chrisp65

...ah the London March. That gave me a lovely flashback. All on the bus, drinking before we've left town, hammered and tired when we arrived in London. Subverting the protest chant so we had a call and response of 'what do we want?' answered with 'beaujolais nouveau please'. Then off down Carnaby Street to spend my insufficient grant on vinyl.

HOLY POOP! Newsnight telling me last night that we're close to peak oil was bad enough, but this! This could have serious consequences some of you may not have stopped to consider....... .......can't think of any admittedly. Possibly a few less bags of washing back to mum's the country over if the students stay in their jams all day?

Wasn't that in the Tory Manifesto ? of course whether the Tory manifesto becomes like the Liebour one and is just a tree that died in vain , remains to be seen dash it all, I wish I'd voted for them now! not really, they're cnuts

With the government looking for cost saving ideas from the public, I think I’ve got half an idea to get the ball rolling. It’s not a massive sum of money, but every little helps. We currently have 650 MP’s with constituencies that vary between 50,000 voters and 80,000 voters. With a little planning the number of voters could be smoothed out, currently some constituencies are 50% larger than others so surely either their MP’s can’t cope or the one’s with lower numbers are under employed. With less constituencies we can reduce the number of MP’s. Not some great revolutionary cull, just a shaving to make a saving. Not even 10%, just a 7.5% reduction. 50 MP’s in round numbers taking us from 650 to a nice round figure of 600. I’m quietly confident my quality of life wouldn’t noticeably deteriorate due to the Commons dropping from 650 to 600 MP’s. The result? Well a bog basic MP earns £65,738 with staff allowances (up to £103,800), admin expenses (up to £23,000), communication expenses (up to £10,400) plus a whole raft of other expenses a cannon fodder back bencher can easily cost us £200,000 a year without having to flip, dip or take the piss in any way. 50 MP’s at £200k each is £10,000,000 a year. Over a single parliament that’s a saving of 40 or 50 million quid. More than the relatively modest saving of tens of millions, it would show that the MP’s are sharing our pain.

Max Hastings, Piers Morgan, John Redwood and Alastair Campbell all in the same room and not a suicide bomber, wonky drone, friendly fire missile, or pretend SWP student with eggs for miles around. Classic missed opportunity there.

Voting record (from PublicWhip) How Diane Abbott voted on key issues since 2001: Voted moderately for equal gay rights. Voted very strongly against the Iraq war. Voted a mixture of for and against introducing ID cards. Voted moderately for removing hereditary peers from the House of Lords. Voted very strongly for a wholly elected House of Lords. Voted moderately for the hunting ban. Voted a mixture of for and against laws to stop climate change. Voted strongly against introducing foundation hospitals. Voted moderately against Labour's anti-terrorism laws. Voted very strongly against replacing Trident. Voted moderately against introducing student top-up fees. yeah, absolute headcase (ironical) not my cup of tea, bit of a media darling

I've just drawn Brasil in the office sweep. The money is as good as mine.

I believe the definition of left and right and hard left etc is skewed by where we are today. We currently have a system where there are three parties all offering different flavours of essentially the same thing. You might want your icecream with sprinkles or prefer it with strawberry sauce or like a flake up your 99. But it's all icecream and somehow we've all happily gone along with it and happily call each other names over our stance on sprinkles. Back in the mid 70's Harold Wilson (not considered at all extreme at the time) had a plan to kerb house price rises and mortgage rate hikes by nationalising all land. All land taken out of private lease from the Queen and into State control, for the people. **** your sprinkles, who wants a mug of tea? If you want 'land is power give the land to the people' these days where can you go? Not even the SWP. They are more interested in selling you a solid silver clenched left fist pendant on their website merchandising page. So for me PR or AV is just another way of gently herding sufficient sheep into the unspectacular middle ground. Except of course, being afraid to protect jobs because it might upset billionaire money traders isn't actually the middle. Allowing 100,000 local government or nhs staff (that may well be the bread winners in their families) to be laid off so the rest of us don't have to pay an extra penny income tax (and thus take longer to acquire that flat screen tv) is not the middle ground. I'm off for a lie down.

very happy with that, and with tickets for the second T20 against Pakistan already in the bag looking forward to a good summer of cricket

to be honest there are so many skeletons in that particular family cupboard I think the press would have a field day, more shagging and knocking off of each others relatives and spouses than an Austrian house party

I think my first non-Labour moment was Kinnock shouting 'well alright!' repeatedly. Also, my circumstances have changed since the 80's. It's easy being radical with no kids, no mortgage and no Merc to service and fuel. No Burnham and no Mandy as I didn't want the list to go on for 3 pages, also no Yvette Cooper. Quite interesting the 'sameness' of the list when you look at it. No decent female challenge, no obvious minority candidates. I'll see if I have the i.t. nouse to add some more...

