Bob Arctor

That's correct. Any EU national has the right to enter the UK and they can claim Jobseekers Allowance for up to 91 days but cannot claim any Housing Benefit during this time. If they have not found genuine and effective employment after 91 days and do not have a genuine prospect of work then the JSA stops and they are deemed as having no right to reside and have no recourse to public funds. If they do find genuine and effective employment then they can qualify for housing benefit, but of course by this point they are contributing to the public finances, so fair enough.

I really don't think it's helpful to criticise people for not being involved in protest and dissent for as long as you have. Surely the point is to welcome free thought, dissent and protest, regardless of a person's history? Issues like this, particularly when accompanied by draconian and disturbing use of State force, help people to see beyond the benign unreality painted by mainstream media and give them a bit of a wake up call. Getting involved in any kind of protest, however middle class it might seem, and then getting whacked by a copper, helps to radicalise people. The point is not to have been on more protests than everyone else and thereby 'win' some spurious trophy. ---------- Post added 27-03-2018 at 22:08 ---------- Is anyone any good with design software? It would be great if someone could knock up a high res poster, done as a copy of a red 'Vote Labour' poster with the Labour rose image, but instead it says 'Don't Vote Amey'. And then post a link to it so we can print it off and put it in our windows? I am no good at that sort of thing or I'd do it myself.

My thre'pence worth: 1. Very timely suspension of felling, just in time for the local elections 2. At work I have on several occasions called Social Services to express concerns about children I thought were at risk of harm but they took no action, but they turn out when a child attends a protest on a snow day and is not at risk of harm 3. South Yorkshire Police are ineffective at dealing with child sexual exploitation, domestic violence and a whole lot of other serious crimes, yet have time and resources to act as security for a private company. 4. SCC have very little money but can afford a top notch Barrister to prosecute Alison Teal. I feel SCC are misusing public money to try to save their own embarassment when it could be much better used in other ways. And being SCC, they are just making the embarassment worse anyway because they couldn't run a tap, let alone England's fourth largest city.

I agree, and I think there is always a danger that anti-Zionism and the criticism of Israel either gets used as cover for anti-Semitism or leads some people to develop an anti-Semitic mindset. I agree that the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli state is often dreadful and that the state of Israel has some features of apartheid, but I'm not sure why the Left is so obsessed by the issue. But obsessed it is, and I think that's where the potential problems come from. It should be pretty straightforward to be critical of the Israeli state while being vehemently opposed to anti-Semitism, and those who can't manage this (such as Ken Livingstone) should be booted straight out. Corbyn missed his chance there and needs to do a better job in future or he will lose a lot of support. In balance, I should say that it really doesn't help when you get this sort of crap https://www.jns.org/opinion/barack-obamas-anti-semitic-un-act/ because I think it dilutes what anti-Semitism really is and that blurs the lines very unhelpfully.

Yes, and that's fine if that's what you want to do, but not everyone has the time to do that. I would guess from the OP that this is not some gentle part-time job but a busy one for a multi-national. They may not have time to be hunting out the DIY culture in Sheffield, good though that is. We don't have nearly enough good gallery space and it's great if you like up-and-coming bands (Picture House Social and Audacious Art Experiment are great venues for those) but if you want to see anyone who draws more than 200 people you'll probably have to go to Leeds or Manchester.

I don't think the Wicker can be described as 'up and coming' with any seriousness. It serves a purpose, which is to get takeaway food at night, with the honourable exceptions of Martin's (a good African-Caribbean grocers), Sisman's electrical shop, Wicker Pharmacy, La Perle (very good Algerian coffee shop & cafe) and the Sheffield Space Centre (a comic shop). There are always empty takeaway units - as a new one opens another closes. Some are so quiet you have to wonder whether they are just money laundering outfits.

I have 3 Labour councillors in my ward. If I need anything doing I only ever bother contacting one - Mark Jones. The other two are hopeless - if someone disagrees with Jackie Drayton in public she just shouts at them.

I would say the bikes have become a popular way for people to travel to meet their heroin and crack dealers, based on who I've seen riding them and where they get left.

