Andrew Marr is paid £600k to spout his pseudo-communist nonsense on the BBC

[longfingernails]

Sorry I've been away for so long, but we had a family illness... thankfully all is OK now.

Anyway, I was outraged to learn that Andrew Marr is paid such massive sums of our money to read out Guardian editorials on the BBC - and we are not able to do anything about it. A fair salary for his job would be more like £60k.

If he wants to earn more, he could go and work for a private broadcaster.

All BBC salaries should be disclosed, in full, as soon as possible. Then, all BBC salaries should be capped at a maximum of £100k.

I do hope no-one missed me too much .

extraordinary rendition?

Claig. As I say

What a very strange turn this thread has taken.....

Claig, I didn't know that about Darren Gough.

Heck, even I might vote Tory if he did stand

yes, Bucharest, Gough is a nice guy, genuine

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/david-cameron/8315165/Darren-Gough-asked-by-David-Cameron-to-stand-as-MP.html

Cameron phoned him personally and he put the phone down on Cameron, because he thought it was a stunt.

Yes, he is very genuine.

As we've said on other threads, (most notably about the Wid (IIRC) I'm quite prepared to admire politicians for their integrity even if their party is not my own.

Yes, Anne Widdecombe was great, because her integrity shone through. She was against fox hunting, even though that was unpopular with many Conservatives. I also like Prescott, because I think he is for real, which is why they keep trying to smear him.

who wants a cricketer as an mp? next they'll be inviting pop singers and WAGs to stand.

or have they already? actually, second thoughts, they can't be any worse than anne widdecombe.

Claig. Just googled Darren Gough, I now know who he is. Yes a nice guy, unlikely to stand for the Tory party, as he appears to genuine.
If someone like him did stand, might vote Tory myself! Not enough genuine 'normal' people in politics.' Thanks for the link.

complimentary

Claig. I'm going out! See you later!

See you later. Cheers.

Georgeorwell - you seem to be taking things rather too seriously on here. I've seen you liken complimentary and claig to the dogs out of the omen, even though they both welcomed you to MN - and you seen obsessed with them 'getting the upper hand' - the upper hand on what? - who gets to kill a thread? This is an Internet chat forum not the corridors of Whitehall - slow down, you might enjoy it more.

carmina at times this seems just like the corridors of whitehall. backbiting, cliqueyness where certain posters are allowed to be rude just coz they've been on here longer. if the level of debate is to be basically emoticon land then don't think it's worth my while. this is a politics section - not fluffyland and politics is serious when it impacts families etc. there's other threads for that.

i'm not at all over serious but when my hilarious stabs at humour ("wasn't driven out of england but flown out") get willfully misinterpreted on there's summat else going on here.

and the only attempts at humour so far i've seen from the terrible 2 is likening me to an animnal that strolls round a field. how droll. anyway i've had my suspicion confirmed that u can't engsge successfully with swivel eyed ukipper types! ciao 4 now.

Georgeorwell; I'd like you to stay - I lurk' ( and occassionally post) on this section ( 95% of MN is of little interest to me ) and although politically I'm not on your side, I like your style. I don't think this particular section has any cliques tbh - but if you sense that, rise above it...

( and agree - some of the 'humour' on here leaves a lot to be desired )

okeydoke carmina...cliques wise tho it is very curious that complimentary and claig seem to pop up together and where one goes the other will follow.

if claig makes hackneyed claims re. neocons deriving from trotskyism then he can be pulled up on it. if he states "everyone knows that" when, in fact, it's a theory borne of bias well, he's gonna haveto accept conflicting theories (or even facts) without accepting t'other un's ill mannered protection.

stymies debate and drives intelligent debate away from here.

i can handle it but others could be dissuaded from sticking their oar in.

I don't think I've ever seen claig and complimentary together.....(and I've seen claig a lot )

I suppose it's just that posters with similar interests might find similar threads interesting....no?

georgeorwell, I'm a she. Carry on sticking your oar in, you've been doing well up to now. Are you a bloke? You seem like a very aggressive and nasty bloke, a bit like that bloke, Carlos the Jackass.

Here is an article about the Trotskyist, Hitchens. Johann Hari interviewed him and wrote this

'As Hitchens told Johann Hari in the same interview where he said ?I don?t regret anything,? he admires Paul Wolfowitz, whom he described as a ?real bleeding heart.? According to Hari, Hitchens sees neoconservatism as a ?distinctively new strain of thought, preached by ex-leftists, who believed in using US power to spread democracy.? Hari also wrote that Hitchens believes that if neoconservatism ?can become dominant within the Republican Party, it can turn US power into a revolutionary force.?

Maybe you're right, maybe necons are in fact conservatives and not "ex-leftists". I tend to believe Christopher Hitchens, he knows more about politics than me.

sorry, article is

The Purest Neocon - Christopher Hitchens, unreconstructed Bolshevik

whatever hitch is not that bothered to be honest and claig u calling me nasty is exactly the silliness i referred to. you get suddenly and overly personal and make suppositions such as me being a prodi supporter when ur selectively googled arguments are put in doubt.

i've never called ur views claptrap or garbage but that's cos i'm inherently more democratic than u. and would never indirectly label u as a terrorist.

adios from carlos.

What's wrong in being a Prodi supporter? (Prodi, come back emoticon)

georgeorwell, I am all for democracy and civil liberties, that is why I am a conservative and not a Bolshevik. I don't believe in the things that Hitchens believes in, neoconservativism, pre-emptive strikes, humanitarian wars and revolution. I want to hear your views, because I don't think that everything on the left is wrong, I think lots of it is right. Arthur Scargill is against the EU and big business which it serves, and so are complimentary and I.

I apologise for saying that you should read less "communist claptrap and Gramsci garbage", it was meant to be a humourous form of alliteration. But I now realise that you these things rankle you. I will try to avoid jokes like that when referring to you.

I don't mind if you call my views claptrap or garbage, because I feel confident that they aren't. I am sure that complimentary doesn't mind being called a swivel-eyed ukipper either. She must have heard it all before from leftists who want to stifle free thought.

Complimentary and I are all for cricketers beoming MPs and wags and anyone other normal people. We have seen the elitists that you admire, the professional thinktank crowd, who flip homes as if it were Shrove Tuesday. We are not snobs, we believe in the people, we believe in the working class, we are conservative minded. We trust the people and want them to have a voice. We are like George Orwell, we believe that "hope lies with the proles" and not the progressives, like Christopher Hitchens.

claig nowhere in that tiny bit extracted from i'view does hitchens refer to himself as being neocon OR a trotskyist. as the great man (trotsky that is - not hitch who, btw, is terminaly ill so leave him alone now) himself said "revolution's are always verbose" and this one with u lot is proving to be particularly that so i'm off to do real stuff.

"england is the last ward of the european madhouse and it will prove to be the ward for the most violent cases."

Leon Trotsky. (he musta known complimentary)
p.s that's humour...not quite on the same level as likening fellow MNers to dickheads and cows but - hey - we can't all be so erudite, can we?