Lord Duckhunter

About 2 years ago I got a letter in the post telling me from now on my contributions were going up 2% and I would only receive 1/80th of my final salary, rather than 1/60th. They also closed the final salary scheme for new members. No discussion, no negotiation.Just that's it,take it or leave it.But I understood that this was done out of necessity,not out of spite and was done to protect the scheme and the company.I'm amazed at the lack of understanding shown by the unions and some public sector workers regarding the situation we are in as a country. They couldn't care less about the cost to the country and to future taxpayers. This is not a strike about principle, or about poor work conditions, or any moral crusade. It is purely about Public sector workers, who benefitted from the boom, refusing to accept that they will have to contribute to getting us out of the bust. I just hope the Govt have the balls to stand up to the unions, withdraw the last generous offer and then set about changing the law around strike action. Personally, I would like to see 1 day strikes outlawed. They are the cowards way out of protesting, an unpaid day off is no real hardship when you have a job with a steady income. They are just designed to inconvience the very people who are paying their pensions. If you want to go on strike, then fine go on strike, but dont come back in until the dispute is over one way or the other. Let's see how many of the Brothers members will vote for weeks and weeks with no pay coming in.

This is another issue, like The EU, where the politicans of all 3 main parties dont give a flying F what the people want. Along with the establishment, they have decided that immigration is a good thing and that's the end of it. You only have to look at Gordon Brown's response to Gillian Duffy's perfectly reasonable question about it (when he thought the mike was off), to know what our leaders really think. Most live in a bubble, seeing the country as one big Cosmopolitan city.

I'm going for Bernie Madoff,

What's well? Putting more in, or getting more out?

What a load of shiete. I thought for a minute that this was something the school had set my 12 year old to do.I take it we are paying for someone to design this nonsense out of our licence fee? To suggest that all you need to do is put your income, age ,and number of family members, to get a true reflection of your contribution is laughable.

Grant had no choice but to front up. Had there been a privacy law, would he have been quite so up front about it. You may not be interested in this sort of stuff, but thousends of your fellow countrymen are, they have given us the press we have now, because had they followed your lead and not bought the papers until they stop printing this stuff, they would have stopped. I happen to find Coogan, who starred in Fox's Night at the Museum, calling News International a "protection racket" and talking of Rupert Murdoch's toxic legacy,a complete and utter hypercrite. "Your Company is a protection racket, you will leave a toxic legacy,but thanks for the cheque"

What is the % increase for union bosses and council leaders?

If the British public didn't want the sex lives of slease balls like Grant and Coogan splashed across their breakfast tables, they wouldn't buy the papers that did it. I find the whole thing hypocritical, we get the papers that the British public want to buy. The British public set the enviorment by buying these papers, did they really believe that storries were obtained by "good old fashioned journalism".Just for once I would like to hear a politicans tell the voters the simple fact, that had they refused to buy these rags, then this sort of journalism would have gone away. They can't of course, because they've got revenge in mind but also because it's their voters who were doing the buying. Coogan was bleating on about them trying to set up a sting on him. Well a newspaper sting did for the cricketers as well as countless other illigal acts (like cocaine use, Mr Coogan). When Coogan and Grant stop appearing in Fox films, perhaps then I'll start to take them seriously. Until then they are just hypercrites crying because their illigal acts couldn't be hushed up.

I had a ref tell me to **** off once during a Sunday morning game. He also called me a useless ****, when I missed a sitter.It made some of the other players laugh, and also had the knock on effect of me shutting up and letting him get on with reffing the game. More ref's should try it.

Would people take 2 out of 3 wins, with the loss coming at you know where? Combine that with 4 points from Hull and Blackpool and we'd be going into Xmas with 49 points. QPR had 41 last season...........

My opinion is that the only thing that can stop us is an injury to RL. We have options everywhere else, but he gives that that something extra that means we can throw it into the box and he'll bury it or someone will pick up the knock downs. To be able to pass sides to death but also be able to knock it long for him, makes us a real danger going forward. I really would like to see us push the boat out in Jan and bring in a top quality striker that can play alongside him, or replace him if the worst happenend. I am starting to believe, because we've played so well. Another 6 games and we're halfway through the season, and I can't recall any shocking performances. There we're a couple where we weren't at our best, but other than that we have been consistantly good. The play off system means that it's hard for a Leicester or Birmingham to put runs together as most teams will always have something to play for, when we reach the turn of the year. It means we just have to show play off form and we're home and dry.Forget about West Ham, I hope they beat the chasing pack everytime they meet. Second is all we need to be playing in the Premiership next season.

I was in the Chapel and the Ref defo blew the whistle. The ref, who was poor all game cocked up, Either he blew before he should have done (unlikely), or the goal should have stood. To blow the whistle, the taker score, and then pull it back because the keeper was still fannying around is just plain wrong.I think that if he hadn't sent one off, given a dodgey pen earlier, he would just have allowed it. He just thought "oh ****, they're going go crazy over this" and bottled it.

