The next PM...

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

See my post:

"And on to the parents and Rishi  so through the 90s, apparently on just a NHS GP's salary and part time locum pharmacist money they were funding three kids through private school"

Ashcroft is clear that through the mid 90s Sunak's mother was only working part time as a locum pharmacist, as it offered flexibility and also allowed her to retain her credentials as a pharmacist.
I can be 100% confident that the pharmacy business did not contribute to bringing in income to support Rishi through Winchester (which he left in 1998), nor through Oxford (he graduated in 2001) or toward the purchased of the Chelsea flat the year he graduated.

How can I be so confident? Because there wasn't a pharmacy business to be doing either well or badly. Sunak Pharmacy (later called Bassett Pharmacy) wasn't in existence until 2003 - 18th March 2003 to be precise. Companies House records are your friend when you want evidence rather than hand waving assertion.

Ok so no Ltd in existence. Companies House records tell you when a Ltd company came into existence and whether Usha Sunak was a director or secretary or shareholder of any Ltd companies.

Companies House does not tell you if Usha Sunak had a sole trader or partnership business and what she earned as a locum pharmacist and if she had any other income source and what she spent her income on. I suggest you come back with her tax returns and bank statements for the mid-1990s and then we can see what her income and outgoings were.

[Udayana]

This crystallises the whole thing for me. I don't care how rich the next PM is or how rich his wife is  - or her husband. I don't care if they were brought up in poverty or not or if their grandparents were. All of that has nothing whatsoever to do with whether they will make a good leader for this country.

Quite right .. entirely agree

What matters is that all the candidates are scrabbling to see see who can be the most reckless with our futures just so they can say they were PM for a bit. We do not need tax cuts. In fact we need tax increases, because, if nothing else, we have to pay for the pandemic. I want the whole lot of them to just fuck off and die so we can get a leader who is prepared to do the right things to save this country.

Truss is being put in place by the same people that brought us brexit and Johnson. They can come up with popular policies to get votes, but behind the scenes are only concerned with maintaining their positions as facilitators to the worlds corrupt elites. The actual systems we depend on will just fall further into decay until we join Russia and the rest of the "developing" world. 

Sunak probably knows how to keep our economy working longer whilst keeping the backers happy but, even if eventually chosen, will have been so compromised his govt will be completely ineffective.

Labour really need to get their act together - both to get into power at next election and as to how they are going to fix things - from a worse state than they are in now. Not really seen much sign of either so far.

The Blair/Brown govt did manage to keep a grip on the economy but the behind the scenes powers, including the money launderers, oligarchs, dictators etc, were left at liberty to take advantage of our banking and financial systems - ultimately contributing to the global problems that brought them down and are buffeting us now.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

See my post:

"And on to the parents and Rishi  so through the 90s, apparently on just a NHS GP's salary and part time locum pharmacist money they were funding three kids through private school"

Glad you went back and corrected your mistake about the Sunak family income only consisting of a GP salary.

There are lots of ways to get money apart from a salary, such as loans, overdrafts, return on investments, liquidating assets. Do you have any evidence to show the equity on the house did not partly fund the school fees?

What happened to all your other hand-waving assertions about the grandmother being portrayed as penniless, or the signed birthday card (apparently it was a birthday card not a football jersey) by the Southampton team costing a lot of money or requiring wealthy connections? Did you go find any evidence to support those assertions?

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Suspect their suggestion of fees is an underestimate, given that fees are currently £46k (in today's money).

Yes I saw that too and this is where the new revelation that Sunak's parents had enough case sloshing around to be able to give Rishi an 'interest free loan' of £110k (more than the entire value of an average house in 2001) to allow him to buy a flat in Chelsea worth more then twice the value of an average home at the age of 21, fresh out of university.

Now I'm not denying this to be an extremely smart move from a financial perspective. But you can only do this sort of thing for your kids if you have serious amounts of disposable money around.

