Johnny Bognor

Glad you're coming round to my way of thinking

Feel desperately sorry for the parents and Faith. I have identical twin girls and although they were not Conjoined, the risks of multiple pregnancies and births are immensely high. Mine were born premature, and my other half was in a critical condition and had an emergency c-section - could have lost her as well as the girls. Now they are nearly 4, I could not possibly imagine one without the other. RIP Hope

It may not have anything to do with real Labour, but Clown is known within his own party as being a complete control freak and he isn't called the Clunking Fist for nothing. The fact that he has surrounded himself with weak cabinet ministers shows that he wants to and needs to be in control

Not that I am rushing to the defence of St George, but our freedoms are being eroded - they are trying to extend detention above 28 days as the police need more time when interviewing terror suspects - well if they didn't run around arresting opposition MP's (who are hardly terrorists, let's face it), perhaps they would have more resource? The fact that anti-terror legislation (which is supposed to 'protect' us) has been misused by the totalitarian Clown dictatorship, can you really believe them when the proposed ID cards are 'supposed' to be for our own 'protection'? I am surprised that the liberals amoungst us, don't have a problem with this. What price social justice? A totalitarian Clownist communist state?

Taking away is a bit strong, perhaps I should have used 'eroding' our freedoms. Will the Labour party not stand at the next election because they would be beaten?. If this was democracy at work, why do the Lib Dems bother? No, but the party voted for him (I think in a run off against Heseltine).

There was certainly no unanimous support - Blairites can't stand the Dictator. Says a lot about the government when there is no one better on offer than the Clown. I'm starting to pine for Blair (something I thought would never be possible), at least he made the labour party paletable. BTW, are you not mad that whilst you are out there defending our freedoms, your paymasters are taking them away?

OK, fair enough. BTW, how many 'votes' did Clown get when the party in power made their 'decision'?

I don't remember our democratically elected representatives voting for Clown to be PM. He took the position because he felt it was his right - sounds like democracy at work to me. If the Clown-appointed FSA had done what they where supposed to, this mess could have been avoided. Are you suggesting that this MP is a terrorist and a threat to national security? Does that not worry you? If anti-terror legislation is being mis-used, can this detention legislation not be misused? Very worrying IMO

Hmmm. Interesting concept. The fact of the matter is that this country has been ruled by the centre right for the majority of the last hundred years. Overall, it is a pretty good place to live and the envy of much of the world. In the last 40 years, whenever we have a 'socialist' government, we were left with a screwed economy. This current lot were left with the legacy of a growing economy and look what happened. If anything, the current lot are looking more like a totalitarian dictatorship as each day passes. Their leader took control without so much as a vote and now we have political opponents being arrested. Robert Mugabe has more legitimacy than Clown has - at least he was voted into power (before he started rigging elections) We have major abuses of power - using anti-terror legislation to seize the assets of another democratic country to cover up the fact that the FSA (appointed by Comrade Crown) failed to regulate properly. Anti-terror legislation used against an MP who leaked a document, when this totalitarian regime has been leaking things for years. They want to lock people up for 42 days without trial? The very basis of our legal system is that you are innocent until proven guilty, and this is being eroded each day. More people die from asbestos poisoning every year than in road accidents, yet we are getting cameras on every road "to reduce road deaths" - I suppose it is hard to make cash out of making building sites safer - so much for standing up for the working man (who is left to choke to death)

Not sure the EHO would get too close to find out Seriously, you could try dummy CCTV cameras (with the LEDs which look like they are swtiched on). If this doesn't scare them off, no other system will. Having installed a 4 camera system in my home, after problems with a stalker, I have looked into this in depth. From memory, there are levels of identification and in order to get evidence that is submissible in court, you need to be able to identify individuals. Many crap cameras just confirm that someone has broken in (which you know already) so you need a system that can identify the person. I started off with a system from these guys. http://www.sctltd.co.uk/index.html A wireless camera network communicates with a DV recorder (which you can link to your TV or PC Monitor). Its not bad and starts at about £300

Not sure about CCTV, but you could get one or two of these.....

