Johnny Bognor

The cost of this young lady and her kids is a cool £5 million+ (according to the Daily Hail) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1262425/5million-The-extraordinary-sum-cost-taxpayer-support-single-mother-benefits.html

I was going to add Socialist Worker, but it's not really a newspaper.

LOL at all the lefties banging on about parents opening their own schools and this being a reason not to vote Tory. I hate to break it to you all (because you don't like the truth), but it has already been done (under a Labour government BTW): http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/News/NewsArchive/2009/220909CouncilCelebratesOpeningofFirstParentPromotedSchool.htm As some of you disagree with this policy so strongly, can I take it that you will now all withdraw your votes for Labour??????

I am aware of the Mosaic database and if this was used there is no technical breach as the database is widely available for list rental. However, if you actually read the entire article, as I did (rather than try to find excuses) it actually states that both parties have used the database for mail shots. It didn't state that the Mosaic database was specifically used in this case. It is still not clear which list was used and this needs clarification. Vince Cable has just been on the news asking for clarification, so it is not as cut and dried as you suggest. Away from the technical arguments, it does not get away from underhand scaremongering tactics ..... followed by some smart arse not actually reading the article correctly in response to said poster ...... followed by some joker trying to be a smart arse but coming unstuck because he failed to notice that the responder couldn't read (even a joke newspaper) and therefore ends up looking a bit of a ****

He played on Mo Mowlems cancer to become minister for NI. He is lower than all of the sleazy politicians and we can't even give him a bloody nose at the ballot box.

This has Medelsome written all over it. Sending postcards to people saying that voting tory could put your life at risk is despicable. Especially when a number of families who have recently lost loved ones to cancer received the cards. The woman featured on the card was told that the photo was for an NHS magazine. To abuse this trust and use her predicament for political gain shows Fraudon and Medolsome for what they are. I just hope the other political parties do not sink to their level. How anyone can vote for this lot I will never know.

Unbelieveable... http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article7094604.ece Not only a potential mis-use of personal data, but scaremongering people who are suffering from Cancer is going too far IMO By all means, take the **** out of Cameron, but I think this type of electioneering is below the belt. I guess it shows how deperate they are. Any lefties care to comment?

Yep, Paddy Pantsdown def gets my vote

At the end of the day, I think all parties red, blue and yellow have a lot to answer for. There are many things that could be done to put the great back into britain. That's all I want at the end of the day. I just happen to have a different view as to how to get there to most. I would even go as far as saying that I could put a manifesto together that would re-mobilise the whole nation within 5 years. Unfortunately I don't have the means to launch a political party, so I have to sit by and watch this once great nation slide into the abyss.

Watched that TV drama about Mo, yes RIP. That Medelsome fella stitched her up big time.

I'd rather have Ken Clarke, the most successful chancellor in modern history. He's got form and it's good. I watch This Week (after question time) and have to say that Portillo would make a great PM. When in govt, he was an arrogant ****, but I think over the last 10 years he has moderated, carries himself well and is in touch with the public. I also have admiration for conviction politicians, even if I don't agree with their politics. The Tony Benn's of this world are alas a dying breed.

Fortunately for me, I am better looking than old Gordon and my smile is devastatingly good. Trust me, you wouldn't want to punch me, but instead stand back and admire one of natures finest creations :-)

But you assume they have mountains of cash locked away in a cupboard and that there is no benefit to the less well off at all. Unfortuntely for you, this does not happen. The capital is often deployed. This means that money is invested, which creates jobs in the fin svcs industry. These investments are often going into / financing companies to help them create further jobs and wealth. They spend their money on high end goods and services which also creates jobs. Taking money off them, which may help the less well off in the short term, does not help the nation as a whole get richer and the poor will remain poor in the long run. Perhaps a better way would be to give them a choice.....invest in British industry or we'll tax it. This would either help the less well off (keeping you happy) or create jobs and opportunity for everyone (which would keep me happy). Damn, I'm good. I should go into politics.

Oh dear..... Does anyone else want to punch that face, or is it just me?

