Too Many Cuts...come join the #Frothers and have your say

MmeLindor - that's a great idea. You could have a section on the blog titled Real Frother's Stories/Experiences or How the Cuts are directly hitting the Frothers and then another one more generic How the Cuts are destroying the country and put all the stats there.

Some people understandably may not want to use their real names or give too much information about where they live or their personal circumstances so if it was encouraged that names would be changed to protect individuals that may make them feel more comfortable about sharing stories and experiences.

Re: earlier post on Universal Credit. This is the link for the new conditionality threshold www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/ucpbn-11-conditionality-threshold.pdf

The jist of it as far as I understand it is that people who are already desperately working hard and doing their bit for society have been told that simply isn?t enough. If your job doesn?t pay you enough (even if you do work full time) you?ll just have to get another one to top up your wages to meet the threshold.

Brilliant -let?s look forward to a new generation of latchkey children then and have the Tories also not considered it may just not be possible for people to earn a higher wage than they already do?

Am (sadly) frothing out now - have to go to bed, festive exhaustion hitting already.....

There is the page view on the blog page still, but the stat counter gives a breakdown of unique visitors and where the traffic comes from etc. Can give the password to anyone who wants access.

Oh yes! It's great seeing how many visits we have had.

Did anyone remove the Statcounter from the blog? It says we had one visit...I don't think thats true! Let me know if its not wanted or if i should put it back on.

I have so much froth to catch up on! Did someone say IN THE NEWSPAPER????????

This frothing is a full time business, family has go in the way this last few days and now I have lots to catch up on. I really want to write a post for the blog, but I haven't a clue what. I'm pretty good at bitching about Gove, but that has already been done. If I waited a while do you think we could go another education post?

Off to check the stats.

oooh, fab analogy, NiceGuy. Would you mind if I put that on my blog. Would credit you, of course.

Hully
DO IT NOW. I like a good frothy rant. And although the stats and figures are interesting, it is good to have a "this is what is annoying me and this is how it will affect me personally" post.

I do think that we should try and alternate between researched posts and personal posts, it is what makes Frothers different to many other blogs.

Sorry to jump in shouting but I just felt I wanted to say congratulations to everyone contributing. Bloody good work. The magic porridge pot of shit that is currently overflowing from the cabinet is being focused and magnified at the same time - there is stuff coming out that would have gone under the radar for me personally which is probably what they were bargaining on.
I am liking the nexus and desperately want to post on the blog and am going to think on. You are doing a marvelous job.

Interesting article from Left Foot Forward regarding the new treaty. If he had signed up to it we would've had no say wrt our budget, would not be allowed to artificially stimulate the economy, and would be forced to adopt austerity measures more or less permanently, or until the budget balances, which given we have no money left thanks to ShineyDaves banker mates equates to the same thing. So unwittingly The Walking Forehead has done the right thing. Yes, I know he was thinking of the thieving cunts that are the bankers, but he's done us frothers a favour, albeit at the cost of leaving the UK outside the decision making process. We need less austerity to grow. This new treaty advocates more. I don't want my shrinking income to shrink even more because of either the Tories or Europe. I'm sure you don't either.

hmmm.

Just type it in lower case and it will be fine.

But biwi, there's all those long lovely ones full of stats, don't you think it would look weird if suddenly:

I FUCKING HATE THOSE OVERPRIVILEGED SILVERSPOON SUCKING TORY CUNTS WHO ARE DESTROYING OUR WELFARE STATE AND FUCKING OUR LIVES

appeared?

Like someone had let Screaming Lord Sutch in the building.

evening all,

just signing in for a friday night froth while the old boy pops out to get a takeaway...

will read back through the thread to see what I've missed

you're all doing so well - nothing stronger than people power....

xx

I think big, strategic, macro frothing is probably the way to go, Hully!

Oh, and thanks, AF, that was very sweet.

The trouble is I read details, think about them, work out what I think big picture, and then forget all the details immediately. Otherwise I get too clogged up with it all.

I have a dear friend just the same which is very fortunate because our conversations go:

"I fucking hate X he is a right cunt."

"Why?"

"Oh you know, that school/Yerp thing."

"Oh yeah. Total cunt."

And we nod, drink wine and feel terribly au fait.

Evening, frothers! Brilliant news about Zoe Williams. I love her. I look forward to seeing what she has written tomorrow.

