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.

Here lies an atheist
All dressed up,
And no place to go

So there is no Hell then ? unless you are forced to read Fred's long winded replys over and over again.

Here lies an atheist
All dressed up,
And not expecting anywhere to go!"

Wonder what you would look any better embalmed.

Would that change expectations?

Is that how ancient Egyptians assumed immortality?

=-----=

To-morrow, I am meeting two friends, one of whom I haven't seen for 57 years was a rampant young conservative, agnostic and turned into a solicitor.

It will be interesting to see how his views have changed.

The other who I used to play chess with was a "god fearing" Christian and got a 1st in and PhD in Mathematics at Oxford. (The latter in 2 years.) Also, still continuing research after 50 odd years in applied Maths etc..

When we last met about 12 months ago I was surprised by him saying he still played the organ in Chapel and was a Christian going to the chapel regularly, but seems sane in all other aspects.


Religion is an acceptance of a belief.

fred - so much for your so-called convictions ..... load of baloney

Explain yourself before you next glass of moonshine.

no need to .... your blather + inaction speak volumes .... "oh it's my democratic right ..... blah, blah, blah", yet you are prepared to do nothing at all, not even to get off your arse to vote, and just snipe and gripe incessantly ..... pah!

Not changing the subject, well worth a watch :-))

Fred, did you answer the question - if there was a referendum on Europe would you bother to get off your backside and vote? If you cannot be bothered to vote then you lose the right to complain - simples.

LOL. Good one DC.

Look Fred, within the board limits can say what he wants here.

Just because a few of you dont like what he represents and says doesnt make him a bad person. In fact theirs a fair balance between pro and anti, just as their is with Cynic(and I appreciate both) so lets carry on debating without the silly personal side swipes.

I thought Capitalism was all about being free to be able to speak 'YOUR SAY', your mind, so come on lads change the record Im personally fed up of hearing this Camoron government have cut down on red tape but in real life especially on my benefits advise watch have found rules and regulations have increased at least 2 fold and thats after the wally I D Smith as wasted £445 million pounds which will be written off.

Its a disgrace.

GF,

Thanks for your support.

If some read my postings, (jottings) they may see that often I am simply challenging held views and presenting a opposing balance.

Mind I am having difficulties with Cynic and Hays. Think sometimes they need remedial therapy.


=======


Db4/

It is very unlikely that I vote, unless one of the candidates offered me a drink.

I suppose in one way some of the tories voters are being by Cameron's bribes nearer the date.

But, he is like a barrow boy, here to-day and gone to-morrow.

What would I be voting for, if I did.
=======


Dreams.

Saw the film some years ago.

I liked Walter Matthau humour.

I imagine Cynic to look a little like him.

Hays, God knows what he looks like.


8-)

If you want some entertainment then go to the public gallery at the regular London Assembly Mayor's question time meetings. You can witness Labour being picky on every minute thing and getting absolutely no where. Boris sails through the meetings with no one managing to land a punch on him. I took my kids there a couple of years ago.

I'm sure Boris will make a worthy successor to "call me dave" after the next election.

For sure, he cant be any worse.

Iain Duncan Smith is no longer fit-for-work


.By Ian Dunt | Talking Politics – 18 hours ago...

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/comment/talking-politics/iain-duncan-smith-no-longer-fit-160838915.html#cy5Zh60





What are Iain Duncan Smith's redeeming qualities?




Today's public accounts committee report shines a spotlight on a department which is out of control. Bad news is ignored. Vast sums of money are authorised by personal assistants for work which has not always been specified. Up to £425 million has been wasted and may need to be written-off, including £140 million on IT equipment which is no longer suitable for the project. The left hand does not know, or even seem to care, what the right hand is doing.

Duncan Smith has undertaken the most ambitious restructuring of the welfare system in a generation and it is blowing up in his face. The report was one of the most damning to be published this year. Duncan Smith's response, according to the Times, was to demand MPs on the committee pin the blame on his permanent secretary, Robert Devereux.

It's all a day in the life for the work and pensions secretary, whose relationship with the truth is as tenuous as George Best's relationship with sobriety.

He claimed the benefits cap had forced 8,000 people into work. This earned a slap on the wrist from the Office for National Statistics, which said it was not possible to find any causal link between the cap and those finding work. His response was very revealing.

"I have a belief I am right," he told Radio 4.


"You cannot absolutely prove those two things are connected – you cannot disprove what I said. I believe this to be right. I believe we are already seeing people going back to work who were not going back to work until this group were capped."

It's worth reading that quote twice. It is the product of a mind which is fundamentally unconcerned by reality, a loop playing constantly to itself.

It's just the tip of the iceberg. He said that every week half a million new jobs come through at the Jobcentre. This was false. He said Britain had the highest rate of jobless households in Europe. This was false. He said 70% of the four million jobs created when Labour was in office were taken by people from overseas. This was false. He claimed Shelter defined homelessness as two children sharing a room. This was false.


The list goes on and on.


It's all part of a pattern that goes back to the start of his career, when Michael Crick found several inaccuracies in his CV. He said he had attended the University of Perugia, when it was in fact the Università per Stranieri – an institution which did not grant degrees. He said he attended Dunchurch College of Management, when in fact it was weekend courses at GEC Marconi's staff college.

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled Duncan Smith's back-to-work programme, which forced claimants to work for high street chains like Poundland for free, was illegal following a government appeal. It had failed to give recipients enough information about sanctions faced by people being told they had to work without a wage.

