Lord Duckhunter

Bercows wife is an old trout if you ask me, but Gordon clearly wants to do to her, what he did to our economy............

So your mate should get priority over everyone else, just because you have a Season Ticket?

Interseting watching This Week last night. During his annihilation of some young lefty Andrew Neil brought up this fact; When the top tax rate was 98% the richest 1% of the population paid 5% of all income tax raised. When Lawson dropped it to 40% the richest 1% paid 30% of the income tax collected. (It is now 27%.) He also said that tax take doubled and in some years trebled once rates were lowered. Lawson's lowering the tax rate led to the richest paying more into the state, yet the Labour party kicked up such a fuss that the commons sitting announcing it had to be suspended.

Cable said that the 50% rate was "largely symbolic" and as Dune said earlier was mainly used by Brown/Darling to box the Torys into a corner. The dropping of the rate to 45% is the Torys doing exactly the same thing. It is symbolic and designed to nod towards lower taxes. Labour for all their protests will not go into an election promising to raise income tax. Even for the rich, tax rises are electrol suicide. Osborne has been quite clever in delaying it for a year. Some people will defer wages or bonus to pay at 45%, and this will boost the take next year and reduce it this year. He can then come out and show figures which will show 45% brought more in than 50%. I fully expect it to be reduced back to 40% within 2 years. The whole tax arguement is looking at things from the wrong way round in my opinion. The rates for everyone would be a lot lower if Govt's stopped wasting our money.Everyday in our lives we look for value for money, yet we hand money over to the state and it wastes it over and over again. We seem to have political classes that look at tax from the point of view of "how much can we get away with taking off people, and still get elected". The rule of thumb should be, "what's the minimum we need to fund the things a state needs to do?".

What my wife cant get her head round is the timing, when she needs to go she goes. I dont know if it's just me, but I like to try before going to work, and before going out just in case I get called short.

My old man always used to go into the toilet with the paper, same time every day. I think it was the only peace and quiet he ever got. After about 25 mins he would emerge from the toilet and with the rest of the family sat around eating breakfast would say, "anyone want a read". Nobody ever did and it put me off reading the paper for years. As soon as I was old enough I used to buy my own paper.

Wow, I hardly think £83 per year is going to dent their retirement plans too much. Most of their "earnt money" will be equity as their homes shot up in value, and their endowments gave them a windfall. Some of them got rich, not on the back of their hard work, but of buying a house at the right time.Coupled with their final salary pensions, it is a generation that is richer than the one it followed and certainly richer than the ones that will follow. The bastards also had the best music, surely that's worth £83 alone. Why should someone who has benefitted from all the booms and all the above, benefit from better tax arrangements than a working man of 35 with 2 kids? These 65 year olds are not the 65 year olds from my youth. They are not old Granny's burning their furniture to stay warm, and rocking in their chairs waiting for the end.

I wouldn't cry too much over this "Granny Tax" either. Paul Johnson head of the IFS says that "poor pensioners will not be affected", and it is "a relatively modest tax increase on a group hitherto well sheltered from tax and benefit changes." This is a group of people that saw massive increases in their property values, final salary pensions and massive surpluss' from their endowments. I'm sure they could afford a £90 a year tax rise, perhaps some of them could even start paying bus fares.

All the stuff the Torys are bringing in during this tough times, should have been done by Labour during the "boom" years. Welfare cap, Family benefit taken off the rich, icreasing the rate we start paying tax, a push to get people off the sick and back into work,and more importantly stopping people's benefit for those who refuse to work. There were jobs about, I had to employ Polish to do my minimum wage jobs. There are sections of our society that refuse to work and there are sections who think that we owe them a living. There are young people who seem to think that hard menial work is beneath them, that unless they are given the job that they want, they will not work.Sir Terry Leahy used to stack shelves in Tesco, but that's now beneath some of the Xfactor generation. Labour should have sorted these people out when there were jobs available, but that's just not the Labour way. The pattern of my working life has always been the same. Labour spend too much and run out of money, the Tories clear up the mess, becoming unpopular in the process.From the response to every money saving measure, and their continued call for "investment" it appears the party are still stuck in their ways and the circle will continue for our next generation.

