Boris Johnson's father: BBC interview was 'disgusting' journalism. Help to Buy scheme could be exploited by second homebuyers. The government's £12bn scheme to help homebuyers by offering mortgage guarantees could be used by wealthy homeowners to fund a second property, it has emerged.
The mortgage guarantee is the second part of the Help to Buy scheme unveiled in the chancellor's budget, and from January 2014 will offer government backing on high loan-to-value (LTV) home loans. Under the plans, borrowers will be able to get access to 95% mortgages with the government guaranteeing a portion of the loan to reduce the mortgage lender's risk. Although designed to help those who are unable to raise a big enough deposit to finance a property without assistance, the small print of the scheme does not rule out wealthy borrowers taking up the offer of a mortgage guarantee from the government. Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme, George Osborne said he did not want the scheme to help people buy second homes, but refused to say they would be banned from doing so. Budget 2013: little hope for aspirations of the country's poorest.
"What Can God Do 4 Jaywick?
" a sign asks outside the Methodist church in this Essex seaside resort – a reminder that, for some time now, residents here have been looking in all directions for help. Even a local Citizens Advice worker says, with only a note of flippancy, that it would take a miracle to resolve the problems of the village, which since 2011 has held the unwelcome title of most deprived place in England. This week people here have been considering the more mundane question of what George Osborne can do for Jaywick. Many of them are entirely dependent on the welfare system, which the chancellor described in his budget as "bloated". Osborne is dreaming if he thinks young people share his aspirations.
What some would call aspirations, I would call dreams, but I don't suppose even Gideon is deluded enough to tell us we are building a Dream Nation.
That's a bit ravey, and these are serious times. Still, he has been up late making the unbearable sound not lovely, but necessary. Sub-prime fantasies and workfare is not a return to the past but a passage to a future where all will have homes, and look out of their bedroom windows and dream of bonuses, not benefits. But who is to tell him that some of us have the wrong aspirations? Or different aspirations? When the Education and Employers Taskforce surveyed 11,000 of them, there was "no link found between the careers young people want and the jobs experts think will exist for them in the future". Labour to help rush through bill to stop benefit rebates after Poundland ruling. Labour is expected to support the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) in speeding a retroactive law through parliament that will overturn the outcome of a court of appeal judgment and ensure the government no longer has to pay £130m in benefit rebates to about a quarter of a million jobseekers.
Rugby World Cup Party, Your Guide! The Party Times. The Six Nations comes to its exciting climax this weekend, so it’s high time you got into the sporting spirit and invited friends and family over to cheer on your favourite team!
Bunting, balloons, beer and burgers, the perfect match for any good get-together! Come on England… Scotland… Wales… Ireland…! Rugby Party Dress Code. Let's call time on the moral lectures – I'll drink to that. Even if the case for drink pricing were not medically overwhelming, it is obvious that any decent person would prefer to be on the same side of an argument as Dr Sarah Wollaston, the admirable Totnes MP, as opposed to the wheedling teen-poisoners of the drinks industry.
And yet, in the days when Cameron was also disposed to deplore the availability of cheap alcohol, in the same stern yet saddened voice in which he admonishes fat people who buy discounted chocolate oranges, memories of his Sunday drinks in one of those beamed country pubs where the daughters of the gentry are traditionally left in the lavatories just would not be repressed.
Equally, when the prime minister used to say, by way of a drink-pricing justification: "It's just too easy for people to get drunk on cheap alcohol at home", there would invariably flash upon that inward eye an image of Mr Cameron, "chillaxing" on a Sunday, after what his biographers estimated to be "a few glasses of wine". Activist 'shocked' at conviction for yelling at David Cameron. A woman has described her shock after being found guilty of a public order offence for telling David Cameron he had "blood on his hands".
Bethan Tichborne, 28, said initially she assumed her court summons was a bureaucratic error after she was arrested for protesting against cuts to disability benefits. But she was told by a district judge that her comments must have hugely insulted the prime minister. Cameron was switching on the Christmas lights in his Witney constituency in Oxfordshire, in December, when Tichborne tried to climb a barrier with her homemade placard. The one-woman protest, she claims, was against cuts leading to the deaths of people with disabilities.
She believes her conviction at Oxford magistrates court last week was politically motivated. DWP seeks law change to avoid benefit repayments after Poundland ruling. Iain Duncan Smith's department has introduced legislation to 'protect the national economy' from a £130m payout to jobseekers.
Photograph: David Fisher / Rex Features The Department for Work and Pensions has introduced emergency legislation to reverse the outcome of a court of appeal decision and "protect the national economy" from a £130m payout to jobseekers deemed to have been unlawfully punished. The retroactive legislation, published on Thursday evening and expected to be rushed through parliament on Tuesday, will effectively strike down a decision by three senior judges and deny benefit claimants an average payout of between £530 and £570 each. Last month the court of appeal ruled that science graduate Cait Reilly and fellow complainant and unemployed lorry driver Jamieson Wilson had been unlawfully made to work unpaid for organisations including Poundland because the DWP had not given jobseekers enough legal information about what they were being made to do.
