Bob Arctor

They already had the evidence for this man from his original claim. It's a waste of public money to pay someone to ask for it again when there is no possible prospect of his condition having changed. Ditto for learning disability, it is a life-long condition. ---------- Post added 23-02-2016 at 21:06 ---------- They do, but they need to be carried out properly. A lot of them are not carried out properly and are therefore a misuse of public funds, would you not agree?

Here's a typical British Gas customer service experience from today, when I was trying to submit an electricity meter reading: "Please enter your customer reference number" [customer reference number] Automated system goes through options; "if you want to submit a meter reading press 4" [presses 4] "Thank you. Now please enter your customer reference number" [What, again? OK, enters it again] "Please enter your customer reference number. If you don't have it please press star" [i do have it, I just entered it. Here, I'll enter it again] "Sorry, please call our customer service line" [i can't, it's closed] All I wanted to do was submit a reading for Christ's sake! This allied with the fact that they send us the gas and electric bills in different names and tried to increase the monthly direct debit by £24 based on an estimated reading. I am aware though that E-on are a nightmare to deal with, and as for Npower, they are one of the worst companies out there. Is there anyone that is any good when it comes to customer service?

Allowing people to go without vital social care services and rationing healthcare so that executives and shareholders can have even more money is extremist. Compared to that, slopping a bit of paint on a shop front is nothing. ---------- Post added 15-12-2015 at 20:34 ---------- Of course we can blame people for making choices that adversely affect other people. Other companies pay corporation tax on their UK profits, avoidance and evasion are not compulsory they are a choice. Otherwise we are arguing for a principle that says it's ok to make any choice as long as it's driven by self interest.

Some stuff to think about, thanks

What could have prevented over-leveraging other than regulation? The problem is that the world of Finance is psychopathic; it cares about profit and nothing else. Regulators are always playing catch-up, and the reason they didn't regulate the securities markets properly was that they didn't understand them because they had become so complex. You are right that the free market wet dream is no regulation at all but that doesn't mean that the presence of regulation stops an economy being capitalist. Nearly all economies are primarily capitalist, they have differing degrees of regulation is all. ---------- Post added 09-12-2015 at 19:30 ---------- Anarchism is collective self-government rather than total lack of government.

2007/8 was very nearly a critical failure. Many investment bankers will tell you that the entire global banking system came very close to disintegrating, some say it was hours away. What saved it was intervention and financial guarantees from governments - the State! Including in the UK and the US. We nearly did run out of food and basic medicine. It would have been horrendous. I would be interested to know which regulations were 'mis-regulations'. From what I've read, the problem was that the investment banks invested in hedge funds and the rest of the shadow banking sector specifically to circumvent the Basel II set of banking regulations, which looks very much like under-regulation. ---------- Post added 09-12-2015 at 18:24 ---------- I don't know where you get that idea from, no-one thinks that. No disrespect, I think you have some basic economics reading to do.

That's such a simplified definition of Socialism as to be not much use. One of the key points of Socialism is 'social ownership' of the means of production and either the removal of the concept of profit or the equal sharing of profit among all. It does involve making the state more powerful, but it is quite possible to have an enlarged state managing a capitalist economy (usually badly). Capitalism, Socialism and Communism are all fundamentally economic models of production and are about the relation of workers to what they produce. It's quite common, particularly in South America, to have Socialists or "Socialists" in office but presiding over an economy that is capitalist. I don't believe there is any Socialist economy anywhere in the world.

Exactly. Everything has to be paid for, it's just that some people think it should only be other people's responsibility. Anyone who doubts the importance of all of us paying enough tax should take a look at Greece. Osborne should be doing all he can to close the loopholes, seems he's too busy taking money off people at the bottom.

The corporation tax rate is 20%. If a company makes £100 million profit in the UK it is supposed to pay £20 million in tax, don't you think?

Yeah, that's what makes it seem such a bad idea.

If an economy has employees and employers, profits, private ownership, trade etc. then it's a capitalist economy. These are the hallmarks of capitalism. Even economies with a lot of state-owned companies are capitalist, it's just that the state acts as the ruling class rather than it being run by private individuals. Communism is where everything is owned by everyone together and there is no hierarchy, no private ownership and no-one works for someone else. Socialism is supposed to be a transitional state between capitalism and communism, but I don't think that's ever existed anywhere. Most of the Latin American 'Socialist' politicians are completely corrupt and have no interest in a society where people are equal and no-one is exploited - they just want to get rich.

Very true, I think, and very well articulated. I agree with the OP, it was full of fine sentiment but totally lacking in any clear strategy. Crucially, even despite the disaster of Iraq, it failed to address the question of 'what happens afterwards?'. This is always the biggest question - it went unanswered.

I think your post misses the point also, Cyclone. No-one is saying that corporations should go out of their way to pay more tax than they are supposed to; they just want them to stop going very far out of their way to pay less tax than they are supposed to. Let's remember what the issue is here: companies make hundreds of millions of pounds of profit in the UK. They then 'buy' services (marketing, branding etc.) from another part of the company based in Luxembourg or somewhere else with minimal corporation tax rates, at rates set by themselves. These magically have the outcome of all or nearly all the profits being declared in Luxembourg or wherever, and very little tax is paid. It's called 'transfer pricing'. The equivalent for an ordinary PAYE employee would be something like as follows: they agree with their employer to claim that they are actually a contractor, not an employee, thereby dodging PAYE. They then set up another company registered in Jersey or the Cayman Islands, which they pay all of their earnings to for 'services rendered'. That money then gets paid into their spouse's account on a monthly basis - voila, tax-free income. I'm sure we can all agree that's very, very different from putting some money in an ISA.

