Ex Lion Tamer

The story is a bit unclear in explaining the methodology, but as far as I can tell they had to estimate the number of houses covered and relied on "contradictory" and "incomplete" data to guess their values. And yet their results are held up as a really reliable figure. There will have been multiple points where they will have had to make decisions which could have made the end figure higher or lower. And of course they would choose the ones that make it lower. When it comes to working with that sort of in-depth data work I would only trust independent policy researchers with substantial research qualifications, not a bunch of estate agents. I would admit Labour has an incentive to over-estimate, but they will at least be held to account if they fail to reach their target. And the point I probably should have made in the first place was even if it only makes £1bn, that's still worthwhile.

Surely you can see that the people who did that research and who are quoted have a massive vested interest in trying to discredit the mansion tax?

For three years he's been criticised for not having any policies. I think it's great that he's now got some. And ones that will help the ordinary public too.

It was a monumentally stupid thing to say. Sadly I think he probably believed it. Even very clever people get things very wrong when they get caught up in group-think.

Indeed. I would admit that Blair and Brown deserve some blame for not regulating the banks enough (although lets not forget that it was an international crisis). But I don't think that necessarily tells us anything about the Labour Party now. As a party of the left, Labour is more likely to have learnt the lesson of getting too close to the bankers, compared to the Tories who are instinctively closer to business interests. The Tories are funded by wealthy businesses magnates, for a start.

Good job the Tories have learnt the lesson and aren't stoking a new housing bubble

They're all chums with the bankers, the Tories as much as Labour under Blair/Brown. Labour just happened to be in power at the time. Tories would have done nothing different.

I think the argument is that if a suspect is named then it encourages witnesses and and other victims to come forward. I can totally see the counter argument however that people's lives are being ruined by false accusations.

Awful today and most of the time for us to be honest. However, when/if he realises that he needs to pass rather than taking on the man every time, he will be a good player. It's decision making rather than talent and he ought to be able to learn

This is the fundamental difference of opinion. You see Britain and its wealth as 'ours' to be hoarded whereas others see that the planet is everyone's and we should share everything in it. The way I see it we don't work any harder than people overseas, we were just fortunate enough to be born in a country that many years ago managed to build up its economy, education systems etc whereas other countries are held back for a variety of reasons, usually lack of education, poverty etc. If people in other countries are trying to bend the system in order to get a share of the cake, then fair play to them. We have an obligation to share our good fortune with others.

- It's assuming guilt even if the wording is careful to say 'suspected' - if you were wrongly accused of shoplifting would you want your arrest plastered all over Twitter by the authorities? - Why doesn't the Home Office do this for other crimes? Why is illegal immigration so terrible that it warrants public shaming? - As a civil service department, the Home Office is supposed to be politically neutral. So why has it adopted the inflammatory rhetoric of the Conservative party? - I don't see illegal immigrants as bad people. They have mostly come from places with extreme poverty and are just trying to make a tolerable life for themselves. Sure we have immigration rules and they need to be enforced, but parading around suspects and demonising them is unnecessary and undignified.

I didn't have that big a problem with the go home van but the recent tweets from the home office are extremely distasteful. Eg So much for innocent until proven guilty.

Try reading this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/voluntary-sector-network/2013/may/02/good-charities-admin-costs-research So basically around 10% of your donation goes to 'admin costs'. Note that admin costs is not the same as executive salaries, it includes all staff salaries, offices space, equipment, etc.

If you want your donations to be spent wisely and effectively, you need talented people to manage it. Large charities are huge complex organisations. They pay the market rate that it takes to attract people with the right capabilities to do the job. These people could make much more money in the private sector, and accept much less in order to do good work. Ok it's still a lot to us, but that's what the market dictates. Charities would spend our donations less effectively if they didn't have the right calibre of staff. People talk about their donations being paid to huge salaries, but that's exactly what happens when you buy any good or service. Why is it right that if you buy food in Tesco, you aren't just paying for the food but for the CEO's £6.9m salary. Food selling is essentially a public service as we all need it and yet it is somehow different to organisations trying to help people. Time and again the private sector gets a free pass but organisations working to make the world better are expected to run on a shoe-string (or, more accurately, more of a shoe-string than they already do). PS I don't disagree with some of the comments on this thread about aggressive fundraising, I think it is dangerous for their reputations, although I can see why they are desperate to keep their services running.

Either you are vastly overestimating the amount charity CEOs earn, or you are vastly underestimating the amount FTSE directors earn. The highest paid earner at Oxfam earns between £100,000 and £110,000 (page 57): http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Accounts/Ends18/0000202918_ac_20120331_e_c.pdf Top 100 FTSE earnings average at £4m: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/9657120/FTSE-100-directors-enjoy-27pc-pay-rises.html

Yes, believe it or not, Britain wasn't/isn't the only country in the world to have a welfare state. Plenty of countries without empires have managed it

I'd seen it before and it is a scary and quite entertaining (if overlong) piece. I wouldn't take it seriously though. As the response article says, it's something that has been written by their marketing team rather than proper economists, and is littered with poor assumptions/practices. If I was in their editorial team, I would be embarrassed that they have put that out. It does seem to be doing the job of raising publicity, but at the expense of the magazine's reputation.

I think it's because we've had so few genuine box to box midfielders in recent years. It was exciting to have a midfielder who would get into the penalty box and he gave us an added dimension when, as good as Cork, Morgan and Hammond were, they weren't that sort of player

I know I'm late but this is an excellent post. For all the perceived benefit of preventing terrorists there will be innocent people whose lives will be badly affected

It's the old debate of public vs private. Yes, public services like RM are badly run, but for all the efficiency of the private sector you will find prices rising and minorities not being supported (i.e. remote locations will find themselves without a postal service because it isn't profitable)

Chelsea quickly turned round their reputation from an ok upper mid table team to a major player. The thing is though it takes billions to do it. As Chelsea have found, it is very difficult to adopt a sustainability model and still be at the top. We will need more than the Liebherr millions if we are to really change the club and become a top team.

You can argue that it is necessary to monitor everyone's email in order to prevent terrorism, but to not even tell anyone you're doing it is massively undemocratic. Suffice to say I am not of the opinion that he would have tried to save Bin Laden. It's completely different and I don't really know why you would think it is the same. Bin Laden was one very dangerous man whereas millions of innocent people around the world are not terrorists.

'Betrays his country' is pretty subjective. His country betrayed its people by keep a massive programme of surveillance secret from them.

The UK is a representative democracy, which means we elect politicians who then make decisions for us. This is better than direct democracy i.e. referendums on everything because, let's be honest, the general public doesn't have much of a clue about most issues, let alone the complex pros and cons of the European Union. If people care that much they can vote for UKIP. Some will, but probably not enough.

I think the problem is the media fanning people's instinctive misconceptions. The current government isn't doing anything to try to educate people however, because these misconceptions fit with their agenda. They prefer to capitalise by introducing caps on immigration and benefits rather than educating people about what is best for the economy or necessary for people on the breadline. Labour has been guilty of this too, for example when ignoring scientific evidence and changing cannabis back to class B, because it was worried about public opinion. But at least that wasn't a serious economic matter. And of course there was the Iraq war lies which is worse really but slightly different because there wasn't a pre-existing prejudice among the public.