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UK PoliGAF thread of tell me about the rabbits again, Dave.

A

Acorn

Member
Cumpkin Hubris said:
I don't really want to defend Atos too much, as there have been plenty of horror stories about their assessments on here. But with regard to this particular quote, is that not a pertinent question when assessing how fit to work someone is? i.e. whether the hand they lost was their dominant hand.
Click to expand...

These are things that are answered in the pre assessment questionnaire. Not really related to your point, but Atos will take anything someone says and twist it to suit their needs.

For example a standard question is "Do you have a mobile Phone" if you answer Yes, they then put in the report to dwp "Keeps in touch regularly with friends by phone and socialises without any problems"

If you've ever seen their reports they are all copy and pasted with a very few differences(hence the stories of people having reports with medical conditions they don't have), the assessments are also carried out by under qualified medical professionals (aka not Doctors) and they do not take the benefit claimants own GP's opinion into account. A regular complaint upon appeal is that an assessment for mental health isn't even carried out by a mental health nurse.

Another common question is "Do you watch TV?" If the answer is yes, they deduce "Can keep concentration levels up and follow programmes without any problems"

They are cunts of the highest order. Its a bloody racket, after seeing their reports I do not how some of them can live with themselves. I'm not even being hyperbolic, their practices are absolutely disgusting.
Until very recently they required claimaints to pay £300 for professional audio equipment for the recording of the assesments, it wasn't until a mental health charity raised this with the attorney general that it was changed (and the attorney generals advice was hidden for a year until a FOI request).
EDIT- And even now the fact you can have them recorded is hidden away on their website and not on any of the literature they send with their appointments for assessments. Judges hate them, Doctors hate them. Its partly why so many tribunals are won by the claimant because they know Atos are a shady front for kicking people off benefits regardless of their needs. I'm all for kicking off work skivving fakers but that isn't whats happening.
 
A

Acorn

Member
Another story I came across whilst in the MOJ was of a claimaint who was sacked from their job due to ill health (by guess who!? Atos) and then had an assessment for ESA and was rejected with zero points less than 3 months after being told by the same company they were unfit for work.
 
Q

QuicheFontaine

Member
Acorn said:
These are things that are answered in the pre assessment questionnaire. Not really related to your point, but Atos will take anything someone says and twist it to suit their needs.

For example a standard question is "Do you have a mobile Phone" if you answer Yes, they then put in the report to dwp "Keeps in touch regularly with friends by phone and socialises without any problems"

If you've ever seen their reports they are all copy and pasted with a very few differences(hence the stories of people having reports with medical conditions they don't have), the assessments are also carried out by under qualified medical professionals (aka not Doctors) and they do not take the benefit claimants own GP's opinion into account. A regular complaint upon appeal is that an assessment for mental health isn't even carried out by a mental health nurse.

Another common question is "Do you watch TV?" If the answer is yes, they deduce "Can keep concentration levels up and follow programmes without any problems"

They are cunts of the highest order. Its a bloody racket, after seeing their reports I do not how some of them can live with themselves. I'm not even being hyperbolic, their practices are absolutely disgusting.
Until very recently they required claimaints to pay £300 for professional audio equipment for the recording of the assesments, it wasn't until a mental health charity raised this with the attorney general that it was changed (and the attorney generals advice was hidden for a year until a FOI request).
EDIT- And even now the fact you can have them recorded is hidden away on their website and not on any of the literature they send with their appointments for assessments. Judges hate them, Doctors hate them. Its partly why so many tribunals are won by the claimant because they know Atos are a shady front for kicking people off benefits regardless of their needs. I'm all for kicking off work skivving fakers but that isn't whats happening.
Click to expand...

Yeah, this is why I'm loathe to appear as if I'm "sticking up" for Atos. Maybe I'm just reading the article wrong, but putting the question about his handedness next to the quote about the interview being "totally and utterly degrading" seemed to imply that they were related.

Certainly Atos have a fairly appalling track record, as you say, and as borne out in this video:

CHEEZMO™;60970853 said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SEpwFBhqA4
Click to expand...

Over 1/3 of decisions being overturned in favour of the claimant at tribunal is ridiculous, especially considering that these are vulnerable people. It also doesn't seem to tally with the government's claim that they are getting 85% of decisions correct.
 
C

CyclopsRock

Member
There are a lot of things that I think they wouldn't change. 45% tax rate is another example.

I still think they're woefully lacking in economic credibility, not just as a hangover but because of their lack of positioning. I understand that, for an opposition, taking positions is a risk. But it's a risk because it has potentially benefits as well as potential problems. You can't be an effective opposition without actually having positions on key issues. You need a middle ground whereby you aren't getting nailed into specific things 2 (or more) years before an election, but you have some clear standing of "we are here". At the moment, Labour have far too much of the former and not enough of the latter. Incidentally, a weak opposition does no one any good.
 
