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.

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.

Farage threatens rival broadcast
Press AssociationPress Association – 1 hour 47 minutes ago..

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/farage-threatens-rival-broadcast-200058034.html#hDh20cm



.Nigel Farage (pictured) has argued strongly in favour of being allowed to appear in a televised debate between political leaders at the next general electionView Photo.



Nigel Farage has threatened to broadcast a rival show to voters if his UK Independence Party is excluded from televised debate between political leaders at the next general election.

Prime Minister David Cameron has made clear he does not believe Ukip should be represented if agreement is reached to repeat 2010's groundbreaking TV showdowns.

He says the debates - which are yet to be agreed but last time featured the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat leaders - "predominantly should be about people who have a prospect of becoming Prime Minister".

Mr Farage - whose party has no MPs but is favourite to win the European elections in the UK next year and is consistently outscoring the Lib Dems in national opinion polls - has argued strongly in favour of being allowed to appear.

But he said he was working on some "fun" alternatives if he is not allowed to join the main event.

"If Ukip has good cause to think that it should be in the TV debates and it's excluded, we will provide an alternative form of entertainment on the evening," he told Total Politics.

"I'm working on some ideas.

"The internet is quite big these days.... you could live stream.

"There's one or two technical things we are working about and thinking about.

"It would be quite fun wouldn't it?

"People would have their TVs and their laptops next to it.

"They might think they can exclude us but modern technology has such a power.

"To be honest, if it wasn't for the internet we wouldn't be here.

"Youtube and Facebook and all of this has helped us to reach an audience we would not have reached."

Mr Farage said he would not rule out working with Mr Cameron in future - but only in the same way he could not rule out risking life and limb jumping out of a high window if a room was on fire.

"I'd have thought David Cameron would rather go to his political grave rather than ever contemplate doing a deal with the ghastly UKIP - that's my judgment, I could be wrong," he added.

He also conceded that he had in the past allowed the party to "look a bit like the rugby club on a day out" but that there had been an "astonishing" increase in the number of women now involved, who now dominated candidate lists for the European elections.

"We still have a preponderance of male over female voters, but it's nothing like the gulf that it was and I think get some of these women elected and into senior positions in the party and I think that image will change - and none of it done with an ounce of positive discrimination," he said.

He added that he relished outspoken attacks on him by other parties - such veteran Tory minister Ken Clarke's dismissal of his party as "clowns".

"Keep it coming, be as rude as you can, because actually, out there, people still have a tremendous sense of fair play in this country... and people see through it.

"I think much of the abuse has helped us, I think the 'clowns' comment was worth a couple of per cent, I really do."

It was an "outrage", he added, that no-one in Ukip had been offered a peerage.

"Cameron blathers on about wanting a House of Lords that represents the way people in this country vote, well crikey O'Reilly, we've been offered nothing."

ohhhhhhhhhhhh revealed on SKY news by Ed Balls, this flowers chap as been in meetings with Osbourne at least 20 to 30 times. The treasury fronted by Osbourne wanted them to take over the lloyds branches.

Boots on the other foot now.

So much untruths flouted by Camoron in last few days and in PMQs.

Old news. There was no reason for the co-op bank not to takeover Lloyd's branches. The ultimate basis was clearance by the FSA. It looks like the FSA dropped the ball.

"There was no reason for the co-op bank not to takeover Lloyd's branches" I think you need to get some sleep H/S -):

Hays Hays Hays.......think again........

From the FT.........

Osborne leaned on EU to ease rules for Co-op
By Alex Barker in Brussels and Patrick Jenkins and George Parker in London

George Osborne pressed Brussels last year to spare the Co-operative Bank from tougher rules applied to big listed banks, a revelation that complicates Conservative attempts to drag Ed Miliband into the scandal engulfing the bank and its former chairman.

The chancellor’s attempt to win more lenient capital treatment for the Co-op came at a 2am negotiating session between finance ministers in May, shortly after he angrily criticised special carveouts, according to several people present.

His intervention provides further evidence that Tory politicians – as well as Labour – pulled out the stops to help what was seen as a bastion of banking respectability that they hoped could bolster competition in retail banking.

In particular, there was political momentum behind the idea that the Co-op’s bid for Lloyds’ TSB network would produce a strong challenger to the big four high street banks. Though talks on the deal had broken off a month before Mr Osborne’s intervention in Brussels, they resumed two months later. It is unclear whether there was any change to the regulator’s view of the Co-op’s capital situation during that period. The bank subsequently withdrew from the purchase, when it emerged that it had a £1.5bn capital hole.

Mr Osborne’s aides say the chancellor had tried to help the Co-op in Brussels and was not embarrassed about ensuring the bank was treated the same as other EU mutuals. “We are totally unashamed in trying to help a British institution and the British economy,” one said.

A person present at the talks in May spoke of “complete and absolute astonishment” when British officials asked for the Co-op to benefit from lenient terms that Mr Osborne had earlier mocked for breaching the Basel accord on bank capital.
Diplomats involved said the Co-op request came after Mr Osborne realised other countries would not back his call to tighten standards for all banks. The European Commission declined to comment.

The news muddied attempts by David Cameron to draw a direct link between the Labour party and the bank’s unfolding scandal. Revelations at the weekend that the Rev Paul Flowers, former chairman and once a local councillor, had allegedly been caught on film paying £300 for illegal substances have badly damaged the group.
Mr Cameron said the coalition was planning an inquiry – overseen by regulators – into what had gone wrong at the Co-op bank, possible regulatory failures, and the approval of Rev Flowers as the bank’s chairman in 2010 even though he lacked banking expertise.

“This bank, driven into the wall by this chairman, has been giving soft loans to the Labour party, donations to the Labour party, trooped in and out of Downing Street . . . now we know they knew about his past,” he said.
“Why did they do nothing to bring to the attention of the authorities this man who has broken a bank?”

Andrew Tyrie, who chairs the Treasury select committee, said any review must be led by an “independent person”.
“The authorities cannot be seen to be marking their own work,” he said.
The Co-op’s capital rules will be governed from next year by the EU’s latest capital requirements law, which give latitude to mutually owned banks on the types of instruments that count as top-notch capital.

However, the Co-op’s status as a public limited company wholly owned by a mutual group was a grey area that Mr Osborne’s officials clarified, potentially to the Co-op’s advantage. In its preliminary assessment of EU implementation, the Basel committee questioned whether the way co-operatives were treated was compliant with the accord.

Michael Dugher, co-head of Labour’s elections campaign, said: “The Tories were all over the Co-op like a cheap coat six months ago because they were desperate to try and get some distance between them and all the dodgy hedge funders who bankroll their party.”

In the end, Co-op’s capital advantage is an academic point as the restructuring deal to recapitalise the bank through a debt-for-equity swap will leave the mutual parent with only 30 per cent ownership of the bank. That will bar it unequivocally from qualifying from the capital latitude given to pure mutuals.

ITS ALL COMING OUT IN THE TORIES WASH.

From Peston on twitter.......

Someone should point out that the Britannia takeover which holed Co-op took place in 2009, a year before Flowers became chairman @Peston

Tories dug an hole for themselves here Im afraid, an own goal of the highest order.

The reports wont look at the tittle tattle but the real evidence.

The reports wont look at the tittle tattle but the real evidence
that would be a first then :-)

actually, do we really care? ..... of course hays, sticky and one or two others seem to be getting excited about something or other that is probably a kot less untoward than mccluskey and unite and all that shenanigans

Cyners do you really read anyone elses posts but your own.....see here re- to your comment above......

goldfinger - 21 Nov 2013 13:38 - 33117 of 33154
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.