Magpie

The revival in British Brewing has been pretty dramatic. It also makes an interesting model for others. The UK superbrewers such as Bass or Scottish and Newcastle were bought out by multinationals, and basically ignored the bitter market. This in turn led to smaller independents and mid size brewers stepping in. The likes of Greene King, Adnams, Shephard Neame, Fullers have all benefitted, while beneath them there is healthy growth of micro breweries. There also seems to be a level of cooperation and goodwill in the industry between companies. Finally, Labour introduced tax breaks to smaller brewers in the early noughties which has certainly helped. We are now at the stage where we have thriving localised and regional producers, alongside a handful of national beers, without too much concentration. Now they just have to get the heathen foreigners to like real beer and start exporting the stuff, and we then have a case study of a genuine grass roots industrial recovery in the UK.

It feels like to me that there is a growing trend towards local produce, quality produce - be it organic or low intensity farming, as well as a revival of interest in local/tradtiional food cultures in the UK. However, this is probably a very distorted view and reflects the people I hang out with, my own personal interests and living in ED.

The point I think I'm trying to make is some things like a local pub or a post office have an intrinsic value that cannot be captured by assessing pure financial performance. To save them it either needs local people to intervene, either be being prepared to spend more or make more effort - perhaps we see this in East Dulwich with the desire to buy from local butchers and greengrocers rather than just going to the supermarket. The alternative, which is the French model, is to get the state to protect them - they did, for example, class Danone as a essential industry to protect it from takeover when Kraft came knocking a few years ago. Part of this is about the average British punter preferring to pay for cheap cans of lager from the supermarket to drink in front of the football on Sky, rather than locally brewed beer, but lets not forget the forces that are often mounted against local small businesses (which clearly Cadbury's wasn't) whether faced with excessive legislation, or aggressive, large and powerful chain stores and/or multi-nationals. Actually booze is a great example, the government prefers to crack down on happy hours, and pile tax on the pint in the pub, but not attack the supermarkets for selling crates of beer for a tenner.

Chocolate is not a strategic industry, and of their 40,000 worldwide staff only some 5,000 or so actually work in the UK. The impact on the economy will hence not be that significant, plus UK based shareholders are going to get paid for this transaction with the money they received being re-invested. My rational brain tells me that this is no different to any other transaction - yet I am feeling sad today that another piece of British history has been sold off, and no doubt in a few years will be but a memory. Anyone who was a child in the UK probably has an emotional attachment to Cadbury, whether it was eggs at Easter, presents from grandparents, or what you spent hoarded pocket money on. It seems that we don't seem to put much weight on the non-financial in the UK (whether it is sentimental, cultural, historical) when judging somethings worth. This is why the Brits allow historic pubs to shut, supermarkets to drive out local shops, identical appartments to replace village greens. We have allowed this to happen to our country in a way the French, for example, wouldn't. Thoughts?

I don't think its sad - the French have wine, brandy, pastis etc drunk in bars and resturants, the brits have ale, whisky, cider, and gin drunk in pubs, it is one of the defining points of our culture. Mind I also think that mass produced lager drunk is the work of the devil (although I am partial to a proper German pilsner on a hot day) I worked in Saudi last summer, non-alcholic beer was the only thing I could drink with meals - otherwise the choice was all sweet fruit juice or soft drinks.

I think we definately need to start weening off fossil fuel generated energy. For me there are two clear arguments. 1) Climate change/global warming - if you believe in it then there is a clear imperative 2) Energy security - the UK currently relies on lots of gas from some unreliable sources, plus oil, also from unreliable sources. Coal, which we still have plenty of, is dirty/unpleasant even if you don't believe in 1. So solution is Nuclear in the long term, supported by Hydro/tidal, gas generated by decomposing waster, energy efficiency, ground pumps etc In my mind wind is a complete white elephants - its just not reliable. Of all the renewable sources I think we are mad not to invest more in tidal and wave power - the country is an Island, with thousands of miles of coastline, battered by the Atlantic on one side, and the North Sea on the other. Far more predictable and reliable until the moon gives out. Plus this could kill 2 birds with one stone re the decline of manufacturing - make sure investment flows into British built stuff and British science rather than it all going to French and German companies.

reggies - it probably is - I'm going to come after you with my band of morris dancers, swigging real ale, waving leeks and doing a highland fling.

