Wes Tender

I don't see much dissent towards NC's stance on this and would like to add my praise to it too. I think that the payment of parachute payments to relegated clubs gives them an unfair advantage over those clubs in the Championship division and increasing the level of the payments only exacerbates the disadvantage further. Thank God we have a Chairman who is prepared to take a stand on a matter of principle and is not afraid to speak his mind.

You continue to disparage the sum spent by Liebherr in buying the club as somehow not equating to investment in your eyes and then you infer that others are a bit thick for being thankful that Liebherr deigned to put his hand in his pocket to save our bacon when nobody else was prepared to do it. Why do you seem incapable of grasping this? Are you somehow retarded yourself? And presumably by stating that spending profits doesn't count, you are acknowledging that the club is operating at a profit, despite the expenditure on players who are generally reckoned to be the best in the division, something that we were not able to afford under the former regimes. Therefore I'm inclined to think that Cortese is doing a great job. If you don't like it, then go into your little corner and have a good sulk.

AA tries to kid HMRC in the 11th hour that he had lined up a buyer and that if the club doesn't exit administration with a CVA because of the intervention of the HMRC's appeal, they will claim massive compensation from them if the appeal fails. So let's have it then Android. Who is this buyer that you have lined up? And if he is going to pay off all of the monies that the Skates owe to the taxman, then they might be prepared to call off the dogs. Otherwise, if the appeal fails, I don't see the Courts offering much in the way of compensation for a fictitional buyer. On the contrary, any potential buyers are far more likely to buy the club at a bargain basement price when it it has sunk as low as possible when the dust has settled, even if the club is playing its football in the lowest league. After all, it will still have a fanbase that is the envy of English football clubs everywhere and who would continue to support it regardless.

I heard on the radio today that research at the Tech College that is now the Skate University has revealed that many of the local population share behavioural characteristics with Gorillas and Apes. Quel surprise!

I thought this rather appropriate to the lot down the road and their current predicament:- To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury Signifying nothing."

p*ssing myself laughing at the naivety of this fella posting in The News:- 23 SAS1985, Portsmouth 13/07/2010 15:52:20 How can Nick Leeson be a fraud? He works for one of the biggest and best known financial firms in the World. :lol:

I'm surprised that you saw fit to comment on my post from hours ago when the latest news is that your club might be toast by the end of play Thursday. But are you saying that if we played you by the beginning of the season we wouldn't whip your sorry arses?

You do not possess a crystal ball. You might make a reasoned judgement call, but it will be pure conjecture. You cannot predict what will happen to Manchester United or Liverpool when Ferguson hangs up his tracksuit, or the American owners of both get fed up. The same with Chelski and Abramovich. You do not know what changes to the legislation of the game might produce, or whether the Sky money will continue for the next decade. It is only possible to live in the real World currently. It is not possible to live in the real World of the future when one doesn't even know what will constitute the real World then.

Fair enough generally. Although I disagree that the Mail shouldn't have mixed up the issue of immigration with that of housing benefits. Should they have suppressed some part of the facts of the case that many would have deemed to be relevant? It could be argued that by introducing some controversial element into the story of the housing benefit abuse, the profile of the case is raised higher in the public perception and that the clamour for something to be done about it is addressed more urgently. Ultimately, the waste of public money on cases like this one means that less money is available to pay for more important public services, so I agree with you that some sort of cap needs to be placed on the amount payable towards rental allowances for those receiving housing benefits. From a political perspective, it is clear to the electorate that massive cuts will need to be made in public services to get the economy back onto an even keel. Most recognise that there is a bloated bureacracy that could be cut dramatically to free up funds to maintain essential services. Many of the Quangos and the Area Health and Area Education Authorities would be good places to start. Incapacity benefit is another area that has been targetted too and discussed on here at length. I take your point that many of our most dynamic public servants can do beneficial work. For example, a benefit fraud investigator can recoup several times his salary in terms of the amount of fraudulent claims that are terminated. Let's have more public/civil servants employed to investigate benefit fraud and tax evasion so that we can be more confident that as much revenue as possible can be saved from abuse and misuse.

Wouldn't it be lovely to draw them that early on after the FA Cup match and administer revenge on their bunch of aged journeymen and youth? Especially if James had jumped off the sinking ship too.

