What 5Lab said, sounds very much like the Dual Mass Flywheel. Next thing will probably be the clutch slipping. More of a known problem on every diesel they've ever been fitted to than just Mondeos (and that's most "modern" diesels).

My advice is to sell it ASAP as it's a very costly job to replace.

A Chinese mate once made a similar comment on facebook about a firm that had ripped him off.

It was rather disheartening to explain to a Chinese national that you can't say certain things in the UK, otherwise there's a likelihood of men with guns coming for you in the middle of the night.

Yep.

Decathlon do cheap road bikes, but I suspect that you can get away with (ie, the regulations allow) a time trial / triathlon style bike for a duathlon, so maybe a second hand Planet X?

I didn't realise you could be credited more than you paid, to be fair.

However, you can't deny that tax credits have caused huge amounts of misery for some by virtue of their complexity, generally the poorest who struggled to understand the paperwork, and those who were overpaid and had to repay from an already meagre income.

We went last year, took a tent and just drove around looking for campsites. No trouble getting a pitch, and this was August.

It's not super cheap (you could do all inc. in the Canaries for less I reckon), but you are actually in a nice place, eating nice food and drinking nice wine, rather than watching the X-factor on plastic patio furniture.

Found food to be very good, even in the cheaper restaurants we went to.

I'm sorry TJ, but this is ridiculous. I post something and you scream for proof. Yourself or someone agreeing with you posts a load of stuff that isn't even logical and that's fine.

As for the CSJ, as far as I'm aware that's the research the Tory policies are based on (which is what you asked).

Mabye try a Wattbike at the gym? They give a 360 degree chart showing power through the pedals for each foot, which will let you know if one side of your body is much weaker than the other.

I don't go around repeatedly stating that we have the highest deficit in Europe. I said we're up there, and that it depends on how you measure it (Debt as a % of GDP, Deficit as a % of GDP, simple total value of Deficit or Debt). The Guardian reckons we'll have a deficit worth 12% of GDP, the worst in the EU this year.

Japan's economy is in a horrific state, and has been for 10 years. Has that passed you by?

As for the CSJ stuff, I'm not going to go throught it and do a critical analysis. It's clearly not an academic article with research methods etc. but I don't believe it is disingenuous, as you do.

Buy one from ebay / a scrappy?

We know you are right wing idealogue who has swallowed the neocon propaganda and lies wholesale.

I was always under the impression that Neocons were generally in favour of starting wars, restricting civil liberties and keeping people in their place.

Not stuff that I'm generally into I'm afraid. Has it occured to you that I have a few thoughts of my own rather than buying into other people's narratives?

Hang on, these goalposts seem to be mounted on wheels.

Almost nothing in economics has been proven empirically. I'm sorry. That's why they call it the dismal science. There have been empirical studies, and they've been broadly supportive of the idea from what I know.

Right so you are not against the rich paying a lower percentage of their tax than the poor and the you give a flat rate tax.

I would be really grateful if you could finish words. I can't make much sense of this.

What I said was that I would like to see the rich pay rather more tax than the poor as a percentage of their income.

I think you will always find that the poor spend a higher proportion of their income on the fixed expenditures required to maintain life. The only situation I can imagine where they wouldn't would be is if we were to provide everyone with free housing and heat, and food stamps.

I think there should be an upper threshold as well above which we tax much higher and keep going as there is only so much monety a person can spend /need. How many homes/cars/yachts/planes etc do these people need?

That simply wouldn't work. As I've pointed out, once tax rates become punitive, it becomes very desirable to avoid paying tax. So these people find ways around it.

The only way to force high earners to pay tax is to borrow a method that the Russians used for the likes of Tupolev – imprison them and force them to work. Otherwise, they will always find a way, even if we have a hundred percent watertight tax code, they can always leave.

Indepdendence of the BoE for interest rates was a fantastic move. FOI is a fantastic idea, shame they obstruct it whenever they can. CTFs are a good idea too, as are free museums.

Overall, however, I really don't think they've done anything like what they could have done to help people at the bottom end of society, particularly not considering that we've had strong economic growth for much of their tenure, and they've had big majorities.

