Loz

tlim2, I pay ?48.50 (tv) plus ?7.50 (broadband) and then non-included calls on top. SkyTalk basic is free. But it depends what you take from their package - you could get tv + broadband + SkyTalk for ?18 a month. Or you could get SkyTalk international and HD TV and line rental on top of what I've got and that will set you back the best part of ?75 a month. Have a look at their website: www.sky.com.

As much as I hate to admit it, Sky isn't bad. - The TV is good, though it's ?48.50 a month for the whole shebang. You can get that down to about ?18. - SkyTalk is OK. Free calls to landlines on evenings and weekends. I don't get line rental through them, but you can. - Broadband is actually rather good. They've just rejigged the packages so you can get a starter package for free (!) or an all-you-can-eat package for ?7.50 a month. I did look to separate my broadband out, but couldn't really beat Sky in the end. And I've only ever had one outage in three years.

I now have a picture of Lucille Ball in my head, LM. Goodness, I am getting old.

Did anyone see 'This Week' last night? Andrew Neill had Diane completely cornered on her 'West Indian mums' comment. She was not a happy bunny.

That;ll be the Paul Hogan solution - brushing your teeth.

I'm getting (even more) cynical in my old age. That missed me as well. Mind you, most of the 'shock' ads either miss the mark with me or make me laugh. This one says to me, "if you are going to crash, make sure your wife and kids are wrapped firmly around you..."

Bloody hell, KK! Terrifying. Were you driving a van or a car?

That's just the iPhone4, rather than the OS. Have you got one already applespider? Keen!

Good grief - I trashed that stupid car tax argument a few weeks ago. All I say is... sea kittens.

As well as that, users are reporting that you get no signal if you are holding it - which is pretty special, as far as bugs go. BBC News

The IFS report can't be easily distilled into one sentence. What they said first was that, when you take the budget as a whole, then the poor will on average be down about 2.5% of their income and the rich will be down about 7.5%. The IFS agreed that, as a whole, it was progressive. But what the IFS then did - and what caused the headlines - was to take away any measures that Labour had previously proposed/budgetted for this year and just concentrated on any new proposals, and that is what caused the 'regressive' comments. Now you can read this in one of two ways: either Osborne ideologically slapped the poor (always possible) or that he looked at the Labour measures, accepted some of them and rejected some others (i.e. the employers NI rise). Osborne was under no obligation to keep any of the Labour stuff. It's worth noting the IFS also said that, (according to the Indy), "The rise in VAT to 20 per cent will be a regressive move, though the IFS concedes that, once an individual's lifetime spending is taken account of, it is a more progressive form of tax than often assumed.". So I'm confused...! Interestingly, the rather progressive Swedes have a VAT rate of 25% - but then they have one hell of a benefits bill to pay out.

Concentrating just on the VAT increase is taking it out of context. If you look at the budget as a whole, the richer have taken more of a hit than the poorer. Taking one item of the budget and then saying, 'look how the poor will suffer' is playing politics. I know that this only applies to people with incomes, but ?200 extra due to the tax threshold is equivalent to the increase in VAT on ?8000 worth full-rate VATable goods (i.e. not foodstuffs, kids clothes, rent/mortgage and energy). Is you average low paid worked really going to spend ?8K on such goods in a year? If not, they are up on the deal. As pensioners have a guaranteed 2.5% rise coming, they will be OK as well. PS David - did you get a chance to look at my query about your graph? It still doesn't make sense to me.

David, The green bars on that graph are counter intuitive and I'd question them. The 'income tax cut' was a raising of the threshold - i.e. worth ?200 to everybody on the 20% tax rate. How can this have a higher percentile impact on higher (but still in the 20% tax bracket) earners. And how can the very highest percentiles still have a positive gain effect, when it does not apply to them?

I hope you're not going in order to pick up your US$20,500,000.00 (Twenty Million, Five Hundred Thousand United .States Dollars) from that nice sounding Nigerian General chap.

