Economic myths and realities | The wrong cure. OAP fury over pension reforms. Pensioners, who will be exempt from pensions reform announced today, have attacked the planned changes as a "work shirker's charter. " Internet message boards hummed with fury over the reforms, which will see a flat rate pension of £140 a week introduced. Currently, at 65 you're entitled to a basic pension of £96.65 a week. On top of this is the means-tested element for lower earners - known as pension credit- which boosts pensions up to £132.60 a week for a single person and £202.40 for couples. But the reforms to introduce a flat-rate pension will not apply to current pensioners. The big drawback Pensions ace Ros Altmann, director general of Saga says: "None of today's pensioners will get less than now, but they will not receive the new benefits. One reader, who chose to remain anonymous, commented on Moneywise.co.uk: "What about people who have worked for the last 40 odd years paying 40% tax and maximum National Insurance payments?
Shelter Cymru on rise in help calls from middle-class. 11 May 2011Last updated at 09:08 More professionals fear having their homes repossessed, according to the Shelter Cymru A homelessness charity says it has seen an increase in queries in Wales from professional middle-class people. Shelter Cymru says its this is as a result of mortgage repossession cases which have "increased dramatically". A spokesman said they are dealing with many calls from employed professionals struggling to keep homes. Figures compiled by the charity show the percentage of queries regarding mortgage repossession has risen from 10% in 2006/07 to 23% in 2010/11.
The percentage of clients that are in employment has risen to 24% in the past year. Shelter's Ceri Dunstan said: "Our advisors have noticed that more people from this group have been coming to us in the last couple of years. Continue reading the main story David and Margaret's story The couple had more than £2,000 in mortgage arrears after David was made redundant from his IT job.
SOURCE: Shelter Cymru 'Huge strains' TheyWorkForYou.com: Are your MPs and Peers working for you in the UK's Parliament? Hansard++ How the secretary of state for health proposes to abolish the NHS in England -- Pollock and Price 342 -- bmj.com. Allyson M Pollock, professor , David Price, senior research fellow Author Affiliations Correspondence to: A M Pollock allyson.pollock@gmail.comAccepted 9 March 2011 Allyson Pollock and David Price examine the proposed statutory changes to the NHS and raise concerns that the government’s role could be reduced to that of payer The coalition government’s Health and Social Care Bill 2010-11 heralds the most controversial reform in the history of the NHS in England.1 2 3 The government plans to replace the NHS system of public funding and mainly public provision and public administration with a competitive market of corporate providers in which government finances but does not provide healthcare.4 Primary care trusts and strategic health authorities are to be abolished and replaced by general practice commissioning consortiums, which all practices must join.
Since 1948 the government has had a duty to provide comprehensive healthcare free at the point of delivery. LHE - London Health Emergency. Health and Social Care Bill. Memorandum submitted by Julie Partridge (HS 124) I am writing to express my concerns over the White Paper - Liberating the NHS I am writing in a private capacity because I have a number of concerns regarding the white paper, Liberating the NHS.
I am not an expert but I am a patient and a taxpayer and I believe the changes are going to do irreparable harm to the NHS. My summary is as below: 1) GPs should be allowed to concentrate on upping their game rather than being employed as financial advisors to the NHS 2) There is a conflict between The department for Work and Pensions and The Department of Health where one Dept - the Dept of Work and Pensions does not trust the other Dept – Dept for Health to make a decision on their patients ability to work, but who are strangely going to be trusted to control the NHS budget. 3) The Public Health White Paper was drafted by the food and alcohol industry – conflict of interest leading back to Andrew Lansley 8) The real government prescription March 2011.
Westons breached charity law over Tory donations - Times Online. Press release: UK Uncut Occupy Tax Dodgers Fortnum and Mason | UK Uncut. UK Uncut secret occupation revealed as Fortnum & Mason 3.30pm – UK Uncut occupy Fortnum & Mason and aim to stay for as long as possible UK Uncut groups from across the country transformed banks and shops on Oxford Street into hospitals, libraries and theatres with Sam West, Josie Long and Mark Thomas performing. UK Uncut, the anti-cuts direct action group, are currently occupying Fortnum & Mason over the tax dodge of over 40 million by its owners Whittington Investments which have a 54% stake in Associated British Foods who produce Ryvita, Kingsmill and others and own Primark. ABF have dodged over £40 million in tax. Over 500 activists congregated on Oxford Circus from the march and from Oxford Street where they had been transforming tax dodging retailers such as Vodafone, Boots and BHS where actors Sam and Timothy West performed and Soho Square where comedians Josie Long and Mark Thomas performed stand up comedy gigs.
