Johnny Bognor

Sorry to hear about your friend, as his son made the largest sacrifice anyone can make and those who are left behind to pick up the peices are often forgotten. The socialist agenda comes from trying to blame all MPs who voted as having blood on their hands. At the end of the day, we were ALL lied to and sometimes you have to make a decision based on the 'facts' placed in front of you. Therefore you can't blame all politicians as it is up to them to represent us based on the information at their disposal. For me, the 'blame' lies at the door of those who made the policy (the Blair cabinet which includes Brown, as he found the money to pay for it) and those who spun the lie (Campbell and his army of spin doctors). Those are the ones who are responsible. To use this issue to blame the tories (based on political bias) is ridiculous and those of a socialist persuasion on here try blame them for everything, yet let their own party off the hook. Hypocracy of the highest order if you ask me.

So you don't dispute that it was him and his party's doing? You could argue that anyone who voted for them and then re-elected them has blood on their hands.

LOL at the socialists blaming Maggie for the economic downturn. The UK was on its knees having gone to the IMF with a begging bowl to prevent the entire collapse of the UK economy thanks to socialist neglect. The ridiculous demands of the unions (causing cost push inflation) coupled with the oil price rises pushed inflation beyond 20%. Something had to be done and the medicine was monetary policy - high interest rates were needed to tackle inflation to prevent the UK from going bust completely. The sharp shock of monetary policy did cause a recession (which also happened in other major economies BTW, so you can't blame her entirely) and mass unemployment did follow. Whilst I feel for those people, do you blame a doctor for administering the medicine or do you blame the causes of the disease in the first place? Unemployment is creeping up now (2.5m+ and still rising), but I don't hear you lot calling Clown the biggest ****** in history.

What about those that were lied to? I was for the war based on the evidence provided and peddled by campbell & co at the time. Next time, I'll reserve judgement on such matters. Had I known then, what I know now, there is no way I would have been in favour. Had Blair said "actually we've got no evidence but Bush fancies a dust up with the arabs, who is up for it?", would the vote have gone through???? If you consider that the socialists had enough support from their own benches (and they were the ones in power), means that even if the opposition ALL voted against, the motion still would have been carried. You can't blame the opposition in this case to suit your bitter and twisted political agenda. The Tories launched two wars both of which were victorious, but more importantly had moral foundations - i.e. Sovereign territory had been invaded by a foreign agressor. In the case of Iraq 2, no such 'just' cause existed. Whatever you socialists say about Thatcher, whatever she did does not even come close to Blair who is resposible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.

Didn't you go in 2003???

I didn't say it wasn't a lot. You said that our economy was "largely based" on the financial services industry. As 70% of our economy is not based on financial services, I would have said that our economy is largely based on anything but the financial services industry. Yes, it is the single biggest sector, but after recent events, I would suggest that their share of GDP has fallen significantly over the last few years - we won't know this for sure until sometime next year when the GDP analysis is available for 2009. Financial Services has doubled in size under new labour, whilst manufacturing has declined at a faster rate than under thatcher, but let's carry on blaming her because she makes for a good pantomime villain. It wasn't about settling scores, it was about a fundamental problem with our entire economy. Unions had too much power and brought the country to its knees in the 70's. People used to feel sorry for "us" being the sick man of Europe. Unions had brought down previous governments and clearly this could not continue. She had to break the unions for the good of the country and as a result UK plc is better off for it. The nation on the whole agreed as she won three elections and the nation also agreed to the extent where the Labour Party had to drop its socialist principles and adopt a social democratic position to get elected. I don't doubt that people suffered, but China's fantastic growth isn't just down to the de-industrialisation in Britain, it is down to the de-industrialisation of the West. All European countries and the USA have been going through de-industrialisation for the last 40 years, so to blame it all on Thatcher is ridiculous. Granted that her presentation wasn't of Blair proportions, but Blair & Clown managed to de-industrialise to a greater extent, whilst cosying up to their buddies in the City.

Yes, but in using these adverts, they are appealling to your average X-Factor viewer, who would in all probablility be persuaded to vote off the back of such adverts. With poor turnouts at election, perhaps they should get Simon Cowell to run the next election 'live' on TV with Ant & Dec fronting the show. They could make prospective MP's sing & dance and/or eat bugs live on TV with people phoning in for their favourites?????

