Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell is to announce proposals forcing the long-term unemployed to work full-time in the community. Do you agree with the move?

The government plans would see benefit claimants of more than one year carry out four weeks of community service, with those claiming for two years participating full-time.

The work would include clearing litter and cleaning graffiti. Those not taking part would lose benefits.

Do you believe these are the right measures for the long-term unemployed?

The UK property market has been in a well publicised slump over the past year and nowhere is this more emphatically emphasised than in recent figures released by the Abbey on the financial difference between buying a house and renting.

The report looks at the figures over a 25 year payment period.  6 months ago buying was £5,800 cheaper than renting over that timeframe but now the saving has grown to £10,500 on average.

Abbey estimates that people who buy their own home will pay out a total of £426,303 on mortgage repayments and maintenance over 25 years, compared with the £436,789 that those who rent a similar home.

North South divide

Interestingly there are also marked differences in the potential savings buyers could make over renters depending on where one lives in the UK.  The biggest winners in the report were those living in the East of Scotland who would save a whopping £90,000 over 25 years.  In England the biggest winners were those in the South-East who would save approximately £60,000 over 25 years.

The time to buy?

There has been much debate recently over whether buying in a slump is a good idea and when exactly is the best time to cash in.  According to one survey by the Building Societies Association some 27% of Brits regard now as the best time to buy.  The respected Motley Fool waded into the debate by suggesting now is an ideal time to buy.

How MutualPoints can help

We have a few mortgage lenders on MutualPoints so you can earn some decent cashback for taking out a mortgage through us. Abbey were mentioned earlier and they pay out 2,250 points for a successful application.

Get a FreeQuote

On a related note we’ve recently launched a new finance website called FreeQuotes, which lets you compare the market to find the best deal on a range of financial products.  On the site you can compare mortgages on a range of fixed, variable, self certified and buy-to-let mortgages.

Yet another series of Big blinking Brother is about to kick off on Channel 4 and what was once a mildly diverting piece of voyeurism is now the single most desperate, lazy, cheap means of schedule-filling ever to bounce off a satellite.

Yet another obnoxious tribe of WAGs-in-waiting, geezers, delusional neurotics and ker-razy characters are to be beamed into our set top boxes virtually 24 hours a day for three whole months. Anybody out there still inclined to tune in will be treated to the thrust and parry of heated debate on subjects as diverse as hair and which celebrities are the most fit. This is afterall the program that thrust Jade Goody, Nikki Grahame, Chanelle Hayes and Charlie Uchea upon us, all of whom continue to hang on to their Z-list status for grim life. Thanks Max Clifford for your wonderful contribution to the world. At least the blokes have the good grace to disappear off the radar once they come out of the house, apart from Ziggy. Terrific bone structure though.

Well folks, the resistance starts here. We’re not going to go as far as dressing up in ankle socks, trench coats and berets like in ‘Allo ‘Allo and to be brutally honest, as resistance movements go this one is about as unsubversive as they get. We’re merely going to suggest a few more interesting things to entertain you while BB9 clogs up the TV with its foul stench.

1. Read a book, and book

Okay it sounds like something a parent might say to a six year old who spends all his time on the PlayStation but books are actually great, well, some of them are. Some are very, very boring and some are just plain rubbish, and you can quote us on that.

2. Make a model of Hogwarts School out of matchsticks…

… like this guy. It might sound a bit crazy but it’s not, it’s actually straight-in-at-the-deep-end bonkers. Just look at that thing. It took him over two years to build which means you’ll miss BB10 and 11 as well. Bonus!

3. Learn to play a musical instrument

The ability to play any instrument indicates depth of character and the determination to persevere. It’s also good for showing off so put down that Guitar Hero controller and have a crack at the real thing. Or the Oboe, or the flute, or the accordion, piano, harp, bagpipes, the choice is yours.

4. Train your dog to do amazing things

Not boring old ‘sitting’ and ‘staying’ like at Crufts, we’re referring specifically to Kate and Jin, the thoroughly marvellous girl and canine double act that would have won Britain’s Got Talent if the voting public had an ounce of sense. How do you even begin to teach a dog to walk backwards, let alone all that other stuff?

5. Create your own big brother experience

a. Stare at groups of people and earwig on their conversations. Add authenticity by keeping your iPod on you and periodically drowning out portions of their conversation with ambient noise. You can also close your eyes for several minutes to simulate a technical fault in the live video feed.

b. Follow other members of your household around pointing out which room they’re in in a very clear, serious voice such as one might use to chastise a child caught shoplifting.