The channel 4 piece also has a little more of the cringeworthy interview when he was much younger when he made the comment a bout not knowing any working class people. He also has an astonishingly patronising bit where he talks about going into state schools and talking to kids about them being able to have the same aspirations as him. He says they can go to Oxford to and then indicates that they were amazed when he told them he went to Winchester College. The astonishingly lack of self-reflection is remarkable. The reason he could drift into Oxford was because he went to Winchester College and that is way, way beyond the means of the vast majority of people regardless of their abilities or aspirations. He seems not to recognise that he was provided with privilege and opportunity on a plate. Sure he took it, but those opportunities simply don't exist to ordinary folk whose parents cannot rustle up tens of thousand of pounds every year in school fees (for each child). Of course VG will conclude that of course they can as long as they give up drinking - but she is talking complete non-sense.

As usual, you seem to be the one talking nonsense PD. Where did I claim people can afford school fees just by giving up drinking? Your poor comprehension skills letting you down yet again, which may explain your unevidenced and fanciful imaginings in relation to the Sunaks. Got any actual evidence to support your many assertions?

[SteveH]

What is fair or morally right is subjective

What is morally right is arguably objective, at least in broad outline, and I would so argue; and what is fair is definitely objective.

[Nearly Sane]

What is morally right is arguably objective, at least in broad outline, and I would so argue; and what is fair is definitely objective.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens%27s_razor

[SteveH]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens%27s_razor

I didn't present the evidence for my assertions, because it's completely off-topic, but I could so so in another thread, if you like.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

What is morally right is arguably objective, at least in broad outline, and I would so argue; and what is fair is definitely objective.

In terms of taxation and public spending? I don't see how you can argue or provide evidence of an objective morality or objective fairness. Morality and perceptions of fairness have an emotional component and people's emotions have a genetic component, which influences how they are predisposed to react.

“Emotions are not only about how feel about the world, but how our brains influence our perception of it. As our genes influence how we literally see the positive and negative aspects of our world more clearly, we may come to believe the world has more rewards or threats."
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201505/how-do-your-genes-influence-levels-emotional-sensitivity

For example, some people are predisposed to feel more discomfort/ alarm/ unsafe when contemplating change or uncertainty and prefer tradition and hierarchy and order and certainty, whereas others are predisposed to feeling suffocated by tradition, hierarchy and order and feel energised at the prospect of change or uncertainty. This then affects how they feel about issues such as taxation, inflation, spending, saving, wealth distribution, career choices, job security, education, wages, innovation, entrepreneurship, their appetite for risk, tax planning etc

When faced with the risk that a tax-planning scheme that seemingly complies with tax law but also allows tax savings that might in the future be challenged/ disallowed by HMRC, some people are willing to take the risk and utilise the scheme and see what happens and some people prefer certainty and decide not to use that tax-planning scheme. Knowing that there are possibilities of appeal and testing the law to ascertain what judges interpret as Parliament's intention when drafting the tax legislation, some people consider it is worth pursuing. Until HMRC challenge a scheme and it goes through the courts / tribunals it is not always clear whether Parliament intended the tax saving to be used or not - as there might be a commercial reason to allow tax savings in that particular way.

Some people are more focused on enterprise and economy and some people are more focused on giving all their money away to help others. The amount of compassion someone feels and their subsequent actions may be linked to their genes and how pre-disposed they are to feel fear or perceive a threat.

These polymorphisms interacted with perceived threat to predict engagement in volunteer work or charitable activities and commitment to civic duty. Specifically, greater perceived threat predicted engagement in fewer charitable activities for individuals with A/A and A/G genotypes of OXTR rs53576, but not for G/G individuals. Similarly, greater perceived threat predicted lower commitment to civic duty for individuals with one or two short alleles for AVPR1a rs1, but not for individuals with only long alleles. Oxytocin, vasopressin, and their receptor genes may significantly influence prosocial behavior and may lie at the core of the caregiving behavioral system. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22457427/

So how would you determine objectively the right level of threat perception?

