Wes Tender

Go ahead and provide me with documentary evidence that the unemployment figures have not been manipulated downwards by Labour. And then produce evidence that those snippets I provided were somehow innacurate or falsified.

Fuengirola seemed to think that reducing the amount charged to Lord Montagu under the Community Charge, was tantamount to the poor subsidising the rich. As you rightly point out, a subsidy is something awarded to somebody in need, so although we since learn that he teaches English, his comprehension seems a little lacking.

Yes, under the Council Tax she does. But we weren't talking about that, were we? We were discussing the Community Charge and why it was proposed as an alternative to the Rates. She gets a discount for living alone, but a family having more bread winners does not pay more, does it, even though it is obvious that they will put an increased burden on the local council's services.

Yes, under the Council Tax she does. But we weren't talking about that, were we? We were discussing the Community Charge and why it was proposed as an alternative to the Rates. She gets a discount for living alone, but a family having more bread winners does not pay more, does it, even though it is obvious that they will put an increased burden on the local council's services.

But of course, I'm not going off on a tangent by mentioning the little old lady next door. As I stated, it was the example given to illustrate why the Rates were unfair. Now, you may like to marginalise that fact as an irrelevance, not suiting your particular agenda, that you just can't stand the fact that a very small percentage of the population that you despise ended up paying less, but I asked you whether it was fair that the elderly lady living alone possibly paid more than the family of four. Just answer that point please and don't try and squirm out of it again. Then I'll answer your question. Whilst you're at it, do you believe that there are more Lords in their mansions who got reduced local charges, or more single people living alone who were paying much more for those local services? You say that Lords in their mansions could afford it, but if they paid more, would they get better services for their money, or is it just the principle that because they might be rich, they aren't entitled to expect value for their expenditure? Anyway, they can afford it, whereas the little old lady living alone perhaps cannot afford it. Who deserves the attention of a caring society more?

But of course, I'm not going off on a tangent by mentioning the little old lady next door. As I stated, it was the example given to illustrate why the Rates were unfair. Now, you may like to marginalise that fact as an irrelevance, not suiting your particular agenda, that you just can't stand the fact that a very small percentage of the population that you despise ended up paying less, but I asked you whether it was fair that the elderly lady living alone possibly paid more than the family of four. Just answer that point please and don't try and squirm out of it again. Then I'll answer your question. Whilst you're at it, do you believe that there are more Lords in their mansions who got reduced local charges, or more single people living alone who were paying much more for those local services? You say that Lords in their mansions could afford it, but if they paid more, would they get better services for their money, or is it just the principle that because they might be rich, they aren't entitled to expect value for their expenditure? Anyway, they can afford it, whereas the little old lady living alone perhaps cannot afford it. Who deserves the attention of a caring society more?

You really do have a bizarre perspective on the political situation in this country and it's therefore a good thing that you have absented yourself from these shores and live in the Spanish equivalent of Portsmouth (or is that Benidorm?) So it's the poor and the middle classes that have been subsidising the rich? Look up the meaning of the word subsidy, as I'm pretty sure that you cannot understand what it properly means. As Sergei rightly asks, how many Lord Montagus are there? Your whole stance on the Community Charge appears to be based on the fact that a minute section of the population might have benefited from paying a lower sum for local services, whilst conversely paying considerably higher rates of taxation than the vast majority of the population on the other. You seem to have ignored commenting on the situation which the Community Charge was intended to address, that of the widow living alone and paying more in Rates than the large family next door, just because her house might be larger, but regardless of the fact that her usage of local services was considerably less. Or do you think that the situation was fair? At least with the Council Tax, she will get a discount as a single occupant, but there is no additional cost increase levied on homes with larger families comprising of more than one bread winner, who use more local services and who could pay more. And Redondo is also right, that the greatest burden of taxation falls upon the middle classes, who generally as law abiding citizens grin and bear it, never dreaming of disobeying the laws of the land as the poll tax rioters did, as that would be anarchy. The Labour Government therefore see them as a soft target, but then wonder why they seek ways to avoid the taxes, or to emmigrate. As I said, they never learn.

