Huguenot

Well I imagine availability of services has many complex influences - catchment area, economic affluence, cultural attitudes etc. It may work for your practice but not for others. On the note of expense, 10% of the population carries over 55% of tax bill. If we assume that locals don't fall into that high-earning category then locally each taxpayer (around 27m in total) pays around 1,750 annually into the NHS. I know that a personal private package (e.g. BUPA) would approach that, and a family pack be beyond that. I also know that we all pay a wee bit extra for the less priveleged and I'm happy with that. I can also understand that a practice would want to avoid vexatious or indulgent costs that increase the expense for more rational customers. It's not such a bad deal.

No worries Brum. There's a devil behind some of these right wing cost cutting concepts that needs exposure.

Well Brum, my advice is that if you don't have a clue then just throw cabbages and make farting noises. Gets the girls you know. My point is clear, that Conservative strategies to shove welfare into charity is not only Georgian, but plagued with horror and intrinsic slavery. If you have a better point I'd be pleased to hear it. Still waiting.

As Yoda says, a convocation of crazies does not reality make.

Workhouses were at best charitable institutions run by patrony. Mainly enslavement. If DaveR reckons 'charity' would replace 'tax', he underestimates the influence that private giving would have. Most likely rich guv'nors would dictate terms and enslave the poor as cheap labour. In 1834 workhouses were unionised, hence my 1820 quip. I'm sure you know this Ladymuck?

Destroyed....beyond repair? Come on chap, they're fence panels. Destroyed? What does destroyed look like? Okinawa? I can admit that it's disappointing they didn't ctach the crim - is that aggravating? If they caught the crim would you waive charges?

Well, why don't you see what you can get?

I'm just trying to be fair. There were two ridiculous ideas - first that reducing taxation would improve tax take (based on a thought experiment) and secondly that charity would replace it (we're aware of workhouses yes?).

So long as it's on topic. ;-)

I think you can tell the difference Quids :) It's not a relentless repetition of the entire post with a point by point rebuttal that looks like html mess. If you're going to copy and paste the entire post then just say 'Referring to Quid's nonsense earlier,' etc.... Fisking has all the talent of holding up cue cards and going blah blah blah, before holding up the next cue card and going blah blah blah.

;-)

According to this site, 0844 numbers charge 5p per minute, and the recipient gets 1.5p of that. That makes me think they impose charges to dissuade you from calling, rather than get rich. Either way, if you're paying 9p then your provider must be surcharging an additional 4p!

That happens with motorcyclists too - the easier the rider, the smaller the helmet.

The price differential is interesting. The Energy Saving Trust claim the England fund was not designed to pay for bolier replacement, but to raise awareness of the need for energy efficient boilers. They only had 125,000 vouchers in a market where there's 3.5m G class boilers. You also needed to be well heeled, since apparently you had to pay for the installation first, and claim the cash back later. That would make the bill around 50m, which is a helluva expensive ad campaign. However, the Wales campaign has a different agenda - in Wales the target is 'people in fuel poverty' and initially the over 60s. I guess the voucher reflects this different agenda: if you haven't got enough cash to heat your house to the point that you die of hypothermia, you're hardly likely to have much cash kicking around to pay for the price differential on the boiler installation. Likewise in Wales you don't pay first and claim back, you actually give the voucher to the plumber in lieu of payment.

What was the damage? How much did it cost to fix, was it a fair price? I do think it's a bit weird when we try and sue the police for protecting us. Let's cancel 'em eh, and then we can charge the burglars?

Tom, chap, I do think it's not going to further your chances of electoral success by attempting to wheedle a 'plug' on a technicality. You mentioned on one of the threads that you didn't want to let on you were a candidate for the Green party. This is simply deception and misrepresentation. That's all. That you attempted it at all possibly implies that you believe manipulation to be reasonable. I'm sure you don't, it's called a 'gaffe'. I'd love to debate Green Party local and national policies. Why don't you go to the Drawing Room and start a thread called 'Green Party local and national policies'? The recent 'parties vs policies' thread reveals that most people share your agenda, so you won't be unwelcome. Please be sure to declare your interest!