Going back to FMPR's laughable assertion that they still have a squad with firepower because of the goalscoring machines that are Nugent and Smith, I was having a few moments contemplation as to where they are now compared to us. I concluded that were we to play them now, well, after the remaining star names have gone by the end of the week, I honestly feel that we would beat them. We had the upper hand in the FA Cup for 70 minutes and it was only those players who shouldn't have been on the pitch in blue that made the difference. They are all gone now. Add in the mental attitude comparing our settled squad of winners and their squaud where most of the half decent players have left and I think that we would give them a hiding at the moment.

Well, that's where we differ. I don't absolve this guy of blame just because the system allows him to abuse it. Neither do I feel that somebody who exploits loopholes to avoid paying their fair share of taxes is equally worthy of criticism. They are two entirely separate sets of circumstances and would require to be judged each on their own merits. On the one hand you seem happy to ignore the element of hospitality that attaches to welcoming refugees and asylum seekers to these shores. Abusing of our benefits system is not the ideal way to repay your host country, is it? As for those avoiding taxation through loopholes, that rather depends on whether the taxation could be deemed to be fair in the first place. What percentage of one's income is a fair sum? A third? Half? Two thirds? You really hit the nail on the head when you talk about people paying their share towards the upkeep of us all. There are those who put money into the pot and those who take it out. Perhaps this guy and others like him are taking out far more than their fair share to help his family, although you excuse it by saying that we'd all do it if we could. Perhaps the guy who avoids paying his tax has already paid far more than several other people put together, but you would castigate him for saying that enough is enough. The overtaxed guy can always become an economic migrant, of course and move to foreign shores where the tax regime is deemed by him to be less punitive and fairer, encouraging him to invest in that country. The guy from Somali is allegedly here for asylum, although because of our generous welfare system, we have more than our fair share of economic refugees coming here. Ironic, isn't it?

OK, so the headline should have read former asylum seeker and your headline about me could read former infant. And of course the headlines were sensationalised in order to sell copy. So name me a newspaper that doesn't sensationalise their headlines to sell copy. But the point is still made that when we are civilised enough to take in refugees and asylum seekers, we are entitled to feel annoyed when they abuse our hospitality like this. Yes, the abuse of this particular benefit is open to anybody in the UK apart from those you mention, but the circumstances of refugees or those granted asylum, are naturally brought into sharper focus because it is a slap in the face of the decent law-abiding and tax-paying indigenous population who were liberal in the generosity to those genuinely in peril in their own countries. I don't expect that Somalia is big on state handouts of any sort, not that I'm suggesting that we are their destination of choice because we are so lax about how we distribute our benefits to the lazy or feckless, you understand.

The headlines were as wrong as you are in the highlighted part. He was an asylum seeker. But he was granted asylum. See how easy it is to get it wrong?

What will make me happy is that the money that I pay in taxes is spent wisely on those people who are needy and deserving. What makes me angry is when it is wasted on those who are lazy, profligate, or who milk the system for their own selfish ends, thus depriving the system of funds for the really needy. I don't need to read links to learn. Life experience has taught me well enough to formulate an opinion as to what is right or wrong, what is available and what is needed. You seem to miss the irony that an ex-bus driver seemingly cannot catch a bus from the suburbs like most of his passengers, to commute to the shops or the schools or to work. Why should I berate the landlords for the rent levels in that area? I'm not a Socialist. The rent levels are determined by the local market, by supply and demand. It is obvious from that snippet you posted that the culprits are not the landlords of the scroungers, but the local authorities who have a duty to make checks on how public money is spent. If the current system didn't encourage this sort of misuse of public funds, then if I were a local resident in that area, I'd be clamouring for the housing officer responsible to be taken to account for it. It is obvious that now that the last Government is gone, the system is well overdue for urgent reform.

