But then you have to ask yourself why there is about a 40% turn out in the UK, yet about a 98% turnout in France. In France, there is diversity between the parties - they range from extreme left to extreme right. In the UK they range from slightly right of middle to slightly right of middle. They literally ARE the same.

Well for one thing, you may not want the inconveinience of having to stop - you might be in a hurry (hence the speeding in the first place), you may also not want to be talked to like a child by some 21 year old with a GCE in woodwork.

So effectively, you're saying it's ok to speed as long as you pay your way. Cough up the 60 quid and carry on speeding. If a negative deterrent doesn't work should we continue to do it? Road deaths involving speeding have been at a constant level for the last 10 years (coincidently, the fact is well known now that since the introduction of speed cameras our roads are no longer the safest in Europe). If something consistently fails to deliver what it is supposed to, would not a cleverer person look at alternative ways of acheiving the results instead? ...or perhaps, as I have suggested, it's simply too much of a money spinner for anyone in 'power' to consider changing it.

Errr...no, but that does sound rather like the response the Daily Mail would give.

I already have a holiday home in France that I bought and paid for some years ago - not quite big enough for a family of 5, but 3/4 could sqeeze in easily.

I haven't, but I can't see how they can justify it under a law like that. Clearly the money has come from a bank (by way of mortgage) for the sale of a house. My house. My sale. If I wanted the cash in a shoebox completely in 2p coins I cannot see what business it is of anyone's apart from mine. Now if banks had behaved themselves, and I could trust them, I would have no trouble with having the money paid into a bank account, but as it stands I don't think most can be trusted with large sums of money and the ones that know what to do with large sums, get greedy and cause their own collapse. Plus, once it's in a bank, getting it out again is bloody hard work. I want a large (or several) shoebox with the whole of the sale money in it. That way, if I go to draw it out, I won't have to have the queen sign something in blood, provide 14 methods of ID, do a song and dance and drive 10 miles to the nearest branch only to be told, "we can only let you have 500 quid of your own money at any one time". Nope, the shoebox will ask for none of this, and it will not restrict the flow of money to me at any time. If I go to the shoebox and there is not enough in there for what I want, it won't stop me from having it (well it will), and then charge me £35 of what isn't in there. Nope, banks had their chance and they f*****d it right up. I would trust a bank as far as I could throw one. They have shown themselves up for what they really are, and I cannot understand how a government or any other private firm can force the use of such an untrustworthy and incompetent industry.

...and thanks Michael - good list. Interesting to see that they all charge for the withdrawal. Is that because they themselves get charged?

Touche! ;-)

Ha - no, Torygraph = Telegraph for one, and although it can read like I meant that you were quoted was in there, I meant that your quote or words were actually in there. ...if you catch my drift.

Yes, so do I. No investment in social housing for years, everyone encouraged to indebt themselves to the greed of the banking industry and further pushed on by looking at people who bought houses in the last housing market, ahem 'slow down' and made a small packet from selling their house (and council house - which I don't have much problem with, provided they are market value and the proceeds go on to provide more housing, which of course, didn't happen) - all of which has created a pretty sorry mess which we will be mopping up for a fair few years to come.

Nope - was tied in for 5 years (although my paperwork says 2!! the copy from the SAR says 5 - and the S.A Broker has fled the country with hundreds of people's passports, but that's a different story!), then my ex buggered off with the kids and on my own I cannot afford to borrow the amount that I need to keep the house - i.e. the mortgage is more than 3.5 times my income.

My discounted rate ended a couple of years ago. How come everyone's is ending at the same time - I read about it on the BBC but didn't understand it then.

100 quid a month - wooooaaahhh, I wish my mortgage was only 10 times that! I'd be happy with that!

No, not, not voting. No vote doesn't get counted, spoiling a vote does and sends a message.

