Saintandy666

I agree with you that he comes across as a bit of a **** at times, but I don't think it reflects him. It's just built to be good tv and he doesn't profit from it. He donates his fee to Great Ormond Street Hospital if my memory is correct. On the Barclays clip, I don't think you have to be left wing to mock the banks and their behaviour. However, he is a big hypocrite for that little skit given his own arrangements. However, on the show as a whole he is only political ambiguous one often offering a different view to the other three in discussions.

Ouch. I would describe my politics as 'Social Liberalism', so we are probably closer than you realise in ideas. I expect we agree on most the problems, even if we differ on some of the solutions.

I'll admit I was a bit light with my terminology for which I apologise!

Left me redefine what I meant by trickle down. I didn't mean trickle down in the sense that the rich would gradually pass on their wealth voluntarily. I meant trickle down in the sense they paid a higher rate of taxation and contributed more to the public sector because of their broader shoulders. It was the only way when old socialism was faced with the reality of globalised capitalism.

Oh yes, 10 O'Clock live on the whole tries to emulate the Daily Show in the US, but I'd still argue that Jimmy Carr is hard to place on it, and doesn't come across as strongly left wing like the other 3 hosts. On Sugar, I think it depends on what you believe the 'left' actually is these days. It's certainly come a long way from its Marxist routes, to Bernstein's revisionary socialism and gradualism and today its settled on something totally different, the so called third way which many argue is hardly socialism at all. I don't think modern socialism bans people from being wealthy or creating business separate of the state. I think it is more concerned with the ethics, regulation and taxation of the private sector. In short, Alan Sugar can get massively wealthy if he wants as long as he does it in a fair manner and pays a fair and progressive amount of tax which then can contribute to society as a whole. As long as Alan Sugar pays his taxes, and runs his business in an ethical manner I wouldn't say he has abandoned the left at all. As for his etiquette, I tend not to look too much into it as I believe it is all for show. It wouldn't be good TV without his rants. But I don't believe that certain personalities dictate where you are on the political scale, for example a rude approach meaning you are right wing as you seem to infer!

How does that make Alan Sugar a hypocrite to the left? I know traditional labour opposed the HoL, but you can hardly say that is important to the left in this country anymore. And I did see it, but you don't have to be left wing to make a gag about banks in the middle of a recession largely caused by banks. Tbh, from watching Carr on 8/10 cats and 10 O'Clock live etc etc I'd actually say he is probably a bit right wing, not that that matters. You notice it especially on the 10 O'Clock show where Mitchell, Brooker and Laverne are so obviously left wing.

Why do people think that Jimmy Carr is a left winger?! And when has Alan Sugar been a hypocrite to the left?!

No, they didn't call it trickle down, but that was the theory. And New Labour is meant to be 'Modern Socialism', though some like you would of course argue that it is soft neoliberalism. In reality it's probably a mixture of two. Blairs government wasn't Thatcher, but neither was it Atlee.

The idea of trickle down was at the basis of modern socialism, and cornerstone of New Labour. The whole reason why Mandelson was so relaxed about people becoming 'filthy rich' was based on the idea that this wealth would be fairly taxed to fund decent public services and a good level of redistribution to those less fortunate. Whether this happened in reality is another question. Perhaps a failure of this new socialism is too much faith in people not to go down the tax avoidance route. The solution I think is something like the Tycoon Tax proposed recently combined with a shutting down of the main tax loopholes.

Do you agree though that everyone should pay at least a certain threshold of tax. For example, under the so called 'Tycoon tax' proposed in the recent budget, everyone would have to pay at least 25% on their income however they arrange it, which would stop aggressive schemes like the K2 one employed by Mr. Carr overnight.