I see this asserted constantly that if we increase tax we get less money. Now this argument is only ever used by those who earn the most and need the money the least the very rich.

It's based on the Laffer curve, which is fairly well known idea. It wouldn't really help your average left of centre party to refer to this idea as it rather damages several ideas which are central to their policies.

You cannot really be comfortable with a person of that wealth paying a lower % of his earnings in tax as aminimum wage single mother cleaner working 50 hours a week can you?

No, I'm not. Neither are the Tories or the Lib Dems (reduce marginal rates of tax for low earners and the £10k income tax threshold respectively as manifesto pledges).

I'd personally like to see a move towards flat tax – set a high income tax threshold, perhaps £10 to £15k, and then tax above that at relatively low rates – perhaps a top band of 40%. Now, the last time this idea was around, it was jumped on by the left as tax cut for the rich, ignoring that it also considerably cuts tax for the poorest in society. And also ignoring the fact that we are currently specatularly ineffective in collecting tax from the very rich – they simply do not pay the headline rates of income tax.

The key advantage with flat tax systems is that they're simple. You provide far fewer allowances, write offs and so on. As a result, you have something of a win win situation – because the tax is simple, it is easy and cheap to collect and difficult to avoid, which is good for the government. From the perspective of the taxpayer, it is far easier to calculate payments, and the wealthy can stop paying their tax advisor fees.

For the lefties present, I do believe that the wealthy should pay higher rates of tax, but I don't believe that punitive rates of tax are effective. A middle ground where the rich pay more tax than the rest of us, but not so much that it's worth their while actively avoiding it would result in ultimately, a larger total tax take.

Banging on about comps being perfectly good for everyone else and then sending her kids to private school. Much like most of the left wing establishment in this country.

I'm not saying all right wing people are loathsome BTW, but I just can't think of anyone who I consider to be really horrible who isn't right wing.

Toynbee makes my teeth itch. Huge hypocrite.

The old dye works in Ambergate? Could go either way – light industrial if the site is contaminated / council want industry, housing perhaps if not.

I've seen a lot of bike shops doing test rides for £40-£50 hire charges, with a full refund for test rides if you buy a bike from them.

roper – you cannot compare the unemployment count now with the 90s – too many changes in the way it is counted but figures now are about 1.5 – 2 x what they would have been then – so 2.5 million unemployed now is about he same as 3.5 – 5 million unemployed then

Let's see your references TJ, not just these ridiculous assertions. In correct Harvard format please.

Let s see th links to these papers then- come on Tron – put up or shut up

Right TJ, here's how you do it. Go to google.com, search for the Centre for Social Justice, and navigate to their papers on marriage. If you think I'm going to waste my time looking up academic papers and the likes for you, you're wrong.

A significant attempt to clamp down on tax avoidance will have huge benefits – this thing about the rich relocationg is a myth – you might loose the odd Ecclestone but how can a london libel lawyer earning half a million a year move abroad?

As I'm sure you know, libel lawyers are a very special case, being as we're practically the world capital for libel cases, so I suspect they'd stay put.

How about the CEO of a company that does most of its business in the UK?

Philip Green seems to manage it pretty well.

On the other hand, the financial sector has a choice of plenty of other locations to choose from, and contributes a large chunk of GDP.

Seriously where is the evidence for that?

It's in the papers on marriage on the CSJ website. Couples recieve considerably less than singles, so there's a huge incentive to not live together, or to commit benefit fraud.

Or more taxes at the top end of the income scale, the proposed tax on financial transactions, taxing bonuses, clamping down on tax avoidance and so on.

TJ, get this – the rich are generally pretty bloody canny at getting and holding onto money. Astonishing. Start taxing them through the hoop and they'll find a way of not paying, even if that means relocating entire businesses. The only way to make money out of the rich is to tax them at a vaguely sane rate, in the knowledge that you'll get tax out of them for year after year, not just a big payout this year.

You could simply link to the papers. But you won't 'cos you can't 'cos they don't exist

And you would simply pipe up with another stalling tactic, perhaps "I don't have access to academic journals, could you upload the PDFs somewhere for my perusal?". I'd be here for the rest of time.

