pap

I have no political allegiance. I've never stuck with a single party, and have generally voted on the basis of manifestos. The Conservative Party are a joke. Time may prove me wrong on this, but I don't think they have the first idea of how to get the country out of the mire it's in. Most of their policies have been poorly thought through, they voted against an in/out referendum despite banging the anti-Euro drum to rouse their constituents - they created a lot of UKIP voters that day. No time for Labour either, despite being genuinely pleased in the '97 election. They might have been more socially oriented, but they made a lot of bad decisions, especially on foreign policy. The internecine factionalism didn't help either. Brownites and Blairites. Just run the f'kn country please. They won't get anywhere under Miliband. All my MP ever does is snipe tweets at the Tories. That's not effective opposition - that's shooting fish in a barrel. And finally, the Lib Dems. Complete chancers who promised everything to get power, delivered little when they did and have broken almost every manifesto pledge they've made. I voted for them in the last General Election. In hindsight, I should probably have remembered they way they turned on Charles Kennedy and Menzies Campbell to make themselves more electable. I now find it funny that that very 'electability' has ultimately destroyed them as a political force. Poetic justice. I voted UKIP in the last local election, btw.

Agree with you on the letter of the law, but you've still got casinos on Native American reservations and state lotteries exist inside states where gambling is officially banned. The Native Americans get away with it because they have a fair amount of sovereignty over their reservations ( they don't pay tax, for example ). You've also got the Wall Street factor, essentially gambling with higher rewards, better garb and more consequences for everyone if it all goes wrong. There are massive double standards at play.

I honestly don't think the Lib Dems are going to get a sniff at a split in the next election. A few die-hards maybe, but this coalition has made them witting puppets of the Conservatives, and has destroyed their credibility. The only way I could see them getting a bump is if they said "we've been done over, boys and girls" and made a principled exit from the Government.

Cameron would brick it if that happened. For that, and other reasons, I'm in.

US gambling law is a mess. How come it is generally illegal to gamble, but ok in places like Vegas, Atlantic City and all the Native American Casinos? What about state lotteries, or the people on Wall Street gambling on share prices and get bailed out?

You've got to wonder whether the Tory opposition to AV is going to cost them in the long run. I would imagine they would pick up a lot of UKIP second preference votes.

There's a reason we don't know this kid's name. He's a kid, and the justice system normally protects the identities of minors because, hey, they're just minors. I congratulate you for offering up a solution. Truth be told, I'd probably enjoy tossing a tomato at a tearaway - but I'd be a bit worried about his ability to be rehabilitated when the whole town knows him as a vandal.

The Lib Dems have been found out. They're a bunch of political opportunists who don't believe in anything. One thing you can say about UKIP is that you know what they stand for. Quite like Farage too - he routinely eviscerates his counterparts on Question Time and Any Questions.

Well, it's possible that the kid is actually super-educated and was going for the Hindu version of the symbol, which represents the sun's rays. Probably not, though. Dunno. Godwin's law is when discussions eventually reach the Nazis. The OP had a link to a poorly rendered swastika, so I'm not sure it applies.

The problem is perpetuated by people who moan about these things, yet do f*ck all to help address the problem. I doubt that any baby is born with an innate desire to deface war memorials and disrespect the dead. That happens over time. Even back in the 80s when I was growing up, people would pull other people's kids up if they got into trouble, offer them some refuge if they knew they came from a bad family - at least try to illustrate that there are better ways to conduct yourself and better ways to live. We've lost a lot of that now. Instead, people sit in their silos with an "I'm alright Jack" attitude knowing that some kid has a sh*t life and doing absolutely f*ck all to try and help. Someone elses problem, right? I'm not defending this kid. My great grandfather was a Desert Rat. My nan endured the Blitz in West End. Moreover, I was lucky enough to have people looking out for me throughout life - whether they were friends, family or neighbours. A lot of kids don't have those personal connections back to the war, don't have anyone telling what's right or wrong and frankly, don't have much of a future to look forward to. They'll probably end up visiting the neglect that they received onto the kids that they have, and we're back at square one. More than anything though, I don't like it when people moan about problems without a clue about why they happen and without a clue of how to solve them. They have a phrase in Africa - it takes a village to raise a child. If we weren't so myopic when it came to the problems right in our midst, perhaps this kid might have grown up with a better moral compass. There's a price for indifference to the problems of others. They soon become your problems.

Yeah, I know - which is kinda why I put the tongue in cheek part at the end. My daughter went on a trip to France and Belgium recently to see the war graves from the First World War, and I think you're right, seeing stuff like that does profoundly affect kids in a positive way.

Perhaps in your mind, sir. But I'll take both of those over being a lonely git in a foreign country sniping at his homeland.

Brilliant. You're so upset with him glorifying the Nazis that you'll adopt their methods to suppress him (although tbf, we did invent concentration camps). Hope that was tongue in cheek.

Glad to see the point wasn't completely lost.

So what do you propose is done about it that isn't already being done?

Ah, the Alpine logic. Person says one thing. Extrapolate and sensationalise. Rinse and repeat. Dunno what's worse really. A sixteen year old spraying a swastika on the Cenotaph or a grown man losing his sh*t and calling a child a 'c*nt' on the basis of a Daily Mail article.

He clearly doesn't, or he would not have done it. Teenagers are teenagers. They do incredibly stupid things, and have done for all time. Would you prefer that we treat teenagers as adults?

I'm told it feels like someone else is doing it when you use the other hand.

If that were true, people would not see the 1950s as a golden age in this country. Plus you've got to remember that this nipper is still a child. People do extremely stupid sh*t at that age ( and judging from the pic, he doesn't seem that well informed - he's got the swastika the wrong way around for a start). I'm not saying what he did was right. While I'm not old enough to have any war recollections of my own, I did have relatives who lived through the period. As that sort of direct connection inevitably tails off, the younger crowd are going to have increasingly less respect for the immense sacrifice that our ancestors made. Completely wrong, but I don't think it's the same as say, someone born in the 1970s doing it. Little cock just doesn't know any better, and we all have a part to play in that.

Would these be the Kirby vacuum cleaner crew? I knew a couple of people who worked for them in real life. Utter sea nuts.

I can't claim the Daily Heil. Been around for ages. Isn't everything in that paper outrage?

Feeling sleepy, Alps. Why not read the Daily Mail again? I'm sure there is something happening in a country that you don't live in that outrages you so much that you'll emerge from your truth-induced lethargy.

So how would that actually work? Food stamps like the Americans? The benefits system is theoretically there for a very good reason - to cover citizens who are done over by the consequences of capitalism. If someone has paid in to the system when working, they should be entitled to support when things are not so good. The problem is that people abuse any system you put in front of them.

Quite ironic that the Daily Heil are so outraged, given their support for the Nazis back in the day.

I don't mind a long odds flutter. I have £25 quid on Saints to win the Championship. That said, I know people who are into their horse racing - the amount of money they spend is ridiculous. The adverts are just a reflection of the times we live in. Just think of Wonga.com and all the other loan sharks out there. I actually turned a job down once because one of my prospective employer's clients was offering loans at 76% APR ( "believe it or not, some people do pay it" ). The gambling ads are a bit of a disgrace, and I see them a lot. Footy is about the only thing that I watch that I don't time-shift. Everything else, I just start watching 15-20 minutes after it has started, fast-forwarding through any ads.