my od computer paced up

After so many years of getting bits and bobs to keep my computer running it packed up and died a death. The mother board decided it was time for a funeral, I have had to borrow a lap top for which the key board is to small for my fingers.

Shopping for a new one will start next week.

Red Ed

So Miliband says again the middle class are the people to make of break Labour, the working class are mostly thick uneducated morons who would vote Labour even if it became New Labour. So the battle is set Labour must get back the swing voters of the hard pressed middle class, who are suffering under the Tories.

I suspect the poorest can see the taxation go up again as Labour would press forward with cutting the poorest within the middle class.

It must be me but the battle is now on to see which of the blue core parties Tory Labour liberals who can win back those pesky middle class swingers who swung back to the Tories.

Me I swinging out of bothering to vote.

MUFC

My grandsons have informed me that today is the day, FA cup, and their team Manchester United will be crowned champions.

Being a Liverpool fan myself I will have to sit and grin and bare it, otherwise my life will not be worth living.......

What next

Just talking to my local councilor about life and he said how do you feel about the new labour regime going into the blue. I said pardon, he said what do you think of Blue labour with Purnell and Cruddas and to some degree Mandy.

I said it does not suprise me new labour was in fact a poor copy of the Tories anyway, so to get back in you have to have a gimmick of getting back the Tory voters. He said is that what you think, well I said why not call it red labour then, or is red some how seen as being socialist, and blue is seen as what.

Job center

I've been told to wait until they can sort out whom is the new job provider, the Job Center does not think it can work with the disabled if a new provider is going to take over.

And I was informed that the job center has to work with able bodied people who are seeking work as they are now a priority, nothing like being told your not a priority to lift one's spirit

hansard

The Government have a massive programme to reassess more than 1.5 million people on incapacity benefit by 2013 to see whether they qualify for employment and support allowance. However, the assessment process is deeply flawed. Forty per cent of appeals are successful, and there is widespread dissatisfaction with Atos Healthcare, the company carrying out the assessments. There are also serious concerns with the way that the process is being handled. The descriptors in the work capability assessment have been repeatedly revised over recent years so as to raise the bar for claimants. Further changes are now being rushed through before Professor Harrington has concluded the all-important second stage of his review, against the advice of the Social Security Advisory Committee. In particular, the committee felt that the work capability assessment measured theoretical work capability and took insufficient account of the realities of the work environment and the labour market, which has not enabled significant numbers to move into employment, even in relatively favourable pre-recession conditions. Some 92 per cent of employers say that they would find it difficult or impossible to employ someone who is blind or partially sighted, for instance. Now we learn that increasing numbers of disabled people are experiencing rigorous reassessments of their access-to-work support packages, which is hardly going to ameliorate the situation.

Even if you qualify for ESA—employment and support allowance—you may be no better off, because anyone receiving contributory ESA from next April who is in the work-related activity group will have payment of their benefit means tested after 12 months. This change is to be made retrospective. People will still be able to apply for income-related ESA after their contributory ESA ends, but if their partner is earning as little as £150 or working 24 hours or more a week, they will no longer be eligible for ESA. These are particularly savage policies going far beyond anything contemplated in the Thatcher era. They will cause great hardship and have a devastating effect on the lives of hundreds of thousands of disabled people. It is estimated that by 2015-16, 700,000 people will be affected by limiting contributory ESA to one year: 203,000 will lose on average £11 a week; 217,000 will lose £22 a week; and 280,000, a good 40 per cent, will lose as much as £89 a week. To people forced to live on benefit, these figures are mind-boggling.

Lords on Welfare

Some very good speeches today and some total rubbish, especially from Lord Sawyer about Remploy helping people. I have yet to see a Job Provider who employs disabled people, or in fact employ older people, the Shaw Trust and Remploy have for sometime employed people on the grounds of paying the min of the min wage in other words they pay people the youth rate of the min wage, what you get then are people who have no idea of the real world. I get fed up going to see a New Job provider and I can tell word for word what they will say.

I'm not disabled myself, but I know somebody who is, thats nice.

The fact is at the moment jobs are short and when jobs are sort employers are looking for the best, they do not want some dribbling retard to do the jobs a Polish worker can do ten times better, and yes I do dribble.

The fact is I have seen some people tell me that I should have been put down at birth, but I was fine at birth I had my accident when I was thirty nine.

It's been an eye opener to listen to the Tories in the house of Lords talk about the welfare reforms and listen to the New labour brigade.