She's a nutter

I can't believe that anyone could fail to be moved after listening to the guy who ran onto the pitch. I dont really believe in miracles, but this is pretty close. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17460781

Here we go, exactly what I wrote earlier. Rachel Reeves was asked if Labour would reverse the 5% cut at the next election. Reeves- "we wouldn't have cut it", Interviwer- "but would you reverse it", Reeves-"we wouldn't have cut it" Interviewer-"I asked you if you will reverse it" Reeves- " if the elction was tomorrow, we would". Interviewer-"But you know the election isn't tomorrow, will you reverse it at the next election". Reeves " I can't comment on future tax plans". Just heard on PM that the IFS have said Osborne was right about cutting the rate. They're just playing politics with it.

They see the tax system as a way to punish people, not maximise revenue.They still want the pips to squeak. Labour put NI up for everyone, why didn't they increase the top rate of tax instead? Because they know full well that just increasing tax does not bring in more money. By the next election we will know how much revenue the top rate will bring in. Peoploe can then vote accordingly, my betting is that Labour will queitly drop their oppostition to this and will not go into the next election promising to increase tax.

Like every budget it will take a few days for the full impact to be known. The top rate of tax coming down is a step in the right direction, but I think 45% is still too high. I am a great believer in the Laffer curve and that lower tax rates generate more tax revenue. Thatcher brought taxes down and the revenue ended up with more money. I thought this particular arguement was won in the 90's, when Labour kept tax rates at Tory levels, but politics being politics, Milliband is trying to distort the arguement.If he believed that a 50% rate would bring in more money, why did Labour increase NI contributions for everyone, instead of increasing the top rate? Hopefully by the election we will have figures that will show how much the 50% bought in and how much the 45% is bringing in. Will Labour go into the next election promising to raise it back, bearing in mind they said it was temporary. Child benefit should not be paid to people on large incomes IMO. Raising of tax thresholds is a good thing, although I see Osborne has caught Gordon Brown's fiscal drag bug. Great to see a statement being sent to everyone showing where our tax goes. I would like to see tax and NI combined, so people can really see the amount Govt takes from us. Interesting to note the the OBR say that the richest 1%, account for 27% of total tax revenues. No doubt the BBC are lining up nurses, dinner ladies and lollipop men to moan on about how poor the Tory's are making them. And the lead item on the 6 o clock news will be the 5% cut, which the OBR estimates will cost 100 million, chicken feed in terms of GDP and will be cost neutral when the other measures are taken into account.

My mate works for the press and he told me a while back that we are "difficult" to deal with, and that Cortese was awkard. I didn't really want to get into it with him, as despite (or maybe because of ) being friends for nearly 40 years, we do tend to ***** at each other a bit. I wasn't sure whether he was saying it just to prompt a reaction from me, as after a few beers I tend to have nothing said against my team. Being a typical press guy he does tend to think that he has a right to know everything and that people should fawn over him and answer anything he asks, so it could be a question of Cortese just not wanting to know the press and not playing the "game".

It's great to travel to games in expectation rather than hope, but the Premiership is the place to be. I've enjoyed this season, but my nipper cant remember the Premiership days,so would love it for him and other nippers. It would be great for people like Lambert, Lallana, and not forgetting Kelvin who turned down West Ham to stay with us. Would be great for all involved with the takeover as well, NC and ML's family.

2 points; Surely it's just the sitting tenant who has the "right to buy", not some property dealer, and there were pay backs if you sold early. It has always been hard to get onto the property ladder. I remember a time when Building Societies couldn't borrow money from the money markets and could only lend their deposits. You had to be a member, have interviews with the Manager and there was no such thing as 100%, or anywhere close to that, mortgages. It is hard to get onto the ladder and you do need to save a big deposit, but you always had to. It's only the past 30 years of easy credit that has made people think it's their "right" to borrow money.

