Negative official interest rates make it more likely that retail banks will pass on the negative rate to you. When they do, you’ll no longer earn interest on your savings. You’ll pay interest. And because you can’t take your cash out in the form of banknotes, you have a simple choice: spend your digital cash, or watch it whittle away bit by bit. Do you see how negative interest rates and a cashless society could be seen as the ultimate tool of economic coercion? Changing the general rate of interest changes incentives. But for central bankers, merely changing incentives isn’t working. If you’re a central planner, you have to force action. If you still possess your cash, you don’t have to do what other people want you to do with your money. With cash, you still have choices. You can plan for a rainy day and choose to take possession of some of your savings. If it’s still in your hands, the choice is yours. But if there’s nothing to possess, no cash to put under the mattress or in the freezer, how much control do you have left? Not much, I’d say. And that’s precisely the idea.

The BBC is one of the most admired and respected media outlets in the world. To attempt to force it into private hands through undermining its financial base is verging on the criminal. The organisation is neither marxist nor threatening to our national culture. It is portrayed as such by those who wish both to silence it for political reasons and to benefit financially by its privatisation.

* Steel is a strategic material. Without it we cannot exist on our own, supply our own industries, fight a war if the worst occurred. * Skilled jobs are being lost, these skills may not come back and our industrial future is in peril * Families are suffering, far better to assist the companies in the short term than pay dole to the redundant workers. * Britain needs to look to the long term industrial future like Germany and support its industries.

In this time of austerity, cuts and financial difficulty for some of the poorest in society, we need a strong opposition to Tory policies. A minority of Labour MPs cannot be allowed to divide the party on such important votes which will affect millions of people.

It is important for people to not confuse the UK's minimum wage with the LIVING WAGE. The minimum wage SHOULD be a living wage.. but it is not. The 'National Minimum Wage' will still be far lower than the LIVING WAGE when it is raised by the government in 2016, yet it is being re-branded as though it is a living wage. The living wage has been researched for many years and exists to highlight what people actually need to be paid in order to have a better standard of living. The Proposed 'National Living Wage' is not a living wage! Especially when working people will face tax credit cuts next year.

If we don't fight for our voice on this it will be another 40 years before it can be spoke of again. We need to ask ourselves, do we want to pay for a weapon, at huge expense, that ensures we can burn the flesh off the children of our enemies after were dead, or should we purchase ballistic missile defence at a far lesser cost to ensure a chance of survival and thus we avoid becomming mass murderes by default. It's time someone showed the world a better way.

We don't want Britain to be the kind of country that turns its back as people drown in their desperation to flee places like Syria. We want refugees to be welcome in rural areas too. So let's stand up for Britain's long tradition of helping refugees fleeing war. Let's show the Prime Minister that we, the people of the UK, are proud to do our part and provide refuge to people in their hour of need. Please sign and share, or start your own petition for your town or city here: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/efforts/refugees-welcome

Our government has decided to act on the current 'migrant' crisis which is due to people power through petitioning/campaigning, putting pressure on unwilling politicians to take the necessary action and provide these people with support they desperately need. I am so proud of the people of Britain for standing up and making themselves un-ignorable in this situation. HOWEVER, This won’t come without great cost to Britain, where will the money come from to accommodate these terribly unfortunate people? We still have growing numbers of homeless on our streets, our NHS is still suffering and many are still unemployed. Usually to cover the cost the government would issue welfare reform (cuts) and/or raise taxes. We've been on that merry-go-round for far too long and it only adds to poverty and suffering. THIS DOES NOT HAVE TO HAPPEN! If we look to America, in states where marijuana produce has been legalised (Colorado etc), they are metaphorically swimming in cash, with thousands of new jobs, a whole new multi-million dollar industry re-introduced into their society and we can have that too! Since Colorado became the first state in the US to allow people to trade marijuana-produce legally, from January 2014 the state took in $53 million in tax revenue in its first year!. That’s just one state. Imagine the money that could be raised in the UK, imagine what help that could do, a whole bunch of surplus cash from an inexpensive plant that grows in dirt.. The demand is definitely there for cannabis based goods, so why not end prohibition? Use the funds we make through taxation of cannabis-produce to help wherever we can, to provide opportunity wherever we can. OUR HOMELESS CAN BE HOUSED, THE UNEMPLOYED CAN RECEIVE TRAINING AND BECOME EMPLOYED, WE CAN ACCOMODATE DISPLACED 'MIGRANTS' OUR NHS CAN RECIEVE THE FUNDING AND SUPPORT IT NEEDS, WE CAN CREATE MORE JOBS, MORE INDUSTRY. WE CAN GROW, WE CAN PROSPER, TOGETHER! P.s A petition for cannabis legalisation was considered not long ago by our government, after receiving over 200,000 signatures, the response from government wasn't that which we'd hope for. you can see the governments’ response here: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/104349 <<(please also sign&share)<< Lets not take no for an answer. Lets remind them of the good this reform would do for our country and our people and those fleeing war-torn countries The benefits legalisation are too good to ignore, It’s time for change! PLEASE SEE THE GOOD IN THIS AND SIGN. THANK YOU SO MUCH

