You can build roads, railways, runways and other infrastructure projects all you like, but none of these will generate income from exports. We need to make the pots and pans that are currently imported. Replace imports with home produced goods. Export the same if you can. When governments are forced to take steps to balance the books they introduce unpopular plans by removing the free lunch, get voted out, and the whole unhappy cycle starts all over again. We've seen it year-in, year-out in Europe. Maximum deficit levels which are broken year after year on the grounds that this year, last year and every year for the forseeable future is/was/will be an exceptional year meaning the rules can be broken ad-infinitum. Until the west gets a real bloody nose to awaken it from the cozy existence it has embraced for the last 60 years, the penny won't drop. If people want social benefits, then set up an industrial and fiscal structure that will deliver year on year rather than introducing things by popular demand without giving due thought to funding. You cannot have a balanced economy based on spending money you neither have, nor are willing to generate. Unless Johnny Foreigner buys the goods and services of this country, people had better scale back their visions of the ongoing free lunch. The biggest danger in the current setup are the politicans who would rarely put country before party re-election - not the banks.

Rant over.

I'm afraid it has everything to do with the banks. What has occurred is not a little local UK difficulty, but rather a global meltdown of epic proportions, caused, initiated and fully orchestrated by the financial services sector globally. It's not just public spending which has been affected, but in addition, nearly all enterprises have cut back on staff, and salaries have been cut, whether in real or absolute terms. Whilst I agree with much of what you say in the sense of a normal times economic adjustment, I profoundly disagree that the banks had bugger all to do with the cutback in public spending. Moroever, they are responsible for a whole lot more besides.

We have varied between Keynesian and freemarket economics for many decades. But when in the lifetime of anybody here, have we faced the austerity package we all face today ? I'd state as a hard fact that living standards have not fallen to the extent they have over the last 4 years, since before the 1950's. Even Mervyn King blames the banks for the mess we are in. click here

The recession was caused by the financial services sector and the real cost is being paid for by the innocent public. The Governor of the Bank of England is surprised that the publics’ anger towards the bankers who caused the recession has not been greater.

Mervyn King told members of the Treasury Select Committee that the financial services sector was responsible for the fall in household incomes and living standards. He said “the people whose jobs were destroyed were in no way responsible for the excesses of the financial sector and the crisis that followed†adding that he was “surprised the real anger hasn’t been greater than it hasâ€

[choolie 0]

OK so this is the US - but we are not far behind. Warning its a little long winded but I liked the analogy.

here

Is that not the life coach/motivational evangelist tony robbins? What's he doing getting involved with such negative political stuff??

[Rob 3,002]

I think there is a danger here of using one fault to explain the other and vice-versa. The banking crisis effectively came to a head with the sub-prime situation in the US. That was a case of people being sold loans they couldn't afford as a result of greed by the financial salesforces concerned taking their commission payments as fast and frequently as they could. Government could have interfered in the process but didn't. To a lesser extent the same thing happened in this country as a result of the more aggressive lenders such as Northern Rock and the Halifax offering ever increasing multiples of income to stoke the overheating property market. The main offenders at this time were the former mutuals who in all probability did not have sufficient expertise to adjust to a market enforced contraction having been constrained from excessive lending by the rules of mutuality in the early 1990s. As fully listed companies they were free to tap the markets more or less as and when they wanted. The problems arose when access to funds dried up.

The initial cash injections by the government into RBS & Lloyds were only a fraction of the overspend by government in recent history, though the subsequent QE measures have inflated those figures enormously with the corresponding increase in debt per head of population. Whether the banking crisis had occurred or not, the government would eventually have been brought to heel by its creditors because we all know that if you own the debt, you don't control the future. The Labour government's insistence on spending the nation's wealth beyond the tax take on its pet projects was entirely due to GBs desire to portray himself as Father Christmas. The government had been spending beyond its income levels for years, never once trying to balance its books. The suggestion that cutting back on public expenditure is due to the banking crisis is only loosely connected at best insofar as banks were no longer in a position to purchase government bonds. If the UK's expenditure was considered reasonable, those bonds could and would have been bought by creditor nations and their banks as not all countries were in the same mess, but whether they chose to do so would be based on a rational assessment of whether a government could reasonably be expected to pay back the debt. Not only did Labour not have a plan in place to balance the books, there is no evidence there was any intention to do so. Only TB's resignation allowing GB to become party leader stopped the deluge because Alastair Darling was somewhat more financially astute, but by that time unable to do anything about it. When you are in a hole it is best to stop digging.