.....we're still stuck with..... ...... and just for political balance, here is a campaign run by Labour a few weeks ago......

Don't tell me, someone has swapped your 'n' and 'd' keys???

Don't you mean "uck o"?

Are you mistaking me for someone who gives an f?

If you had an 'f' on your keyboard, you could take the **** out of other posters, without leaving yourself open to attack.

I said that apart from the large Corporates. RBS is now government owned so it is a Public Sector scheme. (I would put a smilie, except for the fact it is not very funny)

Lowe was good at shooting birdies (well, ducks actually). Should he get a doctorate?

I have had to edit your post slightly as in the private sector, company contributions are not as often as you think. Maybe with large corporates, but the vast majority of businesses are SME's who don't contribute. That is precisely why the Stakeholder Pension legislation was introduced because too many people in the private sector had no pension at all. Even though the stakeholder pensions are offered, many companies still do not contribute as they are only required to have a scheme in place which employees can choose to take up. Even if the employee does take up a stakeholder pension, employers do not need to and many choose not to contribute. Life is not as cushy outside the public sector as one would think, especially in these current economic times.

Most of those countries (except USA) weren't so reckless prior to the crash.

It is not largely based on financial services, FS makes up about 30%. I thought Blair was all about education, education, education. Did this not apply to the socialist brethren? Here, let me try and help: UK manufacturing fell from 31% of GDP to 25% of GDP between 1970 and 1979 (before Thatcher was elected). During her term it fell from 25% to 23% and then after she left office, it fell from 23% to 19% between 1989 and 2000. In fact, manufacturing fell LESS as a proportion of GDP during her premiership than at any other time since 1970. We can also consider that this trend has even affected Germany (Europe's industrial powerhouse) where manufacturing has fallen from 36% of GDP to 24% of GDP since the early 1970's. Even in France (where the state owns significant parts of the manufacturing base) manufacturing has fallen by more than 13% of its share of GDP. Having said this, it is far easier to blame Thatcher for all industrial decline - even though it goes back to before she was born and has continued since she left (over 19 years ago) and conveniently ignore that every major Western economy has had declines in their industries. But one shouldn't let facts get in the way of pantomime politics and as Christmas is approaching and pantomime season starts, altogether now...... Booooooooooo Hisssssssss She's behind you

France = Out of recession Germany = Out of recession Japan = Out of recession USA = Out of recession Eurozone = Out of recession UK = ???? Meanwhile, UK Net Government Debt (as of 8.39am 21/11/09) = £837,579,866,040 I just hope your grandchildren see economic prosperity again, as you won't and neither will your children.

1. He is not a cabinet minister 2. The Tories are not in power yet 3. It's a shame the labour party didn't appoint someone with a bit of economic nous (elected or unelected) rather than the last waste of space chancellor

Indeed, which makes BTF's point irrelevant, because Chancellors and Home Secretaries tend to be elected MPs. The socialists invented inviting non elected people onto the cabinet as they had no talent left within the party to appoint an elected MP from within - I think the Clown called it the "Government of all talents", except that most of them have since left. On his departure, Digby-Jones commented that "the problem with socialism is that you end up running out of other people's money to spend".....

I don't think gawd will help, he is too busy trying to sort out the mess left by the last chancellor

How many half season tickets were sold last year (out of interest)?

Yes, but all 34 participants of the survey were your regular type of SWF poster and it turns out that the vast majority are lefty liberals with the odd exception of balanced minded people like me, Delldays, Patrick Bateman and Hatch. It is not representative of Saints fans or the general public, but is fairly representative of the regular contributors to this forum - maybe the liberal lefties like to live out their socialist fantasies on the internet?

They are the worst, they drive constantly at 40 MPH. For part of a jouney they are 33% under the national speed limit and then when you reach a 30 limit, they carry on a 40, thus doing 33% over the speed limit. WTF is that about?

Couldn't have put it better myself. Well, except for the fact that they are leading on finacial stability and economic recovery. If only they had put financial stability on the table during the years running up to 2007, perhaps we would already have a recovery. I love the way Clown talks about the "global recession" as if it is nothing to do with him. The fact the USA, China, Germany, France, Eurozone and Japan are all doing nicely now whilst we are not, is no coincidence.