Even now he still hasn't got the common decency to tell us how far in the hole we are by adding the PFI numbers onto the national debt figures.

The US... thats very wrong mate. For example Israel and Lebanon a couple of years ago.

Wiki have a list up of wars from 2003 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_...E2%80%93current

I had to check to make sure I spelt Lebanon right.

So yeah, lots of wars. Could you imagin if just 1 of those countries used a nuke?

Our economy wasn't doing well either pre-Iraq or pre-global crisis hit. Brown, quite literally, spent the family silver, or in this case gold, Even now he still hasn't got the common decency to tell us how far in the hole we are by adding the PFI numbers onto the national debt figures.

The Conservatives say they would pay for their £600m plan to "get Britain working" by cutting the incapacity benefit bill.

People on employment support allowance who are deemed fit to work would be put on the jobseeker's allowance, reducing their benefits by £25 a week.

All incapacity benefit claimants would be assessed to see if they could work.

Ministers have described the Tory plan to reduce the number of people on incapacity benefit as "callous".

Mr Cameron's position on the Lisbon Treaty is also under the microscope at the Conservative Party's conference in Manchester, amid calls for a referendum, whether it has been ratified or not.

But the Tory leader wants to concentrate on what he has described as a "big, bold" shake-up of the welfare system.

He told the BBC it was not about trying to reduce people's standards of living: "There are about 2.6 million people on incapacity benefit. Those who genuinely can't work, who are disabled, we as a compassionate society should look after them, should help them, and should pay their benefits, yes.

"There are also people on incapacity benefit who could work, and what we're saying is: 'If you can work, you should work, we will help you to work, we will get you the tailored help and support'."

The Conservatives recognised the social and economic dangers of people becoming long-term unemployed, he added, and would act earlier and more emphatically than Labour to help people at risk.

The Tories plan to scrap Labour's flagship New Deal back-to-work programme in favour of more personalised help for the jobless.

They will offer training courses for those unemployed for more than six months - with benefits cut if people refuse to take part.

Private training firms would be used to prepare the unemployed for work and also to assess all those on incapacity benefit, with initial start-up costs totalling £600m.

The Tories plan to cover the cost of the scheme by transferring more people from incapacity benefits to jobseeker's allowance.

They say they would extend a government pilot scheme aimed at getting people on incapacity benefit into work, which has a 19% success rate, across the whole of the UK.

Shadow schools secretary Michael Gove denied the approach was a throwback to more hard line Conservative policies of the 1980s and 1990s, saying the plan was within the tradition of moderate "one nation" Conservatism.

"The Conservative Party is a party on a mission, on a crusade, to deal with deep-seated social, structural problems which have kept 20% to 30% of our people in poverty because they have not had the opportunities to rise which others have been given," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"You can characterise that mission, that desire, to ensure social mobility is spread more widely and to deal with entrenched poverty however you wish but, as far as I am concerned, it is true to the mission that David Cameron outlined when he became leader of the Conservative Party."

Following the Tory announcement, the government announced a number of new policies aimed at getting more than 750,000 people back into work by the end of next year.

People who have been out of work for more than six months - but have turned down work experience, support or training - will be required to take a work experience placement as a condition of receiving their benefits.

Labour rejected the Conservative approach to incapacity benefit claimants as "callous".

"This is unfair on the genuinely sick who should not suffer a £25 a week cut in benefit," employment minister Jim Knight said

"Our plans are to get people off benefit and into work. The Tories don't seem to care about getting people into jobs, they just want to cut their benefit."

The Conservatives are the last of the three main UK parties to hold their annual conference, running from Monday to Thursday in Manchester.

They are currently riding high in the opinion polls ahead of the general election which has to be held by next May at the latest.

All incapacity benefit claimants would be assessed to see if they could work.

It's a pretty logical response by Labour. They must believe the current system does correctly identify those incapable of work - they don't have any advantage in knowingly paying too much benefit to people.

So if they believe the system is correctly identifying people incapable of work, then in their mind the only way the Conservatives can reduce the numbers on incapacity benefit is to wrongly class people as capable of work.