ETA: I have now posted this on the thread Steve started about Objective Morality http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=19051.msg847784#top

[ProfessorDavey]

Glad you went back and corrected your mistake about the Sunak family income only consisting of a GP salary.

VG why did you doctor my post (reply 131) when you quoted it in reply 137.

Sadly for you posts are timestamped so your finger-prints are all over it.

My post (reply 131) has remained unaltered since 9:20 yesterday, clearly including the words "and part time locum pharmacist money".

Yet when you posted a reply at 10:51 yesterday you quoted my entire post, except you selectively removed "and part time locum pharmacist money", allowing you to try to claim that I said something I didn't.

Why on earth would you do that VG.

[ProfessorDavey]

Interesting further snippet on the Sunaks.

There is a book written back in 2002 (so well before there was any political scrutiny on Sunak), called Middle Classes: Their Rise and Sprawl. In the book the Sunak family are used briefly as an example of middle class professional asians who had relocated from East Africa (Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is also included - she would presumably have been far better know back then than the Sunak's) - there are brief interviews with both Rishi and his mother.

Point being that the book reveals that not just Rishi was at Winchester, but his brother too. Perhaps not unexpected - most parents will want to treat all their kids equally. But we now have two of the kids attending the uber-expensive Winchester College through the 90s (apparently funded by just an NHS GP salary and part time locum pharmacy money)! Wonder where the sister went?

Also interesting the quote from Rishi himself which is a far cry from his 'humble beginnings, importance of asian attitudes'. Rishi is clear that he has always considered his background as being first and foremost professional middle class, that he is in an elite position in society and dismisses the importance of his asian background. But hey, at that point he wasn't needing to carefully curate a background story narrative  for the purposes of a bid to be PM..

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

VG why did you doctor my post (reply 131) when you quoted it in reply 137.

Sadly for you posts are timestamped so your finger-prints are all over it.

My post (reply 131) has remained unaltered since 9:20 yesterday, clearly including the words "and part time locum pharmacist money".

Yet when you posted a reply at 10:51 yesterday you quoted my entire post, except you selectively removed "and part time locum pharmacist money", allowing you to try to claim that I said something I didn't.

Why on earth would you do that VG.

And here we have further evidence, not that we needed it, of your tendency to jump to unevidenced assumptions and conclusions. I have no idea how you claim to be a Professor if this is your level of investigation and attention to detail.

I did not doctor your post PD. My reply says Last Edit: July 22, 2022, 10:58:10 AM by Violent Gabriella to Quote from: ProfessorDavey on July 22, 2022, 08:27:01 AM

So what in fact happened was I quoted your post at 8.27am and you edited your post to correct your mistake - not sure when but it says Last Edit: July 22, 2022, 09:20:33 AM by ProfessorDavey - but it must have been AFTER I had quoted your post. I then edited some typos to my post with the last edit being at 10.58 am, without noticing that you had edited your original post, which I had quoted at 8:27 AM

Next time PD, why don't you do some basic checks before posting so you don't make yourself look so silly on here?

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Interesting further snippet on the Sunaks.

There is a book written back in 2002 (so well before there was any political scrutiny on Sunak), called Middle Classes: Their Rise and Sprawl. In the book the Sunak family are used briefly as an example of middle class professional asians who had relocated from East Africa (Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is also included - she would presumably have been far better know back then than the Sunak's) - there are brief interviews with both Rishi and his mother.

Point being that the book reveals that not just Rishi was at Winchester, but his brother too. Perhaps not unexpected - most parents will want to treat all their kids equally. But we now have two of the kids attending the uber-expensive Winchester College through the 90s (apparently funded by just an NHS GP salary and part time locum pharmacy money)! Wonder where the sister went?

Also interesting the quote from Rishi himself which is a far cry from his 'humble beginnings, importance of asian attitudes'. Rishi is clear that he has always considered his background as being first and foremost professional middle class, that he is in an elite position in society and dismisses the importance of his asian background. But hey, at that point he wasn't needing to carefully curate a background story narrative  for the purposes of a bid to be PM.