I really can't be bothered to read those links, as IMO they are not relevant to the point of the thread. But I'll willingly answer what you consider to be the salient point, but you are attempting to put a slant onto my post that doesn't exist and you have drawn a conclusion that isn't warranted. You say that surely people are entitled to live close to their work, but you ignore the public transport structure of London, which is excellent. There is absolutely no reason why people of lower income cannnot live in the suburbs and commute in to their work by bus or underground. Why, even comparatively well paid professionals commute into London from Winchester, Southampton, even Bournemouth, because they could not afford to live closer to their work in the City. So why should say a bus driver live in a large house in an expensive area of London, just because you feel that he should have an entitlement to live close to his work? There is plenty of work available in London for those who want it, but I suspect that having a large expensive house in an exclusive area is plenty of disincentive for him to find proper employment that would cover the sort of property that most of us hard-working taxpayers cannot afford. There is plenty of work in other parts of the country where housing costs are considerably lower too and I have the greatest of respect for those who relocate to obtain work rather than sitting on their arses claiming benefits and then moaning that it isn't enough, (especially when they wouldn't have access to State funding from their original homelands.) Towns become compartmentalised by natural means of supply and demand. It is not something that is best engineered by local authorities who know nothing about it. Experiments in mixing social housing into upmarket areas have always failed historically because resentment was caused between both the council tenants and the private home owners. They do not wish to be part of some social engineering experiment, preferring to be amongst people in similar circumstances to them.

Why should they be able to live in areas of high cost rents? Next you'll be suggesting that they should have their groceries delivered to them from Fortnum and Masons because the local Spar isn't much cop. Should their children be educated at Westminster school because the local comprehensive is poor? Do try and get some perspective. As for your last line, many large Council house estates became ghettos, therefore you contradict yourself.

On the face of it, labelling them as asylum seekers is incorrect, as apparently they have been granted asylum. Other than that, I see no other dispute of the facts. Whether they have applied for and been granted British Citizenship is not clear. However, there is a disparity whereby those granted asylum over here are able to claim benefits and housing, whereas those who come here as spouses of British citizens are not. On the contrary, the cost of visas to stay, indefinite leave to remain visas and the cost of citizenship has risen exponentially under Labour, so that it costs well in excess of £3000. As such, I would argue that the fact that they were granted asylum over here is not an irrelevance at all, although it is secondary to the main thrust of the story that the housing benefits system is open to this sort of abuse. If some express dismay that a family given asylum over here can stoop to abuse the hospitality of their new host nation, then they are entitled to their views. After all, it might be that they consider it from the perspective that I mentioned, that where there are abuses of the system whereby people either claim for things fraudulently that they are not entitled to, or whether they claim beyond their needs, less money is available in the pot to pay for those in society who have genuine needs. Nobody seems to have been able to disprove the facts behind this story and there are plenty of other stories about young mothers having numerous children by several unknown fathers and then being feather-bedded by the state in large houses. It is clear that the public have had enough of all this waste of resources and will welcome it being targetted so that cuts in expenditure on more needy and deserving cases will not have to be too deep.

As the story is twisted so horifically in your opinion, no doubt you will wish to regale us all with the factual truth. What is factually incorrect about the story? Was he not granted asylum to stay here with his family? Was he not formerly a bus driver before being made redundant? Did he not have a perfectly adequate house for his family, before deciding that he didn't think it was in a good enough area? Is this new house not in one of the most desirable and expensive areas of England? Is the rent not inflated beyond what it was before he came across his mate who rented it to him? And I'd be pleased of your opinion as to whether this is acceptable to you, when cuts will have to be made to local services in London and that they will have to dig still deeper because apparently this family was a bit picky about their perfectly adequate accommodation. Unless you can prove to my satisfaction that he and his family were not granted asylum here, I'm inclined to think that they really ought to show a bit more gratitude and respect to this country and its peoples. We offer a civilised system of support for those in genuine need, but resent being taken advantage of, suckers and soft-touch as we are. But for every case like this, growing resentment makes us less liberal and accommodating of genuine refugees, which is a pity.

When you say always, do you mean right back to the Industrial Revolution? There was always plenty of investment available then to turn us into the World's greatest manufacturer of all sorts of things. I suspect that you mean during our living memory, which was a period during which higher unit labour costs here meant that we lost a large slice of our manufacturing industry to those countries with lower unit labour costs and a more placid and compliant workforce. Suewhistle: The workforce in the British Car Industry was particularly Bolshie and was notorious for restrictive practices and overmanning brought about by too powerful unions. The management was powerless against them and investment in the car industry would have been like investing in Pompey; pouring money down the drain. In any event, the major part of the British car industry was Nationalised by Labour, so there was the investment of British taxpayers money into it, not that it did any good. Sunderland is a shining example of what the British workforce is capable of after the power of the Trade Unions had been broken and the local skilled population recognised that they were in the last chance saloon, that they either made a go of it, or they would be on the scrap heap. I would risk derision by stating that the Nissan made at Sunderland is probably as well made as the German cars. I am not comparing technology, just the manufacturing process. If you wish to make manfacturing comparisons based on technology, then we are capable of standards amongst the World's elite in fields like Aerospace, the Rolls Royce engines being a prime example. There is a British owned car manufacturer, Morgan, although I could understand that because it is a small player, you didn't count it.

