Blah Blah

If that article is true Loz, that's pretty shocking! But how do we tackle greed? How do we change the mentality of those millionaires? We don't seem to be able to close tax loopholes/ havens etc. That's why I do agree with the mansion tax in principle. People/ corporations can't hide property offshore. They can't hide land either. It's just a case of getting the details/ thresholds right.

It was 60p under Thatcher Jeremy. 50p doesn't seem so bad really.

I agree miga. And it's the tinkering that annoys me personally. It's meaningless if it changes nothing in reality. I work with people with problems that are exacerbated by the lack of 'standard floor', and yes, that stardard has been lowered and lowered. It's very frustrating. There's a layer of society that is being left destitute and without hope, many of them made ill by it. We should care about those people, but we should also look at solutions that work, instead of cutting resources and making solutions that work impossible to deliver. But equally, there's a layer of people who should be able to do ok, but for whom the future also looks bleak, unless the gap between wages and the cost of things like housing narrows.

Yes, hence the tenancy requiring a primary place of residence?

I completely agree that New Labour didn't do enough, BUT they did reduce the discount on right to buy. The coalition on the other hand increased it to a higher discount than even under Thatcher. The issue remains the same for both parties. We need more jobs and more people working as a percentage of the population to raise the taxes needed to look after everything else. Neither party seems to have any solutions for that. The Conservatives are total free market enthusiasts, but we know that the free market doesn't take care of everything (without regulation to force it to do so). Labour on the other hand stand for some regulation but are essentially free market supporters too. Neither party wants to alienate the only wealth creating sectors we have left, and rightly so but there needs to be more effort to support start ups and to help successful small businesses to expand (especially in new technologies). On social housing. The free market has never taken care of people at the lower end of the pay scale. That's why social housing came about, along with the welfare state. Either we believe in a minimum quality of life, housing etc for all, or we don't. I think the demonisation of the poorest has only been possible because middle income earners are feeling the squeeze as much as the low waged. The cost of housing/ property is playing a huge role in that.

But if she is away for long periods of time it could be said that it is not her primary place of residence, another condition of a council home tenancy. A friend of ours wanted to laminate her council home floor and had to get permission (because the council want to make sure you use underlay to minimise noise). So if they have that policy (worth finding that out for sure I would think) then I can't see how they can fail to take the noise from sanded floors seriously too.

That's how I see it too John. It's an admission that prices are too high for ordinary working people to afford. Lend lease are just profiteers, who pretend to be specialists in urban regeneration. Totally agree miga. There is no consideration of a problem that will take more than the lifetime of a parliament to rein in. It smacks of desperation really. Wishy washy Cameron couldn't win the last election outright and looks like he won't improve in this one. The delusion of power by the back door! You have to ask yourself, do they really think these policies are the kinds of vote winner to swing an election? For the 1.3 million HAs tenants there are many more trapped in private rented accomodation or living with parents. I'd say the conservatives have now alienated those people. When Thatcher came to power, the economy was so crippled it wasn't hard to be radical. If we want to be radical today, it has to be about bringing a fairer distribution of wealth surely? I don't see any of that from the Conservatives, just the usual pre-election tax bribes and giveaways, from a party that says we need to make more cuts in the next term to keep the deficit down! It just doesn't add up.

Mopeds are stolen everywhere! I don't know much about security products for them but they do seem pretty easy to steal and start.

Many social housing tenants who work are on minimum/low wages Alice. That's why they are in social housing (and why we need it). They are never going to earn enough or be in stable enough employment to keep a mortgage on a private market property going. And how about we stop artificially inflating the housing market and let it return to normal market forces. I.e. when first time buyers can no long afford to buy, the price comes down, instead of bringing out yet more products designed to give people part ownership etc.

Signed. This is a no brainer. School children need playing fields.

