Is he aware of how seriously this will decimate the BBC1 schedule?

That means we'll be able to have more cookery shows.

The Great Property "Crisis" of 1974 enabled me to get my foot on the ladder. We could do with one now to help out my children. Why are people too daft to realise that rising prices only benefit estate agents and builders?

I blame Margaret Thatcher...

... for everything!

Too true, Brian.

Rising prices benefits the Chancellor as he gets stamp duty on inflated house prices for doing nothing. Even better, it penalises anyone living in Tory South East England so more money can be wasted on Labour's spending habits oop Norf!

I blame the unions for educating a nation of morons..

Indeed - glad to see you realised that my second para was a general comment!

Perhaps now houses are too 'affordable' we can be spared the eco town/slums which Heart of Flint wants to carpet bomb the South for ethnic cleansing reasons...as if .

I see Labour are planning to tax people who actually contribute to the economy and hand the money to Public sector layabouts so they can get a deposit.
Some of the things I especially enjoy about Labour is the time I spend working to buy other people`s pensions when I have lost mine and the time I spend contributing to someone elses house and mortgage when I can hardly afford one myself .

But then I am not "Key" which tranlates to 'Labour voter in receipt of bribe'

Nothing on Watson`s money? How odd....:)

newmania... I'm not terribly clear what you are talking about (nothing new there then) by nothing on Watson's money.

Snafu... well you would have to question what Lawson, Lamont and Clarke did with the money they creamed off house price inflation and flogging off public sector assets because they certainly didn't invest it in better public services.

Bob, I'm not concerned about what they did with the money, so long as it was not wasted on benefits.

They flogged off public sector assets so they could be better run in the private sector.

Gordon Brown is mortgaging our futures.

No, snafu, I'm sure you are not. The fact that they used public assets to pay off their friends in the City won't cause you any concerns at all, whereas paying it out to the poor would.

I bet all those people at Terminal 5 will happily testify to how much better BA has been run by those highly efficient people in the private sector. Or Severn Trent - fined 36 million quid for cheating their customers to enable them to give hand outs to their shareholders. Oh, and the Rail Customers who spent weeks travelling on buses because of the crap privatised rail service.

Dig up, snafu, dig up!

I am on about Guidot's posts about the Watson family and the £300,000 they suck out of the public purse per annum.? Thought you would be following it

Piper allow me to explain to you why we have house price inflation. It is idiots like me that get huge mortgages and run around working trying to pay them by creating wealth in the private sector that drives up the value of property . The 'Public' as in the government only had a few worthless bricks and patches of dirt. It operates as a stealth tax, You withhold property from the market ( with me so far ) giving to immigrants single mothers and Labour voters in general. This reduces the 'Supply' (still with me ?) and that forces up everyone else's price with the same 'demand' acting on fewer units .So we all pay for it in our mortgages .

Then here comes the best joke , when the government sells it at a huge profit these very same wasters sit on their arses whining about how 'Public assets' have been sold and start calculating that Council housing pays for itself . Ha ha ha. I appreciate that wasn't exactly you point but it has always irritated me .

BA...yes . The private sector does not make fewer mistakes it makes many more but the perpetrators are soon unemployed given entrance to the market and airlines are highly competitive . This accounts for the fantastic phenomena of travel as delivered by the private airlines ( so you can take your endless holidays ) . In the case of T 5 BA were acting more like a corporate adjunct of the state and behaved exactly as if they had been Nationalised.
I do not like the whole concept of the ever expanding Heathrow but that aside major public worls are always going to be Public . Roads , Rail etc. whatever they are technically called . As such they are going to be wasteful useless and usually fail. It does not excite me especially . The NHS for example as a company would die tomorrow I would like it kept nonetheless. These borderline areas , health , rail and so on are where you have to be very careful about how exactly you privatise. Mistakes have been made.

Schools on the other hand are crying out to be freed from the antediluvian unionised lunacy of the educational establishment . If you followed it at all you would see that Conservative Policy is highly selective as to where privatisation might be the right thing to do in the future.

We will be gentle and kind , noble and magnanimous in victory.