You really do have a bizarre perspective on the political situation in this country and it's therefore a good thing that you have absented yourself from these shores and live in the Spanish equivalent of Portsmouth (or is that Benidorm?) So it's the poor and the middle classes that have been subsidising the rich? Look up the meaning of the word subsidy, as I'm pretty sure that you cannot understand what it properly means. As Sergei rightly asks, how many Lord Montagus are there? Your whole stance on the Community Charge appears to be based on the fact that a minute section of the population might have benefited from paying a lower sum for local services, whilst conversely paying considerably higher rates of taxation than the vast majority of the population on the other. You seem to have ignored commenting on the situation which the Community Charge was intended to address, that of the widow living alone and paying more in Rates than the large family next door, just because her house might be larger, but regardless of the fact that her usage of local services was considerably less. Or do you think that the situation was fair? At least with the Council Tax, she will get a discount as a single occupant, but there is no additional cost increase levied on homes with larger families comprising of more than one bread winner, who use more local services and who could pay more. And Redondo is also right, that the greatest burden of taxation falls upon the middle classes, who generally as law abiding citizens grin and bear it, never dreaming of disobeying the laws of the land as the poll tax rioters did, as that would be anarchy. The Labour Government therefore see them as a soft target, but then wonder why they seek ways to avoid the taxes, or to emmigrate. As I said, they never learn.

The family in their Millbrook council house is a mythical example invented by you to illustrate how hard done by they were when the Council tax was introduced, or before that the Community charge or Poll Tax. You can have them as an example of down-trodden victims of unfair Government taxation on the one hand, but I'm not allowed to illustrate other Government legislation that improves their lot? The right to buy for Council House tenants was a massive success and many were grateful for the opportunity. Your mythical family could comprise three bread-winners paying just the one lot of Council tax, compared to the single widow next door paying the same amount, although she is using far less of the services. You might think that there is injustice from your comparison with Lord Montagu, but the example I give is the one that was held up when the alteration was made to the old rates system. Do you think that situation is fair?

I know the timescale involved and am plenty old enough to remember back to the times of Harold Wilson, Dennis Healey (tax 'em til the pips squeak) drunken George Brown and all of that shower. There could be no clearer example of why the so-called Poll Tax benefited Labour, than the caustic remarks directed towards the person who introduced it and her Party nearly 20 years later.

The family in Millbrook had been tenants of the Council for many years and therefore were able to buy their council house at a massive discount, courtesy of Maggie. People who were tenants in the private sector did not benefit in this way. Unfair, isn't it? My mother has her own house with no mortgage on it and because death duties which were introduced originally to tax the super rich when they died have not been increased over very many years by the level of inflation, she will have to pay some death duties when she doesn't live in a grand mansion, but just happens to live in an area where property prices have risen. If she needs to be placed in a state care home, she would have to sell her house to pay for it, even though she and my father paid taxes all through her life. Not fair, is it? Wealthy people pay higher taxes towards things that they don't use, often educating their children privately and having private health care. They don't get any refund because of this. Despite paying more in taxes througout their lives, they also get clobbered by death duties. But I'm sure that you consider this to be fair. They can afford it, so let the bastards cough up, eh? When MT reduced the top rate of income tax to 40%. there was an angry outcry from people like you that the rich were benefiting from reduced taxation and thus depriving the Revenue of vast sums of money. In the event, the amount of taxation that went into the Revenue's coffers was dramatically increased, as people thought that the level of taxation was fairer. Many who had emmigrated to lower tax regimes, returned. Others who had employed tax avoidance measures didn't bother, as they felt the rate was fair. Recently, Labour increased the top rate to 50%. They never learn, do they?

Not really the same as the Community Charge, as that was based on the number of occupants in a property that loosely reflected the degree of need for the services offered by the local authority, i.e. more people in a house probably meant more need for local schools, more waste disposal, etc. This is a proposal to make charges against those who fail to recycle their waste. But the idea is typical of many others thought of by think tanks comprising nerds with no practical sense of reality or experience. In short, it is unworkable. Eastleigh BC has already introduced small brown bins for food waste which will presumably be converted into compost or produce methane gas for energy. Half of the green bin is filled each week with the copious amounts of junk mail that plop onto our doormat each week. Much of the rest comprises packaging and plastics that can't be put into the other two bins. If the Government wishes to cut the amount of waste, then they ought to legislate against junk mail, or unecessary packaging of foodstuffs. But then that would mean that the Post Office would suffer a severe decline in business and revenue and there would be job losses in the packaging industry. It is proposed that the scheme will be up to the individual local authorities to implement and that the council taxes should not rise as a result of a council implementing this system. Measures would have to be put in place to ensure that there wasn't a massive increase in fly tipping. Personally, I would welcome the prospect of widespread public dissent against this. It would be payback time against a Labour Government that benefited from the Poll tax riots and had not learnt the lessons from it. All it would require is a flat refusal by everybody to pay the charge. Provided that we stood shoulder to shoulder united against it, they couldn't lock us all up, could they? Poll Tax riots number two coming up.

