Whitey Grandad

Why should you pay extra tax and also receive less 'benefit'? That's double taxation. The extra marginal rate should be sufficient in itself to make the tax system 'fairer', although personally I believe a flat tax system is the fairest of all. I agree wholeheartedly with you about simplifying this crazy system.

It's not universal, it's based on houdsehold income already. The more you earn the less you get and in some case the marginal rate is 70%.

What makes me really angry is when Brown talks about 'taking money out of the economy' when others talk about reducing taxes. It's in the economy already, he's the one that wants to take it out. He treats it all as his money and we should all be really grateful that he lets us keep any of it.

Oh please God, no. I don't think many people realise what a hole our country is in. A hung parliament will achieve nothing. Literally.

Since when has working been necessary?

It should be restored as a child tax allowance. There is no family allowance? You don't have to be working to receive it. Giving anybody money 'discourages' them from working for a living.

It goes on, but it is a big no-no.

More to do with cheap labour than anything else.

It used to be a tax allowance but they were concerned that the father would not hand over the money to the poor, struggling mother so they decided to get rid of the allowance and hand out money instead. All means-tested benefits are a disincentive to work and should be abolished.

The first rule of business: If somebody is indispensable, get rid of them.

Not as ridiculous as thinking that it has no effect. So how many extra millions due to immigration are there in the country over the last 10 to 15 years? I use campsites as a trivial example of its effects. We have no chance of reducing carbon emissions if we need to build at least 2 million more houses over the next 10 years (government figures, not mine).

We're overcrowded and it's stifling every aspect of our lives. The official figures for the population of Britain are enormous under-estimates and I once saw a figure of 80 million. We can't move, we can't travel on the roads, the trains are full, we can't park in our local supermarkets, we can't find a dentist, we can't even find a campsite in summer. Any talk of economic benefits from immigration is a load of bullocks.

Oh dear. When you're in a hole, stop...

That could happen under a hung parliament (shouldn't that be 'hanged'? ). If it did turn out that way, there would be riots, and I might be at the front of them.

The price of that would be proportional representation and I've not seen any system that I like. The transferrable vote thing means that you don't know who you're voting for. The present european elections are meaningless because your vote could go to anybody, and I like to be able to question the person who is going to represent me. Find a good man/woman and let them makethe decisions on your behalf.

Ah, silly me, I thought you were one of them.

I remember the last Lib-Lab pact and all the indecision and dithering. Nothing would get done, nobody could make any plans, no legislation could be passed. Instead of concensus there would be endless meetings and procrastination. We wouldn't get the average of the parties, we would get the lowest common denominator, which is zilch. There should be abox for 'none of the above. I'm not enamoured by any of them, but some poor sod's got to clean up all this mess and there's only one real candidate for that.

Then she would make an ideal politician!

Believe me, you do not want that. Be afraid.... Be very afraid.

Don't you mean this fellow:

The way things are going a lot more of it will go by sea but the delivery times will have to go out another 4 to 6 weeks and I expect that all the customers will go elsewhere. The freight companies will all be increasing their rates from now on and the end-user will have to pay. There is a half-way system where the goods are flown to the Middle-East and then shipped from there which brings the time down to 2 or 3 weeks. People often forget the hidden costs of living on an island. Everything we buy or sell has to be put on a plane or a boat, you can't just chuck it on a lorry and have it arrive in a couple of days. That's one of the reasons that Germany is so dominant in trade.

Might I presume that she knows more about the local situation in Rocdale than you or I?

Fair enough.

There are two parties to any contract, so I would expect that to mean that they have offfered him an extension to his current contract. It would be up to him whether he accepts it.

I'm still waiting for a shipment of printed-circuit boards from China. They were put on the aircraft on Monday 12th and they haven't been seen since. The latest rumour is that they were off-loaded in Delhi but nobody can find any trace of them. It's part of a shipment of 350Kg so it can't be easy to overlook it. There 12 other companies who are in the same position and can't meet their production needs so someone might get laid off. It's British Airways Cargo, but you probably guessed that anyway.