It's worth nothing that the £600 million savings sum, paid for by reducing individual benefit payments at £25 a week, only adds up if they can find 461,000 people wrongly on incapacity benefit. That could be the real number, but I have no idea. And I doubt the Conservatives do either.

The SNP has written to the three networks that plan to screen the contests arguing that they are legally bound to invite Mr Salmond to appear alongside Mr Cameron, Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg.

Legislation states broadcasters must give fair time to all parties contesting an election, and the SNP claimed it would be illegal to exclude its leader from a head-to-head debate being broadcast in Scotland.

If Mr Salmond is excluded, the SNP confirmed the party would consider seeking injunctions against the BBC, ITV and Sky preventing broadcast of the debates.

But Mr Cameron, the Tory leader, dismissed the threat, saying: “Alex Salmond is not standing for Westminster. Alex Salmond is not standing to be UK Prime Minister.

"This is a British General Election. The choice is between Gordon Brown and a modern Conservative Government led by me.”

He urged Mr Salmond, who is standing down as MP for Banff and Buchan at the general election, to concentrate on his job as Scottish First Minister.

The first ever US-style televised debate between party leaders moved a step closer at the weekend when Mr Brown agreed “in principle” to the idea.

Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, have already indicated their willingness to take part and the major TV networks are now trying to work out the details.

Jim Murphy, Labour’s Scottish Secretary, has proposed a separate TV debate between senior politicians north of the Border that would include Angus Robertson, the SNP’s Westminster leader.

However, Mr Salmond insisted the election in Scotland is a “two-horse race” between Labour and the SNP and the main party leaders’ debates “must reflect the democratic reality of Scotland and political diversity across the UK.”

“It would be entirely unacceptable, and unfair to the broadcasters’ Scottish audience, to exclude the party that forms the government of Scotland and is now leading in Westminster election polls,” he wrote in an article for a Sunday newspaper.

He claimed the broadcasters failing to include the SNP would display a “depressingly metropolitan mindset” and recalled a “debacle” around an edition of the BBC’s Panorama programme in 1995.

This featured an interview with John Major, the then Prime Minister, but was not broadcast north of the Border because it coincided with a Scottish local election and would have breached impartiality guidelines.

The Representation of the People Act states TV networks must give fair time to each party over the course of a general election campaign, including exposure on mainstream political programmes.

Mr Salmond said his next step would be to “seek guarantees of inclusion from the broadcasters, given their inescapable duty to ensure fairness.”

But John Swinney, the former SNP leader, said that if this failed applying for an interdict to prevent the debates being broadcast “could not be ruled out”.

David Cairns, Labour MP for Inverclyde, said: “Alex Salmond is looking increasingly ridiculous. He is desperate to appear in a Westminster TV debate when he isn't even a candidate for Westminster.”

Tavish Scott, the Scottish Lib Dem leader, accused the SNP of trying to “bully” broadcasters, adding: “They do not represent opinion outside Scotland and have no role to play in these televised debates that take place across the United Kingdom.”

Mr Murphy has written to David Mundell, the Tory Shadow Scottish Secretary, Mr Robertson and Alistair Carmichael, the Lib Dem Scottish affairs spokesman, calling for a Scottish pre-election debate.

The BBC, ITV and Sky issued statements saying “suitable arrangements” would be made to ensure “impartiality across the UK”.

This Incapacity benefit is really quite hard to get, well at least from experence and iirc its been tweaked in the last year anyway. It is now called 'Employment and Support Allowance' and everyone who is on Incapacity benefit including me will be 'transferred' over to this 'new' benefit by 2013

When it does happened, I fully expect to be fuct and to have me benefit taken away. I wont be able to work. so will be dependant on DLa, but that will probably be removed as well so at that point will have an income of literally 0 pounds.. before dicking about with appeals doctors reports and other crap

Basically you will have to have countless doctors appointments reports and a yearly fricking medical by an 'appointed doctor' to see if you get it.. Then endless interviews with a Job person at the Jobseekers to confirm you cant work .. its a fucking chore mainly cos its so painful to get there and back... Many dont get it at all, so you have to appeal.