So I believe the two matters are related more in timing and general market sentiment than as a direct cause and effect. The financial services industry has always and will always be greedy, telling half truths and rarely if ever presenting the full facts. Against this is the responsibility of the individual to not stretch themselves to a point where they cannot make repayments. People have had benign economic conditions for too long with no memeory of having to juggle affordability. When I took out my first mortgage in the early 1980s, I was paying 5 or 6% on it. Those repayments soon hit double figures, so I promptly paid it off. GB said New Labour was the end of boom and bust - yeah, right, just like all the other times.

Anecdote - Even after all the recent market turmoil and supposed lack of available funding, the financial service sector never fails to shoot itself in the foot. Last year we bought a buy to let. Initially we were going to take out a 60% LTV mortgage and offset interest payments against tax. At the meeting to arrange the loan, all we were asked is whether the vendor was going to live in the house following purchase. We said no, he said ok. We paid our application fee and waited for the paperwork to come through. When it arrived, one clause stated that not only was the vendor not allowed to live there, but neither was any family member. This was inconvenient as potentially the house could have ben used by one of our children. When I raised the point with the mortgage arranger he just said don't mention it. Great. Why enter into a binding agreement if under false pretences. Do I not bother making repayments on the gounds I thought the lender was having a laugh when we were told we would have to repay the loan at so much per month? We swallowed the application fee loss and the Co-op got their money. The financial adviser through whom the application was made didn't get his commission as we promptly paid cash in full and didn't take out the loan. When will they learn? Nothing changes, greed rules, but it is still incumbent on the individual to act responsibly rather than adopt a perpetual nanny state approach.

Edited May 30, 2012 by Rob

[josie 8]

Most countries have debt to whom????

Who owned whom???

[Peckris 579]

Colin, I respect your engineering experience, but what you say generally about the disabled and their benefits cannot have any meaning unless and until you are disabled yourself. I hope that day never comes.

However, I agree with what you say about enhancements improving accessibility for disabled people, and if that were the only consideration, I'd agree with everything you said. But it isn't. The following all apply :

1. There aren't any jobs for young people. Why would employers take on someone who can't control peeing and shitting, need regular breaks to rest or recover, have spasms, are getting worse all the time, can't mobilise, etc etc? Give that job to a young person with their working life ahead of them, I say.

2. As for 'leaving claimants stranded on benefits without routing reassessment" - to some extent that is Govt spin. I'd be more sympathetic with that stated view if certain conditions were recognsied as being progressive and incurable, and therefore there is no point subjecting such people to the misery of "assessment" : motor neurone, MS, Parkinsons, Alzheimers, to name a few. Some people should be left alone with their benefits, as they have a full time job already, just managing from day to day, all the activities which you take for granted.

3. Why did successive Govts hand the contract for reassessment to a French IT firm, whose professionals don't have to have medical qualifications (no word of a lie), in centres that are sometimes inaccessible to wheelchairs (ditto), where severely disabled people are routinely found "fit for work" only to have this laughable verdict overturned at an independent appeal, cause a significant number of suicides, cause anxiety and stress to those least able to cope with it, while at the same time issuing statistics that are at best misleading at worst downright false leading to IDS having to apologise to the House of Commons ... ?

4. What is the statistic for fraud among those claiming disability benefits? 0.5% - yes, that's too high, but it's the lowest for any state handout or benefit. Yet, the tabloid press - with the tacit connivance of the DWP - put the fear of god into honest decent folks - such as you - with their scary and made up "facts" about scroungers. In fact, it's harder to claim and get disability benefits than any other. The occasional idiot who runs around refereeing football matches while claiming ESA, is just that - occasional.

I ask you to listen to me. Dig deeper than what you read in the red tops. There are people out here living in fear and anxiety and stress, worrying that no only do they have to struggle with every single aspect of their lives, every day, but that they might lose the pittance paid to them on which they have to survive, and pay for all the adaptions and equipment they need just to get through their own front door, wash, sleep, go to the toilet, cook, etc. Don't tell me there are more job opportunities for disabled people than there were ten years ago. I believe you. Give them to those disabled who CAN work, after first ensuring that all young people have a job first. Don't tolerate the state persecution of people who have incurable conditions. Remember which government it was, that first did that.

