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.

But his government is attempting to do precisely that, borrowing more over five years than Labour did over 13.

Is it just me or have the fonts got bigger on money am?????????????????????????

The print seems very large this morning.

Looks normal to me gf.

GF

Try ctrl + or - for your screen.

Cheers will do Fred. Thanks Max.

Think it might be last nights ale.

Check your sugar!

Ministers have been ordered to stop squandering British aid on wasteful projects, including climate change schemes in wealthy countries, the Telegraph has learnt.


Justine Greening, the development secretary, fears Whitehall departments, in particular the Department for Energy and Climate Change, could undermine public support for overseas aid by funding poorly-run projects in middle-income countries that do not need help from British taxpayers.


In a letter seen by the Telegraph, Mrs Greening warns ministers they risk breaching international protocols and face investigation by Britain's aid watchdog if they spend continue to spend money on anything other than relieving extreme poverty in the world’s poorest regions.


Mrs Greening fully supports the Government’s target of spending 0.7 per cent of GDP on foreign aid. But the warning that some departments are may be misusing aid will bolster Conservative MPs who want David Cameron to divert some of the £8bn a year aid budget on flood relief in Britain.


Mrs Greening’s department, which accounts for the lion’s share of aid spending, has stripped funds from more than a dozen rapidly growing countries and has been swift to shut down programmes that misspent funds. She wants private sector firms such as supermarkets to work with her department to help developing economies come off aid and stand on their own feet.

Mrs Greening did not single out any departments in the letter, which was sent to every member of the Cabinet.

However, she is understood to be particularly frustrated at Liberal Democrat Ed Davey's energy and climate change department, which oversees hundreds of millions of pounds of grants designed to help poor and middle-income countries curb their carbon emissions.

It recently gave £15m to cattle ranchers in Colombia, the world’s 30th richest country, to help cut flatulence in cows. It has also funded projects in Turkey and Chile, which are enjoying rapid economic growth.

Daily Telegraph

This an interesting response to the US looking at people's emails

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/02/17/world/europe/merkel-backs-plan-to-keep-european-data-in-europe.html?_r=0&referrer=

Merkel Backs Plan to Keep European Data in Europe

ERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has embraced proposals to create European data networks that would keep emails and other communications on the European side of the Atlantic, farther from prying American eyes, and said she would raise the matter this week with President François Hollande of France.

It is encouraging to see examples of misplaced belief in religion

http://news.sky.com/story/1212846/snake-handling-tv-pastor-dies-from-snakebite

Snake-Handling TV Pastor Dies From Snakebite

A snake-handling pastor who appeared on a National Geographic television reality show has died after being bitten by a snake.

Jamie Coots was bitten on the hand by a rattlesnake during a weekend church service in Kentucky.

After the bite, he dropped the snakes, but then picked them back up and continued on.

Rev Coots went home before emergency workers got to the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name Church in Middlesboro.

The emergency workers then went to his house, but he refused medical treatment on grounds that he believed in faith healing, and declined to be taken to hospital.

When the emergency workers returned about an hour later, he was dead from a venomous bite, Middlesboro police said.

Rev Coots, a 42-year-old Pentecostal preacher, had recently been featured on the National Geographic show Snake Salvation.

His son, Cody, told local station WBIR-TV that the pastor had been bitten eight times before, but never had such a severe reaction and expected Saturday's bite to be like the others.

"We're going to go home, he's going to lay on the couch, he's going to hurt, he's going to pray for a while and he's going to get better," Cody Coots said.

is this not a graphic example of religion always coming back to bite you?

very good

Interesting that Merkel talks with Holland but ignores lapdog Cameron.

Wonder why. Is it a foretaste of the future?

========

Do I have to be a party member to get a Flood grant if I live in the Thames Valley or any other part of the UK?

you would no qualify as and for a sponge

Well, I suppose you would know, or at least answer!

8-(

". ."
,,

Universal Credit Claimants Excluded From Official Unemployment Figures
AllBenefitsPoliticsDWPFeatured NewsUnemploymentWelfare ReformFeb 16, 20140 33
ONS: “The DWP have not been able to supply ONS with this information in a way that has allowed its inclusion within the Claimant Count."

Fresh questions about the accuracy of official unemployment figures emerged tonight, after the government admitted Universal Credit claimants were being excluded from the headline figures.

The revelation is the latest in a series of problems faced by Iain Duncan Smith’s (IDS) flagship welfare reform, which sees a number of different benefits rolled into one single monthly payment.

A Spokesperson for the Office for National Statistics (ONS) told the Daily Mirror:

“The DWP have not been able to supply ONS with this information in a way that has allowed its inclusion within the Claimant Count, resulting in the exclusion of UC claims from this measure.”

Responding to the news, Labours Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Rachel Reeves MP said:

“This is another error by incompetent ministers in their botched roll-out of Universal Credit.

“If David Cameron and Iain Duncan Smith can’t ensure Universal Credit claimants are included on official unemployment figures, how can we have any confidence in their ability to deliver this flagship project?”

“It’s time for ministers to get a grip of the spiralling waste and delays which are costing taxpayers millions.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions said:

“We have been fully transparent in publishing the number of people claiming Universal Credit.

“To ensure consistency the Department released these figures alongside the employment statistics. Universal credit is both an in and out of work benefit so some claimants may be working.

“The truth is that independent statistics show that unemployment is falling significantly and 1.3million more people are in work than in 2010.”

Iain Duncan Smith’s cabinet colleague Francis Maude has described the staggered roll-out of Universal Credit as “lamentable”, after it emerged that Universal Credit has been beset with IT problems, costing the public over £40 million to put right.

Despite this, the Work and Pensions Secretary has continued to stand by earlier comments he made to parliament, that Universal Credit would be delivered “on-time and within budget”. However, some believe that the final cost is more likely to be closer to £12.bn and not the £2.2 bn cited by the government.

Universal Credit is being introduced steadily and is expected to be fully completed by 2017, if there are no further problems or delays.

Unemployed people claiming the new Universal Credit are not the only benefit recipients not to be included in official unemployment figures. Those claiming sickness benefits, early retires, some students of working age and jobseeker’s on the government’s controversial Work Programme, are also not included in the ONS statistics, among a few others.

Some commentators believe that if we were to include all these groups of unofficially unemployed people in the official statistics, the ‘true’ state of ‘worklessness’ in the UK would be closer to 1 in 5 of the working age population, perhaps even higher.

A total shambles and another government fiddle...........

Unemployed people claiming the new Universal Credit are not the only benefit recipients not to be included in official unemployment figures. Those claiming sickness benefits, early retires, some students of working age and jobseeker’s on the government’s controversial Work Programme, are also not included in the ONS statistics, among a few others.

What Maggie started Dave is finishing.

But get this MONEY IS NO OBJECT and SPENDING IS MY PRIORITY.......Camoron says.

health tourists
beloved had to spend pretty much the whole of yesterday in St Mary's Paddington A&E
not remotely provable, but by her reckoning, foreigners were in a significant majority and, by her reckoning, an awful lot of them were non uk residents - i.e. health tourists