Tough, isn’t it? A few weels ago after analysis of prepared salads in the main high street retailers they were found to have far more salt than a Big Mac!:diablo:

The first part of your diatribe could have been lifted from the 1960s, so utterely out of date is it.

Political activists always forget that if they want power they have to bend to the electorate, because without their support the power will be unachievable.

So, Blair, clever political animal that he is, but loathsome in all other respects, saw that labout would NEVER be elected unless it changed its spots. He knew the Tories werre a busted flush by 1997 and were easily beatable, as long as he couild tap into enough of their core vote to swing it his way. The rest is history, as they say.

Now Cameron is doing exactly the same as Blair had to do and, with luck, the vistory might be his. And the irony is that if they lose Labour will probably revert to their unelectable roots, or at best be riven between left and right, much as the Tories were for 10 years.

I agree about “Aces High”. I think it really brings home the highs and the adrenalin rush of the fight coupled with the reality of the appalling waste of young, brave men’s (boy’s?) lives.

Exactly – that is the best and only definition which means anything these days.

Anyone who still divides the population into distinct classes is living in the past. And labour might be making a mistake in deploying this particular “weapon” in the election.

I have known and worked with members of what were once described as working, lower, middle, and upper classes and still number friends and acquaintances from all walks of life. The notion of class is antiquated and only held on to by those remnants of the old classes with either chips on their shoulders or deep seated hereditary instincts.

I’m fairly confident I don’t have free will. I suspect I’m driven by unconcious urges, peer pressure, my upbringing or the happenstance of my education and choice of reading and friends. I have individual will, but I think that’s mostly governed by the above.

I’d need a definition of what free will actually is, before I commit to saying whether I have it or not.

That poses a metaphysical problem. Surely every action, every thought, every nuance of our concious and sub-concious is influenced by something. So there can be no such thing as pure free will. By free will we mean making a decision or taking an action without the involvement of a third party persuading or dissuading us from the course of action we desire.

I wouldn’t agree that a questioning Christian isn’t a true Christian. Presumably when God gave us a brain He intended us to use it.

But not to doubt him or his works.

I couldn’t possibly comment.;)