Anybody any idea who's going to form the next government ?...

Ahead of tonight's BBC leaders debate in Birmingham, the Conservatives are back in the hunt, according to both the ComRes polling and Betfair betting markets.


Betfair Predicts: Hung Parliament, Conservatives Dominant Party
Con: 316
Lab: 214
Lib Dem:92
Other: 28

Latest Betfair Predictions: (Odds in brackets)
To win an overall majority: 56% (4-5) Hung Parliament, 41% (6-4) Conservatives, 2% (39-1) Labour, 1% (79-1) Lib Dem
To win most seats: 72% (1-5) Conservatives, 13% (7-1) Labour , 5% (21-1) Lib Dem

ComRes Predicts: Hung Parliament, Conservatives Dominant Party
Con: 282
Lab: 259
Lib Dem: 77
Other: 32

Latest ComRes Poll: (Taken 28/4/10)
Con: 36%
Lab: 29%
Lib Dem: 26%
Other: 9%

for RF
and as for all those damn jews cluttering up st john's wood and golders green and hampstead!!!!
why can't they be shipped to palestine where they belong?

cynic are you trying to play the race card as a last desperate move to support brown!

Gordon Brown's last chance tonight and although I consider him an unctuous, pompous and arrogant man, whose true character was revealed yesterday, I do think he did the right thing when the banking crisis came to a head - the taxpayer may do very well out of its stakes in RBS and Lloyds in time, although I hope not before Brown and Co are shown the door.

absolutely!
anyway, bradford and several other fine cities would become but ghost towns without their immigrant populations

partridge, meanwhile thousands of businesses and individuals are going bankrupt because of the banks' unwillingness to lend, or calling in their loans. True the taxpayer may well benefit over a period of time, (provided GB's spending wasters don't get their hands on the money). I have no idea what the right call was, whether letting a bank fail (HBOS) or the action they took, time I suppose will tell if their actions eventually pay off for the taxpayer.

cynic are you related to chemical ali?
2517

he's my first cousin and brother of toxic tania

2517 - I think if HBOS and/or RBS had been allowed to fail there would have been queues outside every bank and complete financial chaos, maybe even a return to barter. For too long the banks lent money too freely and borrowers were greedy - the pendulum was bound to swing the other way eventually. Fault imo on behalf of both lenders and borrowers acting irresponsibly, with regulators lamentable in their supervision. We are already seeing the return to significant profitability within the banking sector, most certainly helped by forcing unrealistic margin increases on borrowers who now have no alternatives, but no doubt all political parties see windfall return for the Treasury as a result - justifiably imo.

The Lib Dems were more pointed. "Brown is a dead man walking", said one. "He was trying to defend the indefensible and he didn't even do that very well."

In the spin room, the Tories were already making mischief, spreading a story that Alastair Campbell had been heard saying: "That's it, we're done for". Campbell denied it, via Twitter, of course. "Tories desperate. Some lowly spin doc heard me telling security man Burnley had had it.

Burnley ?

lol

partridge - HBOS was an accident waiting to happen, unfortunately for Lloyds they were 'encouraged' to take them over, RBS paid way over the odds for ABN. You are absolutely right of course that both lenders and borrowers were irresponsible and the regulation non existant. Profitability is returning at the expense of borrowers (as you say), I feel that there are still many 'toxic' secrets lurking in the banks vaults, commercial property, credit card debt, and when interest rates start to rise many borderline mortgages will fall into default. I hope I'm wrong.
2517

Better to send them to New York as it is allready known as Jew York

So, who won last night if I can put it that way ?...apart from Fulham and Atletico Madrid....

in the early 20th century, during a period of vicious polish pogroms, many jews who had bought passage to NY were dumped in L'pool or similar ...... not surprisingly, it took them a while to relaise they had been duped.

Ref Cynic.....it must be a dream job for a Palestinian to get a job as a traffic warden up in West Hampstead-Golders Green !...

And another ticket !.....he..he...he..

Are traffic wardens racist. My brother in law is a traffic policeman and he is racist, he and his fellow policemen play a game to see who is the first on the day to give a ticket to a black person, driving a black car. There is a bonus if it is a black BMW X5

let's cut out this racist chatter eh lads ?

The problem is talking about immigration can turn nasty if people are not careful....but I think that most people including the politicians agree that immigration is completely out of hand in this country and has to be addressed seriously.....once somebody has got into this country there are hardly any checks whatsoever to see if they are allowed to remain here....the way it works is this : Mr X......(we'll call him mr x)....couldn't call him mr pink could we ?....why me mr pink ?....hey ! I'll be mr purple or you can be me pink.....hhhh...., sorry going off track here...reminds me of some film...can't quite remember....anyway..euhhh back to the plot.....Mr X sets up shop in this country...everything hunkydory....nothing wrong, gone throught all the legal immigration paperwork, but the rest of the family including twenty or so cousins all want to come here as well...this is where the problem starts : we can't let everybody in, so Mr X gets these people in one way or another, he pays all the bills...council tax, electricity and all the rest and the other lot pay him....no checks, nothing, so you have one person entitled to live here whilst twenty others who are not live with him as well...and nobody bothers.....the bottom line is that there must be more controls over these issues !...