Just a boring 0-0 that suited both teams, nothing more sinister than that. Had there been some sort of prior "arrangement", then 22 players, plus coaches and managers would have had to be in on it. In the past 30+ years one of those 40 odd people involved would have lifted the lid on any "agreement". Brighton's problem was that they let the situation devolop by not gaining enough points from earlier games.

Does that include Skates?

You're right. A couple of years back I was playing for a side that included a French Bloke who was working for Brittany Ferries in Poole. We had a situation where the referee reported one of the opposition to the FA for "racist language". Turned out he called the bloke a "French ***t".Maybe a "frog" or "froggie" I could understand, but how is calling someone a "French ***t racist"? (he was a ***t, by the way). I'm not condoning the use of the N word, but things are starting to get out of hand. I was called "baldie" last sunday morning, perhaps I should have complained to the Bournemouth FA..........

Until I get an invite, I think these dinners are a waste of time.

I've employed lots of foreigners the past 5 years, and they have all worked for the wage on offer, not less than my English staff. On the whole(except one or two cases), they have been hardworking, polite, reliable and a credit to their country of origin.They work as much overtime as they can, and are flexible, coming in at short notice and switching shifts ect. Until recently it was really only foreigners who applied for the jobs,recently I have been getting a lot of 40-60 year old Brits, but I'm yet to see any of the "lost generation" of youngsters applying. The jobs we offer are not ideal, are poorly paid and pretty boring, but the Poles ect do them willingly and well. I would love to give the jobs to English youngsters, but my job is to do what's best for the Company (otherwise I'll be looking for another job myself), so I'll contine to employ foreigners. The only way they are taking "our jobs" is by doing them better and being more enthusiastic and keener at the interview stage.

It needs to be about 4 mins after it pops up, otherwise it's too hot. Longer than that is no good either.

I agree regarding the accountability, what we signed up for is not what the EU is now. The majority may like that fact, but we should have been asked. On your second point; Personally, I do not believe that leaving the EU will effect 1 cent of our Trade with the remaining EU countries. The French and Germans will not stop trading with us, or indeed cut back at all. If we have goods or services they want, they'll buy them whether we are in or out of the EU. There maybe some tinkering around the edges and some tariff's involved in certain export or imports, but in this age of a global economy I dont think they'll amount to much. certainly they will be considerably less than the billions of our money poured away by the EU. The City may well be pro EU, but surely it's for the British people to decide, not the City and certainly not professional politicans, many of whom were wrong about the Euro, most of whom did not see where more and more debt would lead us, and many of whom were on the take and fiddling their expenses. It's funny how we get up and protest about a Manager at our football club, or against the owner of the club or stadium name change and yet allow ourselves to sleep walk into giving away vast areas of our self governence (hard fought for by our forefathers)

And the Torys are equally to blame. Dont forget they promised to match Labour's spending plans until about 2008. Both parties had neither the wit or wisdom to understand that more and more spending would lead us where we are. It became the political consensus that more and more spending was "investment" and that this was a good thing. Now it is becoming impossible to put the genie back in the bottle.........

Quite clearly, but the post I was answering to was "One thing the euro is obviously good for is being a scape goat for Cameron and Osbourne to try and explain why growth in the UK has slowed to a crawl.". It is not a scapegoat, any problems in the Euro will cause British growth to stall. It is inconsistant for the Labour party and its supporters to bang on about how much trade we do with Europe, so much in fact that we can not leave the EU, but then turn round and saya crisis there wont effect growth in the UK.........

The Commission, the European Union's executive arm, said on Thursday that stagnation in the euro zone was a high probability. It forecast just 0.5 percent growth in 2012 but said it could not exclude a deep and protracted recession. Surely in light of the amount of trade we do with the EU (according to the pro EU's), then quite clearly we are reaching a point of "real danger to our economy", exactly what Cameron and GO are saying. It seems that Labour recession's are caused by global issues, but these global issues never have any effect on Tory recessions.....Strange that.

My only gripe is the allocation of tickets. They have had a ballot for S/T holders to go to The Reservation in December, but for home games there is a free for all. As long as you are on the data base you can apply for tickets. There should be some distinction between non season ticket holders who go to 1 or 2 games a season and those that go to a dozen or so.

Quite clearly the Euro loonys and the Labour Party are the ones that need to get their story stright here. We are reaptedly told that to leave the EU would be madness, because of all the Trade we do with Europe. Therefore it stands to reason that if Europe is in decline and facing tough austerity measures, with no growth, then that will clearly impact on British growth and jobs. Or are they trying to say that we cant leave the EU because of all the Trade we do with them, but our growth is not linked to all that trade?

"reputation within the game", is a Cliché trotted out in football, when people are wondering who the hell someone is. It is used by fans to show how knowledable they are about the game, and that they are not just supporters but serious football people. How do you aquire this tag of "repuation within the game"? Steve Keen has it, as did Mark Wotte, Wiggley and Stewart Gray. Football is basically an old boys network, so there's always going to be someone saying good things about you. Adkins had 2 promotions from the league we were in at the time, was manging in the league above us, they are totally different appointments and even the most one eyed Skate could see that. When they were talking about Dave Jones, SOD and Steve Coppell they can only be dissapointed with this guy.