Poor Tony
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Here's hoping for the next time. :beer: Don't get me wrong, it's a damned difficult job and he's worked just as hard as I'm sure anyone else would have, but it is time for him to move on. [edit] Clearly though some people disagree...
David Wulff The Royal Woofle Museum
Always smile, because you never know who has fallen in love with it
:-D I'll drink to that pseudonym67 Neural Dot Net Articles 1-11 Start Here Fuzzy Dot Net Articles 1-4 Start Here PathFinder Game Of Life 2 Life Wars
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Is it a conspiracy ? Regardz Colin J Davies
*** WARNING *
This could be addictive
**The minion's version of "Catch :bob: "It's a real shame that people as stupid as you can work out how to use a computer. said by Christian Graus in the Soapbox
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Is it a conspiracy ? Regardz Colin J Davies
*** WARNING *
This could be addictive
**The minion's version of "Catch :bob: "It's a real shame that people as stupid as you can work out how to use a computer. said by Christian Graus in the Soapbox
Bah! Whatever happens, people find an excuse to bash the US. :rolleyes:
Regards,Rohit Sinha
Meet Browsy
Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.
- Mother Teresa -
Bah! Whatever happens, people find an excuse to bash the US. :rolleyes:
Regards,Rohit Sinha
Meet Browsy
Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.
- Mother TeresaRohit Sinha wrote: Whatever happens, people find an excuse to bash the US. Hey, i was gonna blame it on the ghost of David Kelly... :rolleyes:
Your sincerity about keeping the soapbox organized and civilized is so obvious. I solute your effort. -- Anonymous, 10/18/03
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Here's hoping for the next time. :beer: Don't get me wrong, it's a damned difficult job and he's worked just as hard as I'm sure anyone else would have, but it is time for him to move on. [edit] Clearly though some people disagree...
David Wulff The Royal Woofle Museum
Always smile, because you never know who has fallen in love with it
And who would you have him replaced with? Gordon Brown? John Prescott? Claire Short? Robin Cook? How about Charles Kennedy? Or perhaps Iain Dunkin-Donut? None of the above can fill Blairs shoes IMHO - he's the best asset New Labour have! Believe you me, if any old-Labour left-winger gets the job, people currently sticking the knife into Tony will be begging for him to come back! Still, I doubt he will survive as PM - but I hadn't thought for a minute that illness may be his downfall ... !
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And who would you have him replaced with? Gordon Brown? John Prescott? Claire Short? Robin Cook? How about Charles Kennedy? Or perhaps Iain Dunkin-Donut? None of the above can fill Blairs shoes IMHO - he's the best asset New Labour have! Believe you me, if any old-Labour left-winger gets the job, people currently sticking the knife into Tony will be begging for him to come back! Still, I doubt he will survive as PM - but I hadn't thought for a minute that illness may be his downfall ... !
I don't care who replaces him just so long as he goes. No one trusts Blair anymore - he is bad press for his party and our country - and that is the only reason why. All politicians have a lifespan and when they fall in public opinion for whatever reason it is time for them to slip back in rank for the sake of their party image. Blair is no longer helping New Labour IMHO, he is alienating too many of his own supporters. Of course, looking like a papier maché puppet doesn't help his image either. :rolleyes: Robert Edward Caldecott wrote: John Prescott Now *that* would be interesting... :eek: We may as well vote George Bush in and cut out the middle management altogether! :)
David Wulff The Royal Woofle Museum
Always smile, because you never know who has fallen in love with it
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I don't care who replaces him just so long as he goes. No one trusts Blair anymore - he is bad press for his party and our country - and that is the only reason why. All politicians have a lifespan and when they fall in public opinion for whatever reason it is time for them to slip back in rank for the sake of their party image. Blair is no longer helping New Labour IMHO, he is alienating too many of his own supporters. Of course, looking like a papier maché puppet doesn't help his image either. :rolleyes: Robert Edward Caldecott wrote: John Prescott Now *that* would be interesting... :eek: We may as well vote George Bush in and cut out the middle management altogether! :)
David Wulff The Royal Woofle Museum
Always smile, because you never know who has fallen in love with it
>I don't care who replaces him just so long as he goes. Oh dear. This is the problem - we could end up with someone MUCH worse than Tony David. Better the devil you know as they say. If any old-Labour socialist were to be voted in, I assure you this country would be in big trouble. Remember that New Labour are effectively the Conservative party with a small "c" - and were Tony to be replaced by someone more left-wing (as could easily happen as the party would be voting for a new leader, not the people), then this would be an affront - people didn't cast their votes in 97/01 to see Old-Labour reinstated into power. As for trust, well, I don't trust ANY politicians much but I'll tell you this - Blair IS sincere and he really does believe in what he is doing, even if I don't always agree with him. That's more than most. Alienating his supporters! Oh please. You should thank your lucky stars he doesn't pander to the old left David! Tax is already high enough - and it's going to get a lot worse as Gordo has got his sums wrong again. Give the old left more influence and watch the 1970s come back to life. I still think Blair is the best New Labour have. I agree he is past his sell-by-date but until someone else comes along who can match him, we should let him get on with it. >Now *that* would be interesting... ha ha. Imagine John Prescott at a WTO meeting - "give us what we want or I'll stick the chin on ya!". he he he.