DLA is harder to get, unless you are really bollocksed.. took me nearly 18 months and was refused twice as didnt have a diagnosis, however my Medical from Incap benefit was helpful in claiming this time.

Even though I get higher rate mobility DLA I still cant get 'free' prescriptions.. cos it doesnt fall in the criteria, even though i will be on pain killers forever


Its fucking easy vote winning lets get the scum back to work. mantra....

Reading stuff like the following may change peoples perceptions however. Those with Fibromyalgia have many a problems trying to get even the most basic of help.


http://www.ukfibromyalgia.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=11

Stuff like that never gets anywhere though and those that circumvent the system are the ones devaluing it, yet genuinely unable to work are getting fucked over. So if was to be changed again there would be even more problems.

You then have the cost to the health service/employers of keeping those 'forced' to work despite being fucked becuase they cant get benefits and are dependant on Pain Killers, Booze, Pain management, Physio etc just to make it through.

But it will save us some cash and get rid of the Scrounging Britain thingy.... Utter Bollocks. It will make those in pain even worse off.. or make there problems worse by having to work, meaning they will increase the likelyhood of more health problems and even more crap that they cant do anything about.


I would go back to work right now, but id last .2 secs before I was completely bollocksed for the rest of the week. the effort of getting to whereever and stuff would be too much.. so Iam stuck where Iam.. 2 years they reckon before can go back to work in some capacity.... but thats a generous estimate it could well be never..


So, what up next?

Salmond is such a dick. It's like he's forever jumping up and down shouting, "look at me! look at me!"

Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn condemned Justice Secretary Jack Straw's decision on Sunday to appear on BBC Question Time with BNP leader Nick Griffin.

Mr Straw became the first senior Labour politician to say that he was willing to appear on the show with the far-right leader.

The BBC then confirmed that the two men were among the panelists booked for a recording of the show hosted by David Dimbleby in London on October 22.

However Mr Corbyn said that the BNP are getting too much publicity from the BBC.

Speaking to the Morning Star at the Labour Party conference in Brighton, he said: "The Labour Party has a proud tradition of not appearing with fascists and we should continue with that."

The BBC sparked controversy earlier this month when it announced that it would be willing to feature representatives of the BNP on Question Time after the party won two seats in the European Parliament in elections in June.

Labour then reviewed its long-standing approach of refusing to share a platform with the far-right BNP and Prime Minister Gordon Brown made clear he was ready to allow a minister to take on Mr Griffin, now an MEP for the North West of England.

But Cabinet ministers such as Peter Hain and Alan Johnson said they would not go on Question Time if the BNP leader was invited.

Mr Hain said he had told the BBC that he would never share a platform with the BNP.

"More than that I have said that I will refuse to appear on Question Time until its producers meet with me to justify their reasons," he said.

"I demand the opportunity to put our side of the case, giving the BNP this kind of free publicity elevates them to a level of respectability that they do not deserve.

"We must not rest until the BNP are defeated in this free and tolerant country."

Communication Workers Union leader Billy Hayes pointed out that his union continues to support members who, as an act of conscience, refuse to deliver BNP leaflets.

"In support of our multicultural society, it is crucial that we continue to fight against the BNP and its allies like the English Defence League," he said.

The BBC has to let Nick Griffin appear on Question Time, for at least two reasons: legal and prudential. The legal reason is that the BBC is constitutionally sworn to treat all political parties equally. The BNP now has two MEPs; for the BBC not to allow it to speak would be a clear case of politicised partiality. It has to invite Griffin.

The prudential reason is that excluding the BNP will play into the party’s myth that it suffers from a conspiracy perpetrated by liberal elites stifling the opinions of “ordinary” people. If the BNP operated a no-platform policy vis-a-vis Griffin, this would substantiate the myth of persecuted outsider underdogs his party has crafted with effective electoral results.

Taking the prudential point, one could go further and argue that the best way to tackle the BNP is to debate them: putting them on a platform makes them easier to shoot at. On this point, I’m convinced of the classic liberal arguments espoused by Mill in On Liberty: the best way to destroy a pernicious opinion is to publicly expose it; the most counterproductive way of tackling such an opinion is to try and stifle it.

