MakemineVanilla

It's not expanding, it's inflating. Think of points on the surface of a balloon. Now inflate the balloon. The points haven't moved relative to each other, but are now further apart. Inflation is like that, but all of the space-like dimensions are inflating, not just an arbitrary boundary. It's not the outside edge getting bigger, it's everything When our brains evolved to help us become better apes it didn't equip us for modelling things so far outside of our experience. This is why it's hard to get your head around it. You have to stop trying to put it in the context of other things that you know. Here is Feynman getting a bit impatient with someone asking for an analogy about magnets.

Now there's a coincidence. A Dane living in Berlin - a good combination. I was thinking of buying one of her albums for a female of my acquaintance. But which of the two?

There is something very Swiftian about the present government being so powerless to do anything much that the only options left are idiotic gimmicks. The government look like little people obsessed with arguing about which is the best way to break a chav. There is even something Carrollian about the bunch of characters who make up the cabinet, with May playing the White Queen whose moves are all pointless. Malice Through the Looking-Glass, maybe?

Surely the one proof that God is male and created the universe, is the Oort cloud. Blokes just never sweep up after they've finished a job, do they?

A mother takes her son to the doctor's and tells him she's really worried. "All he does is lock himself in the bathroom all hours of the day and night and he is just getting paler and paler. The doctor asks the boy what he is doing. "Reflecting on the universe" the boy answers. The doctor diagnoses him as having an over-developed albedo.

Power to the people ..... As you might expect the Germans have plans to shut down their nuclear power plants and are looking to have a 100 000 independent electricity generators using gas-driven engines made by Volkswagen, installed in people's homes (@ E5k), which will generate the equivalent of two nuclear power stations. So while the British are paying a billion pounds price subsidy to the French and the Chinese, the Germans will be using their money to stimulate their car industry and create jobs. It seems we are always one step behind. German gas reserves are decreasing though aren't they ? Apart from shale gas which they are getting into Germany are still producing brown coal which is the dirtiest coal there is. Brown coal is opencast and villages are disappearing as the diggers close in around them. The interesting thing is how the Germans get a Swedish company to mine the coal which is a very politically sensitive issue. The price of energy became a huge issue in the latest General Election in Germany, where it is even more expensive than the UK. Famously, the Germans have invested €80 bn in Green energy generation, which it is said (Bjorn Lomborg) will delay global warming by 37 hours.

Power to the people ..... As you might expect the Germans have plans to shut down their nuclear power plants and are looking to have a 100 000 independent electricity generators using gas-driven engines made by Volkswagen, installed in people's homes (@ E5k), which will generate the equivalent of two nuclear power stations. So while the British are paying a billion pounds price subsidy to the French and the Chinese, the Germans will be using their money to stimulate their car industry and create jobs. It seems we are always one step behind.