As for debt:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/may/05/uk-budget-deficit-worse-than-greece
From that well known reactionary right wing Murdoch owned rag, the Guardian…

A penny on income tax and a penny on NI, assuming that increasing tax is 100% efficient (ie, people don't avoid the tax, work less etc.).

Oh yeah. I'm certainly looking forward to CGT of 40%. That's a real nice 22% tax break.

Oh no, hang on, it's a tax increase of over 100%. I'm almost glad my shares have made FA now…

lets see them then. Real research that shows marriage gives the best outcomes. Not policy paper that just make statements.

Don't be ridiculous. What you're effectively asking me to do is go and spend a day reading papers, and condense that into a couple of sentences for you.

On the other hand, the CSJ have been and done a load of research, and this is their end result. If you think they're lying, making it up, or whatever, then you think that. However, I would like to point out that Labour have a spectacular record on evidence based policy – they talk about it, commission the research, and then disregard it. As an example, see the ODPM's report on Surestart and Gordon Brown's constant banging on about what a glorious success it's been.

I was also wondering, isn't this going to affect, say – a married woman who's husband has been cheating on her then buggers off with another woman. Really seems fair to then hit her with extra taxes doesn't it? It's nonsense.

It's more a case that low income couples are penalised for staying together, and are driven apart by the tax and benefits system. You are effectively removing a penalty on couples, not penalising single parents.

Just get a Freeview PVR. We get enough telly to ensure that there's always something that we want to watch.

My experience of Sky at friend's houses is that they get a lot more telly, but it's almost all dross – low production value documentaries.

IDS's Centre for Social Justice has published quite a few papers on the subject. Sorry to burst your bubble.

The BoE would almost certainly try to defend the pound, as a very weak pound would directly impact on economic stability. The inflation target would go out of the window, as inflation is not being driven by an overheated internal market, so the interest rates lose the ability to affect it.

The Tories have done a lot of research on this, and their conclusion is that marriage tends to result in better outcomes for the children than in non-married couples.

Ultimately, it's an economic policy – better outcomes for children = more productive workers = increase in aggregate supply. No different to banging on about eduction and training.

I bet interest rates and unemployment are significantly up in 3 months time.

Interest rates are a one way bet!

Still, the major driver I can see for an increase in interest rates (given that demand pull inflation is unlikely) is to defend the £ on the international markets.

The big reason I can see that would cause a fall in the £ would be too few cuts, following the policies of the Labour party. Perfectly illustrated by the way the £ and FTSE jumped in perfect time with the news that bags were seen in the back of a car at Number 10…

That post could only have been improved if you'd called him a trot.

That only holds up if you believe that tax increases don't affect economic growth. If you look at debt in terms of debt / GDP or deficit / GDP, we're up there with the shakiest economies in Europe – we don't always come out bottom of the list, but we're certainly not in rude health.

absolutly no need for cuts at all

I want some of whatever you're drinking. Every serious party has recognised the need for cuts. We've got the highest deficit in Europe, and we're spending £42 billion a year on servicing the interest on our debts. That's as much as we spend on schools.

It's pretty obvious that the ratings agencies have been considering downgrading our AAA status.

If we lose AAA rating, there can only be one result. We pay more interest.

We simply cannot afford to do that, because there's no way of finding the extra money, without cutting even harder or taxing the economy to a halt.

As soon as I heard it, my immediate reaction was that it was lift of Kennedy saying "Ask not what your country can do for you" etc.

I don't see what's so offensive about it. It's easily something Gordon Brown or Tony Blair could have said, and I expect they've made very similar pronouncements in the past.

Christ, it's even something your full on Marxist might say whilst banging on about solidarity.

Nope. Was a labour supporter, but I was completely appalled by the fact that the likes of Jack Straw were more authoritarian and reactionary than Howard. And by sofa government, Iraq, etc.

4 years by the sound of the fixed term election stuff…

My on-one arrived in less than a week.

That said, they're only a low rent direct sales outfit, so you can't expect much 😆

i certainly get the impression that the racist thugs of the 80s are no longer dominant in the force

I'm of the impression that proper, full blown racists are simply far, far less common than they were 10 or 15 years ago, let along 25 years ago. Near enough everybody nowadays knows a few people of a different ethnicity, which makes being racist rather difficult.