Huguenot

I guess there are quite a lot of jobs out there that cause short term misery for the long term good - dentists for example. Wardens enforce parking restrictions for the benefit of all road users and pedestrians and in the long term keep traffic flowing smoothly to the benefit of all motorists. Occasionaly this may result in short term blips, but you can't make an omelette etc. I'm also guessing that it's impossible to characterise all wardens as numpties. I'm sure there are some that are better than others, and some that receive such unecessary abuse from people that they've built up psychological barriers that may make them appear indifferent to other folk.

As it thappens DJKillaQueen Labour candidates have appeared on the forum here defending the centralisation of services between Southwark and Lambeth as a reasonable cost-cutting exercise. If you didn't know then you can read it here. If it was a 'lie' then it was lie created and sustained by Labour candidates, which would be a bit daft really? Smearing people is unpleasant, and not very clever when you get caught out. That trunkline to the truth of yours needs an overhaul.

No, the office of the Deputy Prime Minister is more 'ceremonial' in the UK. It's not like Vice President in the US. The other thing worth remembering is that a Prime Minister is not a President. You vote for your party's local representative, not for PM. The PM is selected by the MPs of the majority party to 'lead' them only in a broad sense. If the MPs feel the PM is not reflecting the majority beliefs of their party they can trigger a leadership race any time they choose. Mainly they don't do this much because it lowers confidence in the governing party, which may trigger a vote of no confidence and hence a General Election. Cameron's incapacity would lead to Clegg taking the reins for only as long as it took the Conservatives to elect a new leader. They would then be PM, as the Tories have a majority in the coalition.

Well how many blokes would by kitchen utensils if it wasn't Valentines Day?

True Caspar. But I don't think you can make it a 'Labour' problem. Here's government debt for the last thirty years: Year GDP- Public Net Debt % of GDP 1979 199.22 43.61 1980 233.184 42.11 1981 256.279 44.40 1982 281.024 44.55 1983 307.207 43.13 1984 329.913 43.59 1985 361.758 43.45 1986 389.149 41.81 1987 428.665 39.14 1988 478.51 34.98 1989 525.274 29.30 1990 570.283 26.69 1991 598.664 25.27 1992 622.08 26.70 1993 654.196 30.97 1994 692.987 36.05 1995 733.266 39.55 1996 781.726 41.20 1997 830.094 41.92 1998 879.102 40.14 1999 928.73 37.86 2000 976.533 35.37 2001 1021.83 30.57 2002 1075.56 29.33 2003 1139.75 30.45 2004 1200.6 31.88 2005 1252.5 33.85 2006 1321.86 35.03 2007 1400.53 35.70 2008 1442.92 36.38 2009 1396 44.20 It reaches the same giddy heights from time to time irrespective of who's in charge. It's also true that we're going to have to lose some of these benefits if we're going to move on.

Isn't it important to bring 'intent' into the equation? We have square plates. My wife bought them because they were pretty. She's Canadian, she doesn't do social climbing. She be mortified to learn that she'd fallen fould of such an obvious technical transgression, I don't know how I'm going to tell her! Hee hee B)

Wot aboot this: http://images.replacements.com/images/images5/china/R/royal_albert_old_country_roses_heart_shaped_dish_P0000084979S0563T2.jpg That's a plate with ambition.

So would these pointless ingrates have been able to vote to influence the political system that's granted them a free house and loads of pastrami?

I don't think you could call Thatcher 'working class' Her Dad owned two grocery shops - so he was an employer and investor, an absentee landlord, not a prole. A filthy capitalist opressing the downtrodden workers no less. She went to a Girl's Grammar, to Somerville at Oxford, and was a trained barrister. In fact, about as far from 'working class' as you can get without a title. And Blair did a great job ;-)

Oh, and well said peckhamboy!