This needs clarification. You are only homeless intentionally if you deliberately do something or fail to do something that you should have known would put your home at risk. Being hit by the Bedroom Tax, or being made redundant, do not result in you being found homeless intentionally. Signing for a tenancy that you knew at the outset you could not afford does. ---------- Post added 08-12-2015 at 21:29 ---------- No. I have met very many homeless people or people at risk of homelessness, it's my job. Very few people think what you have put. A small few, yes, but very few. ---------- Post added 08-12-2015 at 21:31 ---------- There are plenty of people hit by the bedroom tax who are struggling to get a smaller property. It's not their fault that housing benefit is not paying the full rent.

The issue is whether George Osborne is serious about closing loopholes that allow corporations to structure their accounts in such a way that means they don't pay the tax that they are supposed to and that companies that do not have overseas operations do pay. To which the answer is 'clearly not'. It's not relevant what one forum member pays/doesn't pay. Companies that declare all their profits in Luxembourg etc. instead of the countries in which the profits are actually made are ripping us off. They benefit from British state education, state health services and state subsidised transport systems without contributing to them. That's "something for nothing" which as well as being economically unsustainable is supposed to be something that Tories despise.

Every time the UK government reduces investment in renewables it boosts Islamists. Every time it does a trade deal with the Saudis or Qataris it boosts Islamists.

One would hope so. Not much evidence of that in Parliament the other night though; all those speeches, Benn's included, about why 'we' should intervene, virtually nothing about what will happen afterwards. It all feels very much like Iraq, expect it's even more complicated. And even if those 70,000 'ground troops' exist, if the plan only extends as far as bombing Daesh enough that everyone else can focus their efforts elsewhere, the outcome of that will be that those 70,000 people will be slaughtered by Assad with the backing of Russia and Iran. ---------- Post added 04-12-2015 at 23:37 ---------- Somebody posted this on another website:

Aren't by-election turnouts generally lower than general election turnouts? The turnout in Manchester Central at the last GE was 52.7%. In the by-election in 2012 in the same consituency the turnout was 18.2%, the lowest post-war turnout in any parliamentary seat. The same person was elected both times.

More importantly, since Saudi Arabia is the root of the Wahhabist Islamist ideology that led to Al Qaeda and Daesh, and they actively export this ideology around the world and have by many accounts given financial support to Daesh, isn't it time that the UK ended all arms deals with Saudi Arabia, regardless of how many British jobs are lost? Surely anything other stance is being soft on terrorism.

My understanding is that a person is found guilty of a crime but it's then up to the judge to decide whether the "disposal" should be down the criminal justice route (prison) or the psychiatric route (hospital). Different sections of the Mental Health Act allow for transfers between prison and hospital and vice versa without affecting the time to be served. The main difference is that if you are detained under section 37/41 of the Mental Health Act it is down to the Ministry of Justice if and when you are released and if you are released you can be detained back to hospital at any future point if the MOJ order it, no trial or anything. So a person stands more chance of release from a prison sentence than a 37/41 detention. ---------- Post added 02-12-2015 at 20:43 ---------- Plus many people, including psychiatrists, now believe that schizophrenia is a fictitious "illness" so any cure would be a fiction anyway.

I normally quite like being right but I hate being right about this stuff, however I think it's going to happen again. In all the pro-war speeches in Parliament I've not heard one that lays out what the plan will be after the military action has stopped, assuming it ever does. So many MPs seem determined to learn nothing from Iraq or Libya. We've been here before and it really wasn't that long ago. ---------- Post added 02-12-2015 at 20:30 ---------- Isn't the problem that it is very very far from certain that it will be any assistance in reality, and likely to make the whole situation worse? I can understand the reaction from the French government but, horrific as it was,I don't think Paris really changed anything. We all knew it was coming somewhere at some time, Daesh didn't change their tactics. If anything it highlights flaws with the strategy up to now. ---------- Post added 02-12-2015 at 20:53 ---------- Problem is there are about thirty "sides"

Thanks for the tip. The silver content is 3DWTS per dozen, as far as I can tell that's an ok silver content but not the thickest (they are grapefruit spoons, bigger than teaspoons but smaller than dessert spoons).

Thanks, I did the soda crystals method, it worked very well.

I'm assuming Sheffielders will know the answer to this. I've just bought some nice Thomas Turner silver plated spoons that are in good condition with just a bit of dirt and discolouration around the detailing. What's the best way of cleaning them without damaging the silver plating?

It was because there was very little need for them. Since 2010 people have had to deal with being wrongly denied ESA, having their JSA stopped, often for spurious and arbitrary reasons, delays in benefits being paid, cuts to housing benefit, rising rents, wage cuts and so forth. Mostly due directly to government policy and probably something else Cameron doesn't realise.