By paying the full price, no matter what or where, I shall regard that as a tribute to the illustrious Nigel from us all, especially those contributors who I refer to as the Chuckle Bros.

Oooh, oooh, can I be Barry?

‘Celebrity’ autobiographies are not selling very well any more. Mr. Farage’s may be in Tesco’s sooner than you think.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/23/readers-turn-over-new-leaf-celebrity-memoirs-slip-out-booksellers-top-10

And for balance, of course:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2881571/End-chapter-celebrity-memoirs-Autobiographies-rich-famous-no-longer-sell-says-publishing-house.html

It’s not a racial thing in the accepted sense, it is protect our own first policy which I thought most people want.

Please define most people. Do you mean most people you know, most people who read the same newspapers/ internet sites etc. as you or the population as a whole.

This is what I have been trying to say before. Just because the very small apart of the population that anyone knows personally or through limited viewpoint outlets may think something is true, cannot be interpolated to the whole population. In my personal experience of talking to polititians, this is a difficult concept for them to grasp.

On the otherhand it is what newspaper editors and journalists who have a particular ax to grind will deliberately state to try and reinforce their own agendas.

I don’t want to appear flippant, but the rise in food bank use happens because they are there. .

The opposite is the case. Foodbanks are on the rise because they are needed in Britain today, and part, but certainlynot all, of the reason is that the benefits system which is there to support the needy is not working as effectively as it should.

A recent report by the all party Parliamentary enquiry into Hunger’s report, which is not intent in scoring political points, makes an interesting, if depressing, read:

https://foodpovertyinquiry.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/food-poverty-feeding-britain-final.pdf

If you can’t be bothered to read this, then the Spectator review makes some interesting reading:

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/12/food-bank-report-is-a-chance-to-end-the-toxic-political-stand-off/

For balance, as the Spectator is not known to be very liberal in its views here is the Guardian’s review
http://www.theguardian.com/society/patrick-butler-cuts-blog/2014/dec/08/in-thier-own-words-rise-of-food-banks-devastating-human-impact

So a random poll of a couple of thousand people shows that nearly 40% fail to trust the BBC. I don’t find that very encouraging, but it does not surprise me.

I would agree entirely, it is not encouraging, especially as it had dropped from 81% in 2003. However, it shows that in that random sample- surely better than a selected, biased sample?- 50% more people trust the BBC to tell the truth than those who don’t.
Therefore the suggestion that

The reasons why the BBC is apparently disliked and mistrusted by so many people … and they continue to be seen as a rabidly left wing coterie of champagne swilling socialists.

is not very accurate as statistically on this evidence more people trust than mistrust.

edit:
for balance, I should point out that it doesn’t discriminate between those who think they are a rabidly left wing coterie of champagne swilling socialists but still trust them and those who don’t think they are a rabidly left wing coterie of champagne swilling socialists but don’t trust them. That’s the wonderful thing about statistics

The reasons why the BBC is apparently disliked and mistrusted by so many people is because they ignore a central tenet of their Charter which is to be neutral in their presentation of the news and reports. Such is almost always never the case and they continue to be seen as a rabidly left wing coterie of champagne swilling socialists. A pardonable slight exaggeration but, it does, I believe, crystalise the public perception.

No one I have spoken to recently mistrusts the BBC, most agree that it is doing a difficult job quite effectivly.

No one I know thinks that they are rabidly left wing coterie of champagne swilling socialists

Not a scientific survey I know, but it just shows that to say ‘so many people’ think what is suggested above is not a pardonable slight exaggeration.

We tend to stick with people of a similar disposition both at work and at leisure, so this phenomenon is not surprising. But to think that everybody agrees with ones own perspective is short sighted at best

Oh, and to say Farage is inspirational made me laugh, out loud, a lot.

For inspirational speaking a recent example would be Michael Sheen
http://youtu.be/XdgilU6dE7g

I have just checked, his speech was not reported in the Daily Telegraph. However this does not mean that it didn’t happen

No, I wouldn’t expect those simplistic ideas would grab YOUR vote but, to many voters it would mean that somebody, somewhere, was intent on doing something – a little something – about reducing deficits amd attempting to rationalise and prioritise.

Even if the ideas are unworkable? wouldn’t reduce the deficit? Would make the Health Service even more bureaucratic? surely the whole point is that policies should be thought through, cost effective and achievable. None of the parties are very good at this.

I agree that it is important to prioritise, but I think everyone has their own set of priorities they wish the country to aim for, but as everyone is different, a consensus will not be achieved. Hence the different parties, their different manifesto’s ( Yet to be published I think) and the need to have an election. You just have to vote for the best fit, although none are very appealing at the moment.

Here are two vote catching, not particularly new, ideas:

Start charging ‘health tourists’ for their use of the NHS BEFORE they get any treatment. Shouldn’t be difficult to work out what their treatment will cost.

Stop all foreign aid grants and put the money into defence.

Neither of those would ‘catch’ my vote

The first because it would in fact be extremely difficult to do in many , but not all to be sure, cases.
For example, my nephew, who holds joint UK/EU country citizenship. He has lived most of his life abroad but has come to university in the UK. He has worked for a couple of months in his holidays and paid a small amount of national insurance and tax. Say, god forbid, that he gets knocked off his bicycle tomorrow, he is lying in the street and a paramedic comes to him, should the first question he is asked be ‘ are you a UK citizen who has paid enough tax and National Insurance’ before treatment is given to him? Should the consultant he gets to see in the hospital say ‘ oh, I am sorry, because you have a foreign sounding name, we can’t fix your leg because you may be a health tourist’. It is an extremely complex problem that will not respond to simplistic ‘sound bite’ politics.
The true cost of genuine health tourism to the NHS, that is, people who come to the UK just to get treatment, from the governments own analysis is £70m. Sounds a lot doesn’t it. It is 0.06% of the NHS budget. The cost of administrating any checking system to identify this abuse, since most ‘foreigners’ who use the health service pay taxes, would outweigh any benefit. The system is not geared up for it, any additional administration, at all levels would add time to already overpressed staff.

The second would not get my vote because, in simple terms, getting to 0.7% GDP is the one promise that I can commend the coalition on keeping. It is something all patriotic people, those who are proud of Britain’s standing in the world, should be proud of in my opinion.
We are the 6th richest nation in the world, our defence spending in cash terms is 6th in the world, 5th in the world in spending per head of population. Our Foreign aid per capita is 9th in the world.