Tories have axed 576 Sure Start Centres (evidence) The evidence that they do any good is weak. Bankers' Bonuses rise by 64% in just 1 year (evidence) Is this the business of government? Food Bank usage has grown by 700%+ in 3 years (evidence) Is this the result of the recession, gov policy or more foodbanks available? 1 million are now employed on Zero-Hours Contracts (evidence) Is this result of the present gov's employment law or the last? The Disabled have suffered real term cuts of 1.7% this year in benefits (here) Bad but bigger loss through policy of high inflation. 52,701 firms have been declared Insolvent (Q2 2010 to Q2 2013) (evidence) The government have kept int, rates as low as poss. 379,968 persons have been declared Insolvent (Q2 2010 to Q2 2013) (evidence) Personal debt and recession are a bad combination. Unemployment is 20,000+ higher today than May 2010 (evidence & here) Economy flat, net immigration still very high. Private Rental Homes costs £9,084 to rent (£1,128 up from Apr 2010) (evidence & here) Property Inflation and increasing population raises rent costs. Tories have axed 5,601 Nurses since May 2010 (evidence) Broken promise not to cut NHS but only 1.6% of total number of nurses. Council Tax rises imposed on the poor & disabled have led to 450,000 being dragged to courts since April (evidence) Nasty 1 million people have had to sell their family home to pay for Elderly Care in the last 5 years (in fairness that include 2 years of a Labour government). Cameron promised no one would have to sell their family home to pay for elderly care (evidence here) Labour policy too. More than 250,000 Disabled people have been forced to take place in the Work Programme unpaid (here) Nasty Water Charges are up 20% since 1 Apr 2010 (here, here, here) Privatised water companies not remedied by Labour. 20% of Law Firms are facing bankruptcy and 500 shut in 6 months amid Legal Aid cuts (evidence) I can't fee sorry for lawyers. Stamp Prices are up 46-56% since May 2010 (evidence) Fattening up for privatisation - but Labour policy too. Suicide Rates have climbed 8% in just 1 year reaching their highest levels since 2004 (evidence) Causes are too complicated to blame one gov. Number of Children in Class Sizes of more than 30 has doubled in a year (here) Class-size obsession was a political obsession, evidence weak. Free Schools are under-subscribed but they get more money per pupil & freeze out poor kids (here, here & here) Bad waste of money. Tories axed 5,000 Firefighters and hundreds of Fire Stations. Evidence of the impact in London alone (here) Bad Waiting Lists for families seeking to rent social housing have soared to record highs (evidence here) See 9 Housing Benefit Bill has climbed to more than £20 billion as Private Landloards cash in with record rents (evidence) See 9 The number of Cancelled Operations in our NHS have doubled and are at their worst for 8 years (evidence) Bad OBR predict Household Debt will grow more than £500bn this parliament thus continuing Labour's awful record of encouraging personal debt (here) Labour also to blame for credit boom. The Tories sold the Royal Mail for 50% less than it's now valued (evidence) Bad Gas Prices are up 31% since May 2010 (evidence) The pound has been weakened by gov policy so all imports more expensive + inflation Homelessness is up 28-34% since May 2010 (evidence & here) Rough Sleeping in London has grown 85% since Boris Johnson became Mayor (evidence) Bad House Building, last year, fell to a 90 year peacetime low (evidence) Bad under previous government too. Electricity prices are up 22-39% in price since May 2010 (evidence) Expensive energy is policy of all parties: VAT, Green loading. The UK suffered a 97% drop in Affordable House starts in 6 months under Grant Shapps (evidence) Labour's property boom raised prices. £12bn+ of NHS has been put up for sale under this government (evidence) Bad 33% of NHS Walk In Centres have been axed (evidence) Bad Wage Growth is just 0.7% which is much lower than inflation (evidence) Governments can't make private firms put wages + recession. Profit Tax is to be cut by 25% (from 28% to 21%) (evidence) Bad 3.5 million now live in Child Poverty as Tory welfare cuts & sluggish wage growth bite (evidence) Flat economic growth and poverty is relative. 800,000 more households are living in Fuel Poverty & this excludes the impact of recent price rises (evidence) See 30 Numbers of Working Poor have doubled in 3 years & include homes with 2.2mill children (evidence) Relative poverty not absolute. Numbers living in temporary accommodation have grown 11.4% since Q2 2010 (here) Product of free market policies and lack of social housing. 'The 50p rate' High Earner Tax was cut by 10% (from 50p to 45p) (evidence) They still pay a lot of tax VAT Tax was hiked by 14% (from 17.5% to 20%) (evidence) Bad + regressive tax. EMA was scrapped for 500,000 as drop out rates climb (evidence) Bad and inconsistent with so-called aims Bedroom Tax clobbered 660,000 of which 2/3rs are disabled & 1/4 single parents (evidence) Bad - nasty, stupid and punitive. The Tories and their Lib Dem pals trebled Tuition Fees (evidence) Bad would Labour have done different? Record number of PFI contracts signed in the first year of a Tory government (evidence) Expensive but continuation of prev policy Bus Fares are up 22% under the Tories (here, here, here) Bad and not Green. £5bn spent on back to work schemes that are less than 2% successful (evidence) Bad but Job Centre not fit for purpose for decades. 7,968 Hospital Beds Axed (evidence) Bad Rail Fares are up 27% since 2010 (here, here) Bad but would Labour have done much different? The Number of GCSE Students getting A/A* Grades has fallen by 6% since 2010 (From 22.6 to 21.3) Should they increase for ever? 35,000 Police personnel have lost their jobs under the Tories (evidence) The more the better? 