Lord Duckhunter

Didn't think the lefties could get any lower over the death of an old lady, but no, Derek Hatton lowering the tone even further. " I wish she'd never been born". Oh, and accord to Hatton , she paved the way for Tony Blair's "illegal war". Why is it that lefties like Foot are allowed to rest in peace by their political foes, but they don't even have the respect to wait until she's buried before spouting vile and hate.

Correct, they were. They've been very brave to do what they've done, but that doesn't make them Ghandi. And it certainly doesn't make Maggie Thatcher as evil as them

Don't be so ****ing stupid, it's hardly child like to call Adams evil. He was personally involved and also sanctioned some evil acts including some against his own community. Rather than being "uniformed" a good friend of mine was in the Garda at the time, admittedly in Lucan rather than the border area, but he'll tell you intelligence they had and the things these guys did. They were at the very top of an organisation that knee capped their own, made people from their own community disappear and murdered innocent men, women, and children. And what attitude have I adopted over the "peace process", I made no comment over it other than call Adams Evil. Don't you think the Paisleys of this world think he's evil, don't you think John Major thought he was evil, Mo Mowlem knew he was evil. He was one evil son of a *****, but they held their noses and dealt with him. Calling Adams evil does not mean one is against this manufactured peace. Why try and make out he's some sort of Nelson Mandela.

If you really believe that Gerry Adams was no more evil than Maggie Thatcher, then you are seriously deluded . What people like Adams and McGuiness did was pure evil and just because the establishment held their noses and arranged some sort of "peace" does not suddenly make them freedom fighters or soldiers. They were murdering evil bastards, end of.

Her radical policies which were against the political wisdom at the time is now mainstream and endorsed by all except the Galloway's of the world. Even her "milk snatching" from her Education days was never reversed by Labour. Non of the industries she privatised were ever renationalised by Labour. Never again would they squeeze the rich until the pips squeaked, they still sold council houses and they never reformed any of her major union legislation. Surely the proof in whether your policies were any good is the fact that the opposition embraced most of your major convictions, despite 3 massive majorities and 13 years in which to do so.

Weak leaders like Heath, Wilson and Sunny Jim were leading us to terminal decline by constantly giving in to the unions. We were the sick man of Europe, a country with a past but no future. The fact that the reforms were not rolled back despite 13 years to do so, says it all.

Forget about the politics for a minute and just remember what an incredible achievement for a women to lead a political party and particularly the Tory party. We are no nearer to another women PM than we were when she left a generation ago. She was also outside of the establishment and a great contrast to pygmies running the 3 parties at present. You can quite understand people hating her, but the simple facts are that she won 3 victories so her policies were popular with the electorate. The country needed changing and she had the balls to change it. Hardly any of her reforms were rolled back by Labour despite 3 massive majorities and 13 years to do so.

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