Sorry I haven't been frothing today - have been a bit caught up with dealing with DS1. Picked him up from university today and have spent the afternoon doing his washing! I probably should have made him do it, but it is so lovely to have him home, I came over all maternal. (Don't worry - I'll be yelling at him to tidy his room within about 48 hours).

I'm also a bit about Next - I wasn't watching last night. And I'm because DS2 has just applied for a part time job there. Literally - we were filling in the application form yesterday.

Trouble is, for a 16 year old, there are very few job opportunities, and especially not when it's for a Saturday job.

Hands off our bananas.

Oh wait - that was never true.

Ahahaaaa thank you niceguy. I shall use that to explain it to my DD as well

Lubey, the way it can be looked at is that the UK is like a girl at school whom is always awkward and noone really likes. Unfortunately she's part of the school so to a certain extent you have to put up with her.

The school has now asked everyone for a 'donation' and to agree to new rules because things aren't working and it's skint but we're refusing because we didn't cause the problem in the first place. Crucially we're the only ones refusing so everyone else is accusing us of not being team players and only interested in ourselves.

The popular girl's (Germany & France) are now going to make sure noone talks to us anymore. They're going to have their little meetings without us. In effect we'll be sat in the naughty corner.

Part of the problem though is that we joined the school thinking it was one thing and it turns out it's quite another. So we've been cherry picking which bits to involve ourselves in and refusing to do the things we dislike. This has won us no friends at all.

Longer term I think the fundamental question we need to ask ourselves is whether or not we want to stay in the school, find another school or home educate ourselves....

Oh yes I remember hearing about ZW a couple of days ago - durr, sorry tired brain.

That is totally amazing Will go and buy it and be super proud! Big congragulations and pats on the back to all #frothers :o

Thanks Mme for the telegraph post.

We are going to be in the paper?! Well bugger me backwards with a banana that is amazing for how young the blog is!

Whooops, that looks like a huge post. Most of it is quoted from the Telegraph.

Lubey
I found this in the Telegraph:

The measures for closer fiscal union will include:

• Eurozone states' budgets should be balanced or in surplus.

• This rule will also be introduced in eurozone member states' own national legal systems; they must report national debt issuance plans in advance.

• As soon as a euro member state is in breach of the 3pc deficit ceiling, there will be automatic consequences, including possible sanctions, unless a qualified majority of euro states is opposed.

There were also financial measures agreed to bolster the eurozone's ability to rescue indebted nations:

• EU countries agreed to provide ?200bn in bilateral loans to the IMF to help tackle the debt, with ?150bn of the total coming from the eurozone countries.

• The European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the permanent resuce mechanism due to come into force in July 2012, will be capped at ?500bn (£423bn).

• The ESM will not get a banking license, as had been proposed by Herman Van Rompuy of the European Council, because Germany opposed it.

So what I understand is that if the EU countries spend more than they should (ie. has more debt than allowed) that they will get their knuckles rapped. They will have to report to a central European institution.

This is to ensure that they don't get deeper into debt without consequences.

I was chatting with my mum earlier about DH, and saying that it is weird that although he works for a massive US (manufacturing) company, lots of people in Germany haven't heard of it. When he tells an American he works for XX company, I explained, it is like telling a German he works for Mercedes. Or Siemens.

Then I said, "It would be like telling a Brit that you work for ... for... erm..."

We could not think of an equivalent. A powerhouse of British industry, somewhere so Ur-British that everyone knows the name.

What has happened to the manufacturing in UK?

Hmm. I can see what you mean, NG, but at the same time I think that Britain has always had their European cake, eaten it and made trifle out of it as well.

We cannot dictate terms if we do not fully engage.

I think that Cameron lost his chance when he refused to contribute to the Greek bailout - have seen this complaint in the German press quite a bit.

Thanks niceguy I get the gist but I think I'd like to see the details.

lubey it is Zoe Williams, mighty Titan of The Guardian. One of my personal heroes and all round good egg. I am so excited!

Who put us in the paper? what paper? OMG!

Can anyone explain, in a way that you would to maybe a ten or twelve year old child, what the actual fuck is going on with the eurozone? From the beginning? Please?

I really want to understand but even the BBC's explain-it-very-slowly- special section is beyond my concentration today.

Anyway, hello #frothers. I am an emotional, exhausted wreck after the rollercoaster of contradicting information yesterday and reading the welfare reform bill and one of the most difficult working weeks of my life. URGH.

I could really do with but have none as I went off it for ages and it's toooo cooooold to go out now. Hmpf.