42,000 Armed Forces personnel to lose their jobs even though £2bn went unspent (here & here) Fewer to be shot at in America's wars. Tories abolished Equality Impact Assessments to cover up the immorality of their policies (here) Another PC bureaucracy. Tories lost several court cases against NHS closures & the Risk Register (eg here) Government cover-ups whatever next? The Tories halved a worker's right to 90 days Redundancy Notice (here) Bad - adding to Labour's anti-worker laws. £168m in donations raked in by Tories including £20m from Private Health (evidence) Nice to know who their string-pullers are. Chair of UK Statistics Authority tells Gove to stop lying about Education (here) Standard government spin Chair of UK Statistics Authority tells Hunt to stop lying about NHS Spending (here) see 57 Chair of UK Statistics Authority tells Cameron to stop lying about Debt Reduction (here) see 57 National Debt has risen £447 billion (evidence) make your mind up; is debt good or bad? NHS Spending did not rise as promised (evidence) Bad NHS 'Never Events' have more than trebled (evidence) Bad NHS Negligence complaints lodged have increased 49% since 2010 (evidence & here) Bad 35,000+ NHS Staff have been axed (evidence) out of 1.4 million 5,000 Firefighters have been axed (evidence) out of 44300 Minimum Wage rises have been below inflation every year of Tory rule (evidence) They didn't want to close the differential University Applications fell by 6% in Jan 2013 (here) People simply didn't understand the tuition fee deal. 20 Treatments are no longer free on the NHS in parts of England (evidence) But only in some places of England 10 Prisons have been axed & 4 more are to close (evidence & here) Britain's prison population is second only to America. 4 Profit Making Prisons have been opened (evidence) Bad but Labour's PPI wasn't much better. The Tax Gap has grown by £3bn to £35bn in the last year alone [evasion/avoidance] (evidence) All Brit governments bad at this. 6% of Prison Cells have been cut in 1 year (evidence) See 69 £829m cut from the Children's & Families Budget (evidence) But how were they spending it? The percentage of A-Level Students getting A/A* has fallen 3% since 2010 (here) Should it go up every year? Food Prices are up 19% under the Tories (evidence) Inflationary policies will increase price of imports, supply and demand causes the rest 11,000 Fat Cat NHS Bosses given a 13% pay hike while nurses pay frozen (evidence) Bad At least a third of Ambulance Stations have been axed since 2010 (evidence) Evidence only applies to area in East Midlands NHS GP Funding cut by £400 million (evidence) Bad -broke promise. NHS Funding For Cancer, Stroke & Heart Patients cut by 12-26% (evidence) Bad A&Es waiting times at their worst for 8+ years (here) They need to learn some tricks used by Labour Michael Gove overspent £1bn on Free Schools & Academies at State Schools expense (evidence) Expensive bollocks NHS Direct was axed and replaced by a botched and fragmented NHS111 (evidence) Was NHS Direct any good. NHS Patient Satisfaction went from record high under Labour to record low under Tories (evidence) Meaningless survey. Government wasted £1.4 billion on NHS Staff Redundancy Payouts (evidence) Usual cost of ideological meddling. Government axed a plan to rebuild 715 Crumbling Schools (evidence) They should repair them instead. Just 3% of CEOs in the FTSE 350 are Women & Cameron has fueled a more Sexist tone to our politics (evidence & here)Class based feminism 31% of UK women have suffered Domestic Abuse and it has risen in 25% after the Tories came to power. Legal Aid cuts, police cuts & the Bedroom Tax make it harder for women to escape it (evidence & here) Can't be separated from affects of recession plus both sexes abuse. Tories cut Child Benefit for middle-class families while giving tax cuts to millionaires (evidence) Child benefit should be means-tested. Number of people Working Unpaid is at a 13 year high (evidence sheet 3) Evidence is just a spread-sheet, so hard to qualify The Government used your taxes to fund Racist Vans that drove around London warning immigrants to "Go Home". The Advertising Standards Authority has now banned them (evidence) Stupid stunt, controlling borders would be a better idea. 1.8 million workers now earn less than the National Minimum Wage (evidence) Bad More than 600,000 Public Sector workers have been axed (evidence sheet 4) From 5.9 million Job creation: There were more workers born in the UK employed in Britain in Jul-Sept 2010 than 3 years later on 30 June 2013 (sheet 8 rows 64-76) Can't complain about foreigners taking jobs while claiming identifying foreigners is racist. On world disability day the Tories shut 36 Remploy Factories axed 1,000 disabled workers (here) Bad and contrary to Tories lauding work Job Creation: 70% of new jobs created in the UK under the Tories have gone to non-UK citizens which makes a lie of the Tory claim they've created a million new jobs (sheet 8 rows 64-76) See 95 95 Tory Fat Cat Academy Bosses rake in more than MPs with the top 10 giving themselves £2million between them (evidence, evidence) MPs? The Tories have Privatised Educational Services, Auditing, Consultancy and Prison Services worth £5 billion (evidence & here) Better value or not? Were it not for Ed Miliband & the pressure of the UK public Cameron would have taken us to war in Syria. That's what the opposition's for. Labour's track-record on military adventures is best ignored. Tories have Privatised 1 major NHS Hospital, have put another major hospital up for sale and have handed 12 community hospitals to profiteers (here, here & here) Bad Sure Start Funding has been cut by 28% as Cameron breaks his SureStart promise (evidence) No proof the scheme did much good.

