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.

i had the story very much back to front

frankly, that's a u-turn to be applauded and it's a shame that the europeans don't also take a stronger or even any stance to cut down on smoking

there's certainly a fairly weak law in europe about smoking in restaurants and similar, but i think cancer sticks are half the price of uk ..... this must be at least a significant contributing factor as to why so many, especially the young, smoke there

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25129444 Name all the guilty ones ASLP.

sounds pretty minor stuff, but i'm sure there's much more to it than meets the eye

Any exposure of corruption must be good.

cynic 28 Nov 2013 06:07 - Post 33417

"i had the story very much back to front"

=========
Not for the last time.

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Now here is a real problem be acquired.




http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25121145

Tories help to provide £600000 house loans but at the same time:

Student loan repayment needs tighter control, say MPs
By Sean CoughlanBBC News education correspondent


The government is not doing enough to get student loans repaid as the total value of money owed continues to rise, a spending watchdog has warned.

The outstanding loan debt is £46bn and will rise to £200bn in the next 30 years, the National Audit Office said.

About 50% of students are not expected to earn enough to repay all their loan.
The NAO report also highlights concerns over the more than £5bn owed by about 368,000 former students whose exact whereabouts are unaccounted for.
It says officials are overestimating how much money will be recovered each year, and is not securing value for money for tax payers.
The increase in tuition fees in England has meant much higher levels of student loans and debts - and the spending watchdog says there needs to be much tighter scrutiny of levels of repayment.
Such an expansion requires a "much more robust strategy" for recovering loans, said Margaret Hodge, chair of the Commons Public Accounts Committee.
"It is essential that government collects every pound it can of the debt that should be collected," she said.
Off the radar
The report says there is a lack of employment information about the former students who owe more than £5bn.

.

.

I thought it was Cynic driving at first.

haha, read the comments...the guardianista's are outraged lol


http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cartoon/2013/nov/28/conservatives-immigration-cartoon

Quoting from above,

"The UK and British government are indeed taking on their brown shirts. Instead of calming things down and act as a voice of reason, they pick up hysteria and fear."

.

and you'ld be squawking around or wailing like a banshee if the gov't takes no action - or at the very least, attempts to do something - about both the wind turbine blight and immigration

amazing how quiet the "banshee brigade" seem to be about the EXCELLENT u-turn re ciggie packaging, though assuredly it shouldn't have been necessary in the first place

It is not a complete U turn or even one at all. The view in July was that further views would be sought. Of course that was grasped by Labour as a sign of some corruption as Lynton Crosby was an advisor to the tobacco companies. We'll they were wrong as the government has taken more views and now sees a fairly good case.

What is happening now is that enabling legislation is being proposed that will give the government powers to bring in plain packaging. This is to be a further study which I gather will report back in March. It is to look at the Australian experience of the same thing. The problem in Australia is that there are ongoing legal challenges by the companies. The government wants to see what happens there to avoid such legal wrangling here.

I must admit that the plain packets U turn is not such a wonderful thing done by the government although the government will probably get some good press over it.

The reality is that an amendment to the Children and Families Bill currently in the Lords was tabled to add plain packaging. The government view was that they would probably get defeated on the amendment so added their own amendment. This allows the government to insist on plain packaging but does not require them to. A further investigation has been added. This has enabled the government to kick the issue into touch.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/11/27/boris-johnson-wants-to-bring-back-thatchers-eighties_n_4351787.html?ir=UK+Politics&ref=topbar


I noticed that the video was heavely edited.

GOOD

Economic equality will never be possible because some people are too stupid to get ahead, Boris Johnson said on Wednesday night.

“Whatever you may think of the value of IQ tests, it is surely relevant to a conversation about equality that as many as 16 per cent of our species have an IQ below 85, while about 2 per cent have an IQ above 130,” he said.

Addressing the Centre for Policy Studies in London, Mr Johnson suggested that economic inequality was useful because it encouraged people to work harder.

Died age 67 , Lewis Colins who played Brodie. I remember going to the hairdressers with a photo and getting my hair done like his.