I already linked to that book on the Should he Stay or Should He Go thread http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=18934.525 in my reply #543.

Given his parents are professionals - a doctor and a pharmacist - this isn't much of a revelation. Yes they are professional middle class. Could you link to where he has tried to pretend his parents aren't professional middle-class?

My parents were professional middle class from the moment they arrived in the UK with barely any money in 1971 and lived in Brimingham - my dad was an engineer doing his MSc at Birmingham university and my mum was a doctor working at Birmingham hospital. Having no money did not stop them being professional middle class. They saved and bought a house in 1974 in London, when my grandparents, my brother and I came to the UK. I was therefore in an elite position in society compared to many others - my parents were home-owners and professional middle class.

When we moved to a 4 bed detached house in London and my brother and I went to private school in the 1980s, and we had 2 cars etc, etc, and when my mother started working part-time or doing locums in my teens and my parents bought my brother and I a flat in Kensington Olympia when I was 19, we were in an even more elite position in society. Not seeing the problem - my parents sacrificed and worked hard for what they acquired.  And they came here with barely any money and they / we were lucky enough to be in a privileged position. That's something to admire and celebrate right?

[ProfessorDavey]

I did not doctor your post PD. My reply says Last Edit: July 22, 2022, 10:58:10 AM by Violent Gabriella to Quote from: ProfessorDavey on July 22, 2022, 08:27:01 AM

You do realise that the 08:27:01 time is the time of the original posting. Regardless of how many edits someone makes that is the time that will appear if you quote that post in your reply.

So what in fact happened was I quoted your post at 8.27am and you edited your post to correct your mistake - not sure when but it says Last Edit: July 22, 2022, 09:20:33 AM by ProfessorDavey - but it must have been AFTER I had quoted your post. I then edited some typos to my post with the last edit being at 10.58 am, without noticing that you had edited your original post, which I had quoted at 8:27 AM

Your reply to me is time stamped 10:51 (and will be regardless of how many edits you later make). My last edit to the post you were replying to was 9:20 - an hour and a half before you posted your reply. When you posted your reply the quote you embedded in your reply clearly included "and part time locum pharmacist money" (indeed I suspect it always did - can't remember what edits I made - often just typos and auto-correct stuff that sometimes creeps in). When you replied at 10:51 suddenly the quote lacks those words. Only conclusion - you doctored my quote - just admit it rather than digging yourself further into a hole.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

You do realise that the 08:27:01 time is the time of the original posting. Regardless of how many edits someone makes that is the time that will appear if you quote that post in your reply.
Your reply to me is time stamped 10:51 (and will be regardless of how many edits you later make). My last edit to the post you were replying to was 9:20 - an hour and a half before you posted your reply. When you posted your reply the quote clearly included "and part time locum pharmacist money". When you replied at 10:51 suddenly the quote lacks those words. Only conclusion - you doctored by quote - just admit it rather than digging yourself further into a hole.

Nope - the time stamp of my post is the time I post and not the time I start quoting your post and typing my reply - so for example I pressed quote to this post around 12pm or a little before but it will be time-stamped for when I press "Post", which I will do at 12:05PM. So when I quoted your post and started replying to it, it was before you edited your post to include the part-time locum salary. Once again, I recommend you research things properly before you post.

[ProfessorDavey]

Nope - the time stamp of my post is the time I post and not the time I start quoting your post and typing my reply - so for example I pressed quote to this post around 12pm or a little before but it will be time-stamped for when I press "Post", which I will do at 12:05PM. So when I quoted your post and started replying to it, it was before you edited your post to include the part-time locum salary. Once again, I recommend you research things properly before you post.

So you sat on an unposted 'draft' post for over an hour and a half - hardly credible.

And even if that were true (which I don't believe) then surely the onus is entirely on you to ensure that you are quoting the actual words at the point you post, not words that might or might not have existed earlier.

