Lord Duckhunter

Perhaps we should have just made you judge and jury. Believe it or not people were against this decision on the basis that they disagreed with it. They disagreed with the UK govt "doing all it could" to release this man.Why do lefties always think they have the moral high ground and that when people oppose them it's for the wrong reasons.

It's a political point when the Labour Govt "did all it could" to free a mass murderer who was convicted and serving time in a UK jail.

Is this the bloke? Wonder who Brown's advisors were at the time, wasn't it the two Eds? It's a bit rich claiming the Tories were as bad, Labour was in power, they should apoligise.

"Everyone?" You mean "everyone in the last Cabinet, including the 2 Ed's."

Perhaps Brown should now apoligise for him Blair and the previous Labour Govt doing "all it could to facilitate" the release of the Lockerbie murderer.

Steely Dan were/are fantastic, this is one of the greatest songs ever wrtten in my opinion. Donald Fagen's voice isn't the best by a long way, but unbelievable talent.Nothing better than a nice hot summer's day with Steel Dan blasting out. The only favourites of mine that Mrs Duck will listen to. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpgE8CpxZFI&feature=related

Did Adkins spend these millions? After 23 games, you can see how superior Poyet is already? Perhaps you should apply to Sky for Andy Grey's old job. I bet Fergie is glad the board at Old Trafford didn't make instant judgements after his first 23 games in charge.

Whatever the reasons, he was sacked and Adkins is our Manager. Surely he should be judged over a longer period than 23 games and after he's had a preseason in which to condition the players and make his own signings. had you judged Lawrie after 23 games, and compared him Ted, he'd have been out on his ear.

I'm not an "Adkinslovvie" just a guy who thinks that Managers should be judged over a longer period than 23 games and after (as Poyet has shown) a preseason. Having witnessed what Lawrie did after a very average start, find it unbelievable that people are making judgements over the guy already.

We were lower when Adkins took over then when Poyet took over Brighton. So who was the poor side? Why was Poyet starting from scratch and not Adkins?

Perhaps we should sack the Manager every time we fail to win, would that make people happy? Poyet seems to be attracting a lot of praise on here, so I thought I would look at his record and compare his first few months in charge with NA's. He joined Brighton when they were 20th and gained 45 points from 31 games. Nigel joined us in 22nd and has gained 42 points from 23 games. Also in there was a 2-0 loss at Hartlepool, but Gus somehow managed to cling on to his job despite that massive setback. My maths isn't great and maybe the BBC stats might have the odd error, but Nigel's record seems pretty good. Then again we are Southampton and we do not lose or draw matches in League 1. Lawrie took over from a legend and then promptly got us relegated. I'm just glad none of the moaners on here were in charge of the Club then, because we would have missed out on the greatest era in the clubs history. We've had 8 years of chopping and changing Managers, perhaps we should try something else.

My 11 year old thinks we should win every game in this league and is disappointed when we don't. As an adult I have to explain to him that football’s not like that, and that teams like Hartlepool will not lay down and die just because they’re playing a bigger club with a higher wage bill. Just as we turned over Manchester Utd occasionally, smaller clubs are going to produce against us, it’s why Leeds, Forest and others have struggled to get out of this league.I was happy with the status quo being maintained after Tuesdays games, especially with Swindon at home coming up. At the end of the day we should have hit the ground running this season and ran away with it like Leicester did, the fact we didn’t is not down to Adkins.

I cant see it with Oakley, never really rated him. Nowhere near good enough for England and people who say he was are just looking through their red and white glasses.Just a journeyman run of the mill Premiership player. Would not make the top 10 of midfielders we've had in the past 40 years. Looked like a little boy lost in the 4-1 at fratton.

We are not used to coalition politics in this Country, so many people will blame Clegg for propping up the Tories. There was always going to be a squeeze on them, because the rely on Labour votes in Tory areas and there's no point in that now. My mate is Labour through and through yet votes Lib/Dem in Poole as Labour will never win. He'll never vote for them again and they'll lose some support because of that. Clegg was in a bit of a corner because although closer to Labour, he always insisted that he would deal with the biggest party (vote wise), he also had to go into coalition because not to have done so, after advocating it for so long, would not have made sense. For me Clegg never thought he would have to go in with the Tories and always thought it would be an outright Tory win or a Lib/Lab pact. I think Cameron wanting a coalition throw him a bit, and he's never really recovered. I do honestly believe that unless we get some sort of PR, his party will take a generation to recover from this coalition and we'll be back to Tory or Labour.

