Go on Vote! The price is Right.
Hot on the heels of the 11,000 free lap tops issued by the benevolent Nu-Labour government – shortly to be on sale in every back street boozer and car boot sale within striking distance of Liverpool, comes news of another vote winning bonanza for the serially unemployed.
Free mobile phone calls for those ‘on benefit’.
The Department of Works and Pension has now reached agreement with O2, Orange, Tesco Mobile, T-Mobile, Virgin Mobile and Vodafone to end charges to their customers for mobile calls to around seventy of its 0800 numbers. These numbers are used by people making initial claims for benefit and pensions and to request emergency payments, such as crisis loans.
Yup, if your free lap top hasn’t arrived yet, or your mobile phone credit has run out, why should you have to bear the cost of complaining to the Benefits office?
Surely free Plasma TVs cannot be far away. Gordon will get the ungrateful wretches out to vote for him yet.
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January 15, 2010 at 13:25 -
Yes well, it’s used to be all bribery in the end: but the good news from now on is that – like Geriatric Johnson’s New Dawn in aged care – the money won’t be spent anyway. It’s what we spin-doctors call negative-equity bribery.
I note that Little Osborne piped up today vowing to take all allowances for everything off everyone earning over fifty grand*. As high as that? It’s a national obscenity that (at adjusted prices) this wasn’t done in 1979…but then, it did take the handbag six years to get round to ending mortgage relief for the Rachmans. Property-owning democracy and all that.
*This was a good call, by the way: you can get 40-1 against a Tory/Libdem alliance before 2011 ends at Paddy Power. Got to be worth a fiver at least.
TS x -
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January 15, 2010 at 14:45 -
f**k off with the Liverpool snipes
MODERATOR: I’ll have you know Ms Raccoon is a Scouse herself, as is well known to the regulars on here – probably why she still reads the Liverpool Daily Post on a daily basis….
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January 15, 2010 at 16:47 -
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January 15, 2010 at 16:58 -
Is there actually any point going to work anymore under a bloody Labour government ? Sooner they are out of power the sooner they stop messing things up for the rest of us who just want to get on in life under our own efforts and hard work.
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January 15, 2010 at 17:13 -
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January 15, 2010 at 17:14 -
Sike got in before me, however what I saw on TV, Blinky & Cyclops had a photo opportunity in a school in London, although it could well have been Africa. So who knows were the ‘free’ (taxpayers money) laptops will end up.
Another Scouser -
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January 15, 2010 at 17:31 -
Even Labour know they are going to get royally spanked in the election Anna, the leadership challenges, no matter how ineffective they are illustrate clearly to the electorate that even the government have absolutely no faith in their leader.
We are quietly seething at this government, waiting for Brown to do what he should have done when he took over from Blair and when he does call that election he will see first hand just how appalled we are at him and his time in Number 10. He will be the prime minister that we all forget. (Dare I say that even John Major seems to have more charisma than Brown.) Hopefully he will be a footnote in UK politics, an “also ran” consigned to the “where is he now? ” file.
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January 15, 2010 at 18:44 -
Not all benefits lines have 0800 numbers and therefore aren’t free to access. In fact quite a lot of them are 0845 numbers, that you still pay for even from landlines. Even when you’re stuck in a bloody queue for the best part of an hour waiting to sort out your benefits that they’ve incompetently screwed up again.
I don’t find it morally acceptable that government or some private call centre company should be charging benefits claimants via 0845 numbers, in the same way that there was a huge raft of complaints when doctor’s surgeries started using private telecomms contractors to charge calls from patients via 0845 numbers.
I for one don’t see the problem. Many benefits claimants have to make the choice between a landline and a mobile phone. As there is very little price difference these days, many opt for a mobile. For once, this seems something sensible from the government.
However, the free laptop idea is something else entirely, as not only is the laptop free, but also an internet connection. Now thats a step too far. I know this doesn’t come cheap, having tried to get a minimal connection when I was unemployed last year.
I’m and ex-I.T. worker, so I understand that being internet connected is better for finding a job (especially if like me, you’re and ex-techie), but surely having something like internet cafes in local jobcentres would be far more cost-effective, rather than installing systems for single mums to chat on facebook all day at taxpayer’s expense?
Of course if the laptop/connection deal came with monitoring software and a proviso that you had to spend x amount of time online looking at jobsites making job applications and not social networking all day, then I might change my mind.
But to be honest, the government never get anything technical right, ever. So it’ll be a free-for-all shambles. I’m sure the Sun are just itching for the first single mother of 7 kids from different fathers whos on invalidity for depression to get their new laptop.
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January 15, 2010 at 18:51 -
Talk Talk provide free Internet broadband, you only have to pay the regular line rental you would normally pay to BT. Any scheme giving under priviliged kids computer access at home, as well as at school, is to be applauded.
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January 15, 2010 at 19:44 -
On a lighter (!) note, I understand that a group of Swedish Weight Watchers were given a nasty surprise when the floor of their meeting room gave way. It is understood that the dedicated dieters were queueing at the scales to learn how many ounces they may have lost since their last weigh-in when part of the floor collapsed.
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January 15, 2010 at 19:44 -
And no, I’m not in Sweden.
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January 15, 2010 at 19:57 -
The Stock home in Sweden has very weak flooring, the smorgas boards are known for their poor load bearing qualities.
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January 15, 2010 at 20:12 -
Playtex have just announced they are bringing out a new line in Panty-Girders.
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January 15, 2010 at 20:21 -
Brings a whole new meaning to gusset plates.
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January 15, 2010 at 20:36 -
Maybe the suspendered flooring was to blame. Of corset may not be either..
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January 15, 2010 at 20:44 -
I’ll leave you to basque in your glory, I know when I am beaten.
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January 15, 2010 at 21:31 -
“Lightweight” muttered Smudd as she waddled off in search of the cake-tin….
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January 15, 2010 at 21:39 -
Ah! But who hid the cake tin? That’s the crutch of the matter.
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January 15, 2010 at 22:48 -
I always hide my own cake-tin!
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January 15, 2010 at 22:50 -
Corset makes sense to hide your own tin, gloria. What’s in it? Petticoat Tails?
(I’ll shut the door on the way out…) -
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January 15, 2010 at 23:25 -
There’s nothing in it now, binlid, I’ve scoffed the lot. (all 16 fondant fancies – yum!)
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January 15, 2010 at 23:39 -
How difficult would it be to just outlaw the charging for 0800 numbers in its entirety?!
Then the Governemnt brings out the free laptop and internet schemes yet FAIL TO REALISE that although the internet is a BRITISH invention… we are extremely BACKWARDS with our internet infrastructure…
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January 15, 2010 at 23:43 -
As for 0800 numbers only the new JSA etc. claim lines, crisis loans and a few other services are – all the other BDC lines and even (soon) to contact local Jobcentres are going to be 0845.
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January 16, 2010 at 00:00 -
And, while we’re on the subject, just take a look at Mme Raccoon’s nocturnal snack-habit….
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January 16, 2010 at 11:25
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