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.

hays I will along with many more old torys vote for UKIP as their is nn one else to vote for sick of all the lies and crap from the 3 main con parties

and let me asure you their are tens of thousand that think like me

tens of thousands will win ukip a big fat zero seats

134,000. That’s how many members the Conservative Party now has, according to Paul Goodman at ConservativeHome. Despite months of campaigning from the site, the only figure Conservative HQ would release is that 253,600 people voted for David Cameron as leader in 2005. Today’s number means that membership has nearly halved throughout Cameron’s eight-year term as party leader.

Tracking the memberships of political parties is difficult, as they are under no obligation to release any details. The House of Commons Library released a paper in December last year, compiling all the figures they could find. From this, this is how memberships of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties has dropped since the 1997 election:

ever one at my club have resigned from the party .
and will be voting UKIP that's all I need to know
and I am off to the club in 10 mins bridge to day
and fish and chips at 5.30pm very nice with a few pints

And that is the democracy Manuel tells me to vote in.

UHHHm
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Hays,

Not a waste of a vote when you vote for UKIP, it is a powerful indication of disaffection with a right winged tory ridden con party with outdated economic ideology, and is divorced from the more moderate of the UK society.

I think some UKIP voters would prefer to choke themselves than vote for the tories and Labour will benefit.

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I was surprised when watching Question Time last night how pro-European the audience were. I admit there were fair proportion who showed antagonism to immigration.

Judgement made on applause at the end of argument by speakers, surprise that Farage didn't get the reception he and others might have expected.

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Getting to look like a labour majority and government with a coalition with Lib.Dems who would not dare go into coalition with tories again.

fred - i'll stand by what i wrote the other day about EU .....

i think cameron is doing a good and politically clever job behind the scenes .... there now seems to be good rapport between him and merkel with both of them looking at ways to reform the current lousy set-up

i'm fairly confident that within the next say 15 months, a "new look" wil have been formulated which will allow a positive (pro-EU) result to a referendum

red ed will meanwhile sit on the sidelines and neither say nor do anything and assuredly not promise any kind of referendum ..... and yes, i most certainly think a referendum is warranted on a matter of this gravity, albeit that most voters will only register whether or not their beer and wine will be more or less expensive if uk pulls out

cynic
I agree. There does seem to be moves afoot behind the scenes. Both Cameron and Merkel know that there are several other countries unhappy with their membership of the EU. Merkel is facing a lot of complaints at home concerning the extent to which Germany is supporting the finances of the EU.

It would be interesting if there was a referendum to see just how many people actually bothered to vote. A large percentage of the population cannot even get off their backsides and vote in a General Election ( including Jeremy Paxman ).

you're right, and that would probably eliminate most of the plebs whose vision and grey-cells have limitations :-)

I took the max lump sum from my final salery penison and my pension is index linked up to 5% , what would happen if in the future inflation went to 10 to 15% , I thought if it was a company pension the index was safe.

Labour will loose just as many votes to UKIP as the con/clegg party

Cynic and Hays.

As you probably guessed, I have been a European internationalist since I was a student and hoped that the Britain would integrate itself fully into the European Union as a political and economic member, without renouncing its relationships to the rest of the world.

I still think this would be for the benefit of Britain and Europe as a whole.

However, with the continued posturing and protectionism portrayed by various UK governments over the last 50 very odd years I can see Europe moving on with its continued slow move to greater integration and mutual responsibilities, leaving the UK moving further and further on the outside and isolated, scrambling to have any international relevance. (Even with a population of 70million.)

The Europhobic elements of all both major parties continuous snide, sniping remarks about Europe will hasten that process.

If you had a team and a member wanted only to be a part time member only and constantly wining about their membership fee, then threatening not to play the next season or the shape of the ball I think the other members would tell that part time member to push off.

That is what appears to be happening. Europe doesn’t need Britain, Britain benefits from Europe.

I am not saying negotiation and review of short term and long term goals are not needed.

All big and small organisation need constant review and modifications of rules to achieve their "best".


Not saying some of the reviews of regulations are not warranted, but suggest that beneficial changes are more likely to occur when those are negotiating, do so for the benefit of Europe as a whole and not their own individual little countries.

I doubt that there will be a referendum in favour of leaving the EU. Cameron, knows that it would be a disaster, if Britain opted out and I believe Milliband and the majority of the Lib/Dems are pro-European.

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The following story fits the scene for me:

"A holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said, "Lord, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like."

The Lord led the holy man to two doors.

He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in.. In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew, which smelled delicious and made the holy man's mouth water.

The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles that were strapped to their arms and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful. But because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.

The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering.

The Lord said, "You have seen Hell."

They went to the next room and opened the door.. It was exactly the same as the first one. There was the large round table with the large pot of stew which made the holy man's mouth water. The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking. The holy man said, "I don't understand."

It is simple," said the Lord. "It requires but one skill. You see they have learned to feed each other, while the greedy think only of themselves."

fred - so in the event of a referendum on EU, would you vote?

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hell
you're wrong as usual ....
it was a pork and clam cataplana and the room was full of vegans, vegetarians, muslims and jews :-)

Yes or no answer required Fred - would you vote? :-)

I am afraid that silly stories just remind me of the Bible's stories and the use of controlling people it was and is put to.

don't be so sniffy!
it's just a fun little parable that might just have easily have come from aesop

Yep stop being so straight and stuffy hays, lighten up a bit, Im sure youve got a pleasant personality but you dont show it, relax a little more and let the normal you come out of the hat.

Hays what you are forgetting is that the Euro elections ARE SO CLOSE to the general election this time and Im sure their will be a beneficial lap over for UKIP.

ps, by the way your team spurs were sh-te last night.....light weights.

sticky - are you giving odds that your m8 fred wouldn't even get off his arse to vote in an EU referendum?

Nah, its up to the individual.

As far as Im concerned Im fed up of folk making other folk do things they dont want to do. Its becoming a National pastime in this country and is a pain in the ass, not that Ive ever had a pain in the ass mind.

F F Sake society in general leave others alone do do what THEY want to do and not what you perceive they should do.