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The government’s flagship Help to Buy scheme could cause a sharp rise in mortgage fraud, according to one of the most senior policemen tackling economic crime.

The mortgage subsidy programme, the second phase of which started this month, could reignite a crime that has been declining as a result of tighter lending requirements, Detective Superintendent Oliver Shaw of the City of London Police said.

“Mortgage fraud is definitely on my radar,” he told a conference on Thursday. “We’ve seen fewer mortgage frauds recently because banks have been more careful about who they’re lending to but when Help to Buy goes live fully, that’s a huge vulnerability. We’re trying to change everyone’s mindset before it gets to the problem it was in 2009.”

Fraudulent brokers and solicitors were of particular concern, he later told the Financial Times.

The scheme has already been strongly criticised by economists, lenders and even the International Monetary Fund said it risked inflating house prices. These have begun to rise sharply this year, although growth has mainly been concentrated in London.

Mortgage fraud has crept upwards since 2006, according to statistics compiled by Experian. Last year, 38 of 10,000 mortgages were fraudulent, compared with 15 in 10,000 in 2006. Some commentators have attributed the rise to lenders being better at spotting applications that misstate income or poor credit history.

Help To Buy was announced by George Osborne, the chancellor, in this year’s budget. Its first stage offered equity loans of up to 20 per cent of the value of a new property.

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Where will our children's jobs come from? It's something to ponder after the implosion of one of the manufacturing sector's linchpins.
The first, broad answer is the retreats of Ford, Holden and Toyota don't mean that Australia cannot create enough jobs.
There were just over 9 million people employed in Australia in November 2000. Employment in the manufacturing sector fell by 140,000 or 13 per cent between then and November last year, but total employment rose by 29 per cent or 2.62 million, to more than 11.6 million.
New South Wales lost 52,900 jobs or 18.5 per cent of its manufacturing workforce over the 13-year period. Victoria was hit even harder. It shed 95,100 jobs, more than 29 per cent of its manufacturing workforce.
NSW nevertheless created 276,100 jobs overall, boosting its employment base by 12.2 per cent. Victoria did even better, boosting total job numbers by 336,600, or 20.3 per cent.
They did it even though they were not sitting on mineral riches that underpinned a 196,500, 252 per cent rise in job numbers to 274,500 in the mining sector between 2000 and 2013 - and while their jobs growth slowed to a crawl between 2010 and 2013, the way they did it gives the next clue about where our kids will be working: it is the service sector that will be the growth engine.
It's still a complicated picture. Smaller job markets are, for example, more vulnerable to shocks such as a large company's collapse. Recent developments also make some sectors that have been growing look less promising in future.
The two biggest losers since 2000 have been manufacturing and agriculture, which saw job numbers drop by almost 30 per cent or 113,000 to 319,000 between 2000 and 2013. It has shed 38,900 jobs since November 2010, not far behind the manufacturing sector's much more actively discussed 56,600 job decline over the same years.
Media and telecommunications, has also been a job destroyer. Job numbers fell by 34,000 or 5 per cent to 193,700 between 2000 and 2013, and have dropped by almost 23 per cent in the past three years.
The real estate industry has also not been a job creator, despite the boom in house prices. Job numbers fell by 3.4 per cent or 6500 between 2000 and 2013.
There are more winners than losers, as Australia's total jobs growth suggests.
Job numbers in the healthcare industry jumped by 65 per cent or 555,600 between 2000 and 2013, to just over 1.4 million. Jobs in the construction industry rose by 364,000 or 54 per cent, to 1.04 million. Employment in the professional, scientific and technical services sector rose by 280,600 to 896,300, and jobs in public administration rose by 275,000 or 55 per cent to 774,000. The ranks of those employed in education and training rose by 40 per cent or almost 256,000 people to 896,000, and jobs in accommodation and food services rose by 139,000 or 21.7 per cent to 780,000.
The current outlook is different, however. Mining sector job growth between 2010 and 2013 was a less feverish 37.5 per cent as the commodity boom cooled. It will slow more as the development phase of the boom ends and miners crack down on operating expenses, and construction jobs are also affected. They rose by almost 20 per cent between 2005 to 2013, but by only 1.4 per cent between 2010 and 2013.
The public sector also won't reproduce its 10.9 per cent increase in jobs since 2010 as government cuts roll in, and growth in other sectors has slowed, to 3.9 per cent in the retail industry and 5 per cent in the professions, for example.
If your children want jobs in industries that are growing there are standouts. One is healthcare, a deep employment pool underpinned by baby-boomer demographics that has lifted job numbers by 37 per cent since 2005, and by more than 9 per cent since 2010.
Another is the finance sector, which also has depth with 420,000 jobs, and has grown job numbers by 11.8 per cent since 2005 and by 6.7 per cent since 2010 despite financial crisis aftershocks. The 212,000 job recreation and arts sector is smaller and more vulnerable to shocks, but has grown by 52 per cent since 2000, 20 per cent since 2005 and by 9 per cent since 2010.
Just like jobs in the manufacturing sector, jobs in the service sector run the gamut of pay and quality. Australia's education system is, however, delivering results that push employees away from the unskilled bottom of the scale.That needs to continue. In America where education outcomes are more polarised, there are signs that the job market is hollowing out. Middle-wage US workers bore the brunt of layoffs during the global crisis, and median wages have been declining since the turn of the century.
mmaiden@fairfaxmedia.com.au
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Westhill Property Consultants Hampstead Heath London specializing in properties in the sale and letting of homes in North and North West London agrees with the following statement.