Feel free to add ideas of your own via the comment link.

Despite England not being present at Euro 2008 there are still plenty of opportunities to have fun whilst watching the games. Right from the kick off on June 7th through to the final whistle in Vienna on 29th June there are lots of games to have a flutter on, and lots of choices you can make. We’ve outlined a few of them below to help you out.

Outright Winner Betting

As if it’s not galling enough that England havn’t qualified, arch enemies Germany have been installed as the early bookies favourites to win Euro 2008. Betfair have them down as 5-2 favourites, no doubt due to their relatively easy group and vast experience of grinding out results. It’s a really open competition this year however with the likes of France, Portugal and Spain all fancied to do well. Who are you putting your money on? My personal punt is Spain at 6/1 second favourites, although given their previous propensity for choking at major tournaments they aren’t for the faint hearted.

Golden Boot Betting

Predicting the top scorer is always popular and Euro 2008 has plenty of hotshots to choose from. The good news is that Betfair currently have no player at less than 9/1, with Christiano Ronaldo the predictable favourite after his amazing year in the Premier League. No less than 10 players come in at under 16/1 however so lots of options. My long shot here is Michael Ballack at 33/1. He takes penalties for Germany and has a superb scoring record, which taken together with his late season form for Chelsea have to give him a chance.

Individual Match Betting

Obviously with a match pretty much every day for the duration of the tournament there are lots of opportunities to have a flutter on each game. Betfair provide daily odds on each fixture so you can have a tipple really easily. They also give you £25 free when you sign-up, so it’s a nice free bet for you, especially with the 3,000 odd points you get from us for signing up Within each game you can bet on all sorts of things, from the number of corner kicks to how many yellow cards the ref will dish out.

Relax and Enjoy

Laithwaites have some great deals on wine and beer for the championships (plus you earn mega points for buying via MutualPoints) so sit back and enjoy the football, safe in the knowledge that no tears will be shed when we lose on the inevitable penalty shoot-out this year, you can revel in the glory and misfortune of others instead.

With none of the home nations to support the field is wide open. So, who are you back this year?

Not in the traditional sense however. An Indonesian man caused a stir this week when he flew over Serang city in Indonesia and scattered some £5,400 from his plane onto the sportsfield below.

It was all done to promote his new self help book and crowds gathered below in anticipation as rumours of the stunt circulated the town.

Mr Tung, 42, admitted his scheme was a little “crazy”, but said he wanted to create “a rain of money” over Jakarta.

You can see a video of the stunt here on the CNN website.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/06/01/money.drop/?iref=mpstoryview

Now then, hands up who wants their MutualPoints cheque delivered in the same way?

As part of our growing desire to go green here at MutualPoints towers we’ve teamed up with free donation website EcologyFund.com. EcologyFund are one of the pioneers of free donation websites, that essentially donate money on your behalf to a variety of causes. All you have to do is view the sponsors adverts.

Since their inception EcologyFund have protected over 50,000 acres of rainforest land. Pretty impressive I think.

Join the MutualPoints team

Another nice thing about EcologyFund is that they let you track how much you’ve saved. We created a MutualPoints team to allow all MutualPoints members to club together and see how much good we can do collectively.

How to register as a member of the MutualPoints team

Joining the team is simple. Visit EcologyFund and register your details. You’ll then be taken to this page

You can see in the top left hand corner of this screen the ‘join groups‘ link. Scroll down there until you see the ‘businesses‘ category. We’re down there in the M’s under MutualPoints.

Click the join link and that’s it, you can start saving rainforest for free. You can do one lot of clicks per day, and they save around 100 square feet each time so it soon adds up.

You know that Nationwide bank advert with the tubby bloke who works for some hideous, blood-sucking financial institution that’s out to rip off its customers at every twist? We like him a lot for two reasons. Firstly he’s fat and jolly which is a winning combination in any situation that requires a lightening of the mood. Secondly he tells the truth, straight up, no bull. He works for a nasty old corporate money-making behemoth and no doubt earns a crummy salary while his company squirrels away millions of pounds of other people’s money every day. He doesn’t get bitter about it though. He knows he can’t beat the machine, but he won’t let it beat him. He stays chipper and maintains his own integrity by telling customers exactly what’s what, thus enabling them to make a fully informed decision as to whether they wish to patronize his company with their custom.

