Tim Barnes

Labour had the luxury of inheriting a strong economy from Major though whereas Maggie inherited a banana republic from Callaghan Also Maggie had a global recession under her watch, the boom bust thing wasn't as a result of her policies it was as a result of a global recession (well the bust was) so it would have happened under any PM, when America gets into recession so do we

I will probably get flamed for this but I will throw into the ring Paul McCartney - While I was never a fan of the Beatles stuff till White Album and Sgt Pepper and I liked Wings I lost a lot of respect for him over Mull Of Kintytre (awful awful record :( ) Frog Chorus (a crime against humanity) and c**p like Pipes of Peace I hated the majority of solo John Lennon stuff too

Depends what you class as "Solo" in terms of Ozzy Would you consider Ozzy Osbourne's Blizzard Of Oz to be solo work with a backing band or would you describe as a band project ? for me I preferred the stuff he did with Randy Rhoads to his Sabbath work so if that is counted as "solo" no way can I put Ozzy on that list

Freddie easily - Hard to believe the same guy that bought us Tie Your Mother Down, Liar, We Are The Champions etc bought out such drivel as Barcelona, Living On My Own and Great Pretender

While Pinochet was clearly an unsavoury character he was a great servant to Britain in the Falklands providing intelligence, airbases for refuelling our planes and much more and his efforts saved probably hundreds of lives and was maybe the single biggest factor in winning the war so we could not stab him in the back after what he did for us, that is not condoning any acts he might have committed as leader

While he deserves what he has coming and he did some vile things he is still very much the west's bogeyman while at the same time Croats and Muslims committed some vile acts too during the conflict yet Karadzic seems to be the scapegoat None of the factions emerge from the conflict with any credit

Rarely agree with you but you are 100% spot on here

Its easy to fake mate Am sure your case is genuine but the majority of those that claim they are too depressed to work are faking it and giving the genuine minority a bad name Anyone could walk into a docs fake depression, get some prozac and walk into a benefit office and get a nice weekly handout so if the genuine cases get inconvenienced smoking out the cheats then its a price worth paying The benefits system is not a money tree it is the taxpayer that is funding all the fakers

People need to be in a work culture though Sitting around all day doing nothing would take away one's motivation to work and would make them less of an asset to any employer so if they are doing jobs in the community they are getting out in the fresh air and getting into a work culture even if they not getting minimum wage, once someone gets into the habit again of a work culture they will surely be an asset to an employer more than if they were a couch potato being zombified on a diet of Trisha and Jeremy Kyle every day

This is a good idea There is no excuse for anyone to be sitting at home watching daytime tv when there is so much work out there that needs doing

Thank god I am not the only one that thinks this song is utterly dire

They didn't get the chance to Their job was to shake hands with world leaders, open fetes and so on, they did not have the responsibility Maggie had having to run a country that was in a terrible state when she took it over, having to run a country during a war, having to run a country during a global recession, the queen mum just had to drink gin all day and enjoy herself as did Diana, Maggie didn't have that luxury so of course royals are always going to be more popular

He knew the rules when he signed up for his athletics licence and then started taking drugs, or at least he should have done, if he didn't then ignorance of the rules is not a defence or mitigation 2 year ban is for me too lenient it should be a life ban, taking performance enhancing drugs is basically $h!tting down the back of every dedicated athlete who aspires to reach the top through hard work, clean living and dedication to the sport If Chambers was not very good would there be any fuss ? hmmmmmmmmmmm

OWF made a bid of £18m which is barely half of what we are looking for, we rejected it out of hand and rightly so, OWF went to the media as a deliberate strategy to get Berbs to have a word with Levy to get us to accept the pathetic 18m on offer and to encourage Berbs to act like a c**k to try and force a move I have no objection to Berbs leaving, good riddance but if OWF thinks he can play media games to land Berbs on the cheap he has had one scotch too many

