egg

Stanley

Yeah. Matsuki would have been a better option.

Yep. We need proper defenders on both sides. I wouldn't be surprised to see Edwards come on as a RB, and push Fellows forward to give us an outlet and a player to stretch them.

Yep. Away at a good side, having to replace our two best players. Pass this test and that's audition over for me.

Yep. They're a good side. Decent test today. If we come away with something we'll have done well.

I'd take a draw here. Perfectly acceptable away to a team chasing promotion, and with our best 2 players out.

Stephens is a far better shout than Quarshie imo. Agreed re Matsuki. Offers something different off the bench.

Was thinking the same. Injury hasn't been mentioned. It may just be that the manager prefers the young lad.

Tawny

Indeed. We get nothing of note from them.

If you have resources to get by, the money by definition isn't needed. A means test in terms of benefits is usually just a simple threshold. You are asking for a means assessment, which is a different thing. Ultimately, your suggested way would involve all sorts of staff, delay, assesment, evidence, reviews, appeals, and all sorts. What we have is a simple if you have less than X you qualify, with the point being that if you have more than X then there is presumed to be no actual need. Where we fundamentally disagree is your belief that benefits should supplement a need that we can meet from our own resources. If we can paddle our own canoe, we should. You mentioned holidays, and I offered no opinion on the rights or wrongs of your wife's decision. The benefits system did though, and you got by without that. And please cut the patronising noise re living on benefits. I've lived it. You haven't as you didn't need it.

Thanks for that. I disagree re a means test - an income and/or capacity threshold is a means test. Sure, it's crude and not as subtle as a case specific income needs and outgoings assessment, but what SoG wanted and still is the latter, not the means test that we have and they failed. Re the rest, yes, the system needs chronic overhaul. We see worthy applicants denied support, and others well overpaid. I've cited a family member who's part of the latter category. Public sector pensions is another issue which has been touched on above. Thy're massively unaffordable, but, are wholly unrelated to this particular discussion.

Your income meant that you didn't qualify. That's a means test. What you were/are expecting was an assessment and payment based on your particular circumstances. That's something altogether different, and absolutely shouldn't happen and would be completely unmanageable. A fair and sensible uniform amount should be paid, but only to these who don't have the resources or the ability to look after themselves. Your wife chose to leave her job. I don't know whether she could and should have stayed - it'd be unfair for me to make that assessment, but in my experience, people often take the easier and softer way expecting state support. Benefits, however, should allow people to meet needs. Not go on nice holidays at the states expense. I'm not sniffy about benefits. I keep quiet about who and what I am, but I was raised on a council estate by parents with acute health issues. We were mostly benefit dependant, and life was basic and difficult. We needed the benefits and I'm grateful that they were available. My parents worked when their health allowed, and life was much better when they could do that. That gave me a work ethic - I worked 2 jobs whilst at school and gave up education (first time round) to bring some cash in. If I come across as having little sympathy for you and your wife having to live off your own resources, it's because I don't. People need to take responsibility for themselves as much as they can. Peoples attitudes and expectations need as much of an overhaul as the benefits system.

Yield

Yep. My main area of agreement with SoG was the oddity of benefits paying rent not a mortgage. I've never understood the principle of that. I get the point of a cap, and paying interest only and not capital, but only getting support for the roof over your head if it's owned by a 3rd party is a weird one.

I understand the numbers, I was just wanting to know Ducks point. He wanted Brexit, and reduced immigration, so I was intrigued on his take on it.

I've re read his post and am struggling to understand his issue. They were getting by on his pension and her wages, so failed a means test. I can only assume that there was an expectation of a state top up to make life more comfortable, ie to cover luxuries and extras. In the next breath he calls for benefit means testing. There's a disconnect there. Benefits should be means tested. They should also be reduced to a sensible level. I have a benefit dependent close relative who genuinely cannot work, and never will. They enjoy a two week cruise in the summer holidays, other breaks, the latest iPhone, etc. Nobody should have to struggle, but that's a fantastic quality of life which exceeds the obligations of the benefits system.

SoG gets told off for posting links etc without comment. What's your point? Good thing that net migration is down, bad thing that workers and tax payers are leaving, or something else?

