pap

I imagine that somewhere in Surrey, an additional head is hung in shame.

If only it were that simple, Whitey G. Many parents are babies themselves, kids have been put on pedestals and people have lost the art of raising kids collectively. Even at my ripe young age, I could expect to catch some sh!te off my neighbours if I was misbehaving as a kid. 99% of the time, my mum would agree with them.

Of course they would. They see all the worst cases.

I do think kids are a lot poorer than those of my generation. I had my old dear around to look after me 24/7. We seem to have more and more dual income families now, something we bucked the trend on. You make two mistakes here, if I may be so bold. First, an iPhone/TV isn't a parent. Second, they are nowhere near a widespread as you might imagine. My friends who work for social services think they have it pretty hard done by.

C'mon now. At least I qualify my points

So you're privately educated, earn plenty yet cannot find 15% of £160,000? Are you as good at making points as you are at managing money?

The huge deposits are only required because of the huge house prices, which help-to-buy will help to perpetuate. As I said before, I've no issue with this policy being used for new build. The theory goes that if we build enough, supply and demand laws should kick in, allowing access to affordable housing long-term. In a wider sense, it's all boll*cks anyway. When you sign up for a mortgage, it's not like you've just taken a huge stash of cash from some big pile somewhere. Your signature creates the money in the system. Your repayments make it real. Quite a cosy arrangement if you run a bank. However, if you asked me to lend you £160K and I just printed it out and gave it to you, I'd be done for counterfeiting

Sorry mate, this is nonsense. They've made poor choices throughout when it comes to personnel. I refer sir to the case of Jeremy Hunt, unfit to be Culture Secretary so gets a promotion to Health Secretary. You could also go with Andy Coulson, employed at Number 10 despite being personally tarred. Michael Gove is another candidate. Some would argue that they've made poor choices in relation to this policy. The new build part, I can understand. We need new housing stock. A discount to prop up an over-inflated market? No thanks, and if you do want to sell it to normal people, probs best to use someone who doesn't have a professional conflict of interests with the policy at hand. What's Cameron's next trick? A Through The Keyhole style visit to an MP's gaff, showing us all the new gold baths they can buy with their salaries?

I think the strongest question that the OP asks is "Could they have picked someone better?". Quite clearly, they could have.

You're really going to have to provide some context for those links, skip. One of the big counter-claims is (shock horror) that it's a company car, mentioned in the OP. The evidence in the articles' favour is also an unreachable Twitter account. I agree with one of the commenters at on your second link:-

Something we've talked about quite a bit on here, and for once, a local connection. David Cameron has recently been seen in PR shots with Sharon Ray, a 30 year old Southampton mum who claims to have recently bought a property using the Help-To-Buy scheme. Ol' Dave might have picked up a better example. The young mum in question is sales director for Enfields estate agents, bought the property through her own estate agent, and has a 33K convertible BMW as a company car. Oh, and the property was bought in June 2012. Not sure if help-to-buy was even available for non new-builds back then. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/david-camerons-struggling-single-mum-helptobuy-poster-girl-purchases-own-145000-flat-through-her-estate-agency-firm-9041091.html http://legalaidandme.proboards.com/thread/8301/audacity-cameron-hypocrisy-help-buy?post-20923=undefined Is this really what help-to-buy is supposed to be about?

What, like riff-raff having to use food banks?

The cost of 100 failures of Cameron's government:- http://www.greenbenchesuk.com/2013/12/the-cost-of-cameron-100-worst-failures.html?m=1

Why are you apologising to me for? According to our forum BS-er, you and I are the same dude, dude.

I maintain a number of blogs which have comments enabled. How come everyone who sends me spam on these blogs sounds like Bearsy? Example:- "Hello my own loved one! I wish to declare that this informative article is actually astounding, good published and will include approximately all vital infos. I want to expert additional articles like this."

The MK Dons matches and Millwall ones have every right to stick out. That said, it was the 3rd goal against Coventry when I felt we were finally going up to Prem. I think I might have had a little cry at the time. Sorry, but we'd d!cked about for so much at the end of that season; should never have gone to the last day.

More likely a client-side edit of a web page followed by a screen-capture. Far easier than photo-shopping.

I will laugh at the irons in Currys. They are boring electrical appliances.

I can understand closures on the basis of economic necessity, but that's not what happened. This was a successful attempt to curb union power by taking out the industry underneath it. Even if you jump on-board with trousers' "means to an end" justification, and many will, putting any natural resource beyond use is pure vandalism and demonstrates the short-sightedness and vindictiveness of that government, which we are all reaping now. Further, Thatcher was prepared to spend big to achieve this. We've already covered the fact that Thatcher was prepared to sell the national furniture to finance the unemployment bill she'd bring about with these closures. What's lesser known is that in the months leading up to the confrontation, miners had all the overtime they could eat. Thatcher was stockpiling for the coming conflict. I'd be entirely unsurprised if she didn't agitate a lot of the problems to begin with; to make the problem insoluble by any other means. It was a pre-medititated strike, part vengeance for miners bringing a government to its knees before. The southern coppers who travelled North to give hidings to the miners after many of their their northern counterparts refused to comply didn't exactly cover themselves in glory either.

This treatment of Wilson vs Thatcher pit closure is ignorant at best, or as you suggest, lying through omission. It's characteristic of the same lack of depth you'll find in most Conservative arguments.

Like clockwork, the old Wilson vs Thatcher argument on pit closures. Also like clockwork, the complete omission of any sort of context, like the full employment we had in the 1960s, the fact that a lot of people didn't fancy being miners and that a lack of manpower was the motivating reason behind many of the proposed pit closures. Not really the same thing is it?

So, government flogs nationalised utilities to pay for politically-motivated closure of the pits, one of the few natural resources we have. I don't think you could f**k up energy security any more if you tried.

Like I said, not great Still, hats off to people who are inspired enough to convince a buxom blonde protagonist to walk semi-naked through the streets of Liverpool.

The acting's not great, mate. Baps somewhat compensate. Overall though, very cool, and proof that I definitely need to get out more. Pilfered and shared on FB. Sure the scousers will love it.

I've seen so many people f*cked up by drink with drink driving, physical addiction and violent rage. It isn't without its substantial downsides either.