Reggie - I am British, and as I said in my post I believe that the British culture should be considered dominant. This means a legal system based on common law, and with social and morality issues judged by a Judeo-Christian inheritance, with a representative parlimentary democracy as the means of government. Therefore the advocation of the establishment of Sharia Law and/or an Islamic state is entirely hostile to a British way of life and British culture. A foreign national who advocates such an approach through the means of an offensive protest should at least be monitored by the authorities and, if evidence found of illegal behaviour, deported.

Santerme - actually I think the consensus on Multiculturalism has collapsed. The policy has effectively led to mono-culturalism - ie pockets of individual cultures that fail to interact with each other and with the mainstream. I prefer an integrationist model - ie freedom of worship, belief, culture, but acceptance that there is a dominant British culture, and immigrants and established minority communities are expected to integrate with that in the public sphere. The likes of Choudray receiving benefits may be as a result of his citizenship but that doesn't mean that his entitlement to said benefits should not be scruitinised. Why for example, as a qualifed lawyer is he not earning an income? Is he actively seeking employment? etc. Next, foreign citizens that are openly hostile to Britain should be deported - its called acting in the national interest.

I quite like Rod Liddle's writing, in the vein of Julie Burchill he's not afraid to shake things up a bit. Not sure whether he would make a great Editor of a national daily though. He was of course a resident of these parts at one point.

It is an interesting question - my dad (clear authority here) reckons that keeping the heating on low for a longer time uses less gas as the heat is stored in the walls and radiates back through the house. This is opposed to the need to turn the thermo up high for a few hours when you get in at night just to stop your breath freezing. I certainly notice that at the weekends, when I have kept the heating on all day, I can keep the thermo lower than during the week. I guess it would be relatively easy to count usage via the meter to check this. What it does do is make you think how bloody cold the victorians must have been in these drafty houses with only fireplaces to warm up rooms!

My understanding is that the people behind this group were previously members of other islamic groups which have been banned due to links to terrorist groups/encouragement of terror. Hence its just the next step in that game, ban the latest version, and wait for them to start up another group with the same aims etc only for that to get banned. What sticks in the throat is that this Choudary character is in receipt of benefits (both financial and indeed legal) from the very state and system he is attempting to abolish. He is effectively laughing at us and our way of life. I assume that jobseekers allowance can removed if he is not actively pursuing a job, but not sure about the rest of the money he receives. Further, there are a number of foreign nationals in the orgnisation, but we won't deport, again this sticks in the throat. On the other hand the groups activities are doing the opposite of what they intend to achieve, ie it effectively drums up anti-islamic feeling in the country and support for the BNP, rather than paving the way for a Sharia Britain, and resulting in mainstream political parties taking a stricter approach to immigration.

Virgin mobile uses T-Mobile's network which would explain that

Got a proper shaving brush for my birthday, and can confirm that the combination of brush with Trumpers shaving cream produces a smooth shave and limited rash (which is something I suffer from). The various shaving foams, gels, oils, face washes etc that I have used over the years have been consigned to the bin. Our Grandfathers (and mothers) really did know best. It even smells the business - like a proper barbers shop!

I think you have to separate the two. At the time of the Afghanistan invasion the majority of world opinion was in favour of US action. The Taliban were hardly the nicest people around. I remember a piece in one of the Sunday papers before 911 saying how terrible the place was and how the West was ignoring it. The decision to move to Iraq, with less public and international support, and before effectively stabilising Aghanistan can, with hindsight, be seen as serious error of judgement by the Bush and Blair administrations, which ultimately cost Blair his job and the Republicans the presidency. Iraq, notwithstanding the recent car bombs, now appears relatively stable and the US are leaving. One can hope that a similar outcome can be achieved in Afghanistan but I doubt it. Iraq pre-Gulf war was a relatively developed country with an educated population. Afghanistan is pretty much a medieval society, especially outside Kabul.