If people wanted a system based on ability to pay, then they might indeed want a local income tax. But I don't believe that most want that, although it is natural for selfish reasons that people would like the burden to fall on others and they should pay less or be exempt. The argument with local taxation is deeply flawed. The levy is to pay for services rendered by the local authority, so why should it be that somebody earning more should pay more, even if they might not even use those services? A decent case could be made out that those who paid more, should have more say in who governs them, but that will never be allowed, will it? The old adage of no taxation without representation was fair enough, but how about those who pay twice as much in taxes having double the votes? Seems reasonable to me. A large proportion of the income of local authorities comes from business rates where the owners of those businesses get no vote at all apart from their own single vote (if they indeed live in that Borough) Take the principle to its logical conclusions and those earning more ought to pay proportionally more for any other service in the private sector too, after all, it's only fair, isn't it? Taxi driver, "you're a wealthy git, going to cost you double, mate". Window cleaner, "normally I charge a quid a window, but you look flushed, mate, so it's going to cost you double". As a large proportion of local government costs is already paid for by central government, which has already taxed those higher earners at a higher rate, why should they then be clobbered again at local level?

Most of the left of the Labour Party would consider Blair and Brown to be right wing. Why would Anthony Wedgewood-Benn be accorded a State funeral anyway? Had he been one of the longest serving Prime Ministers in British Political history? Was he an International Statesman at the head of British affairs on the World stage? There is Thatcherism, but I haven't heard of such a thing as Bennism. In fact, is he worthy of even a footnote in the history books at all?

As it is not argued that statistics can be manipulated to prove whatever position one wishes to portray, perhaps you can be bothered to manipulate the figures here to justify your position. It is much the same regarding Government statistics to prove that the NHS is running more efficiently, that crime figures are down, that education standards have improved, etc. If you believe any of it, then you are mightily naive. If you lived back here, you might have the evidence of your own experience to back it all up.

Altering the basis on which statistics are recorded isn't exclusively the preserve of the Conservatives, you know. Labour is perfectly capable of making those alterations too and has done on more than one occasion since coming to power. The last Conservative government was ejected partly because of an aura of sleaze attached to it, but their successors have proven to be equally or more sleazy themselves. There is no moral high ground that they can claim here. Your point about the minimum wage was illustrated well on that documentary last week, where unemployed British workers were offered the opportunity of taking on jobs that were being filled by immigrant labour, typically from the former Iron Curtain states like Poland, Latvia, etc. Levels of pay were determined by piecemeal rates dependent on productivity, i.e. in the farming environement, dependent on how much weight of vegetables were harvested. The foreign workers achieved pay levels well above the minimum pay rates, whereas the British workers achieved productivity levels well below and the farmer had to pay them the difference to make their pay up to the minimum wage level. The farmer is a businessman, so who is he going to employ? The minimum wage is a piece of legislation that plays a part in his decision making. That is just a microcosm of the bigger picture, that many jobs in this country are considered unworthy of the efforts of many of the unemployed, as they get more in benefits for doing nothing.

