threegee

I'm beginning to think that there are two Alastair Darlings! The tricky dicky one who puts out a load of puff and buries the bad news in the small print that he hopes no one will read, and the honest truthful one! Obviously the budget was presented by A. T. D. Darling, but tonight A. H. T. Darling was on the tele saying that if Labour is re-elected public spending cuts will be "tougher and deeper" than those implemented by Margaret Thatcher. An alternative - but almost unthinkable - explanation would be that Alastair's budget speech was heavily censored by Gordo's spin doctors.

The P in PIGS gets downgraded. http://news.bbc.co.u...ess/8584812.stm Doing well then isn't he? Someone was throwing a projection around after the budget saying that we were scheduled to spend more on simply servicing debt than the entire education budget. A really good use of public money! That, of course, presumed that our own debt rating would be maintained. Thing is a lot of Darling's figures are based on very optimistic projections, and some of them sound (particularly the proposed public sector "efficiency" savings) plain barmy. I'd take a bet that he's wildly wrong in more than one mission-critical assumption.

I had to Google it to make sure, but yes, I was right. Won't spoil it for others though. Really nice building when you stop to look at it. BTW you could probably get that down to about 30 or 40KB with almost no loss in quality. 630KB is a little large for the web!

Actually the change to the law put the unions of the same basis of civil law as the rest of us have to obey. Before they'd considered themselves above the law, and in Arthur Scargill's case above the democratically elected government. Arthur's contempt for democracy extended to not even allowing his own members a strike ballot. There's a very good reason why Labour didn't revoke the changes: the Country once again became governable! They were tacitly supported by large sections of the Labour party as well as by the vast majority of the electorate. And that's not at all true about the Town. The decline had set in decades before Mrs T. The mining industry had become complacent and inefficient under the post-war nationalisation. There was a lack of investment where it mattered, and wages had run a little ahead of what the market would support. Hence it was cheaper to import coal (and opencast it here through private mining companies) than the NCB mine it. Much of the decline here happened under a Labour government - that's the inconvenient truth of it! Point to any job that a strike has saved? Where is the logic in withdrawing your labour to save your job? What you can do is to bring down your employer, thus losing all the jobs that are available.

Pretty much as expected. Spent most of the time slapping himself on the back and trying to make a place for himself in history. What was interesting was the huge difference between what he said and what is in the red book. The stamp duty holiday for properties under £250K is hedged with so many conditions (15 tests) in the small print that it will benefit very few people. There were public spending cuts announced - obviously just the very first round - but he completely failed to mention them in his speech. These include a £4,200,000,000 cut in the NHS budget! Not the sort of thing you want to make a fuss about with an election imminent. Three more rises in fuel duty - that's six rises in 24 months. He's phasing them because they've learnt from the fuel protests. He's hoping people wont notice that fuel should be falling in-line with falls in the wholesale oil price, and making a steady grab at the reductions. So just another Gordon Brown type stealth tax really! The Treasury bods themselves are now on record as saying that this budget is pointless. What more needs to be said? But I did wonder how many times he'd do a "global" - thus sustaining the brainwash. He didn't disappoint: a "global" right in the very first sentence! After the first dozen globals I lost count.

Confirmed - not a serious investment! Such behaviour should be strictly reserved for Annual General Meetings!

The short answer to your question is - no! There's another tranche been groomed in local government who simply can't wait to get on-board the gravy train. Am I wrong in thinking that at that time MP's weren't paid? Add this element, to the ability to set your own renumeration and you get to the current situation; by(ers) way of the avenue of ditching all principals in the cause of career advancement and personal gain - of course! At least Alf Robens didn't continue to pretend that he was still a socalist; or even - in his later days - a Labour supporter!

Hang on! Terrorism is whatever our security services say it is, but they don't actually have to give us a what why and where, because that would compromise their "intelligence" gathering. If it's a militant striker then so be it. They're probably secretly trying to bring down the government, and remove our "democratically elected" Prime Minister. No? Well they have it coming anyway! This is all in our best interests you know. Just like our MP's they'd never do anything wrong, and need no independent supervision. They never tell fibs to feather their own nests (or duck islands), never break the law, never frame innocent people, and never ever empire build. None of this is ever counterproductive either! That "Iraq Dossier" was all a load of tosh you say? Ah, we've got a million dossiers where that came from; they can't ALL be full of pure garbage, and can be forgiven the odd WMD mistake. No, those billions are all spent in our best interests. Just keep on signing the cheques and be grateful. It's all done "in the public interest" - you have our word!

Or she bought the company, or a controlling interest therein? Which would be why Punch doesn't see it as a change. Easy to check online, but there's a small fee to pay.

There's was a limited company formed in 2008 - but it hasn't filed any accounts. http://wck2.companie...362/compdetails With beer up again at the budget my guess is you'd be struggling right from the off. So, perhaps just as well! Wonder how many more pubs Mr Darling has closed this time? Though perhaps you could offer the directors/executors a tenner to take the company off their hands. Then if you have to fold it you'd be in the clear yourself. I'm assuming it's that company that holds the lease.