D

defel

Member
The "middle ground" message is a tough sell for Labour. The Conservatives could go into the last election with the message of cutting the deficit and getting the economy back into credibility again which is a clear, directional policy. Labour cant go out there and start promising fiscal expansion and more government spending but they equally arent going to promise more cuts. Their message of "we will cut but not as much as these guys" as well as the political and economic arguments behind it are pretty nuanced and abstract. When you have Ed Balls talking about Ricardian Equivalence on the Daily Politics then you can see how the overwhelming response is "huh!"

On a related note I recently studied a branch of theory in Economics which concludes that during a recession the optimal policy is fiscal expansion combined with tax rises. Fiscal expansion creates growth, increasing taxes creates inflation and reduces real interest rates (useful at the zero lower bound). Thought it was an interesting theory.
 
C

CyclopsRock

Member
defel said:
On a related note I recently studied a branch of theory in Economics which concludes that during a recession the optimal policy is fiscal expansion combined with tax rises. Fiscal expansion creates growth, increasing taxes creates inflation and reduces real interest rates (useful at the zero lower bound). Thought it was an interesting theory.
Click to expand...

Well, it'd work insomuch as it would stimulate spending as saving wouldn't be worth it, but that's basically what happened from 97-2007 and is part of what caused house prices to rise at 4x inflation. It's basically more of the same.
 
V

Volotaire

Member
defel said:
On a related note I recently studied a branch of theory in Economics which concludes that during a recession the optimal policy is fiscal expansion combined with tax rises. Fiscal expansion creates growth, increasing taxes creates inflation and reduces real interest rates (useful at the zero lower bound). Thought it was an interesting theory.
Click to expand...

Could you give more details on this theory, studying economics at uni next year.

I'm a guy who is against inflation, this sounds a lot like a bad form of Keynesian to me.

Cyclops Rock is right, these consumption policies are the least the UK need again, especially when it favors the middle class and financial industry with lower interest rates to invest into sham practices, we need a much more sustainable model for the UK to operate on, ideally exports. It also punishes the working class with inflation, which I am firmly against.
 
W

Walshicus

Member
Tax increases are deflationary, *decreases* are inflationary.

But yeah, it's common sense. Governments should spend their way out of recession and then clear the debts acrued in the subsequent "boom". The sine curve should flattened as best as possible. Austerity in a recession is just stupid*.





* That's not to say structural changes shouldn't be evaluated.
 
D

defel

Member
Volotaire said:
Could you give more details on this theory, studying economics at uni next year.

I'm a guy who is against inflation, this sounds a lot like a bad form of Keynesian to me.

Cyclops Rock is right, these consumption policies are the least the UK need again, especially when it favors the middle class and financial industry with lower interest rates to invest into sham practices, we need a much more sustainable model for the UK to operate on, ideally exports. It also punishes the working class with inflation, which I am firmly against.
Click to expand...

See New Keynesian models. Be cautious in taking sides in macroeconomics. Each theory offers specific insights on certain aspects of the way the economy works. Results can be mutually inclusive even if they prescribe different solutions. The real question is weighing up the relative magnitudes in given situations - very very difficult.

Sir Fragula said:
Tax increases are deflationary, *decreases* are inflationary.
Click to expand...

I suppose it depends upon whom the tax is levied and what type of tax it is but yes Id agree that tax rises are broadly deflationary

But yeah, it's common sense. Governments should spend their way out of recession and then clear the debts acrued in the subsequent "boom". The sine curve should flattened as best as possible. Austerity in a recession is just stupid*.
Click to expand...

And thats where the political versus economic incentives hit the road...
 
C

CyclopsRock

Member
I think the ultimate measure of a cut should be "Would we be doing this if we had 3.5% growth?"

If the answer's yes, do it. If it's not, don't. Structural changes shouldn't be tied to the financial fortune of the current trend.
 
Nicktendo86

Nicktendo86

Member
Sir Fragula said:
Tax increases are deflationary, *decreases* are inflationary.

But yeah, it's common sense. Governments should spend their way out of recession and then clear the debts acrued in the subsequent "boom".
Click to expand...
Therein lies the problem, no government in a boom period would use the surplus of cash to pay off debts, they use it to buy votes. The last labour government was a classic case with ema etc. The economy will never really be 'fixed' so long as career politicians are in charge.
 
C

CyclopsRock

Member
Nicktendo86 said:
Therein lies the problem, no government in a boom period would use the surplus of cash to pay off debts, they use it to buy votes. The last labour government was a classic case with ema etc. The economy will never really be 'fixed' so long as career politicians are in charge.
Click to expand...