Whatever excuses you try to posit the fact remains - when you posted your reply the quoted post (reply 131) clearly included the words - "and part time locum pharmacist money" - that is clear to see to anyone looking back at this thread.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

So you sat on an unposted 'draft' post for over an hour and a half - hardly credible.

Yes well we've already established that you decide what is credible based on guess-work, pre-conceived beliefs and prejudices rather than evidence. I sit on posts a lot - if I am working or get a phone call or have to do something else, I leave the draft without logging out of the forum as you can't save what you have already typed without posting it - unless you copy and paste it to a Word doc or something. It's easier just to leave it open and come back to it later when you have more time.

And even if that were true (which I don't believe)

Ok since no one has to take your beliefs seriously

then surely the onus is entirely on you to ensure that you are quoting the actual words at the point you post, not words that might or might not have existed earlier.

Not sure - other people on here seem to quote posts and then realise after they hit Post that the original post has been edited after they started typing their reply and before they pressed Post. I don't recall anyone else jumping to the erroneous conclusion like you just did that their post has been doctored. Must just be you being paranoid and jumping to conclusions based on partial information as usual.

The forum tells you if there have been replies posted since you started drafting your own reply, but the forum doesn't flag that a post you are quoting has been altered since you quoted it and started replying.

Whatever excuses you try to posit the fact remains - when you posted your reply the quoted post (reply 131) clearly included the words - "and part time locum pharmacist money" - that is clear to see to anyone looking back at this thread.

And whatever excuses you try to come up with, the fact remains you were wrong when you wrote "Only conclusion - you doctored my quote" - that is clear to see to anyone looking back at this thread.

I think I will post this at 12:26 even though I quoted your post earlier.

[SteveH]

Oh ffs, no-one else cares! Give it a rest, both of you!

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Oh ffs, no-one else cares! Give it a rest, both of you!

Sorry Steve - if PD due to his stupidity and lack of understanding of how the forum works writes "Only conclusion - you doctored my quote", not surprisingly I am not about to let that slide.

I suggest you go find another thread to read or another forum to go on if you're that bothered by our friendly banter on here.

[ProfessorDavey]

Oh ffs, no-one else cares! Give it a rest, both of you!

Morning Steve and apologies - it is certainly an unedifying sight that VG and I are going at each other.

But there are times when you cannot allow something which is wrong to stand. There are certain elements of message board etiquette that are really important and a MB will whither and die if they are routinely broken. One is that you don't deliberately misrepresent the views of others. Another that you do not misquote someone, particularly if by misquoting you use the words that a poster hadn't said in a post that you are replying to (at the point when you post your reply) to misrepresent their view. Sadly VG has done both, clearly her misquoting and misrepresentation of my views is the starting point of all this.

That VG misquoted me is there for all to see (reply 137 vs reply 131 - noting the times of posting) - that is beyond dispute. She has provided no evidence that my quote at one point did not contain the words she left out when quoting and her excuse that she regularly writes a post and sits on it for hours lacks credulity. Hence my claim of doctoring.

But for the sake of argument, let's assume that VG did leave a post for hours and that my original post didn't contain those words (there is no evidence for this), then the onus must remain on the poster to check whether the person they are replying to has amended their original post prior to them posting - that is basic thread etiquette and if you don't check and you post after a person has changed their original post then you are both misquoting that person and potentially misrepresenting their views.

I suspect that VG knows clearly that she was in the wrong as when I pulled her up on misquoting and misrepresentation she quietly edited reply 137 albeit fails to rectify the original misquote.

Now of course when someone amends their post after a reply there is no onus on the replier to make a change as their reply was to the post at the point they replied. Nor can posters be expected to check when both people are replying/editing at about the same time. But this wasn't the case here - my post has been unedited since 9:20 on Friday - VG replied and misquoted it over one and a half hours later.

