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.

Cyners....now having read above you know your talking tripe about increased living standards.

The report, written by the former Labour work and pensions minister Chris Pond ..... There were 300,000 arrears on mortgage in 2012 – with 34,000 homes repossessed. This is a reduction of 30% from the peak of the recession but a 60% overall increase since 2006.

That was the bit i was looking for ..... frankly, referring back to 2006 really isn't very useful at all ..... personally, i'ld rather rely on the source i quoted from, which was shown on a bbc web site

CML had no reason to lie or distort their figures, and their numbers certainly look an awful lot chirpier than those you indicated, especially as CP has/had an axe to grind

Ohhhhh give up. Living standards arent rising in fact they are getting worse due to debt.

All that is happening instead of adding to long term debt at the Bank people are seeking out short term debt with money lenders etc etc. and then landing themselves in even more hotter water. Its a transfer over thats happening because Banks wont lend.

Your out of touch you Cyners and so is your budy Hays, totaly out of touch.

In a recession living standards fall. Then the economy improves and lastly living standards improve.

UK factory orders hit highest level in 18 years

British factory orders jumped unexpectedly in October to their strongest level since March 1995





By Telegraph Staff

11:43AM GMT 21 Nov 2013

Comments3 Comments





British factory orders have jumped unexpectedly this month to their strongest level since March 1995, according to the Confederation of British Industry's monthly industrial trends survey.


The CBI survey's total order book balance rose to +11 this month to from -4 in October, well above expectations of a reading of 0 and the long-run average of -17.


The balance for total output over the previous three months surged to +29 from +8, the highest level since January 1995 and again well above the long-run average of +2. The index of output expectations rose to +24 from +9.


Growth was widely spread, with electrical engineering being the only sector to see a decline, the CBI said.


"This new evidence shows encouraging signs of a broadening and deepening recovery," said Stephen Gifford, the CBI's director of economics.



more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/10465017/UK-factory-orders-hit-highest-level-in-18-years.html

Living standards arent improving. Actually the opposite.

Thats why the growth in pay day lenders and charitys is at its biggest ever. Add food banks to that aswel.

Public service workers are getting nil pay rises, private sector very similar or even cutting wages, benefits restricted to 1% rise per annum.

I think you and Cyners are on a different planet.

Living standards are the last to improve. I wouldn't expect it to happen before the middle of next year. If living standards were getting better now, I would be concerned about the economy and the handling of it.

Hays your mate doesnt agree with you.

Interesting to see the co-op bank in trouble. That paragon of virtue in ethical banking has been brought so low by a corrupt and criminal Labour activist who has apparently stolen money from a charity, bought hard drugs etc etc. The bank has a black hole of £1.5bn

Nice to have one's prejudices and suspicions confirmed.

This clearly leads back to Miliband's door.

ha ha ha he he he. Oh dear.

Clutching at straws.

Hays the public dont give a toss, but it would appear Osbourne is now being pulled in to the debate. That should be interesting and Camorons smear tactics back firing on him.

By the way just out..........

electionista‏@electionista
UK - YouGov/Sun poll: CON 32%, LAB 40%, LDEM 9%, UKIP 12%

So Ed Balls got a £50k donation from the co-op group plus huge donations to Labour Party.

Despite the economic crisis – and the Co-op’s dire finances – the group has increased its political donations from £664,000 in 2008 to £880,000 last year.

Flowers boasted to MPs earlier this month that he had helped oversee an increase in the maximum annual donations to £1.15million before stepping down.

Following the Number 10 dinner, Mr Miliband appointed Flowers to his exclusive business advisory board.

The Labour leader went on to hold dinners with Flowers and other business figures at Westminster restaurants in July and November of 2011.

This March, he invited Flowers for private talks at his Commons office. The following month the Co-op Bank threw Labour a financial lifeline with a £1.2million loan

Osbourne now being asked why after the present govt have been on coop watch for 3 years including the lloyds aborted deal didnt know anything about the problems.

Boots on tuther foot now hays.

See the national news.

Osbourne being pointed out as the villain.

Some European meeting coming into it.

Certainly looks like fat Dave and Lynton Crosbys smear has back fired.

sticky - clearly you can't read or didn't bother even though my posts are succinct

i don't write politician-speak, so at no point have i even insinuated in any way that living standards were improving ..... do i really have to c+p the salient points i posted?

"Revolution of modern clubs, titanium faced drivers and shafts make golf unrecognisable from those days."... Your right there CC, I've never heard of most of that, If I did get the clubs out again they will be my Ram Acubars.

all sorts of things, including general fitness of the pros, but the technology of the ball is also a significant factor

My first set of clubs Stan I bought second hand in 1987 were Neil Coles (must have been 20 years old then) stainless steel shafts, blades. God knows how i learned to play with them. Still got and use the sand iron.

and neil coles is still playing a bit .... i saw him a couple of months back at some company golf day at west hill (next door to worplesdon)

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10462871/Its-no-coincidence-the-MPs-found-guilty-of-fiddling-are-all-Labour.html

It’s no coincidence the MPs found guilty of fiddling are all Labour
The party may take the moral high ground, but lying and cheating are deep in its DNA

A Labour-supporting Methodist minister, Paul Flowers was deemed by definition to be the right man to chair the Co-op Bank, even if he knew nothing about banking
By Peter Oborne
9:07PM GMT 20 Nov 2013

The book can at last be closed on The Daily Telegraph investigation into the MPs’ expenses scandal. More than 300 Members of Parliament have paid back wrongly claimed expenses. Several of the worst offenders have stood down from Parliament. Now that the former minister Denis MacShane has at last pleaded guilty to fraud, no further prosecutions are planned, and all criminal investigation is reported to have ceased.