Can't argue with that - one area where higher public sector pay is fully justified

I bet you private sector toilet cleaners are paid less than public sector toilet cleaners ... just to bring things back on topic

Ah, the old "revert to spelling and grammar corrections technique" when the argument has been lost :-)

No, I'm paying for it :-( One of my many talents - 3 million leaflets a month to be precise. I have also managed to create and launch the world's first speaking magazine adverts - which is truly innovative, revolutionary and risk taking don't you think? Property investments are defintely risky at the moment amoungst other things. Quitting a good job from a FTSE 100 company to start out on one's own is definately a risk

I'm an entrepreneur and therefore I would have limited opportunity to succeed in a closed environment, where there is limited commercial opportunity, rules & regulations and procedures. It would kill me. Despite moaning, I thrive on risk and creating new business ideas - I would be wasted in the Public Sector.

Yet again? You have yet to prove that: 1) Public Sector Pay is worse 2) Public Sector Holidays are less 3) Public Sector Pensions are worse 4) Public Sector Job Security is worse I took your example to be Architects working in the public sector vs architects working in the private sector - as we are debating the merits of the Public sector. You didn't say that the Architect in the private sector was specifically working on an NHS project. If you did, then I would be talking about all of the Architects that are losing their jobs working in the House building industry.

This is more likely to be the reality right now

It's not ******** as you haven't been able to show me that I am wrong - no-one has. The facts I have stated are undisputed - I am using leftie government statistics to support my case as well. But, you are right to ask "if it is so good, why not work in the public sector?" and this leads me on to the one advantage that the private sector has an over the public sector - opportunity - and this is why I choose to work in the private sector. There is more opportunity if you are good at what you do - the downside risk is that you are on average more likely to be worse off, but as Dell Boy used to say "He who dares......."

You are comparing apples to oranges. It's not so much EMI makes profits, it has to operate in a competitive cut throat environment and therefore the challenge is to make profits. The EMI chief has to come up with a strategy to grow and fend off competition - the jobs under his control are directly linked to the success of the company. He has to earn his crust. The CEO of SCC gets given money to spend and doesn't have to worry about where it is coming from, just not spend more than he is given. It's a bit like comparing someone who has to go out and earn a living with a child who gets given pocket money to spend. Those in the public sector moan about the pay of the FTSE 100 companies. This involves a few hundred people out of a 20 million strong private sector work force. They are under the illusion that we are all on the gravy train when this is simply not the case. The FACTS are that average public sector pay is higher than the average private sector pay. No-one seems to be able to demonstrate that this is not the case.

Are you disagreeing with the governements own statistics????? It is clear that Public Sector have better pay (on average), more job security, more holiday, free stationary (according to Weston), more sickies and better pensions. No one (including BTF) has been able to demonstrate that this is not the case - please feel free to provide evidence to the contrary. If we all worked for the Public Sector, then who would be working to generate the wealth that pays for it all?

Granted, but then those of us in the private sector get 1. Worse Pay 2. Less Job Security 3. Worse Pensions 4. Less sickies 5. Less Holiday 6. No Free Stationary So we've got good reason to - and that is the crux of the matter. We have reason to, those in the Public sector don't.

More holiday..... http://www.onrec.com/newsstories/6601.asp So let's recap: 1. Better Pay 2. More Job Security 3. Better Pensions 4. More sickies 5. More Holiday 6. Free Stationary .....and they still moan. BTF seems to think that everyone on the private sector is earning millions when in fact, those that are fall into the 0.000001% category. The Chief Exec of Network Rail (Public Sector) earned £1.24m last year. It pays to be public sector!

More sick days.......... http://www.hse.gov.uk/gse/sickness.pdf

BTF, you need to read this: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=285 Here are the highlights: The full-time occupations with the highest earnings in 2008 were ‘Health professionals', (median pay of full-time employees of £977 a week), followed by ‘Corporate managers’ (£727) and ‘Science and technology professionals’ (£691). The lowest paid of all full-time employees were those in ‘Sales occupations’, at £272 a week. The percentage difference between the median level of full-time earnings in the public sector (£523 per week in April 2008) and the private sector (£460 per week) narrowed over the year to April 2008, following annual increases of 4.3 per cent and 4.6 per cent respectively. So they get more money, better job security and better pensions. Are there any other perks they get that we are not aware of?