Labour nationalising railway ? sounds a terrible idea,,,works so well as it is!Another barmy corbyn idea?

I'll give you my honest opinion. That figure is given by the Resolution Foundation, whose role is to investigate inequality and poverty. I have no real reason to disbelieve what they say...

So you don't think an organisation set up to investigate poverty have a vested interest in finding said poverty even if it exists or not ?

But it does sound pretty speculative given the lack of data from that time. I doubt the 1780s had the same data collection ability as today, other than censors which were incredibly unreliable.

My point exactly

However, I don't think that my overall point is moot. Let's take a less questionable claim: the IFS saying the 2010s will be the worst decade for real term pay for average earners in the post war period. Public sector pay in the NHS, police and other essential services has fallen on average by 10%.

That is again simply not true. Granted it hasn't risen with inflation but it most certainly has not decreased by 10% I work in one of those public sectors paid for by the Governments coffers and my pay certainly has not gone down 10%.

What this means, is that for most people, the economy isn't working for them. There wages are stagnating, but inflation's going up, as is rent. Yet you have the Tories claiming there is a strong and stable economy. Why? Because the richest 1000 people in this country have increased their wealth by over 40 billion, and this is taken in to account in GDP figures.

I'd love to see proof of that, sorry matey but this is your opinion only based on your political beliefs.

That's why every time May says this is a strong and stable economy, she is really laughing at us. How can you imagine a state to be run worse than this? Almost every single sector of society is seeing their money drain away to fund the projects of the megarich, all in an attempt to keep these bullsh't GDP figures in tact.

Tony Blair war criminal, Gordon Brown Sold pretty much all our gold reserves at rock bottom prices, and that's just for starters, Corbyn has already said he wants to borrow over 200 Billion to fund his idiotic liberal wet dream.

Anyone who thinks they can overlook this by just continually questioning the sources, well i'm sorry, but they're all just laughing at you. We are having the money from our pockets robbed, and when a politician comes along promising to rebalance it, we call him the extremist! What a country this place has become...

I believe in questioning every source that claims the incredulous, so should you.

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Wow...

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I have voted Tory in the past, won't be doing so this time (they just seem too nasty for me at the moment), but...

That article is just too vague to mean anything. I don't know how many people have been re-assessed, but given the fact that over 1500 people in the UK die every day, without any form of backing data (or 'journalism' if you prefer), the story doesn't tell us anything.

I'm not saying there isn't an issue here, but that article is just too poor to infer anything from.

I think it's right and proper that people receiving disability benefit are periodically reassessed (it doesn't follow that being unfit to work due to a condition today will mean you are still unfit to work in 5 years), but I think that assessment should be fair and reasonable (as of course should the initial assessment), and those who can't work should be supported.

Likewise the bedroom tax (alluded to in the article) is a good idea, if properly implemented and exceptions allowed. When we have a public housing shortage there is no logic behind a family whose children have long since left home occupying a 4 bed house while families with children are in temporary accommodation or B&Bs. What they have to do is ensure correct controls and exceptions are in place (live-in carers, medical equipment, lack of availability of smaller properties in the area, etc) but staying somewhere at public expense just because you like it or you've always lived there is inefficient use of funds, and selfish in so far as larger families also in need are suffering through your choice. If that sounds heartless, then turn it around, and think how you'd feel if I, as a father of two, went to the council and asked for a 6 bed council house, just because I quite fancy the extra space.

It's just a Tory-bashing article of no great significance, sadly, though I'd be interested to see a fair and impartial article on the same subject with some supporting data, to judge if there is a problem