Personally, I think that banker's levies and such smell like the politics of envy at work. Like it or not, a lot of the wealth of the south-east region is due to London being such a huge player in the financial markets. Also a flat levy may actually destabilise some banks that are still looking a bit iffy. On the other hand, the treasury has to rustle up the best part of ?70 billion a year to fix this mess, so hitting the banks is an easy couple of billion to throw in the hole. I see also the Unions are screaming about 'no cuts to the PS'. It's all very well for the public sector to say, 'Why should we suffer - we didn't cause the recession'. True, but the huge PS increase over the last ten years has ridden on the back of the financial sector boom. Now it's gone, the PS has to shrink. I'm surprised no one has mentioned the changes to the Disabled Living Allowance. Labour hid a lot of unemployment here - and the recipients didn't mind as there was less paperwork/bureaucracy involved. Good to see medical reviews being imposed. Absolutely. One of the best things about this budget is that the credit agencies have looked upon ii favourably, which should protect the UK's AAA rating. That should (hopefully) keep interest rates in check for a while, meaning home-owners and business can keep their heads above the water (and renters too - higher interest rates would lead to higher rents). Let's not forget that the LibDems are the smaller partner (by some margin) in this coalition. They are the tail to the Tory dog. Any influence that they can exert over the Tories can only be positive, as shown in this budget. Yes, this budget had to happen. Yes, the Tories took the opportunity to throw in some political ideology and shrink the government size. But I do believe that the 'good' stuff in the budget was LibDem influenced. Had the Tories won an outright majority this would have been a very different budget.

I give all my stuff to the lovely ladies running the St Christopher's shop on LL.

'bout now Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > However if you voted for LD, look yourself in the > mirror and ask "is this anywhere @#$%& near what I > wanted?" Apart from the VAT rise, absolutely. And even then I'm not too surprised about that. Labour refused to rule it out before the election for a very good reason - they'd have done much the same thing. The LibDems weren't too clever making that a big issue at the election. Apparently Vince Cable advised them not to at the time. As far as I can see: - the public sector to be trimmed down. That had to happen. - The lowest paid protected from most of the hit. Yes you can pick out separate parts of the budget where they have been hit, but in total most low paid come out as 'not gained' rather than lost. - a push to move jobs from public to private sector. Risky, but I think the right idea. The more non-jobs trimmed from the public sector, the better. No, not the front line teacher/nurse/police jobs, but the Employee Dignity Advisors and the like (yes, I made that job up, but I'm sure there is something out there like that). - the tax threshold and pension changes are a very positive move. Personally, I reckon our household is about ?700-800 a year down, based on the Beeb's calculator on income and NI changes, plus my finger in the air stab at VAT change effects. I'm not too unhappy about that. That's the way things are at the moment. Middle class, OK income - I'm one of the ones that should be taking more of the the brunt of it. A lot of the good things in this budget have Lib Dem influence written all over them. The only disappointed ones will be the refugees from Labour that expected the LibDems to be Labour in a new set of clothes. Add that to the upcoming Great Repeal Bill, where all of Labour's assaults on liberty are to be undone and, yes, I'm pretty happy that the people I voted for have had the influence they have, given the relative number of MPs they have.

SteveT Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I was talking to a well travelled lady friend a > few weeks ago and she thinks we have the most > unreliable trains she has ever had the misfortune > to have to rely on. > > It is bordering on third world for unreliability. Do you mean the UK or ED in particular? If you mean ED, you should have been around about 5 years ago when pretty much nothing was on time and cancellations were common. At the moment, the ED-LB service is not too bad at all.

I somehow cannot see that a TV producer who likes his career would try to kick out a black guy and replace him with Big Ron A...

Are you a Tory, vinceayre? I suspect that is Cameron's preferred choice, too.

Solution: Raise the cost of public transport until number of seats = number of people who can afford it. This would naturally exclude most pregnant people, old people and poor people. People with skiing injuries would probably still be able to afford the ?10 a trip. Or stop. Or something. Or just not allow any standing whatsoever. Turnstyle counting at every tube door. I should so be President of Everything. Next problem please...

Moos Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > jrussel Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > I suggest that pregnant people pay a 30% premium > to compensate the extra strain they place on pubic > transport. > > this is my favourite part of the thread so far. > Bold marking mine. [Ali G] Dems wiv da shavin haven can be walkin' [/Ali G]

[troll] I disagree Brendan. Men were expected to give up their seats to women and hold doors open, etc, etc, because at the time, men considered being female to be a disability. Happily, we're more enlightened these days. [/troll]

Tsk, H. Fisking at that time of the morning. Have you no shame? Everyone looks grumpy on tube and trains - those standing more so. My GrumpFilter happily blocks them out. This also has a "Fat-or-Preggers?" filter setting which I have ramped up to 11. Up-the-duff ladies: please ask if you want a seat. I would love to let you have mine.

Three points: 1) The OP is talking rubbish and/or trolling. 2) I am more than happy to give up my seat if you need it - in fact, it puts me in a rather good mood with a spring in my step for the rest of the day. However, I am generally in a world of my own or reading the paper. Smile, ask and it shall be yours. Hover looking grumpy and I probably won't notice. 3) I don't buy the 'my child will be looking after you when you get older' stuff either. Your child might equally be burgling my house in 20 years time. Or worse, become an accountant.