Christ! This'll mean they'll fill the schedules with more 'big brother' and yet more endless repeats of 'friends' and 'only fools an horses'.

newmania: If you are suggesting that any member of the Watson family is doing something illegal, which even Staines was not stupid enough to do, I could advise a good solicitor for you. However, unlike Derek Conway, the Tory fiddler, I think you will find everything in order. As I understand it Tom Watson only employs his wife, as do many MPs of all parties. How is other relatives secure employment is a matter for them, and as I say, as long as it is legal, why should I be getting upset about it?

On your second point, i.e. that you are an idiot, this is one of the few occasions where I can find no grounds for argument, so I will concede that point to you. You then go on to prove it to everyone.

At the end of that paragraph I see your inherent racism slips in, but actually, Councils don't 'give' properties to people. The housing revenue account is ring fenced. I don't expect you to understand that, and I can't be bothered to explain it to you.

Errrm, the Chief Executive of BAA is still in a job, as is the CEO of BA, and they are both private companies despite your ridiculous assertion... oh, and the CEO of Northern Rock got a bonus of three quarters of a million pounds for his careful stewardship of the company. Nice to see them paying the price of success.

How do you know what you would be like in victory? You're too young to remember.

I don't think it was the legality or otherwise of Conway that was the problem it was the exploitation and contempt for the tax payer it seems to me that the huge amounts clan Watson are taking is likely to be an embarrassment especially when so many people are in such difficulties . His daughters acceptance of payment for work she appears not have been up to doing for example is fairly irritating for everyone lese obliged to support a family on one income where part time and ?no time? jobs are hard to find . This group have been attacked by the Labour Government above all and it will be yet another to file under ?Labour hypocrisy?. I have no doubt whatsoever it is legal. ..

I know a fair bit about housing actually and quite obviously my use of the word ?give ? was shorthand for subsidised in various ways . As for racism , I believe immigration is far too high uncontrolled and it puts pressure on social housing . Call it racist if you like, I CNGAF.

You appear not have followed my point about the actions of the private sector outside market competition which is BA. In the case of Northern Rock the Bonus scheme was not especially generous although Private Eye did gleefully report all the details . The problem with Northern Rock was its history. As you will know it has a long association with Labour in the area including supporting the Miners strike and all sorts of local charities . It saw its role primarily as a Social Entrepreneur , trying to reach social goods using capitalist methods . In a word ( or two) it was New Labour . Time and again such organisations are beset with an arrogant belief that the traditional way of doing business are stupid and hidebound. Margaret Hodge performed a similar feat of hubris with Islington tax-payers money.
Their use of short term markets might have worked but the fact that such experimental ways of doing business were countenanced was because they were not focussed on money making but on serving the community. They succeeded in betraying the customer and the country It shows Labour do not understand business and should stay out of it.

I expect the unique history of Northern Rock and its unique difficulties are just a coincidence as far as you are concerned but I see it as the defining proof of the lies that are ?The Third Way? .There is no third way only accommodations between the old two through taxation and Parliament which is another way of saying that for the last ten years New Labour have been full of shit .

And I had better get on with earning a crust myself .

You're too young to remember.

If only

All those passengers stuck at T5 have a choice of flying with BA or an alternative carrier if the service is not up to scratch. No such options exist for those dissatisfied with state schools or the NHS.

Competition is the enemy of trades unions and the public sector.

Bob, I assume you will continue to fly BA even if they increase prices to keep your union brothers and sisters employed.

"All those passengers stuck at T5 have a choice of flying with BA or an alternative carrier..."

Yes, no problem... just leave your luggage on the T5 conveyor belt and pop off to find another service. EEEEEasy, ain't it.

Actually, the same options apply to the NHS and the schools... and the government are stupid enough to keep paying subsidies to the private school leeches.

"Competition is the enemy of the trade unions". That must be why David Cameron is so keen to suck up to the unions.

and the government are stupid enough to keep paying subsidies to the private school leeches

Not really as those who attend pay fees as well as taxes by which they subsidise schools they do not use at all. I am not a fan of Publuic schools especially but if you base you argument on simple money you will lose it .

It is to do with monopolising opportunity