Except – and here’s the irony – QT is highly unlikely to achieve that, for the simple reason that QT is not a platform for debate. It’s an opportunity for political figures to sound-off their own prejudices without being subjected to scrutiny. And its format necessarily makes this so.

For debate to take place, what is required are a limited – ideally two or three – number of participants, who use reasoned arguments and verifiably facts to offer point and counter-point in order to expose and abandon bad arguments, all in an effort to strive towards the most intellectually tenable position.

QT encourages nothing of the sort. For a start, there are too many participants, who are structurally discouraged from responding to each other constructively. Instead, each are invited to sound-off about vague questions fielded from the audience, each pannelist given one slot to offer a reply, with bare minimum opportunity for response to previous points in an effort to eliminate falsehoods and bad arguments.

Because the audience fields several questions per show, the opportunity to consistently chase-up one issue and see where the arguments intellectually end up is denied: everyone gets one sound-off, and maybe the occasional retort. The result is rather than the interaction being “point, counter-point”, it’s “prejudice, counter-prejudice”.

Another thing required for genuine debate in a public format is a strong chair that forces participants to respond directly to challenges levied by opponents, and enforces the use of genuine facts. QT lacks this in abundance.

Anybody who recalls the EU Special edition of QT will remember David Dimbleby allowing Dan Hannan and Nigel Farrage to spout nonsense about the EU, and frequently allowed Farrage in particular to interrupt and shout-down Caroline Flint (for the record, also spouting nonsense), preventing her from putting a reasoned counter-case. In such an environment, debate is hopeless: all you get is grandstanding and the victory of the loudest gob.

Thus our conclusion: the BBC must let Griffin appear on QT, but the idea that QT offers a chance to debate the BNP and thus harm their cause is nonsense, not because debate is futile, but because QT isn’t a debate show.

Salmond is such a dick. It's like he's forever jumping up and down shouting, "look at me! look at me!"

This Incapacity benefit is really quite hard to get, well at least from experence and iirc its been tweaked in the last year anyway. It is now called 'Employment and Support Allowance' and everyone who is on Incapacity benefit including me will be 'transferred' over to this 'new' benefit by 2013

I was on Incapacity for three years, and it was very easy to get I felt. I only had to go to a medical assessment, at Cadogan Street, Glasgow twice in those three years. If they are really serious about cutting it maybe they should have three medical assessments a year, or something. One or two in three years, ain't really enough IMHO.

This... What a prick.. I wanna be in a British leaders debate for a general election, where iam relinquishing my seat and have no interest whatsoever in.. but Ill sue you if iam not in it Utter wanker.. People voted for him???? Sod Blair for next president of Europe.. this guy could be a real menace..

How come 'his nationalist party' and, t'other nationalist party get so wildly different reactions.. it cant just be the reacisim thing or is that me being naive.. As the SNP is all about Scotland and how they have been hard done to and fuck everyone else..... Hitler Mark 2 that Mr Salmond

All due respect, that's a bit of a silly post. There have been plenty of nationalist parties across the world throughout its history, but not all of them have been racist or extreme right. The SNP is pretty left-wing, and they don't campaign from a premise of racism or exclusion, which is why they don't draw the same stick as the BNP. Salmond hasn't talked about "pure Scots" or "pure Scottish culture" or "repatriating immigrants" - at least, not giving them the same prominence in the SNP manifesto that other nationalist parties have.

Ultimately speaking, the title of a party means nothing; it's all about what they set out to do, and which platforms they campaign from (I know we don't expect politicians to keep their promises, but I don't think, conversely, that anyone expects them to break said promises by doing a complete switch to the opposite platform).

I was having a discussion with my GF and some of her friends about the British political system this weekend and came up with a couple of things to think about:

If the Conservatives get close to getting in, in 2010. Can anyone else apart from me see a Liberal-Labour coalition to keep them out? Personally I think this is more than likely.

I was having a discussion with my GF and some of her friends about the British political system this weekend and came up with a couple of things to think about:

If the Conservatives get close to getting in, in 2010. Can anyone else apart from me see a Liberal-Labour coalition to keep them out? Personally I think this is more than likely.

