Wes Tender

My God, you must be really naive if you don't believe that there are going to be swingeing increases in taxation if Labour somehow manage to remain in power. And what is this arrogant use of the word "remember"? Are you trying to lecture everybody about something that is apparently common knowledge only in your mind? Did you hear on the news today about those MPs up in court for fiddling their expenses? Three Labour and one Conservative. No comment about the abolition of the 10% tax band and the effect that has had on the poor? You're opinions are equally as blinkered on political matters as they are on football. You're consistent in your inconsistency.

Therefore although you are entitled to an opinion in just the same way that you are on footballing matters, otherwise your opinions naturally carry less weight, as you do not live here and pay Income tax or Council tax, you don't buy petrol and experience the roads which would be more expected of a third World country, the Health Service and Education, the overwheening bureaucracy, the benefit culture, the increasing lawlessness, etc. Easier to hold Liberal views when you are thousands of miles away, but I'm not about to comment on how the Canadians run their affairs because apart from two holidays there, I am not qualified because I have not experienced normal life over there. Presumably, it has been several years since you have had first hand experience of life over here.

Your first sentence just smacks of the language of the left, the snouts in the troughs attitude perpetuated by the Socialist Worker. If for example you changed that to fairer taxes for the top earners, it sounds a bit more reasonable. As I have said before, there comes a point beyond which the wealthy either find ways to avoid paying above a level they deem to be unfair, or they emigrate. You yourself seem to have emigrated unless I'm mistaken. Better life over there, is it? Lower taxes on companies enables them to invest more into their businesses, thus improving productivity and growing the business to take on more employees. You see, there are two sides to the coin. Lower taxes do not necessarily mean poorer services. Misuse of public funds through over-staffing, wasteful bureaucracy and misdirection of funds through poor priority choices mean poorer services. What the hell are "user fees"? Is it some Canadian thing? Greater freedom often also means that those with the freedom have a damned sight better idea to do with it than the politicos and bureacrats, all those outreach workers (whatever they are) and various social workers whose over-inflated jobs are advertised in the Guardian. The current Government think that they know best how to run the lives of British citizens, so their desire is to interfere at every opportunity into the lives of individuals, to molly-coddle them into a Nanny state, dipping their grubby little mitts into our back pockets to surreptitiously extract as much tax revenue as they can, believing foolishly that we don't know that they are doing it. Well, I hope that they get their come-uppance in May or whenever Brown thinks he has his best chance of staying in Number 10.

Not strictly true, I loathe and detest Laughing Boy and the dour Scottish oaf Prudence. It is a strange thing that when you look at him on the TV, all the sincerity appears to emanate from his glass eye.

Diddums.

How does this first semi-literate contribution suddenly a while later become the offering below it? Originally Posted by solentstars Either the second contribution has been cut and pasted from somebody's far more erudite piece, or the first part was written by his 10 year old son who was trying to remember what his Dad had told him.

A reasonable and balanced view.

It really is difficult to take your views seriously when both your grammar and spelling are so poor.

Ah, Wikepedia, the fount of all knowledge. The World's most respectable oracle on any subject. Anything they say about anything must be true as nothing posted on there is the opinion of the person who posted it and contributors must be the most brilliant minds of their generation. But where in that article did they say that he was a political giant? I must have missed it. Oh, you reached that conclusion as your own opinion. Well, as I said, I am well enough versed in British history and my opinion differs to yours. But he was ranked number one British PM of the 20th Century by a poll of Professors? And these were all Professors of History I take it? Can you please confirm? As most Professors live their lives closseted in the halls of Academia, they are renowned for not living in the real World. As a group, they have a reputation for eccentric dottiness. As a group, they mostly lean a long way to the left also. Frankly, I would have been surprised if they did not vote Attlee as the greatest PM of the 20th Century. Never in a million years would they have voted for Maggie Thatcher and yet her claim is at least as strong as Atlee's, but you would never accept that either. PS. There is no need to shout or to accentuate certain of your thoughts in a different colour to emphasise them. It rather smacks of you losing your temper like a little child. If you have any cogent points, then I'm sure that most intelligent readers are capable of recognising whether it is a good argument without having to be guided as to which points you believe are worthy of emphasis.