Ultimately, of course, the money spent to build the thing will come from the people supplied with the electricity generated or customers, as we're called. ...., the UK Gov't is guaranteeing a price for the energy to be generated, a price that's more than double the current cost. Though obviously fixing energy prices is bad and marxist and that, right? state intervention in a free market is quite not the done thing amongst all right thinking tories. Not like that mad Red Ed. It is hard to believe a government is entirely sincere about wanting energy prices to fall or level out, when they are simultaneously negotiating a deal which depends on the price doubling, as the words come out of their gobs. I am sure we will wait in vain for the media to point out that guaranteeing the price of energy is a far more drastic interventionist measure than anything Labour had dreamt up. But it certainly looks like the sort of government intervention which Tories and Republicans love. The next question is at what price does British coal suddenly become viable? It surely can't be much higher than that of nuclear.

It seems unlikely that China offers much of an ideological problem to the West. It is just state controlled Capitalism where the state enforces low wages to keep consumption low, discourage imports and exports cheap, not exactly the opposite to what the West has been doing themselves over the last few decades. The West tends to find political philosophies which promise freedom and liberation as the bigger threats. America's crimes in South America and the Caribbean were all about crushing such political philosophies, they didn't worry too much about democracy, torture or the thousands of disappearances. There problem with Islam is almost certainly driven by the same values. While China substantiates the glories of capitalisms it seems unlikely that they will ever be seen as an ideological problem for the West. After all, the vast amounts of capital which China has at its disposal has been generated by the slave-labour of Chinese industry and while the media are happy enough to refuse to make that connection, the government will continue to present it as a good thing. There is definitely a connection between the suicides at Foxxconn and the capital Cameron and co are trying to utilise.

What? - I am sorry but you have completely lost me now. I f you see no real hypocrisy in the words that come out from the Tory party and the right wing media and support those, and then then think that deals like this are to be encouraged, I suspect that double standards are at play and really your argument is just tailored to fit the topic (and possibly the person). But thanks for the update that you see no issues with the French Gvmt or the Chinese and the ideologies that they both run under - good to see a change of views If you think that opposing an ideology for your own country means that you cannot do business with others who embrace that ideology then you simply don't understand business or international politics. In the main what others do is their own concern, not that of the UK. The counter argument to your point would be whether a Labour government should refuse to do business with arch capitalist countries like the US, or by oil from deeply conservative theocracies like Saudi, on the grounds that Labour disagree with their politics. It would be a complete nonsense, wouldn't it? Rather like your proposition above regarding the French and Chinese. It is not a matter of not understanding business or international politics, it is a matter of understanding the gradual removal of ethical considerations from global trade. The fact that America still have sanctions against Cuba and that Israel enforces sanctions against the Palestinians, and the fact that sanctions are still in place against Iran, suggests that it is still quite possible to refuse to trade with nations you object to. But lack of democracy, torture and the murder of a country's own citizens, are no longer considered worthy of trade sanctions. There definitely seems to be rather more leeway since sanctions were lifted on South Africa and many African nations are presently rather more serious offenders than Smith's regime. Standards have slipped and it would seem likely that any country which the West deem worthy of offering asylum to their fleeing citizens, should be the subject of trade sanctions, if they were held to the same standards as South Africa was. It would seem likely that under the ever-increasing demands of global capitalism, ethical standards have been sacrificed.

