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There you go again Tony, off on a tangent and totally missing the point. My thread was mainly about letting people make their own minds up without being bullied by the 'rent a thug' brigade. You know the type, the ones who supposedly condemn people who use sarcasm, then in the same breath use it themselves. 'Jumped up right wing Tory like Nigel', am I ringing any bells. In fact we'll take it to a different level, your Mr Ed has been relentless in his condemnation of the 'Tax Avoidance' clique, who have obviously been well protected by the powers that be in Westminster. And I include the previous government in this too, they were equally complicit in what was going on during their tenure. But Red Ed continued to go for Cameroons jugular, while all the time his own family had been up to the exact same thing. (Baily Mail) His hypocrisy knows no bounds. However, getting back to what my previous post was all about. It was about brave men and women of this country who died to preserve our freedom, and that freedom includes, among many other things, our independence. Something I think is very precious and should be protected, or as we stand today, be restored. Now if you want to be part of a party that is prepared to continue giving away our sovereignty, law making powers, our right to decide who we can and can't allow in, and bleed us dry financially, you are at liberty to do so. In my opinion you may as well urinate on the graves of all those men and women who died to prevent that ever happening. Finally, my patriotism, which you sneered at, is something you are obviously not in agreement with. Well that is your choice. for me it is a state of mind, passed down through my family. Growing up in a military family makes you like this. Because you were never in the military you probably won't understand.

OK Sym, lets stay healthy then, I'm all for that. All I ask is, be careful with the innuendo. IE: branding us as Nazi's and suffering from intelligence retention is quite offensive. I am not at war with you, I am not at war with your beliefs. I voted Labour for 43 years and would never dis anyone who wants to vote for them. What I am at war with, is the putrefying edifice that is Brussels. Bleeding my country white for very little return. I want us to be great again. Hell, I easily start ranting about how I feel we are being used, and I don't like anyone trying to use me. The PC Brigade have made the word Patriotic something to be ashamed of, or worse still, racist. How stupid can they be, this country is much more important than you and me, and certainly them. That's enough of all that anyway, or I'll go on all night. I want my country back, I served it, I was prepared to die for it (and still am) and I will do whatever it takes to make this happen.

Interesting observations there Pilgrim, and clearly with more 'hands on' experience of the problems than I can claim. If I may ask, you were a speaker, are you willing to elaborate on your area of expertise, and what was your field of research? On the subject of schools, education, class sizes etc, my high school education took place at Bramhall High School, in Cheshire, which was then the biggest (in terms of numbers) comprehensive in the country with more than 2000 pupils. I had the added problem of being very deaf, and the school (I'm talking in the late 70's/early 80's here) had no idea what to do about it. I had been referred to attend a 'special' unit in a nearby school, but my mother - with what I now realise was great foresight - fought against it an insisted I was to be educated in the mainstream, as a 'normal' child, rather than one singled out for having a disability. The 'deaf kids' were left on the sidelines; I was not to be one. My grades were not great - notably English was my best subject - and I found it a struggle, but it would have been more so but for an innovative unit, the name of which I cannot remember, run by Stockport Council, and mentioned by chance to my mother by a next door neighbour. This unit was headed by a forceful and determined woman by the name of Margaret (surname forgotten) who, having heard of my plight, invited us to see her. She was campaigning for ALL deaf and hard of hearing children to be schooled in the mainstream, and had limited funds to provide equipment (a one-way radio system, the forerunner of today's FM systems) for us. In effect, as I was slap bang in the middle of the biggest school in the country in her back yard, I became the poster boy for the campaign. Thanks to her determination, 'Deaf Schools'- essentially back then a way of brushing the problem under the carpet - are now very different institutions. Perhaps we need more like Margaret right now.