Unemployment benefit claimants constituency by constituency: full data. The latest unemployment statistics from the ONS show that the number of jobless people rose by 15,000 in the first quarter of the year.
Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images The number of unemployed in the UK rose by 15,000 in the first quarter of the year with the total unemployment rate jumping up to 7.8%. The latest release from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) also shows that regular pay rose by just 0.8% compared with January to March 2012 - this is the lowest growth rate since comparable records began in 2001. Phillip Inman writes today: Total pay rises, which include bonuses, was even lower than average pay rises, said the Office for National Statistics, increasing by only 0.4% at a time when inflation remains stubbornly high at 2.8%.
So how is it changing? Total unemployment The jobless total stands at 2.52m, up 15,000 from October to December 2012. Public sector employment Youth unemployment Video. Le royaume bientôt uni dans la grève. The happiness and wellbeing map of Britain. Life expectancy across the UK mapped. Workers who strike to lose benefits. The government is to limit the amount of benefit paid to workers if they take part in a strike, the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, has announced.
Under changes to be introduced with the new universal credit from next year, workers claiming benefit will lose any top-up if they are responsible for a reduction in their pay as a result of joining a strike. The worker on strike would continue to receive a basic benefit if they are in receipt of the universal credit. But if their income drops as a result of joining a strike, their universal credit will not increase. Duncan Smith said: "It is totally wrong that the current benefit system compensates workers and tops up their income when they go on strike. This is unfair to taxpayers and creates perverse incentives. Under the system, recipients of working tax credits are allowed to retain their full entitlement for the first 10 days of a strike. The universal credit will wrap most tax credits and benefits into a single payment.
BBC Radio 4 Programmes - The Class Ceiling. Les députés britanniques adoptent une réforme du système de santé contestée. Les députés britanniques ont adopté, mercredi 7 septembre au soir, une réforme décriée du système de santé ouvrant la porte à une participation accrue du secteur privé dans ce service public.
La réforme, qui a suscité l'opposition des travaillistes et les critiques de syndicats et de nombreux professionnels de la santé, a été adoptée par la Chambre des Communes par 316 voix contre 251, à l'issue d'un débat de deux jours. Cette réforme doit encore passer une étape qui s'annonce difficile devant la Chambre des Lords. Le premier ministre conservateur, David Cameron, qui avait été contraint de revoir son projet initial après les critiques de ses partenaires libéraux-démocrates, a estimé, mercredi, que cette réforme "renforcerait" le système de santé.
"Le but de cette réforme est d'impliquer les médecins et de donner aux patients un choix plus vaste", a-t-il dit devant les députés. It's time to clamp down on 'funemployment' I'm sure you know the type. Workshy, embracing unemployment as a lifestyle choice, sometimes one inherited from the parents, and spending money scrounged off others on booze and drugs.
No, I'm not talking about the feckless "chav" caricatures who regularly feature in tabloid horror stories, used to justify further attacks on Britain's besieged welfare state. It's a new generation of young, wealthy freeloaders we should be worried about: the "funemployed", if you will. The concept of the funemployed has actually been bouncing around US newspaper columns since the start of the global economic crisis three years ago.
With a new TV programme essentially dedicated to the phenomenon and reports in the British press, it looks like we too are finally getting our head around the concept. It might seem perverse to associate fun with the trauma of unemployment. And of course, the reality is that "fun" has a price tag, whether you have a job or not. But is funemployment really that much fun? The evolution of Sure Start: the challenges and the successes. As the civil servant in charge of delivering the previous Labour government's flagship Sure Start programme, which aimed to improve the life chances of children from poor backgrounds, Naomi Eisenstadt was used to rolling with the punches.
But she probably didn't expect them to hit quite as close to home as they did in 2002, when Andrew (now Lord) Adonis, at that time leading on education in No 10's policy unit, got a surprising leaflet through his door. Sure Start at that stage was meant to be focused on disadvantaged families, offering them carefully chosen, evidence-based services to help ameliorate the effects of poverty on children. Why on earth, a furious Adonis wanted to know, was his family being invited to use the centre? And why did its offerings include, of all things, aromatherapy? Renewed focus The speedy expansion of the scheme from an initial 250 local programmes was pushed through by ministers against the advice of civil servants.
What did they get wrong?