Pubs are one of man's greatest inventions. It's bloody hard work and there are some **** poor landlords out there, however there are some really good ones. The landlord (or his Mrs in most of the good pubs I've been in) really makes a great pub. That said the brewerys, local and national Govt's and large chains are slowly killing decent pubs. The brewerys are ripping of tenants, putting rent up and selling beer at high prices to them. My son's wife's family own a pub and her Dad told me this story, that sums up brewerys. His local golf club wanted some real ale to sell, so he said that he would put them in touch with his brewery. He got the brewery involved and they put the ale in the club. Lo and behold, they charged the golf club less than they were charging him, a tenent of some 15 years. So he got them the in at the club and the brewery under cut his prices. Instaed of putting up prices in supermarkets, we should be reducing the tax on drinks in pubs.

Just seen this: It's pretty much a cut and paste job from Meridans interview. http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/20876/7596340/Age-an-England-issue-for-Harry

Councils have always had the right to sell to their tenants, it wasn't some new fangled idea brought in by Mrs T. Whether people like it or not, extending this right to buy was one of the most popular policies of the past 40 years. It got many many families onto the housing ladder. Labour oppossed it in 1983 & 1987, but the great party of prinicple dropped their opposition in 1992 as polls showed it was costing them votes. As a taxpayer who has not benefitted from this, I have no problem with it. Some of the estates round here have been transformed as people owned their own houses and spent time and effort doing them up. I dont understand the leftie's objection to it, it's hardly middle class Tories who are benefitting from it. Just goes to prove what I've always thought, they are out of touch with what the people they claim to represent want. This was popular with working people and will be again.

There's no point in getting too hung up on players going to Reading or West Ham, they've done nothing wrong. The League sanction loans at this period and at least Birch is trying to shift people on. Personally I never thought that there was ever a chance of them going midseason, the FL would just not let it happen. That would be the same with any club in their premier comp, not just The Skates. Lets face it, Green is pretty shiete and Henderson has had a good season,so it could be a good deal for Fat Sam with an eye on next season. Same with Reading, Mullins will add to their squad. If there was a player that was capable of adding to ours I would hope that Adkins would move to sign him. It's not West Ham or Readings fault we drew at that dump so will only lose 1 point. Even if you do beleiev that West Ham have only signed him to protect the points, you aint going to prove it, as the valuation is not way OTT. We just need to get the job done and wave the Skates goodbye.

I had the misfortune to walk into the lounge as my nipper was watching it. I thought Baldylocks Dinnage was going to kiss him at one point, if you think Jonathon Ross fawns over his guests that blad Skate took it to another level. One interesting thing: Redknapp said Hoddle & Wally with Brolly, took the job too young, said it was an older man's job. Said there's some great young Managers about like Nigel Adkins who although too young now, should be considered in future. Rest of interview was the normal pony. Named Fat Sam and Roy Hodgson as good choices, loves it at Spurs, court case the worst time in his life, only taken to court because it was him. Baldy said more to follow ( I think he said tonight, but not sure), hope he asks him about bankrupting Skates and ****ing us up, but I doubt if he will.

I just rang them, because although I have my tickets, they're ****ing me off with this. I made out that my mates had got group 4 savings from Poole, but another 4 of us wanted to get on the same train at Southampton and it wouldn't allow discount online. They said it must be a glitch and that group 4 would be available at the station. I think they are bending the rules hoping that people will book online at the higher price. What's the betting the "glitch "only occours when Saints are in London?

Dont use The Trainline, Southwest train fares to London are the same, but Trainline charge £1 booking fee and £3.50 to pay by credit card. I booked group 4 discount online for Watford and have just done the same for Millwall, but from Poole. The discount didn't show at the summary so I pressed back, it then gave me the option to add the group 4 discount. The funny thing is I tried it for Southampton to Waterloo and it didn't work. Seems like there could be something in them trying to rip off football supporters, I cant think of any other reason it would work from Poole and not Southampton.

For anyone else at the top of the league, this is a gimmie. But, for us it's going to be a tough game. I care more about promotion than the Skates and would be happy with 7 points from the Palace, Reading and Skate game. If we beat the Skates and lose to Reading, then we could miss out.