Peck the comment that I am not disabled and therefore will never know, is a bit of a generalisation and in my opinion a very negative viewpoint. Hopefully I will never know, but I would much rather it happen in today's society than the ones that have gone before. In fact I would also it rather happen in this country than any other as well.

The Building Regulations are formed following extensive consultation with numerous bodies incorporating a wide range of views and opinions in an attempt to ensure the guidance is relative, current and provides the maximum benefit for the greatest number of people. They don't always get it right, but Groups such as the former DRC and disbility organisations across the country, are included in the process, and with the British Standards also running in conjunction, I would personally argue we are in danger of "over provision". Of course provision can not cater for every individuals needs and as I previously said there will never be a "one size fits all" solution because of the unique nature of many disabilities and the way they affect individuals.

In response to your individual points:

1. I find that response quite staggering, why should anyone, young , old, disabled deserve a job more than another person without determining the potential of the candidates to fulfil that role. If an individual has made that decision prior to going for a job what chance have they got. Yes there may be obstacles, and I am not advocating that every disabled person should be forced to work, but they should be fighting for the jobs that are out there like everyone else.

2. I agree with your comments, but you can never say that anything is definite, and I think that would be the wrong approach in all but terminal cases. What sort of outlook would there be for any individual without hope. Society is always changing, as an example I probably spend 3 days a week working from home via a remote network. Working from home is now common practise for many people and would surely overcome a substantial amount of the obstacles faced by many individuals. Yes the career options may be restricted, and the number of available jobs would be limited, but at least there is an option and it gives a certain level of inclusion rather than the isolation many people face. Blindness has historically been perceived as a permanent disability, but Mr Blunkett certainly did not let it obstruct his career, he did not accept a life of being told that there was no hope

3. They always manage to pick on the innocent and let the fraudsters get away with it, that is government for you But it should not be a reason to stop the regular audits/reviews. Lets get the process right not stop it because we cocked it up

4. It may be one of the benefits least subject to fraud, but it is happening, there are people in my locality who bend the rules to suit them. In my opinion all persons should be regularly reviewed when claiming benefits of any kind. If people are choosing not to work or are not able to work due to individual circumstances then the obstacles that stop them should be regularly reviewed to ensure they have not been removed by a change in individual circumstance or a societal change that has removed the barrier in question. In my mind this is as much for the benefit of the individual, although it also sends a signal to the tax paying population. Benefits should not be taken for granted they should be handed out only when all other options are exhausted.

As for reading the red tops, I am not a newspaper person, never have been never will be, I hat the bleeding things!! The thing is if the system worked you would not be going through the stress you are because only those entitled would be claiming and therefore the persecution would not exist.

Now who started this post, we will be attracting passing trolls with topics like this!!

Colin, please stop quoting building regs at me - that's not the point at issue here. I'm talking about disability benefits, not general accessibility which as you rightly say, has improved greatly in recent years. To respond to your response to my points :

1. I wasn't talking about anyone's qualifications or 'deservingness' for a job. I asked WHY would an employer choose someone who presented them with all the problems I outlined, when they could have someone fit and able in body and mind, in fact their choice from probably 50 fit people for each job? For those disabled who CAN work there should be jobs, but you tell me who is going to provide them, huh? What the Govt are doing is saving money, and doing it at the expense of those least able to stand up for themselves and fight back. If that' not cynicism, I don't know what is.

2. Please don't air your ignorance about particular illnesses and disabilities. I find it personally offensive to have someone tell me, from no experience, that "only the terminal cases are exceptions". I already listed certain conditions that are progressive and incurable. PPMS - which I have - is one of them. Don't tell me I may wake up tomorrow cured, "no-one knows for certain". I've lived with this for near on 15 years and like all the experts and consultants and professionals, I KNOW from my own experience, that it is a downhill path from which there is no return. I don't need a non-medical joker assessing me for the DWP and telling me I'm "fit for work" when it's laughably evident to anyone with a pair of eyes or Mr Blunkett's guide dog, that I'm not. As for blind people, yes they can adapt and it hasn't been a major obstacle to Blunkett's career in politics. But it's a FIXED condition. It's not a progressive illness where just as you manage to adapt and get used to one set of drawbacks, tomorrow, next week, next year, there's a new and worse set, and you have to adapt all over again. And because of constant adaption, there's no energy for much else. Like I told you above, living with such conditions is a full time job in itself.

