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,

Haystack is right. You, Fred and Fishfinger are fighting a lost cause with your socialist drivel. I fully expect the Conservatives to stroll back into No 10 in 2015. It's pretty much nailed on in Westminster circles that they'll win the next election - it's just that northerners tend to be a bit thick and behind the times, so they haven't cottoned on just yet.

Hey Hils. racist. I'm a bloody northerner how dare you suggest i support those red flag left wing shitheads :O) And believe it or not tourists who go to Blackpool mainly come from the bloody south or Scotland. We in the NORTH have more sense.

There are exceptions to every rule, CC. :o)

I'm a Scot, thank God now living in England and I think Cameron is definitely preferable to either Milliband or Alex Salmond.

Sky News spends so much time reporting about Justin Babyier. What an utter waste of space he is and who cares if he's been pulled up for driving a fast car under the influence of drink or drugs. He's just like loads of our professional footballers - being paid far too much money for zilch talent and making the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Post 35851. Who cares what you think, just crawl back under the stone that you usually hide under or alternatively consider dropping dead.

Hillyone,

How much have you laid on Wavey Dave being PM or tory party leader at the end of 2015?

that wasn't a very christian suggestion stan :-)

Just a sentimental wish!

"that wasn't a very christian suggestion stan :-)' Thank you Alf... I'll take that as a compliment -):

You are a little rebel stan. :-))

Just don't care do I DC.

Stan
Have you met IDS? Do you know the good work he does through the Centre for Social Justice in south London that he created under the previous Labour government in 2004? I have met him and been to meetings there as far back as 2005.

http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/

The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) was established as an independent think-tank by the Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP in 2004. As Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith spent time in many of the UK’s most disadvantaged communities, with people whose lives were blighted by social breakdown and the poverty it created. As he later wrote, he encountered 'levels of social breakdown which appalled me. In the fourth largest economy in the world, too many people lived in dysfunctional homes, trapped on benefits. Too many children were leaving school with no qualifications or skills to enable them to work and prosper. Too many communities were blighted by alcohol and drug addiction, debt and criminality, many of them with stunningly low levels of life expectancy.’

Well at least he recognised the problem.

His solution is the problem.

------

Did he have a strange degree from an Italian University?

David Cameron will feel a real sense of belonging as he presses the flesh at Davos. Who would have thought it? Had the global power summit been held just a few months ago, he would have undertaken that pilgrimage as acknowledged steward of an ailing, troubled economy. The story he might tell now permits a certain swagger.

There is now a "recovery for all," he declares, as analysts say the earnings of the majority are now increasing by more than inflation. Ministers point to new figures suggesting that all except the richest 10% had their take-home wages increase by at least 2.5% once tax cuts were taken into account.

Add to that the news about unemployment; now down to 7.1%, and rising house prices, and the news that the Bank of England will not soon raise interest rates, and one sees how the prime minister is able to frame a narrative about how the strictures of austerity are beginning to reap the benefits.

Those here who have witnessed the chaos in Whitehall and Westminster these past four years may look askance at the notion that the pieces of the jigsaw are being methodically assembled, but in Davos this will undoubtedly play well.

And what can one conclude from the strategising of recent days? That once again, it's about the economy, stupid! The debates on immigration and welfare may provide unpleasantly discordant mood music, but the real battleground will be about the state of the recovery and who can be relied upon to deliver it.

And therein lies a problem and a decision for Labour. Is it going to spend the next months talking the economy down while the Tories beam optimism? That's a trap best avoided. For all our cynicism, there is still superior force in the politics of hope. Optimism is a much more powerful electoral stimulant than pessimism. Labour cannot allow this to become a contest between Sunny Dave and Jeremiah Ed.

Of course Labour must flag up any deceit over the government's figures if they seem questionable. Already that is happening. The shadow Treasury minister Cathy Jamieson insists the cheery figures on pay have been massaged and draw attention away from matters such as cuts to tax credits and child benefit, both of which have hit working families. She says that in fact real annual wages have fallen by £1,600 since 2010 and cites figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies indicating that "families are on average £891 worse off as a result of tax and benefit changes since 2010".

That is all well and good. But over and above any focus on the coalition's failings, Labour must have a coherent plan about how it will do better. The lack of that narrative is probably why Labour has so far failed to pull away in the polls and is now seeing its poll lead tighten. The latest ICM poll for the Guardian estimated the lead at just 3%.

That said, the determinant will not, in fact be what politicians say, or even what the media say about the state of the economy. People's anger with politicians and the media is such that neither of us are fully believed anyway. The crucial factor will be whether or not people actually feel change for the better in their own lives, and the lives of their families and neighbours. Only then will they pay attention to politicians and the media, and whether what they hear chimes with their real-life experience.

It will be about the economy, but the real economy, and not the picture as drawn in the Westminster village or the high-powered salons of Davos. Seen in those terms, there is all to play for.

Guess which paper the above article has been taken from GF? Three per cent lead eh! Massive, I bet your sat sat there with bated breath waiting with anticipation for the question to be answered :-

"That is all well and good. But over and above any focus on the coalition's failings, Labour must have a coherant plan about how it will do better. The lack of that narrative is probably why Labour has so far failed to pull away in the polls and is now seing its poll lead tighten. The latest ICM poll for the Guardian estimated the lead at just 3%.

OOOpps!