Lord Duckhunter

But the minimum wage allows them to a the veneer of having morals without actually having any. My Company regularly bangs on about paying above the minimum wage as if it's some sort of achievement. Pay rises for grades lower than management were all changed to Oct from April to coincide with the increase in the minimum wage, the figure will be announced and it'll contain the words "X amount of pence over the minimum wage". I'm sure there are countless other companies that do the same. Personally, and I have no data for this just a gut feeling, I think the minimum wage has suppressed more peoples wages than it has dragged peoples wages up. Not so much now, but during the growth years. Companies all benchmarked their lowest pay against that figure, rather than paying a decent figure to attract talent. WFTC then add to the problem because Companies get the low wages topped up, so why bother paying more. For capitalism to really work people have to be able to put a figure on their Labour and walk away if offered lower than that. If Tesco couldn't get anyone to stack their shelves for £6.30, they would have to put the wage up to attract people. At present they can pay people that (and it was just an estimate) and the taxpayer will top it up. It also means that ASDA, Sainsbury's and Morrison's can also peg their pay around that figure leading to a downward spiral of ever lower wages. There is not a genuine market for peoples labour, it is skewered by the minimum wage. Therefore to make the minimum wage work you need to set it at a rate where people can live on it without state hand-outs .

So what do you want? Guaranteed jobs for everyone. Do you want the state to employ everybody who cant get a job in the private sector or do you want Government to force private companies to employ people?

"proper facts" as in stuff you agree with?

You seem to have left this bit off from the passage you quoted " but to raise Greece as an illustrative warning of what can happen when debts are not tackled does not seem unreasonable."

Tanglefoot

Doubt if we have as a club, but we know a certain player attempted a bit of spot fixing.

Where have I compared us to Greece. The markets have punished them and they COULD punish us. Maybe they will, maybe they wont. But I certainly don't want the man who left us so exposed by ****ing away our children's and Grand children's inheritance, running the economy.

Sir Geoffrey Howe's first budget cut the top rate of tax from 83% to 60% and the basic rate from 33% to 30%, cue up roar from the Labour benches and I believe the sitting was even suspended. Further Tory cuts in tax rates came in subsequent budgets and guess what, more tax revenue was raised. The political consensus for years afterwards seemed to be that lower top rates of tax brought in more revenue, until Labour in a purely political act raised it to 50% in the dying days of the last Government. The reason was to try and box the Tory's into a corner so that they could parrot this "tax break for millionaires" line. When Labour wanted to increase tax whilst in Government they did so by fiscal drag and increasing NI contributions, surely if they really believed taxing the rich more was the answer they would have raised the 40% figure earlier? On the wider point, economists aren't the font of all knowledge. Nobody predicted the banks going bust and they have been wrong politically before. The Tory 1981 Budget defied conventional economic wisdom at the time by deflating the economy at a time of recession. At the time, his decision was fiercely criticised by 364 economists in a letter to The Times, who contended that there was no place for de-stimulatory policies in the economic climate of the time Howe decided that by reducing the deficit which at the time was 3.6% GDP, and controlling inflation, long term interest rates would be able to decline, thus re-stimulating the economy. This is exactly what happened, he was right and the economists were wrong. As for spending your way out of a recession. It is possible to expand the deficit to do so, however the other side of the coin is you pay down debt and reduce the deficit during growth periods. Brown (with advise from the 2 Ed's) failed to do this. Embarking on a spending spree like a sailor on shore leave. Believing that he had abolished boom and bust and was some sort of genius. He threw money at unreformed welfare, threw money at an unreformed NHS and bottled making cuts and modernising the state subsides that people get. Most of the reforms going through now should have happened years ago. Now the money's gone and there's no room for borrowing on a scale that'll make any difference at all. The markets may get spooked, nobody knows for sure, but I'd rather not take the chance of following Balls' advise and end up with crippling interest rates. Maybe if Alistair Darling was shadow I would consider it, but Balls is one of the reasons we can not spend our way out of this recession. Him and his crony Brown ****ed all the money up. Balls, Brown and Labour did not cause the global economic heart attack any more than the Tory's can be blamed for the Euro zone dragging us down. What Balls and co did was leave us ill equipped to deal with it when it came and for that reason they should never be trusted with our economy again.

