Lord Duckhunter

Is it not a fact that every immigrant who gets a job in the UK, means that job is unavailable to a UK citizen. There if 50k come, then that's 50k more Brits unemployed. "They may not want those minimum wage jobs" I hear you cry. Well that's 50k Brits that should have their benefits cut, but are able to use hard working migrants to hide their laziness behind. Migrants also keep wages down. Mr dominio pizzas was on TV last month, bemoaning that he had thousands of jobs he couldn't fill. A UK minister told him to increase his wages . Why does he need to do that? He can fill those jobs with hardworking, well educated, dedicated eastern Europeans.

Personally I don't see why the UK couldn't sort its own arrangements with the Spanish, German, Dutch ect governments to allow free movement of people to those countries and visa versa. But I do accept that in the lead up to any EU referendum this issue can be used as a stick to beat the people advocating withdrawal. Yes, the could bar people working and living abroad , but in reality I'm sure something can be sorted. I was served in prezzo last week by a Russian chick, I didn't get into her immigration status, but last time I looked Russia wasn't an EU member. The free movement of people actually hinders the EU from bringing Turkey into the fold, which would really benefit the single market. The main issue that the establishment in this country won't acknowledge is that the EU is on the road to ever closer union. It was in the treaty of Rome, it is accepted by all other members, it is a fact of EU life. The British establishment are still trying to con the people that its a economic community. It is not, they know it, but instead of persuading the people that its right, that its a good thing, lie and con us. They should have the strength of their beliefs, but they don't, and Tories like Dave and Gideon are following in the footsteps of grocer heath and clowns like ken Clarke and hestletine. They need to man up and present the pro arguments like some on here have. They are committed Europeans trying to pretend they're not. Shameful.

The free movement of people is a fundamental component of the single market. It has been from day one and will be as long as we remain in the EU. No British politician has the balls to say so or to stick up for this basic EU right. They try to skirt round the issue and set up the straw benefits man to knock down. Basically , starting with Thatcher, UK governments have pressed for expansion of the EU as a counter weight against German & French influence, they also believed that the free eastern block countries would have a more Anglo Saxon approach to economics and the EU. They reasoned that more countries would mean more of a trading bloc than a "federal" EU. Nobody seemed to realise that more countries would equal more immigration or if they did, they hoped the British people wouldn't notice or wouldn't connect it to the EU. What Nigel Farage has done is change the terms of the debate from the micro EU debate of bill cash and others which was around "chapter x, sub section y" of such and such a treaty, to the macro " Bulgarian and Romania immigrants are allowed to come because we're in the EU". Of course Nigel is right, there are no restrictions because were in the eu, but none of the established parties want to acknowledge that and then defend it even though they know full well its non negotiable as a member. My view is that it is for the British people via parliament to decide our immigration policy and that is one reason I think we should leave the EU. The depressing thing is the other side of the argument muddy the waters, they bang on about the benefits of immigration, they try to smear the people worried about it, they will not stand up and tell this basic truth, that if we want to remain in the EU, any Bulgarian, Romanian, Greek,Italian, Belgium, or other EU citizen can live and work in the UK and there is nothing the British government can do about it

George Cole Chuck Berry Clint Eastwood John Cleese Tony Benn

The most important thing in my eyes is keeping hold of Nicola. Nobody really knows the trusts intentions or motivations, and this is the only cloud on what has been a pretty clear horizon. My wish for the new year is that Nicola is given a stake in the club as an owner rather than employee of the trust. I've always hoped he'd get a consortium together and be in charge as long as Lowe was.

Mike Dean is fast becoming the best ref around, that's how bad they've got. Baldy Webb was a bloody disgrace on Sunday and poll has suggested that he's trying to avoid controversial incidents to cement his world cup place. He's yet to issue a red card or give a peno this season. Its claimed that he's worked out that you get more stick for missing an incident ,than for giving a wrong decision. Therefore , he's wilfully blind to some incidents. Sunday there were 2 horrendous Chelsea tackles and a blatant peno, had he reduced Chelsea to 9 and given it, the shiete would have hit the fan. Its easy to send two stoke players off, but they're all blinded by big players and clubs. Rooney should have gone at Hull, poor tackle on Huddleston was a yellow, and then booked for arguing. Same at Cardiff, wild kick out, but he stayed on. Bottlers the lot of them.

