LondonLax

Kopparberg is much too sweet in my opinion. I can only get through half a bottle before feeling a bit ill.

Speaking of weird gear, what is with the Ed Hardy craze at the moment?

I don't know why you would want to wear a shirt covered in tatoos but they seem to be everywhere.

Post some pictures . We want to see you in all your pink glories.

:shock:

There are plenty of websites for that kind of thing on the internet already.

You are posting pictures of your gear on the internet now?

You want to add a mug shot and an address at the bottom?

I am currently wearing a pale pink work shirt.

I don't own any pink gear for wearing on the weekend though, not really my usual style...

If (when?) we were to develop it far enough to recreate a synthetic human would religious types consider that person to not have a soul?

Would the lab person be shunned from scociety or more importantly, could they be given super powers?

Thinking about it they should up vat to 20% BUT say to anyone earning the minimum wage that they pay no tax. What would the minimum wage equate to on a full time annual wage? (35 hour week)

so how would that work? I go to a shop and I have to produce a "low paid" card before I can get a reduced VAT? - talk about social stigma and all that

sorry I meant they would pay no income tax on their wage if they earned minimum wage (even if they were full time doing 35 hours a week). They would still have to pay the VAT on the goods, but would obviously benefit from the current situation because they would pay no tax on their earnings.

£5.93 (min wage) X 35 X 52 = £10,793.

anyone earning that or less should pay no tax.

What about pensioners and people on benifits? Would you up those as well to cover the change?

I am the walrus?

I am quite nihalistic.

Humans are going to keep advancing technology, people are going to keep fearing the worst.

It is how the whole of human history has gone so far.

Ultimatly it doesn't really matter because we are all going to die someday anyway.

So to this I say 'Meh!' :drowsy:

Yes saving private ryan is pretty wank (and not in a good way like Shaving Ryan's Privates). I hate Tom Hanks almost as much as I hate Spielberg and the whole premise of sending a whole party of soldiers to wander around occupied France getting shot up to pull out one guy who doesn't want to leave anyway is stupid...

EDIT: Band of brothers is infinitely better.

Actually I stand corrected, Chavez ordered the millitary to take over Venezeula's rice producion factories. I can't really see the British army storming the offices of national rail and ordering everyone out though

Don't see how we can take back and renationalise assets which would cost money, when we do not in fact have any money

Why would taking them back cost money? Simply take them back into public ownership, its where they belong anyway and don't compensate the shareholders as they shouldn't have been allowed to get the shares on the cheap by the Witch in the first place, the selling off of the Utilities and the railways was a terrible terrible error by the Witch, whoda think it it, the Witch selling off the national assets on the cheap, bit like selling the gold and telling everyone you were going to do it. Same horse different jockey

Have you been stealing ideas from Robert Mugabe?

What nationalised utility and railway companies? I think you'll find that one rather fashionable the world over, most countries view these essential services as infrastructure, essential to the fabric of the country, selling them off in the first place was the mistake

Yes but even Hugo Chavez pays a token amount when he does it

I don't think the govenment stealing back industries it sold previously would do a great deal for it's credability and future investment potential.

Don't see how we can take back and renationalise assets which would cost money, when we do not in fact have any money

Why would taking them back cost money? Simply take them back into public ownership, its where they belong anyway and don't compensate the shareholders as they shouldn't have been allowed to get the shares on the cheap by the Witch in the first place, the selling off of the Utilities and the railways was a terrible terrible error by the Witch, whoda think it it, the Witch selling off the national assets on the cheap, bit like selling the gold and telling everyone you were going to do it. Same horse different jockey

Have you been stealing ideas from Robert Mugabe?

I saw that

The team of 100 kids get off to a good start but Bilbao come back to win 5-3

I think it will be someone like Johnson or Milner as well.

Rooney will be well marked and Lapard or Gerrard don't turn up for England matches. It will be somone lesser know who will break through to the big time.

Man U cant afford him anyway. They have failed to keep up interest payments and look like an extra 2% penalty rate on their loan unless they can pay off some of the debt.

There is no Ronaldo to sell this year so they will have very little transfer money.

Can you not just dust it off?

I just read through the Strong City thread...

Wow

Care to summarise?

Someone starts a thread about some documentary that was on yonks ago, about a cult in america that believes the world will end on some random day not so far away (well, it's a few years ago...sorry if i spoiled the ending!).

So all is well, untill some mysterious poster appears...and this mysterious poster takes it upon themselves to stand up for the cult with his first post. IT then turns out this poster is but a member of the cult in question!

And then ensues a rather bizzare and ultimately hillarious thread.

Here

I had not seen the thread before but it is brilliant!

Their Jesus leader is now in prison on peadophile charges and has been on hunger strike for 9 months but the wardens keep force feeding him.

The cultists are all still trying to get him aquitted and released but it's not looking good for their cause. He is refusing to go on the sex offenders register so his sentance has been increased.

Imagine not winning a league yet finishing on 96 points?! Mental.

There is a bigger gap between Real Madrid (2nd) and Seville in the final Champions League spot (4th) than there is between Seville (4th) and Xerez who finished bottom. 33 points compared to 29 points. :?