DWP seeks law change to avoid benefit repayments after Poundland ruling. Partial U-turn over bedroom tax announced by Iain Duncan Smith. The work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, has announced a partial U-turn on the government's controversial bedroom tax, exempting foster carers and armed forces personnel who live at home.
The concessions were announced in a written ministerial statement after weeks of growing political pressure over the policy. It dominated exchanges last week at prime minister's questions in the Commons, where David Cameron defended the policy, which he called the "spare-room subsidy", from an attack by the Labour leader, Ed Miliband. The changes will mean that about 5,000 approved foster carers will be allowed an additional room as long as they have fostered a child or become a registered carer in the past 12 months.
Adult offspring in the armed forces who are away on operations will be counted as continuing to live at home, as long as they intend to return home. He said: "Exempting armed forces personnel and giving foster carers some protection from the bedroom tax is not enough. Tories must reverse 'great socialist coup' of last decade, says Liam Fox. The Conservative party needs to reverse the "great socialist coup" of the last decade by ending welfare dependency and encouraging wealth creation by cutting taxes, the former defence secretary Liam Fox has argued.
In an unashamedly Thatcherite call to arms, Fox called for an end to the ringfencing of Whitehall departments, which would lead to dramatic cuts in NHS spending. Calling for lower taxes, Fox said: "The great socialist coup of the last decade was making wealth an embarrassment. It is not. It is the prize for aspiration and hard work, and its side effects are higher tax revenues, more jobs and more investment. " Bias against public school pupils is 'hatred that dare not speak its name' Why having money has become a source of shame.
10 reasons why it sucks to be rich. 1. The shame According to Nigel Nicholson, a psychologist at the London Business School, you may feel overwhelmed with feelings of guilt that others don't have as much as you, or paranoia that others envy you. This is known as "rich man's burden" – it sometimes leads to panic reactions, like philanthropic urges, which business school psychologists (who knew?) Samantha Cameron turns red for Comic Relief cake bake. Samantha Cameron bakes cakes at her home in Downing Street. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA When David Cameron tweeted a picture of his wife baking in the kitchen it probably wasn't an attempt to appeal to traditional Conservative voters in the wake of the party's bloody nose in Eastleigh. Samantha Cameron was donning her pinny in aid of Red Nose Day, a fact advertised by her shocking, and very un-Conservative, scarlet wig. The resulting moonrocks, flapjacks and tiffin were sold to Downing Street staff at tea time, with the money raised going to the Comic Relief charity.
Layout 1 - churchill-s-legacy-the-conservative-case-for-the-hra-october-2009.pdf. Secret courts: the nasty party is back. The Sunday papers revealed the Conservative response to humiliation in Eastleigh: the nasty party is back. Chris Grayling and Theresa May traded rival schemes to rip up Churchill's civilising legacy, the European convention. The justice secretary wants to knock entitlements to life, liberty and dignity out of English law by repealing the Human Rights Act; the home secretary would rather wind the clock back further and pull out of the European arrangements that have safeguarded the same basic rights since the Churchill era. It is a frightening foretaste of the Tory manifesto and the assault on liberty that could follow an outright Conservative win in 2015, and yet even now – under a coalition with avowed liberals – the bartering away of ancient freedoms is picking up pace, as we will see with today's crunch Commons votes on plans to plunge public courtrooms into darkness.
Human rights laws: supremely serious judgment. Britain's judges have traditionally disliked involving themselves in public controversy almost as strongly as Britain's politicians wish the judges would keep their criticisms firmly under their wigs. That is why Tuesday's Guardian interview with the president of the UK supreme court, Lord Neuberger, is such an important and even astonishing event. Bedroom tax: ministers given 14 days to make case against judicial review. 'Bedroom tax' will hit single parents and disabled people hardest. Single parents with spare bedrooms in social housing will soon be around £700 poorer per year. Tory ministers plot Human Rights Act repeal. Senior Tory cabinet ministers have raised the prospect of pulling Britain out of the European convention on human rights, despite a pledge by David Cameron that the party will not lurch to the right in the wake of its drubbing in the Eastleigh byelection.
Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, claimed that a future Conservative majority government would scrap the Human Rights Act, which enshrines the ECHR in domestic law. Tory ministers plot Human Rights Act repeal. Revealed: One in four of UK's top companies pay no tax. By Alex Hawkes and Simon Watkins Published: 01:26 GMT, 3 March 2013 | Updated: 18:08 GMT, 6 March 2013. Tories put David Cameron on notice after Eastleigh byelection drubbing. Defence secretary: I will resist further cuts. UK to fight EU plan to cap bankers' bonuses. Oxford University accused of bias against ethnic minority applicants. Oxford University has been accused of "institutional bias" against black and minority ethnic students after figures revealed that white applicants to some of the most competitive courses are up to twice as likely to get a place as others, even when they get the same A-level grades.