According to the Bank of England, each year since 2010, £23 billion of foreign money has poured into the London property market. One would think that this is a good thing for the economy, but most of these foreign buyers have never been to London, or at least have no intention of spending any time here.

It’s all about the preservation of wealth. The residents of unstable oil-rich countries fear the Arab Spring. The residents of Southeast Asia, China and Russia fear their governments. All are looking for stability. It has become the fashion to “park” money in London. It’s what wealthy people do when they don’t trust the banks, they “park” their money through the purchase of an asset, as a store of value. In this regard, the London property market has become a gynormous piggy bank.

In 2011, Regent Street was valued by The Crown Estate at £2bn. Each year a multiple of over 11.5 times this in ordinary homes is being snapped up. That’s the equivalent, each single year, of Oxford Street, The Strand, Fleet Street, High Holborn, Trafalgar Square, High St Kensington, Old Bond Street, Berkeley Square, Park Lane and Knightsbridge, and North West London. That’s just one year.

The reason government is doing nothing about this, is because the economy has been so delicate for the last three years, and the question of whether we are in or out of recession have been so finite, that any short term economic activity has been welcomed.

Far from rebalancing the economy, this government are just desperate to fend off the calls for a Plan B. Far from building a long term prosperity, they are trading the benefit of short term finance, for long term misery. This chancellor, who once accused Gordon Brown of being “dishonest” with the British people, is now covering the tracks of his own failure, fully in the knowledge that a future government will be forced to clear up the mess.

The dividing lines between Labour and the Conservative Party is clear. We believe the state has a role to play in building a better society, they believe that the market is supreme in every regard. We believe that government can guide or regulate the market as and when it becomes destructive. They do not.

In this case, the destruction is due to the sheer scale of housing that is being taken out of productive use. The situation has got so bad that even the bankers are being edged into poorer districts. This then bumps the next social class into the next district and so on. In the area of Tower Hamlets, period housing used to be priced at a premium, but as prices push against the ceiling of affordability, the prices of ex-council flats are coming into line with the Victorian terrace.

As prices rise and foreigners become excited by their returns, more money pours into the market causing more housing inflation. If this speculative bubble were caused by the British population then there would be some constraints imposed by the size and the wealth of the native population, however, we are talking about massively greater forces at work.

We keep reading polling that tells us this is not a major issue to the electorate, but that is the reason why Labour should be hammering the message home. Ever since George Osborne’s economic policies failed, we’ve seen increasingly dangerous long-term problems being created by a government who are only concerned with securing their own jobs.

