saintbletch

5. Sorry Low Flyd, I missed this one. But in the spirit of Catch-22, you've now got to fly 10 more missions...No, OK. I think you deserve your lifetime achievement award. Well done. Muppetry of the highest order. Special bonus points for mentioning David Sylvian and Japan. Do you know that it's possible that I might have had a slightly confused man crush on him back in the day. It's either that or I just thought that I looked great wearing leg warmers, with my foppish fringe dyed burgundy* (real hair BTW, not nylon). *Note that here I am pronouncing burgundy with the EM-phasis on the wrong SY-llable. i.e. burr GUNDY. Isn't it great now that the word-bores have taken over the asylum? Perhaps we can play the "hidden Japan song name game". Anything for a quiet life? BTW did you know that The Bear has spent large portions of his life in Tokyo?

4. phlegm

Wit and humour of the highest order and you feel compelled to bring a "mistake" to my attention? I could point out 3B that I was posting in the Gosport vernacular at the time, but that would do you a disservice... Score one to 3B. BTW the reason that you never see me picking people up on their grammar or spelling (other than Toke - and that's mainly a paternal thing), is that I don't want to be called up on the countless mistakes I must make whilst dispensing my indispensable wisdom on here. So be warned 3B, keep this up and I'll be posting more Australian bush poetry*. *Bush poetry is not a euphemism. You'd better check you're grammar and spellings three times before every post from now on 3B. P.S. I liked your apostrophe lamenting the missing saint in saintbletch. Nice touch. P.P.S What is the plural of Stasi? If Stasi is the singular, then perhaps you should have written "...encourage each of us to become grammar stasi" and even then I feel that there's an article missing. Unless you used Stasi in the sense of attaining the state of something Stasi-like, then that might work. Or if Stasi is the plural, then I think that you got away with that. I might have to get Owl Flyd's brother in for an adjudication. He's to grammar pedantry what Burpy T (or saintbletch) is to thread killing. P.P.S Go on, I dare you. Good luck with your future posts.

I'd dismissed it as unworkable because of the very effect it would have to have on the minimum wage. Interesting. OK papster, finger in the air - what would a minimum wage have to be in pap's world? And would that make it unworkable?

Well, 3B, Turkish is best placed to answer the questions about the Ruislip firms, so I'll leave that for him when he returns from Hong Kong. He's in the Mong Kok district at the moment being proper nawty. 3. Whitey, read the rules mate. This is TMS, so it's not only advisable to get into character here, it's compulsory. Making largely earnest replies when I've tried to take the ****, just makes me look bad. That won't do. I've got a 2014 TMS MVP award to win, and you're in my target demographic. Swan used to be widely eaten in Gosport when I was growing up - judging by the number that went missing from the boating lake. BTW "serving swan's neck sausage" used to be euphemism down are way. Probably. Talking of exotic food and soups in particular - when you've eaten at Chinese restaurants in the past, have you ever drunk the Cream of Sumyun Gye?* *Please think carefully before responding. It is the duty of the artisan to allow the wealthy man to believe that one's wealth comes from one's wealth. Great Uncle Hilaire Bletch

I must admit that when I was much younger I reached a similar conclusion about the unfairness of tax rates being different for different levels of earning. The very fact that by earning more you will pay more seemed reason enough. I've since changed my mind, and look back realising that I hadn't thought it through. I think you're right that there is some sort of principle at the heart of the issue, but surely in practice it wouldn't work? Then again, I envisage it failing because I wouldn't want to live in the sort of society it might create, but I can see how others may see the same society as evidence that such a tax scheme would work. To my mind, it would 'work' even less if you combine it with the sort of slimmed down government that you seem to be advocating - one that believes that rather than the state providing many services for its citizens, the obligation should largely fall upon the individual to provide for themselves. Please correct me if I've got you wrong there; I'm assuming here that you are not advocating zero state involvement, but a significantly reduced level of services provided by the state and much of that reduction in the level of state benefit? I also assume here that you would abolish the lower earnings limit - such that we all pay the same tax on all of our earnings? Otherwise this would seem to fail your test that someone earning £10,001 would pay tax at a different rate than someone on £10,000. The biggest concern would be that those on lower incomes would be paying such a significant percentage of their earnings in taxation that they'd either not be able to fund a full and rewarding life, or that work would seem not worthwhile. Without a benefits safety net, I could envisage a chunk of our fellow citizens turning to a black economy or crime to make their way in the world. I can see two classes of citizen developing very quickly with a line between the two that would be very difficult to cross - in both ways. Surely we each agree to pay higher rates of tax so that others may at least enjoy a minimum decent standard of life - and because at our level of higher earnings it hurts us much less to do so? We do this when we enter the workforce thus taking advantage of the "unfairness" and then when we earn well later in our careers we fall victim to the "unfairness". I have no research to back-up this feeling, so I'd be interested if you can provide some to the contrary. Are there for examples any countries that implement such a system? Your comments about not trusting the politicians to spend it wisely I fully understand, but we have little choice. Do we?

