#frothers Unite!! Time for change.

Well that's lovely.

When DD was living in child poverty it's because DH went back to University full-tim to finish his degree asap and improve our future.

But hey. I guess we were just being lazy.

how depressing a read that is!

All the more reason to fight! All the more importance of what we are doing.

Yes. You're right Hully.

Fight, Fight, Fight!

I am quite pleased that all the reporting is along the lines of 'everyone is selfish and uninterested in the common good' because at least it's not 'everyone is justifiably peed off at feckless wasters, even though there's no proof they are feckless wasters'

And the highlighting of the hypocritical bits, like NIMBYism over new homes.

This is something that makes me so depressed about the future of this country. There has been a trend since Thatcher, that in times of hardship, instead of everyone pulling together for the common good, the haves start pulling up the drawbridge and setting the dogs on the have-nots.

It show such a complete lack of understanding of economics and laziness on their part to just believe all the rubbish in the Mail, rather than looking at all the facts.

i don't blame the nimbyism of home building though when you look at how many buildings are empty and the fact that building new ones just means building companies massively undercutting private home owners who need to sell and can't because the building giants are offering to pay your deposit and throw in a holiday to barbados.

seeing green spaces in your local area destroyed and more housing built wihtout any notice taken of what is already an overstretched infrastructure in the area is pretty soul destroying.

My DSis works is a librarian, I can see if she'd like to contribute?

that may be slightly personal btw because i ended up having my beautiful apartment repossessed because much as viewers loved it and it was what they wanted they couldn't afford to turn down the new build special offers of cashbacks etc to go and live in a concrete box built without any local amenities or mind towards creating a community.

It's getting to the point where you wish they'd post the questions asked along with the results of any given survey. It's the only way to tell whether there's an actual trend or whether the commissioning body simply got their desired result.

There was a Telegraph report about that survey earlier. I RTed wth a link to the All Right Jack post and a blogger called Mattleys RTed my link. He has loads of followers. I asked him if he would consider doing a guest post, but he is very busy at the moment. Hopefully he will pass our blog on to some of his followers.

Blog post done

toomanycuts.blogspot.com/2011/12/housing-disaster-set-for-january-2012.html

Yes - the empty homes thing is a big problem. There was a unique twist on it where I used to like to do with an extra category of building zoning which meant legally most of the empty buildings were not allowed to be converted into houses, unless they became ruins and were unable to be rebuilt(!). It was a local issue though, and I expect there would have been just as much opposition to changing that as their is to new houses they wanted to build in (for once) a perfectly sensible place.

Never mind!

Any ideas for title of next blog post? Tinilubes (who is that on here, am confused now) is going to put up the one on the lowering of the cap for local housing allowance.

Have been playng with the "If the Cap Fits"

or "When the Cap Doesn't Fit"

That's me, MmeLindor. I don't know whether to edit the title now or not

tight caps cause headaches? sorry - naff.

Ah yes. The clue is in "lubes" :o Sorry, being a bit dim today.

We can tweet with a snappy slogan.

It's ok I'm leaving it as it is but please feel free to name your tweets and retweets about it anything you think will grab attention

I'm so sorry I'm not 'here' our stupid bastard broadband is down and up today. I'm posting this on my phone.

GAH!

An idea which might fit loosely into the Petitions section - how about links to charities who are working in various sectors - eg. Shelter, HomeStart, Contact a Family, Mencap? I'm in the (according to the survey) 30% who would be happy to pay more tax to fund better services for the vulnerable, but failing that, I guess the next best thing is to donate to charities working in those areas?

Yes that's a good idea. Can do it later if no one else gets their first!

Am having a slightly useless tech day and I can't work out how to change the petitions tab into 'petitions and actions' anyone able to do that?

Great! And maybe a note saying something like "let us know about other charities doing vital work to add to this list" - so it doesn't look like the blog/campaign is 'officially endorsing' particular charities?

Slightly gobsmacked at this:

@KTHopkinsKatie Hopkins
If lifestyle is behind 40% of all cancers, it's time to privatise 40% of cancer treatments. Attaching visible cost to choice effects change

Great idea, Katie. We will just let the poor die of cancer, will save on benefits payments.

Although I get the impression that Katie Hopkins is a professional troll, always out to make a cheap point.

I was a bit about that story this morning. Has it been leaked to justify the proposed benefits checks on cancer patients?