iains - are you criticising someone who has 'suckled from the trough of public largesse all his life?' do you mean someone who has worked as a government employee? i've mostly done that too - teaching in an FE college, working in a homeless hostel and now working for disabled adults. is this wrong? am i scrounging or something? what a sick world you must inhabit if you think that we workers are somehow 'suckling' off tax payers. are you invigorated by the (mostly) american idea of selling off as much of our common wealth as possible to private investment? get a grip. our public services are this country's strength and our last defence against cowboy capitalist rule