chrisp65

You'll love the very end of Ed's section!

im not so sure about that. There are different 'levels' of prison and different establishments have different quality buildings, different qualities of activities, different levels of personal safety. Some places can be warm, but boring, but safe. Some are awful damp shitty buildings, but great sports facilities. Some, you are never safe. Twenty three years in a shitty building where there is nothing to do and you are never safe is hardly easy.

I'm not so sure that prison for serious criminals is all that easy.

No. I don't agree with the death penalty. Lots of people that do bad things have mental problems, it's not the way to deal with mental illness. Anyway, if someone was that bad that they potentially should be killed, why not keep them alive and stewing for a long time, it can be a bit of an easy out for some people, look how many get caught and try and commit suicide.

funny peculiar as opposed to funny ha ha I guess

sorry, I'm not sure I follow the point?

A tube driver very likely does earn a fat salary for his job underground doing unsociable hours ferrying around thousands of commuters. I have no problem with that. What we have to be careful of, is wanting them to earn less, so as to be more in line with our own personal ranking of important jobs. This is a trap. If you feel a nurse should earn more than a tube driver or that a bus driver should be comparable to a tube driver, well don't begrudge the tube guy. Increase the money of the others and get them all earning decent money for their work. But be very careful in letting right wing media influence your ranking of what job is more deserving. Because those desk jockey banking scrotes that broke the system with their fraudulent behaviour earn far far more and then got bailed out when they got us all in to trouble. Once bailed out with your money, they now think they might consider moving abroad where there are less onerous rules to try and stop them repeating their fraud. HSBC first, but you watch the other rats leave if they can, once we've paid their debt off. The Daily Mail and the tories would love you to be angry about the salary of an RMT union member. But can you imagine their views on trying to limit the pay of the bosses? Or on taxing people more that have more?

been waiting to use that!

I use the tube a couple of times most weeks. Never had a crash, so overall I'm happy. All day secure parking Westfield Hammersmiff £6.50, walking distance to the tube! Awesome service. For the first TWO YEARS my boss didn't notice that my Oyster card topped up from his bank account.

Tony, are you suggesting we double the wages of a nurse, or halve the wages of a tube driver? We may have just found the Labour / Tory difference analysis machine here! I don't have a problem with a tube train driver earning good money. It's a proper job.

source?

is that any different to the industry where the Unions had things sown up and outsiders couldn't get in ? I guess its very similar, in the past. Does that still happen? Or have we had a one way correcting of something that was unfair on both sides? It's also not something I experienced. When I've been a member of a union, it's stopped people being sacked without good reason to give jobs to those that would do them cheaper. So my personal experience of union membership was wholly good. But I accept that wasn't universal. I am not currently in a union and don't currently feel those that are have any unfair advantage over me. The golf club and the old school tie still have an advantage over me.

I have to go out and get a pasty and a diet coke (they kinda cancel each other out).

What about all those US troops guarding the poppy fields in Afghanistan? Surely they play a part in all this... Sorry, just to be clear, are you claiming the USA has ever, anywhere, allowed selected groups to raise money from drugs? You are outrageous Mr Reagan-Contra-Misunderstanding-Freedom-Heroes.

I honestly, hand on heart, don't think I could ever vote Tory, not matter how much or what they promised to give me. I couldn't live with my conscience, and for me that makes it a moral judgement. I just could not bring myself to vote for a party whose primary aim seems to be to keep the wealthy, wealthy, and shat on the weak, the poor, and the needy. It's very much a moral judgement I am making when I walk into that voting booth. I'm not equating being moral with voting Labour by the way. They seemed to lose their moral compass some time ago. Possibly in 1997. But maybe before. I think Thatch found their compass, and crushed it. Labour has yet to fully recover from Thatch. Hence the popularity of the Greens, who have gone from being a fringe 'single interest' party to a genuine UK-wide force and home for left wing, socialist and environmental thought. How do they do that though? I've read their manifesto (skimmed..) and they seem to want to bring poverty down, and it's more or less word for word the same as the Labour manifesto and Lib Dem manifesto. Inform me, because I'm obviously missing something. If they enact a law saying they can't increase taxes on those in employment, what other ways are there of not borrowing too much money? If you can't raise income, you have to lower expenditure. Do they intend to lower expenditure? Hell yes. Have they told us where? Hell no. Admittedly in 2015, they aren't a million miles from the Labour position, but that's because Labour is now a centrist party saying what it needs to for a go in the big chair.