I usually have a great respect for your football opinions, because they are reasonable and balanced. Unfortunately, your post here shows that that balance doesn't travel well into the sphere of politics. Margaret Thatcher didn't plunge the working classes into an era of unemployment. You obviously forgot that she came to power on the back of a poster saying "Labour isn't working" under Callaghan's "What crisis" government. Anyway, market conditions and restrictive practices is what brought about rising unemployment. When you have car workers who were unreliable and shoddy in their work, is it surprising that they would be replaced by robots who work to a uniform standard and never go on strike? If our shipbuilding industry is overmanned and its workforce overpaid, is it any surprise that the shipping lines would have their new ships built abroad if it could be done more cheaply? Workers in those types of industry could not be sustained forever against modernisation and international competition, so they had to retrain in markets where there is still demand. MT recognised this and had the guts to do something about it. As Dune says, we were the sick man of Europe and had to go cap in hand to ask the International Monetary fund to bail us out. The birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and the greatest manufacturing nation on Earth, had sunk to the depths of producing the Austin Allegro, the Western World's equivalent of the Trabant. Perhaps you might understand better the football analogy that we were the equivalent of Portsmouth Football Club. The Community Charge, to give it its proper name, was fairer than the rates that preceded it. There was only one fault that MT didn't address; people on benefits should have been exempt from paying it. What is still unfair, is that under the Council Tax, a single widow potentially pays more than a family of 6 next door if she lives in a bigger house, although she might make much less use of the services for which she is being taxed to pay for. Well they must have been bloody naive then. The World doesn't owe anybody a living. What exactly are you saying? You wish to ignore that we longer had an Empire, that we virtually bankrupted the nation through two World Wars, that the Tiger economies of the Far East had no effect on our industries over here, that there were not other countries who had lower paid work forces, or who had modernised their industries whilst we still allowed restrictive practises through archaic and too powerful Unions? Not so. It is the middle classes who create the majority of the wealth of the country. They also pay the most in taxes to sustain the economy, although being law abiding citizens at the same time, they do not riot, even though the tax burden on them has risen massively under Labour. Also saying that a Prime Minister cannot create wealth in the country shows a lack of imagination and contradicts your own arguments. I'm surprised that you can accuse a Prime Minister (MT) of doing so much to cause unemployment, to affect education, cause anxiety, introduce taxation changes, but yet you deny that a PM is not also therefore capable of doing things through their Government's policies to produce wealth, to increase employment prospects, improve education standards, etc. You are right that a PM himself/herself is not capable of doing these things, but they are the leading light and the appointee of the party in Government that carries out those policies, just in the same way that the responsibility for the collapse of Saints sat squarely on the shoulders of Lowe. I don't understand your point. What sinking boat would we all be in if we could all improve ourselves? It isn't luck that there are less capable people around; it's the law of nature. Some are more capable than others, may have been born with more advantages, might strive to improve themselves through their own efforts, etc. We don't stand on the shoulders of those less capable than us, quite the opposite. A civilised society ought to make provision to support those who through no fault of their own are disadvantaged. We pay our taxes towards better health provision and better education in a effort to gain an egalitarianism in society. Resentment and division is caused when the level of taxation becomes unduly high and acts as a disincentive to work harder, especially when those who pay the higher taxes feel that much of their taxation is wasted on those who are capable of improving themselves, but just can't be bothered, because the welfare state feather beds them.

We have a statement from Admin Andy saying that he doesn't want to go down the route of selling players, as that will devalue the chances of the team fighting against relegation. As has been pointed out, the purchase of players and the payment of high wages for them when they couldn't afford it, has already given them an advantage over other teams (us included) that they shouldn't have had. Admin Andy has proposed that the Premier League might allow them to sell players and loan them back. Has anybody any thoughts on what I have speculated is a possible problem; that effectively those players, once they are loaned back, would be cup-tied and therefore not able to play in the FA Cup? I know that this would be a precedent and the rules do not therefore allow for it, but under the current rules there is not any distinction that covers the loaned player having been at the same club prior to him being sold, is there?

He might have been a great orator, but that doesn't mean to say that what what he spouted forth upon was in any way right. That is a matter of opinion and rather dependent on which side of the political spectrum one's views fall. He was a clown and thank God that the electorate had more sense than to elect him and his befuddled Socialist ideals. Whereas on a human perspective, I feel empathy with his family, otherwise I couldn't care a toss at his passing. I certainly don't hold with opinion that says that he was a great man; he wasn't.

So Mr. Astrologicalfees reckons that there is a possibility that the FA might sanction the Skates being able to sell players outside of the transfer window and then loan them back until the end of the season. Correct me if I'm mistaken in my reasoning about the fly in the ointment. As I understand it, FA rules dictate that if a club takes a player on loan, he cannot participate in the FA Cup if he has already played matches in that season's competitiion previously. Therefore, half of their squad would be ineligible to continue in the competition, even if they did manage to get past Birmingham. Personally, I'd think that the whole thing would stink like rotten fish if they were allowed to have the rules bent in their favour like this anyway. It must be a consideration that they were able to strengthen their team by effectively trading whilst insolvent and therefore gained an advantage over teams who were much more circumspect about keeping their expenditure on players within proper financial constraints.

