I do not say this in my defense, but, again, I was empty of schemes.
As young unemployed people under a Tory government that wants to demonise and scapegoat us for the consequences of a global economic crisis, Polly Toynbee's article (These empty apprenticeship schemes are failing our young, 9 February) exposing the hollow nature of the work programme is a welcome one.
"We have found that it only takes a handful of owners to move into an area and start investing in property to change the atmosphere from being down-and-out to up-and-coming," says David Ireland OBE, the chief executive of the Empty Homes scheme.
The £3m project in the Cobridge area, funded by the government's Empty Homes Scheme, mainly involves two-bedroom terraced properties.
It was controversial, but when axed by the incoming coalition government left communities in limbo, with boarded up properties sitting empty and regeneration schemes halted.
Little girls in pastel Sunday dresses play hopscotch on empty sidewalks, while schemes are hatched, scores are settled, and feuds simmer in dank Irish bars, wilting clapboard row houses and, most of all, the State House.
In continents with bigger, emptier spaces, reclamation schemes may aim much higher.
It is holding an open day on Friday in St Austell to provide more information about the Empty Property Loan Scheme.
As it was in the earlier bailout, we can anticipate that the rescue operations will be legislatively merged as the FDIC coffers are emptied and new schemes are invented to assist powerful depositors -- Arab sheiks, Asian corporate czars, etc. -- whose accounts total more than the guaranteed 100 thousands dollars.
It is tempting to dismiss George Osborne's whole scheme as empty rhetoric – tempting, but too hasty.