It Cuts Both Ways...The Alternatives. Uni fees subsidy for Welsh students. 30 November 2010Last updated at 20:16 Leighton Andrews: ''The public purse will continue to subsidise higher education for Welsh domiciled students'' Welsh students will be protected from increased tuition fees, the Welsh Assembly Government says. Education Minister Leighton Andrews made the commitment as he outlined Wales' response to the UK government's plan to increase fees in England. In Wales, basic tuition fees will rise to £6,000 per annum, or £9,000 in some circumstances. But the assembly government will meet the cost of extra fees for students from Wales attending any UK university. In a statement to the Senedd chamber, Mr Andrews said: "In other words, the increase in fees for Welsh domiciled students, whether they study in England or Wales or Scotland or Northern Ireland, will be paid by the Welsh Assembly Government.
"Welsh domiciled students will not have to find either £6,000 or £9,000 to study. Around 100 students held a protest in Cardiff city centre over tuition fees. Perhaps we should scream. Before it's too late - Comment - TES Connect. Comment:4.5 average rating | Comments (3)Last Updated:13 March, 2011Section:Comment In one of his most vicious and disturbing works, poet Philip Larkin looks through terror-stricken eyes at "The Old Fools" - those infirm and demented elderly relatives sitting in institutional high-backed chairs, reeking of urine, mouths lolling open, and undergoing a "whole hideous inverted childhood".
Needless to say, it is a picture of utter degradation. This, the poet suggests, is where we are all heading - to some ghastly final staging-post before extinction. Larkin asks a question of The Old Fools which keeps drifting through my mind as I watch the current educational juggernaut hurtle madly onwards: "Why aren't they screaming? " There they sit, he says, death looming over them. Why aren't they screaming at the sheer horror of it all? But then, why aren't we screaming too as, bit by bit, so much of what we have developed together over recent years is dismissed or rubbished. Taxpayer-backed RBS paid more than £1m to 323 staff. By Becky Barrow Updated: 15:08 GMT, 18 March 2011 More than 100 senior executives at a state-owned bank pocketed over £1million each last year. The bonanza at the Royal Bank of Scotland saw a team of just five workers share an astonishing £26million. Critics said it was further evidence that banks had become divorced from reality, especially in the wake of RBS’s £1.1billion financial loss.
The bank’s annual report revealed that 323 ‘key staff’ shared a pay and bonus pot of £375million last year. Fat cats: RBS’s American chief Ellen Alemany, left, had her £1.78m salary swollen to £7.5m by bonus and pension payments, while RBS boss Stephen Hester took home £7.7m More than 100 employees made seven-figure sums and the overall average was £1.16million each – 46 times the national average salary of £25,000. Ellen Alemany, chief executive of RBS’s American arm Citizens, was on £1.78million – a salary swollen to £7.5million by bonus and pension payments. RBS boss Stephen Hester picked up £7.7million. Graduates face paying back staggering £83k for taking out full student loans. By James Coney Updated: 22:30 GMT, 19 March 2011 And parents could be penalised for paying off their children's debts The biggest student loan in England is £66,150, with the 20 largest debts owed to the Student Loans Company totalling more than £1million.
All but one of the students went to institutions in London and were on courses that lasted at least five years, such as medicine and law. Universities Minister David Willetts said the figures were 'unusual' but that those people were likely to earn substantial sums later in their careers. The disclosure came after MPs voted to raise tuition fees to £6,000 last December, with institutions able to charge up to £9,000 in 'exceptional circumstances'.
Celebration: But delight at graduating could be dulled by the prospect of a lifetime of debt. But despite pleas from Ministers, Cambridge, Imperial College London and Exeter universities have already announced plans to charge the full amount. For a three year course: Total: £39,000. UK economy growth forecast for 2011 cut by BCC. 8 March 2011Last updated at 07:18 The BCC says a rate rise now would be premature The UK economy will grow by less than expected in 2011 but growth in 2012 will be better than predicted, the British Chambers of Commerce forecasts. The group downgraded its forecast for UK GDP growth in 2011 to 1.4% from a December forecast of 1.9%. The BCC said the downward revision was due to an unexpected fall in 2010's fourth quarter GDP. Meanwhile, retail sales fell 0.4% in February against a year ago, according to the British Retail Consortium. February's fall was the weakest sales performance since last April when like-for-like sales fell by 2.3% due to the difference in timing of the Easter holiday.
Interest rates In its forecast, the BCC increased its estimate for unemployment for early 2012 to 2.65 million, up from 2.6 million. However, the business group raised its prediction for growth in 2012 to 2.3% from 2.1% in December. Continue reading the main story “Start Quote 'Difficult task' Back to reality. Davos 2011: Soros warns UK cuts could cause recession. 26 January 2011Last updated at 17:22 By Tim Weber Business editor, BBC News website, Davos Mr Soros demanded a fundamental rethink of economic theory at an event at Davos The UK government's austerity policy could push the country back into recession, the famous investor and fund manager George Soros has warned.
