aintforever

I disagree, I'm not talking about the super rich just people who are reasonably well off. Like I said, I earn way above the average and 'austerity' hasn't effected me in the slightest, if anything I'm better off because of lower mortgage payments and low inflation. I could easily pay a bit more tax and not even notice let alone have my lifestyle effected. Any home owner in a half decent job has probably been quids in whilst the poorest get clobbered by the government, those on benefits demonised and vital services cut. It makes no sense to lay off social workers and shut libraries and youth clubs when plenty of people are doing OK. There is easily scope for the deficit to be reduced in a fairer way which is why I think Labour is a better option. Unfortunately the greedy and the selfish will probably have their way.

I don't think we will come close to paying it off regardless of who is in government. Even by those rather optimistic guesses the debt will be knocking on to £2trillion before we even start paying it back. Any sort of sustained growth means an interest rate rise which makes paying it back even harder. The whole system is f*cked anyway, we are just treading water by printing **** loads of new money. Regardless of that I just think we can deal with debt by making the richer people pay more. I'm relatively well off and all 'austerity' has meant for me is lower mortgage repayments and lower inflation, I haven't been effected in the slightest yet many of our poorest are having really hard time and our services are in a bad state. Unfortunately people nowadays are just naturally greedy, there is more than enough money to go round so that everyone can live a half decent life.

Under the Conservatives our national debt has gone up by about £0.6 trillion to £1.36 trillion. That's £1360,000,000,000 (I think). How do you suppose we pay that back?

So if Labour are also making the same cuts what specific policy of theirs will ruin the economy?

What a vile viewpoint, I'm not surprised though, people today care more about money that other people, she says so herself at the end. Today's world is just sick with greed, greed is the new norm.

Wouldn't make any difference though would it? UKIP could still come second in every single constituency, get 25% or whatever of the vote, and still get no seats. While the SNP get to hold the balance of power with a fraction of the vote. Welcome to the crazy world of the FPTP system.

If a Labour/SNP coalition win by a nose then it might change many people's views on PR. It would certainly highlight how daft the FPTP system is, having someone who wants to break up the UK in the cabinet and a government more left wing than more than 90% of the country voted for.

I would love it if they made it to the Prem, much more interesting than Middlesbrough or Norwich again.

I'm not sure it will cost them up North, no left wingers up there are going to vote Lib Dem again. Might lose a few votes to the Greens but I doubt a lot. Any lost to SNP and the Welsh won't matter anyway because they will just form a coalition. You have to reach middle England to win and Ed's move from appearing loony left to mr moderate will only help. Wether that will be enough to get a cartoon character into no10 remains to be seen. I doubt it.

He is coming across better in this one.

Farage has a point on the supply/demand housing issue. Everyone else is ignoring the obvious.

It was a joke (poorly thought out one) made by someone else, it's nothing to do with Ed Balls. Being Ed Balls damages Ed Balls, that joke will not make the slightest difference to anything.

Ed Balls didn't even write the joke you dumb pr!ck.

No, but I find the fact that you take a joke so seriously hilarious. I do wonder about what sort of socially inept nob-heads frequent these message boards.

Someone made a joke, how shocking! You do get some complete ***ts on here.

Could do, but in my opinion the SNP, UKIP, Greens and Plaid Cymru have so far done a good job in making Labour look like a rational, middle-ground option.

To be honest I think people over-estimate the amount of power our government actually has to effect anything. Wether the Tories, Labour, Lib Dem, UKIP or whoever get into power it won't stop big business running the show. Any changes either way will be minor.

Attending emergencies has always formed a small percentage of a firefighters working day(around 5-10% of available hours),they have always carried out fire prevention work, training, routine maintenance and legislative inspections of public places. Like I said, the important thing in saving lives is response times, if they are effected by the cuts it will cost lives.

I think you will find that is part of the fire brigade's job.

Like I said, it's probably more about response times than workloads. For example could probably do away with all current fire stations and have one massive one based in Birmingham and cover the workload - except in Cornwall you would have an average response time of 4 hours. That would keep you Tories happy but wouldn't be an effective service for Cornwall.

Surely it's all about response times, not workload with the FB?

I heard from a good source that he was interviewed but didn't want the job.

Surely selling them off will just make a lack of social housing going forward? Seems daft to me.

Stranger things have happened but I can't see us catching them, not with 4 out of 6 away and City's run in not being too hard. One thing that could be in our favour is the fact we have nothing to lose. We can just go for it and enjoy the last 6 games knowing anything we get is just a bonus. Would be fantastic to go into the last game within 3 points of City and CL qualification in our own hands.

300 grand is more than enough for anyone IMO, people shouldn't be so greedy.