La Liga is the Scottish league with sunshine

(Joe) Cole is on a free I've heard. Worth a shout but might demand some good money in wages.

He's after £30m over 5 years according to the dear old Daily Mail - £120,000 a week.

He'll go to Spuds then.

Man City you mean?

Spuds don't pay those kind of wages.

Waking up, as a Lib Dem fan, fairly content to give this a go. Give and take, but happy enough, some good ideas there.

A number of commentators are saying Lib Dem fans will turn away from the party because they have joined with the Tories.

I am not sure I agree, this coalition is the only way the Lib Dems can actually get some of their policy enacted, usually they are just sitting in opposition unnoticed.

It is better to be on the inside looking out than on the outside looking in. They can be the breaks on Tory excess, it could yet go the other way and all end up in tears though.

Elected House of Lords by PR, now there's an interesting concept.

That is the Australian system.

AV for the lower house and PR for the upper house.

Some points on the combined manifesto:

Lib Dems win tax concession for poorest and agree to speed up deficit cuts

Francis Elliott and Sam Coates

David Cameron and Nick Clegg have agreed to increase capital gains tax to help to pay for the Lib Dem pledge of taking the poorest out income tax.

The Tory leader has also ditched a pledge to scrap inheritance tax for all but millionaires in the compromise agreement.

Mr Clegg has won a further agreement that the Lib Dems can abstain on the Tories’ proposal for a tax break for married couples, effectively killing it.

In return, Mr Clegg and Vince Cable, the Lib Dems’ Treasury spokesman, have agreed to significantly accelerate the plans to tackle the structural deficit over five years. Most controversially, they have signed up to the Conservative plans to cut £6 billion this year.

The Lib Dems sided with Labour throughout the election campaign, insisting that early cuts risked plunging Britain back into recession. To give their new coalition partners some political cover, the cuts are dependent on the advice of the Treasury and the Bank of England.

The Lib Dems’ biggest economic prize is a commitment to meet their pledge to increase the threshold for income tax to £10,000. The Institute for Fiscal Studies costed Mr Clegg’s proposal at £17 billion, one reason, perhaps, why no timetable has been put on reaching the target.

The first step in increasing the threshold will start next April. To pay for it a planned national insurance rise for employees will go ahead, despite a Tory pledge to ditch that part of what they called “Labour’s jobs tax”.

In addition, capital gains tax on non-business assets will increase. The Budget, which is likely to be delivered at the end of June or the beginning of July, will prepare for big spending cuts. On political reform, in addition to fixed-term Parliaments and a commitment for a referendum on the alternative vote electoral system, the coalition partners are signed up to a “wholly or fully elected House of Lords”. There will also be moves to equalise the size of constituencies.

In addition to marriage tax breaks, the Lib Dems have been given two opt-outs, on the replacement of Trident and on nuclear power. On Britain’s nuclear deterrent the draft agreement allows the Government’s junior partner the option of making the alternative case. It can also signal its opposition to the building of nuclear power stations.

Schools policy, which was the most developed of the Tory policies, will be amended following the coalition talks.

Both parties’ manifestos agreed on the issue of a “pupil premium”, where a sum of money is allocated per pupil rather than per school, with more money given for children from deprived backgrounds.

One big unknown, however, is whether the Lib Dems will be able to stop the local control of schools being wrestled away from local councils. The Tories want thousands of schools to be given their independence and to abolish barriers to new schools being set up by companies and third-sector organisations, but whether the Lib Dems intervene in this flagship policy is yet to be seen.

The Conservatives will be allowed to impose an overall cap on non-EU immigration, which at one point they hoped to set at 90 per cent. To compensate, the Liberal Democrats have secured a promise that the detention of child migrants will be outlawed.

A full civil liberties programme, one of the major overlaps between the Tory and Lib Dem manifestos, will be implemented.

This will result in a “great repeal Act” — a longstanding Tory pledge, to throw out many of the local government, police and anti-terrorism powers that they regard as unnecessarily intrusive.

This will be augmented with a welfare package, based on an existing Tory outline, which the Lib Dems have agreed to support in full.

One senior Conservative source said that the new Government would have a secure majority of more than 70 for a Parliament that would last for five years.

This amounted to a “potentially significant realignment” in British politics, which he claimed was an “historic achievement”.

What they agreed

• To increase capital gains tax

• To push plans to make cuts worth £6 billion this year

• To move towards a “wholly or fully elected” House of Lords and to equalise the size of constituencies

• A cap on non-EU immigration

• To reach agreement on holding fixed-term five-year Parliaments

• To postpone the Tories’ plans for an inheritance tax

• That the Lib Dems will abstain on a vote for tax breaks for married couples

The Times

Robinson was reporting that one of the things 'thrashed out' (if there is going to be a coalition) was a dropping of the Tory inheritance tax and marriage tax relief proposals and an adoption of the Lib Dem £10k policy.

That's going to make things rather interesting in terms of deficit reduction. :shock:

Yes, they seem to be going backwards. Still, I will take a tax cut

Though what being British has to do with it is beyond me

Because being British used to be a synonym for civil liberties.

Though not in colonial times obviously...