pap

I enjoyed Bear's preview too.

Fk me mate, what do you do in the week that makes Jeremy Clarkson entertaining? Testing anal dildos for people with splinter fetishes?

Please stop having a go at Brendan Rodgers. He seemed like a lovely chap when I bought that crate of snake oil from him. Undercharged me too.

Perhaps I'm over-simplifying, but ultimately, we're a society of law with a mechanism to change such law. I think it's entirely unreasonable that the working tax take is being paid as housing benefit to working people to support something that by dint of these hoops we've jumped through alone, is unsustainable. I know people get awfully worried about their property prices and suchlike when rent controls are mentioned, but realistically, what is the alternative? Pay the rent of others forever just to sustain the unsustainable under conditions of austerity? There are better uses for that money than attempting to satisfy the banking system's avarice, and given the banking industry's cavalier attitude to the integrity of the system in the past, they should probably do their part in sorting out people who've been left in negative equity as a consequence of all the credit that was shat out into the market, enforced by government if need be. As I keep telling people, it's all made up anyway.

Fk me, mate. Are you implementing the "Gotham" style guide?

Lordy, bletch - there are other levers I'd like to pull first. I think you'd need to make housing affordable before setting any minimum wage, otherwise we'd be as uncompetitive as we are now. Why set a rate that pays a slum landlord £1000 a month when the value of the property has been artificially inflated through under-supply and the overabundance of credit in the mid-2000s. The UK is presently poor value for money. The average worker cannot afford to live, largely through the inflated cost of housing - this is why everyone ends up paying through the likes of Working Tax Credits and Housing Benefit, which let's not forget, is mostly paid out to the working poor and effectively a subsidy to the banks and/or the corporations, whichever way you want to look at it. In an ideal world, a salary should be enough to cover housing expense, and if it isn't - then we need to determine why that is. I'm not a fan of raising the minimum wage to bring it in line with the lofty expectations of the banks. It ultimately only creates more debt somewhere and will make the UK uncompetitive in the global economy. I'd instead like to see legislation aimed at bringing the cost of housing down, rent controls effectively, before setting any hard figures on how much it costs to live. If Government can mandate sensible pricing that allows people more of the rewarding life we all seek, and we know that it costs (say) £60 a week for a 1 bed flat, then it's a ton easier to arrive at a minimum wage figure. Under the rules of the free market, I've still got my finger in the air.

If I wanted to snipe, I'd use high-grade ammunition, not these harmless pea-shot puns. Thing is, if you dispense with wilful witlessness, most problems can be solved. Most recall mechanisms require a percentage of the citizenry to sign a recall petition. If that's successful, then they can vote to trigger the removal of the representative. Could a dumb populace be motivated into triggering endless recall elections? Sure, if you set the threshold too low or have a particularly pliable public. However, if you set the threshold to a level that suits both the public and the representatives can live with, democracy can be strengthened without entertaining endless politically motivated recall agendas. Or if you do, you have a significant proportion of the population that wants them out, and who are we to argue? When you were gleefully stuffing the straw into the chest of this insoluble scarecrow, did you ever consider why politicians are recalled? Serious wrongdoing is at the heart of many. Jonathan Aitken got banged up in 1995, yet only lost his status as an MP when he lost his seat in 1997. In the spirit of generosity, I'll concede that recall could weaken democracy if the scenario you pose, unending political upheaval because politicians are constantly being recalled, develops. I think you can probably work around that and that it's worth doing so. Far better than the current situation, which with the recent fixed five year terms, gives an MP five guaranteed years of immunity from the sack before having to be accountable to his or her employers. Nice work if you can get it.

So you'd deny the electorate the opportunity to recall a corrupt politicians because corrupt politicians might abuse the system? Timinishing returns.

I am in favour of one flat rate of tax to be paid by all. Progressive taxation sounds super in theory, until you realise that we also have a ton of regressive taxes which the poor end up paying a lot of. One would assume that luxury goods would form part of bletch's handbook to a rewarding life and future happiness. That'll be 20% on top of whatever it costs, which is inflated because of all the fuel duty the vendor spent getting it here. Beer, cigs and all the other little luxuries are all heavily taxed - and this is all against the very real backdrop of wages simply not being high enough. If they were, then corporate subsidies like Working Tax credits wouldn't exist. Regressive taxation undermines most of the stuff we're trying to achieve with progressive taxation, and the usual arguments for stuff like VAT simply don't wash. It isn't a means of making money from the non-domiciled; anyone from outside the EU can get the lot back. It's money for nothing, and no value has been added from a consumer perspective. I would sooner have one simple, honest figure to pay for everyone - individual, small business or large corporate. Progressive or no, I reckon the real tax burden for the working Brit is approaching or exceeding 50% when you add up all the indirect stuff. Just be honest about it, tell us what we have to pay and give us the confidence to spend the rest.

Well, it's an interesting post, if only for the points you acknowledge. I'm glad to hear that you think we no longer have a balanced media. I completely agree, btw. Step number one would be to empower the likes of the ASA to call bullsh!t on referendum lies. The electorate were told babies and soldiers would die if they demanded that their MPs required a 50% threshold, and they believed it. I don't know how you can equate the right of recall with the sabotage of democracy. When practiced elsewhere, it usually requires a certain threshold of the electorate to vote to recall an MP. Perhaps you'd like to explain how an electorate being able to shift manifesto-breakers goes against the principles of democracy, or would even damage it. Absent any strawman scenario you invent, I don't see the general problem.

Good work, bletch. We've only had our new home phone for a year. Evidently, the previous bloke's name was Kitchen, so people call up and say "Hallo, is Mr Kitchen there?". I stopped replying "he's down speaking with Mr Hall" right now after a couple of calls. Got boring.

