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.

GF.

The problem with your postings on the economy is that many are in denial and the present government appears to be a bunch of stunted lying school boys.

They repeat their mantras handed down from "head office" like conforming altar boys and eventually believe them.

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If during the first 3 years of the present period of tory led mismanagement, austerity rush (for political reasons) had been slower and money poured into improving the infrastructure earlier, then poverty of many in the work force could have been less and welfare benefit payments reduced, perhaps, being more prepared for the destruction produce by the "floods" etc. and the country better repaired for the "upturn".
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I think I will copy and paste your postings on this thread at various intervals.

I see Miliband has his wellies on and is wading round Berkshire. I suppose he is looking at the mess that Labour made of the environment when they had it under their control.

4 years of complacency and mismanagement by the torrid party.

They are behaving like juveniles delinquents in charge of the sweet shop and dispensing the goodies to pals for future favours.

Mind the reduction in financing of the Environment Agency is coming home to bite in interesting areas. (Even though some tories are trying to lie there ways around the figures.)

Perhaps, it would be interesting if there was no central grants or financing for the flooded areas and any improvements paid for by the local communities.

lots of rattle and prattle, but still no immediate solutions being suggested by our armchair critics
wouldn't expect otherwise from fossy, but i hoped others might have some sort of engineering background and thus sensible input
personally, i don't believe there is any immediate solutions, and indeed, even longer solution would require 10+ years to implement + of course HUGE amounts of money and unequivocal political support from all parties

It had been raining for days and days, and a local river crested, flooding many houses. The waters rose so high that one man was forced to climb onto the roof of his house.

As the waters rose higher and higher, a man in a rowboat appeared, and told him to get in. "No," replied the man on the roof. "I have faith in the Lord; the Lord will save me." So the man in the rowboat went away. The man on the roof prayed for God to save him.

The waters rose higher and higher, and suddenly a speedboat appeared. "Climb in!" shouted a man in the boat. "No," replied the man on the roof. "I have faith in the Lord; the Lord will save me." So the man in the speedboat went away. The man on the roof prayed for God to save him.

The waters continued to rise. A helicopter appeared and over the loudspeaker, the pilot announced he would lower a rope to the man on the roof. "No," replied the man on the roof. "I have faith in the Lord; the Lord will save me." So the helicopter went away. The man on the roof prayed for God to save him.

The waters rose higher and higher, and eventually they rose so high that the man on the roof was washed away, and alas, the poor man drowned.

Upon arriving in heaven, the man marched straight over to God. "Heavenly Father," he said, "I had faith in you, I prayed to you to save me, and yet you did nothing. Why?" God gave him a puzzled look, and replied "I sent you two boats and a helicopter, what more did you expect?"

Could the BBC save Taxpayers money by not having such a big TV coverage of the Winter Olympics ? Am sure the average viewer isn't all that interested.

But Manuel the tory boyos, like yourself, have been telling the gormless public that they have the solutions for everything and never make mistakes.

They have been in "power" for 4 years.

The only mistakes made are those of others and not anything to do with them and nothing to do with their supervisory positions.

I supposed their institutional upbringing has taught them to weave and duck and cling together, as long as it not personally expensive.

They haven't noticed the public are realising that this governing bunch is becoming more and more disconnected from them.

(Corporal Cameron, putting on his wellies and trying to appear like a modern day Bonaparte retreating from Moscow isn't washing.)


Mind they know what should be done, cut, cut, cut, everything except taxes. That will sort out the problems.

They are beginning to see the results of some of their injudicious actions.

The bunch which in control have been the most arrogant, elitist and detached group I have seen in power over the last 60 years.

fossy - you remain the armchair pedagogue with nothing ever constructive or sensible to say .... as is said in michelin, worth a detour

Haystack - lol, post 36424!

Fred yes please do save them and plaster them on the thread when we get any silly talk about the cause of the recession and deficit.

Good to see a Tory as fathomed out Camoron is a liar.

Manuel for your pleasure!

Latest YouGov / The Sun results 10th February - Con 33%, Lab 39%, LD 10%, UKIP 12%; APP -27

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It is time that you packed your bags and left for Kuwait before the other plagues occur.

The best thing to happen now, is for libs to split completely from the torrid party and vote with Labour and collapse the present government.

I found this little snippet interesting. Does this mean if I record programmes and watch them later I don't have to pay a licence fee. Apologies if this is a stupid question !