It is certainly nice to have evidence presented in such a clear way. But it is not until you actually examine the list carefully that it becomes disappointing and questionable. Most of the list are simply cuts which are the natural consequences of the country's toxic combination of massive debts and economic recession. Many items on the list make contradictory accusations. Accusing the government of spending money on "racist vans" (90) and complaining that jobs have gone to foreign workers (95), is glaringly contradictory. It seems unreasonable and illogical to demand things, each of which would require policies which produced an opposite effect, like demanding low interest rates, low inflation and a high pound at the same time, are mutually exclusive. So if all the cuts which are the natural consequences of managing the deficit and the demands which are mutually exclusive are removed, then you are just left with governments failings plus their ideological meddlings. Which would probably leave less than 20 valid criticisms - after a quick count I got it down to 16. This is not to let the government off the hook but it would sure make these actual failings easier to defend. Good post by the way. I suppose the nature of the political mess we find ourselves in is that we need to scrutinise the actions and then look against what are the motives, necessary actions and what alternatives there are / were. There are a lot of facts that certainly back up the initial accusations in the article, IMO, and it certainly is the Gvmt's responsibility t justify them with a lot more than a glib "ahhh but Labour ..." response and why they did what they did / or didn't despite saying they would etc. I think the article gives enough sticks to certainly give the Gvmt a headache So an article presents 100 points, 10-15% of which may be reasonable, which means it is a good article. Allrightythen. Sounds more like an utterly carp attempt at *ahem* "journalism". No, I think you have got it exactly backwards. It is a crap article in that it does not bear close analysis but it is actually good journalism because most people will not bother to unpack it and will just see it as proof that the government are a nasty bunch of so-and-sos who have deliberately and gratuitously inflicted misery on the nation. Journalism is about arousing emotions and the list will certainly do that.

It is certainly nice to have evidence presented in such a clear way. But it is not until you actually examine the list carefully that it becomes disappointing and questionable. Most of the list are simply cuts which are the natural consequences of the country's toxic combination of massive debts and economic recession. Many items on the list make contradictory accusations. Accusing the government of spending money on "racist vans" (90) and complaining that jobs have gone to foreign workers (95), is glaringly contradictory. It seems unreasonable and illogical to demand things, each of which would require policies which produced an opposite effect, like demanding low interest rates, low inflation and a high pound at the same time, are mutually exclusive. So if all the cuts which are the natural consequences of managing the deficit and the demands which are mutually exclusive are removed, then you are just left with governments failings plus their ideological meddlings. Which would probably leave less than 20 valid criticisms - after a quick count I got it down to 16. This is not to let the government off the hook but it would sure make these tenable accusations of failings easier to defend.

There is no doubting the delights of Poundland but I much prefer the 99p shop at the other end near to Robinsons. It being owned by Asians they have a much wider range of stuff. One of my heroes, a dole-survivalist who I really admire, found that they had some huge catering-sized tins of spaghetti Bolognese and he bought as many as he could carry and he and his dog lived on nothing else for a fortnight. What a guy!

Does anyone know whether the new Sainsbury's is still going ahead? Haven't heard anything about that for quite a while now Someone told me it was on hold but can't find a confirmation.

Does anyone know whether the new Sainsbury's is still going ahead?

Yes, I was surprised when I heard that news not long ago. Some Swedish bankers are allowed the use the title Nobel as a courtesy and they pick their guy. But as ever the media treat it like it is real and then fail to mention it when the fancy theory which earned the prize is proven to be nonsense.

Very wise. Stripping the joint account is usually the first sign that the relationship is about to end. You are quite right about it being generation thing and it is possible to age people by their attitude towards whose money is whose within a relationship. The general rule used to be, that all the boring bills were paid by hubby and if wifey worked the money was her own, which she had total discretion about how to dispose of. But even then it was always considered that work was only ever an option for the woman, who was never expected to maximise her earnings by doing a job she didn't like. It is very odd to discover that, even now, that when older couples go out together, the woman won't have any money with her and round buying turns into a two-for-the-price-of-one thing, which is considered outrageous to challenge. I understand that things have shifted substantially as regards money in relationships, but exactly how far I am not sure.

Shoes definitely need a thread of their own.

I have a fairly low opinion of the British electorate and it would seem that given a choice they would have preferred David Miliband rather than Ed, not because of his politics, because they don't have a clue, but because David is better looking. It seems no coincidence that Cameron, Osborne and Clegg all look alike: a trio of Johnnies in a packet of three . My own view is that the only thing which matters to the British electorate is how good the PM looks standing next to the American President. When the Tory blue-rinse biddies drone on about Mrs Thatcher improving Britain's standing in the world, they just mean: looked good standing next to Reagan. It seems unlikely that the British would ever have elected someone who looked like Mutti Merkel and it seems likely that the only reason Theresa May is being touted as a possible candidate to replace Cameron, is that she is thin and has the right wardrobe. Ed looks like a sincere and likeable geography teacher but he'll never get past the audition phase in the electoral X-factor show.