I am prefectly well versed in British History, thank you. Bone up on your English grammar and spelling would be my return advice to you; both are poor. I mainly object to the use of the adjective "giant". He might have been a giant in the Labour Party, but it is hyperbole to credit him with being a giant elsewhere in the Political spheres.

That's not strictly correct. It is ranked the best place in the World to live in the summer.

Atlee a giant? You're having a laugh, mush.

It's possible that he was being sarcastic. But otherwise, they would say that was their catchment area based on all the plastics who might go to Krap Nottarf to watch Premiership football. When the skates are in the Conference or lower, then Brighton and Gillingham will be able to consider that they have a catchment area that extends to almost Southampton.

There used to be the joke about the Russian whose electricity broke down and needed fixing. The State Electricity company told him that they could come out and see him on the fifteenth of June three years later. He looked at his diary and said sorry, I've got the Gas man coming that day. Would you prefer the old Socialist system from the former Soviet Union? The point is, although there are some hiccups sometimes, the free market capitalist system is the best way to run business and industry. As soon as you get nationalisation and subsidies, the scope increases for bureacratic costs to rise, overmanning and profligacy to increase. I hope that in your everyday life, you appreciate that with everything you buy, you have a choice. That you can also drop those suppliers who do not give you good service. If they fail because they do not offer competitive prices or good service, would you wish them to stay in business and continue to use their services? I don't think so.

And will you tame Skates come on to add your advice on how to do it properly?

Your prowess at crystal ball reading is obviously better than mine. Personally I think that you'll be wound up. Whether you like it or not. Let's just bide our time and see who is right, without jumping the gun.

I just had to respond to the whining git who thought that it was grossly unfair on those fans and those seeking to save the club, that they were being penalised for the sins of their various assorted owners and managers. They still can't understand that it is also grossly unfair that they have advanced in the FA Cup competitions both a couple of years ago and currently, by fielding players that they cannot afford.

Agree entirely. I'd add a couple of points. The immediate result of introducing the minimum wage is that everybody above it, insists that their differentials are made up to where they were, thus ratcheting up wage levels. When those differentials have been re-established, the lower wage earners are back where they started. But I would say that it is my belief that minimum wages are not anything to do with the Government and that they should keep their noses out of matters that do not concern them. Market forces should determine the level at which they are set. Legislation to ensure equal pay for women, or to prevent discrimination on grounds of race are acceptable, but that is as far as Government inferferance should go. As Whitey says, of course there have been job losses as a result, both because some businesses have gone bust or downscaled as a result and also because jobs have been exported to countries with lower unit labour costs. My political philosophy is based on equally simplistic foundations; that is better to level everybody upwards rather than downwards. Labour is all about levelling everybody downwards. There really are not enough super rich people in this country that the revenue from them would make any appreciable difference to the lot of the lower income people. Anyway, as I reapeatedly point out, they will either emmigrate or avoid paying those swingeing taxes. Therefore the Labour Government place the biggest burden on the middle classes, who are disincentivised to work harder. It would be far better for the wealth-makers to have the incentive to create decent jobs with good pay levels, so that employment is increased and the benefit culture is reduced. But if you prefer your Labour philosophy of levelling Society downwards, then that's up to you, but then again, you're not living here to have to put up with it, are you?

And after the courts have finished them, they're going to resemble the wrecked pier.

Bloody typical Saints. Capable of beating the better teams, but also totally and utterly capable of stumbling against the lower down teams. Here we had a gilt-edged opportunity to have drawn ourselves 3 points closer to Huddersfield and we blew it. Dodgey pitches or dodgey referees are just excuses. We made a bad defensive error early on and then missed a succession of chances later on. It isn't over yet provided that we win the next few to get us back on track, but we really ought to be able to beat these bottom teams if we have any realistic hopes of going up, not just this year, but the next too. Make no mistake, this is pretty well as good as a team as we are going to get for next year and perhaps this is indicative that they are not good enough to go up as champions unless they find a way of playing against these lower teams on their crappy pitches and the odd referee that doesn't know what he is doing.