President, his wife and senior government ministers all killed. It only crashed a few hundred yards short of the runway after clipping trees on the approach.

OK, comrade you are right and the Bank of England are a bunch of Charletons publishing facts in the way they do. I went for quarterly averages as if I had gone for monthly actuals over a 30 year period, it would take me too long to compile, make this thread longer than the pompey takeover thread and would have been pointless as my point of consisently high interest rates prior to 1989-1993, going back to the 1970's is plain and clear for all to see.. By the way, what happened between 1993 and 1997 or are you conveniently ignoring this period??????

...but someone has to make those things, albeit in a different country which undoubtedly makes their worse off better off. Conversely, the wealthy foreingers buy English high end goods, which is a cash flow into our economy. As for holidays, they don't walk to Mustique or Capri as the chances are they probably fly BA which keeps BA cabin crews on £80kpa. As for investments, the City of London creates wealth (when it is not acting like a casino) for UK plc as the funds of the worlds wealthy pass through our banking systems. Therefore, rather than focus on the well off (although I agree that they could pay more), why not focus on creating an environment where entrepreneurs want to produce things that people want to buy which creates jobs and ultimately wealth for everyone. That is why I am fundamentally against the increase on employers NI. If there was a policy of reducing NI if you employ more people, then this would certainly be closer to the utopia that I seek for everyone. I have posted this before, but this would be the party for me, if they existed that is..... http://www.schoolforstartups.co.uk/2010/01/18/the-entrepreneurs-manifesto-declaration-of-rights-empowering-the-new-wave/ So I am not necessarily against taxing the rich, but for me it is about priorities and focusing on the right areas. Focusing on taxing the rich will not make the nation rich. It is merely a re-distribution tool, which although maybe necessary, will not lift the the living standards of all on its own. The economy is in a mess and the natin is drowning in debt, therefore the short term priority must be to get the wealth creators to create some wealth. Once this is achieved I am happy to discuss the redistribution of this wealth.

Best comment on here for ages. I have no problem in supporting the weak. I happen to believe that generating national wealth is for the benefit of everyone - whether that is in the form of more jobs, better paid jobs or more available for the welfare state. The problem for me is that left of centre parties are driven by the politics of envy and are more interested in taking the rich down a peg or two, rather that looking at what can make us all better off. My view is more akin to socialism than the socialists. I want everyone to be better off rather than making some worse off to enable others to be better off.

What makes me laugh is how both Labour and Tories are talking about halving the deficit like it is a good thing. Say I owe £10,000 on my credit card and I am promising to half my monthly defecit from £500 per month to £250 per month. Great, I have halved my defecit, but the fact remainns that my debt is still increasing by £250 per month and I have made no attempt to clear down my £10k debt. £900,000,000,000 will take a long time to pay off. Say that we have a surplus (yeah right) of £50,000,000,000 per annum. It would take 18 years (nigh on a generation) to pay back the National Debt. That is assuming we find £42,000,000,000 to cover the interest payments. This equates to the the entire education budget for more than 20 years. I fear my kids may look on Fraudon, as many on here look at Thatcher, as a complete and utter moron. Yes, Gordon is a moron (I know a song about that)

But they were touching 12% and 13 % in the 1970's and continued to do so during the 1980's. The fact of the matter is that interest rates were very high for most of the 1970's and most of the 1980's which continued for the first couple of years at the beginning of the 90's. The fact also remains that interest rates since 1993 have been low and stable due to the taming of inflation, ken clarkes economic policy and the BOE taking over interest rate control once Clown got his hands on the till. Do you not see that or do I need to spell it out for you? These are undeniable facts based on BOE historical records. As I said, they were through the roof for two decades which was not soley to do with the tories. They didn't just shoot through the roof due to the tories - look at the data and any idiot can see this was not the case. However, this does fit your socialist worker agenda. Keep believing the hype as Lbaour politicians can make a very lucrative living out of people like you.