Will Browns apparent health issues force him to resign, but calling a winter election just before he goes to catch everyone on the hop about 7 months early?

Proportional representation has been tried and IMO doesn't work. The normal MP first past the post system is tried and tested but the majority of the time is far too predictable, which is usually represented by voter apathy and low turn outs at General Elections. Maybe its about time to introduce a system similar to the American electoral system, where every county is given a set amount of Electoral College votes depending on population, GDP and such.

Oh and one last thing and this for me is a real bain with people. You know when we have local, council, European and General Elections? Then why not go and vote, really its not painful and doesn't take too much time and you know the best thing? When your local area is run down and in another economic down-turn and employment is on the up again and your sat at home or wherever complaining about it to anyone and everyone. Just remember you had your chance (if your over 18) to goto the Polling Station and have your say about the way the UK is run, and you really dont have any right to complain because you did sweet FA about it.

The next election isn't about politics, Brown has managed to remove the usual perks of looking at parties and deciding which one you like the most. Vote for Gordon and the people in darkened rooms who buy government debt will bring on the end of the world as we know it and we won't feel fine.

You're being sarcastic, right? All three main political parties are squabbling over who can slash spending the most; they're just quibbling over the timing of these cuts and what should be cut. I really think there is a greater risk of plunging the economy into a long term depression by making the cuts too soon, than Gordon Brown's policies plunging us into some sort of Doomsday scenario where investors stop lending us money.

The thing with electoral systems is you have to consider the make-up of the electorate when choosing your system. PR might well work well in some countries but I don't think it would in the UK on a national level, the first past the post system may seem unfair in some ways and could do with some tweaking but it also has a pretty good record when it comes to delivering viable governing parties which reflect the wishes of the majority of the electorate at that time.

Ignoring all of the smaller/fringe parties I reckon if you had an election under PR in the UK you'd end up with something like 40% Labour, 40% Tory, 20% Liberal. In those circumstances the party with the fewest votes has the most power which can't possibly be considered to be democratic, something that successive Liberal Democrat leaders have been all too aware of.

The thing with electoral systems is you have to consider the make-up of the electorate when choosing your system. PR might well work well in some countries but I don't think it would in the UK on a national level, the first past the post system may seem unfair in some ways and could do with some tweaking but it also has a pretty good record when it comes to delivering viable governing parties which reflect the wishes of the majority of the electorate at that time.

I know people argue that PR gives a better chance for the views of those who didn't support the winning party to be heard but if you have five people and three vote for option A while two vote for option B is it really sensible to introduce an option C just because the vote was close? To my mind rather than being fairer to the views of the minotiry you are just ensuring that nobody gets what they want.

I don't get what you mean by "the party with the fewest votes has the most power ". When a government if formed under a system of PR, such as in Germany, the largest party holds the most cabinet positions and obviously still has the most seats in Parliament, and Bills are prepared by an amazing thing called negotiation where the parties in the coalition actually discuss the content until everyone is on board.

Hang on, I may be in that consistuency. Would certainly explain why I've been getting so much crap through the door. Who should I be voting for? If I vote I have to give up my car?

Rest of the Question Time panel is Chris Huhne and Baroness Warsi who is, of course, a British born Muslim. Maybe Griffin will offer her money to go "home".

Picking the right fight
The BBC is right to host Nick Griffin, but he must be deftly opposed


A week tomorrow, on Question Time, the BBC will play host to Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party. The corporation is right to do so. There may be little public appetite for what Mr Griffin has to say, but there is an enormous public appetite for him to be taken to task while saying it.

Some form of demonstration is to be expected outside BBC Television Centre, with anti-fascist protesters having already announced their intention to blockade Wood Lane so as to prevent Mr Griffin from entering the building.

A protest is understandable, and possibly even desirable, but a blockade is not. The strategy of denying the BNP the oxygen of publicity is of questionable morality and, at any rate, it has not worked. Mr Griffin and his colleague Andrew Brons now sit in the European Parliament. They represent a real, if still marginal, political presence that cannot just be wished away. Much as its existence may dismay and disgust, ignoring it will not help.

