General Discussion
The new Government is already doing good.
This is obviously great for the economy, but also will help people back into work.
FCUK you Paul, this man is guilty of inhuman crimes and deaths to the British Citizens of this Country. Nice to see you have a sense of compassion!!!!!!!!
What you fail to grasp Paul is most of these cuts will affect people in WORK and the DISABLED and TERMINALLY ILL I hope it never knocks on your door.I have a family member who works full time and any cuts to working tax credits etc willmean she will not be able to afford her mortgage, so that will be another private renter claiming HB, do you not see that all these cuts are counter productive
@Paul, how about we cut foreign aid for a few years ? what about eu migrants who come over here and work leaving their families behind did you know they can claim child tax credits and working tax credits also child benefit which all gets sent back home. do you think that is right ?????
This isn't about being evil or anything like that. It is about saving money through efficiency. Saving £12B is brilliant, it will reduce the deficit and hopefully one day we can be debt free.
I can't think of any post that Paul has made whose intention is to spark serious discussion. I may be wrong but I think that they are designed solely to wind people up. The best way to respond is not to reply directly to anything he writes.
If you don't agree, it must be trolling. How sad.
There are many people fed up with a huge amount of tax being removed from their wages, while others can't be bothered to go to work to pay for themselves. Well no likes going to work on a cold, dark, rainy Monday morning, but we still do.
If you don't agree with IDS, that's up to you. I posted this as the Tories are trying to restore some fairness to the system and most of us voted for them.
I have been paying taxes for nearly 50years, NI for 35years and in all that time I have never looked at it in the way you do Paul. If people fall on hard times we shoud support them because lets look it another way, we might need people to help us one day. You are a click away from unemployment, disablement,terminal illness, redundancy, homelessness, death of a partner causing hardship to the survivor if children are involved. I could never be so heartless and that is one reason I did not want to see the party of no compassion get in. I hope you will enjoy what is coming our way
This has nothing to do with stopping people who genuinely deserve help.
This is trying to stop people taking the biscuit, when they can work but can't be bothered. We all know people like it.
It is unfair and the Government are going to stop this outrage.
We have been here before you know the figures PAUL most welfare payments go to the retired the next largest is those in work and a small percentage of the welfare budget goes to the unemployed. Within society there are those who take the biscuit from parking on double yellows. claiming benifits and working, to companys who dont pay billions in Tax i notice there is no mention of those who owe the system billions.
@Carer so glad you did that 
Paul the next set of cuts are going to affect working people and the disabled, so you think thats fair then do you, to knock "the hard working people" which is call me daves fav phrase
Sooo.......
Copy.......
Paste.......
Retire to a safe distance......
....and comments please.
They are a bunch of whinning gits because now they might have to actually do some work instead of just doing nout.
The people who defaced The Women of World War Two memorial are the SCUM. They don't deserve to be in this country.
It is all the hard working people in the past that have given us this wonderful country, but lazy lefties can do that.
TOTAL SCUM.
Bloody lefties, bloody commies, if they had their way we'd all be in gulags, now what we need are some good right wing concentration camps and failing that just put all the whining gits, scum and lefties in the work house or send them to the Falklands and set up a new penal colony.
Get that bloody Human Rights Act out of the way and then we can really start to persecute the lefties and anyone else who disagrees with us.
Bring back some good old fashioned flogging and the stocks and hanging too I say. Hang them from the trees the bloody lefty, hippy, tree hugging anarchists!
And if we can't hunt foxes any more, then we should bloody well be able to chase some lefty layabout across the countryside before brutally murdering them in cold blood.
This country belongs to us, the Norman Yoke, not you English scum underclass and you should bally well remember it.
0.9% of government spending is actually on unemployment benefit. 1.6% we pay our politicians. 3.9% on rents for employed people as well as unemployed. 3.9% in child benefit. 4.2% to the police, courts & prisons. 4.4% in tax credits. 6.9% to sick & disabled. 7% to pay debt to other countries (excluding what they pay us for debts to uk). The biggest public spending goes to pensions 16.5% and health 18.4%.
So if you are receiving tax credits, housing benefit (rent) or child benefits, I suggest you look long and hard at yourself.
We all just one accident, one illness, one day's work away from unemployment and sickness so you could be demonising your "future" you "today" !!
One for you Paul and all you other Tory lovers just the start!!!!