What a prescient thought. Shame that you apply it to us and miss the delicious irony that it is entirely possible that should you progress any further in the Cup, developments elsewhere might mean that you cannot continue because you have been liquidated. If I were you, I would be a bit more circumspect about sneering in our direction. We have a great stadium, great training ground, super-wealthy owner and are heading upwards. You on the other hand are a club on the edge of oblivion, in a crappy stadium that you might not even own, no training ground of your own, massively in debt, probably having illegally traded while insolvent and facing the almost inevitable relegation, loss of half your players, points deductions and a fall down the divisions. Still, I admire your ability to bluff your feelings to give the impression that you have anything to be happy about.

You obviously lack the imagination to see further then the end of your nose. Yes, the point that Whitey made is a good one. That lower taxation means that an individual has the increased freedom to spend their money in the way that they wish and that they are usually far better at spending that money than the wasteful and overly bureaucratic Government. But there is also the question of incentive to consider. At the bottom of the scale, with young or unskilled workers, pay levels are accordingly lower, so that sometimes somebody might consider that if they work and additionally pay transport costs, they are hardly better off than if they stayed at home and claimed various benefits. They have no incentive to work beyond the satisfaction that their self-esteem is boosted and that the money in their pockets has been earned by hard graft rather than being a hand-out (not that many feel any stigma about that any more). At the top end, what we are discussing, the same question of incentive is just as significant. I have already stated an opinion that if people feel that they are being treated unfairly with the taxation take, they will either find ways to avoid it, or else they will emmigrate. When tax rates for the super wealthy were at 80% and more, (some as high as 98%) emmigration of some of the brightest people occurred. You have heard of the Brain Drain, I take it? There is even a disincentive for people to work harder to put their earnings above the level where they would switch to paying over 40% and now there is a 50% rate. That is the tax on earnings, of course. On most things that you buy, you pay a further 17.5% tax, apart from petrol, where you pay over 75% tax and VAT on top of that too; a tax on a tax! But as I pointed out before, when Maggie Thatcher cleaned up the plethora of different rates and simplified it to just two tiers, with a top rate of 40%, there was a howling and gnashing of teeth from people on the left like you, because they felt that the Exchequer would be left short because of the lower rate. In fact the Exchequer took considerably more, as there was less incentive for the top earners to avoid paying it, because they deemed the rate to be fair. Also, the Brain Drain reversed with many Scientists and other economic emmigrants returning to these shores. So contrary to your flawed argument that lower rates for wealthy people are subsidised by the poor it has been proven that there can be tax reductions for the wealthy that actually bring in more money to spend on the less well off sectors of society. Perhaps, if you try really hard, you could also picture a scenario whereby a wealthy owner of a factory or business has enough of being persecuted by the "squeeze them until the pips squeak" class warriors of the Labour Government and decide that they will shut down and move their factory abroad, where they will be received with open arms, with the resultant job losses to the UK. So who needs more than £100,000 to live on? Well Gordon Brown is on about £189,000 and the Chancellor is well over that mark too. Does it occur to you that if Markus Liebherr was on £100,000, he wouldn't be buying Saints, would he? Naturally you resent wealthier people owning bigger houses, driving more expensive cars, clothes, etc. But their expenditure in these areas provides employment and profit in all sorts of directions. Most politicians on the left are motivated by envy, dogma and resentment rather than by practicalities. But then again, most of them have never experienced life in the real World of business and manufacturing.

OK, just one example you say? Didn't take much Googling. http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2010/02/24/54400/hundreds-of-thousands-of-teenagers-left-on-short-courses-to-massage-unemployment-figures.html http://birminghamlibdems.org.uk/news/000437/john_hemming_mp_questions_minister_about_massaged_employment_figures.html I've given you an extra example, free, gratis and for nothing.

I suspect that I'm more mature than you, both physically and mentally. Instead of just throwing a wobbly, why don't you just explain your peculiar reasoning that because a few wealthy people received a reduction to the amounts they paid for the Community Charge, that somehow they were bizarrely being subsidised by the poor.

They keep on about the Skates support and how magnificent it is. But for crissakes, we are only talking about them filling a 20,000 capacity stadium for a last eight match in the FA. And I must say that listening to the support on the telly, it seemed rather muted to me. Perhaps the commentator ought to visit them on a league match, when the stadium would be nowhere near full. We've had bigger attendances than them for matches in the third division, so our support is actually far better than theirs, if the blind and dumb commentator were to look 20 miles along the M27.