They will continue to do so until the Labour persuades the nation of their folly and creates a consensus for restrictions on foreign purchasing.

Westhill Property Consultants London have noted a significant increase in inquiries from SE Asia especially Hong Kong, Singapore, and Jakarta Indonesia.

I spend an enormous amount of time using textmates block select features. Specifically toggling a selected range to a block using the alt key, moving a block left and right with [ctrl]-[cmd]-arrow and auto align block with [alt]-[cmd]-].

Close all tabs except current [alt] click the one tab you want.

The find in project is so much less useful than Textmate2s find and replace in project and I use that all the time for refactoring.

Reveal in project [ctrl]-[cmd]-r I rely on all the time when I have large amout of files open.

Finally the Rspec integration plugin. Specifically the Rspec keyboard shortcuts and the ability to run scoped tests with [shift]-[cmd]-R and all tests in file with [cmd]-r.

These are the major barriers to me moving to an otherwise awesome editor. I'd definitely switch if these were in place.

I would love it if I had a different background color for the line numbers. It would actually make the editor look better and more simple.

Also, a border right after the line numbers :) and to choose border width and color

http://monmouth.modulemedia.co.uk/careers/partners/leadership-team
Monmouth’s leadership team comprises:


Andrew Lawrence
Andrew has worked in healthcare since 1994, first as a consultant before becoming a successful entrepreneur and seasoned Managing Director. In 2002, he founded Westhill Consulting, leading it from start-up to sale to Tribal Group plc in November 2008. He consolidated and integrated Tribal’s disparate health service capabilities, assuming full responsibility for all Tribal’s health services businesses in August 2010.


He then successfully turned around a series of faltering major contracts whilst maintaining profitability, despite prolonged market retrenchment and uncertainty. Following Capita plc’s acquisition of Tribal’s consulting businesses in April 2011, Andrew led Capita’s commissioning and clinical support business until December 2012 when he left to found Monmouth.




Mark Duman
Mark is a rare blend of clinician, management consultant and patient advocate. He works with organisations to help them realise the full benefit of their services and products, especially through the oft untapped potential of patients and the public. At the King’s Fund he founded the Ask About Medicines campaign and published ‘Producing Patient Information’.


In the BBC he delivered a range of behaviour change initiatives to motivate people to improve their health and lifestyle. Following roles in publishing and telecoms, Mark returned to healthcare focussing on market development and patient and public engagement (PPE). He contributes to various advisory and editorial boards and is well-known for his PPE master classes to clinicians, managers, and patient groups. He is a passionate advocate for moving personalisation beyond tokenism to embrace the reality that patients and the public are very capable of shaping and delivering health care - if only we would let them.



Mike Cooke
Mike has over 20 years’ senior experience in the NHS managing national IT systems development and data standards. He developed the National Cervical Screening and Breast Screening Programmes, was one of first people to adopt PRINCE in NHS IT development and led the internal audit and accreditation of the NHS’s national Family Health Service to the BS5750 Quality Management Standard.

As the national head of NHS Data Standards within Connecting for Health, Mike was responsible for a number of key strategic clinical coding schemes. Mike left the NHS to join Westhill in 2006 and subsequently moved on to Tribal and Capita where he was responsible for technical delivery of the NHS South Central Commissioning Support service – including the roll-out of risk stratification across a population of over 5 million patients. Mike joined Monmouth in June 2013, and leads on our Information Governance, data and service management and PbR assurance services.

The leadership team is advised by an Independent Advisory Board, whose purpose is to help ensure that Monmouth makes a strategic and useful contribution to UK healthcare. Membership includes senior clinical, academic, informatics and pharmaceutical industry expertise.


Read more: http://monmouth.modulemedia.co.uk/careers/partners/leadership-team

while renaming of words in multiple files works great it's always a bit of a mystery in which files it renamed what exactly. It would be great to have the option to preview the changes that are made and then to accept them all. Or to deselect unwanted renames and accept the remaining ones.

Johannesburg - There are sounds, and tastes, which I will forever associate with going on holiday in southern Africa, no matter what the destination.