Nonsense. Who would he have offended if he celebrated with a MC windmill, or an Alan Shearer , or indeed celebrated as he had done for the other 5 English clubs he played for? It was an anti Semitic gesture, but he lacks the balls to come out and say so and hides behind weasel words and explanations. On a wider point , I've always found this holocaust denial law in some European countries complete nonsense. Why not allow people to deny it ever happened? 99% of the public would think you're a complete and utter idiot if you did. Open up the deniers claims to scrutiny and they'll end up losing all credibility with normal people.

I thought it was one of those that you're ****ed off if they're given against you but are convinced its a stonewall for you. MOTD didn't dwell on it, so maybe neutrals would be 50/50. Interesting piece from Poll in the Mail online today. He claims refs have realised they get more stick for giving something that's wrong, than they do if they miss something, however obvious. He thinks they maybe turning a blind eye as a result. Evidently Baldy Webb has yet to give a peno or red card all season.

Just back, one of my fav away days. Proper football club and nice old fashioned ground. Game could have gone either way, but we didn't quite do enough to deserve it. Spoke to a few of them on way back to car and they were very compliamentry. JWP poor today and Rickie got no change from Skate. Good to have kelvin back.

We've done it the past 4 years and would never go back to cooking at home. Mrs Duck is a good cook, but its so much better for her now. From about Aug onwards if we have a decent pub meal, we ask them about Xmas. Avoid chains and hotels, or managed pubs as by and large they tend to be ping and ding. I always insist on a pub where you can stand at bar before and after and one that has one sitting only. You'll pay around twice normal rate for 3 course meal, but its worth it for a lovely Xmas day for my Mrs. Need to book early as you can.

Larry David, Peter Kay, Harry Hill. Brand is a fat, white, female Lenny Henry. Unfunny to start with but then having the unbelievable talent to become even less funny. One trick pony beloved of TV because she's fat, ugly and bashes men.

Pap ,surely loads of art has people not credited. Im sure George Martin had a massive part in the Beatles sucsess, you only have to look at the albums Phil Spector ruined to see that. Maybe these writers just tweaked jokes or added lines rather than wrote the whole joke. My favourite band The Band had this , Robbie Robertson wrote most of the stuff but the others added riffs, lines, words ECT. It did create a lot of bad feeling that he got credits and they didn't. But the songs were his, they just added the cream on top. How much they contribued and what credit they deserve, is as old as music itself. Its not just black and white.

Interesting conversation on this weeks The Game Times Podcast. The English journo loved MM , the 2 Europeans pointing out that they out spent everyone in championship and are something like 4th highest spenders this season. Marcoti who has championed our own MP's ability from day one pointed out that without Tams' money MM would be a run of the mill championship manager. I tend to agree with that. One thing for sure, he didn't inspire Much effort from his players when his job was on the line. Another Owen Coyle if you ask me.

Jo Brand is not funny, end of.

Elvis may not have written his own stuff Pap, but he was a fantastic singer that influenced some of the greats that did. Lieber and stoller may have written it, but its the performance and the voice that sold it to a generation. Elvis was actually let down by the crap the colonel got him to sing. When he insisted on picking his own stuff pre army and then around '68 there was nobody to touch him. Same with comedians, Eric Morecambe, Tommy Cooper had writers, but the genius was in their delivery. Shame Jo brand and other unfunny comedians don't use better writers. So rather than bemoan stand ups using professional writers, you should wish more did. As an aside George martin wanted the Beatles second single to be "how do you do it", but Lennon hated it. "Write something better and I'll record it" replied martin. So John and Paul came back with please please me. Shame somebody didn't encourage Elvis to give it a serious go.

Fits our system perfectly. Class, good first touch,rarely gives the ball away and works damn hard. Great bit of business from whoever nicked him from rangers. Far better player than I ever thought he was.

