Joensuu

Dune, is your name Charles?

No doubt frontline services will be retained, but every department has hundreds of low grade back office staff, many doing repetitive tasks, or pointless projects. Low grade back office staff can expect £12-16k pa, whereas, 'frontline' staff typically earn more: Firefighter c. £19k; Police Officer c. £30k; Nurse c. £26k, Teacher c. £29k*. It's the back-office low grade staff whose jobs will be on the line, not the frontline staff. I'm sure some management will be culled too, but unfortunately the much bemoaned 'middle management' will be largely retained, because the vast civil service simple couldn't operate with a flat management structure - there are too many people, in too many teams/projects who need to be overseen. By and large, middle managers will only lose their jobs if the low paid staff are removed from beneath them. Staff at the top of the tree will be virtually bulletproof, unless they fail to make efficency savings, or perhaps make some other political gaff. Also, this is the Tory party we are talking about, are they really going to sack middle or upper managers, when there are Labour voters to sack first? You've also got to realise that many government departments are tied into lengthy contracts with private companies. These contracts can't just be cut mid-term, without penalties. As such, much of government spending, is already spent. The only real place cuts can be made is right at the bottom of the tree - the low-skill, low-paid, back office staff, who will find it difficult to find further employment in the Private Sector. They will end up on the dole, costing the government about the same as they did when they were in full time employment. * Source salarytrack.co.uk

What other jobs are they targetting? All they are doing is cutting the departmental budgets, and leaving the higher ranking civil servants to juggle the maths. Some of them are going to be left with stark choices: cut some projects; cut the private sector contractors who are keeping the department running; or cut some of the staff who are pushing pencils about. When was the last time a low paid job was advertised in a national paper? The only public jobs nationally advertised will be for specialists, managers, or possibly for lower staff in the event of a skills shortage.

Not really Lord D. A Soviet system would have 100% employed by the state, quotas to fulfil, and guns at the back of their heads to enforce it. We are talking about those less efficient members of the public service, and whether it is more or less cost efficient to keep them in employment. Financially, there doesn't seem to be a lot in it. Socially, I'd argue that people who go out to work tend to bring up children who contribute more to society than those brought up by the long-term unemployed. Sure, public services aren't efficient. And the obvious solution is to streamline them and run them like a top FTSE company. But what happens to the millions who are left to cope without employment? Workhouses?

These workers you want to weed out, I assume they are the least effective workers? You know the ones on £12-14K pa, who you want to sack and force to claim benefits (of say £12-14k pa) instead?. Hey, if they manage to fill in a few spreadsheets each year the government actually gains, right? Oh, but you want to remove their benefits too, so what are they going to do? Beg?

When have you ever known Government estimates to be on the mark? They probably tried to underestimate the scale of predicted unemployment, to paint the budget in a good light. Isn't it a good job that they also optimistically predict 2.5 million new private sector jobs. Magic (and obsessive ideologicallly driven magic at that).

Is this really the best way to recovery? http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/29/budget-job-losses-unemployment-austerity

There has been a marked increase in the number of reports. In the last few weeks, 'orange lights' have been reported or videoed in Queensland, Moscow, Estonia, Arizona, and the across the length of the UK (Highlands, Guildford, London (Bromley, Beckenham, Wanstead) , Cambridge, Liverpool, Bristol, Newquay, Clacton (Essex), Norfolk etc). My money is on it being hot summer nights, alcohol, parties, alcohol, weddings, alcohol and lanterns.

Why censor the location? It's easy to find the original text: http://worldufos.blogspot.com/2010/06/ufo-seen-rising-off-ground-at-oakham.html

I've definately experienced a significant increase in page load time via mobile. I guess mobile exagerates the time it takes for a page to load, making the difference more pronounced. Before the change a page would take say 20-30 seconds to render. Since the change it now takes about a full minute. I'm not sure if this is because I was previously able to browse in 'Work Safe' colours - and hense am now forced to download more images etc that I don't actually want to see? DSM, I'm not trying to cause any problems, but has anyone put up a list of the new features, as I'm struggling to see anything that has been improved by this change (despite trying to find them).

Sorry, but that's an awful selection. Are you Crappello? Why are you playing 2 tiny players up front? Why have you got central midfielders on the wings? Why have you picked an appauling right back? Where is the pace in defence? This squad would see England drop out of the top 20. FWIW, by 1212 I'd expect something like: --------------Hart Richards - Onuoha - Jagielka - Cole ------Cattermole - Wiltshire Walcott -------Gerrard-------- Johnson ---------------Rooney Bench: Crouch, Defoe Barry, Moses Lescott, Terry

Like where you're going with that. Johnson is the obvious weakness, but who else is there? Micah Richards? Wes Brown? Perhaps one of the younger players with potential will make the grade over the next year. Steven Taylor? Nathanial Clyne? Kyle Walker? Dan Gosling?