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And who would you have him replaced with? Gordon Brown? John Prescott? Claire Short? Robin Cook? How about Charles Kennedy? Or perhaps Iain Dunkin-Donut? None of the above can fill Blairs shoes IMHO - he's the best asset New Labour have! Believe you me, if any old-Labour left-winger gets the job, people currently sticking the knife into Tony will be begging for him to come back! Still, I doubt he will survive as PM - but I hadn't thought for a minute that illness may be his downfall ... !
I thought Ian Dunkin-Donught was new labours best asset... :laugh: The tigress is here :-D
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>I don't care who replaces him just so long as he goes. Oh dear. This is the problem - we could end up with someone MUCH worse than Tony David. Better the devil you know as they say. If any old-Labour socialist were to be voted in, I assure you this country would be in big trouble. Remember that New Labour are effectively the Conservative party with a small "c" - and were Tony to be replaced by someone more left-wing (as could easily happen as the party would be voting for a new leader, not the people), then this would be an affront - people didn't cast their votes in 97/01 to see Old-Labour reinstated into power. As for trust, well, I don't trust ANY politicians much but I'll tell you this - Blair IS sincere and he really does believe in what he is doing, even if I don't always agree with him. That's more than most. Alienating his supporters! Oh please. You should thank your lucky stars he doesn't pander to the old left David! Tax is already high enough - and it's going to get a lot worse as Gordo has got his sums wrong again. Give the old left more influence and watch the 1970s come back to life. I still think Blair is the best New Labour have. I agree he is past his sell-by-date but until someone else comes along who can match him, we should let him get on with it. >Now *that* would be interesting... ha ha. Imagine John Prescott at a WTO meeting - "give us what we want or I'll stick the chin on ya!". he he he.
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I thought Ian Dunkin-Donught was new labours best asset... :laugh: The tigress is here :-D
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Robert Edward Caldecott wrote: Tax is already high enough What service would you like to cut? What is the budget of UK, and how is it distributed? :confused:
Silence Means Death Stand On Your Feet Inner Fear Your Worst Enemy
Why do you assume that services would need to be cut? The problem is that so much money is WASTED - and the fact that I am worse off now than I was in 1997 with NO IMPROVEMNETS TO SERVICES AT ALL is testament to this. Everything is more expensive and my salary, in real terms, is lower. Do we have 21st century public services to show for it? Do we hell. We have the worst public transport system in the West and still they expect us to keep paying for it. I pay £115 a month for the local Council Tax - it was £90 2 years ago BTW - to have my bloody bins emptied! Oh, and we have a very anti-car council (Liberal Democrats) who have wasted millions of this local tax driving people out of Newbury so now it is fast resembling a ghost town (no parking you see). They expect people to get on non-existent buses and go and do their shopping. The NHS soaks up more and more money because the government insists they treat it like any other business - when New Labour came to power in 1997 there were around 1,500 different job titles in the NHS - now there are over 7,000! Why? More money being paid to middle managers and consultants to "manage" the NHS like it was a corporate bank! Targets, targets, targets. It's the same in schools, and it has got to stop. How about the railways, who, this week have asked for another 8 BILLION pounds! EIGHT BILLION!! It's outrageous, and I for one am sick of seeing more and more of my hard earned cash being poured into black holes with no benefits. Take the top tax rate. You pay 40% over £28K. Does this boundary figure go up every year to take inflation into account? Does it hell - it's been £28K for over 10 years! And more and more people are now into the top 40% band - £28K isn't the whopping salary it used to be. The fact this threshold hasn't moved is shocking. Want some other examples? How about the cost of petrol? Almost 80p a litre!!! This government treats motorists like a giant cash cow - and as there is no bloody alternative than getting in your car in 90% of the country, we have to take it up the arse like the suckers we are. I have no problems contributing to society Karl - but even with billions upon billions of extra tax revenue, there are no improvements. And if one thing make me really angry, it's seeing money being wasted. This country needs a Libertarian party - a party with a liberal social agenda but with a free-market low-tax economic policy.