Bostock was never tapped up at all We approached Simon Jordan before any discussions with the player, Simon Jordan described our dealings as being "all above board" the issue Jordan had was with the tribunal fee as Spurs and Jordan agreed to a tribunal

There is going to be objections with any prime minister getting a state funeral, no prime minister wins an election with more than about 40-45% of the national vote so that leaves 55-60% of voters that did not want that person to be prime minister so any prime minister is going to have dislikers who will not want them to have a state funeral If the objections of dissenters are always taken up on there will never be another state funeral A prime minister getting a state funeral is to me more deserving than royals who do nothing but ponce off the taxpayer and live in untold luxury getting state funerals at least Maggie contributed something to this country and was a representative of the people having been democratically elected 3 times whereas all the royals do is leech and get a few yanks over to watch trooping of the colour and were not elected by anybody Maggie or any other prime minister is more deserving to me of a state funeral than parasites like Diana and the queen mum

It must have been quite a kick in the teeth for him when we refused to pay his £130k a week wages It is just sour grapes from him He had the chance of £90k a week in the best league in the world but instead he is chasing the money from somewhere 99% of people could not point out on a map Says more about him than it does us

This bit I have to disagree with I am socially right of centre and economically right wing and am often a minority of one politically on here and I don't get insulted and name called well bar once when I overstepped the mark and got a 30 day ban so I would disagree that alternative opinions are not allowed on here

Vatican Blues - George Crippled Inside - John Maybe I'm Amazed - Paul Photograph - Ringo

Communities being destroyed was a by product of the closure of mines and so on but there has to be a time when the taxpayer says "enough is enough", these mines were absolutely haemmoraging cash just to prop up these communities and that is unsustainable, the mines were never going to make any money and I just don't believe in taxpayers cash being used to prop up lame duck unprofitable industries

I am a Southerner and I know that large chunks of British industry were IMPORTING coal from countries like Romania because it was cheaper to import coal than use British coal, the coal industry in the UK was a lame duck industry that should have been put to death long before it did as opposed to have taxpayers money thrown into out dated unprofitable mines that were never going to make any money, the mining unions were also over run with militants and class war socialists Why should endless amounts of taxpayers money be thrown at lame duck industries that were just draining taxpayers cash while at the same time so expensive so expensive that European imports were better for business Sure a lot of miners lost their jobs, $h!t happens, there should be no such thing as a job for life propped up by endless amounts of taxpayers cash

New industries took their place though, Maggie got Nissan to invest in Sunderland, Maggie got Sony to invest huge amounts in a factory in South Wales, Maggie gave huge tax breaks to companies to come and invest in this country including in areas that were hit by the other industries closing, Maggie created enterprise zones in poor areas to encourage businesses and individuals to invest and start businesses Old dinosaur industries have been replaced by service industries by leisure industries, by IT industries etc, its the way of the world

She did what she had to do though Given the terrible state of the country she inherited - rampant inflation, riddled with strikes, poor productivity, riddled with debt to the point we needed bailing out by the IMF some tough measures were needed to get this country back on track, as with any tough measures popularity and tough decisions don't always go hand in hand but some tough measures were needed to get the country back in shape Having the 4th most powerful economy in the world and inflation almost non existent shows those tough measures were justified

Can't compare us with France mate and other countries, France has extreme privacy laws which prevent the very invasions of privacy that tabloid readers in the UK so get their kicks from But given you mention France the likes of Hello Magazine and Paris Match, 2 of the biggest celeb magazines in the world are French

The cult of celebrity started through Murdoch, an Australian American, what kicked off the whole celeb culture in the UK was The Sun's obsession with Diana which then evolved via Victoria/David Beckham, Jordan and then Paris Hilton so the main cause of the WAG/BB/Celeb culture in this country is Murdoch not Maggie British culture and British identity is dead, we are nothing more than America's b**ch and every new trend or cult or whatever that takes place in the UK takes its lead from America, Britain is the 51st State of America