badgerx16

purple (l)

Without which intervention the bankers would have completely crashed their empire of illusions and sleight of hand. They were being far too clever for their own good, and the Government was forced to borrow to bail them out.

Precisely.

Probably nowhere near the figure you would like it to be to support your argument. A few less luxury kitchen salesmen & Porsche dealers, maybe one 3 Michelin starred restaurant closes. Most of these bonuses would be either spent abroad when they go on their holidays to exotic and exclusive destinations, or squirreled away in Monagesque mansions and off shore bank accounts.

Nowhere near as many as are dependent on the lowest quartile ( by income ) spending theirs.

Dorset County Council are the largest employer by far, and I suspect the NHS, Police, West Dorset District Council etc will employ quite a few out the population of just over 16,000.

We are needed to balance out the fascists.

Who do they pay that to ? Other banks and international monetary agencies. HM Treasury spent over £109Bn in keeping them running in the 2008-2009 financial year, what with buying shares, making loans, and guaranteeing insurance on bad debts, etc. They should shoulder the burden of the interest on that amount, it comes to nearly 20% of the total Government spend.

And add into the mix that the job losses won't be evenly spread; for instance if RAF Lossiemouth closes, how much will that area's local private economy be able to absorb ? What happens to the BAe sites that are closing due to the cancellation of Nimrod ? I want to know the details of exactly how much, personally, Cameron, Clegg, & Osborne will be suffering. After all, it's supposed to be about everybody paying their 'fair' share, and they can afford a darned sight more than I can.

However much of the debt was borrowed to prop up the banks - make them pay the interest charges that amount accrues.

Celtic

You are far more entertaining in the evening

granny

-culture

dory ( Who else is watching Masterchef ?)

If the Tories wanted out of the contract, which 'allegedly' bears such a price, they would have found a way. Parliament, as we have found so many times, makes it's own rules. This is just as much a smokescreen as HMS Exeter put up at the Battle of the River Plate.

It's all about 'force projection' and 'showing the flag'. The comparable countries would be France, ( slightly larger population, probably now a larger navy ), Italy, ( similar population and now a similar sized navy ), or Germany, ( I think the RN will still be bigger than the DM, just ).

If I am not mistaken, Liam Fox, David Cameron, and George Osborne made this decision. There were other options, they, and they alone, chose this one.

Are we talking about the Blackpool FC who won at St James' Park & Anfield, and outplayed the richest club in the country for about 70 minutes of Sunday's match ? Anyway, get the thread back on track...CHEATS !!!

Puts us on a par with the Eyeties, but then they still have carrier borne strike planes.

It wasn't intended to be misleading, and I don't deny the situation, but to claim that the Tories had 'wiped out' the debt is a blatant untruth, as it was increasing dramatically when the 1997 election took place. And, take note, over the first 6 years of Bliar's tenure, it went down, which gives the lie to another myth about Labour's stewardship of the economy. How would it look if the US hadn't dragged the world to the event horizon of an economic black hole ?

An old article on the BBC news site http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7733794.stm This includes the following image We could play ping-pong with figures and claims from now 'til Doomsday. The real issue is whether the cuts need to made as deep, and as quick, as the ConDems would have us believe, and I hope the consensus is shifting against them.

pocket ( money )

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/prominent-tory-donors-among-business-leaders-who-backed-osbornes-cuts-2110268.html "The Federation of Small Businesses attacked the call by leaders of 35 of Britain's biggest companies for the Coalition Government to stick to its tough deficit reduction plans" "Christopher P!ssarides, Britain's new Nobel laureate in economics and professor of economics at the LSE, said: "I am rather puzzled as to why big companies think the private sector will create jobs if the cuts are immediate rather than spread over two or three years, to give the private sector time to plan ahead. The situation is not so grave; there is no big risk premium of government debt as in Greece or Spain. I see a lot of confidence in the ability of the British Government to control the deficit. That confidence will remain if there is a well-arranged plan over the next few years rather than the next few months."" "David Blanchflower, a former member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, said of the letter: "It's a terrible, terrible mistake. The sensible thing to do is to spread [the cuts] over a long time. Clearly you have to deal with the deficit, but there is no economics that says you have to deal with it in a week or a month."" " Stephen Alambritis, chief spokesman for the Federation of Small Businesses, said: "Large companies can take these cuts in their stride. The City will reward them with a higher share price if they reduce their workforce. But the Chancellor should not be emboldened by these business leaders. "Some small firms rely on public-sector contracts for 50 or 60 per cent of their turnover. If the cuts are swingeing and overnight, these companies will be lost to the UK economy forever."" But then, what do they know ?

Jessica