Sorry new Chancellor, the UK is skint.

[Gob]

Liam Byrne, the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, last week wrote a letter for his successor - the Liberal Democrat David Laws - stating: "I’m afraid to tell you there’s no money left.”

Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Mr Laws said: "When I arrived at my desk on the very first day as Chief Secretary, I found a letter from the previous chief secretary to give me some advice, I assumed, on how I conduct myself over the months ahead.

"Unfortunately, when I opened it, it was a one-sentence letter which simply said ’Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid to tell you there’s no money left’, which was honest but slightly less helpful advice than I had been expecting."

The letter - which Mr Byrne claims was meant to be humorous - represents a sign of the stark challenges facing the new Coalition Government to reduce Britain's record £163 billion budget deficit

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/b ... 128665.ece

You couldn't make it up, could you?

[Daisy]

You've got to admit, if you lost your job to the opposition you would be tempted though... wouldn't you?

[Gob]

True

[Scooter]

There was a story that went around, after the 1985 Ontario provincial election, not sure if it was true...after being in power continuously for 43 years the Tories just squeaked by the Librerals in a minority parliament. The Liberals saw a chance and so made a deal with the NDP to bring down the government in the vote on the Speech from the Throne and install a Liberal government in its place. Frank Miller, the Troy premier, was visibly bitter in the weeks following the election, and the story goes that on his last night in the Premier's office, he rose from the chair behind his desk, pulled down his pants, squatted back over the chair, took a dump, and left.

[Gob]

Oh wow! My kind of politics. :twisted:

[Gob]

This maybe why the UK is skint.

Almost 700,000 families are now pocketing more than £15,000 a year in benefits - meaning it does not pay for them to go to work, official figures showed today.

A ‘state of the nation’ report published by Iain Duncan Smith has laid bare the shocking scale of welfare dependency that has built up under Labour.

The study - based on internal figures from the Department for Work and Pensions - found an astonishing 670,000 households now receive benefits worth more than £15,600 a year.

Between them they pocket at least £13billion a year in benefits - more than the entire annual budget of the Home Office.

In addition, an estimated 50,000 households receive more than £26,000 a year in benefits – more than the average pre-tax wage for full time workers of £25,123.

Separate figures showed that housing benefit has risen by 40 per cent under Labour to more than £14 billion, with some families receiving an astonishing £93,000 a year each.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z0pBv9JCJW

[The Hen]

I'd love to be paid to not work.

I'd loved to be paid more for the work I do.

I think I just love money.