PaddockLad

Were you in the services out in Afghan 2bias?...there was a couple of lads I seem to remember... What are the chances of actually shagging bird as hot as the "padre" in the above mentioned tv program, in somewhere like Camp Bastion?....just wondering like... would you have to be an officer, or does the posh army totty not discriminate by rank? On a more serious note, a mate of mine at work who has just turned 40 has gone into the Royal Marine Reserves, 5 years after coming out of 42 Commnado, he was in 14 years to begin with,multiple tours of the Balkans,Iraq and Afghan. He got a degree but a dead end job as a buyer in here, hates civvy street. Going back in, hoping to get deployed in the last lot to be sent out there. When he told me last month with a smile on his face that he might be going back out there it was like a bad film

Jean Beausejour of Wigan.

A short history of austerity: it almost never works You have to be one of Vince Cable's 'austerity jihadists' to believe you can cut your way out of a slump Share383 inShare2 Email Aditya Chakrabortty The Guardian, Monday 11 March 2013 20.00 GMT Jump to comments (403) Liam Fox has called for a £345bn cut in public spending. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Vince Cable is shocked – shocked! – to find that he's been sharing a coalition with Tories waging an "ideological jihad" on public services. As if to back him up, Liam Fox yesterday obligingly decried Tony Blair's "great socialist coup", and called for a £345bn cut in public spending, as well as a complete suspension of capital gains tax (this last measure doesn't actually feature in General Pinochet's Little Book of Counter-Revolution – but from tiny acorns and all that). Fox fits snugly into his former cabinet colleague's pigeonhole. Yet if the business secretary really is on the hunt for austerity jihadists in the government, he'd better pack a giant butterfly net. If one definition of an ideologue is one who clings on to a strategy long after it's been proven to be a failure, then on deficit reduction David Cameron is as swivel-eyed as they come. Last week, the prime minister claimed "signs that our plan is beginning to work", but next Wednesday will see George Osborne deliver yet another budget in which growth forecasts are lowered, borrowing projections raised and even more spending cuts laid out. This will be completely in line with every other budget and mini-budget the chancellor has delivered since he first laid out Plan A. To revisit those debut budget predictions from June 2010 is as tantalising as a glimpse of heaven to a fallen sinner. Back then, Whitehall assumed that Britain would now be amid a roaring recovery, with GDP growing 2.8% in 2012 and 2.9% this year. Instead, national income shrank in the last three months of last year and we will be lucky to see a 1% increase this year. Back then, it was assumed that unemployment would now be drifting downwards, businesses would be investing like billy-o, while public debt would be about to peak before heading south and the government would be on its way to the polls in 2015, the work of fiscal consolidation done. Clearly, none of those things are going to happen, which is partly why Tory backbenchers are now so restive. But you would have to be one of the austerity jihadists to believe that you could cut your way out of a slump. The entire modern history of expansionary fiscal contraction, as coalition ministers used to call it, is that it almost never works. Instead, severe austerity tends to turn recessions into depressions, consign millions to the dole or under-employment and lead to frightening political turbulence. The most famous episode of austerity was during the interwar years, as Germany, Britain, France and Japan all fought to stay on the Gold Standard even amid the Great Depression. The deflationary impact of keeping their currencies pegged to gold, along with the austerity policies they followed to do so, was disastrous. In Britain, unemployment jumped from 10.4% in 1929 to 22.1% by early 1932, even while government debt surged. In Germany, the Social Democrats stupidly clung to the orthodoxy of austerity, pushing joblessness up to to 30% by 1932, and opening the door to the Nazis. In Japan, the Showa Depression saw household incomes more than halve within two years between 1929 and 1931. Tokyo cut spending by nearly 20%, with the military bearing the brunt of the privations. The result was a wave of assasinations of government ministers and bankers and attempted coups. As the political scientist Mark Blyth says in his new book, Austerity: "Austerity didn't just fail – it helped blow up the world. That's the definition of a very dangerous idea." And yet when Europe's crisis began in earnest in 2009, rightwing politicians across the continent adopted the line that the best governments could do was cut spending to encourage the private sector to spend. Two of the leading proponents of the argument, economists Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna were invited to present their ideas to European economy and finance ministers. Yet as Blyth points out, their counter-examples of successful austerity were nothing of the kind. Ireland's cuts from 1987-9? The economy piggy-backed on the Lawson boom in Britain and a global upswing. As for Australia, Alesina and Ardagna mysteriously ended their happy story just before the worst recession in its postwar history. Even now, austerity merchants scratch around for poster children. There's Latvia, whose cuts over the past few years have been described by IMF boss Christine Lagarde as "a success story … an inspiration for European leaders grappling with the euro crisis". Yet around one in 10 of the labour force have emigrated, a further 16% are unemployed and, on IMF estimates, the country will not get back to its pre-crisis trajectory for another decade. When austerity fails to deliver economic recovery. its proponents fall back on exactly the kind of naked ideology attacked by Cable. Last week, I attended a meeting of Syriza Cambridge and heard the party's central committee member Stathis Kouvelakis describe how Greeks had been forced to accept the most painful austerity programme in recent European history. The parallels with Britain were striking. Where Athens lost its sovereignty to the IMF and Europe, the coalition claims it must placate financial markets. Where ordinary Greeks were branded as lazy and cosseted, Osborne and Iain Duncan Smith want to end the "culture of welfare dependency". And where in Greece, historic cuts were rolled out in the name of economic modernisation, here Cameron wants to whip us into a "global race". If Cable thinks he has to fend off a few austerity jihadists, he should think again; he's in a government full of them.