4. How many times do I have to say this? SOME CONDITIONS ARE PROGRESSIVE AND INCURABLE. People who suffer from them should be given the option of doing work if they can and if there is any, but otherwise they should be left alone to deal with their illnesses, along with teams of PROFESSIONALS. They should NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT be placed in the undignified and horrific situation of having to prove themselves over and over again, subjct to all the stress it involves, just because of a cynical penny-pinching money-saving exercise.

And finally DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT TAXPAYERS. That's one of the biggest insults I have to deal with regularly, from all kinds of "outraged of Tunbridge" types but also decent folks who don't seem to understand this simple point - WE'RE ALL TAXPAYERS. No? I pay whopping fuel duty on my adapted car. I pay Council Tax. I pay VAT on everything I buy that's not 0 rated. I pay tax on savings interest. I'm issued with a P60 every year. My disability benefit is taxable. So DON'T please trot out the "taxpayer" line because it doesn't wash. I am a taxpayer. What's more, I paid into the system for the 25 years or so that I worked and paid NI stamps. My benefits are paid for - BY ME.

Sorry to get so ratty, but you have trodden on at least three of the sensitive areas I have to live with, and defend, on what seems like a daily basis.

[Peckris 579]

I think there is a danger here of using one fault to explain the other and vice-versa.

Sorry Rob, I used up all my energy and time responding to Colin's points about disability benefits. I've nothing left for the banking situation. I'll read it all tomorrow and see if I have a sensible response to make.

[Rob 3,002]

I think there is a danger here of using one fault to explain the other and vice-versa.

Sorry Rob, I used up all my energy and time responding to Colin's points about disability benefits. I've nothing left for the banking situation. I'll read it all tomorrow and see if I have a sensible response to make.

Not to worry, we'll all agree to disagree in the end.

[Gary D 76]

I think there is a danger here of using one fault to explain the other and vice-versa.

Sorry Rob, I used up all my energy and time responding to Colin's points about disability benefits. I've nothing left for the banking situation. I'll read it all tomorrow and see if I have a sensible response to make.

I believe the system was going to break eventually with or without the Bankers. When it happened it just gave gov someone to kick for their own excesses.

[Gary D 76]

Useful link here

Link not working for me, any chance of resending it.

[TomGoodheart 373]

I think I've lost track of this thread! But I had a couple of comments (My hap'ny worth!)

So I believe the two matters are related more in timing and general market sentiment than as a direct cause and effect. The financial services industry has always and will always be greedy, telling half truths and rarely if ever presenting the full facts. Against this is the responsibility of the individual to not stretch themselves to a point where they cannot make repayments. People have had benign economic conditions for too long with no memeory of having to juggle affordability.

I find it interesting that after the foundation of the euro, Germany's national debt regularly broke the set limits. Whereas Spain's government carefully followed the requirements and had the smallest debts until the 2008 crisis.

What caused the problem was personal debt as Spaniards borrowed money to ride the crest of a property boom ... which of course didn't last. So really the banks were responsible, in that they responded to public demand and provided cheap and poorly guaranteed loans. But of course the people themselves have to bear some responsibility for borrowing well beyond their means, so fuelling the banks problems. The whole thing was compounded by a similar thing happening in the US which knocked confidence in financial institutions.

And there's the problem. Polticians and the government no longer (if ever they did) have the power to control the national economy because it's largely influenced by factors outside national control. Financial sentiment, international debt and increased gearing of financial institutions mean that when things go well they can do very well. But when the US (or China, or a Eurozone member) catches a cold ... well, we all sneeze.

As to Chris' comments about disability .. tell me about it. I work with people with acquired brain injuries. And while many of them do show some physical effects of their injuries in poor muscle control or spasticity, many of their problems are not so obvious. Changed mood, motivation, stamina. Impulsiveness, poor self control, difficulties in concentrating or keeping to a task for any meaningful length of time, excessive (and sometimes sudden) tiredness -these things all make it very difficult for them to just pick up a new job.