Naturally they invariably decide against it, like the woman who can barely contain her contempt when our girth-blessed friend explains the need for free-flowing champers at the shareholders’ meeting. So off she toddles round the corner to Nationwide, another vast cash farm that apparently has your best interests at heart but doesn’t have anyone nearly as honest on the front desk to talk you through the many ways they can potentially make money off you.

All of which helpful ranting leads us indirectly onto the news that the Office of Fair Trading has finally stepped in to ask a question the rest of us have been asking for effing years. Namely how come in the information age where data can be disseminated globally in a matter of seconds it still takes banks three to five working days to transfer money from one to another. Well, as you’ve probably worked out for yourself, it doesn’t. They just throw your money into a kind of monetary holding pattern in order to earn interest which tots up to a not inconsiderable £30 million or so a year. Not a bad return for doing sod all but causing the customer inconvenience. It’s the same basic principle as the dodgy cabby who picks up the unsuspecting foreigner and drags them all over the back of beyond before finally delivering them to their destination later than necessary and charging them extra for the privilege.

The banks for their part have rolled up their sleeves with the sheepishness of little boys caught red handed in the midst of nefarious deed-doing and accepted a sharp whack across the wrist while pledging to end this shoddy practice once and for all. From today (27 May) all money transfers from Barclays, Citibank, Clydesdale, Yorkshire, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Northern Bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland will clear within a maximum of a couple of hours. Ironically Nationwide will not be coming on board with the changes right away. Perhaps if you pop into a branch some helpful soul might be able to explain to you why not.

The latest figures from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index reveals that poor weather conditions appear to boost online clothing sales whilst driving people away from the high street.

Poor weather this spring appeared to have encouraged online shoppers to spend over £300 million on clothes and online footwear sales saw a significant growth in sales of 20%. These figures drew a sharp contrast to sales on the high street – The British Retail Consortium reported that clothing and footwear fell further to their worst for at least 8 years.

Even in light of the looming credit crunch, the online clothing sector is still growing at a high rate. Of notable interest, shoppers are turning to the internet when making more personal underwear purchases – the Index has seen online year-on-year sales for lingerie rise by 72%.

According to Julia Reynolds, Chief Executive of, MutualPoints favourite, Figleaves.com: “The lean and fit will survive the credit crunch. Our experience tells us that retailers with strong brand values and a clear target customer will stand out during an unsure economic environment. To introduce changes in fashion seasons online, e-tailers need to communicate with customers what’s new and use various marketing methods, for example email alone is no longer sufficient.”

So does this apply to you, the humble MutualPoints member?  Does bad weather encourage you to shop online in preference to the high street?

The rapid explosion of the internet into British life has been underlined by a survey showing that almost 60pc of Britons spend at least five hours online each week.

The finding is one of several in 21st Century Life Index, a BT report into the future of technology which found that shopping and banking are two of the chief reasons why Britons are logging on in increasing numbers.

According to the survey, conducted in association with Ipsos MORI, 41pc of Britons will shop online this year, up from just 2pc a decade ago. Of more than 1,000 people questioned, 40pc said online banking was a reason they logged on.

The BT 21st Century Life Index is set to be released in full in the next few months.

How much time do you spend on the Internet?  What kind of activities do you perform when you do log on?

The bank holiday weekend has already been admonished with the usual headlines in the nations press

Bank Holiday getaway… straight into traffic - Telegraph

Road chaos warning over weekend - Press Association

Traffic And Rain Loom For Bank Holiday - Yahoo! News

All in all it’s a pretty dire picture painted for the coming weekend. So what can you do to ensure your long weekend goes off with a bang rather than a whimper?

How about a trip to sunnier climes?

LastMinute.com have some super deals for the bank holiday weekend. For instance you can fly to the Costa Brava for just £348 all inclusive, and don’t forget you would earn 3.25% reward for that booking too. If the sunshine doesn’t do it for you, how about a trip to St Johann in Austria for just £199.

DIY - the old faithful

It wouldn’t really be a bank holiday without some DIY, and with the weather set to be so grotty it makes sense to stay in and spruce up the abode. Screwfix have some smashing deals to celebrate the bank holiday, with £50 off garden power tools, £100 off power tools and up to 50% off hand tools. Add in the 2% cashback you receive by shopping via your MutualPoints link and there are some bargains to be had.

They’re just a couple of ideas to make the bank holiday weekend a good one. What are your plans for the coming weekend? If you’re reading this after the bank holiday weekend, what did you get up to?