Brendan

It was deliberately pushed under the carpet by the last government a decade ago already. See this article re. information recently released under the Freedom of Information Act: http://pricedout.org.uk/News/PressReleases/GovernmentAllowedBTLtoPriceOutaGeneration/tabid/200/Default.aspx

Still a lot more encouraging than what we would have got from a Labour or a Conservative government. Although no mention on whether (and how) the new government intends to put right the fact that under the previous government an entire generation of young people have been priced out of the poverty market and are now forced to live either at home or pay off someone else second home for them under unfair, exploitative rental agreements. Any comment on this James?

The point Laz makes about overall employment cost is one of the things that initially got me thinking. I was speaking to financial folk at work and they (in a private sector body with an office in central London) work it out that it costs roughly 1.8 x someone actually salary to employ them. So 25K cost the employer 45K. I?m not sure what the actual cost of employing someone on 25K in the public sector would be. Are their pension and NI contributions different? Are they more likely to be in offices which are owned outright by the government rather than rented? I presume they still use tallow candles for light on Whitehall.

Fake cheese rap and iodine aside. This doesn?t involve an initiation ritual does it? Only it was a real challenge riding my bike home after all that last business with the quart of bootleg gin and the blindfold.

Come on Mitch. You know the best way to deal with the poor is to keep them in their place.

Loud guitars, big hair and tight trousers. What?s not to like?

With all the talk of public spending cuts I?ve been thinking about this and how and if it is quantified by anyone. If someone is made redundant they will then become a burden on the state, claim unemployment allowance and their family will need to be housed etc. All this obviously cost money so there must be a point at which it is cheaper to keep someone employed than to get rid of them. Is this calculated by anyone? Is it something that is taken into consideration? It?s not something I know anything about but their must also be other things that need factoring in such as the contribution an employed person makes to the economy compared to an unemployed person and the level of savings you could expect someone on a higher salary to have compared to someone on a lower wage. Anyone know anything about it?

Now there you touch on a good point. Should people be excluded from representing others if they are self-serving, bullying bastards with no concept of the conditions in which their constituents have to live? The fact that these sort of people are over represented in the laws may be a persuasive argument for excluding lawyers from office. By that reasoning it would also be a persuasive argument for excluding all of our current Conservative and Labour MPs from office. And where would that leave us? Do self-serving, bullying bastards deserve representative representation for that matter?

Oh as DaveR pointed out above. Sorry Dave I normally skip over your posts this early in the morning for fear that they contain some sort of inflammatory right-wing balls that will inevitable set me off. ;-)

To not bring the law into disrepute and not undermining public confidence in law and order are matters of professional conduct which is regulated through the professional bodies like the Law Society or Bar Council through their regulation authorities/standards boards. These are not public bodies, although they do have a certain duty of care to society. But ultimately the rules would have to be made by a consensus of the very professionals they apply to.

Well if you want to go making jokes about pretend places...

HonaloochieB Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > East Dulwich walks into a bar, left hand on hip > while waving the right arm in the air. > > ED - Do you serve seafood? > > Barman - Yes but we don't serve seagulls. > > ED - Bugger, where's my carpet gone? Dude. I'm sure there used to be a salt shaker in tht joke. Hepburn seven or spongecake.

Midnight at the oasis ? the brand new heavies

Very good question. I don?t think the leadership or as I prefer to think of it the administration needs to be representative necessarily. That can end up just being impractical. What they need to be to properly represent is be accountable to the people they represent. The sticky issue comes in when you start talking about the practicalities of equal opportunity and how that is reflected in government.

word!

It was actually an imbedded game. Who can?t love packman? And if the oft used video game analogy is correct it is responsible for an entire generation people spending they youth sitting in dark rooms and eating pills.

It is a well known fact, to those who know it well, that a handlebar moustache is the most manly man accessory a manly man can don (especially in May). Apart from that have you seen how fucking big those guys are? They make their guitars look like children?s toys. Now you may think you?re man enough to argue with a troop of handlebar moustachioed, guitar playing giants but I?m not going to take my chances.

Is it wrong to laugh at old men falling over?

Brilliant. It makes football almost worth watching. :))

Narnia Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > . And Brendan, have you ever been a Fenian > bast*ard from the Republic? When you drive through > certain villages in Nornireland those pretty flags > are not at all very welcoming. Bit like Woof's > pub. I have no doubt it is. Sorry I was just talking about it as a piece of design. I like it on that level compared to most flags. Implications and connotations aside.

What a soft lefty. ;-)

Blasphemous Rumor ? Depeche Mode

Go to google now. Do it. Do it.

Unionist pubs aside it really is a cool flag the old union jack. Big, bright happy colours like a tonka toy.

I prefer page 3 and pork pies. Far more charming and traditional.