Of course the appropriate response from VG would have been to accept her error, 'my bad' apologise, correct the misquote and we'd all have moved on. But that isn't really VGs style is it. She tends to double down, note she didn't appear to understand how the timing of quotes works - always the time of the original post, regardless of any edits that might have happened in the interim time prior to posting) and isn't shy of throwing out personal insults.

I doubt I will get an apology from VG for the misquoting and misrepresentation of my views which kicked this whole spat off, so I'm going to save my breath from here on in - this is my last word on the matter to either you or VG.

[Aruntraveller]

Stewart Lee on coruscating form here:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/24/tory-death-priests-have-our-lives-in-their-hands?

[ProfessorDavey]

Stewart Lee on coruscating form here:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/24/tory-death-priests-have-our-lives-in-their-hands?

Sadly it seems to be a matter of faith amongst sufficient numbers of the tory membership to swing a vote that all this climate stuff is non-sense. It seems strange that a Conservative party seems to pay limited heed to conserving the planet.

I suspect there are a few reasons - firstly a reactive trait that we don't like change and change will, of course be necessary to deal with climate change. Also I suspect a defensiveness, on the basis that tory members are overwhelmingly old and what previous generations did (and did not do) is often considered key to the state we are now. Finally I think this is another aspect of the whole anti-woke, culture wars non-sense, in which false dichotemies are fermented to create division. Now in many cases this culture war non-sense simply doesn't impact on people's lives (how many people's number one issue is that they are concerned that the statue of the 11th Earl of Marr in Beverley town square is in danger, or that society is going to hell in a hand-card because we encourage places to install gender neutral toilets), but climate change does affect people. So we have a weird dichotomy amongst the tories - banging on ad nausiem about issues that the vast, vast majority of the county simply doesn't see as important (they are worried about the cost of living crisis, climate change, why it is impossible to get a GP appointment, not whether footballer choose to take the knee before a game), while ignoring arguably the most important issue facing the country - certainly the most important long-term issue.

[Aruntraveller]

It seems strange that a Conservative party seems to pay limited heed to conserving the planet.

Ah well. If you had a wise mother like mine you would have been told at an early age that the only thing the conservatives are interested in conserving is privilege.

While rambling about on the internet I also found this which I wasn't aware of (I probably should have been, but things pass me by sometimes):

As a political term, Tory was an insult (derived from the Middle Irish word tóraidhe, modern Irish tóraí, meaning "outlaw", "robber", from the Irish word tóir, meaning "pursuit" since outlaws were "pursued men") that entered English politics during the Exclusion Bill crisis of 1678–1681.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Morning Steve and apologies - it is certainly an unedifying sight that VG and I are going at each other.

But there are times when you cannot allow something which is wrong to stand. There are certain elements of message board etiquette that are really important and a MB will whither and die if they are routinely broken. One is that you don't deliberately misrepresent the views of others. Another that you do not misquote someone, particularly if by misquoting you use the words that a poster hadn't said in a post that you are replying to (at the point when you post your reply) to misrepresent their view. Sadly VG has done both, clearly her misquoting and misrepresentation of my views is the starting point of all this.

That VG misquoted me is there for all to see (reply 137 vs reply 131 - noting the times of posting) - that is beyond dispute. She has provided no evidence that my quote at one point did not contain the words she left out when quoting and her excuse that she regularly writes a post and sits on it for hours lacks credulity. Hence my claim of doctoring.

But for the sake of argument, let's assume that VG did leave a post for hours and that my original post didn't contain those words (there is no evidence for this), then the onus must remain on the poster to check whether the person they are replying to has amended their original post prior to them posting - that is basic thread etiquette and if you don't check and you post after a person has changed their original post then you are both misquoting that person and potentially misrepresenting their views.

I suspect that VG knows clearly that she was in the wrong as when I pulled her up on misquoting and misrepresentation she quietly edited reply 137 albeit fails to rectify the original misquote.