Interesting piece in the Grauniad, about middle-class kids in the future probably being worse off than their parents. Some would say that's entirely unsurprising. If the 1% are to continue to accrue an ever-greater share, then of course it will have to come from the middle classes as well as the poor. But the readership of the Mail may well think, "I didn't see that coming. And I don't like it." The writings of Elizabeth Warren highlight the problems that the American middle-classes are having with an ever-increasing rising tide of bankruptcy - she says that more middle-class kids are experiencing bankruptcy than divorce these days. This represents a real failure of modern capitalism and conservative politics, because it has become more and more clear that the old promise that a college education and hard work would bring success, has been broken, and this is a serious betrayal. Obviously the same thing is happening over here, as an increasing number of graduates find themselves having to take jobs, they assumed their degree would over-qualify them for, based upon the options and expectations enjoyed by previous generations. But once again we find that the system escapes blame as the opinion-formers seek to redirect blame away from the system and towards the individual for actually entering higher education in the first place, debasing their achievements, or even questioning the value of education entirely. We are told that a country's prosperity is dependent on how educated its population is, and it would seem like a dangerous course to take, to break the link between education, hard work and success. Inviting educated people to question the system seems hardly the best way to go, for a stable democracy.

There is something inherently disturbing about the contents of the Daily Mail but ultimately I think Lefties should just see it as a predictable response to an economic system which relies on fear to keep people paranoidly productive far beyond actual necessity. You can't really blame people for feeling under the constant threat of having whatever wealth they have managed to scrape together taken away from them, when there are constant reminders in daily life which prove that the threats are real, and which are actually part of the system. For Lefties it is the system which is the actual threat to most people, whether it is the in-built boom and bust which generations of economists have failed to solve, the constant debasement of the currency, or the mis-selling of pensions and other financial products, which fraudulently promise future security, which are the real threats. No one who understands the falsity and fraudulent nature of capitalism can be blamed for developing a Stockholm syndrome, where they identify with the system which threatens them, and seek comfort in allocating blame for their understandable fear, on other sources. Obviously, the Daily Mail's raison d'etre is to stimulate both the fear and to identify the perpetrators as everything but the real source.

From what I can see Hasan was simply displaying the art of journalism. The use of the term hack is pejorative because it suggests what we all know to be true; that journalists just write opinions which accord to their employer's views. And when you compare the two statements they just seem to be the two different sides of the exact same coin - I am sure that the Daily Mail would describe its "gay-bashing" as upholding family values. The idea of a tabloid journalist possessing any values he might actually be found guilty of betraying just seems ridiculous. Journalists are just whores who do tricks.

My view is that benefit levels are set at a level which ensures a life of deprivation and misery which is supposed to incentivise people to seek work. Disability benefit is set at a meagre but liveable level with most of the misery taken out, because it would seem unreasonable to persecute the long-term sick as well as the long-term unemployed. Labour, as confirmed by the Tory accusation, seemed to have a policy which made it easier for the long-term unemployed, in areas created by Thatcher's final solution, to claim disability allowances because they thought the built-in misery was inappropriate for areas where there were no jobs. This was complete anathema to the Tories because ideologically misery is an essential part of their economic vision, so they set about bullying people into declaring themselves fit in the aim to get 600k people back into the misery zone. It is heartening that the Red Cross have seen fit to step in to try and alleviate the misery and defy the government's misery plans. What is annoying is that the media seem to present the story as if there is something shameful about getting food from a food bank and it should just be seen as part of the survival system and should not be stigmatised. As we heard at the Tory conference, stigmatisation of the unemployed is key to their ideology. But it is not just in the UK that the food bank is becoming an increasing part of the support system for the poor - in Germany, the richest country in Europe, it was reported that in Berlin 100 000 folk are using food banks. It offers a delectable indictment of the system and the politicians but hopefully the tenacious survivors which many of the unemployed are, will see it as an opportunity to defy their persecutors. And then there is always the Langar.

I don't think it is unreasonable to describe tax credits as a subsidy to businesses which cannot or refuse to compete in the labour market. It might even be the case that topping up people's wages actually lowers wages by encouraging people into the labour market who would be better off on benefits, which increases the pool of labour and so by the law of supply and demand, lowers wage rates. As most supermarkets keep most of their staff on short hours, topping up people's wages seems to encourage this by allowing these company's maximum flexibility which lowers costs, while their employees rely on what amounts to their government wage. The government's soft attitude to the retail sector, as regards labour laws which favour them, or tax collection, is a mystery because it is not as though they can operate offshore. I seem to remember that Tesco used to be Tory donors.