I didn't think Ken Livingstone's tax arrangements were known at large when voting took place for the candidate, and even then they are nowhere near as aggressive as that seen by people mentioned in the press in recent days. Why are you so defensive on this issue? This won't help anything. I don't think anyone on here is saying that tax avoidence has been limited to only those who associate with the conservative party. From your posts, I think I can infer that you are against this sort of practice, but how is just going 'this labour guy did it too' going to help the debate! It just boils it down to tribal blue vs. red politics when it should be cross-party consensus to make sure everyone who pays tax pays the amount of tax they are meant to.

Yea, but this Ad Hominem(and Cameron has opened up a whole barrel of these to be used against him) argument gets us absolutely nowhere. The fact is we have Labour and the Conservatives, and frankly I don't care who does it, but someone needs to close down these loopholes. Attacking Labour because they knighted Phillip Green won't get us anywhere. The real issue is what are we going to do about it? If Labour push for the closing down of these loopholes and because of that pressure the law is changed I frankly don't care/can forgive the fact they knighted a massive tax dodger. Singling out Jimmy Carr(who was of course wrong in what he did) doesn't help much if Cameron isn't willing to be consistent with his attacks and close down these loopholes.

Well, I agreed with the proposed charity tax relief changes which were still very generous. Tax should not be optional.

Your point? Is MOG a Labour politician? Even if he was, it wouldn't detract from Cameron's selective rage.

It's not right, and I'm glad he has admitted the error of his ways and he got a proper bashing on 8 out of 10 cats yesterday Angus Deayton style. Although I would say that concentrating on him why perhaps satisfying for some, won't help the bigger picture. We need law change to change these ridiculous loop holes. Tax shouldn't be optional.

The only way in the long term is up though. There may be short term fluctuation such as this, but the overall trend is what it is. We need to invest in other sources of energy.

I was working and busy. I don't spend my life on here... However, your point seems to be irrelevant to what we are talking about. We are talking about the effects of an enhanced Greenhouse Effect because of man made sources, not natural occurrence. Anyways, a volcanic eruption causes cooling because it pumps out a **** load of Sulphur Dioxide(SO2) which reacts with water vapour in the air to make H2SO4 or sulphuric acid which rapidly creates fine little particles that reflects the suns rays back into space causing cooling. I need to ask you a question before I reply again. Do you know that the Greenhouse Effect is fact or do you think that it has been made up by scientists with an agenda?

The only UN reports I find state that it is beyond denial that humans are contributing to global warming and do not mention that we can only of contributed in the last 20 years. So please, link me up. I would like to read it. For someone who is trying to convince everyone of your view that humans don't contribute to warming, why are you withholding evidence from a reliable source?

Link me up.

I already searched and it doesn't appear to exist.

Can you please find me the UN report that says that we could only have impacted global temperatures in the past twenty years? I do actually want to read it, it sounds interesting.

What has nuclear disarmament got to do with anything? That's just a matter of opinion, nothing to do with science. I can give you a science lesson if you like all about bond vibration frequencies and emission spectrum's if you like, but I don't really see the point as you'd probably deny that and by conjunction say that all modern science is wrong. The Greenhouse Effect is correct. We know that for a fact. The Greenhouse Effect isn't global warming though, but we know that an enhanced Greenhouse Effect beyond the natural Greenhouse Effect will cause more warming(beyond what the natural effect does). We know that certain gases cause it, and we know we are pumping lots of those gases into the atmosphere and so the level of those gases in the atmosphere are much higher than they have been for a long time. It isn't hard.

Ecuador is an odd place to choose, given his opposition to censored press. May I suggest it's simply because the President gave him a few compliments in an interview recently... just like Chavez did. They only like him though because the Cables were perceived as 'anti-american'. If it were their cables, they'd be just as ****ed off.

The goal was offside anyways... so it shouldn't have got as far as it did anyways.

It means he isn't breathing and there's no blood circulation so his heart isn't pumping properly either/not at all. Probably being kept 'alive' on a machine. Death takes longer than just a heartbeat stopping though. The 'official' news will probably not be long. I guess the loss of his dictatorship hit him hard.