Sure, jenny500BC says it all. It shows us that the die hards and their supporters are prejudiced, tribal, antagonistic, divisive, short-sighted and prone to vendetta. They've got all the social contribution of John Lydon, and none of the wit or the irony. No way to run a country, and a short cut to political obscurity. ;-)

No Marmora Man, I don't think it's fair to taint Labour's legacy with endless snarls about the things that didn't work. We know they're there, but it's not all that Labour did. We're talking about the Labour government that... 1. Longest period of sustained low inflation since the 60s 2. Low mortgage rates 3. Introduced the National Minimum Wage and raised it to ?5.35 4. Record police numbers in England, Scotland and Wales 5. Cut overall crime by 35 per cent 6. Record levels of literacy and numeracy in schools 7. Best-ever primary school results 8. Funding for every pupil in England to double by 2008 9. Employment is at its highest level ever 10. Written off up to 100 per cent of debt owed by poorest countries 11. 85,000 more nurses 12. 32,000 more doctors 13. Brought back matrons to hospital wards 14. Devolved power to the Scottish Parliament 15. Devolved power to Welsh Assembly 16. Dads now get paternity leave of 2 weeks for the first time 17. NHS Direct offering free convenient patient advice 18. Gift aid was worth ?625 million to charities last year 19. Restored city-wide government to London 20. Record number of students in higher education 21. Child benefit up 25 per cent since 1997 22. Created Sure Start to help children from low income households 23. Introduced the Disability Rights Commission 24. ?200 winter fuel payment to pensioners & extra ?100 for over-80s 25. On course to exceed the Kyoto target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2010 26. Negotiated the historic Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland 27. Over 30,000 more teachers in England schools 28. All workers now have a right to 4 weeks? paid holiday 29. A million pensioners lifted out of relative poverty 30. 800,000 children lifted out of relative poverty 31. Introduced child tax credit giving more money to parents 32. Scrapped Section 28 and introduced Civil Partnerships 33. Brought over 1 million social homes up to standard 34. Free school milk for five, six and seven-year-olds in Wales 35. Banned fox hunting 36. Cleanest rivers, beaches, drinking water and air since the industrial revolution 37. Free TV licences for over-75s 38. Banned fur farming and the testing of cosmetics on animals 39. Waiting times for operations halved 40. Free local bus travel for over-60s 41. New Deal - helped over a million people into work 42. Over 1.5 million child trust funds have been started 43. Free eye test for over 60s 44. Five, six and seven year olds in class sizes of 30 or less 45. Free entry to national museums and galleries 46. Overseas aid budget more than doubled 47. Cancer death rates down by 12 per cent, saving 43,000 lives 48. Cut long-term youth unemployment by 75 per cent 49. Free nursery places for three and four-year-olds in England, Scotland and Wales 50. Free fruit for all four to six-year-olds at school There's a few in there that are a bit clownish, but there's an awful lot in there that would never have happended under the Tories.

I think whether you are frustrated or not with the coalition comes down to whether you're prepared to sacrfice common sense on the altar of ideology. There's no doub that LD is centre left. I think someone once calculated that only 4% of LD MPs could be considered 'right' of an ideological centre ground. However, not compromising with the Tories would be self defeating. It represented the only realistic opportunity for the LDs to push through their manifesto commitments. Arrogant Labour die hards thought that an LD coalition would come to them by default, and refused to compromise on an agenda that's frankly tired and ineffective, and more importantly was voted against be the electorate. Moreover, I agree with those who think a failure to compromise would have precipitated another GE in which the Tories would have walked with the Trophy. Hence LD compromise is the sanest of sacrifices to ensure that we keep left-wing pressure on an otherwise commited right wing agenda that threatens our entire future with their xenophobic rejection of Europe.

It's unlikely to have been deliberate, but there's quite a few applications (like 'flash' games as an example) that reset the screen resolution to make the game appear full-screen. The other thing you might want to check is whether your graphics card has independent settings. It may be that if you right-click on the blank area of screen that just above 'Personalise' there's a control panel for just your graphics card - mine for example says 'NVIDIA Control Panel' There'll be settings options in there too.

The other thing Duncan, is that I hope you're not so much of a wally to realise this tactic is a double edged sword? If it transpires that leaflet deliverers (perfectly reasonably) get paid minimum wage, it will also transpire that Labour use them too. To be honest, your tactics throughout this campaign have been foul. You've called Lib Dems racists allied to the BNP (and the deleted the posting when you were caught out), you've tried to suggest Kevin Donnelly's unsubstantiated smears should go uncriticised, and now you're tripping out on yet another smear. I mean, come on. Honestly. When you look in the mirror and try and find reasons for not being elected do you also make things up? You didn't get elected precisely because you do things like this. People smell a rat. They don't want underhand deceitful backstabbers in power. The councillor who polled highest in ED was an LD candidate who impresses by his hard work, concern and accessible manner. He wasn't a shitty little slagger.