While the UK government "may be right by embarking on [cuts], I think they will probably have to modify it when the effects are felt," Mr Soros said. While he had been very positive at first, the policy was "unsustainable". Mr Soros is known as "the man who broke the pound" during the 1992 currency crisis, forcing a sterling devaluation. Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr Soros said the biggest threat to the UK economy had been a deflationary trap, where rising debt and falling prices reinforce each other in a hugely damaging spiral.
However, while Mr Soros' words often carry a lot of weight in financial markets, he is not without his detractors. UK cuts 'to push unemployment close to 3m' 10 June 2010Last updated at 14:22 Deficit cuts will hit those already suffering most, the CIPD says Government spending cuts will push UK unemployment up from its current 2.5m to almost 3m, a report has warned. Deficit reduction would also stall recovery in the jobs market, employment group the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) said. There was little prospect of real wage growth until at least 2015, and public sector workers faced pay cuts, it said. The chancellor is expected to lay out sweeping cuts to try to trim the £156bn deficit in his budget on 22 June. 'Radical re-engineering' And the business group the CBI has called for £4 in spending cuts for every £1 in tax hikes.
It warned that the public finances should be repaired without damaging growth prospects, calling for a shake-up of public services provision to save money through job cuts and sharing back office functions. Continue reading the main story “Start Quote What do we cut - and who would it hit? 'Hardship' Doctors 'want halt to NHS plans but reject opposition' 15 March 2011Last updated at 12:22 By Nick Triggle and Jane Hughes BBC News Doctors are debating the changes to the NHS in England Doctors have called on the government to put a halt to its overhaul of the NHS in England, but have stopped short of opposing the plans outright.
Instead, an emergency meeting of the British Medical Association urged ministers to withdraw the health bill so the plans could be looked at again. The plans pave the way for increased competition in the NHS - something the union said was "dangerous and risky". But the government said the BMA should be trying to be more constructive.
The emergency meeting - the first of its kind for nearly 20 years - was called by the BMA leadership after concerns from its grassroots membership about the plans. The motion voted in favour of by delegates says withdrawing the health bill, which is currently going through parliament, was needed so that the controversial and more radical elements of the legislation can be considered again. Library clears its shelves in protest at closure threat. Stony Stratford library is one of two branches being considered for closure by Milton Keynes council. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian The library at Stony Stratford, on the outskirts of Milton Keynes, looks like the aftermath of a crime, its shell-shocked staff presiding over an expanse of emptied shelves.
Only a few days ago they held 16,000 volumes. Now, after a campaign on Facebook, there are none. Every library user was urged to pick their full entitlement of 15 books, take them away and keep them for a week. The empty shelves, as the library users want to demonstrate, represent the gaping void in their community if Milton Keynes council gets its way. Stony Stratford council got wind in December and wrote to all 6,000 residents – not entirely disinterestedly, as the council meets in the library, like many other groups in the town. . – they should be finding ways to expand its services and bring even more people in.
" UK Uncut. Conservatives slam parish council proposals for London | The-Latest.com. A shadow minister for London has slammed the goverment's recent proposals on reforming local goverment in London as a 'triple tax whammy.' Jacqui Lait's comments come as the goverment publish a white paper outlining proposals to introduce parish councils in London along with a parish council tax. Councils however, have fought back saying that there is not enough money to fund a third tier of goverment in London. The outspoken MP criticises the plans saying that London already has too many tiers of goverment. She said: 'London already has too many tiers of goverment and too many beaurocrats, and now Labour ministers want even more - with taxpayers to pick up the tab. I fear that Londoners are facing a 'triple tax whammy.'
Warning: they want us to pay the private sector to make a profit from NHS. UK | all | Cuts and testimonies. Barclays UK corporation tax bill for 2009 was £113m. The coalition government’s Localism Bill is inconsistent and restrictive for local government. Ministers are actually legislating for a confusing mix of new central controls and only minor local ‘freedoms’ » British politics and policy at LSE. Localism: How far can it go? Cameron's magical thinking can't save this national joke | Polly Toynbee. Cash for internships: Tory backers pay £2k a time to buy children work experience.
Financial Secrecy Index. UnitedKingdom_CityLondon. A Corporate Coup d?Etat. Statement on tax. Cash for internships: Tory backers pay £2k a time to buy children work experience. Taxman faces probe into £6bn Vodafone 'let-off' To us, it's an obscure shift of tax law. To the City, it's the heist of the century | George Monbiot. Warning: they want us to pay the private sector to make a profit from NHS. It began offshore… | The Architecture of Transparency.