This is brilliant news.

Great news indeed.

Needs to be universally enforced, and the scheme scrapped, to ensure that it's not just graduates winning court cases that escape this nasty scheme.

I wish people would stop using the word 'slavery' in the context of this. It completely misrepresents what the Court of Appeal actually ruled.

DCB: where does any of the above, or especially, the linked article, mention 'slavery'?

I'm not talking about on OTF or that BBC article, but it's being used in other media outlets and especially on places like Twitter.

DCB: (Un)fair enough. But what does it have to do with the original post, or are you going for a spectacular hi-jack?

So character assassination of Cat Reilly on the way? Or are Fleet Street on their best behaviour, with the chilling effects of Leveson?

Will the work done get paid up? Areas cheap enough to have a Poundland could probably do with a Keynsian boost.

Tubbs: There is a 'Poundland' in Hove (3, literally).

What was your point?

Sorry Tubbs, unless you were being mental. I am on new drugs.

I've got new drugs heading my way after a blood test.

We don't have a Poundland in Bethnal Green. Thinking we were too upmarket. But I suppose we have lots of equivalents.

Bethnal Green is rather nice. Equating it to some 'Stewart Lee' based, hovel, is not true. There is a lovely park there, somewhere.

(What drugs TI? Mine are 'new' to me, and make me slightly '******', or fucked up.)

*To Tubby Isaacs: you didn't, did you?

Don't know the drugs, Gero. I have Venteflaxine or something and these are an add-on. Venteflaxine were supposed to be the get up and go ones. Like all of them they're amazing for 2 days, then you just get listless again.

If it turns out these new ones are no alcohol, I'm not having it. I'm really funny when I'm drunk.

Bethnal Green Road won least generic high street a few years ago. It's indeed good. Only one charity shop, I think, and not a bad one. Loads of useful shops.

As well as Cait Reilly, there seems to have been a second complainant, an HGV driver, who was told to go and clean furniture for his dole, and told them to fuck off.

Good on both, but I guessing that Cait will cop all the shit from Fleet Street.

There are 2 Poundlands in Kilburn High Road, quite close together. They're quite a normal high street shop, really, most towns have them - it's when there's loads of imitators, and 99p stores etc then you know a high street is struggling.

It's been suggested that it would require a vote in Parliament to reinstate the scheme- ultra vires from IDS.

So we're saved by the Lib Dems, brilliant.

Clegg being concerned about social mobility will be moved by Cait's desire to work in a museum.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21490542

Fuck off IDS, never let the facts get in the way of your own right-wing views

"I'm sorry, but there is a group of people out there who think they're too good for this kind of stuff." overlooking the fact that she now works, i.e. she gets paid for her efforts, in a supermarket.

The only beneficiaries from this whole policy are the companies who have been given access to a labour pool that they don't have to pay for.

Welcome to Tory Britain; a great place to do business but a pretty shit place to live.

Did he say the same thing about the 40-something HGV driver?

I know IDS is a bit on the dim side, but he's presumably deliberately missing the point here (ie that the key thing about doing a job is you get paid for it)

The personal attacks on Cait Reilly have been atrocious, egged on by this man of faith.

If you ever feel too optimistic about human nature look at Brendan O'Neill's article about her, and a load of the comments. She thinks she's too cool and he can tell by her "Palestinian style scarf", apparently. And apparently she said "slavery", a word not mention by anyone in the page he links to.

No mention of the HGV driver, of course.

Obviously this is excellent news, but the most iniquitous aspect of current benefits policy remains - the sanctions regime. For those who don't know, Work Programme providers have the power to refer claimants they deem to be uncooperative to the DWP for sanction; the DWP can also issue sanctions off their own bat. Being sanctioned involves losing benefits for a period of time. You can appeal, but here's the kicker - your benefits will remain suspended pending the outcome of the appeal.

This can leave one a hostage to fortune; I didn't receive the letter informing me of my last Work Programme appointment, and only found out the night before because they text you as well. If I'd missed the text and the appointment I could have had JSA withdrawn.

It is also potentially open to abuse. A malicious or mistaken referral for 'uncooperative behaviour' could have draconian consequences. I'm lucky in that I'm a person who knows my way around the system; I also have a ready smile and calm disposition. These are advantages I'm thankful for. As with all such regimes, the victims are likely to be the uninformed, the stressed and those without the education, resources or wit to navigate them. Most people on benefits surely live hand to mouth, so hunger, cold and homelessness are all realistic potential outcomes from benefit sanctions.

I'd just add that my experience of Work Programme (very sporadic and disorganised) suggests that my 'provider' at least is struggling to cope. I don't see why the other companies involved would not be in similar positions.

I just sort of sat staring at that for about twenty seconds.