Verbal

Where can I invoice you? I think you might want to look at a few histories of the current crisis to see where you've gone horribly wrong. I'd recommend Gillian Tett's 'Fool's Gold: How the Bold dream of a Small Tribe at JP Morgan Was corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe'. This traces the roots of the derivatives crisis which remains at the heart of everything going on now. And for a British perspective: Philip Augar's 'Chasing Alpha: How Reckless Growth and Unchecked Ambition Ruined the City's Golden Decade'. Then come back and say you can't blame the banks...

Are you capable of a reasoned argument to go with this? Or do you just need a little lie down?

As a rule of thumb in politics, it's as well to remember that the more certain you are, the more likely it is you're wrong. One of the uncomfortable truths for those who rail at the very idea of unions, or who merely object to their defence of existing terms and conditions of employment, is that without them Britain would be a low-wage economy (or even lower-wage), slipping into competition with Albania. In an age when the rich are becoming VASTLY richer - almost to the point of returning us to a Dickensian age - unions have never become more vital in the struggle to distribute a share of that economic growth over the last few decades Their actions may cause short term discomfort, but the consequences of those actions are that we - and by we I mean those who are not on seven-figure salaries at the taxpayer-sponging banks - are all better off. Look what's happened in the US, where unions are weaker. The US economy is three times as big as it was in the 1970s, but workers there have experienced a 40-year, real-terms income squeeze, while the top 1% have quadrupled their wealth. We can sink back into this if you want - but Britain would be a far, far worse place for it.

Badgers 1 trousers 0

I really do think you should try a bit harder than this. Retailing Tory Party official propaganda seems a bit too close to spamming.

So you need your facts dressed up in religious mumbo jumbo? Anyone seriously interested in plagues or anything else in Egypt is not going to start with something the Romans cooked up hundreds of years after the supposed event.

We should start a buddy system. For every Saintsweb public sector striker, someone from the private sector on here should do a double shift. Windows in the city will be gleaming, even if the rubbish hasn't been taken out.

Or is it? I don't believe the FA has ever failed anyone as a FAPP.

Damn, that old Daily Mail horror story. I thought this was about a cleaned-up Father Ted.

In 1959, Fleming wanted Hitchcock to direct Dr No with Richard Burton as Bond. Fortunately, Hitchcock went off to make Psycho instead, and changed the course of cinema rather than wasting his time on formulaic prequels to Johnny English. The only things good about Bond movies were the Aston Martin DB5, Ken Adam's sets, Maurice Binder's titles and Monty Norman's theme, arranged to sound 'surf' (en vogue at the time) by John Barry. The rest, including Connery, were all disposable.

I did wonder. But I also suspected he was too scared to ask so used your post to spell it out that his blonde bombshell fantasy ain't all that.

All of them were Thatcher decisions.

I wouldn't take it too seriously. Remember, this thread was started by a self-confessed racist scumbag who thinks it's okay to admit publicly that he reads the Express - and then okay to troll his own thread. That he's tolerated on here encourages him to think his 'views' are anything more than wasted carbon dioxide. On topic, which newspaper you read tells you practically nothing very interesting about who you are.

I'm just curious. Do you support: The building of the Channel Tunnel. Moves towards monetary union with Europe. Increasing public spending.

No one is calling for anything 'miraculous' - merely that the manufacturing that is out there, and has a great product to make and sell, can actually secure the kind of investment that brings a recovery about. And that means reforming a City that has grown greedy and yet obscenely dependent on taxpayers for its decisions to profit from now-toxic 'assets'. As I say, go and read Alan Posen on this - he does actually know what he's talking about! - and then see if it changes your view.

If you spout less and research more, you'll find that even major figures within the City and the regulators of it realise the immense damage done by the city's lamentable failure to invest in UK manufacturing. (Go and look at any number of statements on this by Adam Posen, for example) And note that, as elsewhere in Europe with a FAR stronger manufacturing base than the UK (Germany, France, Scandinavia, for example) workers are NOT on poverty-level wages for precisely the reason that the kind of manufacturing done there is more often high-tech, and therefore calls for highly highly skilled workers. Of course there are much better immediate returns on derivatives...or were. Because now, all these - in your view - brilliant investments languish as toxic stock in 'bad banks' pinned upright by taxpayers.

The Socialist has better sport.

Largely irrelevant. 1987 was a quarter of a century ago. In that time, manufacturing could have been transformed. (Germany rebuilt its manufacturing base much more quickly after the war, as did Japan - and the new manufacturing giants like India and China have emerged in less time). You can't simply dismiss the dismal fact that manufacturers here, who are crying out for investment, just aren't getting it from banks who devote a whopping 3% of their activity to manufacturing investment. THAT is what has pushed the decline.

It's the latter, sadly. The decline of manufacturing in the UK has most of all to do with investment - and most of that is governed by the City banking sector, which Thatcher de-regulated with the 'Big Bang' in 1987. It set off a chain reaction that resulted in Britain's suffering the worst effects of the credit crunch. In some ways worse than that, though, her legacy was the stranglehold that British banks took on manufacturing here. Today, the City's investment in UK manufacturing accounts for a miniscule 3% of its activity. Which is why the manufacturing sector is constantly complaining about being driven out of business by the banks! The rest of the City's portfolio is in 'asset investment' (much of it commercial property), bonds, etc, and the clever financial instruments, like derivatives, that got us into this mess in the first place.

If you had been like Thatcher you'd have INCREASED public spending. Read a book once in while.

If you take goal difference as a predictor of form, then outside the top two it's Cardiff.

I doubt it. Mandaric has a face for artists who can't do faces.

Oh great, yet another thread for our resident scumbag closet racists to talk puerile rubbish.

Can't imagine any of the LE wanting to be in 'environmental health'.

You are honestly dumb enough to think that the international nature of PB's workplace is down to political correctness?