Rupert Lowe's vision. Summary for those who CBA to read it all - be like Trump. "What Reeves should announce today, but obviously won’t. Everything costs more. Food, rent, mortgages, insurance, childcare, energy, basic goods, services, the weekly shop, a pint. Britain is getting poorer, faster. People feel it, and they’re right. Inflation has eaten us alive. Wages wiped out. Savings eroded. Families poorer. Britain weaker. We are getting ripped off. Why? Because Britain is addicted to the size of its own state. Here’s what Reeves should say. Tax cuts. Lots of tax cuts. - Raise the personal allowance dramatically - let people keep the first £20,000 they earn, minimum. No tax. It will cost, but the savings it will produce from encouraging people back into work will be vast, - Slash Income Tax/National Insurance, especially on middle-earners who’ve been squeezed the hardest. This is uncomplicated, Rachel. REWARD HARD WORK. - Remove the stealth taxes they all pretend don’t exist - fiscal drag and frozen thresholds which quietly rob the British people every year. - Give overseas skilled British workers vast tax benefits to relocate their tax revenue and skills back to Britain. Bring them home. - Cut back VAT, reduce fuel duty, cut alcohol duty, none of this sugar tax bullshit. - Stamp duty, gone for British families. Let’s get the property market moving. - Licence fee, scrapped. On the bonfire. Day one. More cash in the pocket for families. Unleash British business - Cut Corporation Tax to the lowest rate in Europe. Undercut them. Compete. Win. - Push back dividend thresholds and taxes. If people are successful, ENCOURAGE IT. - Abolish Business Rates for small firms. Bring our high streets back. Turkish barber/vape shop fraud crackdown too - let's root out the criminals. - Slash Employers’ National Insurance - the single biggest reason small firms won’t hire more staff. OBVIOUSLY. We need to get that right down. Non-negotiable. - Supercharge deregulation, especially for small businesses. A redtape bonfire visible from space. Let it burn. - End the HR-ification of Britain. Bosses should be able to sack people, and they’ll end up actually hiring more because of that. - Scrap IR35, immediately. Leave people to interface between themselves. - Double the VAT threshold, possibly more. Overnight, vast growth will be unleashed from businesses hovering just under £90k. The figures show it already! - Super-deductions for investment, including capital allowances and R&D incentives. Encourage people to invest and they will! - Get police policing, and restoring some confidence for investment. Make Britain safer, and that will make Britain richer. A brutal restructuring of the welfare state. And I mean brutal. - No benefits for foreign nationals. If you arrive here, you contribute. If you’re here and you don’t? You leave. Billions saved, with one stroke. - Mandatory work requirements for all those able to work. If you want support from taxpayers, you must give something back. A fair time to search for a job, but then you’re put to work. Picking litter or whatever else. - Full disability fraud crackdown using data-matching and HMRC-style enforcement. Weed out the piss-takers. - A cap on total household benefit claims - it should never pay more to stay home than to work. Never. Drive for self-sufficiency. - Domestic energy production on a huge scale, like we’ve never seen before. Drive that cost of energy down. Fracking. North Sea extraction. New nuclear. Gas storage. Cheap dependable energy = lower prices for everything. It’s that simple. - Food security, with domestic output boosted and less reliance on foreign supply chains. - Support British farming. Scrap the family farming tax. Use the public sector’s purchasing power to BUY BRITISH from our farmers. End dependency. Boost farming apprenticeships. - A national infrastructure plan focused on logistics, ports, roads, and freight efficiency. The cheaper it is to produce and transport things, the lower prices fall. Places like Great Yarmouth with our fantastic port will boom. Stop building roads in Guyana, and use that money in Britain. A robust plan to deal with the cancer of inflation. - Immediate ban on money-printing (QE) without explicit Parliamentary approval. No more splurges by the Bank of England and that toad Bailey. - Slash public spending - genuine far-reaching cuts. Nobody is safe. All departments. - Foreign aid. Gone. Entirely. Billions saved overnight. - Freeze all non-essential recruitment across the entire public sector (excluding front-line staff). A workforce pause, until inflation is under control. Then follows strict limits. - A structured debt-repayment schedule, legally binding, to get those vast billion debt-interest payments falling. If you want some awful perspective - we now spend more on debt interest than on defence. No serious country on earth behaves like this. Britain does. It’s like some third world African tinpot dictatorship approach to economic affairs. - We need to cut the debt, not just the deficit. - Public sector pension liability - all off balance sheet. Needs a total overhaul as state employees are radically cut. Stop importing poverty, crime and sex pests. - Shut down all illegal migration with mass deportations, rapid removals, third-country processing, and no exceptions. Billions saved on abolishing asylum and related costs. - Cut legal migration to net-negative, especially low-wage migration that undercuts British workers. - Remove those who are a drain. If they’re claiming benefits, living in social housing, unable to speak English, refusing to contribute? Thanks, but your presence is no longer required. Bye. - Deport foreign sex pests and criminals. Make our towns safe again. Watch how investment flows back into our dying high streets. We must urgently cut back the bankrupt British state. Growth only comes from the following things. A smaller state. Lower taxes. More people working. Fewer people scrounging. Cheaper energy. Stronger borders. Mass deportations. Actual production. That is it. Reeves sadly does not have the balls to do what is necessary. Britain needs an economic revolution".

Fox

The like minded people you associate with are not most people. Some people respect the need for a welfare state, and appreciate that not everyone who needs that welfare is a lazy scrounger. Are you seriously suggesting that disabled people who can't work, for example, shouldn't have kids?

Decent work done on immigration.

Yep. The difference is minimal.

Driving under 20 in a 20. Needless.

Half. Unusually benevolent of you mate.