But these things are also difficult to spot in a half hour chat and a request to do some simple physical tasks. Their problems require expertise and understanding to diagnose and to allow for. Which is not to say that many of our service users can't work and many of them would like to. But to expect many of them to walk back into a job without proper support is a recipe for disaster.

Plus there's the aspect of self esteem. These guys already struggle to come to terms with how different their lives are from before their brain injury. To add to that by asking an ex-barister, English graduate or someone who worked for the Financial Services Authority to box up bicycle gears or shelf stack in the Body Shop can exacerbate depression (particularly if they realise they are struggling with even these simple tasks) to the point that they can barely function.

So while I have no problem with confirming that someone who receives state support actually needs it, or trying to help them find meaningful employment, I do feel that those who are making the assessments need to have the tact and expertise to do so. I also feel that we need to focus less on 'weeding out the fraudsters' (which makes everyone feel as if they are assumed to be guilty before they are even seen) and more on enabling, assisting and supporting people to make the most they can of their skills and abilities.

[Rob 3,002]

I think I've lost track of this thread! But I had a couple of comments (My hap'ny worth!)

So I believe the two matters are related more in timing and general market sentiment than as a direct cause and effect. The financial services industry has always and will always be greedy, telling half truths and rarely if ever presenting the full facts. Against this is the responsibility of the individual to not stretch themselves to a point where they cannot make repayments. People have had benign economic conditions for too long with no memeory of having to juggle affordability.

I find it interesting that after the foundation of the euro, Germany's national debt regularly broke the set limits. Whereas Spain's government carefully followed the requirements and had the smallest debts until the 2008 crisis.

What caused the problem was personal debt as Spaniards borrowed money to ride the crest of a property boom ... which of course didn't last. So really the banks were responsible, in that they responded to public demand and provided cheap and poorly guaranteed loans. But of course the people themselves have to bear some responsibility for borrowing well beyond their means, so fuelling the banks problems. The whole thing was compounded by a similar thing happening in the US which knocked confidence in financial institutions.

And there's the problem. Polticians and the government no longer (if ever they did) have the power to control the national economy because it's largely influenced by factors outside national control. Financial sentiment, international debt and increased gearing of financial institutions mean that when things go well they can do very well. But when the US (or China, or a Eurozone member) catches a cold ... well, we all sneeze.

The point about Germany is that after the Eurozone was created, it took steps to reposition itself as an efficient producer and to overhaul the government finances. That is the time when it was considered the sick man of Europe. They re-evaluated the benefits system because they found that people were able to claim on several different benefits for the same thing. Industry invested to become a very efficient producer. Germany had an overhang of debt from reunification, which was funded for years via the additional solidarity tax on various transactions. But crucially the population maintained its traditional habit of living within its means. If you couldn't afford something, you didn't buy it. Credit card use was much lower than than in other western countries and cash/cheque was king. What you bought was expected to last for years and not disintegrate after a few days use. German industry produced goods that lived up to this expectation and the indigenous population bought said goods. The general ethos of the country requires any supply or purchase of goods or services to be of a certain quality - that is something that both sides of the equation adhere to as a rule. Shoppers also believes in procuring supplies from your local 'meister' of whatever, as they are clearly capable of delivering. As a consequence, it has a healthy balance of payments, a good solid industrial base, local suppliers of most goods and services required for everyday living and a population working for the common good. The latter has always been a strength of the German people, though with unforseen consequences when a nutter gets to be in charge as history has shown. Social differences are not as divergent as in this country. There is a greater pressure to 'conform to a certain standard' than you find in this country, but as with all systems, no single form has all the answers.

Spain by contrast has a southern European lifestyle which is more laid back along the lines of Greece and Italy. There is far less community pressure comparable to that seen in Germany. Spain's boom was based on building houses for people to live in either as migrants from cooler climes or as holiday homes. Those people do not produce income for the state from goods and services supplied. Again we have a case of infrastructure spending without the corresponding industrial base to finance those plans. Spain may have had one of the lowest debt ratios of any European country, but if you have no effective income, you will never be able to service that debt. Spain did not have a solid industrial base on which to build. Many of the 'banana republics' of this world have debt to GDP ratios of only 10%, but nobody would dare risk lending money because repayment would be only a remote possibility.