A refreshing lack of tribalism in this post, thank you. I was expecting to be told it was Gordon Brown's fault or summat

Not quite. The budget shortfall is getting worse and is expected to be about double within 3 years. Also, NCC has effectively filed for bankruptcy, the first English local authority to do so for a long time - that really isn't trivial. It's an interesting dilemma for Tory HQ - either the massive cuts to council budgets have pushed NCC under, or the most incompetently financially managed council in England is Tory-run. Take your pick, I guess.

It's an awful lot cheaper than Dublin but a lot less going on culturally. Nice, friendly people and great countryside very close by. Sheffield is scruffy and not a beautiful city by any measure, although it does feel quite open in a way that is a little similar to Stockholm, but because it's on hills instead of islands.

People don't "save" seals, they just don't kill them. If we weren't massacring so much of the world's wildlife their respective populations would balance out, as it is we are wreaking havoc with existing ecosystems and it will rebound on us at some point.

Given the current rate at which humans are extincting other species it can't be that long before a mass human die off caused by huge damage to the ecology. Being human, no-one wants themselves or their loved ones to be included in the die-off but for the rest of life on Earth it can only be good news. ---------- Post added 20-03-2018 at 19:12 ---------- And multiples consumption. You won't get an answer from Unbeliever though, he disappeared right after the last general election

This is the point isn't it? Freedom of speech is about people being able to express their opinion. Lying to get people to hate others isn't expressing an opinion so the principles of free speech don't apply.

I agree, but disparity in attitudes to men and women is greater in the British Pakistani community than it is in some other communities, let's not pretend otherwise. That doesn't justify wholesale hostility to British Pakistani men of course.

As Christian Slater says in Heathers: "They had nothing left to offer the school except date rapes and AIDS jokes".

People who groom are very sophisticated, they know who to prey on and how to win them over. The girls are unaware they are being groomed until it's too late. Primary responsibility is with the perpetrators of course. Secondary responsibility is with those who are in positions where they are supposed to protect them and fail. Somewhere in there is responsibility on the parents who did such a poor job that their kids ended up in care - this never seems to be mentioned.

No new claims to UC in Sheffield until December at the earliest. So it is JSA that people need to claim. I think this is the right page to claim from https://www.dwpe-services.direct.gov.uk/portal/page/portal/jsaol/lp

Most of the country was right on Iraq, it wasn't very hard. ---------- Post added 14-03-2018 at 22:46 ---------- Not true, Alan. Corbyn was one of only about 4 MPs to sign a motion calling for Parliament to support protests against authoritarian regimes in East Germany and Czechoslovakia in 1989 and calling for the end of one-party dictatorships in the Eastern Bloc. He had previously called for the complete rehabilitation of Leon Trotsky in the Soviet Union - Trotsky stood against everything the Stalinist dictatorships of the USSR did and stood for, which is why Stalin had him killed.

Rakim Roots Manuva Redman Chali 2na (Charles Stewart from Jurassic 5) And though he annoys me in many ways, Eminem can rap like a mutha.

I notice that Corbyn's attitude to the regimes in Russia and Iran is quite similar, i.e. he doesn't seem to want to publicly criticise them. I've been thinking about why this might be, and have decided that it's probably because he's spent all his political life opposed to western imperialism, a stance that I have no issue with, but has adopted the philosophy of 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' which I think is a dreadful way of looking at the world and leads people to identify or sympathise on some level with some really vile people. He needs to sort his shizzle out.

The thing that would most tick Putin off is if the UK government invested massively in renewable energy.

We'll add it to the ever-growing list of things Sheffield is 'going to' have. I like the way the developer commented in the Star on 'how much we've managed to fit in there' - yes, into a drawing you chuff, not actually into the real world yet!

I had to do this when I had a vasectomy - it feels quite nice afterwards (the smooth plums, not the vasectomy, although that's not nearly as bad as people make out). I remember the 1970s so I am morally unable to grow a beard or mustache, although I can physically do so in about 4 days. However, I can't be arsed with shaving either, so I am shaven for 1 day then look like a murderer for 2 days then shaven again. It helps that I don't really care what I look like!

Charity begins at home