We seem to be accelerating the Drawing Room into a 'Fisking' paradise. For those that don't know, 'Fisking' basically entails a copy & paste of a previous post accompanied by a point by point rebuttal. It was the original preserve of socially dysfunctional conservative schoolboys, but has crept into bulletin boards because they were popular with socially dysfunctional conservative schoolboys. It's not only ugly and unreadable, but it defeats the object of the commentator because it renders the overall message lost in a world of annotated garbage. The only person that is satisfied by a point by point rebuttal is the person who posts it. No-one else can read it, or cares. To 'Fisk' is to demonstrate that you don't get it. It makes the 'Fisker' look like an idiot. And it also looks like you copy schoolyard children because you're impressed by them. Not great for adults. We like rational debate and coherent arguments, not a dirty protest. Please please please can we stop this ridiculous practice on the EDF?

Sorry if you thought it was sneery DaveR, I wasn't trying to sneer (which is quite snotty schoolboy), I was trying to ridicule. Your assertions were relevant, but abstruse. This... "The pretty much universal experience of modern economies is that cutting marginal tax rates increases the overall tax take, because it reduces the incentive for avoidance and because lower taxes = higher employment. " Is simply not right. You refer to the Laffer curve, but it absolutely doesn NOT insist that generic lower taxation increases tax take. It in fact illustrates that there is a window within which tax take is maximised. Not only that, but it's a thought experiment, not a 'study'. It simply observes that if tax was 100% then take would be nothing because no-one would have an incentive to work, if tax was 0% then take would also be nothing for obvious reasons. So somewhere in between take must go up. The 'peak' may be at 20%, or at 80% - no-one actually has a clue. It says nothing about reducing tax. As for lower taxes = higher employment, well, bonkers. If you want to go back to 1820, be my guest, but please don't take the rest of us with you. Your later points were well made, but you started off with some sweeping statements that deserved to be diminished.

Did you know, it's about 8,000 miles from London to Singapore, and then Melbourne is about 8,000 miles more! The word 'lurgy' (or 'lurgi') is a great one. Apparently invented by Spike Milligan fore the Goon Show in 1954. It is so clearly the right word, that it's almost impossbile to believe the word didn't exist before then.

LOL! Last time I was in the UK I was earning six figures and paying 51% + VAT in taxes - so, maybe 60k in tax? If you think I would have paid that in charity, you one crazy feller! I'd have bought a speedboat or something.

Hypochondria is an enthralling hobby, don't dis' it!

I went Labour most of the way - 67%, but got the odd tory and lib dem idea in. Bizarrely I ended up with UKIP on welfare. I think it was mainly because I was a bit bored by this stage and couldn't read the xtra stuff. I liked the idea of 'workfare instead of 'welfare'. I also liked their idea of simplifying the horrible mess of welfare payments, particularly how councils would 'give' with accommodation, and 'take' with Council Tax.

On whether the actual temperature is dangerous, I understand a body temperature of 38 degrees in still within the zone of healthy people who live perfectly happily at that high level - so I don't know whether 37.8 is intrinsically dangerous. It probably all kind of depends what your own 'normal' is as to whether is signifies a new problem. Since your body varies by at least 0.5 degress across the day, let alone your environment, then 'random' self-testing won't help you work it out. You'd need to measure at the same time in the same environment to make a good guess. The best thing is to leave a digital thermometer next to the bedside with a pen, and then record it in the morning whilst you're still in bed! (Ask anyone who's on the baby-hunt!)

I don't think that the fact that the fans alone don't power the building makes them wrong? They'll always be part of package of measures, no? I don't think anyone thinks there'll be one magic bullet for lowering emissions. The interesting question would be how long it takes for the power/carbon generated to exceed the power/carbon invested in creating the turbines - particularly as a fraction of lifetime. That'll give you a 'real' contribution.

I mean, come on legalbeagle, you'd have to close Green and Blue if you were advised that opening in the evening was discriminating against employing women with children! What if all your employees decided en masse to apply for the hours that they wanted, and none of them chose evenings, and the law supported their case? You'd be bust.