George Osborne claims that by doubling the housing budget to £2billion per year, 400,000 new homes can be built over the next five years.
That throws a rather lurid light on what could be done with the £175 billion admitted cost of Trident, if we lived in a society with less crazed values.
Autumn Statement – abandoning sick and disabled people
By Bernadette Meaden
November 25, 2015
It was very alarming to hear the Chancellor say, in his Autumn Statement, “So today we confirm we’ll extend the same support and conditionality we currently expect of those on JSA to over 1 million more benefit claimants”.
Apart from making it clear that this applied to disabled people, there was no further explanation in the Chancellor’s speech, but it is assumed to refer to claimants receiving Employment and Support Allowance who are in the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG). These are people who have undergone a stringent Work Capability Assessment and have been found unfit to work. As the DWP itself explains, “You must have a Work Capability Assessment while your ESA claim is being assessed. This is to see to what extent your illness or disability affects your ability to work.You’ll then be placed in one of two groups if you’re entitled to ESA:
– a work-related activity group, where you’ll have regular interviews with an adviser
– a support group, where you don’t have interviews”
/..
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/22367
and
Main points of the Spending Review and Autumn Statement
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/22366
“Ros Thanks.
The NHS heals and gives life.
Weaponry harms and kills.”
———–
No probs Mary.
The NHS is worth defending at every point.
How will Milord Sebastian Newbold Coe deal with this upsurge of bad publicity?
November 25, 2015
The Coming Boycott of Nike
by Russell Mokhiber
Over the past 18 years, James Keady has traveled to hundreds of campuses around the United States.
His goal — to educate students about the sweatshop conditions of Nike factories around the world.
He asks students to get involved, to learn more, to organize to pressure Nike to do the right thing.
But only recently has Keady asked the students to do something else.
Boycott Nike.
And if a Nike boycott takes hold on campuses around the country, James Keady might be the reason why.
Last week, Keady was at Georgetown University, giving his campus program. It’s called — Behind the Swoosh: Sweatshops and Social Justice.
“There was an athlete at my presentation at Georgetown,” Keady told Corporate Crime Reporter in an interview last week. “She went home and educated her teammates about what was going on, she showed them my short film. And they took the action they took on Tuesday morning. They taped over their Nike swooshes.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/25/the-coming-boycott-of-nike/
Let’s see who runs the Nike corporation with the $23billion turnover.
http://investors.nike.com/investors/corporate-governance/?toggle=directors
Mostly high ups from other mega corporations it would appear.
They claim 44,000 employees. How many of those are in the sweat shops? Sorry silly question. They are the non people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike,_Inc.
This autumn statement looks like it has cushioned these mythical ‘hard-working families’ by continuing with the crazy Gordon Broon wheeze of topping-up the incomes of the relatively well-off, to line employers pockets, as real wages slide. At the same time he’s ‘demoted’ a large number of those in the ESA WRAG group as effectively equivalent to Jobseekers. I presume then the numbers of people receiving ESA at the lower WRAG rate, are firstly, miraculously ‘fit’ again when even the discredited bent ATOS medical examinations and Judge Jeffries Tribunals were unable pass them as fit. I presume too that those in the ESA WRAG Group, if not the Support Group too, will now be added to the figures for ‘out of work and claiming benefits’, so we should expect tomorrow’s headlines to announce this sudden precipitous spike in unemployment figures. And the government, as responsible, to be resigning forthwith.
This simmering volcano is now erupting and will consume all in its path.
You can always take one, but preferably far more, with you.
Listening to apprentice Osborne’s eloquent dream sequemce has inspired me to gratify his fiddle sticks with this little Haiku.
look into my eyes
what can you see
its not reality
Police untouched by more cuts, 10.000 extra soldiers budgeted for, nine new prisons, promised ehem rasp, and a new data gathering facility in Downham market…
does this sound familiar. Oh yes, they are looking for a sub banana at Scapa Flow, its trying to evade capture, obviously, being a banana….. all good news.
