Yes, I think you are right and it will fly without further funds. Reading the latest press announcement on the website they are blaming the unexpected imposition of 20% VAT on aircradft parts and services, which were previously free of VAT, rise in fuel prices and the shortfall on their Butterfly Appeal, on cash flow pressures and lack of money after the end of April. So the £350,000 by the end of May will “ensure that XH558 arrives on the air show circuit with stable finances.”

AA – you deserve a commendation for having the patience to read his illiterate ramblings. But on a point of information will ebay ban this charlatan?

I fear that all qualifications are indeed going the same way because what is important to the government(s) is that more people pass the exams and get the qualifications rather than whether the exams are actually worth anything (or what subjects they are). Do half of all jobs in the United Kingdom require a Degree? If not, why are we bothering to try (and fail) to fund all these Degree courses?

Precisely – couldn’t have put it better myself.

Sorry, I totally agree with Ringo.

It has all become so complicated and is discussed incessantly. I am sure that children of my generation left school knowing more about our country and probably our neighbours, than than the average teenager now. So whatever one’s views of the methods then they must have worked.

Government after government has been trying to mend what was never broken.

A fair point but the existing system of power generation doesn’t run flat-out round the clock or round the year; if the wind-farms manage to meet our EU target by having more of our coal or gas off-line, even when the wind-farms are running only 35% of the time what is the problem?

Wind-power isn’t the only answer; my main argument is that we should try to use less power before we spend huge sums trying to generate more. There are lots of technologies out there and generating the vast majority of our power with coal or gas is simply not an option in the longer term.

My personal preference is those solar panels that you lay on your roof instead of roof-tiles (see the House of the Future thread); if properly set-up every home could generate much of its own power.

But most of our conventional power stations are to be decommissioned. So we have to build more of those as well as the nuclear power stations which will not be ready until 2020 at the earliest by which time we will not have enough energy production from any source to support our needs.

We will be obliged, as so often in the past, to buy from our French friends, who seem to be running a more pragmatic energy policy than we do.