Valley Pub

I have a feeling Chelsea will pull it off. They are hitting form at the right time, Utd are doing all they can to lose the title and Arsenal are in an injury crisis. Man City have the players to win the title but are too inconsistent and Spurs can beat AC Milan one day and lose to Blackpool the next.

Getting rid of Gadaffi is a matter for the Libyan people last thing we need is another maniac making himself look a martyr in the arab world and putting the west in more danger. Our involvement should cease after this initial phase bar arming and giving military training to the rebels, once the playing field has been levelled to give the rebels a fighting chance and we have taught the rebels professional military training then that should be it for us and we should end our involvement and let the Libyan rebels deal with Gadaffi.

When Brown bailed out the banks they took stakes in the banks which ultimately when sold will probably be sold for quite a healthy profit for the government so in the end I think that it will turn out to be the best thing. The £8bn tax receipt surplus reported a couple of days ago, the likely £10bn+ from the sale of the 4G network, future sales of the government stakes in the banks. Gideon is going to have rather a healthy war chest for pre election tax cuts.

John Major was bought up in a council house to an unemployed father who did a bit of circus juggling. David Davis was also bought up in a council house too so you can come from a 'crappy council house' and still be a Tory. Many of the richest businessmen in this country started in a council house so it is stereotyping somewhat that you have to have been bought up in a big house and gone to private school to be a Tory.

I would not necessarily say there is a connection between enjoying reading and intelligence reading is as much a hobby as video games or watching tv or listening to music and is not necessarily a reflection of intelligence. I hated reading outside of school, books about Barry Sheene or books about Norton or Harley Davidson gave me pleasure but even to this day I have probably read 5-10 works of fiction outside of school in my entire life and I got top grade at English, have never used txt spk in my life and would describe myself as an intelligent chap.

Those that have an interest in reading will read anyway but how are those that don't like reading books going to be encouraged to start reading books in their spare time ? You can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Those that have an interest in reading probably read 50 books a year but those that don't have an interest in reading books will not just start because Gove says they should.

Some people are natural readers and some aren't. My brother for example always read (not that there was much else to do indoors in our day) whereas from a young age I preferred tinkering with motorbikes and the only books I ever bothered reading were related to motorbikes. Unlike my brother I simply ws not a natural reader. Gove means well but I simply don't believe that someone who is not a natural reader is going to read no matter what the availability of books or their cost is, I did my homework and I revised but the thought of reading books turned my stomach.

How important is it that kids read loads of books in their free time ? Far more important to me is kids developing social skills and social interaction as opposed to just sitting alone on a bed reading Shakespeare. Facebook/internet/PS3 has created a generation who live on virtual interaction as opposed to social interaction and reading books will not help kids social skills.

I don't think libraries are necessarily the be all and end all when it comes to kids reading books. With things like Kindle you can get hundreds of books from the Kindle store that are classics and for absolutely free for download. Not every child has a Kindle of course but if they bought 2 less XBox or PS3 games a year they would be able to get one so it is a question of prioritising. Plus a lot of books can be bought for next to nothing in charity shops too. Libraries being cut should only be an excuse for the absolute poorest of children.

I don't have the UN resolution to hand but from recollection it said something like 'take all necessary steps to protect civilians', the resolution contained very ambiguous wording as for example the forced removal of Gadaffi could be covered under the wording as his removal would be protecting civilians. It was widely assumed that all this was going to be was going to be planes patrolling the skies to prevent the Libyan air force bombing the rebels but already today cruise missiles have been wiping out Libya's military infrastructure and French jets have been blowing up tanks and jeeps. Bad thing ? of course not but it is starting to remind me of the early days of the Iraq war and that resulted in a full scale invasion in the name of regime change. Any right minded person of course wants the removal of Gadaffi and his sons but I don't want to see this become a new Iraq with the West removing Gadaffi installing a puppet regime and the West asset stripping Libya's resources to line Halliburton's pockets. If this military action is done right and for the right motives of course I fully support it.

This is all about oil, the world let 700,000 Rwandan's die yet 1000 Libyans die and the world is spurred into action. This is just the beginning. Within weeks there will be a full scale invasion in the name of 'regime change' and Libya will be asset stripped same way as Iraq has been.