Iran Air 655, MH370, MH17, Sinai Metrojet and now the SU24 ambush?! It appears the great satan (and its partners) has always had a diplomacy option outside the ambit of the UN, surely its a clear pattern that is emerging here.
The donmeh have conned the dumb turkic fake Muslims, who are unable to see through the synagogue of satan, into attacking Russia. Funny thing is the stupid turks dont even know it yet !!
So much for all the grinning from Gideon and the spinning.
Osborne Cuts ‘To Make 2.6m Families Worse Off’
Welfare reform
“This is not the end of austerity,” warns the IFS, as it discloses benefit cuts will leave 2.6m families £1,600 a year worse off.
http://news.sky.com/story/1594887/osborne-cuts-to-make-2-6m-families-worse-
‘Chancellor welcomes massive housing boost from Persimmon
From:HM Treasury and The Rt Hon George Osborne MP First published:26 November
Part of:Spending Review and Autumn Statement 2015 …
Persimmon to build over 80,000 homes and create 1,000 jobs over the next five years.
Chancellor helping to construct a wall image LOL
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has visited a Persimmon housing development in South Ockenden, Essex, where he welcomed the house builder’s announcement that it will build over 80,000 homes and create 1,000 jobs over the next five years.
The announcement came just a day after the Chancellor confirmed the biggest affordable house building programme since the 1970s’ to help working people who aspire to buy their own home and boost plans to get Britain building
The 1,000 new employees will join Persimmon’s existing 4,500-strong workforce, which in the past year has included 200 young apprentices. The company started work on 250 new developments around the country in 2015, including the Arisdale Place development in South Ockenden, which when finished will be made up of 185 homes.
Persimmon, one of the UK’s biggest building firms, opened two new regional businesses in 2015 in the Northern Powerhouse (Durham) and Midlands Engine (Birmingham) and plans to open a further two businesses in 2016 in Cornwall and Perth.’
/..
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chancellor-welcomes-massive-housing-boost-from-persimmon
Just people being far too critical here. 😉
Persimmon has regularly come in for criticism due to poor build quality on a number of their homes. Examples include wiring up sockets dangerously giving the potential to shock, installing wobbly bannisters, laying turf on builder’s rubble rather than on newly laid soil and radiators not properly fixed to the wall.[8][9][10][11]
In addition, Persimmon have been criticised for their sales and aftercare processes which do not always live up to the “enjoyable” and “stress free” experiences promised in the company’s own pledge.[12]
In 2013, Persimmon sold a house with a garage that is too narrow for a car to fit into.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persimmon_plc
“In 2013, Persimmon sold a house with a garage that is too narrow for a car to fit into.”
Maybe it was only intended for motorbikes 🙂
ROTFLOL
ROTFLOL
Critical question: With boots on the ground or in the air?
” In 2013, Persimmon sold a house with a garage that is too narrow for a car to fit into. ”
Nobody puts their car into the garage these days anyway. It sits outside on the drive and the garage is full of junk.
I don’t know about that, Kempe. Got a couple of cars, bicycles and several motorbikes in mine, plus a load of junk! The RV is on the drive, admittedly.
“Nobody puts their car into the garage these days anyway. It sits outside on the drive and the garage is full of junk.”
That’s a-fucking shame. Typical oppressed Mail/Guardian reader hardship. Edgy.
Cars? Garages? Houses? Drives?, these are unknown and unfamiliar things to most people. You’re living in a different world from everyone else, an over-privileged bubble where what seems normal to you is far removed from everyone elses reality. Still that few are the demographic governments of Red or Blue Tory hues strive to keep sweet to assist in keeping all the rest down and firmly in their place. It won’t last much longer.
Sorry to have intruded on your little bit of lower middle-class networking.
Do you have trouble finding nannies, maids, cleaners?
Only kidding, Tony-M. The butler would never allow something as vulgar as an RV to sit upon the driveway at length.