But one puzzling question remains. Why is it that only Labour MPs have been found guilty of expenses fraud as a result of the Telegraph revelations?

Yesterday’s decision by Mr MacShane (one of the most dishonest characters with whom I have ever had the misfortune to do business) brings to six the number of MPs who have been convicted or pleaded guilty. Not a single one is Tory, Lib Dem or from one of the nationalist parties. All six are Labour.

Some people will doubtless argue that the fact that only Labour MPs have been convicted is interesting but meaningless. I don’t think this can be true. Mathematicians tell us that the statistical probability against a coin coming up heads six times in a row is 64-1. In other words there is only one chance in 64 that Labour’s score of 6/6 was a coincidence.

There is an overwhelming likelihood that it is indeed statistically significant that only Labour MPs have been found guilty as a result of the expenses investigation. Labour members of the House of Commons need to face up to the uncomfortable truth. The outcome of the Telegraph investigation strongly suggests they are much more likely to lie, cheat and steal than members of other parties. Now that the expenses scandal has drawn to a close, they urgently need to ask themselves why that should be.

It is especially perplexing because the party in general strongly feels itself to be the embodiment of decency and morality. Indeed Labour has always insisted that the Conservatives are the party of venality, greed and selfishness. How baffling it is, then, that only Labour MPs have been sent to jail as a result of the Telegraph revelations.

Paradoxically, I believe that it is Labour’s belief in its own higher morality – what Bertrand Russell called the “superior virtue of the oppressed” – that has led to its downfall. Our two major political parties have emerged from rival philosophical traditions. Labour hails from the progressive school, which is fundamentally optimistic about human nature, but believes that our humanity is thwarted and twisted by social institutions. Conservatives are the opposite. They are pessimistic about human nature, and believe that life can only be conducted within the framework of existing institutions and the rule of law. They stress narrow objectives such as telling the truth, caring for one’s neighbour, and good manners. The Conservative tradition is extremely sceptical of ambitious schemes for social transformation.

By contrast, progressives view social conventions and restraints as the crucial impediment to human fulfilment. As far as Karl Marx was concerned, law, morality and religion were simply mechanisms for maintaining bourgeois dominance. Indeed Marx’s followers explicitly licensed falsehood and deceit as instruments of revolutionary change. As J A Schumpeter observed: “The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie.” I suggest, therefore, that the readiness of Labour MPs to fabricate their expenses is symbolic of a wider philosophical disposition: a structural tolerance of lying and cheating as a justification for political action.

This was one of the defining characteristics of the 1997-2010 Labour government. Consider the grotesque techniques used by Gordon Brown’s spin doctor Damian McBride, as set out in his recent book. Consider the deliberate deceit of the British public over immigration, Europe and the economy. Above all we should consider the readiness of that government to spread falsehoods about weapons of mass destruction ahead of the disastrous Iraq invasion. This stemmed from what one can only call an intellectual tolerance of fabrication. New Labour brought into government a new kind of epistemology, which was articulated by Tony Blair in his revealing 2004 Labour conference speech: “I only know what I believe.”

I am sure that Mr Blair felt, and still feels, that the falsehoods he uttered ahead of the Iraq invasion were virtuous. In his mind the invasion was vital for world peace, so it was only statesmanlike to dissimulate. The progressive mind will typically sacrifice what it dismisses as an unimportant rule (in this case, truth-telling or observance of due process) in order to achieve a worthwhile objective.

It is always impertinent to speculate about human motive, but there is evidence that the Labour expenses cheats justified their actions in very much the same way. They were underpaid, they needed the extra money for virtuous reasons, they were members of a great reforming government, etc, etc. Denis MacShane insisted, for example, that he made no personal gain from his cheating, and that the stolen money was used to fund research trips to Europe. In short, the fabrication of expenses claims falls into exactly the same category as the fabrication of evidence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.

Let’s now turn to the disaster at the Co-operative Bank. A comparable process is at work. The Co-op used to parade its high ethical status and moral standing as an organisation that placed its duty to the community ahead of profit. A Labour-supporting Methodist minister such as Paul Flowers was therefore, by definition, the right man to chair a bank, even if he knew nothing about banking. Since his motives were transparently virtuous, it seemed not to matter that he knew very little about the business. A generalised impression of virtue mattered more than good conduct, integrity, and attention to detail.

Of course there are many wholly honest Labour MPs – and quite a number of Conservatives MPs are repulsive. Two Tory peers (Taylor and Hanningfield) have indeed been found guilty of abusing their expenses in the Lords. Only last week the Tory MP Nadine Dorries was forced to apologise for failing to disclose her expenses while her colleague Nadhim Zahawi was obliged to pay back money he had claimed to warm his stables.

Nevertheless, the Telegraph expenses scandal comes close to proof that Labour MPs are far more likely to countenance lying, cheating and breaking the law. Thomas Sowell, the Conservative philosopher, puts it like this in his masterpiece, A Conflict of Visions: “Those who see the potentialities of human nature as extending far beyond what is currently manifested here have a social vision quite different from those who see human beings as tragically limited creatures whose selfish and dangerous impulses can be contained only by social contrivances which themselves produce unhappy side effects.”

Conservatives believe that it is only those social contrivances that save us from our own predatory and evil natures. Progressives believe that human beings are wiser than institutions. Conservatives believe that institutions are wiser than human beings. We are talking here about two radically different views of the world and of human potential. The outcome of the Telegraph expenses investigation suggests that the Conservative vision has at least one very important advantage: it keeps you out of jail.