Hope you succeed. I have never been tempted to smoke, but my wife smoked up until 6 years ago, she tried many times for 'you' or 'the kids', it wasn't unit she decided it was for 'her' she managed it. Touch wood, she has been 'clean' since.

One thing that regularly makes me smile is when she gets a whiff of a smoker and asks 'did I really smell like that' to which I reply 'worse'

Quote ="EHW"I imagine that a few in the Shadow Cabinet are feeling pleased at their tax cut tonight too. order-order.com/2010/10/11/shado ... lionaires/ "Millionaire Ed Miliband inherited a share of a multi-million pound property from his Marxist father, some nifty footwork by him and his brother David allowed them to avoid paying six-figure inheritance taxes. Combining marital assets and his inheritance from his father Ralph, Ed himself is comfortably a millionaire."'" I for one don't care if they are all millionaires, I just want them to pay up without whinging.

Quote ="EHW"I imagine that a few in the Shadow Cabinet are feeling pleased at their tax cut tonight too. order-order.com/2010/10/11/shado ... lionaires/ "Millionaire Ed Miliband inherited a share of a multi-million pound property from his Marxist father, some nifty footwork by him and his brother David allowed them to avoid paying six-figure inheritance taxes. Combining marital assets and his inheritance from his father Ralph, Ed himself is comfortably a millionaire."'" I for one don't care if they are all millionaires, I just want them to pay up without whinging.

Cheers mate!

I had given up previously, for over four years, without problem. But then I had a legacy - totally unexpected - that shifted us out of perpetual working poverty. And I started having nightmares about it all being gone and us being back where we'd started. And that's when is started smoking again.

Let's be honest, regardless of the content of the Budget, there would always have been a 25 page thread on here with the majority of posters whining about it and how the Conservatives are screwing everyone over. somehow.

Cheers mate - seriously appreciated.

I've always sworn I would never do the convert routine and I intend to maintain that.

And to be equally fair, they'd be right.

Of course.

I don't know how I'm going to cope over the next year after all these disgraceful decisions that that nasty cretin Osbourne has made. He is bringing the country to its knees. ITS KNEES! The Labour chappy would have done a far better job.

Why not? We used to get them whenever Labour were in charge, and you can't really blame the opposition for this one!

Well indeed.

You wont have to worry mate. You live in the South!

There is a danger if they did that people would have the information at their finger tips to be able to dismiss the kind of arguments used to justify cutbacks.

For example if this had been available when the student loan controversy was raging and pea-brain Willets was twittering on about how much Postmen pay towards university education and how wrong it was they did, they would have been able to find out it was about £40 or less [ua year[/u of their total tax paid that went that way.

Thought the budget was pretty much spot on. Good moves to cut the top tax rate and excellent move to cut corp tax to encourage growth. Britain is open for business again.

So - either clueless, utterly selfish or your balls haven't dropped yet.

Since the bast.. sorry, the government are so keen on localism with the regional pay deals then there should be a regional pension age taking into account regional life expectancy.

In the North East (2010-male) it's 77.2 years
In the South East (2010-male) it's 79.7 years

So if the retirement age is 67 in the South East it should be 65 in the North East. The Southerners are getting 2 extra years pension payments.

I vote for all three.

I don't find it a laughing matter that they have taken away my only income and made me feel like a worthless, lazy scrounger. My mortgage company finds it even less so.

Seems like the Tory media does not like what Osbourne has put on the table, maybe most of their readers helped put them in power with the prompting of the editors.

If the government is able to tell us exactly where our taxes are going (and I must admit, I'd be quite interested to see how much is being spent on feckless parasites like that Windsor family in London), and if the top rate of taxes is being cut to help promote growth, why not merge these together? Keep the 50% rate but tell those people paying it that the money raised will go towards projects that will help promote the growth they claim they need the tax cuts for? Infrastructure, for example. Or education. We have business leaders bleating about the UK not having enough engineers or scientists, so tell them the money raised from the 50% rate will go towards funding education in these areas. Surely, then, those 'wealth creators' currently avoiding paying the 50% rate won't be able to get their wallets out quickly enough. If they really [iare[/i interested in promoting the UK, that is.

While they're at it, they can cut health and safety because, although the government has admitted that any problems are because of misinterpretation, they have still decided to cut it because ... err ...

And only allowing unfair dismissal tribunals after two years (because obviously it only ever happens to someone who has been employed for at least two years) is also going to just shoot the economy forward.

And there will be people who applaud this sort of thing unthinkingly and actually believe it'll make some massive difference to the economy.

"Granny Tax" is apparently trending on Twitter. Huge own goal by the boy Gideon, made worse by trying to pretend it was just a 'simplification' intended to help poor old dears too daft to fill in forms.



The Tory Tabloids are up in arms because it affects a large chunk of their readership.

The economy won't start to recover fully until people have confidence to start spending money again. Businesses are failing and jobs going because of the uncertainty that still exists (consumers are not buying luxuries, and are cutting back on the less essential stuff). Nothing the coalition has done has kick started confidence enough.

But Gideon had a chance to give us all a small boost in that confidence, yet is still using the "inherited mess" mantra to keep things quiet. We get it, mate, but you're not helping, by not holding the price of petrol down (for example) to keep the costs of things like food stable, to give consumers more cash in their pocket, that they can then spend on goods, all of which keep the economy circulating and generates revenue for the exchequer. An increase in the tax allowance is fine, but when you're taking that back in other increases it sort of negates the good news.

The reduction in the 50p tax is a sop to the richest, who will all, of course, use that extra money to benefit the UK economy

He's also not let it run for long enough to get any meaningful data about the effectiveness of the initial change, so that was a complete waste of effort.

A classic "give with one hand, take away with the other" budget that has supporters creaming themselves and leaves the rest of us wondering about missed chances.

And that's without mentioning the raid on pensioners that HMRC, according to the BBC website, have admitted "will lead to 4.4m pensioners being an average £83 a year worse off than they would have been".

"But Chancellor George Osborne told the BBC no pensioner would be worse off in cash terms". Try real terms George. Inflation+below inflation pension rises+cut in pension tax allowances= (potentially) millions being unable to look after themselves. Giving pensioners an extra £5 is lovely, but not if you take £6 off them.

Millionaires will of course be unaffected.

So, if the solution to stopping the rich avoiding paying tax is to lower the rate of tax. When can we see this logic extended to other areas of societal behaviour and the tories decriminalising theft and drug taking?

Not just the pensioners either. The general public fuelled by certain media were "outraged" that people on benefits were to be given a 5% increase this year. I got my annual ESA figures last week for the year coming. My ESA is broken down into different parts. The main part I have got my 5% increase, I thank you George. Then I looked down the list, I have been given [idecreases[/i at random that, in total adds upto 5%. So far from getting a 5% increase which George wants you to think I've got and get as mad as hell because [iyou[/i didn't get a 5% pay increase in your pay packet this year, my benefit for this years stays the same. From reading comments on the internet this morning it seems its happening to other kinds of benefit claimants too. Sneaky, Gideon, very sneaky.

If anyone still doubted what/who this lot care about ...