On the doorstep a couple of evenings ago, I told a Labour canvasser that I personally couldn't see the problem with a big block of SNP MP's forcing more left leaning decisions and policies on the Labour party. His answer (which might just have been to get me on side): me neither mate, but I'm not allowed to say that... Perhaps they just need to grow a pair and remember why they exist.

I like this one. Back in the day, that was Inter ToTo qualification!

No, I think I can see where Brommy is coming from. When I was starting out in life there were any number of occasions where it became clear you needed to be in a particular set or club to get nice things. I've had a job where it was made clear that to progress I had to join the golf club and play by the clubhouse rules. I tried it, it was so up itself and so obviously just a conservative meeting place that I dropped it quite quickly. Another time, I needed a written quote for building work to qualify for a grant that was only available for a very brief window. Couldn't persuade a builder to give a quote. A friend who it later transpired was in the masons got me that quote. The masons was very much a tory thing around here. I could go on (don't worry I won't), but I found this time and time again, you had to be 'in' to get a share of the nice things. It was unfair.

Geldof made it go away. the lives we could have saved if we'd known it was scared of matted hair and the whiff of arrogance

Certainly around here the relationship with skinheads varied from gang to gang. Generally, those that were in to a style and a sound were a great bunch and we'd share venues and DJ's quite happily and get together on weekends. Those that were skinheads as shorthand for thickos liking a bit of trouble, well by definition they were indeed trouble. You often didn't know until events had taken on their own momentum and we did have a few days and nights where the fighting just got ridiculous. I don't think I'm out of touch now, but I think the level of violence back then was far far greater. Every Saturday night was fight night. Gangs wandering the streets looking to chase down other gangs. No knives or guns obviously, so not the extremes of today. But random beatings and kicking were common place. I think it was all that strange 70's and 80's violence and twisted understanding of what a 'man' was that transferred to football and morphed into casuals etc.. A whole new breed of moron. Times like bank holiday weekends were the worst, when out of town gangs would pitch up (me living by a beach and all that) and you'd find yourself running around not knowing who was what. Stupid really. If I had 50p for every time the police confiscated my shoe laces, I'd have over £3.

it's cruel it's another way of saying: people with money, don't worry you can keep it, if we need to look at finances (which we will), we will be cutting benefits and services from the shit at the bottom of the pile I'm assuming they know that they won't get a majority so can promise whatever they want, knowing that no coalition partner would ever agree to it, therefore break said promise anyway. Just get a few cheap votes, enough to be biggest party. Yes, that's very true of all of them - it's very likely its a strong reason why none can discuss coalition agreements because that's their get out of jail card. Promise the world, then say they couldn't deliver because they don't have a stand alone majority. Haven't researched it yet, but didn't they promise a similar law last time? I think they said they would enshrine the ring fencing of tax credits 'in law'. Then got in to power and cut them. The elephant in the room, none of them will tell us what it is they are cutting whilst they try to out bid each other with treats for wavering voters.

it's cruel it's another way of saying: people with money, don't worry you can keep it, if we need to look at finances (which we will), we will be cutting benefits and services from the shit at the bottom of the pile

Bumped into a few guys last summer on their way across to Brugge for a weekend. Got talking scooters generally, sat on a few scoots for photos, shared stories about the club I was very briefly in back in the day (Distant Echo) and then had a few laps on a few different ones around the pub car park for old times sake. To just let a random bloke take your scooter for a spin! That's relaxed. Couldn't have been a nicer bunch of chaps.

If the UK government were serious about their attitude to drugs, I guess they'd stop people using them in prison? But they don't do they. They have an environment where they could easily stop drugs and offer the very best of rehab.. Instead they allow the drugs in, they allow gangs to run wings and they use drug use as a control mechanism rather than employ expensive staff.

We had a humanist wedding. Had nothing to do with doing the right thing (certainly not by god as we're both atheist) and everything to do with making a formal, but secular, commitment to eachother. It was lovely I may have been being slightly flippant! I wasn't even sure what one was (the wedding ceremony bit, not humanists), so I looked it up on humanism.org - looks good, interesting it's already 'official' in Scotland, I'd presume it must only be a matter of time before it's equally recognised down south.