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/terminally-ill-face-being-forced-690027
Say no more about the Tory-owned rags not including the facts in their papers about the true impact of their paymasters' disgusting policy. The story that Roberta links to includes confirmation from a government official that cancer-sufferers will be facing a cut in their allowances. This includes the vast majority who have worked all their adult life. How Huw, especially with his links to the RBL etc, can blithely dismiss this is beyond belief.
On that graph...
Erm 6 papers lean toward the conservatives, whereas 5 on the Labour side. And 1 neutral. (Changed to satisfy Huw Matthews - my error probably made his day 
)
The fall is simply because the Conservative orientated papers are listed lower in order, Reverse the order and it would look different.
Also this data is misleading, which papers sell more?. i.e. which are more widely read. Some papers command much greater readerships than others.
Then how would data on readership numbers correlate with this narrow data selection?
The data comes from one author's own blog Andrew Whitby, who writes for one think tank.
It's based on Twitter follows by UK members of parliament in August 2013, it's just a snapshot of what politicians read on one website in one calendar month 2 years ago.
Also who decides the -0.3 to 0.1 scale? So the Guardian is 3 times more Labourite than the Telegraph is Tory?
It's completely subjective.
In fact it's pretty meaningless and poorly researched.
Easily critiqued too.
The 'arc' of the graph is purely due to the order the papers are in and is not meant to represent anything else.
'How Huw, especially with his links to the RBL etc, can blithely dismiss this is beyond belief.' 1. My links to the RBL are purely leaning on the bar every 3 months or so. You're a tad out of date on that one. 2. I rely on evidence to make my mind up rather than the ramblings of a left-wing rag. Simples!
Evidence such as 8+6=14 when only 12 newspapers are listed - Spot on observation and REALLY easy to critique! lol
Enough said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_Kingdom
Ramblings Huw? Did you not read the article and the admission by the DWP spokeswoman?
Or calling yourself OurSoul?
So does 'disabled' now mean 'terminally ill'? I mean I'm classed as disabled and I work - so do many of thousands of others.
You also selectively forgot to mention "The Department for Work and Pensions initially said rumours of the plan, which could affect 300,000 disabled people, were “absolute nonsense”."
So just selective reporting by both you and the Mirror then?
If you say so OurSoul.
I didn't read of a 'DWP spokesperson' then stating that terminally ill people were to be put to work.
Well done Huw, yes you're right there are only 12 so I should've counted more carefully.
And my error isn't evidence at all it was based on my opinion on your choice of graph. It was an observation as you mentioned but not evidence.
Do you even know what evidence is? Your choice of words is often baffling.
Changed now, we all make the odd mistake, eh Matthews .
I think my other points were valid though, which you failed to acknowledge at all.
Critiquing my maths also handily enabled you to dodge giving any explanation as to why you felt that graph was worthy of 'enough said!'.
So 5 papers are pro Labour, 1 neutral and 5 pro Tory, but the labour ones rank 0 to -3 and the Tory one 0 to 1.5 so according to the blogger the Labour papers are really Labour and the Tory ones are a little to moderately Tory?
It's hardly convincing. What was your point?
And I meant the blogger's graph was poorly researched and easily critiqued. Why do you always take everything so personally?
There's not much to critique in your two words 'enough said' is there? Maybe just the tone, but that'd be it.
And referencing wikipedia? That's not exactly the most accurate or reliable source to choose from. I hope that doesn't upset you.
I'd be interested to hear your views if you can get past being defensive and pedantic. Roberta's story from the Guardian which Our Soul also pointed out related to employment, sarahsmithuk's post was about governent spending per sector though the source wasn't given. Yet your posts don't directly relate to these issues, in fact they're off topic such as 'why the left are bad losers' (Telegraph) and some fairly obscure graph from a blogger who works for the World Bank about political orientation of parties. I'm assuming you just did a google search to find something to match your own views, however have you ever tried researching how much criticism the World Bank receives globally relating to social and environental justice and more?
I assume you believe that the graph proves to you that the media is predominantly controlled by the left, who you see as whingers.
I find this reference to the 'left' strange. I don't think the left exists anymore it's all pretty much right of centre and further to the right. Or is the 'left' just used to distinguish anyone who opposes the Tories by the Telegraph and you.
You're either a staunch Tory or just here to provoke by copying and pasting certain articles then retiring to a safe place as you put it and waiting for comments.