Now of course when someone amends their post after a reply there is no onus on the replier to make a change as their reply was to the post at the point they replied. Nor can posters be expected to check when both people are replying/editing at about the same time. But this wasn't the case here - my post has been unedited since 9:20 on Friday - VG replied and misquoted it over one and a half hours later.

Of course the appropriate response from VG would have been to accept her error, 'my bad' apologise, correct the misquote and we'd all have moved on. But that isn't really VGs style is it. She tends to double down, note she didn't appear to understand how the timing of quotes works - always the time of the original post, regardless of any edits that might have happened in the interim time prior to posting) and isn't shy of throwing out personal insults.

I doubt I will get an apology from VG for the misquoting and misrepresentation of my views which kicked this whole spat off, so I'm going to save my breath from here on in - this is my last word on the matter to either you or VG.

As I have already pointed out, once you quote a post, there is no automatic mechanism to be alerted to any edits a poster makes to the post you are quoting after they have posted it. How do you propose posters check if the post they have spent time typing a reply to has been edited since they quoted it? I don't have time to keep flipping back and forth and comparing each word and line to check before pressing "post" after drafting my reply. If you have a useful suggestion let's have it.

Normal forum etiquette is that if you edit your post after you have posted it to add more information rather than just correcting typos, you flag your edit by stating "ETA" or "edited" and then stating the edit. That way, when I preview my post I can scroll down to your post to see if there were any edits I need to consider.  In this case you edited your post after you posted it to add the part-time pharmacy salary but did not flag your edit. When you replied to say you had mentioned the pharmacy salary I acknowledged your edit by saying I was glad you had corrected your original mistake in leaving it out in your original post before you edited it.

Forum etiquette is that if you are stupid enough to accuse people of doctoring your post without having evidence that they have, your error is pointed out to you. Given the way the forum post function works where you can quote a post and start typing a reply without being alerted to any edits made to the post you are quoting while you are drafting a reply, it was stupid of you to assume I doctored your post rather than say that I was quoting a post you had subsequently edited. I have been taking hours to draft replies to posts since I have been using this forum, because I will leave my reply open in mid-draft while I research a point that I am trying to make e.g. to find a link to post to support my point. This is the first time I can recall seeing anyone on this forum be accused of doctoring a post because the post they are quoting was edited by the poster after they quoted it. It is fairly obvious that I would have no need to doctor posts - given your credibility is already reduced each time you ignore my requests for evidence to support your assertions about the "penniless grandmother" and the "humble beginnings" and the signed football shirt "that must have cost a pretty penny, or obtained through influence and connections."

I suggest you follow your own rules and stop misrepresenting me by claiming I said people can pay private school fees simply by not drinking and smoking. I doubt I will get any apology for your repeated misrepresentations, since you have not apologised to me before for any previous errors on your part. You just ignore the point and move on to something else.

[SteveH]

Ah well. If you had a wise mother like mine you would have been told at an early age that the only thing the conservatives are interested in conserving is privilege.

While rambling about on the internet I also found this which I wasn't aware of (I probably should have been, but things pass me by sometimes):

As a political term, Tory was an insult (derived from the Middle Irish word tóraidhe, modern Irish tóraí, meaning "outlaw", "robber", from the Irish word tóir, meaning "pursuit" since outlaws were "pursued men") that entered English politics during the Exclusion Bill crisis of 1678–1681.

My former Tory MP, the late and unlamented (by me, at any rate) Robert Jones, in an election leaflet for one of the elections in the 80s or 90s, seriously claimed that the Tories were the party of the environment because they were called the Conservative party, so obviously they cared about conservation. I think that's the etymological fallacy. The only time I ever saw him in the constituency was on May 1st, 1997 - polling day - getting out of his car at the local Tory HQ, looking worried, as well he might, as he was about to be booted out by Labour.

[Anchorman]

After last night's 'debate' on the Beeb, and, having watched the cat fight;
In the immortal words of Han Solo;
"I've got a baaaaaad feeling about this".