buctootim

Labour would have given us a Jumbo

A lot of Southampton area locations on the 'people who also voted' list

£6m would put him in or around the 10 most expensive goalkeepers of all time according to this http://www.cricbeat.com/2011/06/most-expensive-goalkeepers-ever.html Cant see it somehow. Why spend £6m on potential when you can buy a top top keeper at their peak for that kind of money?

Doubt its true. They wouldnt get Lee Barnard to model the kit.

Perhaps, but Virgin only fly to a handful of destinations - ive tried to rationalise my 10 or so 'loyalty' schemes with a few points in each into two or three I can really get some benefit from.

But thats a political choice - they make the decisions, you cant blame the NHS. I agree things like IVF (if you cant afford the treatment you cant afford the baby) and frivolous cosmetic ops shouldnt be offered. We also need to be sensible about highly intensive treatments for people in their 80s and older.

Works the other way too. I got an American Express card in order to get BA airmiles. I ran up a bill to near the limit and then pretty much forgot about it (though the monthly payment was still going out). Amex then sent me letter saying they were lowering my limit and increasing the interest rate as my 'borrowing behaviour indicated a high risk'. Tvats. I simply thanked them for reminding me how much money I was wasting with them and cancelled the card.

Wow. All good posts on this thread up till this spectacularly stupid and ill informed one.

Leading the 'no' EU campaign in the South was part of trying to become more mainstream, but Sinn Fein have always been a left wing party, unelectably so in UK terms. That was less relevant to people when politics was primarily about being Nationalist or Loyalist but they will struggle in normalised elections, especially south of the border, unless they move to the middle imo.

Awful doubletalk. Was like watching something out of 1984. She could have had the grace to blush .

People in general are pragmatic - they want whatever political system gives them and their families the best quality of life and opportunity. In the past most Catholics were nationalist or republican because they were excluded from decent housing and from many of the employment opportunities. For example Belfast City Council wouldnt build new slum clearance housing on Catholic areas and major employers such as Harland & Wolf wouldnt employ catholics - living conditions were Victorian so the pull of a united Ireland was strong. Now with much of the discrimination and much of the old national boundaries largely gone also (being in the EU people can come and go) most people are less worried or driven by unification and the ideas of the past. As a lad Gerry Adams used to work for my uncle delivering newspapers. He got radicalised by inability to get into Queens university, get a job or decent housing. These people are made, not born.

You should look into working in Singapore if you want to get out of the RN. Huge port and relatively easy for a Brit to get in to country and get a job apparently. .

I dunno exactly what you do DD, some kind of electronic eavesdropping I guess. What can you do after, whats it relevant to outside, part from maybe some kind of private security work? Will you have to retrain?

Theres some truth in that. Too much expansion too quickly mostly being consumed in increased salaries for doctors and dentists - who are now overpaid compared with European counterparts. The reason it mostly went in salaries for doctors? because of the populist clamour to give more power to doctors and get rid of the 'waste of space' (and cheap) managers... The money should have been fed in more slowly and linked directly to additional capacity. Another major change was the ending of the traditional culture of junior doctors working 100 hour weeks - requiring more bodies to do the same work. Too high salaries is not really what I think of as waste though (uneccessary loops, people stood around or doing non jobs)

Lol, keep calm, its just a bolt, a flesh wound.

The difficulty with managing the health service is that the treatment program for almost every patient is different - every package of care is tailored. The nature of healthcare means it is both managerially and technically complex. Producing and selling a range of standard products which are made the same week in week out really is much easier. That isnt a gibe at Whitey just an honest observation.

Not really. We spend about the same on healthcare as Spain or Hungary - if you want services as good as Switzerland or Germany, you need to stump up 30% more. What most people who have never worked in health don't realise is : the internal market creates bureaucracy, and destroys efficiency, not improves it.

Its the same old story. People want less taxation and better public services and definitely no cuts that impact on them or their families. Luckily this circle can always be squared simply by targetting the limitless pool of 'cheats' and 'waste'.

'Chiuso per Ferie' was the bane of my life trying to find petrol on one long drive in a very thirsty V8 through Northern Italy in August.

Obviously Im not advocating that - and changed the sentence accordingly because it was clumsily put in trying to draw a comparison with the demonisation of the 'scroungers' .

There is undoubtedly some benefits abuse and that should be halted. However the bogeyman story doesnt really work. By far and away the biggest drain on government expenditure is old people - you know those who saved you from the hun and who you laud. Welfare and health (70% of which goes on the elderly) are more than half of all government expenditure. The next biggie is education. Benefits for the unemployed is relatively small beer, and abuse is a small slice of that. Even if you were able to totally eliminate all benefit fraud (variously estimated at £1bn to £5bn) it would make only a tiny impact on the £650bn pa government budget.

Had an email today saying 'we have upgraded your line' (no advance warning and no extra charge). Now 16mb down and 0.7 up.

Seems an odd thing to do when the price of oil is dropping and the budget deficit is increasing .

Consider doing the Gotthard pass (Tremola) instead of the tunnel. Its slower but much more scenic and enjoyable (if you dont mind switchback roads).