pap

Raising fuel duty is a total disaster. Everything gets more expensive. People and businesses have less money to spend. Way to go, guys - that's how to stimulate an economy. Lord D - I like your posts but I do wish you'd refrain from diluting them with your hypothetical distaste for what Labour might have done. Your point about volume in the economy is completely correct though. Economies work when there is demand for stuff, and financial economies generate demand when people have cash to spend. Not going to happen with this budget, and why would it? It comes from a government who responded to the highest levels of unemployment in 17 years by gifting millions of free labour hours to multi-national corporations. One last thing, the abolition of the 50% rate when so many families are being hit is indefensible, but perhaps the only co-ordinated part of this budget. Fuel duty is going up, and those Bentleys don't half swallow the petrol.

On that note:- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17463207

So, are you a winner or loser from the new Budget? What about the top rate of tax going? The 40% tax threshold being lowered? The £61K cut-off on child benefit?

Rawrrrrrrr! Aaaaargh, etc.

Excellent win, and from the sounds of Radio Solent, a thoroughly professional job. Oh, and can we please stop using Carlsberg to express happiness in a situation? I could understand it if Carlsberg (the beer) was in any way good, but it isn't. We all know it isn't. Don't dilute the team's achievement by regurgitating the sh*t you swallow.

This is for TDD, our resident Football Manager failure. Download this tactic. Alas, I did not create it myself, but I am doing remarkably well with Saints on the latest patch. Won promotion by a mile in the first season AND the League Cup. Finished 6th in the Prem the next year, won both domestic cups.

Feck me, the dunebot must have had an upgrade. I was going to keep quiet but this is about the third post I've seen from you in recent days that I agree with, in spirit anyway. Credit where its due and all that. In practice, there are problems with this approach. Leaving aside the obvious disgust of Gibraltarians at being mobbed by hordes of inebriated English footy fans, football in places like Northern Ireland still carries the scars of sectarianism. While you'll get people from all communities shouting for their own favourite English side, association football teams in the North of Ireland have strong links to the Protestant part of the community. Most Catholics eschew local soccer in favour of Gaelic Football.

You should watch Battle Royale on Netflix. It too is about a load of schoolkids doing battle and offing each other, except it was made 11 years earlier and carries a 18 certificate - so I'm guessing slightly juicier than the 12A girl magnet arriving at the weekend.

She has always been Ms pap, and I think that I've been relatively consistent in referring to her as that, or the missus ( suppose that should be "the mssss" ). We are not married, thus she has not been downgraded in any way.

Ms pap does much the same thing, Bearsy. Liberty takers, one and all. I am pretty sure her line of reasoning is "it's 90 minutes of my life. If I watch this, perhaps the c**t will f**k off and leave me alone to watch a reality show". Unfortunately for Ms pap, I have pretty excellent taste. She claims that such things are crap, but invariably ends up marathoning more of the same. I refer the jury to the evidence collected during the recent Shatner Star Trek Films saga.

Think he's probably referring to the fact that Glasgow has an airport. But anyway, Celtic bleating about wanting to join the EPL is a bit rich given the history and the immediate future. The Scottish FA have always been ready to nix anything that might mean that they gain a British team at the expense of their own irrelevance. The question of independence means that there has never been a less suitable time to discuss Celtic's entry into the EPL, although I'd imagine Ranger's demise has much to do with the timing. Ironically, and despite the inherent tribalism, I've always seen football as a unifying force. Who knows what might have happened had they sorted all this out years ago.

Love your stuff, Chris. Another great article.

I was never a big fan of the Cowherds. It was one of the pioneers of a pub expanding its business into snacks and lunch, etc - something I always have a problem with. I like things to do one function and do it well, not take the hump when a drunk person spews on someone's steak.

The books are excellent, Phil. The only disappointment is that for the last couple of books, you only see half the characters in each (each chapter focuses on one character). Only problem with the TV show is that they skimp on the battles. They won't be able to get away with that as the story progresses.

This was three years, extended to five by the last government. After that, the owner is free to sell to whomever he or she pleases - discount intact. But there were ways around that:-

Oh, and as an aside - what happened to your mum's old place?

Assuming you are actually interested, check out this Guardian piece.

The objections centre on the outcomes, not the principle of being able to buy your own home. As for middle-class Tories getting no benefit from it, we'll have to disagree. As I said before, many of these houses were promptly sold to private landlords - middle class at least. Whether they are Tories or not, who knows - but let's not pretend that the only people to benefit from this are those who got to buy their own homes. We live in a country where we can't guarantee people a place to live, and where the high cost of housing is keeping people in poverty. If the aim is to get people onto the property ladder, surely dirt-cheap council housing is going to help in that. As for the policy's popularity - it's almost certainly going to be one of diminishing returns, simply because housing stocks aren't at the level they were 20 years ago. Couple of tweaks, and this legislation is good to go. Left at the mercy of property speculators, we're just going to exacerbate what is already a very acute problem.