Does what it says on the tin really, regardless of your personal voting history, who would you like to see as next Labour leader... Those political minxes amongst you may tactically vote for the most inept, but I personally don't think anyone on VT would be that cynical For the record, I haven't voted Labour in a very very long time, but critically, I have done. As such, I guess the new leader has to appeal to people like me. Yippee doo and up the workers.

Chindie, chin up lad. I think from other posts you are studying in Aber? This isn't just flippant Aber bashing but that is a quite small quite insular Uni town that is geographically remote. It's great when it's great with a few decent boozers and a half decent (relatively) footy team. But if you are used to a bigger town then coming through an Aber winter won't help you if you are naturally a bit 'down' anyway. I've known Aber close in on people, it can feel cut off. Mention it to the doc, if you don't get an answer that you consider acceptable or it's not delivered in a tone you appreciate, tell the guy. If that doesn't improve the situation tell him thanks and I'd like to see someone else. If I've got the Aber place wrong then just read the paragraph above this one!

.....is a perfectly fair and logical viewpoint providing there are jobs created that enable you to 'put in'. The problem previously in my town under the tory's was that there simply were no jobs created to replace those that were cut at ABP, BP, Dow etc.. It simply wasn't fair that thousands of people were put on the dole and then told they should be working. It wouldn't be realistic to expect thousands of people in a single town brought up in a comp education system where they are trained to be workers not leaders to all suddenly become little one man businesses (there is only space for so many window cleaners). Where there are jobs, anybody not working without a bloody good reason should not expect anything but absolutely basic humane support. Having mentioned the 'problem' under the last tory govt its only fair to point out the failing I can see under the current system. The kids that mix with my kids that have the latest phones and games, are the ones who's parents aren't working. That's a simple anecdotal snapshot, but I see that and similar every day. It needs to be addressed.

BNP candidate looked like a bit of an old biggot, but I'd never say that out loud.

there will be Labour party officials all over the land shouting blow the whistle ref, blow the whistle.....

this could be interesting, politicians forced to work together for the greater good of the nation

but conversley, if they did such a bad job........ life is more complicated than that and there will be a few local government workers voting for a better chance of staying in a job

Sounds like Tory heaven. Whats the alternative? Well let’s consider a few alternatives. If you were poor and lived somewhere with a necessary but expensive ferry route: Alternative 1: market forces suggest you need to acquire more wealth to get on the ferry sonny. All additional wealth is located on the other side of the water. You get to stay on the island. Alternative 2: a modest subsidy from the more well off will ensure your fare is not disproportionate to your income and allow you to enter the marketplace at rung one. Once you have sufficient funds for the full fare, a portion of your fare will go towards subsidising those less well off than yourself. Alternative 3: the ferry is nationalised, we can all get on for free, turns out it wasn’t free but alternatively funded by your tax, ferry driver gets above himself and regularly strikes for better pay and conditions, ferry lacks investment and eventually closes down. We all get to stay on the island. trouble is, if you ask any of the three mainstream parties which alternative they are they will only tell you that the others will sell / scupper the boat eat your kids and shag your nan

Probably a bit late for this election, but my new personal manifesto… I have a dream. A dream of an independent Wales, physically detached from mainland UK and parked somewhere warm and benign in the Oceania qualifying zone. All of us tall slim tanned ex ballet dancers (but in a totally hetro way, except those that don't want to be hetro which is also totally cool) making an honest living driving 15 year old Jags as taxi’s, brewing our own hooch and hand rolling cigars. Where being a woman with a single mono eyebrow or a man with a bit of a gut isn’t automatically a bad thing. We would be self sufficient from the toll money on a much longer Severn bridge and Dr Who merchandising. The M4 would have four lanes, but each side, not in total. English would still be the first language, so that way we can still make use of cheap east european labour and watch Ashes to Ashes without sub titles. Welsh would be strongly promoted, but only when the English were listening. England would regularly play Ashes matches in their new spiritual home, Cardiff. This new Wales would be improved in many ways (no, not napalm). For a start, we wouldn’t tell Bangor, Merthyr, Cwmbran, Newport or Rhyl the new address. We would all have a full and rounded education in practical subjects and the classics. But we wouldn’t be up ourselves, like Brian Sewel or Switzerland. We would be a fundamentally happy and content people without western levels of spending on pointless shite. A Wales of modest material needs. This would be a nation with good access to wifi and large format flat screen technology. Perhaps most importantly, there would be a liberal attitude towards patching into Premier League football without the fussy formality of subscriptions. The law would be stripped down and simplified. We could see how we get along with a body of law along the lines of ‘don’t be an arse’. If you do something and people agree you’ve been an arse, that’s you sent back to Rhyl. We would retain our European status, so if it all went tits we could come back or get bailed out. slow day