All the evidence points to developed countries putting the cart before the horse. Everyone want the benefits systems in place to be maintained, but very few people consider how the same systems can be sustainably funded which is a pre-requisite just to maintain the status quo. The question that needs to be asked is how can we run the country to produce excess income that can be disbursed to the population in the form of desired benefits that are otherwise unaffordable.

Edited May 31, 2012 by Rob

[Colin G. 147]

To respond to your response to my response to your points

1. I think you give current employers less credit that they deserve, I would much rather employ someone who can perform the job to the best of their ability regardless of their demands, I am not naive enough to believe that this is a view taken by all employers, and yes I agree it is going to be much harder for a disabled persons to seek employment, but things are slowly improving.

2. Apologies for any offence caused, that was not my intention, I am just trying to explain that taking a definitive view on an outcome is in effect to give up hope. Yes things may get progressively worse but you should never say never, that does seem like a defeatist view, although I very much appreciate that my position is one of an outside persepective looking in. My intention was never to get into the nuts and bolts of dicussing individual illnesses or disabilities, but just to discuss the generic topic of accessibility and benefit claims.

4. I agree with your statement, and I have never said that people should have to PROVE themselves, I am talking about an assessment by suitably qualified individuals to review cases, and I can not see any reason why this should not be undertaken. Yes the current system of assessment may be shocking, but surely it is not beyond the realms of possibility for a suitable system to be created.

And finally DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT TAXPAYERS - agreed, that was a sweeping statement that was not intended to be interpreted that way, I just don't understand the current approach of moving people into a low income tax free band, in my opinion there should be an increase in pay and everyone should pay income tax, even if it is a minute amount. It gives people a sense of contribution, and would stop a lot of the issues around classification.

Do not apologise for being passionate about your response, that is the way discussions and debates should be. Also do not take my comments as a dig at disability benefits in isolation, I would have quite easily have taken a similar stance on other benefits. I know we will never agree on a way forward, nor should we the world would be a very boring place if we did.....so we will just have to agree to disagree, and please do not feel offended by any of my comments that was never my intention

[1949threepence 3,366]

Useful link here

Link not working for me, any chance of resending it.

Yeah, sure. Don't know what happened there, it was definitely working when I first posted it, as I always check them to make sure.

Anyway here it is again !!!

[Peckris 579]

I think there is a danger here of using one fault to explain the other and vice-versa.

Sorry Rob, I used up all my energy and time responding to Colin's points about disability benefits. I've nothing left for the banking situation. I'll read it all tomorrow and see if I have a sensible response to make.

Not to worry, we'll all agree to disagree in the end.

I can't comment on the history of the Eurozone and its economic woes, but I was thinking earlier about your (and many others') analogy between the state and an ordinary household, i.e. how a state should 'balance the books' like householders have to do, and I was thinking that as an analogy it leaves something to be desired! After all, the average householder has a mortgage - i.e. they are in deficit. They may use all the overdraft facility their bank offers - another deficit. And if someone wants to start a small business up, maybe employing one or two people, where do they get the funds to begin? That's right, from a loan, i.e. another deficit, even though that particular deficit may put money back into the wider economy from wages paid and goods produced and sold. So I guess a state is acting no different, especially if you believe in Keynesian economics (which I do) which got many a failing economy out of a dire hole in the 20th Century.

To respond to your response to my response to your points

1. I think you give current employers less credit that they deserve, I would much rather employ someone who can perform the job to the best of their ability regardless of their demands, I am not naive enough to believe that this is a view taken by all employers, and yes I agree it is going to be much harder for a disabled persons to seek employment, but things are slowly improving.

2. Apologies for any offence caused, that was not my intention, I am just trying to explain that taking a definitive view on an outcome is in effect to give up hope. Yes things may get progressively worse but you should never say never, that does seem like a defeatist view, although I very much appreciate that my position is one of an outside persepective looking in. My intention was never to get into the nuts and bolts of dicussing individual illnesses or disabilities, but just to discuss the generic topic of accessibility and benefit claims.

4. I agree with your statement, and I have never said that people should have to PROVE themselves, I am talking about an assessment by suitably qualified individuals to review cases, and I can not see any reason why this should not be undertaken. Yes the current system of assessment may be shocking, but surely it is not beyond the realms of possibility for a suitable system to be created.

