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.

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.

The writing is a bit small, but if you want to read it, go to the site and you can expand it by pressing control and +

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cartoon/2013/dec/29/riddell-political-almanac-2014-cartoon

Try this instead.
Interesting reading but difficult for Manuel.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/dec/29/uk-manufacturing-economic-growth

"This month has seen further confirmation of Britain's economic recovery and an indictment of that recovery's composition. If 2013 has brought some form of revival, then we must wish that 2014 brings balance to it.

The evidence that this country's return to growth is out of kilter was threefold. First, never-before-seen data showed that south-west London had more mortgage debt than all of Wales. The capital is at the centre of a housing market revival that is powering the recovery, while the rest of the UK trails in its wake.

Indeed, 44% of all mortgage debt in the country is held by people in London and the south-east, areas which account for nearly 40% of British GDP.

Redressing the issues thrown up by those statistics is a long-term challenge, one that involves tilting Britain's centre of economic gravity away from financial services and London towards other sectors and other regions. Manufacturing, for instance, shares its wealth much more evenly across the UK than banking. But while the aspiration to spread the growth may be admirable, and is unlikely to draw much opposition from politicians of any stripe (barring the more fervent supporters of the City in the Conservative party), it is difficult to achieve".

and your point is?
perhaps it was this bit .... "Manufacturing, for instance, shares its wealth much more evenly across the UK than banking"
even your chosen rag seems to admit that manufacturing in the uk is performing very strongly - surprised me too - albeit that it is from a base greatly depleted since WW1


by the way, when are you going to give your assessment of the achievements of your left-socialist hero hollande?
surely he's now been in power long enough for you, with your self-evident superior intellect, to draw out at least a few of your typically perceptive analyses?

You would expect most mortgage debt to be in London as it has the highest value properties. It also has the highest pay, so the people may be better placed to repay the mortgage. I know someone with a £2m mortgage on a house worth £20m.