I'd like to second this opinion.

You'll be bored out of your mind after a week in London, never mind two, so get out and explore the rest of the British countryside.

Perhaps avoid the Lake District at the moment though.

No chance.

Guess what, people designing systems on which peoples lives actually directly depend do not simply rip out some old box from an office when they need a new server.

Likewise any system like the stock exchange, in situations like that companies don't care how much money they throw at stuff and since it's their money they're going to be losing if it goes wrong they are generally very careful indeed about randomly hooking up critical infrastructure to the internet.

Accenture and the other big consulting companies have a horrendous track record [yafla.com] for building failed projects at a very high cost. The moment someone says "let's hire Accenture to build this" is the moment the costs go up dramatically.

Indeed they do and one of the reasons for this is their reliance on subpar Microsoft technolgies which they seem to be tied to even when, as in this case, much more effective technology exists elsewhere.

Reeks of nationalism !

Is there anything wrong with being proud of the country you live in ?

Both you and the other guy do seem to think we live in some of sort of ideal world which, as I pointed out, we don't. If you completely open the borders and let anyone in who wants to come then what you're going to end up with is a massive underclass unable to function properly in the country their living in whilst the countries they came from are completely emptied as everyone leaves. That is surely far far away from any sensible method of building an ideal world yet one which, curiously, you and the other guy seem quite keen on. Basically I think you're both just unrealistic and are having difficulty seeing the things the way they are rather than the way you'd like them to be,

Yes those ones, the ones in the back of the trucks are, when they are discovered by the police told to report immediately to their nearest immigration centre for processing and then left to go on their way with the police trusting to the immigrants honour that they will do as instructed. Needless to say a lot of them subsequently go missing never to be seen again.

If people want to come here and work then fair enough, although I think we should follow the lead of other countries and only allow them to work in those jobs if there are actual shortages of people here already who can do the job.

The UK is only so big and until we can get back to annexing other areas and rebuild the Empire can only support a finite number of people so the difference between someone coming from abroad as opposed to people moving about between counties is that there is one more person here who wasn't here before and my point is that we ought to value the extra spaces we have available to grant to foreigners and make sure they are the best sort of people we can before we give that space to some far less desirable idle layabout who hangs around on the dole and forms an underworld criminal gang.

I'm sure there are lots of people like your next door neighbour who we would want to come to the UK but equally there are many people who aren't like your neighbour that we don't particulary want to come here and there does have to be some sort of system to sort out one from the other.

This proposed system clearly isn't going to work and the current system is probably not very efficient, partly no doubt to the number of people it needs to process and the amount of money available to do the processing.

There's clearly a massive difference between people moving from Yorkshire to Lancashire and people moving from Tajikistan to the UK. Those moving from Yorkshire to Lancashire are already British citizens whereas people from Tajikistan probably aren't and people from Yorkshire have an excellent understanding of British cultural values and behaviour ( excepting maybe those of Londoners ) whereas people from Tajikistan could conceivably have a much harder fitting in and getting themselves a job.

In an ideal world people would be free to go where they would but this isn't an ideal world and people do have a natural inclination to hold on to their own cultural values no matter how misaligned they may be with those of their host country, people do tend to stick together and form insular communities and mistrust those from other communities and people do want to have an easy a life as possible even if someone else is picking up the bill.

This is our country and we should have the right, and the mechanisms, to decide who we want to come and join us living here.

Not really, we were less hopeless than the Germans for example.

I think, from what I've read somewhere, that another reason the Maoris didn't come off as badly as some of the other indigenous people the British came across is that they were excellent fighters. Since they did spend most of their spare time fighting each other they had had a lot of practice when it came to fighting the British.

Despite the fact the colonists had naval guns and firearms the Maoris were able to devise tactics which completely negated the advantage they would have otherwise provided and dealt out a couple of fairly comprehensive beatings to the colonists so much so that during WWI the British actually recruited Maori elders to advise them how to conduct effective trench warfare.

So you're saying that democracy at work consists of some PR drone cherry picking the agenda of the government based on the views of a tiny minority of the voting population and only taking action when it involves the government not actually having to do anything significant but which makes it look good ?

Sadly I think Labour share, have always shared, this view and that is the tragedy that faces this country today.

Ah hah ha hah ! The current largest petition on that site with over 70,000 signatories is one asking for Gordon Brown to resign. Despite having over twice as many signatures as the Alan Turing one there is still no response at all from the government, not even a statement explaining why Mr Brown believes he shouldn't resign.

To be honest I really doubt Mr Brown engaged in any reflection at all other than to think, "Is this something I can do which will make me look good, generate some positive PR and make it look like I'm 'in control' and 'doing good'"

There are dozens of petitions on that site which Mr Brown has taken no notice of whatsoever, not least the one asking him to resign for the good of the country, and the continuing actions of his government demonstrate there is actually a gaping moral hole at the centre of his party and his government.

A woolly woofter

You do realise that bear was actually nailed down to the ground ? He wasn't saying "throw it right here" he was saying "Take these fucking nails out so I can move around again you sick, cruel bastards"