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.

No government has been worse than the last lot. They took the gold medal for spending, taxing and trouble making.


In his ten years as Prime Minister, Tony Blair has introduced a new law every three-and-a- quarter hours, new research reveals.

Since 1997, an average of 2,685 laws have been passed every year - a 22 per cent rise on the previous decade.

They have covered subjects ranging from the importing of bed linen to the evaluation of statistics on labour costs.

The figure does not include European Union laws which also affect Britain - last year, 2,100 of those were passed, bringing the total to 4,785 or 13 every day, according to legal publishers Sweet & Maxwell.

Of the laws, 98 per cent were brought in by statutory instruments, rather than Acts of Parliament. The procedure allows less time for debate by MPs than the tabling of a Bill.

The statutes themselves have become longer, with five Acts passed last year taking more than 100 pages to explain, three of them more than 200, another above 300, another above 500 and one more than 700 pages long.

Shadow Cabinet Office minister Oliver Heald said: "Tony Blair and Gordon Brown think the answer to everything is to make a new law.

"But, after creating thousands of new laws, violent crime has doubled."

A spokesman for the Bar Council, which represents barristers in England and Wales, said: "Politicians often equate legislation with action.

"But the growing complexity of the law is the main reason trials are taking longer and costing more."

And ignorance is no excuse.

Haze.

What are you wandering on about now.

Please restart your medication or preferably read the 5 Acts of government in rapid decline.

(The Fall from Grace of the torids and their Kippers.)

It wouldn't be so bad Freddy boy if you weren't so blatantly leftie inclined and a little bit fairer...are you one of their corrupties ?...(new word just invented by myself)..

Rf

I don't think those spongers in the Thames valley should be having the state's army and social services mopping up for them.

They bought the houses and chose to live where they do.

They should pay their own way or work a bit harder in order to do so.

They will be asking to have bottle bloody water next delivered and repair of the minor roads and pathways.

And I hear they are asking for police protection of their vacant properties, taking them away from stop and search activities.

They stopped me the other night after a few pints, just because I had a red shirt on and carried a flag.


I hadn't had a drop, but they had.


It is strange to me that "state support", is only necessary for many when they themselves are "imperiled", even though they may still think it not necessary for others because they are less "deserving".

It is only when they notice theirs own "ineptitude" in certain situations that they opinions are confronted that they may review them and advocate "state" intervention in certain situation.

If money had been spent on the "infrastructure" (water defences included) and kept more employed and drawing less unemployment benefits then "some" of the present problems may have been addressed.

===

I have experienced first hand so called "communism" and don't advocate it as a system, but it has some useful features, but I am certainly not a Darwinian neo-fascist tory.

Also, I see there are advantages to restrained capitalism, but the extremes have to be public and contained. The system should be for the general improvement for all in a "society".

======

Rant over.

Have a warm weekend.

One thing is for sure is that the thames will have to be desilted, (I think that is the correct term), the other problem is that the thames valley is a flood plain...so how on earth do you shore up the banks hundreds of miles long ?...it's an impossibility....I don't know anything about the Somerset levels but I presume the environment agency is going to have to study how they are going to tackle this enormous problem......costs are astronomical when it comes to flood defences....
Anyway...I see Dave Travis has been cleared of charges....I always thought he was very funny on "Top of the pops" !...and just having a bit of fun with the bands, fans and viewers....(by the way...you have no idea how close I came to joining Pam's people and Legs and co....)

RF.

Not so simple as dredging, when it speeds up the volume hitting the bridges and houses and banks 5 miles further down the road.

That is why the agencies were trying to stop the flow off nearer the sources.

I am glad it is not my problem and that the State has oversight.

==

Dave Travis and don't remember him.

Don't know.

But the mores of that period were often different to this period.

I would not like to be a teenager now.

Why wouldn't you want to be a teenager now?


