CB Saint

I think you need board approval

If we are talking about broken manifesto promises - check out this site http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2010/04/labours-27-broken-manifesto-promises.html

He's got the horn

Sometimes common sense is needed. Who exactly is going to prosecute an airline for selling water to passengers who have been stuck on the tarmac for six hours?

Perhaps I should read the thread properly before chastising people. Still think the comments were harsh though

I think I was at the same festival

We all have our cross to bear

I am not familiar with circumstances but it could just be that when the mortgaged was obtained the Father was on the scene so their combined salaries met sensible lending criteria. Perhaps you should get all the facts before criticising people.

Some of these cuts chould be fairly straight forward. The Telegraph have printed a list today of each departments savings and then equated it to the number of teachers / firemen / embassies etc. One thing that caught my eye was the Department of Culture who have to save £688m or as they put it 17 years of subsidies to the Royal Opera House. Seeing as the oprea is a pretty niche activity does it deserve a £40m pa subsidy from the tax payer? So that is the first 6% of their savings right there

So Germany then argentina then brazil in the semis....easy easy easy

Its not just the cost of tendering (although the size of the RFI paks are mind boggling). The cost of operating the contracts can also discourage SMEs as they are just not geared up to deal with the sheer level of bureacracy that is encountered when dealing with the public sector, speaking as someone who has given up working with them for this very reason.

DUne did say that - guess he was right after all

They are not cutting the deficit in one go they are doing it over 4 years, Labour wanted to cut it by 50% over the same period. You still haven't said what you would consider to be fair in terms of cuts. Public sector were going to go irrespective of whoever got in. Another point to consider. The markets reacted favourly to this budget. The gilt market (where the government gets borrowing from improved in our favour). If the market decided that we had not taken sufficient enough action then there was a good chance that we as a country would have been downgraded. If that happens then the interest rate at which the UK can borrow money increases and there is even less in the pot to spend of public services therefore requiring even greater cuts down the line. Prior tothe budget the national debt was forecast to reach £1.4 trillion in five years. The interest on that would be £70 bn a year, more than the entire NHS budget. The UK has had to cut and cut hard - there isn't any long term sustainable alternative.

There is usually a difference between recruitment and replacement. In my experience (private sector admittedly) a recruitment freeze prevents increasing headcount above a certain predetermined figure, you can still hire to replace leavers if below that number.

I was probably being a little biased there. No party had the bottle on account of it being electoral suicide. John B point was he said Tories cuts are unfair - I suspect he would have found the labour cuts equally unpalletable.

I would like to register my disgust, rage and frustration with the american petroleum company Exxon who are responsible for an oil spill in the solent. http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/8231726./

Could have been a hell of lot worse, althoguh I suspect this is a tor dipping exercise by Osbourne to gauge market and international sentiment and well as easing the economy into a more austere environment. The autum and next March budget will be B'stards.

So in 4 years time under labour we will still be losing £80bn per year - good plan that. The simple fact is we are living beyond our means and we have to tighten public spending, hence the cuts. The labour plan still required cuts, they didn't have the bottle to announce them before an election. The government, who ever won, have to make some cuts - what cuts would you consider to be fair?

Ok using Greenpeaces figures (to give a worst case picture) Trident will cost £97bn over 25 years with up front costs of £20bn leaving running costs of £3bn per year. Our deficit is approx £160bn per year, so where will the other £157bn come from?

And how do you suggest you do that? Cuts had to be made and those cuts were going to be to public services and the people who rely on public services are generally the less well off / families / elderly, then the budget was always going to be "unfair". What would you cut? There isn't much more scope left to tax people more without disincentivising people to work

Exempt from VAT

Anything more than 25 years becomes the modern eon not the modern era. Football as we now it today was set on its course when the premier league was formed. That IMO is the start of the modern era.

So if a year is too harsh what is an appropriate punishment?

Too surreal. A proper absinthe moment.

I am not surprised that they are fed up with him. He uses astrology to help pick his sides. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup-2010/teams/england/2295526/Raymond-Domenech-looks-to-the-stars.html