The thought has crossed my mind many times, but my kids and their mum would have to come too. Not sure that my girlfriend would be too happy about the ex coming with us (although she'd love to have the kids!) I had to sell my car as despite earning more money in my day job than anyone I know, I simply could no longer afford to keep it legal and run it to get to work at the same time. Now I have to spend a lot longer at work and wait for one of the shift workers to finish work and drive me home for half the fuel costs. So now, I spend less time with my family and work longer for no extra pay. I too have not had a holiday in as long as I can remember - the only way I could see of enjoying myself was to sell my house, take the equity and literally p**s it up the wall....and that's what I intend to do. We had to get rid of the TV, a) because it broke (lol), b) couldn't afford the tax and c) every time I turned it on, it was full of canned-laughing-americans laughing at something that had no humour in it. Got given a new one, but now we only watch films on the xbox. Anyway, basically we cut back very hard - and it's made little difference. It's been this way for a lot of people for at least the last 12 months - and yet, I couldn't understand how people were bleating on about how strong the economy was etc... anyway /rant

Thanks for the advice, but I'm intending to stick to my guns - I want nothing to do with any bank at all - ever. I was only looking at the card as a way of getting to the cash, but a withdrawing limit of 500 quid a day, it's going to take quite some time to get all the money from the sale of my house in cash. No, I am going to insist that the solicitor give me the cash, in a Tesco carrier bag. If they refuse, then there will be no house sale.

How about encouraging people to spoil their vote? That effectively sends the message that you've ticked the "none of the above" box.

Curly, fair play. I too am pretty much at about 100gb a month, I have never even been contacted by my ISP - they do have a caveat of anything over 100gb (if they deem it excessive at the time) to restrict download speed during 9-5 for the remainder of that month. It hasn't happened to me yet, but then I do pay them a year in advance and it's quite expensive too (41 quid per month including VAT).

Not keen on this line though:

In fact, I saw Bookie's claim in the Torygraph the other day; it claimed that watching videos on the Torygraph website didn't affect download limits. On the web version, it stated that it did affect limits, but minimally. BTW, it also claimed a week before that Tim Berners Lee invented the Internet. ...and this from a supposed respectable newspaper.

Name one ;-)

Honestly, some people should think before spouting typical Daily Mail reader's answers to everything. I was caught on a covert camera once - I didn't even know about it. Did I slow down? No, of course not, I didn't even know I was speeding. Now imagine if I saw a copper in a hi-vis jacket with a radar in his hand. I would most likely have checked my speed straight away and slowed accordingly. So instead of stopping me from breaking the law, I was photographed doing so and then taxed to the tune of 60 quid, and carried on speeding obliviously. Well done, problem solved....errr...hang on, no it's not. If I'd turned the corner and hit a child (it's always a child of course, as that's the most emotive) then, yes, I would have been guilty, but then so would the speed trap to a certain degree. They could have prevented that from happening by doing their job - i.e. upholding the laws of the country, rather than allowing it to continue and just photographing the incident for revenue. Yet some people advocate this method of 'policing' and justify it by stating that they like to catch 'speeders' as they don't like telling children that their daddy isn't coming home. Look at the statistics of fatal accidents where speeding is a contributing factor. The percentage is tiny (backed up by the goverment funded TRL232 report - which we now have to pay for, unlike the other reports commissioned in the same way - odd? I think so) If I were a criminal and was about to break into someones house, or rape or murder someone, would it be better to take a photo of it so that I can be prosecuted or would it be better to stop me from doing it?

I don't think I'll be signing up for this. I begrudge paying to get to my own money, and yes, I know that they won't do anything for nothing - noone does anymore - but as I am forced into using 'services' such as these by their (and their friend's doing), I don't feel that I should be forced to pay for it, so it looks like if I don't get paid in cash for the sale of my house, then there will BE no sale of the house.

I tried to get the flex account - and to be honest I really don't want anything to do with any bank or building soc. AT ALL - but they were so incompetent I could barely believe it. My GF has one, and she has the same amount of problems. Just applying for it: they lost my ID, then I said forget about me having an account with them if they were that bad and thatI wanted the copies of my ID sent to me, they refused, then on a seperate occassion said they had lost that too. They said they would phone on 4 seperate occassions, and they did only once - and that was over a day later than they said it would be. They have sent replacement cashcards (GF's) to the wrong address, they have refused to honour an appointement because "it's snowing" - (God only knows how they operate banks in say, Finland etc...). So, TBH, I'd rather steer clear of Nationwide, I have a large sum of cash that needs to be paid into somewhere very soon (as the solicitor refuses to give me MY money in a carrier bag!) and I, quite simply do not trust Nationwide to not f*** it up. In face, I don't trust any bank not to do that tbh.

I've been reading through the small print, and I don't mind the 5 quid a month - ok fair enough, but 2 quid for every cashpoint withdrawal is over the top IMO.