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.

Funny how the last poll was the Guardian and this one is the Telegraph.

the labour party admit, though rather sotto voce, that they completely screwed up with their immigration policies

unfortunately, it is that nasty mess that now needs to be dealt with though it is a very fair criticism that the current crew should have put in place the road towards much tougher policies many months or even a year or two ago

i fear that what will now be produced will be something pretty wishy-washy so as not to run foul of the courts in brussels

halt immigration in its tracks?
no; that would just be damn silly and indeed counter-productive

a tough but realistic points system + restrictions on an immigrant's right to assorted welfare benefits, running the full gamut from health through housing and everything else?
most assuredly

will the latter be imposed and applied and immediately?
fat chance!

29 December 2013 Last updated at 11:45

Debt crisis will hurt millions, says think-tank

Even in a "good growth" scenario, the number of households facing a debt crisis would almost double

Millions of UK households will face "perilous" levels of debt when interest rates begin to rise, according to a think-tank focused on living standards.

The number of people using more than half their disposable income to repay debt could rise from 600,000 to a 1.1 million by 2018 if interest rates rise to 3%, said the Resolution Foundation.

If rates hit 5%, two million households would face huge repayments, it said.

Mortgages are the largest source of UK household debt.

The Resolution Foundation study used the latest five-year growth projections from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility.

"Even if we take a somewhat rosy view of how the economy will develop over the next few years the number of households severely exposed to debt looks as though it will double," said Matthew Whittaker, the senior economist at the Resolution Foundation.

"But the levels of debt built up by families in the pre-crisis years are such that even relatively modest changes in incomes and borrowing cost assumptions produce significantly worse outcomes."

The Resolution Foundation said the number of households in so-called "debt peril" - spending more than half their income to debt repayments - was 870,000 in 2007, just before the financial crisis.

If rates do not rise above 3% by 2018, then the Resolution Foundation suggests 1.1 million will be in "debt peril".

Unemployment rates
"On the most adverse, but still plausible, scenario looked at in the Resolution Foundation analysis the number of households in Britain who spend at least half their disposable income on repaying debts (and are therefore deemed to be in debt peril) could more than triple - from 600,000 in 2011 to 2 million by 2018," it said.

The predictions apply to all debt, including credit cards and other loans - but mortgages make up the largest slice of most debt in the UK.

The Bank of England has kept interest rates on hold at a record low of 0.5% since March 2009.

Under the Bank's policy of forward guidance, brought in Governor Mark Carney, it has said it will not increase interest rates until the rate of unemployment has dropped below 7%.

The UK unemployment rate this month recently fell to 7.4% during the three months to October, the lowest level since early 2009, which led some economists to predict that the Bank may raise rates as soon as next year.

Recently, the Conservative-leaning think tank, the Centre for Social Justice, said the average UK household has debts of £54,000, including mortgages. This is nearly twice the level of a decade ago and much more must be done to help the UK's poorest families, it said.

Lord Prescott

Fred Lord of - - - - ? any idea's

The UK should take in some refugees from Syria's civil war, UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage has said.

He told BBC News that Western countries should agree to take an allocation, but he did not specify numbers.

Mr Farage, who has led opposition to allowing open immigration from Romania and Bulgaria in the new year, said refugees were "a very different thing".

The UK government is refusing to accept Syrian refugees, saying it is better to offer financial help.

Bad cop now good cop Will this get UKIP more or less votes ? risky move by Farage.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25541739

France's 75% tax rate gains approval by top court

France's highest court has approved a 75% tax on high earners that is one of President Francois Hollande's signature policies.

The initial proposal to tax individual incomes was ruled unconstitutional by the Constitutional Council almost exactly one year ago.

But the government modified it to make employers liable for the 75% tax on salaries exceeding 1m euros (£830,000).

The levy will last two years, affecting income earned this year and in 2014.

Football clubs in France went on strike earlier this year over the issue, saying many of France's clubs are financially fragile and say the plans could spark an exodus of top players who are paid huge salaries.

