Lord Duckhunter

Had we not signed Sharp in Jan window most people would be doing their nut if , as a newly promoted Premiership club,we were bringing him in now. there would be posts about a lack of ambition, posts about how he's not the level we require and contrasts made with West Ham and Reading's signing of Premiership quality strikers. He seems like a nice guy and it's really sad his personal stuff, but he's a good Championship player and we're now a Premiership club. I remember Lawrie saying that you need a team to get you up and then another one once you're there. Just like Chappers and Deano, he was part of that side (a small one compared to them), but my opinion is he's not good enough for where we are now.

The whole thing is as clear as mud. I cant make Tues night games as I work. I was thinking of getting a ticket to build my points up as I am staying with my Mum's family for the QPR game, as they're S/T holders there. Now I dont know whether they are using the system or not .

I despair at the full backs in the modern game and Fox is a prime example. Brian Clough used to say get close and stop the cross, that was the full backs first duty. Nowadays them seem so scared of being skinned and look like a dummy, that they give the widemen way too much room and allow croses. Fox isn't the only one, but he's one of the worst I've seen. It's ok to defend like that against ok opposition, but against the best sides, we'll get punished. I cant help thinking that they are coached this way. Maybe because a alot of sides dont throw crosses in (Arsenal being a prime example) managers are telling them to make sure they dont get beat inside or out. The first goal Sun was a prime example, he should have got closer and let the cross hit his face, nuts or anything to stop it getting into RVP. Glen Johnson was taken apart by the pundits on MoTD. Playing like a winger and not carrying out his main role of defending. I dont want to sound like an old fart, but i want my full backs to defend and stop crosses.Anything else is a bonus.

Spot on. The Torys didn't help with their choice of Michael Howard. They should have held their noses and voted for that idiot Ken Clarke, then kicked him out when they won.

My point is relevant to this thread. Blair was popular with the people, without him the last Labour leader to have won an election would have been Harold Wilson. Why on earth his named got booed at the Labour conference I dont know. Personally I think the British people should have chucked him out in humilating style because of Iraq, but they didn't. Instead of that, he managed to throw a hospital pass to Gordon (which is what Gordon deserved for all his back stabbing).............

This is the same as those greatest albums or greatest artists things then run all the time. Great people get lost in the mists of time and old farts who would vote for them are either dead, puddled,cant be bothered or are unable to understand how to vote.

Expanding the topic slightly, what has happened to Mikey Wilde, and we dont hear much about old Rupes now-a-days?

What makes me laugh is that the lefties 2 great hate figures in Maggie and Blair, won 6 elections between them. No doubt we'll now get a rant about the FPTP system, explaining why they won so many mandates from ordinary people up and down the country.

Why, I wonder do Labour party supporters or ex Labour supporters and various lefties make Blair the bogeyman. Gordon Brown was as powerful a figure in the Labour Government as any chancellor has ever been. there is no way Blair could hve pressed ahead without Brown's backing. It's alright red Ed trying to claim that if he was in parliament he'd have voted against the war, but the simple truth is that the Ball's, Brown's and other labour leading lights were just as much to balme as Blair. It suits the Labour party to pin it on Blair, but it was a Brown/Blair Government. Perhaps Gordon should be put up for war crimes as well.

Fonte and Jos both have their faults and they both have their strengths. Jos is a better "backs to the wall" type of defender and that's what we've needed in both Manchester games. The peno's he gave away were both naive in the extreme and he must learn from this. I dont think yesterdays would have been given in the Championship, but by the letter of the law, felt it was a pen. Fonte is better on the ball and when we play weaker sides and have a bit more possession he'll come into his own. Fonte started a bit dodgy last season, but got better and better, if he can do the same this year, he'll be ok. Competition for places will hopefully spur them both on.

I wish people would just move on. The British people had a vote AFTER the Iraq war and returned Blair with a pretty healthy majority. To me this indicated that they weren't that bothered about the Iraq war and certainly didn't consider Blair a war criminal.

When Lambert pulled to the left during one move the bloke behind me shouted "what are you doing out there, get in the middle lambert". Within a few seconds he crossed the ball for MS to head home.