This is compounded with the fact that politicians are incredibly hesitant to do anything that'll take longer than ~5 years at the most to bear fruit. This is why things like aviation capacity, power stations etc always get kicked into the tall grass - it'll cost a lot of money now, and won't have any benefits for a long time. I'm surprised HS2 has gotten as far as it has, as much as I don't really believe it's a good thing.
 
V

Volotaire

Member
CyclopsRock said:
This is compounded with the fact that politicians are incredibly hesitant to do anything that'll take longer than ~5 years at the most to bear fruit. This is why things like aviation capacity, power stations etc always get kicked into the tall grass - it'll cost a lot of money now, and won't have any benefits for a long time. I'm surprised HS2 has gotten as far as it has, as much as I don't really believe it's a good thing.
Click to expand...

Yeh HS2 is in short; a trainwreck.
 
phisheep

phisheep

NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
defel said:
The "middle ground" message is a tough sell for Labour. The Conservatives could go into the last election with the message of cutting the deficit and getting the economy back into credibility again which is a clear, directional policy. Labour cant go out there and start promising fiscal expansion and more government spending but they equally arent going to promise more cuts. Their message of "we will cut but not as much as these guys" as well as the political and economic arguments behind it are pretty nuanced and abstract. When you have Ed Balls talking about Ricardian Equivalence on the Daily Politics then you can see how the overwhelming response is "huh!"

On a related note I recently studied a branch of theory in Economics which concludes that during a recession the optimal policy is fiscal expansion combined with tax rises. Fiscal expansion creates growth, increasing taxes creates inflation and reduces real interest rates (useful at the zero lower bound). Thought it was an interesting theory.
Click to expand...

The big problem with Labour policy now is that Labour COULD have gone into the last election with that policy, but didn't. Indeed they could have started that policy a year before the election, caused a lot of pain and angst among their roots maybe, but at the same time have totally stolen the (apparently legitimate and certainly repetitive) Conservative claim to be there to fix Labour's messups (Churchill/Thatcher/Cameron maybe).

But they didn't.

And WHY they didn't is a big question mark on their credibility. Might have been Gordon, might have been unions, might have been fear (or maybe an opportunity seen but rejected) of capturing middle britain at the expense of the union vote, might have been any number of other things. But whatever it was, they didn't do it. And only three years later do they seem to recognise it. And three years is too slow to respond to something like this. Especially when four years ago this was the party that had the purse strings, had the civil service, had the figures and still did nothing about it except, apparently, set out to lose an election.
 
A

Acorn

Member
Labour don't care about their traditional stances or the people who fund and always vote for them, they are essentially Tories with slightly, very slightly less zeal and celebration over cutting. At least publicly.

Before the next election they will commit to Osborne's spending plan (which Osborne had done with Labour before the crash).

EDIT- And honestly despite the polls etc I don't think they have a chance of winning the next election. Balls is poison and Milliband looks like a sixth former, aswell as a total lack of fresh ideas other than 'we MIGHT cut slower'. Voters will likely take the position of "Well, we've started, might aswell finish".
 
A

Arksy

Member
I love British politics.

Conservative grass roots think that their party is basically a social democrat party.

Labour grass roots think that their party is basically a conservative party.
 
C

CyclopsRock

Member
Sir_Crocodile said:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22816229

Nadine Dorries under investigation. Sadly I don't think it'll go anywhere, but it'd be great if she joined Mercer and got booted out of the party
Click to expand...

I doubt she'll end up guilty. Usually when these sorts of things happen, the MP is all like "sorry, got all confused, silly me! I'll declare it now, honest!" where as she seems to be balls-to-the-walls "NOT GUILTY, BITCHES!" about it. If the Tories wanted her out, they've had amble (justified) opportunity to do so, but she's a relatively high profile backbencher, and after her recent remarks, I think they're terrified of her defecting to UKIP.
 
K

kitch9

Banned
Sir Fragula said:
Tax increases are deflationary, *decreases* are inflationary.

But yeah, it's common sense. Governments should spend their way out of recession and then clear the debts acrued in the subsequent "boom". The sine curve should flattened as best as possible. Austerity in a recession is just stupid*.





* That's not to say structural changes shouldn't be evaluated.
Click to expand...

Great plan. It's a good job the previous government didn't go on a spending spree during the last boom and saved a few quid to invest now.

Oh wait, no they didn't.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
The actual level of inflation isn't actually important for anything other than determining how much incentive people have to save or not. In fact, even predictable changes in inflation aren't actually important. Inflation is dangerous only insofar as that either a) changes in inflation are unpredictable, b) wage inflation occurs at a slower rate than goods inflation, or c) savings are too low relevant to some other metric.

It's perfectly conceivable that if everyone in the economy was saving too much, and as a result the demand for goods was not particularly high, with the result that firms lay off workers, and remaining workers than start saving more in fear of unemployment, that higher inflation would be a good thing, because the erosion of savings over time provides incentive to consume in the present.
 