It's a completely bonkers policy. HAs will almost certainly legally challenge anyway. HAs have completely different financial setups to LAs when it come to home building. Only an idiot would think that homes sold off would be replaced at the same rate. This to me is the same Tory disbelief in social housing that got us partly into the mess we are in in the first place. They really do believe that anyone who works can afford a home or private rent! Would be a complete disaster if this went through. And I really can not believe they would force councils to sell of homes to pay for it! Who will replace the homes lost there? Agree with some of the comments above re: Miliband and Labour looking like the responsible party now. The Conservatives have just gone a bit bonkers over the last few days. They have shown just how uninterested they really are in the real problems. And the Greens?....sigh.....

Sue Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > An old radiator, two broken ovens and a clapped > out washing machine disappeared in about five > minutes when left outside my house. > > I was delighted :)) Ha Ha! Must admit I've left scrap metal items outside myself, knowing these guys will 'collect' it. Jumping into someone's rear garden is naughty though. They knew they were stealing.

I think it's a great idea! Would love to see that there.

If a vehicle is taxed but not insured a fine is sent out. Driving without insurance though is a different offence to keeping a vehicle parked without insurance, and the vehicle is siezed as well. Can only do that with Police road blocks.

You really think the Labour Party are a party of the left these days Henry? But that wasn't my point. Talking in terms of left and right is often used to dismiss the point. I'd rather talk in terms of fairness and accountability. On the wreckless actions of some of those within the banking industry, we are talking about people high up the chain on the whole, with the kind of power that had serious consequences for billions of people accross the world. At the core of that is a culture and mentality the says profit over people, greed at any cost. Many experts warned a long time ago about the dangers of what was going on. We live in a culture of Milton Friedman Free Market economics. What have we learned? That the masters of the Universe can't be trusted to behave responsibly with that free market.

Keeky.....You are neither funny nor well informed.

Hmm Henry, Who lied to fix their Libor rates? Just remind us of that again! I really hate it when any criticism of the far from perfect banking system is mentioned in the same sentence as the left. This is not about left or right. It's about fixing the flaws in regulation that allow our free marketeers to break rules and be wreckless in the pursuit of personal profit. A wrecklessness that has had a devastating impact on people who had nothing to do with any of it. We have an economic system, or rather a form of capitalism (because there are many forms of that) in place atm that does not work in the interests of ordinary people. And we seem to live in an age where those who do best by it, decry any criticism. Like there can't possibly be a better system. This is nonsense. Any changes in regulation to the banking industry have merely tinkered at the edges. It's worth remembering that after the 1930's Wall Street Crash, many measures were brought in to prevent that happening again. As soon as they were got rid of, from the 80s onwards, we've had nothing but boom and bust and through that, an ongoing decline in the value of wages and labour (for most people) whilst the value of capital assets has rocketted. In fact, home ownership is now the only means of upward social mobility for most people, and even that is becoming a pipe dream for the youngest generations. Banks have been totally complicit in that process.

Sure it wasn't an ANPR check? Police tend to use one way roads for that.

You can also now get dashboard cameras for cars. Might be worth getting one of those in case of accident. Then you will have proof of who was at fault. They are not expensive.

And the millions of brits currently working in the EU will be sent back to replace the immigrants we boot out. You are such an idiot Tarot. No migration from the EU also will mean no migration to the EU for UK nationals. 56% of our exports are to the EU. Exports that will be hit with a trade tariff if we leave the EU making the suppliers no longer competitive to EU importers. And just to put that in a context you can understand - 3.5 million jobs in the UK are reliant on exports to the EU, 2.5 million of which are directly affected and 900,000 indirectly. That is what Blair is worried about, and rightly so imo.

Louisa and.....Elvis? :D

Cold Play centre staff. One Direction proposal for Lordship Lane. Meatloaf a bit off at the Clock House.

Yes have suffered with them here too. Holes in everything made of cotton and wool.

There's a thing called knock for knock.

Plenty of people live on a diet of the wrong food as rising rates of obesity clearly show.