It is important because London's buses no longer accept cash. For many people on low income having £5 locked away in a card is simply not an option. This makes it impossible for many of the people we share the city with to use public transport. This creates a class of people who are entirely unable to use the bus even when the do have the £2 fare for their journey. The scheme seems to serve no purpose beyond providing TFL with a large amount of their service users capital in the bank. A cynic might argue that it's a social engineering device designed to keep the poorest in our society out of sight and out of mind from the everyday population, however even it is simply an oversight brought in by a committee who earn enough money to never have experienced this problem, it is a system that is not fit for purpose. To argue that the deposit is a deposit on the card is simply nonsense. When the deposit is refunded, the card becomes a useless piece of plastic waste that cannot even be reinstated by repaying the £5 interest levy. There is no good reason whatsoever that an oyster card should not be available at any time of the day free of charge to anyone who wishes to pay the correct fair for their journey. As an occasional rough sleeper and a person unable to claim job seeker benefits due to having no permanent address, I have on numerous occasions found myself having to cash out my card and then pay a premium on the bus simply in order to get myself to the occasional work I am able to find, and then even should I make enough tips to afford the bus, and even if I finish work during the hours where it's actually possible to purchase an oyster card, I still need to find an additional £5 over and above the fare just to get home. This compounds poverty in numerous ways. Not only am I then forced to pay a higher fee on the train but frequently find myself unable to travel at all if my journey requires a bus. I am then forced to reflect on the long occasionally dangerous walk home, as I burn off far more of my hard earned calories than I need whilst empty buses simply pass me by, that London values my time as little as my safety and basic humanity. A perfect illustration of how this serves as a very real and easily resolvable example of how poverty creates more poverty can be shown by the following story. "Having cashed out my oyster card to afford the train into town to look for work, I had essentially nothing left at the end of the day. I invested my last 1.30 on a pen. I used the pen to make street art. Enough people wanted to patronise me that I made 11.10 and something to eat. I was now delighted to find that after my days work i had enough money to restock a new pen for the following days work, put a five pound deposit on an oyster card, use the remaining money to pay my fare and have enough change to drink some water on the way home. Except i couldn't, because there was no where in the city i could purchase an oyster card. Instead i was forced to wear out my shoes and burn all the calories i had earned wandering the streets to keep warm for the next three hours before eventually being let into the station. At this point i found there where still no facilities to purchase an oyster card, leaving me the option to spend 6.90 on a one way ticket, leaving me a valid oyster card with 4.80 credit down short of what i would have made, or spending another hour of my life waiting for the rush hour when the price of a single oyster trip would leave me exactly as poor as the the one way ticket, but with my money trapped in a transit system i no longer felt confidence in. Neither of these options felt like the best way for me to increase the odds that i could afford a regular monthly ticket in the future so i just walked onto the train through the unstaffed barriers." TFL is there to serve all of our fellow citizens and visitors, and it is disgrace that people on the breadline are disadvantaged and dehumanised by the necessity of keeping capital that they do not posses inside TFL's bank account simply in order to gain access to the public transportation system.

Banks are closing branches and moving online. Older people, people without transport or in rural communities may struggle to get to a bank branch where they can make free cash withdrawals. This isn't a tax on 3rd party (non-bank) businesses, it's a tax on the disadvantaged, the elderly (both of which still prefer cash) and rural communities.

While I applaud Morrisons' move on milk, I think there is a better way of dealing with the pricing of all products. Only then will we see who is making how much money and for what. We can then judge whether we buy a product. This would also work for "ethically sourced" and Fair Trade products - we, the consumers, will decide not the seller.

Small businesses create employment and opportunity and are critical to keep the economy healthy. We need to encourage and reward the entrepreneurs, who take on the personal risks and stress of starting new businesses and help them get off the ground.