Tut, tut, tut. Poor KRG is using this thread as a vehicle to announce an early sexual experiment with a man called Lionel from South Yorkshire, and you want to rub your meat in his face? I like the word game Halo BTW, but not half as much as the apostrophe you've nestled before the Ess in Spoons. Are language is in good hands here. Food snob. 'Spoons do a very reasonable and not completely plastic fried breakfast which I've been known to wolf down on a Sunday morning, and there is no more reasonably priced place to damage your liver either. What and where do you eat then you fascist member of the bourgeoisie?* I bet you go up market to a Beefeater and eat swan's neck sausage with peacock toes, all served off the back of peasants crawling on all fours. *Sorry Whitey. I'm re-reading Orwell's "Down and out in Paris and London" at the moment, having just finished "The Grapes of Wrath". So I've come over a little socialist. And I can tell you that the little socialist didn't like it one bit. And no it wasn't pap. **Go on, I dare you.

This isn't about me Flyd Owl. It's about Dubai Philip and his golfering goings-on. DubaiPhilip? Come on, share some stuff. It's quiet enough on here already, and I think we'd all agree that you can never have too few golfering stories.

This town ain't big enough for the both of us, Wolfy LD. By the way, I will put you forward for an award for using the phrase "popular beat combo" if you manage to fit it in to 5 consecutive threads. Anything less isn't really worthy of muppetry. Reach 5 and I'll make sure that you get a lifetime acheivement award in the 2014 TMS Awards.

Just taken a cold call from a company trying to sell me something. I took great pleasure in saying "Pardon?" to him when he introduced himself as "Jack from The Hearing Clinic".

A good post sandwichsaint. A reminder for us all. But you left off the bit about our obligation to reduce the deficit, and to then start to reduce our national debt caused by the profligacy of previous governments and the wrecklessness of financial institutions, in order that the rest of our non-taxed income actually retains some real value. Perhaps we could each opt-in or opt-out of contributing to a separate fund for paying off the national debt; a national debt largely caused by people who fit comfortably into the 45% tax bracket? We might then have the wonderful irony of seeing relatively low earners of a left persuasion happily contributing to the fund to ensure that the money in the pocket of those relatively high earners of a right persuasion retained its value. Perhaps we have that already?

Lol? Was that short for Lionel, KRG?

Yep, I can follow that, and it certainly makes sense in the case of of the benefit claimant, but I'm not sure the high earner will behave that way. I know Whitey is not looking at individuals as we are here, but rather that macro effects on the population at large, but if we feel we need more money each month, do we really consider (consciously or unconsciously) how much tax we've had deducted before thinking whether we should...get promoted, push for a raise or perhaps work longer hours? I'd suggest that instead, "we" look in our bank each month, look at the calendar and see if we can change the government this month, and if not we push for more.

Interesting "research" Whitey, but instinctively I've never felt that the argument makes sense to me. I've not carried out studies and neither do I have counter studies to suggest it's wrong. It's just that it doesn't feel right. And neither do I understand the logic that says that reducing the 50% rate to 45% would stop people developing ever more creative ways to avoid paying tax. Or that high tax rates would force people abroad... but that's another subject... Anyway, help me with this one will you, Whitey? There is a school of thought that says that if you reduce benefit payments, you will encourage those people claiming these benefits to get back to work, or to work longer hours, or generally try to "better" themselves. If this logic is correct, it seems to contradict the assertion that when higher level earners see their take home pay reduced through taxation, they all simply stop pushing for more money. Perhaps the benefit claimant is seen to have such a (relatively) poor standard of living, and the higher earner such a (relatively) high standard of living, that one will try harder whilst the other will tap out and say that he's comfortable enough? Instinctively, I'd think that those who want to maintain/improve their standard of living, would simply work harder - be they on benefits or hitting higher tax rates. Of course there is another factor which is that instead of us working harder to maintain/improve our standard of living, we each simply wait 4 or 5 years and then place our X against the party that say they will do that for us. So perhaps those studies simply show the optimum amount of tax that can be reliably collected before you risk being voted out of office? Not being smart here, and not looking to trip you up; I'd genuinely like to hear your view,

Very good teedee38, there's got to be a lesson in there about the danger of travelling to away games.... ...If you get ring sting by going away to Arsenal, then should we get into Europe don't go to see us play Fotballaget Fart of Norway, and whatever you do don't go to see Young Boys in Berne. Hilarious words in football team names here.