On this "trolls" business, and at the risk of starting yet another conspiracy theory, how many have actually been named and tracked down? The entire McCann saga has been typified by the amount of chaff or noise thrown out. How many possible suspects have been identified by the UK investigating authorities so far? Everyone but the McCanns and their friends, isn't it? What makes it really sickening is that people donated money to that fund (it is NOT a charity) with the expectation that all the money would be used to find Madeleine, and that the McCanns would employ the best people to bring that about. A good part of the money has been spent on various court cases (such as the Amaral libel trial) and when they have hired private detectives, they've ostensibly gone for the dregs of the industry. The organisations they used have all been identified as fraudsters or chancers. I would not be surprised if the vilest of some of these trolls weren't batting for the McCanns. You can see the effect here; even KRG is focused on vile internet trolls and not the disappearance of Madeleine. Chaff.

You've demonstrated the folly of relying on your usual non-argument winner. You've clearly not considered the problems, or like me, you'd have immediate suggestions on how the democratic deficit might be overturned. I think we can both agree that the issue is a lack of democratic accountability beyond the general election. There is presently no means for the electorate to remove a sitting MP, as we saw during the expenses scandal. The right to recall a sitting MP should be high on the list. Next up we've got electoral reform, and the disenfranchisement of voters in approximately 500 of our 650 seats. The millions that lack any sort of similarly-leaning Westminster representation at all. The Conservative in Knowsley, the socialist in the home counties. These people may as well not vote. The political parties certainly only give a crap about the marginals, which means that the balance of power for the whole fúcking country is decided by people that are known for switching their vote. As a final appetiser, I'd have referendums on the big stuff, like whether we go to war or not. We have repeatedly gone to war on dodgy or fabricated evidence, and the British public at large have to bear the consequences. That should be a decision for the people, not professional politicians. Not a complete solution, but a few ideas that could immediately address some of the biggest problems with representative autocracy.

Elections are there to provide the illusion of choice and give the teeniest veneer of legitimacy to whichever elected dictatorship happens to be in power. I used to think that the checks and balances of the media and public opinion would prevent governments from doing anything really stupid. The Iraq war and its aftermath ruined the peace of that comfortable lullaby.

The apathetic don't say much. I don't remember anyone at the time saying it was the absolute, right thing to do - except the parts of government that didn't resign over it.

The cost is borne by the tax payer. You'll get no argument from me that lives > money, but the general point is that the public, at best, has very little direct control over what its money is spent on.

No-one is saying that. However, the political system is a combination of representative democracy and the occasional bit of mob rule that forces wary parties to do a u-turn. When you've got 2m people marching against war and a government that is hell-bent on ignoring them anyway, then questions about where the tax take goes is extremely relevant, particularly as that action has endangered this country for decades to come, which of course, will attract further cost as we seek to insulate ourselves from the many more people that would now do this country harm. To your point, maybe we could move to one of the lawless fúcking hellholes this country has created.

I'm not actually into UFO research myself, but neither would I feel qualified to dismiss it. Armed forces around the world have either hired a lot of hallucinatin' fúcking fruitcakes and Walter Mitty type characters, or you've got to give the numerous accounts of various military personnel some credence.

What if they evolved without shovels, eh? No natural defence.

Well, put it this way. If he'd put anything untrue in his video, he'd have had the McCanns legal team on his arse. It has been six months, and nothing has emerged. He was incredibly canny in sticking to the official interviews, dog evidence and information that is already in the public domain. If it makes any difference to you, I saw exactly the same kind of comment from posters on the main Madeleine McCann discussion forums. They were all as skeptical as you, and have almost unanimously stood behind the content. The information on detective agencies was brand new, so many of them also felt that the series of films added to existing knowledge. Now if it can pass muster with people who've been researching the topic for years and isn't the subject of any legal action whatsoever from the litigious McCanns, it's probably worth your time.

If Jeremy Clarkson was a passenger in a long car journey, he'd be the pube-headed kid in the back, pushing his knees into the driver's seat, just enough to annoy, just restrained enough not to turn the car into a mangled wreck. This is what you love and adore. Simple button pushing to please simple-minded masses.

Same Richard D Hall. Different subject matter. Which Gemmel have we got this year?

After the Mackay thing, think Vincent Tan needs benefit of the doubt. Yes, yes, I know he changed the shirt colour.

I remember a campaign a few years ago in which rich people were donating more to the tax take than they needed to. I'm sure it'd be on Upworthy now if the story was released today. It's quite an interesting story, but even if I were super-loaded, I don't know that I'd pay into it. The problem for me is that I'd never have any confidence that it'd be going to the right things. How much money have we spent on foreign interventions in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and soon-to-be Syria? Next question. Did we spend it wisely? All four places are incredibly fúcked up; Libya is now one of the most dangerous countries on Earth, sparking a migrant crisis that has killed tens of thousands. I agree with Lord D to an extent. We're a big country population wise. HMRC collects a lot of revenue, but it's a black hole of debt and war thereafter. In 1992, when it looked like Labour were going to sweep the already hated Conservatives out of power, my nan told a seventeen year old me "Don't get your hopes up, son. I've seen governments change for decades. Very little changes for you and me". With twenty-odd years of my own experience in the bag, that advice doesn't look any less sound. We're now at a point where we don't really have multiple horses in a political race, just different jockeys who promise they're riding the horse in a different way. Yet the horse makes the same jumps regardless. Selling off private industry, getting into more debt and more war, neighing loudly that this is the only track it can run. Stick a red rosette or a blue rosette on it. The results are the same.

Hehe. 29"L actually quite hard to find, and I don't do fold-ups. Back of most of my jeans are wrecked.