Once the election is over we've just all got to remember we are on here as Villa fans first and foremost and look forward to a long summer of thin pickings in the transfer threads. I'm up and out early in the morning so it's a vote before work. I'm quite lucky in all this fudge and evasion as I'm voting for someone that is a friend and has been for years so I happen to know the twaddle he's spouting now is the same twaddle he's honestly believed since he was a kid. Luckily its similar to the twaddle I believe. So at least I know he cares and isn't repeating party line shit for an easy job. Vote early vote often folks.

Still hung as a crude average across the land however the very latest polls beginning to revert to the traditional appearance of a clear one two three with the Libs being third. You couple that with FPTP and the quirks of boundaries and I'm willing to bet the number of Lib Dems in the next parliament won't be much different to what it was in the last. The cons are beginning to edge out to the magic number of 8 / 9% in the polls. Throw into the mix the fact that people generally vote tory more than they are prepared to admit they vote tory (they're selfish but at least they feel guilty about it, I guess) and the tory's might just squeeze it. The issue of Brown not being God's gift to PR is an interesting one. Part of the current dismay with politicians was people's perceived loss of trust due to presentation and style taking precedence over substance. I don't necessarily need the leader to be slick, I do need to beleive he can empathise with 'us'. I'm not convinced that either a millionaire or a career politician can truly fit that bill. One puzzling thing, I live in a town that is a marginal, currently held by Labour with a majority of 1,800 it has switched between Labour and Tory a few times over the years. The one candidate I've seen or heard nothing of, not even a leaflet through the door, is the Labour condidate. I went to a birthday party in an upstairs function room of the local Labour club on Saturday, even they didn't have posters in the windows. I find that puzzling to say the least. You can only presume that locally they've decided bollix, we had a good run but we can't actually be arsed this time around. Incidentally Guiness was £2.70 a pint. Now there's a moral dilema, should you join a political club just to get discounted booze?

a fair point well made

earlier in the day I was listening to 5live whilst tidying up a kitchen that had had a heavy saturday night. It was the female presenter that is on before the seven day sunday programme (I think it might have been Kate Silverton). Anyway, I was getting really annoyed about the panel of red / blue / yellow spokespersons never actually answering a bloody question. Every question asked was either ignored and answered with the usual pre prepared statement or it was answered with a scare about what the others would do. So, being a bit of a saddo, I decided that regardless of what the next question was I was going to see how long each rep could go without mentioning the other parties. The next question once I'd found a pen was something about upping the pensions by scrapping the nukes. I've managed to note down the answers, but will only transcribe them up to the point they mentioned an opponent: Liberal answer: Of course, it was the conservatives...... Labour answer: I'm proud to have reversed the conservative.... Conservative answer: As ever Labour.... Absolutely pathetic. The trouble is, on May 7th one or two of these parties will take getting more votes than the others as public endorsement of the policies they've refused to actually inform us about.

My brother and a few of my friends have picked up Blackberrys recently. Don't get the fascination but by and large they love em. I'd actually forgotten the other thing I have against HTC phones is the reliance on touchscreens - really really don't get on with them, especially for texting. Just doesn't compare to a proper button, even with haptic feedback and the like. I wouldn't describe myself as a fan of the Blackberry over any other phone really, I haven't got that brand loyalty to a phone that I might get accused of with my car or camera or even my tv. I just find the Bb just does what I bought it for and works everyday and syncs with the computer. I'd be perfectly happy to have something else next time (after all I'm in the lucky position of not paying for the phone or my phone bill), providing I can just pick it up and use it. I'm trying to think of something I don't like about it, but I can't. I suppose it must be a bit like a volvo or vw. Probably over rated, probably over priced but most often just gets on with the job without drawing attention to its self. From my brief couple of weeks with the htc I'd need to see some awesome reviews to bother with one again. Battery life! Just remembered the battery needed charging way too often. I travel and I don't need to take my bb charger with me, needed to charge the htc every single day.