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.

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.

sorry exec, but they're all as bad as each other ..... no great surprise, as you'ld find exactly the same across any x-section of society .... where's there's money and opportunity, the former will find a grateful recipient

It is human nature. I have a lot of friends with cash businesses. Without exception staff steal if not monitored closely.

try running a restaurant :-)

Well, I'm obviously well out of date with these things, So boys, what are the main advantages of all these newish material innovations in the game as far as the clubs in your opinions?

ED: Thats the irons and not the courses.

Basically it's far easier now to play golf to a reasonable standard with a poor technique than it was many years ago.

No good to me then DB as I do like a challenge... And my game was very challenging -):

cynic
Most of them have restaurants.

50% (at least) profit in food, assuming that you know what you're doing so they can probably afford it, which is not to condone it in any way unless of course the proprietor is taking the "P" with low remuneration, in that case what do they expect.

Very few restaurants can afford to have staff stealing. Rent and rates are staggeringly high these days.

stan - so you know how much (good) restaurants pay their staff do you? ..... you certainly have no idea of the base food cost relative to the menu price

=========

hays - depending on the sophistication of the computerised stock control etc, the theft may be slightly more subtle, ranging from steaks etc to backhanders from suppliers

Even the great Escoffier was sacked by the Savoy in 1898 for stealing the equivalent of £300,000 in wine and spirits and taking commission from tradesmen amounting to £1.4m at today's prices. Costs were spiralling and profits falling.

Stop twisting things Alf, I stand by my post.

Isn't it always the same with you Tory tarts... excuses excuses.

stan - now you really are being very silly indeed .... what on earth has political inclinations got to do with anything at all, let alone restaurant pricing?

good chefs and even front-of-house in good restaurants earn (very) good money now, though the hours are tough throughout the industry.

your local "cheapo" may still expect their front staff to rely heavily on tips, but even so, they'll still have to pay minimum wage, relatively paltry as they may seen to be, especially in london - living costs further north are very significantly lower

in the "old days" most restaurant workers rec'd cash in hand, with only the bare minimum going through the books, but that is now very hard to do for very long - HMRC and the Vatman will feel your collar very quickly

============

btw, in the "old days", as a rule of thumb, food costs were multiplied 3-fold, but i'm pretty sure it is now a fair bit higher ..... of course, controlling wastage will also be a key factor in controlling costs and profitability

that is why so many (most?) chain restaurants buy "boil in the bag" crap and other pre-portioned stuff ..... a shortage of decently trained and capable cooks (not worthy of being called chefs) also comes into the equation

Chasm between English and Scottish spending widens

The chasm in public spending between Scotland and England has widened further, according to Treasury figures showing the gap is now nearly 20 per cent.





By Simon Johnson, Scottish Political Editor

12:25PM GMT 21 Nov 2013



The average Scot now enjoys £1,623 more in state spending than their neighbours south of the Border, up from £1,600 last year.


North Sea oil and gas means that Scotland also contributes more per head in taxation than the UK average, but revenues have dropped off recently and are projected to continue falling.


The figures are likely to further infuriate the English and lead to renewed calls for an overhaul of the Barnett formula, which allocates money to Scotland based on population share rather than need.


Their publication came as the Local Government Association, which represents councils south of the Border, said the system means England’s communities are being “short-changed” by £4.1 billion a year.


SNP ministers are warning Scots that the Government will abolish the formula, which dates from 1978, if they reject independence in next year’s referendum.



More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10465138/Chasm-between-English-and-Scottish-spending-widens.html

Are we being governed by a drug cartel?

Often think Mademoiselle and the hazy one are on cloud 9.

Sorry to repeat pic.

Cartoons are just that

So you mean an incisive valuation of a group of devious, d ridden disconnected "posh boys" and their behaviour.

I think it may also point to the reasons why this government is so squirmingly incompetent and not fit to govern.

Cameron isn't u-turning over his ill-tempered attempt to smear of Miliband with his own obvious standards, he appears to be in retreat.

He is misjudging the public, but they are judging him.

Just one person's interpretation. He has no magic ability to know any answers. It is similar to rock stars and celebs giving their expert opinions on everything under the sun.