KD's ravenings sound a bit like King Canute. His passionate campaigning was in ED - where the LDs got more votes than ever before - and they'll also have cabinet roles - which they've never had before. A bit of purply-faced googlydongles I suspect. Mentalist.

"Big fat grin to go with your big fat ego, god your so righteous and up your own orifice." Chuckle. What's going on in your head when you write that sally 676? Is it all kinds of fizzing and buzzing? ;-) BTW 'your' denotes ownership, 'you're' is a shortening of 'you are'. I think in this case you meant you're... Mind you that probably means the old grey matter has moved on from buzzing into the crackling and burping zone. Chill out. You're not pushing burgers through fences any more.

But nashoi, you're still missing the point. They're still only talking 'taxes' and haven't even touched on benefits. It's just bullshit. Woooooo, heavily taxed, but sprinting down the 'social' to take out more in dole than they've ever paid in taxes. Those hard done by over taxed lower three deciles are going positive when you add back in the benefits they're reaping - they far exceed the tax they're paying. The study is frankly stupid and politically motivated. I can't really believe that you believe in it either. It's nonsense.

AFN, you're such a muppet sometimes. If the budget is 'ringfenced' it was 'ringfenced' under liberal control. It will honestly be deleriously entertaining to watch you claim this as a Labour victory. If it even happens. This... "With Labour in charge of the council it looks the 14million earmarked for the Nunhead regeneration will land in a matter of months now." ...I'm going to watch with a big fat grin.

I think that document is over-reaching a bit... Tax can be paid on earnings (income) or on consumption (VAT). Tax on earnings is progressive. Tax on consumption could be considered flat as both rich and poor consume the same number of DVDs or Cakes. However, that expenditure is a larger part of overall household income and so could 'appear' to be regressive. By proving a 'regressive tax' environment by including VAT in calculating %age of household income paid in tax there's an implication that because they have earned more, wealthy individuals should bay more tax than poorer people on the goods that they consume - even if their consumption is the same. This is patently ridiculous. That means a loaf of bread is 1 quid to a poor person, and 3 quid to a richer one.

Full results for ED: Electorate: 8948 Ballot Papers Issued: 6343 Turnout: 70.9 % Candidate's Name Party Votes Elected? Leslie Henry, commonly known as Les, Alden Labour Party [The] 2061 No James Barber Liberal Democrats 2854 Yes Louise Margaret Dalton Conservative Party 871 No Christopher Michael Fish Conservative Party 920 No Anna Charlotte Goodman Green Party [The] 718 No Oliver James Kempton Labour Party [The] 1907 No Derek Charles Kinrade Green Party [The] 436 No Jonathan Stuart Mitchell Liberal Democrats 2720 Yes Joan, commonly known as Joani, Reid Labour Party [The] 1952 No Janet Sam-King Conservative Party 779 No Rosamund Joy, commonly known as Rosie, Shimell Liberal Democrats 2435 Yes Lucy Trinder Green Party [The] 572 No Duly Elected * James Barber (Liberal Democrats) * Jonathan Stuart Mitchell (Liberal Democrats) * Rosamund Joy, commonly known as Rosie, Shimell (Liberal Democrats)

Brilliant :))

Nashoi, you may be confused about what progressive taxation is? "A progressive tax is a tax by which the tax rate increases as the taxable base amount increases." Income Tax is progressive, National Insurance is regressive (because it's capped), VAT is progressive (because some 'necessity' items are untaxed), Capital Gains tax is progressive, Inhertiance Tax is progressive. The general tex system in the UK is progressive.

I think that this is the only opportunity that the Lib Dems will get in the foreseeable future to reform an electoral system to ensure that the elected MPs reflect the views of the electorate. Unless Lib Dems can achieve some kind of PR, they are dead as a political force, and they know it. If Tories want a pact with Lib Dems they will have to move on that issue, and Cameron is understandably saying no way.

Closing Statement. Kevin Donnelly you've posted noxious politically motivated unsubstantiated smears. You've insulted hardworking local politicians who tried to look after you even though you're not in their ward. You've insulted everyone on this forum in the pursuit of your vendetta. You're to stupid to realise that the LDs are now the most influential party in the hung parliament. Having done this you're wandering off like a mongrel who shat on your own doorstep. You are in short, an idiot. Thank you, HN