OldNick

sadly I am not going to get s/ts this season. iam disappointed that we did not have the renewal posted out, that system worked well for me over the last 20 or so years. My daughter has just had a child and so we will pick games. If we go up to the PL I would nt be prepared to pay 600+ for a ticket anyway so i doubt Ill lose out too much.

what you type with your left hand when using that user name

It would pretty amazing if no other paper was not also involved in this practice. The Guardian may well be innocent but I suspect the tabloids have all been at it. Left or right persuasion need the stories.

Did you see the way that has parallels to when we went into admn? The bank manager who pulled the plug and put us into admin then appears working in a good job at the administrators. Obviously nothing wrong there of course

well, well done to New labour. I am happy for any of our chancellors to get the debt gone of any persuasion.

i think you will find you are incorrect there. I think you will find Lawson when chancellor paid back the debt including WWII

This is from Citywire News. I couldnt get the link to work and so copied. Perhaps we all should now stop arguing about the cuts but get on with it. I have just become a grandparent and feel ashamed that our generations are going to leave this debt for them to pay. 'New figures from the government reveal the country faces public sector liabilities equivalent to 85% of the economy. For the first time the Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility have produced a set of accounts that treats UK plc as if it was just that – a business that has to comply with the IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) accounting rules. The unaudited results of a snapshot of the country’s balance sheet at 31 March 2010 are staggering at first sight. It shows: •Public sector net assets of £1.2 trillion; •Offset by total public sector liabilities of £2.4 trillion, including: •£1.1 trillion cost for public service pensions; •£803.8 billion of debt in the form of government gilts; •£105 billion of provisions; •£379.4 billion of ‘other liabilities' Of course one can see the ideological drive of a chancellor who wants to keep the public sector on a back foot. But to be fair, work on the whole of government accounts project dates back more than a decade – and so cannot be directly linked to Osborne’s austerity regime. Moreover, the results are certain to be illuminating. Much of the initial focus will inevitably fall on the cost of public sector pensions, the biggest item on the bill. This is an issue that the country needs to address, let’s hope the publication of these figures will generate more light than heat as it is a complex area. For example, a change in the discount rules used to value the liabilities saw the bill jump by £331.3 billion in one year! Other costs are not so large but also leap off the page. These include: •A £60.6 billion provision for decommissioning nuclear plants over the next century. •A clinical negligence provision of £15.8 billion. What has the NHS been doing? This relates to individual incidents where the government considers claimants have more than a 50% chance of winning. •£69 billion commitment to more than 600 private finance initiative (PFI) contracts to build and run schools and hospitals etc. Former chancellor Gordon Brown notoriously kept the cost of these off the UK balance sheet, now we can see how big they are. •£483 billion of ‘contingent, ie, they might not be called upon, liabilities from the bailout of the banks.'

Oh, I missed the fun

what happened to the old thread on this subject?

I thought you were serving a ban?

True, but I would have been amazed if they had done it differently. I suspect they are trying to save the Sun now.

I dont think that is how it has been portrayed BTF. It has been very much the case that the Sun got that info illegally and Brown knew nothing about it,

Have you thought about putting this on the NoTW thread as well?

Mandelson has a nerve. The boundaries were pushed and when nothing was done they were pushed further, it was just like the bankers when Blair and Brown when they first came to office took away the Bank of England's powers to police them. A terrible mistake and they took the p###. The NI did the same as they felt (wrongly) they were almost above the law, as the politicians danced to their tune.

i have changed the paper I was getting if the story on the front was more interesting. i have also looked into the sports pages and decided to buy the one that had an article on Saints but would not normally get the particular paper.

I had never heard of Tiger Woods until i met you Lol

without a doubt RM did not do it for nothing in return. He is a businessman and so you would expect that, the politicians?

but surely if they are as upstanding to their principles they would not be so scared of RM at that time. It is hypocrisy to jump on the bandwagon now. (I expect any opposition party would do the same of course) It is political opportunism to start waving about something that was also being abused under his watch when he was in government. I don't care about which political party is right or wrong on this (all IMO were drinking from the trough) they were/are all desperate for power and sucking up to RM helped them get it.

the pressure to get exclusives must be enormous. Whoever brought the story into the open was a good journalist. It must have taken a bit of guts to take on RM media machine. It is funny that the newspapers editors private lives have never been under the spotlight, unless they have been caught by the law.

is it scrutiny though? there wasn't mch of it leading up to getting RM's ear before the election.

Lol, I wouldn't know crack if I sniffed it

The distortion of truth is everywhere in the media, the pressure of 24/7 news has made sensationalist journalism the norm

to believe that only the NI were into these shady and grubby practices is a tad naive. The Guardian has put its head above the parapet and so probably is confident it is clean. Time will tell who else did these things. As Phil is alluding to, we should be careful what we wish for

I hadn't noticed, but I suspect the same would be said of mine

I haven't followed all the revelations. Why would a hacker delete messages? As I say the levels of decency have been crossed. I'm sure i read that the Americans are listening out for key words and if it is used they can listen in. This is regarding terrorism etc of course.