I ❤ JustinBieber

I don't think any reasonable sound minded person has any objection to gay marriage unless they are a religious bigot but I don't think it is a major priority right now, would rather Labour candidates concentrated on the economy as opposed to trivial issues like this

Depends what you define as poor Poor to me is not being able to or struggling to afford food, kids having scurvy and rickets, mould built up inside houses, lack of or unclean running water, THAT to me is poor Poor in this country these days seems to be having to make do without the sports channels, only having a 46" plasma in the lounge and not one in the bedroom too etc I refuse to believe that there is 7m in this country who are under fed and are at risk of disease

Indeed, I wasn't speaking literally I was showing him how I believed they calculated their 5% total as it did seem a very sweeping generalisation given the near 800,000 taken out of tax and the increase in tax credits

Was using it as an example that "experts" can get things wrong and overestimate things really and the swine flu thing was the first thing that entered my head

I think you over estimate the Lib Dems tbh, power corrupts, I think the Lib Dems in the cabinet bar possibly Cable couldn't be further up Cameron's arse if they tried now that they have got a whiff of power, the Lib Dems are morphing into Tories, Danny Alexander seems further to the right than the bulk of the shadow cabinet for instance.

Only time will tell but I bet when we are debating the 2015 election campaign on here assuming BJ is still in existence/I haven't been banned I have no doubt that you will be admitting you were wrong and they were wrong about the 1.2m or whatever job losses

Government scientists working just down the corridor from the health secretary way overestimated the number of people that would die from swine flu and called it a pandemic, in the end instead of 100,000+ dying the death toll was about 40

Time will tell but I expect it will be another scare story like the scientists saying we were all going to die of swine flu/bird flu/salmonella etc There will be job losses no doubt about that but I don't believe they will be anything like on the scale predicted above

What I meant was that I reckon the final public sector job losses will be no more than about 750,000 certainly not the 1.5m the left like to trot out

Nothing can ensure that it happens but even if some jobs are created as a result of it it is better than none Even if say 50,000 extra were created thanks to these measures then that is 50,000 off benefits and into work

The corporation tax cut will certainly help create jobs in this country as will the NI holiday for new jobs created as will the scrapping of Labour's vile "jobs tax" Many of the 1.5million public sector workers who lose their jobs I have no doubt will start their own businesses with their redundancy money although I would say the final total will be not even half the 1.5m that is being claimed.

Immigrants seem to be able to without difficulty, Danny claims that they are being exploited and working below minimum wage but I doubt that is anything more than a small minority of cases Nor was I suggesting the above, more playing devils advocate

I have no idea about new claimants, maybe that is for the young, my relative is 48 and has been on JSA for 5 months

I fully support the minimum wage so please don't throw that on my doorstep, I would say the majority of immigrants are working on minimum wage or higher, sure there are some that exploit like fruit picking and catching cockles etc but most immigrants I would say are on minimum wage and above.

Am not stating an opinon here more thinking out aloud but maybe it is time we did then. Slash unemployment welfare payments to a point where it is not economically viable not to work, people out of work in most cases have no incentive to work as they are so in their comfort zone on welfare that they have no incentive to go out and look for work Maybe it is time for savage and brutal cuts in unemployment benefits in order to get people away from the tv and into the workplace.

I am a member of the chamber of commerce and the IOD, it was in a newsletter I was sent, I haven't looked for it online No they have a work ethic that many Britons don't, if you don't work in Afghanistan you starve so that gives them a work ethic that means they come here and get work very quickly, same in Poland, their welfare system is next to nothing, much as I don't like the idea of Britain losing its cultural identity I would happily export our scroungers (the ones that make no effort to find work not all unemployed) to Poland and Afghanistan and replace them with hard working immigrants.

I didn't say it is easy, but it should be easier than the indignity of sitting on arse all day living off the taxpayer Why can an immigrant come over from Kabul or Warsaw and almost instantly find a job ?

Yes I do think it will happen 1.5m jobs will be lost (worst case scenario probably won't even happen) but the CBI think 2.3m new companies will be started between 2010 and 2018, even if many fail many will still recruit people, many will succeed, predict unemployment will be about 2.5m by the next election and start going steadily down

Unemployment fell by 50,000 or so in the last statistics As many if not more jobs will be created as lost over the next few years If I went bust tomorrow I bet I could find a job inside a week even if it was as a waiter, shop assistant, fruit picker, car washer or whatever, sure not glamourous jobs, not well paid but money and self respect

Then all they have to do is look hard for work, get work and they will be able to take advantage of 0% tax and tax credits that the working poor are getting There is work out there, most are simply not looking hard enough or dismiss it because it is not glamourous or well paid

A relative of mine is on JSA, he gets £65 a week, he asked the benefits office only a week or 2 ago whether JSA was being cut next year and he was given a catergorical NO, this was from someone who works in the JSA and has access to all the information

Because they have lumped all the poor in together in the same basket working and unemployed and have come up with an average of the 3 without taking into account circumstances Suppose 1 sector is going to be 10% better off (lets say for arguments sake the working poor who are going to not pay tax any more and will have increased tax credits) Suppose 1 sector is going to be about the same (lets say for arguments sake the unemployed poor) Suppose 1 sector is going to be 20% worse off (for arguments sake they are being moved from incapacity benefits they dont need as they are fit for work) +10 0 -20 = the average of the 3, THAT is my point They are going for headline grabbing doomsday scenarios instead of seperating the working poor, the unemployed who want to work and the cheats who are ripping us off in their calculations 800,000 people in work are going to be better off substantially thanks to being taken out of tax ENTIRELY, on top of that a gain thanks to child tax credits

HOUSING benefit for those out of work more than a year is being cut by 10% not the basic rate of benefit for those out of work for a year although it should be cut as no one really needs a year to find a job if they try hard enough "Unemployed people will see their Housing Benefit cut by 10%, after 12 months of claiming Jobseekers Allowance from April 2013. " ^ From the BBC's own budget report, 4th line down http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10374475 No mention whatsoever of a 10% cut in the basic rate of JSA

Not a bad group tbh for us Inter won't be as strong without Jose and Werder/Twente are beatable

I am saying that the way the IFS have made their calculations is in my opinion flawed, I will read the report proper tomorrow when I have more time but I believe that they are over exaggerating the effects yes