Figures for applications to the university in 2010 and 2011, obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act, revealed that 25.7% of white applicants received an offer to attend the university, compared with 17.2% of students from ethnic minorities. White applicants to medicine, one of the most prestigious courses, were twice as likely to get a place as minority ethnic candidates, even when they had the same triple A* grade A-level scores. Met police launch inquiry into construction worker blacklisting. Astguard chief 'gagged' over search and rescue privatisation. David Cameron's India trip hits wobble with concern over helicopter deal. A snapshot of desperate Britain: 1,700 people apply for just EIGHT jobs at new branch of Costa.
Two reasons why the Left hates Lady Thatcher. Iain Duncan Smith: shelf-stacking as important as a degree. Samantha Cameron hosts tea party at new Smythson shop on London's Sloane Street. The Black and White Ball was OK, but Smythson's party was seriously amaze. Cameron's latest tactic: blame the foreigners. Steve Bell on the work programme ruling - cartoon. Camden council plans to move 761 poor families from London. Children and language: Taalk propa? Hadaway wi ye. Britain's schools among worst in the world for social mobility with disadvantaged pupils twice as likely to be poorest academic performers, according to OECD report.
Jeremy Hunt's smoke and mirrors will not solve the care crisis. Labour leads Conservatives by 12 points in poll. Shocking figures reveal the growth in UK's wealth gap. Margaret Thatcher had "psychopathic tendencies", says actress who played her. Margaret Thatcher did little for Grantham. Forget a statue.
Where should they put the marble statue of Lady Thatcher? Lambeth benefit posters 'an investment' not lazy socialism - Councillor. Work longer to keep spare room, says pensions minister. Three in five voters back gay marriage, new poll shows. Same-sex marriage vote: on the wrong side of history. The gay marriage debate has uncovered a nest of bigots. Skivers v strivers: the argument that pollutes people's minds. Quiz - are you a skiver or a striver? Skivers v strivers: the benefits debate explained. There is cold fear and resentment, but little sense of hope.
Minister defends parents' right to smack. All comments for VikingHustings. The Tory malcontents possess a destructive intensity all their own. British children just want to be footballers and pop stars, Cameron tells African pupils as he promises more help to tackle poverty. David Cameron in Liberia: we must eradicate extreme poverty. GPs to prescribe self-help books for mental health problems. Three-quarters of local authorities to put up council tax for poorest families.
Downing Street: high benefits mean food banks should not be needed. Steve Bell on David Cameron and Europe – cartoon. Martin Rowson on the Conservatives' European Union strategy – cartoon. Earl of Cardigan admits he's claiming Jobseekers' Allowance as he promises to behave in long-running feud with trustees of his 4,000 acre estate. George Osborne and Rupert Murdoch enjoyed private dinner in Mayfair.
Putting people off coming to Britain: your pictures. When the rich are born to rule, the results can be fatal. Philip Hammond accused of likening gay marriage to incest. Trainee doctors should ignore EU rules and work longer, says Britain's top surgeon. Campaign to deter Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants 'farcical' Economy: Osborne's depression. Surprise 8% fall in crime. Private health contractor's staff told to cut 999 calls to meet targets. I agree with Churchill: let's get stuck into the real shirkers. Mary Beard suffers 'truly vile' online abuse after Question Time.
Who will speak up for the universal welfare state now? What ties Cameron's EU policy to his stirring words on Algeria? Impatience. Rnwall mayhem: Rock isn't rocking any more. Oxford college sued over using 'selection by wealth' for admissions. Tory MP Chope Calls Commons Staff 'Servants'. An MP calls Commons staff 'servants' – what a pantomime our parliament is. Atos comes under attack in emotional Commons debate. Benefits and child credits squeeze pushes 200,000 children into poverty. _57919089_share_income464x332.gif (GIF Image, 464 × 332 pixels) Almost a third of Britons cannot afford a holiday, poverty report shows. 14m Britons were at risk of poverty in 2011: new ONS data shows.
Duchess of Cambridge's sister Pippa Middleton attends Belgian hunt with Albert Frere's grandsons. Kate Must Curtsey to Blood Princesses. Statistics cast doubt on coalition's '500,000 new jobs' claim. Home Page. Parents vent fury after Croydon school is absorbed by academy chain. Education cuts: It's snobs vs oiks in Oxfordshire. Poorer households face postcode lottery as council tax benefit cuts bite. Ukip's Lord Monckton thrown out of Doha climate talks. RSPCA accused of double standards over hunt prosecutions. Redundancy is a life wasted. I am now nothing but a threat.