No chance of that mate. 1) Boundary changes that take away 50 MP's will be heavily weighed in favour of the Conservatives. 2) Tax cuts just before the 2015 election I would bet my house on. 3) Housing benefit changes will drive Labour voters out of the inner cities and have them all in city suburb ghettos which will reinforce Conservative rule within cities. I think that Labour would struggle to win an election NOW let alone in 4 years time.

I don't pretend to be an expert on the British education system as I never went to university. I left school at 16 to go and work in the family business so never even did 6th form when I was in Britain but the article that was posted talked of AAA at A level being the requirements for consideration for Oxford so I posted AAA as that is what the article stated. A uni degree from my understanding has been seriously devalued in recent years to the point that it is practically worthless in the employment market unless you have a Masters degree whereas in my day getting a degree meant you could almost pick your own job so I think a major shake up of the uni system is needed to again make getting a degree as something special. Would this mean less people getting into uni and the dumping of all the worthless courses ? you bet

It is morally wrong that students with AAA who come from a wealthy background should be shafted by a queue jumper with inferior grades just because they are poor. What sort of message does that send out to those that slaved day and night to get AAA ? university entrance should be purely on the basis of academic ability and nothing else.

Isn't Britain in recession still ? I am not fully up to speed on UK politics but I do read the online versions of the papers and recall that you had negative growth in the last quarter of the year so the economies of the world are still going through tough times. High unemployment is inevitable in a time of economic strife but the best way to create jobs to get people back into work is to get the pain out of the way quickly rather than have it linger on and on which is why it is better for the cuts to happen all at once and fast so that the pain is out of the way quicker. The private sector needs to be free of red tape and over regulation to create jobs too and I understand the Conservatives are doing just that too.

I read the other week that net unemployment is 40,000 higher than under Labour so I think you are looking at Labour through rose tinted glasses as most of the current unemployment in the UK was under Blair/Brown's watch so it is not a Tory phenomenon.

I love Blu Ray. DVD seems such old hat after you have watched a blu ray. Best blu ray's in my collection are Dark Knight, Sin City, Avatar 3D (I got it with a Panasonic 3D tv so don't know if you guys can buy it) I don't have any dvd's any more converted everything to blu ray so have 170 blu ray's (most legit but some bought on markets in Bangkok stopovers but still top quality)

Don't get me wrong mate if he receives Ceaucescu style justice from his own people or a drone blows his tent to kingdom come the world would be a better place but just as bad oppression is taking place against the Bahraini people and the UK and France and the rest of the world are not giving Bahrain a mention. Like Libya the crown prince has exported forces from another country to commit genocide against his own people but all it has been in the media and the UN has been Gadaffi this Gadaffi that and nothing being done against what is happening in Bahrain which to me is wrong.

Quoted the wrong post not used to this forum :rolleyes:

I am uneasy about this. While any massacre of the Libyan people would be regrettable where was the UK and France when 700,000 were dying in Rwanda ? where were the UK and France when the people of East Timor were being massacred by the Indonesians ? why is nothing being done against Mugabe ? why is nothing being done about the atrocities being committed by the Bahraini police ? Am not defending Gadaffi but it seems to be the west dealing with another bogeyman from the past now Saddam Hussein is out of the way while ignoring even worse stuff elsewhere.

8 out of 10 Brit jobs are going to migrant labour according to stats so the reason why Brit unemployment is so high is because the jobs are going to immigrants from within the EU and non EU. There are plenty of jobs around but the poms aren't getting them so instead of blaming the government blame EU freedom of movement and freedom of labour laws.

I say no. It is not the job of other nations to play world policeman. What is happening there is shocking but it is the business of the Libyan people to sort out.

Even one is one too many One outreach co-ordinator on 35 grand a year would pay for a lot of school milk.

A report yesterday said that Manchester City council had failed to collect 10% of council tax from the residents. That is a serious amount of money being lost through negligence. Before I left I lived in London and the amount of climate change officers, diversity officers, gay and lesbian officers, outreach co-ordinators and other meaningless special interest positions there were was shocking. Sack all of those and put the money saved towards frontline services.

Wouldn't be so sure fella. GRIMLY FIENDISH is clearly blaming the government and millions of others will too when it is up to the local authority how the money is spent.