But comrade VFTT, interest rates did not go through the roof in the 80's. As proven previously, they were already through the roof thanks to the previous Labour government. Repossessions went through the roof, but they would as more people had bought houses. In the interests of balance, and so not to be accused of conveniently hiding the facts, here are the interest rates for the 'missing' period. 31-Mar-79 - 13.02 30-Jun-79 - 12.48 30-Sep-79 - 14 31-Dec-79 - 15.45 31-Mar-80 - 17 30-Jun-80 - 17 30-Sep-80 - 16.03 31-Dec-80 - 15.22 31-Mar-81 - 13.52 30-Jun-81 - 12 30-Sep-81 - 12.53 31-Dec-81 - 14.61 31-Mar-82 - 13.78 30-Jun-82 - 13 30-Sep-82 - 11.35 31-Dec-82 - 9.68 31-Mar-83 - 10.81 30-Jun-83 - 10.01 30-Sep-83 - 9.56 31-Dec-83 - 9.06 31-Mar-84 - 8.93 30-Jun-84 - 8.85 30-Sep-84 - 10.9 31-Dec-84 - 9.98 31-Mar-85 - 12.92 30-Jun-85 - 12.47 30-Sep-85 - 11.58 31-Dec-85 - 11.38 31-Mar-86 - 12.11 30-Jun-86 - 10.34 30-Sep-86 - 9.88 31-Dec-86 - 10.72 31-Mar-87 - 10.66 30-Jun-87 - 9.21 30-Sep-87 - 9.48 31-Dec-87 - 9.04 31-Mar-88 - 8.63 30-Jun-88 - 7.97 30-Sep-88 - 10.91 31-Dec-88 - 12.26 31-Mar-89 - 12.88 30-Jun-89 - 13.24 30-Sep-89 - 13.76 31-Dec-89 - 14.8 31-Mar-90 - 14.88 30-Jun-90 - 14.88 30-Sep-90 - 14.88 31-Dec-90 - 13.95 31-Mar-91 - 13.4 30-Jun-91 - 11.74 30-Sep-91 - 10.8 31-Dec-91 - 10.38 31-Mar-92 - 10.38 30-Jun-92 - 10.05 30-Sep-92 - 9.77 31-Dec-92 - 7.53 31-Mar-93 - 6.13 So now we have all of the facts, you can see that although they were consistently high throughout the decade, it was not much worse that the previous decade and therefore the insinuation that they "went through the roof" is just Socialist dogma. Had you said that they stayed through the roof post the Labour + Union **** ups of the 70's, however were brought under control in the early to mid nineties, you would have had a point There is no coincidence that the interest rates were often +10% when inflation was out of control during the 70's and 80's. It is also no coincidence that we have had low stable interest rates since the early nineties thanks to the taming of the inflation monster.....for that you can thank the tories. It is also no coincidence, that interest rates were also high in virtually every major western economy over the same period....do you blame the tories for this too?

