Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Buying One ?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Londonistan-Britain-Created-Terror-within/dp/1908096276?&linkCode=waf&tag=ggn-21

Hays,

I thought all the swivel eyed loonies were paid up members of the tory party.

The Osborne's hazy future.

Great pic fred!

Haystack,

Twice now I have asked if you had read the UKIP manifesto and twice you have not replied.

Whilst agreeing that most votes for UKIP were protest votes, many voters like myself truely believe that they would do good for the country.

UKIP no doubt do attract loonies as do most fringe type parties, (not so much fringe now though) but they also attract people like myself who have actually read their manifesto and whilst not believing everything I read, believe that against what the other parties say they will do, have this countries future at heart.

Both the Liberal and Labour party started as so called fringe, minority parties, the Liberals in 1867 and Labour in 1900, so if voters aways shun new parties, politics would never have changed and the Conservatives, then known as the Tories, would have no oposition.

wasn't the whig party the direct ancestor to the liberals?
if that is so, then the tory party came later on the scene

Unhappy with your name? Maybe it's time to count your lucky stars!

Yes,I have read the UKIP manifesto. It is a collection of populist policies that UKIP have no idea how to implement. To have a serious plan you have to cost out the effects of policies. There is a new statesman article somewhere on the web that suggests it is just a list of the 20 things that annoy people and includes such things as a repeal of the smoking laws.

Reading the manifesto in full makes me more certain that they are going nowhere. Just a set of silly policies from a bunch of amateurs.

i haven't read this or any other party's manifesto!
my major concern with ukip is that their supposed policies are aimed at making uk far too insular for my comfort.
that their purported policies may not be practical to implement let alone be economically acceptable or even feasible, is another issue entirely

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/mayor/labour-voters-boris-johnson-is-doing-a-good-job-8636958.html

Labour voters: 'Boris Johnson is doing a good job'

More than half of Labour voters in London say Boris Johnson is doing a good job, according to a new poll.

More Liberal Democrat voters in the capital are also being won over by Mr Johnson, with 69 per cent saying he is doing well, up four points on a month ago.

Haystack,

Me thinks we will have to agree to disagree re UKIP, as the manifesto I read did cost their policies.

but were not those costings heavily challenged by "those who know"?

Syria says that it has received the first shipments of the Russian S-300 missiles.

Ed Miliband 'Lacks Credible Economic Message', Says Party Donor


A top Labour donor has criticised Ed Miliband for lacking a "credible" economic message.

The attack came on the same day a YouGov poll showed Miliband is seen as less trustworthy, decisive and competent than his much-scorned predecessor, Gordon Brown.

In an interview with LondonlovesBusiness.com, JML chairman John Mills, said Labour lacks a "clear idea on how to get the economy growing again".

Mills claimed Miliband and shadow chancellor Ed Balls had failed to convey a "credible" economic message to the public and had not shown they had a "clear idea on how to get the economy growing again at a reasonable speed and how to get the deficit down to a much more sustainable proportion".

Mills is the largest donor to the Labour Party this year giving twice as much as the Unite union.

Spring will be coldest in 50 years, Met Office says

May has also been wetter than average, forecasters said

This spring is on track to be the coldest for more than 50 years, provisional Met Office figures suggest.

This month has seen lower than average temperatures and it has been wetter than usual, forecasters said.

The UK's mean temperature for spring - based on figures from 1 March to 28 May - is currently 6C.

If conditions stay the same in the last days of May, it will be the coldest spring since 1962, and the fifth coldest since records began in 1910.

The Met Office said earlier figures from 1 March to 15 May suggested spring was on track to be the sixth coldest since records began, and the coldest since 1979.

But cooler than average weather in the past fortnight has pushed the mean temperature for the season slightly lower, it said.

Whatever happened to global warming, I thought the ice caps were supposed to be melting?

Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released... and here is the chart to prove it

The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures
This means that the ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996


The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week.

The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.

The new data, compiled from more than 3,000 measuring points on land and sea, was issued quietly on the internet, without any media fanfare, and, until today, it has not been reported.

This stands in sharp contrast to the release of the previous figures six months ago, which went only to the end of 2010 – a very warm year.

Ending the data then means it is possible to show a slight warming trend since 1997, but 2011 and the first eight months of 2012 were much cooler, and thus this trend is erased.

Some climate scientists, such as Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, last week dismissed the significance of the plateau, saying that 15 or 16 years is too short a period from which to draw conclusions.

Others disagreed. Professor Judith Curry, who is the head of the climate science department at America’s prestigious Georgia Tech university, told The Mail on Sunday that it was clear that the computer models used to predict future warming were ‘deeply flawed’.

Even Prof Jones admitted that he and his colleagues did not understand the impact of ‘natural variability’ – factors such as long-term ocean temperature cycles and changes in the output of the sun. However, he said he was still convinced that the current decade would end up significantly warmer than the previous two.

UKIP manifesto written to attract the looney right of the tories (and it does) and the little englanders and the rag and tag of the BNP.

It has been attracting plenty of Labour faithfuil. and they don't come more loony than that.