Exactly. That's why local elections dont matter that much to the people. A local income or sales tax, and real decisions made at local level would make the council accountable. The other benefit is that local councilours could then make a smooth and easy transistion to national politics. Perhaps Govt could work out a formula similar to what they do for Scotland for the basic funding, then the local council top it up how they see fit. It maybe raising local taxes by a lot , or maybe squeezing costs. At the moment even the Council tax can be blamed on national Govt. When my Lib/Dem came round during the last local elections, I told him that Council tax had gone up under his local party, but that I hadn't seen any improvement in services. He basically blamed the Govt of the day, saying that they had been given less money and had to fill the shortfall.It maybe right, but I would like to see real power devolved to them and then I'll vote on their decisions.

Surely it's not beyond the wit and wisdom of some of our leaders to come us with a local Govt system that makes local councils more accoutable to local people. At the moment every cut, council tax rise and almost everything else can be blamed on national Govt.Therefore local people are confussed as to who to blame and the status quo remains. If local councils could raise their own revenue and there was a direct link from the voters to the money spent, then any councils wasting money could be voted out.If the people of Windsor and Maidenhead didn't think they needed a Roller Disco coach, then they could vote the council out. Equally the council could stand for election on the back of "we've given you a roller disco coach", either way local people decide. At the moment there seems to be no local accountability for decisions made by local councils. It is the UK's taxpayers money, and not the Windsor and Maidenhead tax payers money.If locally you want money thrown around, and year on year increases in council services, then you can vote for that. If you want a tighter fiscal policy and the council doing the minimum, then vote for that. At the moment how you vote in local elections will not change Council services.

This reform is all a sop to the Lib/Dems for forming a coalition. It is not the system they wanted and it's rushed and hurried through to fulfill the coalition agreement. That's no way to reform our electrol system. I cant help thinking that it's been done in such a way that Clegg can appease his party, but there's no chance of it happening so it benefits the Tories as well. Clegg should have stood his ground and insisted on real reform for his support of the coalition. In my opinion the whole thing is a tick box exercise. Clegg can tell his grass roots that he gave them the promised vote on AV (even though it is miles from their goal of PR) and Cameron gets a coalition partner, whilst keeping FPTP (I really cant see this going through with Lib/Dem polls at such low levels) . Everyone's a winner,except the mug tax payer who has to cough up millions of pounds we can ill afford.

The Tories won the 2010 election with 36.1% of the vote. Labour won the 2005 election with 35.2% of the vote. Labour had a 66 majority, whereas the Tories were unable to form a Govt. Labour have a massive majority in Scotland and The Tories in England, Scotland have their own Parliament and England do not. I presume all the posters looking for "fairness" in our electrol system want these issues addressed as well.

If the electrol system is going to be changed then we need to look at it as a whole. It can not be right that Labour can form a Govt with a lot less % of the vote than the Tories need. All of the constituencies should contain more or less the same number of voters, and there should be a lot less of them. England should have the same devolved powers that Scotland have, there can be no justification for Scottish MP's voting on issues that don't affect their constituants. Unless all the unfairness in the present system is addressed I will vote no to any change.

Firstly, I dont read the mail (or any daily), my opinions are not formed by newspapers or any other media. Secondly, had I been told in 2008 that I would have to make savings, lose staff and work smarter I would have said "that's not possible", however having no choice in the matter made us take a good hard look at things and savings were made. Companies in the private sector have been making cuts for the past 3 or 4 years. Pay freezes, recruitment bans, screwing suppliers down,stopping final salary pensions. We are all in this together, including public sector workers, they should not be exempt from the realities that Labour left us with. To leave our debts for our children and grand children to pay off is just plain wrong.

They come to see Prince Andrew do they? How on earth does Paris attract any tourists, they haven't a Royal family?

Dune,if you want to get rid of "non jobs" then I suggest you start with 80% of the Royal family.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmcdLEnhSi8&feature=related These sort of stories always remind me of this Peter Kay bit from Phoenix nights.

Inflation isn't high enough to justify cuts to front line services. If everyone had to go back to 2008 wages, it would hurt, but most people would be able to manage. At work I run on less staff than 2008, a lower CTS and still manage to get by, councils could do the same without cutting front line services. It's a political game they're playing.

What local Labour and in some cases Lib/Dem councils are doing is a disgrace and I hope the local voters wake up and smell the coffee. Take Manchester, cuts will reduce their income to 2008 levels and yet in 2008 I dont recall any clamour for more "investment", they were able to run libraries and swimming pools, so there is no need to cut these types of services, they are doing it to try and paint the coalition as the bad guys and playing politics with people's lives. The Labour party were committed to cuts, with it's last chancellor admitting that cuts would be "tougher and deeper" than those implemented by Margaret Thatcher" had they won the election. Now they play politics with the issue, standing on the sideline opposing every cut in a cynical , and deeply dishonest way. I just hope that the British people are not as stupid as the Labour Party seem to think they are.