Surely the way to judge how much the richest pay in tax is the % of the total tax take that they contribute. In 1988 it was 28 cents of every dollar collected, and it's now 45 cents .

This is just completely untrue. In 1988 the richest 10% of Americans accounted for 28% of the total tax paid. It now stands at 45%.Therefore your claim that "working class" and "upper middle class" are paying a greater share is completely contray to what OECD reports claim. I would be interested in the data you have to back your claim up ,so we can judge who is right, The OECD or a bloke on a football forum...........

Deadline day......... Poor old Harry, I bet his like some herion addict going through cold turkey today. He's proberly sat on his drive in his car, talking to himself out of the window. Sandra's sat in the passenger seat playing the Bondy role.

But do you accept that there will be people in big houses, with no or little income coming in. Maybe a retired couple who bought the house 40 years ago. Also you have such variation of house prices over the country. You could set the bar at over £2mil, and that would catch middle class people in London, whereas just under £2mil house in parts of the North will be really rich.I'm no expert but I'm sure the rich could find a way of setting up a company to buy the house and then rent if off that company. If you tax shares too heavily, what incentive is there for people to invest in Companies via shares? Do you really think no Government has ever looked at your suggestions?

careful, you're starting to make sense.I posted months ago that a % is a %, and why should the rich pay a higher % of their money. By being a % they are in effect paying more. It would also as you say have other benefits. Jim davidson had an arguement with Portillo over this on "This week". You are taking Jim's side, repeating exactly what he said. Nick,Nick

Please tell us how you are going to judge someone wealthy. We cant have the buctootim ststem, where you decide who is wealthy and who isn't. To set taxes you have to have specific and clear guidleines. Earnings are easy, as is VAT. How are you going to define wealth, that clever tax experts cant drive a coach and horses through? but doesn't affect ordinary people?

No chance, although Fergie's son is there.................................nah, no chance.

I heard it, and Hawksbee even said stright afterwards "must be a Pompey fan trying to wind them up".Seems that it's worked.

Obviously that's the problem. The so called charity tax was put in place to try and stop aviodence, but there was an unintended consequence in that charity donations would be hit. Same with Jimmy Carr's scheme, that tax break was designed to help the film industry. There are some clever barstewards out there and as weve seen with the Skates, the HMRC are'nt a patch on them. I think we'd all love to be able to knock on these people's doors and demand they cough up, but its not that simple. It's been the same all through history. There was the window tax in the 18th and 19th century, as rich people's houses had more windows. What happened, they bricked them up. A simplistic example, but you get the jist.

They are already higher for the top 1%. They pay 45%.

Should go easy on Sky, with Redknapp gone they've lost at least 30% of their deadline day show. Wouldn't be surprised if they've had to make a couple of reporters redundant.

Perhaps I'm a bit simple, but I dont get the 300k figure and certainly never used it.Apoligies if it's in a link, but my understanding of the top 1% of income tax payers is baiscally the top 1% of everyone who pays income tax.Surely it's a number of people, not a £ and p figure. We already have VAT on luxury goods, and various other ways of sqeezing them too complicated to list on here. They pay for NHS, which I doubt they use. Dont you think that if there was a way of getting more out of the rich people who aren't in the 1%, a Government would have found it by now. The first thing you need to do is define what is rich . Secondly you need to then find assests that you can tax, without the unintended consequences of hammering others. Then you have to collect it, whilst having expensive tax advisors running rings around you.

As I wrote "How much do you want the top 1% to pay, it's already at 25% of income tax." I dont quite understand your point. According to the OECD rich Britons (they define rich as top 10%) pay about 39% of total taxes, contrast this with 28% in France, 31% in Germany, and In America the home of the "bad guys" it is 45%. Strange isn't it that in France the rich pay 28% but in the much-maligned USA, where greed is supposedly king, they pay 45%. Perhaps when Hollande's new super tax kicks in, we'll be able to see a massive increase in the richest in France's contribution to society. Personally, I doubt it, because as Healy found out when he raised the rate to 83% it's self defeating. If squeezing the pips of the richest in society was the answer, then we wouldn't have needed to go cap in hand to the IMF in the 70's and Labour wouldn't have spent 18 years trying to regain it's economic credibility.