Nor is such an approach helpful. Misconstrued notions of victimhood and oppression are the BNP’s greatest electoral assets. The party must be held to account like any other and if its ideology is abhorrent and wrong, this must be demonstrated. Question Time is as good a forum as any.

It may not be easy. The BNP’s message is unpleasant, but Mr Griffin has grown accomplished at spreading it. He has been called a racist before, and can deal with it. The shrieking meltdown of his opponents would not look good on television. He must be demolished, but deftly.

Alongside Mr Griffin, the panel for Question Time will include Bonnie Greer, the playwright, Chris Huhne for the Liberal Democrats, Jack Straw for the Labour Party, and an as yet unannounced representative of the Conservative Party. So far, Ms Greer is the only panellist from an ethnic minority. In making their choice, the Conservatives should not allow themselves to be swayed by this.

Early reports suggest they may be tempted to put forward Baroness Warsi, the Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action. Remarkably, she is the only non-white person to hold a Cabinet level position in any of the three main parties. Certainly her brief alone could justify her inclusion on this panel, but she is not the experienced pugilist that the event demands.

Confronting the BNP is no small responsibility. That party’s supporters may rarely watch Question Time but they will watch for Mr Griffin. In the main, these are disillusioned white working-class voters, deserting Labour. The Tories must be able to make the case that they are the more desirable change.

So, then. Who? Alongside Mr Straw and Mr Huhne, it must be a frontbench name. Eric Pickles has the right working-class credentials, but his last appearance on Question Time was woeful. The party must look to its strongest debaters, those who are capable not only of rising above Mr Griffin, but also of getting down and dirty with him, too.

It should be William Hague. Others might manage it, but none so well. Mr Hague has run rings around two prime ministers at the dispatch box, and even held his own on Have I Got News For You? The Shadow Foreign Secretary is a safe pair of hands, but he can also throw a punch.

Unfortunately, she's as much of a bigot as Griffin.

BNP leader Nick Griffin has agreed to ask his party to amend its constitution so it does not discriminate on grounds of race or religion, a court heard.

The UK's equalities watchdog had argued the BNP broke the Race Relations Act by restricting members to "indigenous Caucasian" people.

The court heard Mr Griffin had agreed to use "all reasonable endeavours" to revise its constitution.

BNP members will be asked to agree to the changes at a meeting in November.

Mr Griffin was not at the hearing at Central London County Court on Thursday morning.


But Robin Allen QC, counsel for the commission, said Mr Griffin had agreed to present party members with a revised constitution at its general meeting next month and the party had agreed not to accept new members in the meantime.

The BNP agreed to use "all reasonable endeavours" to revise its constitution so it did not discriminate on what are termed "protected characteristics" in clause four of the Equality Bill - which include race, gender and religious belief.

But BBC correspondent Andy Tighe said it remained to be seen whether Mr Griffin could persuade his party to allow the change.

John Wadham, of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said: "We are pleased the party has conceded this case and agreed to all of the Commission requirements.

"Political parties, like any other organisation, are obliged to respect the law and not discriminate against people.

"It is unfortunate the BNP spent several months before conceding and dealing properly with our legal requirements. We will be monitoring the BNP's compliance with this court order on membership, and its other legal obligations, including to its constituents."


A BNP spokesman told the BBC: "We have got to comply if we want to stay in the game. Of course it's not right, it's an infringement of our rights."

On the BNP website Mr Griffin had asked supporters to help fund the "horrendous" bills for the legal case and accused the commission of "trying to bankrupt us".

Richard Barnbrook, the party's representative on the London Assembly, said he believed BNP members would vote in favour of a reformed constitution.

"The first reason being that trying to fight this court case would bankrupt the party and we have more important issues to deal with, including elections."

The court heard Mr Griffin would be given 10 days to submit a signed undertaking confirming the proposed changes. The case was adjourned until January 28.

The idea that 'being tradition' is enough to make something worthwhile is pretty retarded.

I'm not a fan of things being discarded simply in the name of "progress".

Apart from the blacks of course.