Comrade VFTT, Low and steady interest rates started under Ken Clarke in March 1993. Here are the quarterly average interest rates since then..... 31-Mar-93 = 6.13 30-Jun-93 = 5.88 30-Sep-93 = 5.88 31-Dec-93 = 5.66 31-Mar-94 = 5.22 30-Jun-94 = 5.13 30-Sep-94 = 5.24 31-Dec-94 = 5.75 31-Mar-95 = 6.45 30-Jun-95 = 6.63 30-Sep-95 = 6.63 31-Dec-95 = 6.58 31-Mar-96 = 6.13 30-Jun-96 = 5.87 30-Sep-96 = 5.69 31-Dec-96 = 5.86 31-Mar-97 = 5.94 30-Jun-97 = 6.2 30-Sep-97 = 6.87 31-Dec-97 = 7.15 31-Mar-98 = 7.25 30-Jun-98 = 7.33 30-Sep-98 = 7.5 31-Dec-98 = 6.86 31-Mar-99 = 5.69 30-Jun-99 = 5.2 30-Sep-99 = 5.07 31-Dec-99 = 5.4 31-Mar-00 = 5.87 30-Jun-00 = 6 30-Sep-00 = 6 31-Dec-00 = 6 31-Mar-01 = 5.86 30-Jun-01 = 5.36 30-Sep-01 = 5.05 31-Dec-01 = 4.23 31-Mar-02 = 4 30-Jun-02 = 4 30-Sep-02 = 4 31-Dec-02 = 4 31-Mar-03 = 3.85 30-Jun-03 = 3.75 30-Sep-03 = 3.53 31-Dec-03 = 3.65 31-Mar-04 = 3.91 30-Jun-04 = 4.22 30-Sep-04 = 4.65 31-Dec-04 = 4.75 31-Mar-05 = 4.75 30-Jun-05 = 4.75 30-Sep-05 = 4.59 31-Dec-05 = 4.5 31-Mar-06 = 4.5 30-Jun-06 = 4.5 30-Sep-06 = 4.66 31-Dec-06 = 4.89 31-Mar-07 = 5.22 30-Jun-07 = 5.4 30-Sep-07 = 5.74 31-Dec-07 = 5.69 31-Mar-08 = 5.35 30-Jun-08 = 5.03 30-Sep-08 = 5 31-Dec-08 = 3.37 31-Mar-09 = 1.07 You don't need to be a statistician to see that the trend for low and steady interest rates started under the tories. Coupled with the fact that the BOE took over control of interest rates means that Labour never got the chance to **** them up again. .... and to settle your curiousity, here are average quarterly interest rates prior to Thatcher coming to power. 31-Mar-75 = 10.26 30-Jun-75 = 9.96 30-Sep-75 = 10.71 31-Dec-75 = 11.74 31-Mar-76 = 9.82 30-Jun-76 = 10.57 30-Sep-76 = 11.82 31-Dec-76 = 14.72 31-Mar-77 = 12.23 30-Jun-77 = 8.39 30-Sep-77 = 7.25 31-Dec-77 = 5.85 31-Mar-78 = 6.53 30-Jun-78 = 8.57 30-Sep-78 = 10 31-Dec-78 = 11.39 31-Mar-79 = 13.02 30-Jun-79 = 12.48 First of all, it is funny how the lefties conveniently forget the decade of high interest rates previous to Thatcher, as if high rates were all her fault. As it happens, interest rates didn't get much worse under Thatcher than they were under previous labour governments. However, under Ken Clarke interest rates started off on a steady low run (with his economic policies running until 1999). So we have the tories to thank for finally bringing interest rates under control after decades of unrest. So comrade, keep reading socialist worker, it's a good read, but sadly lacking in facts - they're great on philosophy though, but lacking in reality so alas this means that I would make a crap communist.

They were only low from 1997 onwards because of the golden economic legacy handed over to Clown and Co. As it happens, Clown copied Clarke's spending plans for the first two years, so up until 1999 (and thrown in a couple of years to allow for lag) / 2001, things were relatively good......because of the tories. Why do the lefties only highlight the interest rates in the last Tory administation, when they were even higher in the previous economic mess created by the Unions and Socialist Labour in the late 70's. You could argue that the reason why interest rates were low and stable during the 2000's was because of the rejection of socialism by the Labour party. Well that's what the lefties on here have been saying for a while. Comrade, again, what happened pre-1979???????

I don't disagree with you here. I believe the best for society is to create an environment where the entrepreneurial class create wealth which provides a larger cake to divide up amoungst its citizens. If you only focus on dividing the cake without taking measures to make the cake as big as possible, it may be noble, but it doesn't necessarily help the needy as much as you would like. To be fair it did cause a fall in jobs (the tens of thousands of jobs that were outsourced to China and India). Luckily the economy was growing and creating new jobs faster than those that were lost by outsourcing. Sorry, luckily Gordon Brown borrowed ****loads of cash and employed an extra 1 million people in the public services. At a glance, very worthwhile but the problem is that we now have £900,000,000,000 millstone round our necks to pay for it.

Well I guess the missus cheated on you first, so you could call it revenge.