GORDON Brown last night dismissed calls to surrender his £123,000 a year pension when he is forced to stop being prime minister next June.

Mr Brown was defiant in the face of City outrage despite the UK government’s annual operating loss of £100bn, rising to £1.5 trillion when the write-down of its banking assets is taken into account.

The prime minister said: “I’ve been building up this pension since I became an MP, it’s all completely legal and now you want to take it away because I’ve been catastrophically bad at my job and you’re looking for a scapegoat. What gives?”

He added: “Yes I’ve been in charge of financial regulation for 12 years, yes I encouraged the housing bubble, and yes I pissed billions up the wall giving pointless jobs to Labour voters, but I fail to see what any of this has to do with me being incredibly well off.”

Brown’s £3m pension pot is expected to cast the spotlight on the extravagant retirement packages of other failed politicians including Alistair Darling’s inexplicable £1.7m and the £1.5m awarded to John Prescott for being a national disgrace for 10 years.

Meanwhile Margaret Beckett has a fund worth £1.7m, and Tessa Jowell has £1m even though no-one has the faintest idea what either of these actually do.

Critics insist Mr Brown has a moral duty to hand back his pension fund as he will inevitably receive a multi-million pound advance for two volumes of eye-gougingly tedious memoirs which will end up in the bargain bucket at WH Smith within a fortnight.

Martin Bishop, head of pension rows at the Institute for Studies, said: “It’s a fascinating dynamic. The politicians blame the bankers, the bankers blame the politicians, and the ordinary taxpayer is down on all fours with a confused look on his face, being fucked at both ends.”

The Scottish Government have outlined plans to ban special offers on alcohol sales. They plan to bring in a minimum sales price per unit to help people with a drinking problem.

Now, I don’t live in Scotland but I am sure if this doesn’t cause a huge problem it will be brought into England and Wales pretty soon.

I enjoy a drink, sometimes I enjoy a large drink, but recently with the price increases of alcohol in Pubs and the Credit Crunch, I have taken to having a drink at home. The Beer from my local supermarket is reasonably priced and I can afford it. So why the hell should I be punished for people who have a problem. What the f**k have I done to deserve this.

This is nothing short of a new stealth tax. If you doubled the price of drugs would it help the problem - of course not. People in power need to understand that it is them who have driven us all to drink in the first place and we can’t afford to go out anymore, we can’t afford to do anything else, so we stay at home with a drink, hurting nobody, but because of a tiny minority with a problem the silent majority are yet again going to pay.

Here is a newsflash for those squares in power - I drink more than 10 units a week, sometimes I get a bit drunk - the only drink problem I have is when the bloody bar shuts at 11pm or my money runs out. You guys need to get out more because this is NORMAL behaviour.

I should bloody well think so.

It was an awful decision and while I fully appreciate Liverpool deserved the win it gifted them the opportunity.

If Ref’s want this ‘respect’ thing to work they have to realise it is a two way street.

Personally, i have no respect for Mike Riley.

I wish I had paid more attention in my Economic lessons because then I might have some understanding on what this ‘credit crunch’ thing is all about. In a nutshell I believe the problem was that Banks around the world (mainly in the US) lent money to people who had no way of paying it back. The Banks then got into trouble and Joe Public bailed them out. Now they wont lend to anyone.
Governments around the World are now trying to kick start economies that are in recession. But, and this is the big but, how can these morons in Whitehall or in the Bank if England possibly have any idea of what hardship is, how can they possibly come up with a plan to get ordinary people spending again. Of course! drop VAT by 2.5% - great - that new plasma TV I wanted has come down to £750 - I’ll get two! Did the Chancelor really think that would help? The sad answer to that is ‘yes he did’ which shows what a complete brainless moron he is. I would like to point out at this stage that I hold Alastair Darling in much higher regard than George Osborne and Vince Cable.
Tell me if I am being over simplistic and an idiot but the people who get an economy out of a recession is the consumer (you and me). So surely the only way out of this is to make sure we have more money. Drop interest rates - good idea, but bloody useless if the Banks (which we now own) don’t pass on the savings. We used to have a mortgage rate of 1-1.5% over base rate. Two years ago with inflation and interest rates going up, myself and Mrs Moose fixed our mortgage at a good rate of 6.5%, we thought we were being prudent.
So if Brown and Darling want to help the consumer they need to follow the Moose Plan, as follows:

• Get the banks (we own) to pass on the interest rates to us with no penalties. (Don’t ask - Order them!)

• Wholesale gas is now down to 2006 levels - force the utility companies to pass on these savings.

• Freeze Council Tax - It can’t go up in line with inflation (there is none) as is the excuse each year.

• The last time a barrel of oil was this cheap (comparatively) unleaded fuel was under 75p a litre. Someone, somewhere is profiteering.

• Sort out credit card and overdraft interest rates - I am paying more on these now than I was last year. How can this be allowed to happen?

• Hold up the people that got us in this mess to public ridicule. Bring back the stocks!

This would give the average household anywhere from £150 - £500 per month extra to spend at struggling businesses. Struggling businesses would then have money to spend with other businesses. We might even put some of the extra money in the bank - you never know.
It all starts with the consumer and doing it this way would cost the Government time but very little money.
I now this is very simplistic but what else do you need to do?