buctootim

They reckon we only got £10m for Lovren instead of the £20m usually touted

This. I think its worth it. You can arrive, order drinks and settle in with your group, not have to worry about leaving again to get to the ground. Better seats than most too.

Koeman must be secretly praying that happens - stick one in the eye to the Dutch FA and his critic in one go.

You should be an sourcing adviser to Saints Bearsy! Saints used to have a dwarf but he wasn't cheap. My favourite part of dwarfs is the patronising pat on the head you can give them, and the angry snarl you get back. Whats your favourite?

Sounds pretty anti immigration to me. All these unskilled immigrants taking jobs from locals. How does an unskilled worker with limited English and no experience of British culture perform better at an interview than an unskilled, English native tongue local? Why not just come out and say you're anti immigration? I am at heart. I think it benefits companies and disadvantages people already here by preventing a labour shortage which would otherwise drive up wages. Cheap labour means companies dont need to invest in more efficient production machinery. And of course it drives up house prices, reducing everyone's (apart from landlords) disposable income. Overall though I think the benefits of the EU outweigh the disadvantages and I wouldn't trust UKIP in Government to make good decisions on immigration, let alone all the other other issues.

Ive got friends who are principled greenies who are against globalisation. They wont fly, have no Sky satellite, drive only occasionally, eat local food and volunteer in their community. In short they live by their principles. Then there are people like you and your idol Brand. You bash out your anti corporate big business stuff from your Eastern European PC assembled from Chinese components, drive your BMW car (revenues $78bn, 105,000 employees), watch your Korean big screen tv and playstation ($75bn 140,000 employees) all paid with money earned from writing code for Microsoft software (revenue $86bn) for companies in the US who you visit with flights on Boeing ($86bn 168,000 employees). Lets not forget how you love the imported food from German supermarket Aldi. How come you don't support small local manufacturers? I wouldnt fancy being you when comrade Brand brings in his maximum size for companies - £1m pa turnover he said. Flying across the Atlantic on a plane made by a £1m pa company could be hairy.

About 35 million imo. We missed that boat long ago. Reality is the world has changed. every major country in the world is seeing large population shifts driven by global trade and multinational employers. Its too late to pull the drawbridge up now.

It could well be. UK citizens currently have the right to live in those countries visa free because of our membership of the club. If we leave the club the arrangement ceases and Brits simply become foreign nationals with no legal status and no right to remain. Who knows what the Governments decide to do then - presumably some sort of cost / benefit analysis of letting them stay, but you can be sure the decisions will be in their national interest, not ours.

I sympathise and I've been in a similar situation. Those horrible choices face us all in the end, both for ourselves and those you love. Its very hard to have an objective debate about the best way to use resources when they are such innately emotive issues. Part of the human make-up is to keep hope alive against all odds. Combined with doctor's professional determination to plough on means we often seem to prioritise length of life over quality of life. I think Linda Bellingham got it just right.

Democracy, pah! People need to be bravely lead by quality politicians or properly informed about the issues. At present we just have feel good warm words and verbal gack. led I used to work in the NHS when they were experimenting with Citizens Juries - getting members of the public to decide on treatment priorities. It didnt take long to work out that "Should the NHS prioritise treatment of babies born before 23 weeks?" elicited an utterly different response to "Should the NHS prioritise care of babies born before 23 weeks when they are likely to be born severely and permanently disabled requiring lifetime care costing up to £2m".

Hello Chris Rann!

Im not sure why the NHS has become such a sacred cow. We all die in the end so its KPIs must be appallingly bad. It seems to me many of the wrong things have been cut - education, transport and power infrastructure, defence whilst we spend huge amounts giving 80 year old terminally ill patients a few months extra of miserable quality life.

So if a UKIP government withdrew the rights of EU citizens to come here - what would they do when Spain and France reciprocated and withdrew the right of 1.5 million Brits to remain living there?

But that article only deals with % increases in migration compared with last year. It says nothing about totals or where people come from. The majority of immigrants to the UK come from outside of the EU, year after year.

The idea that the British Empire broke up because of events at Bretton Wood is simplistic and wrong. The Empire had been getting looser and less lucrative since the mid 1850s with more countries becoming self governing affiliates. The Balfour Declaration effectively publically announced the Empire's death in 1926.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5cd640f6-9025-11e3-a776-00144feab7de.html#axzz3IHzSPeIv The number of European migrants in the UK is almost exactly balanced by the number of Britons living elsewhere in the EU, according to official figures. About 1.8m Britons live in Europe, with Spain boasting an expat population of just over 1m UK citizens, according to government estimates. Of the Britons living in Europe, 400,000 are claiming a state pension from the UK. That compares with an estimate of 2.34m EU citizens living in the UK, according to the latest official figures Cameron shelves immigration report amongst lack of evidence http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/838de446-7d2f-11e3-a579-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3IHzSPeIv David Cameron shelved a government report on EU migration, after Theresa May, home secretary, failed to provide evidence to support her case for imposing tighter curbs on immigrants.

Because its a reciprocal agreement. We go there freely they come here. The US and Australia have strict immigration criteria, so do we.

Its also not true. Britain isnt part of the Schengen Agreement, hence why the UK still has border controls and passport checks. The biggest source of immigrants to the UK are China, India, the US, Australia and Poland. Only one of those is in the EU.

The Democrat Americans I know are disappointed in Obama - he hasn't demonstrated enough leadership and has been too safe - seeking consensus when none was likely to happen. Tony Blair did the same thing during his first few years in order to demonstrate Labour had changed and could now be trusted. Maybe Obama felt he needed to do the same thing as the first black president. For sure his room for manoeuvre has been limited the congress balance of power but most voters I know feel he could have worked around them more cleverly. That said American politics seems to have become incredibly partisan and toxic with the main goal being stopping the others doing anything, almost regardless of what it is.

Friend of mine had a Gordini Turbo (is that the same thing?). Scared me crapless whenever I was in it. Mind you being in his previous car, a leaky Talbot Avenger automatic was equally terrifying so I guess it was his driving. I reckon the Toyota MR2 would be a good investment. They're cheap to buy atm (but sell for a lot more in the US), styling which wont date too much and good parts supply. I'd stay away from big, heavy, large engined saloons, they're going to be white elephants imo.

You put a pound in the Pompey trolley, but it never gives it back.

David James bankrupt. Used the in-house financial advisers I guess. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-29895649

Everybody seemed happy and looking back with fondness - except RL who seemed mournful.

tbf Gerrard, Balotelli, Lovren and Johnson deserve to be dropped.

I don't see the problem with holiday pay being at the same rate as average weekly pay. It shouldn't be backdated though, its not right to hit retrospectively based on a decision today.