How about not having enough money to buy a house?

Textbook right-wing "sounds great on paper" but given the sort of consideration one might assign to selecting a sandwich. I can buy the idea of people being able to buy their own homes, but a combination of a desire for perceived upward mobility and opportunism from chain landlords caused a lot of problems that we're paying for every day. They could, and should have included clauses in the legislation ensuring that the properties could only be sold to families intending to occupy them. The Flower Road estate has a bad name, but it was a genuinely nice place to live in the late 70s and early 80s. I attribute a lot of that to a lot of people being in the same boat. Everyone pretty much knew each other to talk to, and that sort of trust (or where appropriate, lack of) only really comes from continuity. No harm to the students that surfaced in the mid 80s, but it did change the character of the community. Worse, social mobility for those on Housing Benefit in houses owned by private landlords is worse than ever. As soon as either one gets a job with enough hours to hit the Housing Benefit trigger, they have to start paying market rates for accommodation and in many cases, will be a lot worse off. Where is the incentive to work? A working person in the same estate living in a house they rent from the council has much cheaper rent, much more incentive to work and a much better chance to save for a deposit. I don't begrudge people like TDD's mum for moving. Everyone should have a chance to buy their own home, and sell it if they wanted to move on. It'd work better if there were some safeguards in place to ensure that valuable family housing stock doesn't fall prey to the indifference of the market, taxpayers don't end up lining the pockets of private landlords in perpetuity, and a commitment to replenish council housing stock in line with demand. That didn't happen in the 80s - doubt it'll happen now. That housing stock was a solid earner for councils. Not only did they lose the rental income from those properties, but students don't pay council tax. Double whammy. Cap on housing benefits is a disgrace. It would be far fairer and cheaper to introduce rent controls, but the Government lacks both the nads and inclination. Some of them have good friends who are property tycoons.

As someone who lived on a council estate through this scheme, it was a disaster. Many people bought, then promptly sold their council houses to private landlords, who moved students in. Houses lie empty for several months a year, and are full of rotating strangers when they are not. Those houses are still in private ownership, but nowadays, more are rented out to families, many on Housing Benefit. So instead of just paying maintenance costs on the house, taxpayers now pay market rates so that families can live in houses that 40 years ago, they could have virtually lived in for free. Nice one, Maggie.

I meant to reply to this ages ago, but thanks for this contribution. One of the things I love about Football Manager is how most of the game takes place in your head. All my Reunionese players now have an exciting back-story where they fled on boats from the lava-laden Reunion to the relative safety of Eastleigh. Sadly, my dealings in Reunionese players have brought Eastleigh to the brink of financial oblivion. I got them into League 2, but have no squad and am shedloads ( £300K ) in debt. All the newspapers are speculating on which of my players will have to be sold first. Has anyone else ever taken a club into administration? I feel like the Harry Redknapp of the lower leagues!

Was at a live game last night. Finished in the top half of the main game, but well out of the money. Won the side game, which was interesting. My mate (and lift home) had just won his side game and was ready to go home, so for his sake, I started to play a bit looser. Latvian dude went all in pre-flop with pocket queens, I called with A-2. He never made his set and I caught an Ace on the river. Feck me, what a riot. He flew out of his chair, punched the wall, started screaming "I cannot f**king believe you called with Ace-Two!". Every other table in the place was looking at the chaos unfold, rapt in attention. We had a small time out to ease the tension, and he apologised to me for losing his rag. Then, when we got back in, he's still going on about it - shouting across the room to his Latvian mates about the A-2. I don't know much Latvian but I'm a quick learner Extremely funny - knocked the other guy out a couple of hands later. Great night, and wore my Saints replica shirt throughout. Represent, yo!

Test Cricket theme tune.

I'm all for gay people being able to get married in whatever institutions will agree to marry them. Court cases to force institutions like the Catholic Church to marry gay people would be wholly inadvisable, but that's not the point. It's about equality. It's about a bloke being able to introduce someone as his husband, and about a woman being able to say that someone is her wife - and that their commitment to each other is just as valid as a male and a female making the same promise. Interesting as this discussion is, I feel it's ultimately moot. Both my girls are at high school. They have friends, male and female, who have already come out. Their classmates are okay with that. Hopefully, we'll be the last load of dinosaurs to carry the homophobia gene.