UK General Election 2015

[TightEnd]

ComRes/ITV News: in 2010 Lab had 51% of vote across their Scottish seats, SNP had 19%. Now it's 37% and 43% respectively

[kukushkin88]

detail from the latest Ashcroft focus group: what type of house are the parties?

Isn´t it likely Ashcroft´s people just made this up for propaganda purposes? All of it sounds ridiculous.

[arbboy]

detail from the latest Ashcroft focus group: what type of house are the parties?

Isn´t it likely Ashcroft´s people just made this up for propaganda purposes? All of it sounds ridiculous.

Why has he left Kmac's house out???  Iron bru in the fridge with 'yes yes yes' wallpaper on the walls!

[simonnatur]

What is this so called government doing about the trampoline crisis, why haven't they called in the troops?

[Woodsey]

What's better, zero hour contracts or less people in work? Surely this is just a new name for casual work which has always been around....

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/31/workers-on-zero-hours-contracts-to-get-regular-contracts-after-3-months

[Kmac84]

What's better, zero hour contracts or less people in work? Surely this is just a new name for casual work which has always been around....

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/31/workers-on-zero-hours-contracts-to-get-regular-contracts-after-3-months

People in work is better.  Casual work was traditionally under the radar, paid cash in hand and no tax paid on in either my employee and and employer. 

Zero hours contracts are a terrible idea, people don't know from week to week how many hours they are going to get, obviously this will vary from business to business.  In addition to there being no guaranteed hours many of these employers insist on exclusivity.  Probably most importantly is the fact that when someone accepts a zero hours contract they remove themselves from the safety net of the beneft system and despite not been guaranteed any work you need to start your claim again and this can mean going weeks without any help. 

If employers want people to jo a job then they should be paying them a working wage and they should be committing to them on a contractual basis, if your existing work force isn't capable/sufficient for that work then perhaps you need to re-look at that?

In terms of official figures regarding numbers in employment, it is disingenuous of the government to use people in zero hour contracts as being in work. 

I'd be willing to bet that many folk who are on zero hours contracts don't know they actually are.  I'm also calling bullshit on this nonsense that the Tory's spout that   over 50% of those on zero hours contracts are happy.  I'd bet the phrasing of the question was designed to provide a positive response.   

[Woodsey]

I know all that but still undecided. I think I'm veering towards having more people working earning a bit less is maybe better than less people employed full time and more on the dole. Maybe a better middle ground would be a min 20 hours contract or something like that? 

[Jon MW]

What's better, zero hour contracts or less people in work? Surely this is just a new name for casual work which has always been around....

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/31/workers-on-zero-hours-contracts-to-get-regular-contracts-after-3-months

People in work is better.  Casual work was traditionally under the radar, paid cash in hand and no tax paid on in either my employee and and employer.  
...

errrr no - most people in casual work were (and are) paid for the work they did with all the relevant tax and national insurance paid by both employer and employee.

That's not say there hasn't always been a grey economy where that was true, but casual work has traditionally been about employers who have varying demand for employees and employees who can't commit to a full time permanent contract. The obvious example being students working in tourist attractions but a fair bit of catering also worked along the same lines in my experience. The problem with zero hour contracts now is that so many more companies are using it for staff who they would have just given a permanent contract to in the past.

I'm not entirely sure whether the 50% happy is believable or not - but I'm pretty sure it's an impossible figure to measure either way.

[TightEnd]

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

[simonnatur]

I know all that but still undecided. I think I'm veering towards having more people working earning a bit less is maybe better than less people employed full time and more on the dole. Maybe a better middle ground would be a min 20 hours contract or something like that? 

Think this contributes massively to creating a disenfranchised underclass. Frankly you can hardly blame people treated this way for thinking I'ld rather abuse the benefits system for what little I can get out of it, than work on these terms.

[BigAdz]

I think you would be surprised at how many people actually LOVE zero hours contracts.

My wife is a Sister in Radcliffe in Oxford and she says new staff almost demand zero hours, as it gives them the flexibility to almost pick and choose when they work.

The resultant problem then becomes that no one wants to cover certain shifts and they end up paying a fortune to Temps/Locums etc and that is pretty much why the NHS is struggling.

[Kmac84]

I know all that but still undecided. I think I'm veering towards having more people working earning a bit less is maybe better than less people employed full time and more on the dole. Maybe a better middle ground would be a min 20 hours contract or something like that? 

Sounds reasonable. 

I'd suggest a ceiling wage for executives/senior management and I'd make sure they werent earning more than say 25 x those at the bottom.  There is no need for it. 

[doubleup]

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

Richard Glynn rofl

[doubleup]

The Tory "they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work" recovery


http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/04/01/uk-britain-employment-productivity-idUKKBN0MS3SP20150401

[Kmac84]

I think you would be surprised at how many people actually LOVE zero hours contracts.

My wife is a Sister in Radcliffe in Oxford and she says new staff almost demand zero hours, as it gives them the flexibility to almost pick and choose when they work.

The resultant problem then becomes that no one wants to cover certain shifts and they end up paying a fortune to Temps/Locums etc and that is pretty much why the NHS is struggling.

That's possibly true in certain areas Adz.  Within the NHS you can do zero hour's and earn as much if not more than someone who is contracted.  They probably pay more in overtime per year than any other public service provider.  It's one of the reasons I believe the NHS is failing as we have over-worked nurses and doctors who are doing in excess of 60hrs a week.  

Within the NHS it's also possible to do bank nursing on top of your primary contracted perm position.  

However imagine working for McDonalds, Sports Direct or Some Care home being stuck on the National Minimum Wage and being told you were exclusive to them and you were on a zero hours contract.  It's not a nice thing, I'd imagine.  

A guy I hung about with when I was younger posted on Facebook recently he had a new job and was glad to be back in work because he was sick and tired of trying to survive on benefits.  I thought fair play mate and good luck.  I like to hear success stories.  A few months later he's in a rage as he's been barred from the Buroo for trying to claim JSA, the employer took him on a zero hours contract first couple of weeks he told me he was getting regular hours 28 - 40 and he was fine with that although he'd have preferred to do 35 or so a week minimum, when things got quiet he was down to 16 hrs split over 4 days, by the time he had paid his Tax/NI, travel  to and from work and due to the travel time sorted out a lunch he was working for next to nothing so asked the employer abot increasing his hours and he was basically told if you don't like the way we do things on your bike so he went back to the Buroo asked for some help they basically told him to GTF he wasn't entitled to benefits as he was in work.  He couldn't get WTC because he hadn't been employed long enough for them to determine how much he should be paid.