Gone baby gone

How can this be? I thought there were two main points to UC... Firsty to make work pay - seems to be failing on this point. Secondly to bring together all the various benefits to make fraud harder, and caps easier to implement - seems to be failing on this point.

There's something else about general strikes. They are usually an indicator the country is about to shake hands with someone from the IMF...

But if they are higher than their competitors it surely proves that tax is irrelevant? To wit, Costa Coffee can pay UK corporation tax and still deliver the same product for less than Starbucks, so either the more tax you pay the cheaper your product becomes (unlikely) or there is no direct relationship between tax and product retail prices for many products and services in the UK.

Actually, I think you'll find that the prices aren't lower. In the case of Starbucks and Microsoft they are actually higher. Their profits are probably higher. Which is good for someone hopefully.

You presume too much. We're going to have more banks that need bailing out* soon. * = indirectly via a government property slush fund. Maybe Amazon, Starbucks and Microsoft could withold their Corporation Tax payments. Just a thought.

Y'know, I don't think that is one of the options. The options are: Pay the same or more taxes for a smaller public sector. Pay the same or more taxes for the same public sector. Only the Labour party have been talking about tax cuts recently. That just shows you what a pickle we're in!

There is some evidence that "back to work" advisors have been putting pressure on JSA claimants to go this route: http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/work-programme-employment-agency-advice.294931/ Helps to massage the very important "claimant count" for JSA. <whispers> Nobody really notices a big jump in self employed people at the same time as "Jobseekers" fall </whispers> But I'm terribly sorry old bean, Universal Credit is going to stop that wheeze (or at least limit it to short time period)

We could, but you'd need to be in a union otherwise you actions would make you liable for dismissal. The article says there are "legal hurdles" to overcome. I think - a bit like the war with Iraq - that just means the right people have to have lunch and sufficient legal fees are paid to make everything ok.

You should probably get that seen to.

Petition is up to over 400,000 signatories and is apparently breaking records! http://news.uk.msn.com/blog/blog--iain-duncan-smith-petition-breaks-records

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/britains-biggest-unions-put-weight-behind-plan-for-general-strike-8559027.html It's all starting to feel a bit 1930s. As I said earlier this week, the government will be praying for a crap summer, otherwise there could be public disorder coming soon to a major city near you...

Only because Burger King didn't keep records of who stuck around and who didn't and since they were already firefighting, threw a bone to the press to try and salvage a teeny tiny bit of good feeling!

It usually is the more comfortable people who whinge the loudest. Take NIMBYism as an example.

Let's face it, the MPs struggle to do a fairly easy job on £1,200 a week. And that's will all their other expenses (like accomodation, travel to and from work, etc) met for them by taxpayer. IDS couldn't live on £150 a week or £53 a week if he had to cover all his costs.

True enough, but we swung too far the opposite way, as is often the case.

She still owns the land though, right? Even if it is under the sea.

It's the only answer until you have something better than a few half-baked "schemes" to try and encourage entrepreneurs, it's not much to put up against our industrial wastelands. If someone like Google was a UK company, or maybe even had been at some point, you might have the semblance of an argument, but what they did was allow (and in some cases, actively encourage) industries that were massive UK employers to die. And now people are getting all upset there are no jobs that will cover the bills for these people and their successors. British Leyland and their ilk - yeah, they deserved to go the way of the do do, and cars really aren't one of life's essentials. If you stopped importing cars to the UK tomorrow, we could survive for a while and figure out how to make our own cars. But energy IS one of the essentials. Here's a little recap for you. So we imported over two thirds of the raw material (that is deposited in huge amounts all over the country) we rely on for the majority of our energy production. Mag-fu*king-nificent. I hope David Ricardo is going to be keeping the generator going when my lights and central heating die in winter 2015.

They do have cash benefits in the USA as well, but not to the same level as we do.

Exactly what money did the government spend on "supporting growth industries"? Can we now rely on the jobs and export income from these new industries to pay for the imported coal/steel/etc and cover the benefits for those people who lost their jobs (or never got one) as a consequence? Doesn't seem so, does it. Or are you talking about loosening financial regulations to help "our friends in the City"?

No, but there wasn't a £10K tax allowance either!

Hold on to your hats everyone, looks like we've got ourselves a gen-u-wine false dichotomy.

It's progressively tapered away when you earn above £100,000. YOU DIRTY SHIRKER! You've been on benefits - people like me (when I was in my late 20s and earning a lot) have been subsidizing you for years!

The clue I think, is in the name. The system is administered by HMRC. Say you are earning £30,000 a year, and you pay HMRC £5,000 a year in tax, you register for tax credits and then you pay HMRC £3,500 in tax. You're still paying tax, just less. If you use your personal allowance are you on benefits too?

Cause and effect?

Oh dear, oh dear. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22005446 Can't see IDS remaining in post beyond 2013 TBH.