P

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
C

CyclopsRock

Member
Pie and Beans said:
Oh. Thats how it works does it.
Click to expand...

I don't know. Is it? What do you know that we don't? Afterall, the article states...

The proposal to increase the interest rates on the £40bn worth of loans is the most controversial of a series of options contained in a Whitehall-commissioned study examining how the coalition could privatise the entire stock of student loans issued since 1998.
Click to expand...

It's one option of many in a document that hasn't been implemented.
 
P

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
And worth bringing attention to peoples eyes over supposedly sane people in a room even considering. Thick Of It feels more real than non-fiction these days. Unless you want mods to lock the topic and change the title to "all fine here, carry on"
 
W

Walshicus

Member
Crab said:
The actual level of inflation isn't actually important for anything other than determining how much incentive people have to save or not. In fact, even predictable changes in inflation aren't actually important. Inflation is dangerous only insofar as that either a) changes in inflation are unpredictable, b) wage inflation occurs at a slower rate than goods inflation, or c) savings are too low relevant to some other metric.
Click to expand...

The cadence of wage increases is - typically - annual. Goods price inflation is continuous. Thus there will always be an inefficiency here that is exacerbated by the *scale* of inflation.
 
phisheep

phisheep

NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
Sir Fragula said:
The cadence of wage increases is - typically - annual. Goods price inflation is continuous. Thus there will always be an inefficiency here that is exacerbated by the *scale* of inflation.
Click to expand...

That's OK if you have a wage. Not the same if you are working for yourself.
 
P

Protome

Member
Oxfam study shows that Scotland's inequality gap between the rich and poor is widening.

First thing I expected when seeing this story was "Bet the SNP are going to spin this as being the UK governments fault to try and help their independence vote."

Got to the bottom of the page -

Scotland's Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, welcomed the report, which she said "merely confirms what we have long known to be the case, which is that the UK is one of the most unequal countries in the developed world."

Ms Sturgeon added: "We will consider Oxfam's recommendations, including their proposal for a Poverty Commissioner, as we take forward our programme of work outlining the shape of an independent Scotland. Independence will give us the opportunity to create a fairer, more equal Scotland."
Click to expand...

Sigh.
 
W

Walshicus

Member
Nicktendo86 said:
Do they ever say why they can't do that under the current situation? Does anyone actually believe their BS?
Click to expand...
They don't have full fiscal control of the Scottish economy and are at the mercy of the bastards in Westminster?

Seems fairly obvious even to a South-England bumpkin like mself.
 
P

Protome

Member
Nicktendo86 said:
Do they ever say why they can't do that under the current situation? Does anyone actually believe their BS?
Click to expand...

Sir Fragula said:
They don't have full fiscal control of the Scottish economy and are at the mercy of the bastards in Westminster?

Seems fairly obvious even to a South-England bumpkin like mself.
Click to expand...

It's true they don't have full fiscal control, but they have enough control to mitigate some of this and don't.

It's going to be really interesting to see what happens if Scotland goes independent which is looking really likely thanks to the Better Together campaign being a mismanaged mess that just can't compete with the Yes campaign's lies.
 
C

CyclopsRock

Member
Latest ComRes data good for the Tories. Labour lead cut and Cam flew further ahead of Miliband but most interestingly is the result suggesting a majority Con government is now preferable to a majority Lab government.
 
Nicktendo86

Nicktendo86

Member
CyclopsRock said:
Latest ComRes data good for the Tories. Labour lead cut and Cam flew further ahead of Miliband but most interestingly is the result suggesting a majority Con government is now preferable to a majority Lab government.
Click to expand...

Labour's strategy of opposing everything and saying vote for us, we are not tories is starting to unravel, will be interesting to see what they do from here.
 
W

Walshicus

Member
Protome said:
It's true they don't have full fiscal control, but they have enough control to mitigate some of this and don't.
Click to expand...
And I'm sure they'd argue they do what they can with the limited resources available to them.

It's going to be really interesting to see what happens if Scotland goes independent which is looking really likely thanks to the Better Together campaign being a mismanaged mess that just can't compete with the Yes campaign's lies.
Click to expand...

Hah, the only guys I see lying are Better Together and the Unionists. Scaremongering lot that they are. Scotland and England are better off separate but close.


We English really should pick up the pace with our own anti-UK movements.
 
A

Acorn

Member
Sir Fragula said:
And I'm sure they'd argue they do what they can with the limited resources available to them.



Hah, the only guys I see lying are Better Together and the Unionists. Scaremongering lot that they are. Scotland and England are better off separate but close.


We English really should pick up the pace with our own anti-UK movements.
Click to expand...
I hope there is a English movement for dissolving the UK. We are better apart, too different. Everyone is better off alone.
 
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