Johnny Bognor

He was the champion of the left. He was only given high office by Blair and Brown to keep the left of the party / trade unions in check. A true union man through and through, oh and a hypocrite to boot.

....the effects of de-industrialisation in the Western World (UK, France, Germany, USA, etc etc), coupled with the rise in low cost emerging economies (like Japan, Taiwan and China), speeded up by the actions of our Trade Unions.

Don't lie, you will be found here: http://www.beggars-fair.org.uk/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=172:amy-jones&catid=34:performers&Itemid=53

R&RM2, I take your point, but there are loads of Poll Taxes, such as car tax for instance.

Not sure how you can pin it on the Tories as they weren't in power since 1997, which is akin to blaming all wrong on Adam and Eve. As for the less well off being taken in by the Financial Services industry (and may be they were with all this cheap money available), exactly what did our former chancellor do about it? Nothing, he turned a blind eye and let it happen. Anyone with half a brain cell could see that it was not sustainable and yet he (the one person who could stop it) did nothing. As for the bankers, recessions and booms are cyclical and have happened since the beginning of time. Yes the credit crunch triggered this particular recession, but had the credit crunch not happened, another recession would have either occured anyway (either by now or in within the next couple of years). A basic GCSE economics student would understand this, but the man running our finances thought he had abolished boom and bust. If you want to blame it on the tories, that is your perrogative, but the bulk of the blame has to lie with the banker, Gordon (in particular, as the single most influencial person in this) and Labour. You could also blame the property investors / speculators for driving up house prices.

The blame game...... You're right. Blaming Gordon/Labour for a global crisis is like blaming them for bad weather. However, when it rains and your roof is leaking, do you blame the weather or do you blame those responsible for maintaining your roof? The global recession was unavoidable, but our ability to deal with it was hampered by their negligence. Instead of borrowing their way out of it, they could have used the reserves they should have built up and the pain that we will now feel would have been less severe. But what do you expect? Gordon thought he had abolished boom and bust and this arrogance and his self belief contributed to the mess we're in. Therefore, I blame the bankers (as they triggered it) and Gordon/Labour in equal measures (as they hampered our ability to deal with it). The bankers clearly are culpable for a significant part, but as for Gordon/Labour, we had a structural defecit BEFORE the credit crunch and BEFORE the recession, so how is this the bankers fault? "We " also have to take the blame, running up credit cards and taking out 125% mortgages.......meanwhile the then chancellor turned a blind eye (no pun intended) because all was good and the feel good factor would never end........except that it did. So you can blame the bankers all you want, but at the end of the day, there are others responsible for their part (of which Gordon/Labour have to share that blame) So if we don't innovate (which is the only way to generate wealth), then how do you propose we do it?

Shouldn't that be £20 + £3 booking fee?

Innovation is the only way out. We need the entrepreneurs and the inventors to innovate.....this way we keep the goalposts moving, own the IP and import profits. The problem is that most youngsters want to be a celebrity and those going to university want to do media studies....until there is a cultural shift we will continue to sink. One hope is that Dragon's Den has helped incubate an entrepreneurial spirit and inspires people to get off their arses and try and do something.... this changing of the nation's phsyche is desperately needed......We used to be a nation of inventors and were the foremost economic power after the industrial revolution and it took decades for others to catch up. Innovate or we're finished. (as it happens, the 'successful' industries you mentioned in your post are innovative and that is no coincidence)

UPS (the parcel company), Total (petroleum company) and designer French Connection UK are now sponsoring the England shirt

What, with a Liebherr PR734 for good measure??

Apparently, £6.2m on strategy and planning £4.4m on design and build £4.7m on hosting and infrastructure £15.3m on content provision £4.5m on testing and evaluation ...and these charges are annual. Makes you put SWF into perspective. Perhaps if they got all the users to pay a fiver each, it would bring down the costs

£105 million ought to cover it..... http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/07/the_105m_website.html

Merlion Group Limited was wound up yesterday, now the house is up for sale.

