Johnny Bognor

I do understand the difference - the current Labour Party had to ditch socialism to get elected - doesn't that tell you something? Unfortunately, the socialists have no political representation at present. Perhaps you should start the Public Sector Can Do Know Wrong & Socialist Workers Party (PSCDK&SWP for short)?

But you said the chair could be re-used, and I'm no expert, but I would hedge my bets that the chair and power mechanism is the most expensive part. But no, throw it away as it was paid for by the free money that magically appears in public sector budgets.

To be fair Chi Saint, not that I am supporting Stu Rupert Saint, but I would suggest that the ugliest and most ignorant chavs in the western hemisphere probably reside in a PO postcode.

So government / public sector waste is OK, as long as it is not the NHS?

New Labour - who are suspiciously tory-like in their composition. (Having ditched their socialist principles to get and STAY elected). Unfortunately, their socialist followers can only whinge on the sidelines. If anything, the greatest change effected by Mrs T, was the complete abandonment of the policies of the Labour party. My biggest worry is that Crash Gordon / Gordon Clown would move to the left, but on the contrary, this loan debacle looks like he is trying to out-thatcher thatcher.

The problem is, when you have a pop at the New Socialist Party, they always drag up Thatcher. It will always be a sore point for them as Peter Mandelson once said "we are all Thatcherites now" (Circa 2001). To be fair they have been betrayed by their own party, but it does confirm that their war of political ideals has been lost.

That's right. No other country in the world suffered a recession at that time, the UK was the only country and it was all Maggie's fault. :smt044 Now that the socialists have a recession, it is a global problem :rolleyes:

Might be time to dust the banner off and fire up the Cesna!

Ronnie Campbell, Labour MP for Blyth Valley, said: ‘James Purnell makes me ashamed to be a member of the Labour Party. It is a disgrace the way he is hitting the poor. Not even the Tories would try to do this.’ Socialism Rocks!

http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=6844 Coincidence?

False Average Gates vs Financial Performance 2007-08: 22,253 - Financial Loss 2006-07: 23,556 - Financial Loss 2005-06: 23,614 - Financial Loss If you take the last year, where we made a loss of £4.9m with average gates of 22,253, if we had sold an additional 7000 tickets @ £30 a pop across all 23 home games, it would have generated £4.8m extra turnover - not including the extra operational costs. We would still have made a loss with an average gate of 29,253 and that's with a profit of £9.4m on player trading. I know costs have been cut this season, but we haven't got £9.4m worth of players to sell and I doubt the cost savings are as much as this. So to blame the mess we are in on the stay aways sounds like it has come from dear old rupes himself (You're not Stu Rupert Saint BTW?). Granted things wouldn't be as bad if the stay aways came back, but it wouldn't be that rosy either. So the gloating yesterday proves what exactly?

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Not being cynical, but someone probably noticed the error and then started the privatisation process to bury it. No worries, did you like the scientific research?

If you look at the end of the first paragraph..... http://www.xafinity.com/Microsites/Xafinity-Paymaster/About/Executive-Team/David-Nunn.aspx It says they were privatised in 1997 http://archive.treasury.gov.uk/pub/text/press96/p116_96.txt http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmtreasy/154/cor15406.htm Don't you just love Google? Apparently it was sold to Hogg Robinson and EDS and it became Xafinity

Indeed, which seems to be backed up by the latest scientific research..... Scientists Discover New Element, the Heaviest Yet Known to Science Lawrence Livermore Laboratories has discovered the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete. Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2- 6 years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each rerganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of morons promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass. When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons. Make of it what you will

But the private company (Xafinity Paymaster, the former Paymaster Agency) was a public sector company until it was privatised in 1997, so the majority of the overpayments occured under public ownership. So two thirds of the **** up was down to the public sector. However, this is a good example where the private sector can be shown to be equally as useless as the public sector. Over to you BTF The pensions in question are handled by a company called Xafinity Paymaster, the former Paymaster Agency privatised in 1997 and which now handles some 5 per cent of public sector pension payments as well as payment contracts for some of the UK's largest companies.

Ah, but throwing your shoes at someone in the Arabic world is one of the worst ways in which to insult someone. I remember the TV pictures of people bashing the statue of Saddam with their shoes. After the first shoe, I would have expected Bush to stay down, but he pops up again with what looks like a smirk on his face as if to say "is that all you've got?"

This is quite funny http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OM3Z_Kskl_U&eurl=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article5342394.ece To be fair, Bush did well to avoid the first one.

To be fair, the English Channel played its part (having stopped Napolean and other previous invaders) - this little stretch of water bought us time to build and strengthen, because in 1939-1940 we were not well prepared - without the channel, the blitzkrieg tactics that swept most of western Europe probably would have worked against us. As it was, with the stength of the Royal Navy and the fact there was water between us and them, made it almost impossible to walk in and take the UK.

Not on a public sector pension by any chance?

During the "boom", I put enough away for a rainy day - shame he wasn't so prudent. When you say things like "a weak pound is the result of a weak economy caused by a weak government" or "no more boom and bust" you leave yourself open to ridicule. It was only a slip of the tongue... The problem is, people suspect that Gordon Brown might actually believe it. The fact that he is more concerned with grandstanding on the global stage rather than dealing with the fears of small businesses and homeowners caught between a Northern Rock and a hard place is worrying IMO. Perhaps he should "just get on with the job", to quote the man himself.

...but president blair could at least string a sentence together. To think that this idiot used to run our economy, isn't it any surprise that we are where we are?

How can this complete fool be running our world (sorry I meant our country)?

Romantic dillusions. Manufacturing decline started in the 1970's and over the period of 1975 to 1985, Manufacturing's share of GDP fell in ALL major western economies - how was this the fault of Thatcher? She may have been part of the process, but clearly not her fault individually. The decline in the United States manufacturing share of GDP was similar to that of the UK's over the same period. Did she run the US too? The fact of the matter is that western nations were and have been de-industrialising (albeit to a lesser extent in Japan and Germany) since the early 1970's. The services sectors have been increasing in all of these economies over the same period. Had we stuck with the heavily unionised manufacturing base, our position as the 'sick man of Europe' would have deteriorated into the 'terminally ill man of Europe'. The labour market needed to be revolutionised and made more flexible in order to be able to compete in an increasingly global economy. You don't have to like the woman, but she was a necessary evil to bring this country back from the brink.

Totally agree - the extra cost in staying listed completely outweighs any 'benefit' that we might now receive.