Free everything.

i see our resident, armchair, left-wing-tripe pedagogue is still cluttering up this thread with his usual rubbish diatribe

try asking him a question, but don't hold your breath for an answer

14 February 2014
Catholic archbishop attacks welfare reform

The Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal-designate Vincent Nichols
The Archbishop of Westminster says there is a "real dramatic crisis"

The leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales has labelled the government's social reform a "disgrace" for leaving people facing "destitution".

Cardinal-designate Vincent Nichols said the "basic safety net" for the poorest families has been "torn apart".

The Archbishop of Westminster claimed there was now a "real dramatic crisis".

The government responded by saying welfare reforms will "transform the lives" of the poorest families.

Speaking to the Telegraph, Archbishop Nichols, the most senior Roman Catholic cleric in England and Wales, said the welfare state was becoming "more punitive".

"I think what's happening is two things", he said.

"One is that the basic safety net, that was there to guarantee that people would not be left in hunger or in destitution has actually been torn apart. It no longer exists, and that is a real real dramatic crisis.

"And the second is that, in this context, the administration of social assistance - I am told - has become more and more punitive."

'Meet basic needs'
"So, if applicants don't get it right then they have to wait and they have to wait for 10 days, for two weeks - with nothing, with nothing. And that's why the role of food banks has become so crucial for so many people in Britain today.

"And for a country of our affluence that quite frankly is a disgrace."

The attack comes just days before Archbishop Nichols will be one of 19 new cardinals from around the world who will be appointed by Pope Francis at the Vatican.

A spokesman for the Department of Work and Pensions replied by saying the previous benefits system was "trapping" the very people it was designed to help.

"Our welfare reforms will transform the lives of some of the poorest families in our communities with universal credit making three million households better off and lifting hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty", the spokesman said.

"It's wrong to talk of removing a safety net when we're spending £94bn a year on working age benefits and the welfare system supports millions of people who are on low incomes or unemployed so they can meet their basic needs."

in many ways what he says is absolutely right ..... how far the church should get involved in politics is a different argument

of course the catholic church has a far greater augean stable of its own on which it might like to concentrate its mind - shall we mention its opposition to birth control? ... and that's just an easy one

How does this universal credit thingy work anyway?


anyone know?

Manuel was so quiet I thought that he was underwater.

Pity.

Cynic,

This reminded me of you and haze.

Aye Fred, and the silent majority WHO NO LONGER POST ON HERE, wish you had been drowned at birth. But I couldn't possibly comment. :O)

Or perhaps the grandees of the torrid party,

I see Simon Cowell has had a baby : congratulations are in order but...it's funny ; I thought...that.. women did...I suppose anything's possible !....anybody check it for claws...666...horns. ....that sort of thing ?..

Who speaks for England?

By johnredwood | Published: February 15, 2014

http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2014/02/15/who-speaks-for-england-2/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JohnRedwoodsDiary+%28John+Redwood%27s+Diary%29


I asked the government this question earlier in this Parliament. There was no clear answer. It is becoming a more important question, as the Scottish government challenges the Union from within, and the European Union challenges it from without. It is especially important given the wish of the EU and its supporters to deny the very existence of England, as they seek to balkanise into regions with no resonance.

The Cabinet contains the nucleus of an English government. The Secretaries of State for Education, Health, the Environment, Communities and local government, and Transport are English Ministers, not Ministers of the Union. Their functions outside England are the responsibility of devolved governments. Parts of Culture Media and Sport are also devolved. It would be helpful if the word English was more commonly used to describe their remits and duties.

The UK Parliament contains a majority of English MPs. Many of us would like to see the proposal enforced that only English MPs should in future vote on English matters. Some nationalist MPs agree and usually absent themselves from votes on English education or health, seeing that they have no interest or constituency knowledge in these matters.

I see the Westminster Parliament as both the Parliament of the Union and the Parliament of England. I do not wish to see another expensive group of politicians elected to some new expensive building for a different English Parliament. I do want our Cabinet Ministers to be explicitly English in their words and work, and do want English MPs to stand up for England , with us debating and voting on these matters within the Westminster building.

Something to make you pucker up...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVB-F4v1czE