IMO a child's views are formed by the opinions expressed by those he holds in respect. It ought to be the case that somebody responsible for teaching that child should command that respect, but that they also have a responsibility to express both sides of a point of view, so that the child can achieve some sort of balance and make up their own minds when they are old enough to do so. Your views on this forum are often slanted very much towards the left and also often factually incorrect. So I hope that you are not responsible for teaching your pupils History or Economics. As for your position on adults, as you say, they should know better. But neither does that excuse intemperate language from a professional such as a teacher. I have often said that one loses the argument if one has to stoop to name-calling. Anyway, I don't see much disproving of arguments as being inherently wrong, more a difference of opinion based on political dogma.

I agree. Granted that teach doesn't post under a recognisable name, presumably not one that could be identified by his pupils anyway and of course, he might not even be a teacher at all. But like you, my eyebrows are raised that he holds the sort of opinions that he does, where the views are sometimes a bit extreme and in many cases just plain incorrect. Also, although he is perfectly entitled to berate somebody else for extreme views that he despises, it is a bit disconcerting that a teacher would be quite so easily rattled into using such intemperate language. Although I also don't agree with the views of Dune on many things, I don't recall him often having to stoop to puerile name-calling.

Your memory is obviously very short, or very selective. The Conservatives spent most of that decade sorting out the over-powerful Unions and their destructive overmanning and restrictive practices. Before they came in, we were the sick man of Europe and had to bailed out by the International Monetary Fund. The last thing needed at that time was spending money we didn't have or the high taxation that would have been needed to fund it. At the end of the Conservatives time in office, the economy was once again sound and we had returned once more to the top table of World ecomomies. But don't let the facts get in the way of your dogma, teach.

There's no need to be quite so sarcastic, as it just makes you look a bit ridiculous. I've already pointed out that the vast majority of local Government services are paid for by central Government, so that the higher taxed people have already contributed far more towards the cost of those local services. I don't see you adressing the points I made. Where exactly do you draw the line at the level of taxation that ought to be paid for services which are either not used by people or are no better even though they cost more for some? Of course, as you have already recognised in your own obtuse way, when taxation becomes punitive and deemed to be unfair, those most punished by it find ways to avoid paying it, either by seeking out loopholes, or emigrating. As the percentage of these really wealthy people is relatively small and many of them find ways of avoiding payment anyway, the burden then falls onto the shoulders of the middle classes as usual. It was recently Lib Dem policy with their typically woolly thinking that there ought to be a local income tax to finance local Government services. Again, the only people who would think that fair, would be those who were low income earners, the same people who appear to believe their class warrior political heros, that the rich should be squeezed until the pips squeak. To them, a fairer society is one where their services and benefits are free to them and paid for by anybody who earns more than them.

100% agree. It is almost beyond the wit of many from the left of the political spectrum to take onboard that the Rates, the Community Charge, the Council Tax, are all tax levies on services provided by the local authority. As usual, they allow their envy to cloud their thinking, reasoning that millionaires and people in big houses ought to pay more for these services because they can afford it. But why should they? As you say, using another example, the elderly widow living alone in her large house that her family used to inhabit, is hardly going to produce more rubbish than the family of 4 next door, all of whom might be working. The spinster living alone is not making use of the school system. But looking at it from another perspective, everybody pays the same amount for the services they use in the private sector. You don't expect to pay more for having your boiler serviced because you are wealthier. There is no earnings related charge for using a taxi, booking a flight, seeing a film at the cinema or eating out at a restaurant. So why do the lefties think that the supply of services by a council ought to be based on ability to pay? Would they therefore accept as a logical conclusion that those who pay more are entitled to expect a better service? Businesses pay at much higher levels and are not entitled to a greater say in which party runs the council. The majority of council funding comes from central Government, so it could also be argued that those higher earners have contributed a greater proportion towards those services through their taxes already.