This. [video=youtube;Gx6M-IoZYMI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx6M-IoZYMI

If we lose I hope the BBC reporter remembers to ask Adkins if he'll thank Brian Mac

The simple fact is that enough money is collected in tax to look after the very poorest and most needy in this country. The reason people have to live on this pathetic amount is that the money is redistributed too thinly. People are receiving payments from the state who don't need it. Winter fuel allowence for millionaires, expats being an easy example. But what about child benefit, is that not a state handout? Me and mrs duck both work and both earn above the average wage, yet receive £140 odd in benefit each month solely because we have children, whilst some poor sod has to live on £50 a week. Is that right? If you were designing a welfare state now I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be handing out benefits to people with over 50k combined income, in pretty sure expats living in Spain wouldn't get cold weather payments or millionaires get free tv licences. We have a welfare state that pays people in genuine need a pittance so that it can continue to look after people who should be looking after themselves. Until we have a fundamental debate about who exactly the state should be helping and for how long, we will always have people on **** poor money, because that's all we can afford.

+1 At the moment we are subsidising multi million pound business' like Tesco's. Labour politicians bang on about how proud they are of setting up the minimum wage, however it was a meaningless political gesture. There is absolutely no point in a minimum wage if it's set so low that the state tops it up. It's just one big con on the electorate designed to embarrass the Tory's and confuse the gullible..

Major difference between them and Portsmouth is the Mittal 33% ownership. They have seriously rich people behind them, they won't necessarily chuck stupid money at them, but its a totally different kettle of fish to the skate paupers.

I still can't get my head round the cockles who rush off early to miss the traffic. Are their lives so busy that they have to get home before everyone else? Bunch of ****ing prunes, winning 2-1 against the European champions, yet they have to rush off.

I would hardly call having to put up with that boring old windbag weddgie Benn privileged or lucky. No wonder he's such a geek, whilst other kids were playing in the street,he was discussing clause 4 , jack jones' tuc speech or the manifesto.

Robbie Robertson's guitar solo at the end of The Band's King Harvest (has surely come). The piano end of "A day in the life". But this is my fav, simple rock and roll at it's best, kicks back the chair and bangs the piano lid down. Looks like The Killer has escaped from the local penitentiary

This is my fav,

Man of the people my arse, he's from pure champagne socialist stock. http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1735/ed_miliband_the_wrong_side_of_the_tracks

Comparing his Premiership record with BM's is like comparing apples and Oranges, look at the spending of both clubs. I'd rather have the Championship in my trophy cabinet. BM saved Reading from relegation, took them to the play off final and then won the trophy in his 3 years. That's a pretty impressive record of success at Championship level and don't believe Adkins is an upgrade on that.

Based on what?

Runners up , had they stuck with cue ball head they'd win it again.

I wish people would get their heads round the simple fact that there have been no ****ing cuts. It is just a slow down in the rate we increase public spending. Once all of this governments "cuts" are in place they will have cut spending by a massive 1% at the next election. If that's austerity then my cocks a carrot. "Too far too fast" what did labour want 0.5 % over 10 years. Spending to try and kick start recovery is one side of the coin, the other side is to pay down debt, reduce welfare and not run a deficit during an upturn. Labour blatantly failed to do this, seemingly beleiving they had abolished "the bust". When the inevitable bust came, they left us I'll equipped to respond and with no leeway to expand the deficit and do what they are calling for us to do now, borrow more. All the parties want to do is manage the public, deep down they know that massive cuts are needed , that real austerity required (Ireland has cut spending by 15%), but are concerned about popularity rather than doing what's right. The stupid thing about it is that the public were ready for cuts, that the public believe we've seen cuts, yet the government didn't have the balls to give us cuts. They've taken all the political hits and all the bad press, but haven't got an economy in shape and ready to recover. They're like a bloke whose wife leaves him after catching him with another bird, a bird he never actually banged, just had a quick grope with.

Whatever any government does at budget time it is just tinkering around the edges. There are no "cuts" just a slow down in the increase of money the government spends. All 3 parties are pulling the wool over our eyes The amount of money in £ notes that we spend of welfare if targetted correctly would get rid of poverty in this country. The problem is , the money is spent too thinly. People who aren't in need are provided for,meaning that money is tight. We also subsidies big business by topping up low pay with tax payers money. Only labour could devise a system where they set a minimum wage, but then get the state to top it up because its too low. Meanwhile the Tesco' and MacDonald's of the world post millions of profits. If you think a minimum wage is a moral and right thing to do, then make it a living wage, not a mixture of wages and benefits. Until the benefit system is a temporary safety net for people or a permanent one for a tiny portion of the population, disabled ECT, we will never sort out the mess. Too many people look to the state for answers and too many people receive state handouts that don't need them, ****ing hell we had squeals of protest from labour when millionaires lost their family benefit, madness.