His response was to say that he was "very pleased that the supreme court unanimously upheld" his programme. "Ultimately, this judgment confirms that it is right that we expect people to take getting into work seriously," he added. Surely the British public are entitled to something less misleading than that? Is it too much to ask for even a hint of contrition for having broken the law, rather than rank evasion and a steadfast refusal to accept fault?


He went out of his way to smear the reputation of Cait Reilly, a 24-year-old who brought the case. Reilly had been volunteering at a Birmingham museum, hoping it would one day turn into a paid position. She was not overly keen on dropping that voluntary role to work for free in Poundland. Duncan Smith went on television and suggested she was part of "a group of people out there who think they are too good for this kind of stuff". For a secretary of state to treat a young person in this way is unspeakable.

Cynicism and Machiavellianism are common traits in politics. Many of the greatest politicians, from Churchill downwards, have been quite capable of making a case by focusing relentlessly on the attributes which most flatter them. But the smears against young people trying to make their way, the casual misuse of the facts, the glib indifference to the proper functioning of a system which affects the lives of the least privileged, is of a different magnitude altogether.


He's not even smart enough to pull it off. Matthew D'Ancona's history of the coalition sees George Osborne comment that "you see Iain giving presentations and realise he's just not clever enough". Last month John Major warned that the work and pensions secretary's welfare reform programme was "enormously complicated".


He went on: "Unless he is very lucky, which he may not be, or a genius, which the last time I looked was unproven, he may get some of it wrong."



Duncan Smith's reply was belligerent, inelegant and supremely thin-skinned. "Well, as I say, I never really get too fussed about what people think about their own intellects," he said. It is, you may have noticed, a sentence which means nothing. Or, at best, is so lacking in meaning as to not be worth saying. "I'm always happy to be in awe of someone whose own intellect delivered us the cones hotline, I must say." The reference to Major's silliest policy was childlike and out of place. Barely anyone even remembers the cone hotline. But seeing as he wishes to reflect on the past, perhaps his audience should do so too.


Think back. When did Iain Duncan Smith ever achieve anything? Even Osborne, who plunged this country back into recession, can at least point to that time he called Gordon Brown's bluff on an election. Duncan Smith has been at the frontline of British politics for years and he has nothing to show for it.


He was the most incapable leader of the Conservative party in recent memory. He was inadequate in PMQs and his conference flourish that "the quiet man is turning up the volume" is still the butt of jokes a decade later. His comment to the mutineers in his own party was just as weird, but a little darker: "My message is simple and stark, unite or die". They chose to do neither.


Expelled from the leadership, he seduced the easily seduced by using the words 'social justice' while promoting an aggressive Victorian-era programme which had more to do with a glorified notion of the Protestant work ethic than practical solutions to poverty and welfare-dependency. And now he smears his opponents, whether they be MPs, young women trying to find work or the massed ranks of the unemployed recast as feckless scroungers.


We might worry less about his own personal failings if they were not being replicated with such uncanny precision at his department. But the refusal to hear bad news, the siege mentality, the waste of funds, the arrogance and bullying with which welfare reform is being pursued are all indistinguishable from the character of the man presiding over it.

New independent research shows there is strong public support for reducing under-occupation and overcrowding in social housing.

There is strong public support for reducing under-occupation and overcrowding in social housing, according to new independent research released today (8 November 2013).

In a poll conducted by Ipsos MORI, 78% of respondents said they thought it was important to tackle the problem, which has led to nearly one-third of social housing tenants who receive Housing Benefit, living in homes that are too big for their needs.

In comparison, just 14% disagreed, with a further 9% undecided.

The polling also found that 54% agreed that it is fair that people of working age, who live in social housing, should receive less Housing Benefit if they have more bedrooms than they need.

The study also revealed:

that the majority of people – 54% – believe the coalition government’s removal of the spare room subsidy policy will encourage those receiving less housing benefit to improve their personal situation by, for example, finding work.

60% believed that those affected by the policy should either find new or alternative work, or work longer hours.

The new policy is aimed at those of working age who live in social housing and have their rent paid through Housing Benefit.

The initiative is starting to yield positive results, with people now taking the opportunity to downsize.

I go away for a day, come back and there are 119 sodding posts on this thread! and most of them going over and over the same repetitive questions that you've been boring us more "Intelligent Members" with for some months now!... So for christ sake you lot... have you got C.B.A.D. or something?














































The definition of "Intelligent Members" list is available for a small or very large fee... depending who wants it -):

Stan

For once i do agree with you , so can you tell Fred to stop posting the same repetitive questions that his been boring us more "Intelligent Members" with for some months now!...

economy and standard of living discussion - radio 4 this morning
i wish i had heard far more, but there was a very intelligent discussion this morning with nigel lawson and some chap calld harrap (sorry, but don't know what he does or his first name)

they came from different sides of the political spectrum, but it was all properly balanced and intelligent (unlike me!) and well worth listening too

interestingly, and i have no reason to doubt it, lawson observed that the uk economy was already improving considerably, and not primarily through the services and financial sectors .... harrap did not dispute it either

both agreed that living standards inevitably lagged behind economic recovery

harrap stated that the gap between the lower paid and the better off had widened over the last 20 years, which is almost certainly true, though quite how that is measured it another matter for debate

how that gap could be narrowed without other important elements being wrecked - a bit strong - was left open

however, and in conclusion, it was the sensible and balanced discussion that was such a pleasure to listen to, unlike the one-sided ranters (no names!) on here

"unlike the one-sided ranters (no names!) on here" ... Oh your so modest Alf -):

for those whom the cap fits, let them wear it