Russell and Carol - hayle and hearty

Excellent letter via Letters: Coalition should zero in on the real issue of unfair work contracts 04 April 2013 00:05

I had thought Blair's Iraq posturings were the worst affront to democracy but the current Coalition is beating him hands down.

Both parties commissioned and agreed to the Coalition document to bind this parliament.

One of the things it says is 'No Top Down reorganisations of the NHS'

From Sir David Nicholson's testimony to the Health and Social Care Committee today -

Income Related Benefits: Estimates of Take-Up from DWP

Key points from latest release are:

Income Support and Employment and Support Allowance (Income Related) (IS/ESA (IR)) - Take-up in 2009-10 was in the range 77 per cent to 89 per cent by caseload and 82 per cent to 92 per cent by expenditure. There was no evidence of a change in overall caseload take-up between 2008-09 and 2009-10.

In 2009-10 there were 2.09 million recipients claiming £9.08 billion of IS/ESA (IR). The number of people that were entitled to but not claiming IS/ESA (IR) was between 260 thousand and 620 thousand. The total amount of IS/ESA (IR) unclaimed was between £0.75 billion and £2.04 billion.

Interesting article by David Mitchell

Which brings me to George Osborne. "Just as we should never balance the budget on the backs of the poor, so it is an economic delusion to think you can balance it only on the wallets of the rich," he said in his speech to the Conservative party conference last week. I think he's misunderstood the whole balancing metaphor. The challenge for a chancellor isn't to balance the budget on something but just to balance it – to make it balance.

...

The News International #notw story has probably been done to death - though I remain concerned that the big issues are being lost in the 'hacking' of phones (which of course wasn't hacking at all).

Seems to me that the real issue is privacy and ownership of data and we're reaching a tipping point where hopefully we might get some proper rights for once!

In the meantime - I loved Hugh Grant's comments in the Guardian which to me hit the nail firmly on the head

Two more interesting letters today from:

So, the News of the World phone hacking saga drags on.... and then reading about Andy Gray being a sexist pillock you come across:

So, fail to protect a member of the public going good from work, beat a member of the public for on reason, fail to render him assistance that's all find with the CPS. But tip someone off about a search warrant

A policewoman has been charged after being accused of tipping off a person about a potential raid by officers.


Pc Grania Hale, 34, was suspended from her duties with Sussex Police after being charged with misconduct in public office.

Law

Bin Henry VIII clauses, Ken Clarke told

• guardian.co.uk,
  Thursday July 15 2010
• Joshua Rozenberg

From The Guardian