quote:

---

Today we sit and watch as the high-rolling gamblers and critics of "big government" take welfare. These are many of the same people who thought it was just fine to deprive millions of women of critical resources and let them fend for themselves.

---

quote:

---

Thousands of bank staff unemployed by the collapse of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers can now find out for themselves after the West End impresario offered them free tickets to his two West End productions.

Under the offer, anyone who loses a City job in September is entitled to a pair of free tickets to see either Lee Mead play the title role in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat or Summer Strallen, the former Hollyoaks actress, star as Maria in The Sound of Music.

The only condition: that they present a P45 - the document issued to sacked staff - dated after September 1. Tickets are only available for performances from Monday to Thursday.

Lord Lloyd Webber, who recently revealed he will not produce a BBC1 talent show in 2009, said that he hoped his "feel-good shows" would cheer the bankers "albeit for a couple of hours".

"Free tickets might offer some respite for some of those people who have sadly lost their jobs," he said.

---