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Why do you assume that services would need to be cut? The problem is that so much money is WASTED - and the fact that I am worse off now than I was in 1997 with NO IMPROVEMNETS TO SERVICES AT ALL is testament to this. Everything is more expensive and my salary, in real terms, is lower. Do we have 21st century public services to show for it? Do we hell. We have the worst public transport system in the West and still they expect us to keep paying for it. I pay £115 a month for the local Council Tax - it was £90 2 years ago BTW - to have my bloody bins emptied! Oh, and we have a very anti-car council (Liberal Democrats) who have wasted millions of this local tax driving people out of Newbury so now it is fast resembling a ghost town (no parking you see). They expect people to get on non-existent buses and go and do their shopping. The NHS soaks up more and more money because the government insists they treat it like any other business - when New Labour came to power in 1997 there were around 1,500 different job titles in the NHS - now there are over 7,000! Why? More money being paid to middle managers and consultants to "manage" the NHS like it was a corporate bank! Targets, targets, targets. It's the same in schools, and it has got to stop. How about the railways, who, this week have asked for another 8 BILLION pounds! EIGHT BILLION!! It's outrageous, and I for one am sick of seeing more and more of my hard earned cash being poured into black holes with no benefits. Take the top tax rate. You pay 40% over £28K. Does this boundary figure go up every year to take inflation into account? Does it hell - it's been £28K for over 10 years! And more and more people are now into the top 40% band - £28K isn't the whopping salary it used to be. The fact this threshold hasn't moved is shocking. Want some other examples? How about the cost of petrol? Almost 80p a litre!!! This government treats motorists like a giant cash cow - and as there is no bloody alternative than getting in your car in 90% of the country, we have to take it up the arse like the suckers we are. I have no problems contributing to society Karl - but even with billions upon billions of extra tax revenue, there are no improvements. And if one thing make me really angry, it's seeing money being wasted. This country needs a Libertarian party - a party with a liberal social agenda but with a free-market low-tax economic policy.
Just to clarify this for some readers, and partly for effect... 8 billion pounds is £8,000,000,000,000.00. :eek:
David Wulff The Royal Woofle Museum
Putting the laughter back into slaughter
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Why do you assume that services would need to be cut? The problem is that so much money is WASTED - and the fact that I am worse off now than I was in 1997 with NO IMPROVEMNETS TO SERVICES AT ALL is testament to this. Everything is more expensive and my salary, in real terms, is lower. Do we have 21st century public services to show for it? Do we hell. We have the worst public transport system in the West and still they expect us to keep paying for it. I pay £115 a month for the local Council Tax - it was £90 2 years ago BTW - to have my bloody bins emptied! Oh, and we have a very anti-car council (Liberal Democrats) who have wasted millions of this local tax driving people out of Newbury so now it is fast resembling a ghost town (no parking you see). They expect people to get on non-existent buses and go and do their shopping. The NHS soaks up more and more money because the government insists they treat it like any other business - when New Labour came to power in 1997 there were around 1,500 different job titles in the NHS - now there are over 7,000! Why? More money being paid to middle managers and consultants to "manage" the NHS like it was a corporate bank! Targets, targets, targets. It's the same in schools, and it has got to stop. How about the railways, who, this week have asked for another 8 BILLION pounds! EIGHT BILLION!! It's outrageous, and I for one am sick of seeing more and more of my hard earned cash being poured into black holes with no benefits. Take the top tax rate. You pay 40% over £28K. Does this boundary figure go up every year to take inflation into account? Does it hell - it's been £28K for over 10 years! And more and more people are now into the top 40% band - £28K isn't the whopping salary it used to be. The fact this threshold hasn't moved is shocking. Want some other examples? How about the cost of petrol? Almost 80p a litre!!! This government treats motorists like a giant cash cow - and as there is no bloody alternative than getting in your car in 90% of the country, we have to take it up the arse like the suckers we are. I have no problems contributing to society Karl - but even with billions upon billions of extra tax revenue, there are no improvements. And if one thing make me really angry, it's seeing money being wasted. This country needs a Libertarian party - a party with a liberal social agenda but with a free-market low-tax economic policy.
