????

No we are trying to reduce some of our annual public spending bill which is significantly above our tax take so as we can start paying off some of our debt, reduce annual interst payments, so our cash can be spent on our services etc and maintain a decent credit rating for future borrowing requirements..and stop it spiralling out of control. The belief that it will be 'rich bankers' who will suffer if we default rather than the poorest and most vunnerable in our society really shows how little people understand this and what the actual consequences would be...Excuse the patronisation, but learn something about economics all of us please. Russia and Argentina have some of the widest and most visible and obscene differences between rich and poor on the planet.... If you want 4th world public services, let's default that'll show em

The last "League Cup" Final I went to I saw Tonka Stewart ram a last minute equalising penalty past Ray Clemence

don't pay the credit card bill ever again, go on, you rebel UK sovereign debt ignorer, that'll learn em....

So Zeban we default on our debt..how do we exactly pay next years bills which are hevily funded by debt if we can't borrow anymore? Or embark on any decent infrastructure project - hint hint, these need capital upfront funded by borrowing sorty of like how you buy a house. Jesus wept...

And if the global economy hadn't tanked, er that's capitalism...you didn't really believe no more and bust really did you? We were on a path of unsustainable spending from about 2000...sfter GB ditched his actual prudence. Sean long term..., our demographics and the change (and expense) in medical improvements and increase in life expectancy make our PS pensions and our healthcare bill look pretty unsustainable. Recessions etc are an irrevelance in this. Go and ask the Japanese brilliant healthcare, brilliant pensions, slowly but surely going bust.....I like this no more than you but got to be faced up to. I'd be in favour of a universal state pension that was at proper and decent retirement level...but that would mean the Public Sector sharing their tax payer funded pool...can't see it happening. GB already fooked up tax on private pensions so he could spend spend spend on Publc Sector. Final salary collapsed in the private sector because it was unsustainable...these exact pressured (demography and life expectancy) exist in the Public Sector but this unsuatainable inconvenience should be funded by All tax payers (which inclues the 80% of taxpayers not in the public Sector)? Go and get the money of that tree again

Spending on Infrastructure by using borrowed money - give or take the odd Millenium Dome - I have no problem with....much of the massive expansion in public spending under Labour has been on a massive expansion in Public Sector employment and a significant rise in public sector salaries (some of it deserved to be clear). PS unions are the major funders of the Labour Party, sponsor a very large large %age of their MPs and PS workers are far more likely to vote Labour (Golden gooses and Eggs) so people in the private Sector, the majority of whom aren't fat bankers, now earn less on average, have very little pension provision if at all and still take less sick days, work longer hours unpaid and have faced job insecurity as a fact of life since the late 70s (welcome to our world the public sector), etc etc have started to question that...although still get met by and large with "nurse bashers, Teacher haters, etc etc for daring to even question this blatant inequity.....

Wot daize Said

I don't know - perhaps we should all live within our means a little more. That's why some of us have given up on Labour

That's terrible. So young too. RIP

c. Support the arts! Seems to me that Britain?s greatest contribution to the world in recent decades has been in the field of music and television and comedy. So let?s rejoice in that, not slash funding. Haven't some of the greatest artist emerged through struggle with talent and luck. If support the arts means I can get a grant for my rather poor poetry then on the whole I think we've better priorities with a LIMITED BUDGET. Bacon The Stones Bowie Freud McQueen The Beatles The Smiths etc Arts funded? I dunno but not many of them I expect.

It's owned by holders of the debt - institutions, pension funds, foreighn ( an awful lot of it) and the UK. If we defaulted we'd be unlikely to borrow anymore for a fair while and have a junk rating and thus massive interest rates for any future borrowing. Given that our govt continually spends more than they earn, we'd end up having to slash our Public Spending as we'd have no money to pay for the shortfall except by printing even more money =hyper inflation. It would take a while to recover any credibility - but countries do default (Argentina and Russia fairly recently) and I think we did last in thwe 18th Century but it really is equivalent to a personal bankruptcy/defaulting on your mortgage but refusing to give back the keys... ...in the future, if the US defaults on its massive and spiralling debts, which is a possiblity, the chinese may start threatening them with more than just words. We used to use gunboats for reming contries of their debt obligations when we were top dogs - the chinese may be there at some point. It is just basic economics we can borrow money cheaply 'cos we have a first class AAA record of paying it back and the lenders still believe that we have (just...and recently) got our spending and overall debt under control. A nation defaulting on it debt is not what we should aspire to ....do you sapire to going bankrupts personally?

Having swallowed my bitterness from the SF I am now officially supporting Birmingham for the final, although I sincerely hope Arsenal go on to win a couple of other trophies this season but not this one eh

god how did you put up with the inconsiderate burgers of ED for 17 years u mad fooool, what a waste......just up the road was paradise and you didn't even know for all that time.

he's howling at the moon

Some opium anyone?

wot kpc said

I used to go to the gym more but I get bored to be honest

More than you guys...we can set our own interest rates for example

Would Ireland have been better remining part of the Britain...or the British Empire if you'd rather? is an interesting debate but presumably independence, sovreignty and freedom are worth a fair bit more than mere money? Anyway, the Germans own your ass now ;-)

The Irish I work with seem strangely accepting about their politicians and the mess that their banks have put them in. They think their politicians are a shower but don't seem to care much about it.....and, with all due rsepect, the debates I've watched on TV tend to make our shower in the UK look like JFK and yet they are paid well over double our MPs and ministers salary.

Feels almost like the old days

I presumed he was!

There was an columnist in the Irish Times last week saying that when the Queen's proposed visit happens next year that, and I quote roughly "We should just hand back the keys and say I'm sorry maaam we've made a terrible mess of it".....I think he was joking

*pulls up chair, declines G&T, gets out hipflask (Tis Stella)* Yup...*whispers* apart from that bloody colonial

His (Tony Blair's) vanity, ego, shallowness and venality are unbelievable....I read someone saying that future historians will look at Tony Blair's 3 terms and scratch their heads thinking "How?"......many of us think it already