"The BBC is increasingly concerned that growing numbers of people are avoiding paying the licence fee by watching catch up television. The licence fee only covers live broadcasts."

I was in Somerset waiting for ages for a bus.

Then what do you know, two float past at once.

Our clueless establishment needs to pay the price for floods crisis

by Allister Heath

February 11, 2014

When a private company messes up, it rightly gets pilloried. But when the public sector commits a blunder, even an enormous one, it all too often gets away with it. Blame is deflected; few people, if any, lose their jobs; knighthoods are retained; and the flawed dominant ideology is allowed to retain its grip on the system, regardless of how many times it is proved to be nonsensical. The hypocrisy and double standards are extraordinary and epitomised by the reaction to the flooding crisis, which is now engulfing parts of London and swathes of its commuter belt.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m delighted companies are held to account when they make a mistake. It’s just that it would be great were the public sector to face the same degree of accountability and scrutiny – when it comes to mismanaged floods, unnecessary deaths in hospitals, failing schools that ruin kids’ lives or even monetary policy that creates bubbles, crashes, unemployment and misery. Why are we so indulgent towards those who work in the state or not for profit sectors when they mess up, but so tough on those who work in the for profit private sector?

Yet the very same people who routinely demand retribution for recessions – assuming, laughably, that these can be pinned on a few bankers or business folk, rather than vast, impersonal forces – are now claiming that nobody should be fired for the floods because they are caused by unstoppable natural forces and the weather.

Sure, the rain has been horrendous – and of course people have been building on flood plains. Yet it is also clear that a number of avoidable mistakes have been made by officials, and that the consequences of the heavy precipitations could have been much less bad. An analysis by Colin Clark in Water Power magazine of the worst periods for consecutive three monthly rainfall since 1766 shows that this is the fifth highest on record; there is a huge amount of rain, but it’s a one in 50 years occurrence, not one in a 1,000.

I’m not blaming Owen Paterson, the secretary of state, or recent budgetary cuts, but instead 10-15 years of incorrect policies and institutional incompetence, starting under Labour but for which all parties and the EU share responsibility. This is an establishment crisis, a failure of a particular way of doing things. Rivers should have been dredged properly; people should have been put before natural habitats; flood defences made secure; and the mad policy, outlined by the previous government in 2008, to allow parts of the country to flood more for “environmental” reasons should never have been adopted. Would this have prevented all, or even most, of this crisis? Perhaps not – but the damage would not have been as great.

The establishment has been clueless. Caroline Spelman, the previous environment secretary, argued in 2012 that climate change could mean droughts are “the new normal”. The Met Office warned on 21st November 2013, that “confidence in the forecast for precipitation across the UK over the next three months is relatively low.” But it went on to predict that the probability that precipitation for December-January-February would fall into the driest of its five categories was 25 per cent; the probability that it would fall into the wettest category was just 15 per cent.

Imagine if the Environment Agency had been contracted out to a for-profit outsourcing company: there would be calls for renationalisation, for senior staff to lose their pensions and titles, for a new regulator, super-taxes and pay caps and action at the EU level. The Archbishop of Canterbury would be calling for a thorough and urgent inquiry into the practices and culture of the people in charge of preventing floods. It’s all madness: a scandal is a scandal, regardless of whether it takes place in the private or the public sector. Individuals should always take full responsibility for their errors. It’s time for a little more balance.

It was the same with the student riots and then the Tottenham riots.

It took Camoron in the latter case three days to get his fat ass of the French Beaches before he arrived back in Britain. Just 1 member of the cabinet in this country Hague up in Richmond.

Ironically it was the rain that stopped the riots on the fourth night.

What a bollox up from a totaly useless clueless and inept government who blame everybody but themselves.

Why should Cameron come back from holiday because some scum were acting up?

I blame my father that I am only 6'2", I wanted to be another 2" taller.

The torrids have been in power 4 years and they are supposed to be able to walk on water.

What have they done in face of problems, cut back the finances.

But, I suppose in time for the spring tide they will have the 2 battleships ready to defend London at no extra costs.

Laughable, lamentable torrids.

errr London was burning to the ground.

But fat Dave despite this was roasting himself on a french beach whilst Britain was going up in flames.

And then some people asked why didnt he delegate responsibility to one of his ministers.

In the end on the third day when everything had burnt down and everything plundered he asked the only minister in the country Hague to make a plea for calm.

PATHETIC.

God help us if the Ruskys invade us us it will be over in 2 days and Camoron no doubt will be finding residence abroad.