Can you edit moderated comments?

Good day for an anti-cuts demo, IMHO :D

Can't blame me for this one, folks. I've barely posted in months- too busy!

Oh dear. I find myself agreeing with the Tories on this one. I would suggest each town/borough should be restricted to one or at the very most two twinning agreements.

OK quick question- I'm genuinely interested and not trying to sh*t stir.... Is there a minority in your party which is against the monarchy? Surely for those who strongly believe in pure capitalism, libertarianism, meritocracy and other words I can't spell, the monarchy is as abhorant as it is to full on Socialists?

Hopefully none. What would I be celebrating? The anniversary of one rich person succeeding another rich person? Yes, I look at W Bush and the circumstances around his dodgy election or (even more extreme) what Hitler was able to do with no checks on power and sometimes think the monarchy may be the least worst option. But that is a hell of a long way from expecting me to celebrate it.

Interesting typo. In London, a family could easily pay this much in rent.

Hi, Robert If Tim wants to delete this he will, and I won't repost. But I stand by it. This is a blatant attack on the poorest in society, masked as ever by claiming to be on the side of the almost-poor. Get poor people to blame other poor people for their problems ....it's the oldest trick in the book, and it's being tried again here. On the evidence of this, Cameron is every bit as bad as Thatcher, hence my remark about hell.

A bit like this policy, then!

You are a cnut, Cameron. May you rot in hell.

but surely you don't believe, as a matter of principle, that employees ought to have the option of vetoing decisions by their managers purely on the basis that they disagree with them. No professional organisation could function under those circumstances Several do. Google 'workers cooperative'. Whether this method could be applied to the fire service is more debatable.

North-South position is also a factor.... The further north you are, the greater the contrast between winter and summer times. At the extreme, the north pole has 24 hr darkness in winter and 24hr daylight in summer. As Scotland is further north than England, it has shorter days in winter and longer days than England in Summer. Now moving time forward one hour in winter would make the winter mornings darker for all of us, but the effect will be especially strong in Scotland, where the winter days are so very short.

Well you are OK on the TV- until it packs up of course! Presumably you put petrol in your car? That will go up 2.5%, but at least fuel duty is 'only' going up in line with inflation. Any maintaince will also go up. Parking is also subject to VAT, if you pay for that, and insurance premium tax is going up 1%. You will certainly pay VAT on your mobile phone top-ups or bill, so that will go up too. Not sure if you will get more tax credits- that could help cushion the blow if you qualify.

Yes, axing the BBC would result in private companies at least partially filling the gap. The question is, would the private broadcasting be of better quality than the BBC? I fear not.

Yes, the poor *have* been protected from the tax rises, but the spending cuts will hit many poor families. ****** (unrelated and at the risk of incuring the wrath of Tim for off topic chit-chat) Hope you are well, by the way. I've been cutting down the amount of time I spend on blogs and Facebook etc of late, because it was getting a little out of hand.

"I remember writing in response to an Ofcom consultation... that whereas Memphis, Tennessee (population 603,507) had 36 radio stations the West Midlands (2.3 million) only had only 19." This is actually something I know quite a bit about. There are two main reasons why we have fewer stations than the USA. For a start, we have near universal provisions of at least ten services. Just about everyone gets the 8 national stations plus a BBC local and at least one commercial local. The USA doesn't have this. In some areas of America, the FM band is nearly dead. Coupled to this, our population density is greater, and our cities are closer together. If we give the West Midlands another radio station, that frequency cannot be re-used in Stoke, or Derby, or Northampton etc etc. In contrast the USA often has hundreds of miles between stations. By the way, the USA isn't neccesarily a good model to follow. There is very little quality speech radio,beyond phoneins there is no drama, no documentaries, very little in depth analysis of the news. Stations 'flip' formats at a moments notice. So your favourite 'smooth jazz' station might close down on Friday night and start broadcasting Heavy Metal on Monday morning. For anyone interested, can I recommend an article by Paul Groves (*not* myself!) here, which explains why we have fewer FM stations than other nations... http://frequencyfinder.org.uk/other_fm.html

"Final announcement is £2bn extra tax credit for low income families with children. Clegg nods vigorously. Well that might help those hit by the child benefit freeze. I've tried to give this a fair hearing. In terms of tax rises he has protected the poor, I will concede that. However, 25% across the board cuts are bad. Really, really bad. I await details, but it's going to be painful, and the vunerable will suffer.

28% is proberbly the right compromise. That may surprise you coming from a leftie like me, but I'm also worried about a decline in the amount of rental property on the market. Currently things are fairly good for tennants, in terms of choice and low-ish rents.

Glad petrol isn't going up any extra. I'm being a bit selfish with this one to be honest, although I mainly use my car to visit my family or help friends out.

"I also do not buy the argument at all that our troops should not have gone to the Bogside. They were British troops in Britain. They could go wherever they damned well pleased." Perhaps we should have troops in Coggeshall? Thought not!!

This won't be a popular comment, but the simple fact is that if we introduced euthanasia, we wouldn't need so many carers (or indeed so much NHS spending) I'm going to get pilloried for this I know. The truth hurts.

I wonder what age Nick Silver intends to retire at!?

Labour look well placed to take advantage of any disatisfaction with the coalition. Of course it's very, very early days yet.

Perhaps we should concentrate on fighting poverty instead of making stuff cheap for the poor? Just a thought.

Let us be grateful BP isn't still owned by the government......