Yeah, true Scummer. It isn't 2020 now. So they do have some time to deliver on it. Perhaps we will be debt free by then, but I don't share your apparent confidence. Perhaps they're gambling that they'll be able to deliver on this commitment if things pick up between now and then? I guess that is possible. Perhaps we'll have got the deficit under control, or perhaps we'll even be running a budget surplus by 2020. But giving away £7.2B in exchequer revenue when we'll still have >£1T* national debt, doesn't strike me as particularly fiscally responsible. Or, perhaps reducing the deficit isn't really the Conservatives' #1 focus? Perhaps staying in office while delivering idealogically driven cuts to the size of the state is there #1 objective. Perhaps. If that were the case, then I don't mind that being their #1 objective. I mean, it's a Tory-led coalition government after all, it's proudly part of their DNA, but I just wish they'd drop the pretence. I can honestly say that I found it weirdly refreshing listening to Osborne earlier in the week. I might not agree with all of his tactics, but it's difficult to criticise a bloke who has said the same thing for the last 4+ years, and can point to a positive response in the economy as "proof" that his plan is working. He addressed the conference and said a bunch of unpopular stuff about cuts and hardship. A conference that was looking for anything that can help them fight of Labour and/or UKIP. He didn't seem to offer them much. Fair play I thought. George said that once we started to get through this mess, he'd mend the roof when the sun was shining. (Check it out. He said those words - or a form thereof). And now Dave closes the conference saying, he plans to give away £7.2B each year, come what may. I say again, I can't reconcile the (understandable) stated desire to get our debt, deficit and borrowing under control, with a copper-bottomed commitment to delivering £7.2B of tax cuts every year. *That T stands for trillion

I'm with Charles. I like it.

I listened to Cameron's speech yesterday - an interesting counterpoint to Osborne's speech earlier in the week. Osborne spilled the beans about the size of the deficit problem that we are still facing. He was quite clear that there will be many more years of austerity, and that if we thought the cuts so far were bad, that we hadn't seen anything yet. Then Cameron came in and promised us all tax cuts (by 2020 BTW). I find it difficult to take the two positions as a single cohesive manifesto. Forgive me if I'm teaching my grandmother to suck oeufs here, but it's worth pointing out that when we say we're "successfully reducing our budget deficit", this isn't actually touching our level of indebtedness at all. In fact everyday that we are "successfully reducing our budget deficit", our national debt and borrowing will increase. Our deficit is simply the difference between government revenues and expenses. So, if we are still in budget deficit - albeit one that we are successfully reducing, and our national debt is increasing every second, then surely tax cuts are unlikely to be the answer to reducing national debt? Now I don't mind the logic that says we've got to go through some tough years, and even though I can understand the economic argument that leaving taxpayers with more cash in their pocket may see more money moving through the economy which in turn may stimulate growth, but I'm struggling to reconcile the stated justification for austerity with the stated objective of reducing our deficit and ultimately starting to lower our national debt. This is starting to look idealogical. Again, I understand that you don't want to stifle any recovery through taxation, but tax cuts? Now? That came across to me as fiscally irresponsible. Other than that, I though he did a good job on his European issue, as well as positioning a UKIP vote as a Labour vote. He's also the only one of the crop that looks remotely statesman-like. Perhaps this is simply because I've seen him in so many more statesman situations? I did think he look a little stilted at times - and he made it obvious that he was reading his lines, but he did use a bit of "passion" and humour well enough.

I'm having one of those "Grown men shouldn't cry" moments. You know the sort of thing where you get that odd sensation of fluid building up in the corner of your eye when watching a real tear-Jerker. I've experienced that sensation a number of times; whilst watching "Marvellous", "It's a wonderful life" and most recently "Eyeball sex party IV - Lash Gash Bash!". The cause this time? Watching Dubai Philip mope around the various forums on TSW, as he tries to get people to engage with him in discussions about golf. It reminds me of the swotty kid at school who always loved word games, and when everyone else was trying to play football, he'd go up to them and invite them to play "hangman" or his hilarious "verb name" game. Oh, but no they couldn't be bothered. But how I, he laughs at them now that he has become a PC-based grammar Nazi. So in spirit of public service and in the memory of that swot that I used to, er, know.... Tell us about the golfing game Dubai Philip. Share some pictures of the golfing match. Regale us with some anecdotes about the golfing pitch and the golfing players. I'll even get Toke to lock Turkish outside on a chain for a day or two, so that he doesn't come here suggesting that your stories are exaggerated or untrue. Go on Philip. You know you want to.

