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.

Do they have apprentice scheme at Eton as numerous ex-attenders at that institution never end up in useful employment?

Or are apprentices only for the plebs?

fossy - thge following is the bit you should have highlighted, as it's the bit i heard this morning
“What we really need to see is what the displacement of UK workers’ jobs from the European Union is because that is the issue.”
that is to say, this new report would appear to be about the effect of non-eu immigrants, who are perhaps more likely to be better qualified

i wonder how you would have reacted had this "suppressed" report showed immigrants to be more detrimental to the native uk workforce than had previously been published
i don't actually, as i know full well you would have just scuttled off into a corner and come up with the fact that you can't trust statistics or somesuch

electionista ‏@electionista
#EP2014 - BBC Two to host live debate between @UKIP’s @Nigel_Farage and @LibDems’ @Nick_Clegg on 2 April at 7pm............ends

why not the day before.........one of them scared of being called an April Fool.

It is a toss up who will be the most boring. A bit pointless as Farage will have no MPs and won't be around any more. He has said he will resign if he gets no MPs.

But he will have MEP's.

UKIP on schedule to come third in the EU elections,

i don't care hugely i must confess, but what is the current seat split?

There are 87 MEPs in the UK, split across 12 regions.

Each region has between 3 and 11 MEPs. Each MEP in a region represents the people living in that region at the European Parliament.

Here's the Wikipedia entry for the 2009 MEP election:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_2009_(United_Kingdom)

Roughly, it's as follows. If you look at the Wiki page, you'll see it's not quite that simple. And then of course, there's your average 'Robert Kilroy Silk-type', who you'll come across and who gets elected, gets chucked out, maybe forms a new party, and then resigns, or gets expelled for expenses fraud.

Personally, I don't think enough people in the UK take it seriously. I'm one of them and I'd really like us to come out of the EU. But here's how I see it:

Tories: 28 seats
Labour: 19 seats
UKIP: 13 seats
Lib Dems: 11 seats
Greens: 2 seats
BNP: 2 seats
SNP: 2 seats
Plaid Cymru: 1 seat

For Manuel.

Update - Labour lead at 3
by YouGov in Politics
Thu March 6, 2014 6 a.m. GMT

Latest YouGov / The Sun results 5th March - Con 34%, Lab 37%, LD 10%, UKIP 11%;

6 March 2014 Last updated at 11:16

Ukraine crisis: Crimea MPs vote to join Russia


MPs in the southern Ukrainian region of Crimea have voted to become part of the Russian Federation.

Parliament said the decision would be put to the Crimean people for their verdict in a referendum on 16 March.

A government minister in Kiev said they believe it would be unconstitutional for Crimea to join Russia.

Crimea, a region whose population is mostly ethnic Russian, has been at the centre of tensions following the fall of Ukraine's pro-Moscow president.

Pro-Russian and Russian forces have been in de facto control of the peninsula, which already enjoys a degree of autonomy from Kiev, for several days.

The announcement from Crimea's parliament comes as EU leaders are meeting in Brussels to discuss how to respond to Russia's troop deployment on Ukrainian soil.



more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26465962

It will be good to see Fauxpage and Cliggy agreeing over the necessary unity of the EU to prevent Russia picking off the its old states one by one.

Mind I suppose that the control of the EU's economy is in Russian hands and the Independent Country of England is in good solid Scottish hands.


How far off is 2020.

thanks Exec, and to repeat below .... but no one party has an overwhelming majority of seats, so with the pathetic t/o expected - i too cannot get excited about voting for this bunch of greedy bastards and their institution, but shall do nevertheless - it would be easy to envisage a reasonable switch of (phony) allegiance if only as protest

Tories: 28 seats
Labour: 19 seats
UKIP: 13 seats
Lib Dems: 11 seats

I think tons of punters are going to vote for UKIP, including me - and my family too.

Just to kick the existing three main parties up the jacksie, try to get them to shut down on their rhetoric and to get on and manage stuff tons better.

There is so much political crap spoken out there and politicians doing such a bad job for us, that we need a massive shake-up given to our whole way of doing things.

The Environment Agency isn't fit for purpose, our Military isn't fit for purpose, Education seems to be turning round a bit, as does the NHS, the roads are full of pot-holes and the mending of them is turd rate too, immigration is a farce, extradition is a farce too, etc, etc, etc, etc. Hey! How long have you got?

Vince Cable: Teachers 'know absolutely nothing' about the world of work


Unions brand Business Secretary 'crass and insulting' over remarks


Adam Withnall Author Biography


Wednesday 05 March 2014



Vince Cable has been accused of being “crass” and “insulting” to teachers after he said they are to blame for the lack of quality careers advice in Britain’s schools, claiming they “know absolutely nothing about the world of work”.



The Business Secretary was speaking to a room of 600 representatives from the manufacturing industry, and said that Government schemes to get students interested in their sector were being undermined by an “underlying problem” – the teachers themselves.

The Lib Dem MP said: “There has been an argument in Government about how to get the right careers advice in schools and successive governments have frankly messed this up.

“But the underlying problem is of course that most teachers, particularly in the secondary sector, are graduates.

“They know how universities work, they know what you have to do to get an A-level, they know about UCAS forms – but they know absolutely nothing about the world of work.”



More outrage here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/vince-cable-teachers-know-absolutely-nothing-about-the-world-of-work-9171019.html

Spot on Exec #37805

37797 - you're not quite telling the truth, as you wrote "I'd really like us to come out of the EU."
de facto, there's only one party who doesn't even want a referendum before pulling out.

of course, labour just dither and say nothing and lib/dems don't even want to discuss the idea of coming out

the tories, whatever their many failings, would at least offer the public a referendum - with luck, after some meaningful concessions have been extracted from brussels

37805 - do you propose that all human rights legislation should be binned? ...... if you want to start cherry-picking in that realm, then of course it's not nearly as simple as you'ld like to imagine ..... just "binning" wouldn't be either!