Leigh Vernier wrote: What a cretin this Leigh Vernier is. He obviously doesn't realise that what attracted the investment income in Arsenal's luxury penthouses, was the fact that they were in London. Luxury penthouses at Fratton? Bit of an oxymoron from a moron. And do they teach geography in Skateland schools? Southampton, Plymouth and Bristol are all West of Skatesville. If he wished to talk in terms of the other direction, there is Brighton to the East, or Reading to the North. And if he thinks that fans would travel from Plymouth or Bristol to watch the Skates, that is presumably because they are plastics. So where does he think they will go next year when the Skates are either in the second division, or even further down the divisions? One of the most idiotic posts I have seen from the deluded blue few.

I'm happy to look at the bigger picture. It is almost worth it for Lowe to have come back in alliance with the Quisling, appointing the two Dutch no-hopers, playing the youth team and suffering our relegation to the third division to be where we are now. If that hadn't all come to pass, then we might not have gone into administration and never have been saved by Markus Liebherr. I haven't enjoyed the football here as much for many a year, so looking at the big picture, we indirectly have Lowe and Wilde to thank, don't we Soggy?

Had my best laugh of the day having read this:- http://www.fansonline.net/pompey-fans/article.php?id=184 A Chelsea fan and club historian and author, Rick Glanville, has sent a message of encouragement to the Blue Few, based on Chelsea's remarkably similar position when they had been driven into near oblivion prior to Ken Bates buying them for £1. The Skates take comfort from this encouragement, clutching at straws as they are, but there is one glaringly blatant fault in the reasoning behind this article. Chelsea is a London Club. As such, the real estate around the ground and the ground itself has real commercial value as one of the most sought after districts of the City. Around the corner is King's Road, a byeword for fashionable chic since the swinging sixties. Some of the most influential and wealthiest people in the country have homes in Chelsea. Regardless of how far they had fallen, they were always a decent investment opportunity for a wealthy benefactor prepared to finance a new stadium and players good enough to hold their own in the Premiership. So although the Skates might have found themselves in a similar position to Chelsea all those years ago, is it the fashionable chic place that Chelsea was? Er, no. What about the environment around the ground that they don't appear to own? Is that a place where a wealthy investor would be prepared to develop it for a good return? No. It is a scabby industrial estate in one of the most run down parts of Portsea Island. So why would any seriously wealthy investor pour his money into Pompey? Would it be for the scintillating lifestyle of the rich and famous neighbours? The sheer fashionability of the area? The potential to develop the equivalent of the Chelsea Village? The fantastic support of the best fans in the World who would fill any stadium regardless of size? Keep clutching at straws, son. Making comparisons between you and Chelsea is like saying that your efforts at painting by numbers is remarkably similar to the work of Michelangelo.

After the convincing win over table topping Norwich and the hammering of Walsall, because of the stutter against Wycombe, I had said that Huddersfield would be much more an indication of how far we had progressed with this more complete team since the January signings. The fixture was previewed as a six-pointer, vital to us if we were still to have any pretensions to achieving the play-offs and also very important to Huddersfield to ensure that they could cement their place in the top six too. Well, I think that we have finally reached that point in the season where we can start to have some firmer belief in ourselves. This result was not only vital for us in terms of our self-belief, but it was also perhaps just as importantly a result that will have sent shock-waves through the upper reaches of the division. We still have home games to come against three of the top six, having dispatched a fourth with disdain tonight. And having also recently beaten Norwich so convincingly, Leeds, Charlton and Swindon must be looking nervously over their shoulders. Beat them and we move three points closer to each of them. And although I haven't bothered to check over which of them play each other, naturally the outcome of those matches mean that they will either take points off each other, or only gain one point if they draw. Suddenly, although it seemed very improbable until a few games ago, it now looks as if we could just pull off an incredible feat, provided that we have the belief, the lack of injuries to disrupt us and the rub of the green with other results going in our favour. Pluses from the game? Another five goals, but scored by five different players! Partnerships being forged thoughout the team. Jaidi and Fonte - Hammond and Schneiderlin - Barnard and Lambert. Balance out wide; Lallana and Puncheon, Harding and Otsemobor. Defensively sound and potent in attack. A good keeper. Additional pluses? Some strength in depth in case of injury, or good cover on the bench. Connolly almost ready to return if either Lambert or Barnard need a rest or are injured. The youngster, Oxlade-Chamberlain making his first senior debut at just 16 and not looking out of place and nearly scoring! Undoubtedly one for the future. Theo Walcott Mark 2? Many reasons to be happy with the club at the moment; the most enjoyment I have in a season for some time and a trip to Wembley to boot.

Much as many do not appreciate it, I think that Nineteen Canteen ought to be permitted his say if he wishes.