Good piece interviewing Willie Donachie about Paul Dummet and Conor Newton, theyre playing at Hampden this weekend for St Mirren v Hearts in what may have been called the Scottish League Cup final in old money...good luck lads http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/football/dummett-and-newton-are-earning-their-stripes.20478286 Toonpack will be looking for a Hearts win no doubt, the plastic Jambo fucker

Fellani got subbed on Saturday v Wigan with about 15mins left to a chorus of boos so loud that if it was us doing it at SJP the red top sports journo's wouldve rolled out every tired old cliche about NUFC supporters that has ever entered print. NB: only NUFC fans get criticised in the media for showing any dissent; "they should be grateful to Mike..." No wonder he didnt fuckin turn up

best thing I've seen this decade in any form of music.

Twin drummers facing each other, what may or may not be a giant bass madolin/lute thingy, flying V, and a lead vocalist with a banjo, all with hoods on and a death scene at the end of 3 and a half minutes thrash metal!! What country are they representing?....hopefully us, or Israel

Napoleon often sent word ahead just before he returned from battle to his mistress Josephine, to tell her to stop washing.

Fair one Kev, but someone I know has booked a hotel room in Amsterdam for the week of the final via booking.com, free cancellation. Is good to have a plan

Size doesnt count, but exprience does. DK said in his post that If he was as gifted as say a Rooney or Owen that the size thing wouldnt matter too but seeing as he's only made 3(?) appearances off the bench this season then the chances are that he's possibly not considered as in that class, or physically not up to it, or both. At the moment. You comapred him to a very experianced England international. For which I thought you'd have had to have studied his game very closely. Strange as it may seem, I'll go with the NUFC coaching staff on this one rather than you.

Seen much of Campbell in the reserves then?

I think that I formed an opinion of him which went along the lines of "I bet Peter Sutcliffe is better crack than this fuckin strap-on" but as you say, where would we be if we were all the same?

He was a wummer....recognition of a kindred spirit there CT.

Has someone made a complaint about you?...

Just to ram that point home Clee ask Chez about his personal chaffeuse Claudette Does it really take 7 hours to get to Grimsby by bus though??

Only a man would make that remark. Isnt that right LBT?

Class. 0.52 the winner v Roma...instant god status for Lazio. Did he score another one v Roma later on in that clip or was it a team in a similar strip?...

Our new friend didnt last long...was it ASM?

"The modern Shed end-er" Abramovich isnt going to stand for any more shit like the laying down of tools for 6 months of last season under AVB from the Chelsea squad lead Lamps,Terry & Cole, then suddenly with their "mate" in charge they win the European cup. The fans can't bring themselves to say it pubicly but they know it deep down. If you pick a fight with a billionaire he'll beat you. Thats why Fwanks not getting as much as a 1 year extension. Thats why at 39.5 Giggs is, he wouldnt dream of playing power games at OT. Suck it up Chelsea, make a deal with the devil and you'll have to dance to his tune. Am not sure if a lot of the trophies won under Abramovich will leave a lot of old skool Chelsea fans feeling a bit empty inside....perhaps they even do now?

I was thinking that yesterday watching the match.For me, Shawcross is a good defender but a limited footballer to say the least. England games 22nd & 26th of this month. Stevie's the form man and may know a bit too much for San Marino & Montenegro...it will make those 87 U21 caps seem worth it

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/mar/10/steven-taylor-newcastle-united-england Louise Taylor and Pardew both think he should be playing for England Tbf, he's done great since he came back. Is he better than Lescott, Jagielka,Cahill etc etc?..

To say that you don't "beleive in wingers in our team anymore" misses the point by a country fuckin mile. We dont have any wingers. Most modern teams get most of their width from their fullbacks, there are few teams with what you might call an orthodox "winger" in their sides in the premier league.We don't have such a player on our books at the moment. We have wide midfield players, who nominally patrol a flank , but with instructions to "tuck in" when defending, making a narrow 3, or in some cases 4, if 2 players are sitting in front of the back 4 in the centre of the park, allowing the full backs to get forward. Saying we should play "everything down the middle" is daft, and suggesting an alternative "from our backs" is saying we should change to how we currently play. It is actually very fluid and allows for a lot of movement, not that you'd notice some times when we play. Sissoko's runs have added a new dimension to our game of late as well. If it all clicks into place when HBA is fit we may well hand out a real tanking to a team at some point this season.

Didn't make the trip north today but looking at a comment on fb and one on .com it would appear former supporters bus organiser Billy Swift may have departed this mortal coil.....rip Swifty, top mag.

Look at Campbell, dancing around along the line, never once offside, waiting for the rebound Quality from all concerned...

One word: "squad" Another great week for the lads and Pardew, good result in Europe Thursday, win at home Sunday