Nobody can doubt Capello's club management record: Milan, Real Madrid, Roma, Juve. But managing a national squad is a very different thing. Skills such as, identifying targets, working on a budget, improving youth etc are all completely redundant. There are only 4 skills you need to excel in: Squad selection Tactics & substitutes Moral (team talks etc) Media relations. Capello has some talented players at his disposal, who have edged him through qualifying. However, during the world cup, his squad selection, tactics, substitutions have all been awful. The motivation of the squad need to be questioned. In sum, Capello has failed to demonstrate any of the essential qualities of an International manager. This is also why I wouldn't replace him with Redkrapp. Harry's primary skill as a manager is his ability to find talented players at cut cost prices. He is a good club manager, but mainly because of a skill which can't be transfered to the international game. He also has the axe of HMRC hovering above him, the FA would be crazy to associate themselves with his upcoming demise. Gus Hiddink is for me the best International manager in the game. He seems to consistantly take average teams, and make them excel. He selects players others have overlooked, make sensible substutions, his teams seem to be carried by their high moral. I'm sure Gus would have identified the weaknesses in the England squad before the World Cup, he'd have plugged these gaps with less talented, but more determined players from the lower Premier League, or perhaps even upper Championship. The wasted spaces taken up by the likes of Heskey, Green, King, Warnock, Carrick, Milner etc, would have all been put to better use. Come on FA, appoint Gus. What annoys me most about the Capello is the renegotiation of his contract, why on earth did the FA agree to remove the release clause in his contract only 5 weeks ago? We could have been shot of this stubborn liability already had the FA not messed up again. He's not got the skills for the international game. Appoint someone who has. Sure the players didn't turn up, but for me 99% of the blame has to lie with the manager.

Hurrah, finally got a page to load on my mobile. Not like the old site which loaded in seconds. Now that I'm here I wish I hadn't bothered waiting. Btw, has anyone noticed any improved features? I haven't seen any yet, but do find the slow page load, and lack of work safe colour option to be significant disadvatages. Sigh.

Human first, European second, British third.

Is it rude to quote yourself?

I don't undertand this 'empty street' thing. The chair only just misses the police officers. It was obviously aimed at them, with intent. If you swing for a stranger, you might get away with it. If you swing for a stranger in view of a police officer, you're likely to get a fine or short sentence. But, if you swing for a police officer, you will have the full force of the law thrown at you, and if you have previous, will almost certainly get six months. The chair was obviously intended to injure a police officer. I don’t feel the slightest sympathy for those involved. They had plenty of warning, they have seen how police tackle football disorders in the past. They could see the CCTV cameras. But still they decided to try and incite a potentially dangerous situation for the police to handle. They are definitely causing a public order offence, whether that is (merely) 'affray', or more accurately 'violent disorder' (possibly even verging on 'riot'). There is no way these people didn't know what the penalty would be. Hopefully this will warn others away from acting as stupidly in the future. Unfortunately, somehow I doubt it will. What is worse, is the sickening way in which some on here have continuously suggested that the actions of those found guilty was in some way trivial, or that the police entrapped them. They offended. They offended in full knowledge of the penalties. They offended in full view of the cameras. They deserve everything they get. I thought this board had a policy of punishing posters who support violence behaviour.

BTW Dune, slighlty off topic, but why have you misattributed a Huey Long quote to Churchill in your location?

Err... http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/world_cup_2006/teams/ukraine/4750211.stm ?

Wir haben immer noch mehr als einen Monat ... beruhigen

But if you had a million quid, would you spend more than 10% of your time following your £1000 investment? There are plenty of reasons. Cortese is undoubtably a wealthy man in his own right. If you had enough money not to have to worry, and you were offered a well paid position in a completely different, challenging, and potentially very enjoyable industry, why not jump at the chance. My guess is that Cortese is earning (and stands to earn) far less now than he did in his previous career. A top banker in Switzerland working with the super rich would easily be on more than even Peter Storrie could raise his own wage to.

The is no way Markus is here purely for the money, because the potential amount of profit he might make is a tiny fraction of his net worth. Quite simply, for the amount of time invested, and the risks involved, why would Markus invest so much energy and effort if all he gets out of it is to increase his net worth by a maximum of 1 or 2 percent. Markus is choosing to spend a large amount of his free time travelling to the UK, to watch a football team. If he is in this purely for the money that would be a completely nonsensical use of his time. He has under £20 million on an investment, yet chooses to spend at least 3 days a month travelling to the UK to watch games. In other words, he spends upwards of 10% of his time overseeing an investment he has staked around 0.5% of his net worth into. That would be like me investing say a couple of hundred quid into an ISA, then spending 3 days a month watching the interest add up, and comparing the market for better rates. I would agree with your analysis had Markus only had say £100 million to his name (he could stand to increase his net worth by say 40 or 50%). But for someone of Markus' wealth this doesn't stack up, the potential profit is simply too small when compared to the time he has invested into the project. There simply has to be a reason beyond profit to explain his investment. Sure, he won't want to lose money on his investment, but Markus won't be too concerned whether his profit is £5m or £50 million - the numbers are simply too small. As it can't be purely about the money, IMO either: Markus must genuinely enjoy the thrill of owning and watching a football team; or Markus must genuinely enjoy the status of owning a football team.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/may/24/england-mexico-international-friendly If you're right, England should be able to repeat this performance. They are more likely to be thinking back to that game, and assume that they will walk it. Nasty awakening I fear.

One way to destroy your favourite forum

That's better nick, hope you can keep up this new found positivity... ... oh, well you almost managed a minute.