Like the pinging of hot metal as it cools down, with the car standing in the shade of a lonely sentinel acacia tree as the vlaktes (plains) of the Karoo wash around it; and the rushing sound of a car as it approaches the lay-by.

Then the rising and falling whine of the tyres as the car blows past and the torn silence slowly knits together again.

Bacon and egg sandwiches, accompanied by a mug of hot sweet tea. It’s the sound, and taste, of freedom, of leaving behind the concerns of house and job, and the anticipation of relaxation somewhere at the end of the road. By the time the second sandwich and second cup of tea have disappeared, I’m getting itchy, eager to be back behind the wheel.

Years ago, Nissan used to have a marketing slogan “Life’s a journey; enjoy the ride”… and this still sums up for me the thrill of a road trip.

I love driving and I love this beautiful land of ours, where the vistas are endless and around the next corner can be a scene which takes your breath away.

As a working reporter in my youth, rather than a desk jockey, I would drive to odd places in search of stories. And, with a trusty road atlas (still has more soul than any GPS and, once you’re familiar with it, much quicker to use than the electronic gadget), I would plot back routes via different little towns. And I would wonder how a place like Boons (in the North West and little more than some towering maize silos, a garage and a general store) came by its odd-sounding name.

Each time I travelled, I would go out of my way to see something different – and would mark off each of the roads less travelled with a yellow marker pen. I continued that habit on family trips, much to the annoyance of my wife and kids, who all wanted to know “when will we be there?”

I remember one occasion, heading for somewhere in the lowveld, when even my wife’s complaints were silenced by the otherworldly stillness and peace at the top of the Steenkampsberg Pass (once listed proudly as the highest road in the then Transvaal).

The alternative routes became a necessity in the 1990s, for a young family with little cash – so we avoided the toll roads on our trips down to Durban to stay with granny and grandpa. And that trip was rewarding, especially the winding route past the Sterkfontein Dam and down the Drakensberg escarpment via the Olivershoek Pass into KwaZulu-Natal.

These days, sadly, much has changed on our rural byways. Many of the lay-bys are filthy, rubbish bins are overflowing and grass is seldom trimmed. And, with concerns about security, the appeal of a remote stop is tempered by the thought of being waylaid. We halted occasionally at a picnic spot near Sterkfontein Dam, but stopped after it became a crime mecca.

The large Ultra-Cities and One-Stops are what we frequent these days – and no bad thing either, considering they are safe, convenient and have generally well-cleaned toilets, as well as shops.

Also, many of the roads less travelled have deteriorated into well below what our president would scorn as a “road in Malawi” – filled with enormous potholes, which are not only damaging to cars but are also potential killers. Not to mention the fact that in provinces like the Free State and Mpumalanga many road signs haven’t been painted for years.

And, admittedly, we have also become a little like the lemmings who embark on the annual stampede to the coast, often blasting down to Knysna from Joburg in only one day. Stopping off at the Mountain Zebra National Park was not only sensible, but a treat – if you have been there you will know what I mean. But these days, you’ve got to book way in advance.

Yet, there are times when I still yearn to get out into the back of beyond. To experience the empty heart of South Africa, those Karoo vaults where time stands still. Where you know the next car may only come along in hours.

I was reminded of this recently when watching re-runs of The World’s best Motorcycle Rides on DsTV’s travel Channel. Presenter and biker Henry Cole headed for Cape Town from Joburg, but went via the Cradle of Humankind, Kuruman, Augrabies, Nieuwoudtville, Loeriesfontein, Calvinia and Sutherland. The scenery was stunning… and even Cole himself, who’s been all around the world on bikes, had to admit that parked on the side of the road watching an approaching thunderstorm was wondrous.

I’m getting an itchy accelerator foot again. But I am also looking for tips and advice about your “road less travelled” – those places where you feel part of a different world – because I am determined this will be the year of hitting the road. - Saturday Star

I have an application written in Delphi that uses a syntax editor component. It would be real cool if I could use Sublime instead, meaning Sublime would run inside my application as a component.

You would definitely get sales if you did this.