He's said that VAT won't go up - "at the budget" - but they've also said that there will be a spending review after the election. What sort of nonsense is that?! If they need a "spending review" why are they having a budget now? And, if you know what's going on in the economy - and after 13 years you bloody well should - why then do you need an extraordinary spending review? Catch 2010! The answer is that they can't NOT have a budget. That would speak volumes in itself. This is simply to maintain a sense of normality, and the steady-as-she-goes illusion. What it actually tells you is that the treasury IS considering a VAT rise, odds on to a nice round 20%. That's going to happen whoever wins the election. The other thing that's going to happen, but not happen just yet, is a tax on the banks. Gordon has screwed that one up by this International agreement thing - another GB attempt at have-your-cake-and-eat-it - so AD can't actually impose one yet. But he will try to queer the Tories pitch on this. Gordon wants a good old fashioned pre-election give away, and Alastair and he have had a tiny disagreement here. But this time Alastair wins because he can't be sacked, and he knows he's going to lose his job anyway - so what the hell! He's only thinking about his place in history. And, that dictates that he be seen a "responsible chancellor". Even though he has made one devastating mistake after another, he's probably kidding himself that history will concur with this self-delusion, and that this will yield the lucrative directorships that most any ex-Chancellor can count on. Thing is Mr D.: I wouldn't want to invest in any company who would be dumb enough to pay you to be on their board, and most of the small investors I know would likely feel the same. So you're going to have to rely on some little-known branch of the old boys network for a living from here on in. For his sake I hope the Edinburgh law biz is holding up during the recession. Don't you think that appearance is one of a rather expensive (aren't they all?) wise old big town solicitor Monsta? But, in this instance, one who knows b.all about economics! How long will it take? However long it takes to say "haven't I been a great Chancellor" without actually using the words "haven't I been a great Chancellor". Not too short and not too long - just sort of steady-as-she-goes. But, hey! Can't you just smell those green shoots of recovery - even if you can't see any green quite yet?

Another Candle In The Life of Brian! (Sounds like a good title for a film sequel) Happy Birthday

So do cows! But I didn't say they were those either! But getting increasingly obscure. I said people weren't using their brains, not that they didn't have any. And I was talking about the Bedlington electorate in general, as much as about this issue. No people can't! They have no right to tell me (or you) how we think! I correct you. You are wrong! No personal attack was made or even implied! It never even occurred to me that you'd doctored anything!

Not at all! Bully is your word, and those people who voted ARE using their brains BUT not in the wider interest. I'm not sure why 75% of the members reading the debate didn't vote - why I said for/against didn't tell us the full story. That's only shocking if you want to cherry pick then twist my remarks into something I never said - like saying people aren't using their brains implies they don't have any! And what is multiple voting Fourgee's perfectly neutral post (he actually supports your view!) down other than an attempt to manipulate the outcome? I'm content to go with the democratic consensus, even though it's a very small sample. But I happen to think that more people voting on the quality of posts - either up or down, will over time improve the quality of posts.

I don't think it was a failed experiment. What has happened is that the people who misuse positive rep have ganged up to see that there's no negative. They seem to think that because they misuse it other people will do too. Pretty juvenile! Only 25% of members who visited the thread voted. Just like Bedlington not enough people bothered to use their brains then vote for a logical improvement! So... the manipulators get a result in their self-interest, and not the wider interest. Maybe the next poll should have a "don't know" to separate the don't knows from the don't cares? Or - if we want to play petty politics - we can do what politicians do and keep on asking the same question in different ways until we get the answer we want - after which the public's decision becomes final!

The EU are right of course, and amateur economist AD once again totally wrong! Has he ever been right about anything, including his advice to GB about not going to the country at the only time he had any realistic chance? But if you go along with the myth that this is a "global problem", and the myth that the height of the post-millennium party is a normal state of affairs; then it's quite easy to kid yourself that the party going on isn't really the party going on, but a prudent period of pre-adjustment to lower levels of alcohol consumption. There's a very real chance that the markets will lose confidence in Sterling if this stupidity continues. It's a re-run of the "balance the books over the length of the economic cycle" crap. The length that was never defined, but where an end to the cycle was always just around the corner. Until that end became the "global" recession, and we had a whale of an excuse to throw all pretence of prudence to the wind. We're now told that there will be a spending review after the election. So a government which has been in power for thirteen years and asks us to believe that it is in full control of our affairs (except of course for this pesky "global problem" of our own gross overspend) needs a review of what it itself has been up to? Why can't this so-called review be carried out now, and we be told the true extent of the necessary cuts before election day? You can pretty well anticipate the Mandelsonian ducking and weaving that following this line of questioning will produce.

Yup, the Streetview generation! No one is going to catch this guy coming out of a neighbours when husband is at work! Even buys his hoodies on the Internet. http://www.shopwiki....sshatch+hoodies

I don't think this is one of those specifically "Bedlington things" that the LIke/Loate forum is for. It's a problem (or an overstated problem, depending on your point of view) just about anywhere, and particularly in a country with over 10 million dogs. It is could however be a community issue. In which case that's where it should go, together with the exact details of the places where it has been noted to be a significant problem. As a general discussion it would be best put in ToTT. I'm a bit like Monsta here and think that there must be a more organic solutions for organic things than permanently polluting plastic bags and pooper scoopers.

At least two of them are here, so go easy on them and the rest will discover that they don't need to keep their heads down, or hide behind heavily censored websites. I think the Internet means that those who don't engage - or worse, only pretend they engage - are a soon-to-be-extinct species. Go out and vote for those that engage, even if you don't agree with everything they say. And vote against those who hide behind spin-doctors and party dogma. That has to be the way to restore some sort of grass-roots democracy. But you need to understand that our local councillors only have limited powers, and very limited budgets. The recent changes were - as usual - the very minimum that those at the top of the power pyramid could get away with. This is our fault for putting up with this (and not seeing through it), and not those people who are putting themselves in the firing line of public disquiet. There was a time when our democracy was a lot more "robust", and there were public debates that weren't controlled by spin-doctors. But yes, the answer to your question is that it's OUR fault for letting things get into such a state.

http://www.dmm.org.uk/mindex.htm is the best on-line info. I did have access to a lot of the Doctor Pit records from way back in the 18th century, but fool me let them get out of my sight for some years! I've no idea who they were given to, or where they are now. BTW I'm sure we will collectively get you a precise answer to the Storey's Buildings one; but these things can take time - sometimes years!