The Qatari-owned Paris Saint-Germain has more than 10 players whose pay exceeds 1m euros, including the Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

There has also been a chorus of protest from businesses and wealthy individuals who have condemned the tax - including film star Gerard Depardieu, who left the country in protest.

Polls suggest a large majority in France back the temporary tax.

Unlike many other countries in Europe, France aims to bring down its huge public deficit by raising taxes as well as some spending cuts.

The highest tax rate in the UK is 45% and is applied to individuals.

Manuel,

Get back in you kennel!

I know as you have stated previously and it is obvious that you didn't benefit from your education, but I personally would find you to obtuse to attempt to help you with your obvious past educational failings.

Suggest, you read a little more and write a little less and with a help from other than myself your contributions may improve.

-------------------

As far as Hollande is concerned, I am prepared to wait and see.

But any opinion other than your own or tory party HQ would probably be dismissed out of hand.


========

After reading Fauxpage's views on Syrian immigrants to-day, it will be interesting to see Cammerooon next u-turn.

(His rapidity of policy changes, I would think he confuses himself.)


Once again, I wonder as the Con party attempts to appease its deserters to UKIP and if they succeed with their feeble blustering attempts to block immigration, who, or what, will they hold responsible for their next row of failures?
They are running out of scapegoats for the problems of their own making and looking more and more farcical every day!
But the sad and worrying thing for me is that they behaviour reminds many and myself of another crowd of elitists, that is Oswald Mosley and his "black shirts" friends.

Has not George and cronies admitted that in the unlikely case of he and his cronies getting elected in 2015 that Tax levels would be raised?

Taxes have already been raised


http://www.adamsmith.org/taxfreedomday

MailOnline - news,politics.. Saturday, Dec 28 2013 3AM

"

so fossy declines to make any real comment of any kind about hollande, who ought to be his idol upholding and acting on all those left-socialist ideals which fossy raves so incessantly about

instead, fossy gripes, grizzles and whinges incessantly about the present incumbents and how awful they are and how they ought to be raising taxes, penalising anyone who earns more than about £50k pa and all sorts of other nonsense that his pretend socialist conscience dictates

no surprise really, because fossy lives up to his sobriquet as always

prig i called fossy previously, and prig he most assuredly is

As I said earlier, it doesn't matter what the public think at the moment. The chart above is about cost of living. That will improve as the event nomy improves.

The Conservative policies are about 'supply side policies' as opposed to the left wing Keynesian economics. The current policies are essentially the same as were very successfully used in the Thatcher period

If the tory party put taxes down he would be on their case.

I haven't seen any comments from the Conservatives saying taxes would rise. I have seen though comments from the left saying that the Conservatives would have to raise taxes.

So what within reason if taxes have to rise, the credit card is better paid off sooner than later.

Hays,

Do you mean when Thatcher destroyed the Manufacturing base of the economy in favour of the Financial and Service "Industries", which so successfully saved us from the recent and continuing economic crash.

Of course, there were the benefits in donations to the party from the geniuses of these industry to the party funds.

But of course we can trust the "captains of industry" to do the right things and not plunder the country and take the spoils to tax havens.

Why I chat with them every time they come into the No 10 Kitchen through the back door.

(Or was that Murdoch and Beccy.)

But this present government doesn't think changing the regulations are necessary, or it hasn't the guts to put in the necessary regulations to prevent the next collapse.

-------------------------

But, I must admit I have a little more respect for Cable and Clegg in their denouncing of the latest dreamt-up tory policies.

Thatcher destroyed the Manufacturing base of the economy
that is absolute rubbish, but then what would expect from fossy .... it fits his pretend-socialist persona (while pontificating from his cosy andover-stuffed armchair) to state such, but to repeat, the accusation is total nonsense as fossy well knows .... typically he just extracts the bits and pieces and snippets and manipulates them to suit

He is not "Gobshite Of The Year (recurring)" by default.