And you rely on what evidence? You mainly cite the Telegraph in this forum and as you refer to the ramblings of a left wing rag, then based on your graph what is the Telegraph? Evidence or a right wing rag? As there's only 1 neutral rag, apparantly.
And if you are disabled and in work then good for you. But if you can't grasp how IDS' welfare cuts will affect the unemployed, terminally ill and disabled, which relates to Roberta's first post then your lack of compassion is your real disability.
You could've begun a different thread if you wanted to be provocative in relation to political bias in journalism and to wind up the 'left', doing so in this thread is just insensitive given how the issue of welfare cuts deeply affects people. Thtt's people, forget about left and right, if you can.
And ending with 'enough said' just makes you sound pompous as well as sad. But maybe the cap fits. And what is wrong with being called OurSoul?
I suspect the comment on "OurSoul" may be a reference to what the baby says in the film Meet the Fokkers.
The original (anti-Tory policy) quote was from the Mirror. The graph illustrates the left-wing, pro-Labour Party bias of the Mirror. Hence 'Enough said'. I shouldn't really have to explain all this if you'd read all the previous posts.
Evidence: Includes all legal means, exclusive of mere argument, which tend to prove or disprove any matter of fact the truth of which is submitted for judicial investigation.
Bet you didn't know that Bren! I did. lol
All this argument is not based on any factual evidence at all. Even your beloved Daily Mirror refers to it as 'rumours' and 'rumours' ain't evidence I'm afraid.
Your powers of observation seem to be failing you....I didn't end with 'Enough said'....I started with it and put it before the copied links. C'mon keep up.
Do you know what I don't give a toss what "rag" it comes from, Ive seen it on welfare news as well, what is important is that these cuts are going to happen
I'm sure they are roberta.
What I've seen no 'evidence' for is the claim that 'terminally ill' people are going to be made to work.
My gripe is that all this twaddle that the red tops print is based on rumour and bias against their particular competitor and pro their particular party.
Certain elements on here, due to the fact they want to believe the said printed tosh, believe that I'm a 'true blue Tory' or even worse a UKIP member or even BNP. They're wrong, I'm a socialist who happens not to want to be a member of the corrupt institution that is the EU. I also happen to believe that what is happening with immigration is just plain wrong on many levels. Firstly, and my party (and many others) will not admit this, it is having a massive bearing on services and therefore taking away from those most in need who already live here. Secondly, do you remember the call for compensation by former slave states some years back? They were saying, quite rightly, that the colonial powers had stolen their best and brightest and transported them to foreign lands as slaves. This in turn had resulted in an inability to develop as they would have wanted as nations. What legacy are we going to leave these countries for the future if their current best and brightest are allowed to leave in droves now. We talk of a 'brain drain' in the UK when taxes are high but this is happening all the time in developing countries and during time of war in semi-developed countries. We have to play a part in stopping it somehow.
As for benefits in the UK. I think that if you can work; you should work. If you can provide for yourself and your family then you should be expected to do so. But there are exceptions (too many to go into here but let's straight away include the terminally ill!). Social Security should be just that - a safety net for when things go wrong. It should not be a way of life.
All the unadulterated crap that is written by the socialist media against the Tories does nothing for the cause. In fact the vast majority of people find it amusing. If they want to promote the socialist cause then write FACT backed up by evidence. Do not write patently made up rumour and falsehoods - it does the cause no good at all.
That's my lot on the subject. I won't be repying to anymore posts re this topic. Now let's see if all the nay-sayers will be as forthcoming.
My beloved Mirror? Never bought that paper in my life.
And on observations. One post began with 'enough said', and another ended with it too and the wikipedia ref.
Pedantic. And pompous.
Who begins a conversation by saying 'Enough said' anyway? That's just weird, surely the intention was to get people to read the graph.. consider what it was saying... then 'Enough said' would've been better placed at the end of the post.
So well done for typing 'Enough said' and then having something to say in reference to the graph.
So are we referring to evidence as if this is a legal matter or as if this is a balanced written exchange more akin to that of good journalism or academic writing?
Glad to hear the Lord Chief Tory Justice of England won't be replying to any of us nay-sayers, i.e. those who disagrees with his verdict.
I was just surprised that the judgement wasn't accompanied by an 'Enough Said' haha.
How dare you accuse me of reading the Mirror Matthews!
Where's your evidence? C'mon how can you make such a claim?
It's preposterous.
I thought you might've liked that grandiose name, surely a serious point about judging others can be made in jest.
Do all right wing minded people lack a sense of humour?