And finally DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT TAXPAYERS - agreed, that was a sweeping statement that was not intended to be interpreted that way, I just don't understand the current approach of moving people into a low income tax free band, in my opinion there should be an increase in pay and everyone should pay income tax, even if it is a minute amount. It gives people a sense of contribution, and would stop a lot of the issues around classification.

Do not apologise for being passionate about your response, that is the way discussions and debates should be. Also do not take my comments as a dig at disability benefits in isolation, I would have quite easily have taken a similar stance on other benefits. I know we will never agree on a way forward, nor should we the world would be a very boring place if we did.....so we will just have to agree to disagree, and please do not feel offended by any of my comments that was never my intention

It's ok, my anger's gone now! I think the source of my frustration is how many ordinary, decent, intelligent people just have no idea what's going on. Why? Because they're not informed. If you have time or inclination, do have a look into these factors :

1. The role of one Mansel Aylward in promoting the "Social Model" of illness (a large part of which is the theory - rubbished by many healthcare professionals - that in a welfare state people deliberately or otherwise develop symptoms of illness; and that some illnesses, i.e. backache, are almost entirely figments of the imagination; this theory has subsequently been extended by its adherents to include even MS). In his time, Aylward was both a senior official of the DWP and also on the board of UNUM Provident, the giant American health insurance company.

2. The 'selling' of this theory by Aylward and UNUM in the 1990s to the DWP and all governments from Major's onwards. The evolution of ESA to replace Incapacity Benefit as a result, purely as an agent to reduce the welfare budget.

3. The role of UNUM Provident in America, where they routinely denied disability benefits to people who had paid premiums and then had illnesses or disabilities and claimed on their UNUM policies. UNUM were described in some US Courts as a 'benefits denial factory' and banned from operating in certain States.

4. The role of Atos Origin, a French IT firm who are or have been wholly owned by UNUM Provident, in administering the Work Capability Assessments on Britain's disabled, using the techniques acquired from UNUM to give seriously disabled people "null points' and thus deny them benefits.

5. The LIMA software developed by UNUM and Atos which asks "healthcare professionals" to ask the client a range of questions with a YES / NO tick box to complete, with no subtlety relating to people with complex and varying conditions. To give one example "Do you watch soaps on TV?" is interpreted by the software that a person can sit for half an hour and fully concentrate on a task.

I've barely scratched the surface. It's a long and tricky story that has evolved over 20 years. It makes unhappy reading.

[Rob 3,002]

I can't comment on the history of the Eurozone and its economic woes, but I was thinking earlier about your (and many others') analogy between the state and an ordinary household, i.e. how a state should 'balance the books' like householders have to do, and I was thinking that as an analogy it leaves something to be desired! After all, the average householder has a mortgage - i.e. they are in deficit. They may use all the overdraft facility their bank offers - another deficit. And if someone wants to start a small business up, maybe employing one or two people, where do they get the funds to begin? That's right, from a loan, i.e. another deficit, even though that particular deficit may put money back into the wider economy from wages paid and goods produced and sold. So I guess a state is acting no different, especially if you believe in Keynesian economics (which I do) which got many a failing economy out of a dire hole in the 20th Century.

I recognise that you can never have completely balanced income and expenditure, but the key is to manage a deficit responsibly.

I think the main difference between a household debt and a national one is that the former usually has a plan to pay it off in full within a specific time frame whereas the latter expects it to be rolled over ad infinitum. There is certainly never a willingness to incur and then rectify an imbalance within the lifetime of a single period of government. This inevitably results in ever increasing debt because paying it down requires sacrifices to be made on a national level - not a vote winner. The path usually employed is to buy time and votes by increasing the debt, which is used by politicians as often as they can get away with.

When times are good and the economy doing well, the national debts should be paid off in full or paid down as much as possible. To spend the extra income received in the good times on further or expanded government sponsored projects is irresponsible as it sows the seeds of cutbacks when times get hard - precisely when the public doesn't want to know about cutbacks. A good analogy would be that of mineral extraction. When prices rise, you mine the less productive seams. When they fall, you extract the easily accessible ores with lower costs. It results in a business model which although it reduces potential profits when prices are high, also ensures that a viable business is maintained when they fall and crucially doesn't require cashflow to be fully on or completely shut off. That is effectively saving for a rainy day and as a model sustainable.

Edited May 31, 2012 by Rob