Good thread pap. I listened to all of Miliband's speech on the radio whilst painting the shed and the decking last week. I have to say that whilst I can't take him seriously as a leader of the Labour party, he is a technically very accomplished speaker. Forgetting to mention the economy is laughably stupid, but the mechanics of his speech, if you can put aside the overly sincere delivery, committed to memory as it was (or wasn't!), was very impressive. I thought the structure of Miliband's speech was very good, and he got his messages across very well. This is not a comment on the validity of his policies, simply looking at the way he communicated. This was undoubtedly helped by the fact I only listened and didn't have to see him. Still, the fact that he forget to mention the economy is perhaps rightfully all that will be remembered.

Oh Lord trousers, you've provoked me into responding. It's just that part of me "literally" dies when I read statements like this. It's the sort of fact-laden, truth-endowed, yet humanity-bereft statement that we see our politicians serve up as soon as they're shaken out of the Westminster reverie, and called to account by those that put them there. I just wouldn't allow myself to leave those words here, unaccompanied by a smiley or other emoticon that might suggest irony. Lib Dem voters saw their party's leader exchange his pledge to vote against an increase in tuition fees for the right to be able to grasp Cameron's cock nearer to the hilt that anyone else. Having not won the election, and having decided to enter into arse-coitus with the Conservative party, can I ask what you think Lib Dem voters should rightfully have expected from their leader on the subject of tuition fees? For me the word pledge has a couple of connotations - one involves cleaning furniture and isn't important here, whilst the other evokes intangibles such as honour, promise, loyalty and obligation. Given the use of the term "pledge" and given that it undoubtedly led people to vote for the Lib Dems, I would have expected Clegg to have made tuition fees a non-negotiable component of the discussions to form a coalition government. And by non-negotiable I mean that if the Conservative Party didn't agree, then they would go back to the people and run another election. Whilst by your analysis Nick Clegg didn't break a manifesto commitment, by my analysis he broke a personal pledge to hundreds of thousands of first-time voters; our children. Using a form of words that is semantically vague enough to turn the shit you've just done in the mouths of those that voted for you into a "Nutella-like gift", doesn't change the taste you've left in their mouths. It'd be like me trying to convince you that the global recession that the, well, "world" went through is evidence that Labour didn't mismanage the economy, but instead were simply victims of a global phenomenon. But I wouldn't do that, I have too much respect for you. Whilst it's "probably a fact" that no party in power during that period would have been able to stop the recession that followed, to suggest that "The recession isn't Labour's fault", whilst being true, would be to only tell half the story. And you'd rightfully look in the mirror and wonder what made your teeth so brown.

Was that the 1960s or the 1860s Whitey? #justchecking And if I ever described my wife as noisy, smelly and dirty, I'd be in big trouble.

Yes, interesting point Wes Tender, and one I hadn't considered. My sense is that if Cameron is still running the show, the scope of enfranchisement and the referendum question itself will both be skewed to his prefered option of staying on better terms, so I doubt that he would push for a devolved English vote. And as you say, it sounds constitutionally (UK and Europe) wrong for that to be possible.

A great result and superb performance. Mané looked unbelievably quick over 5 yards. He's going to provide the real pace that we've been missing. I thought that he might have been guilty of trying to beat his man a little too often (not a euphemism), when instead he could have passed and used his pace to get into space. Then again Bellerin; the defender he was up against, has just broken the Arsenal record for 40 metre sprint (previously held by Walcott, and Henry before him). So perhaps against less rapid defenders he will have more joy. I thought our CM 3 / 4 were stunning. Interchanging, pressing as a group, tackling, finding space. Absolutely superb. We totally stifled their passing game until Oxlade-Chamberlain came when they tried to create width, but we then showed great team-effort to hold on. Tadic was my MotM. He looks to have a pretty complete game to be honest. Explain to that propa-norty-lookin' Arsenal fan opposite you that you're laughing at his penis (by proxy). That should do the trick.

He does have an excellent turn of phrase. I heard Boris' father Stanley interviewed on the radio yesterday, and he came across as an older and wiser version of Boris. I didn't realise that his father was an MEP or that he is seriously into conservation. He was asked if being a Tory was at odds with his green credentials. He talked about how there are two types of Tories; those who think that capitalism is king and those old land owner Tories that think that the home and our country are everything. He is in the latter camp. He came across very well, and it seemed that Boris has been raised with some good values. He was plugging the second edition of his autobiography "Stanley I resume" - a sequel to "Stanley I presume".