Colonoscopy

LOL To be fair, I thought I would get stick having worked for the Skates. I reckon I would make more money ho'ing myselft on street corners and at least I would get paid.

Not worked at the grounds, but have worked with/for Saints, Ipswich, Skates, Premier League and 442 Magazine in the past. Currently working with UK Sport for the Olympics.

Bonus (as in Brucie)

To be fair, being dumped by a skate is far more embarassing. I would rather be dumped by 10 normal people compared to one skate. It say that she prefers inbred, web toed fish fiddlers...... I could never live with that shame. To be fair I would change my username in the hope that everyone would forget.

Gross Misconduct is very different to incompetence. Gross Misconduct is often a quicker / easier route to getting rid. I suppose I was trying to give some perspective in addition to Norway's point highlighting the number of schools in the UK. As it turns out 1 in 30 teachers are incompetent which is probably no different to many private sector industries, but the difference being is that I am paying my share of this (whereas I can choose where to spend my money in the private sector) and considering how highly educated teachers are (as many of them are only to keen to point out), I suppose it shows that academic achievement on its own counts for jack **** if you lack ability. .....after coming from the taxpayer in the first place

I understand that when you look at averages, there will be a scale and that the average would be somewhere in between the two (fortunately my maths teacher at school was not incompetent). However, surely you realise that there will not be an even spread across your scale. The vast majority will be at the higher end due to length of service. In addition to this, your scale does not include promotion, London weighting or Employers NI which, when taken into account, pushes the average cost to the taxpayer the £30k barrier. If you google average teachers pay, they all seem to be £30k+ (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7372058.stm), so you could argue I was being conservative with a small 'c'. However, if we forget the symantics of this and take the median of £25.5k from your post (which I believe to be too simplistic and therefore misleading) and add the cost of 11% employers NI (which is a cost believe it or not), we get to a £28k cost per teacher........not far off my initial ball park figure. Therefore the cost to the taxpayer is £2.1 billion over 5 years.....still a lot of money which ever way you cut it / manipulate it. In fact, if we apply your amount to the 40 years, using the £28k, incompetence has cost us near on £17 billion. So in ball park terms, using an estimate based on your numbers, my point still stands as you are just splitting hairs. If you take the widely published figures / government statistics, then you are letting your "facts" distort your misguided beliefs.

I agree to some extent as there are approximately 500,000 teacheds in the UK, so 15,000 represents about 3% or 1 in 30, so the problem is small in the grand scheme of things. Having said that, at £30,000 pa, 15,000 incompetent teachers cost £450 million per year or £2.5 billion over a five year period.

4 points here: 1. I am paying for these incompetent teachers, whilst you are not paying for the incompetent shop keeper 2. The laws of survival of the fittest and natural selection ensure that incompetent shopkeepers will be eliminated by better shop keepers in the long run 3. The incompetence in the teaching profession is not only being tolerated, but being covered up rather than dealth with 4. Not everyone is as intellectually superior as you are and perhaps our shopkeeper friend was held back at school by incompetent teachers???

I salute you sir. You are far harder working than BTF's lazy son in law as on agood day he only puts 10 hours a day in Having said this, you still work less hours than the average 7-11 shop keeper (who has far less holiday and zero benefits and I guess less pay) so you need to up your game if you're going to impress me..... EDIT: Having read BTF's later posting, I take that back . BTF, fair play to your SiL as working with special needs takes a real dedicated professional. Not everyone wants to be a teacher, but not many of those that do, would opt to work with special needs. To sacrifice the benefits he enjoyed before is also admirable. My older brother is autistic and remember visiting special needs schools to see him when I was growing up. I would say that this is probably the most challenging of teaching jobs, whilst being the most forgotton.

According to Panorama, a total of 18 teachers have been sacked in the last 40 years on the basis of incompetence.

I've got a song for that (to the Papa Waigo / Bradley Wright Philips Chant) He got dumped by a skate Got dumped by a sk-a-a-te Dave Benson Philips He got dumped by a skate