Sergei Gotsmanov

Well you seem to be arguing that a few people own all the land - I pointed out that if you discount Scotland where finacially it is often not worth having the land then your percentages change significantly. Your numbers are distorted as is your argument. I mention Heineken because the last time you were wrong you were pretty patronising and then failed to admit you were wrong.

So how is pointing out that if you discount Scotland your figures look very different not answering your question?

Yes really. You still think Heineken tastes awful because it is brewed over here?

So what does happen to your numbers if you take Scotland out of your sums? Read my rep[ly to Pap? Actually efficiency comes from bigger sheds but most importantly from having the resources to buy bigger machinery. Takling headgerows out is not easily allowed today so bigger fields is a redundant argument.

Inevitably you will have a throwback to the past with a few big Aristocratic families still having big estates but most of the large estates have been split up and sold off after the war. Many of the tenant farmers bought their farms and made good. Today the mega rich like to buy land and that is why the price of land does not reflect the profitability of the land - they will then contract out the land because tenant farmers have powerful rights. Where your analysis is once again shallow is that the really big estates are found in Scotland where people own vast tracts of low production highland estates made up of mountains and if you take out Scotland from the equation then your percentages change significantly. In Scotland it generally costs money to have an estate and these rich landowners actually put much needed money into areas that need the money.

What do you want me to refer to the collective farms in communism or how inefficient the framing is in France because of the way land is handed down?

You are arguing your case in a pre war scenario - of course there are still some tenant farmers but most of them bought their farms after the war when death duties split up the big estates. You really do not understand how ownership of the countryside has evolved since the war. Oh and efficiency comes from bigger farms not smaller farms.

If we had beaten Arsenal at Highbury that day it may have been a different story.........

Yes it worked so well for Mugabe. Take the land of people and sell it to other people - and then what? Take it off they new people when they get too big? You live in a sort of mythical world. The land you talk about is already a finely tuned business producing food. British farming is as competitive as anybody in the World.

303 on saturdays

I can promise you that there would have been a lot of tears today from the connections of those horses. If you are really concerned about animal welfare you should think more about where your burgers come from.

I think you watch too much Walt Disney.

Horses generally love racing. The ones that don't are no good.

as a rule it is a ruler in my household

I don't know you but I feel for you and it is always sad to hear the loss of a Saints fan.

One of the great thinkers on the left. Thank you for your indepth analysis.

Very heart warming. What the Saints brand should all be about. I note though that you can't have taken that much Saints stuff over!

You could go to Germany.

At one point alcohol was actually rationed in Sweden. A lot of people used to make their own.

As an aside Buctotim, Sweden do not import their Heineken it is brewed by Spendrups.

It was the season before vthat he blamed the shirts.

It is up to them.

My own view is that the State plays too much of a part in our lives.

In 1970 90% of beer sold in the UK was sold in pubs and bars; now it is about 50:50. That is a part of our culture being eroded and is very sad. In my opinion it is down to supermarkets using beer as a loss leader widening the price differential between on and off trade. We also have more of a BBQ culture now so any hot weather encourages us to invite people round for a BBQ rather than meet in a pub garden. Dramatic improvementsIn-house entertainment has also kept people at home. The pub is also very cash driven and we carry less cash around. The big pubcos have also screwed their tenants and leaseholders so much that they cannot invest in their business's meaning that there are thousands of grubby pubs around the country that nobody wants to go in.

I do not subscribe to that. Pubs are not owned by the local authority they are private business's and it should have been up to the people who run the premises as to whether they implemented a smoking ban. I like the smoking ban even as a smoker but it was a law that hit the trade very hard. As ever it was a law made by people who do not go into pubs.