Load of nonsense, you can't go round applying 21st century values on the past. There are countless people who committed acts that were criminal when committed by are not crimes now. Are we going to pardon all of them, or just famous people, or crimes connected to homosexuality. Our kings and queens have imprisoned, killed and impoverished millions over the years, not to mention stole a **** load of land. Perhaps the welfare tourists from Germany should start apologising. What's the difference between a pair of knackers and a head?

Would have helped playing away today because by and large our travelling support is more supportive than at SMS. He was shiete , but some of the moaning then ironic cheers against spurs was pretty bad form. I thought he looked slightly better today, but still doesn't quite look the part yet. Young keepers tend to make errors, but they're mental, positional or judgemental errors, whilst making some good saves and being a good shot stopper. What worries me is he doesn't appear to even be a particular good shot stopper and has a worrying trait of going wth the "wrong" hand. The offside effort today and John Terrys goal highlighted this. Not saying much, but today was his best game this season, hopefully he can build on it at Everton . Its another away game and this season they dont bomb it into the box as much as they used to. I just hope that this rough spell is the making of the guy , rather than the ruin of him. But, I'm going to take quite a bit of convincing before thinking he'll get a chance again. It would be interesting to know MP real thoughts on the guy and how well he does in training.

As I posted a few pages ago my Journo mate reckons they're concentrating on stars that were attracted to youngsters because they were young. That's why there has not been loads of rock stars prosecuted. If you read Bill Graham's book about promoting The Stones,The Who, Grateful Dead, Led Zep ect ect, they certainly did not ask for any form of id. I guess in the Wyman case, he was attracted to Mandy Smith because she was fit. He was not attracted to young girls as a matter of course. And for clarity, this is not an excuse, the guy should face questioning IMO. I'm just passing on something I was told by a member of the gutter press. They may well come back and get him later, or one of the others, but they're after the ones who targeted young girls solely on the basis of their age.

I thought Foxy did ok yesterday, not great but ok. When you come through the leagues as quick as we did, you're going to end up with championship players as back Ups. You strengthen the starting 11 and you're left with reserves who are on decent championship money, but not good enough for premiership. Established premiership clubs will have premiership players as reserves. Which premiership left backs are going to come and understudy Shaw. On the general point of scapegoats, why do blokes doing their best , but not good enough, get clog, yet good players playing poorly get away with it.Lambert was poor yesterday, has been pretty poor most of the season. JRod was poor, Gaston is a monumental waste of money, Osvaldo is hit and miss. Fox, Jos and Gazza are poor, **** poor, but they are doing their best.

Gollywogs are clearly some sort of caricature of black blokes , and the word wog is clearly inappropriate in this day and age. There isn't somebody who sits around deciding what is or isn't appropriate, or a body whose job it is to decide what is or isn't offensive, its just over a number of years the culture of a country changes. It wasn't that gollywogs were deemed offensive by some sort of law , just that most people thought we're better off consigning them to the past. Personally im glad they are, as there's no place for them in a modern country in public. If somebody wants to put one on a fridge magnet, or on their bed, that's up to them, but personally i would be uncomfortable explaing to my children why i had one. If one of my mates came up the alehouse with a golly badge on , id think he was a tw at rather than a racist, but would really wonder what the point was. As for diversity training, the ones I've done have always struck me as a company covering their backside. There was nothing in it thst anyone needed re educating about, anyone with half a brain would know what was appropriate and what wasn't. Companies just do it to ensure compliance if they need to sack someone imo.

If you had a wholly elected house of lords, then you would have a challange to the ultimate authority of the commons. At the moment the will of the commons has to prevail as the government can force legislation through eventually. A fully elected house of lords will have a legitimacy that could end up blocking government business. All you will do is create another layer of professional politicians. The principle of a revising chamber filled with experts and noble citizens is sound, its the professional politicians from the commons that abuse it by filling it with supporters,donors, cronies and ex mps bribed to give up their safe seats.

Franco Baldini is Technical Director

Didn't Jol play for WBA?