"Public sector workers - many of whom are low paid - should not have to pay the price for a crash they did nothing to cause" I'm not sure that public sector workers can get out of the blame - or was the record increase in personal debt over the last 10 years entirely due to private sector workers? This is of course what caused the crash; people borrowed too much money to fund a property bubble. When prices started unravelling the banks were left with toxic assets and needed to be rescued. This has been spun around and all the blame has been put on the bankers, as the reality (ie it was caused by irresponsible borrowing) involves taking on some level of responsibility. Secondly, the reason the UK is uniquely placed to do badly is because good old Gordon Brown spent all the tax receipts in the good years on public sector workers, so actually their guaranteed annual pay increases, and final salary pensions are contributing to the current crisis. My proposal would be to freeze public sector pay across the board, or adopt the Irish approach and have targeted pay reductions at the highest paid civil servants. This seems the equitable and fair response to me, given that those of us in the private sector have already seen pay cuts and job losses.

Oh you mean like Huguenot was in his description of Tories . . . . . . . Diversity to me means paying someone to say what is essentially common sense and is of course already statutory law

The government was borrowing far too much before the financial crisis, although it has clearly made it worse.

Huguenot - arguing that any cut in expenditure will hurt teachers and nurses is also emotive - so don't be a hypocrite The fact is that the last 12 years has seen a huge increase in the size of the state both in terms of the share of overall income, and in terms of employment. The result is a bankrupt country, and a country where in some parts the non-wealth creating part of the econnomy (ie the state) accounts for 70% of all employment. To pretend that this is sustainable is ridiculous - who is going to pay for them? You seriously believe that that within all this extra expenditure and employment that no savings can be found? Really? Quangos are a perfect example, why do we need a London Development agency or a South East Development agency when these regions are among the richest in the world? Its sheer waste, and represents a huge gravy train for self serving civil servants. As to your comment on outreach workers, I find reading through the Society section of the Guardian a truely depressing affair, the number of non-jobs in the public sector with ?30 - 40k salaries is obscene. Not many of the job descriptions relate to "Poor people or disabled people", but lots of descrioptions including the words 2carbon neutral", "sustainability", "diversity" - ie meaningless trendy issues. I guess its why labour voters are primarily state sector employees - they can have a good bitch about people who actually generate wealth, and how bad capitalism is, yet live off the proceeds.

Brendan - a way to help your friend would be a re-alignment of the tax system that removed the very high level of marginal tax that the low paid face - ie essentially benefits are withdrawn in direct proportion to the amount of money made, the result being at very low incomes the marginal rate of tax becomes close to 100%. Huguenot - I think we'll keepm the polic and nurses, just get rid of the quangos, outreach workers, formfillers etc. The state expanded in size by c700k people in the last 10 years - I think some savings could be found . . .

If anyone comes off as bitter its you "make the country suffer again" . . . .

As probably the only other Tory in ED, I think its pretty rich for Ratty to describe all tories as arrogant, who think that they are always right, when only a few posts ago he rants (and yes it was a rant) about basically what disgusting human beings all tories are. That certainly demonstrates a certain arrogance in the correctness of one's own beliefs. Clearly some tories are only concerned about their own interests (how is that different to trade union reps who are only concerned about their members not society as a whole, but some of us actually consider that people should be self reliant and self organising and not rely on the state to support them. The social safety net should be just that, a safety net to support those who can't take care of themselve. It shouldn't be a way of life, which is what it is for many people. For what its worth, I don't think the tories have any chance around here, given that its a mix of white working class and metropolitan liberals, as well as having a large non-white population, groups that typically vote labour.

I think the other issue is that theres not a big market for these kind of bets - bookies also align odds on the weight of money received for each outcome to protect themselve if, for example, they have to pay out for an England win. In a thin market they cannot protect themselves so readily against this.

The whole are of political betting is pretty strange - it is not a big enough market (outside general elections bets on outright winner) for bookies to calculate accurate odds, therefore there are great opportunities to make money. The Lib dem odds at 20/1 seem a good example of this

PS I don't think the Tories have a chance round here but tactical voting could be used to unseat Tessa - I remember her dumping the hubbie then taking him back on the quiet when the scandal had died down.