Robert Edward Caldecott wrote: I pay £115 a month for the local Council Tax - it was £90 2 years ago BTW - to have my bloody bins emptied I don't know how it works in UK but does local Council Tax used only to empty bins? A few year ago, it was the rule to just dump the bins somewhere, and let the future generations handle the problem. Now it's forbidden by european regulations. Retreatment and recycling are more expensive. Robert Edward Caldecott wrote: The NHS soaks up more and more money because the government insists they treat it like any other business Interesting, the right wing here insists it's the solution to reduce health care costs! Robert Edward Caldecott wrote: this week have asked for another 8 BILLION pounds Isn't it a consequence of the lack of investments in the past years? Savings were made on railways, but now the people have to pay the price for those, or accept either the end of railways or a risk of accident. Robert Edward Caldecott wrote: How about the cost of petrol? Almost 80p a litre!!! In a way, that's cool. It lends the users to save oil, then reduce the pollution and the energetic dependancy. I could had it leads car makers to improve their vehicles and try to find alternative energy sources. That's true I forget there isn't any british car maker left ;P Robert Edward Caldecott wrote: And if one thing make me really angry, it's seeing money being wasted. I agree on this, but I don't know if reducing these wastes would have a significant impact. I lack of data on this. Robert Edward Caldecott wrote: a party with a liberal social agenda but with a free-market low-tax economic policy. But is it economically possible? :~
Silence Means Death Stand On Your Feet Inner Fear Your Worst Enemy
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Robert Edward Caldecott wrote: I pay £115 a month for the local Council Tax - it was £90 2 years ago BTW - to have my bloody bins emptied I don't know how it works in UK but does local Council Tax used only to empty bins? A few year ago, it was the rule to just dump the bins somewhere, and let the future generations handle the problem. Now it's forbidden by european regulations. Retreatment and recycling are more expensive. Robert Edward Caldecott wrote: The NHS soaks up more and more money because the government insists they treat it like any other business Interesting, the right wing here insists it's the solution to reduce health care costs! Robert Edward Caldecott wrote: this week have asked for another 8 BILLION pounds Isn't it a consequence of the lack of investments in the past years? Savings were made on railways, but now the people have to pay the price for those, or accept either the end of railways or a risk of accident. Robert Edward Caldecott wrote: How about the cost of petrol? Almost 80p a litre!!! In a way, that's cool. It lends the users to save oil, then reduce the pollution and the energetic dependancy. I could had it leads car makers to improve their vehicles and try to find alternative energy sources. That's true I forget there isn't any british car maker left ;P Robert Edward Caldecott wrote: And if one thing make me really angry, it's seeing money being wasted. I agree on this, but I don't know if reducing these wastes would have a significant impact. I lack of data on this. Robert Edward Caldecott wrote: a party with a liberal social agenda but with a free-market low-tax economic policy. But is it economically possible? :~
Silence Means Death Stand On Your Feet Inner Fear Your Worst Enemy
>but does local Council Tax used only to empty bins? No, it doesn't. I was ranting. It also pays for police (ha!) and some other things. The biggest percentage of the Council Tax in this area is for the police force, which is surprising as YOU NEVER SEE THEM! Actually, you see them manning speed traps, but not, you know, walking the beat or anything bloody useful (and they man the speed traps because the local force now gets to keep the revenue. Marvellous. Make criminals out of as many people as possible while real criminals laugh at the law). We also pay for schemes like a wonderful £500,000 cycle path from Thatcham to Newbury that NO-ONE USES and NO-ONE WANTED IN THE FIRST PLACE! A lot of money is wasted, and these councils cannot keep justifying 10%+ rises a year. Recycling and waste disposal is going to be a BIG issue before too long (and an expensive one at that) but that isn't why people like me are paying more local taxes - yet. And the Liberal Democrats would make people like me pay even more local taxes if they got into power. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrreat. >Interesting, the right wing here insists it's the solution to reduce health care costs! I'm not sure it works with a government monopoly like healthcare. Hospitals are there to provide healthcare - their first duty is to the patients NOT to the local trust and certainly not to make a bloody profit. The NHS has always been a money-pit, but New Labour have made this much worse. I am a real believer in the NHS too, but so many workers are sick of seeing these consultants/managers coming in and being paid big £££ to "rationalize" the service - but they make it worse! I don't know. Perhaps the future IS private healthcare with some fallback for people who can't afford it. With an ageing populace, the NHS is going to be under more and more strain and I don't see how it can cope. >In a way, that's cool. Not if there isn't an alternative to the car it isn't Karl! If people have no choice, then it isn't cool at all. If people have a choice - public transport say - then fair enough, otherwise forget it. If you live in London - fine - get the Tube/bus - but if you live 30 miles from your workplace and there is no public transport, what then? >That's true I forget there isn't any british car maker left Actually, there is TVR who make VERY cool cars indeed. ;) >But is it economically possible? Hell yes! Man, a Libertarian party could legalize drugs and cut taxes with the proceeds! :) :) :)