In real terms

what does that mean exactly ? I refer to a recent HM treasury spokeswoman saying "The cost of motoring and taxation in real terms is lower now than in 1999"... so what exactly is "real" terms ?

real to me means "oh hell I've just hit my thumb with a claw hammer and that really really hurts" or "I really shouldn't have put that much petrol on the BBQ to get it to light"

That to me is real, what the politicians mean by real is "yes it's costing the motorist more in fantasy terms, but in our world of altered reality it's costing them much less than they think it does, therefore we've brought the cost down for them"

what utter tosh, Where do they get their figures from ??? and which Swedish masseur pummels them into the answer (lie) they want to give the public ???

I could have sworn my car road tax has gone up three times in the last five years, and lets not mention fuel costs which the government creams off a large proportion for their own coffers, they are currently collecting five times in tax what the government in 1975 used to spend on the roads, and we aren't even coming close to having the road system we used to have, granted there are many more cars on the road since 1975 but equally their revenue is many more times greater because of it, if the Government didn't waste public funding like Severn Trent water patch up their leaking water pipes then maybe the UK wouldn't be in such a state !!!

and now Gordon the moron is urging us not to waste food I wonder how much that committee cost to set-up and give that answer ?? it's all just political posturing and one one-upmanship with the Tory leader demanding that anybody caught carrying a knife without good reason should be locked up, hmmmmm good plan send them to prison where they can learn to become proper criminals over night at the university of thug....

how about looking back at when it all started going wrong..... when the police were taken off the beat and put into panda cars and turned into pen pushers over the years instead of someone you would bump into in the town and you might even know his/her name ? or when you actually called the police they would actually turn up at your door, and when corporal punishment was banned in schools because it infringed the little darlings civil liberties and human rights ???.... yes.... well you law makers and policy pundits are reaping the rewards of that particular namby pamby policy now aren't you ? with 17 fatal stabbings in London alone this year, if kids are brought up to realise they don't have to respect a thing, which mainly starts in school by the way, or are given no moral compass early on in life, then sticking a knife in somebody because they got hacked off with them wouldn't mean a damn thing to them, neither would the threat of jailing them for carrying a knife... the damage was done years ago when they learned they could stand up to a teacher or anybody else, say anything they liked to them and simply got away with a suspension from school or less.


but we are far better off now than then... In real terms of course ;¬)