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.

They know not to vote Labour, but vote Conservative if they want out of the EEC. UKIP won't get any MPs so pointless to vote them. That will become obvious as the election approaches.

From the joke for today thread

Scottish Independence Map

Ukip is the bin for worn out rejected tory far right, blue rinses and little englanders, I would be surprised if they get one MP in the next election for a UK government.

But the arrogant torrid party are underestimating Miliband I think he is playing his hand very shrewdly and I don't think the country is a euro-phobic and the tory elite who I guess don't want regulation of the city and the money laundering which is carried out there.

Hard luck.

Hazy One.

Cameron himself wishes too and knows he will have to stay in the EU if god forbid he was reelected.

Boris would also would stay in the EU.


But Cash would be a perfect tory leader to take you into the next election.


===================================

Post 38138 - I was born in Donedee and the map completely missed out Carnoustie, which must have one of the best golf courses ever designed!

Is the Skintland golf course at Carnasty nearer to Glasgone or to Edinborrow?

It's nearer to heaven than a lot of the silly pumped -up, over rated golf courses in Engerland that's for sure !

US sends 12 F-16 fight jets to air base in Poland

13 March 2014, 02:56 — The US Defense Department confirmed on Wednesday that it is sending a dozen F-16 fighter jets and 300 personnel to the US aviation detachment at Lask Air Base in Poland.

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced last week that the United States would augment the aviation detachment in light of the situation in Ukraine and Pentagon spokesman Steven Warren provided details Wednesday in a meeting with reporters.

- See more at: http://www.geostrategicforecasting.com/us-sends-12-f-16-fight-jets-to-air-base-in-poland/#sthash.qLSxLvXJ.dpuf

Hooray!

Whats this then Hays whats going on, are the Nazis on the rise again.

Please dont tell me IDSmith as links over there.

A dozen F16's.

I'm sure Putin and his air staff are shitting themselves.

The monthly Ipsos MORI poll for the Standard is out today and has topline voting intention figures of

CON 32%(+1), LAB 35%(-3), LDEM 13%(+1), UKIP 11%(+1)

TONY BENN
i'm amazed none of you have commented on the passing of this most honest - i was tempted to say towering, but thought that a bit ott - of politicians
most certainly i rarely agreed with his views, but at least for the most part he was thoughtful and measured and consistent, which is more than i think can be said for ANY today

Indeed c.

cynic
I agree. I didn't agree with him, but he was pretty straight and overall an influence for good. He was pretty extreme in left wing views as are other champagne socialists who were born into the aristocracy: in his case, he was Viscount Stansgate. He did manage 50 years as an MP.

He wanted to do away with the Trident system....look at the Russians now....perhaps a nice man in character..... but I have no confidence in Labour at all : they just blunder from one idiot decision to another and are even more corrupt that the right and that's saying something ....(I always think of Mike Yarwood and the generation game sketch as well...)...

Absolutely, left and proud. Unlike our host you wouldn't see him in a Conservative or Liberal club drinking ale or otherwise. GF floating voter, Benn's answer to that? I'll be polite BOLLOCKS! :O) But then what can you expect from a plastic Man U fan :O)

I remember that when Labour came to power...one of the first things they did...was to cancel the Acton bypass project (A40-M40)..which would have made the drive in and out of London towards Birmingham very easy......now look at it :...endless tailbacks and waits....and no sign of it getting any better .....one daft decision after another...always the same...always will be...

Tony Benn did oversee the first North sea oil coming to the UK from Brent....I think he had a bottle of oil (crude) which was classified as the first oil to arrive on our shores when he was Energy minister....what a shame that there was not a fund created like the Norwegians and Saudis have done at that time...

RF.

I have mixed feelings about Benn.

But when you consider Labour's period of government failures, consider the destruction of of Britain by Thatcher.

or consider the present period of mismanagement by the torid party.

Also, consider the blatant lying by Cameron , Osborne, Smith , (Nigel, Fox etc.)




http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/12/iain-duncan-smith-disability-crisis-fiasco-welfare


or consider the present period of mismanagement by the torid party.


Start with the following;

I take my hat off to Iain Duncan Smith. Only he could turn a disability crisis into a fiasco

The DWP's latest disaster – a report leaked to the Guardian about £1bn of welfare cuts – is typical of the incompetence ruining millions of lives

Sue Marsh

The Guardian, Wednesday 12 March 2014


#Alzheimer's care worker

'Up and down the country people with conditions such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cancer and kidney failure are being left increasingly isolated.' Photograph: Gary Calton

We no longer discuss whether Iain Duncan Smith's reforms will succeed or fail. We no longer need thinktanks and charities to produce reports on what might happen if you attempt to reform every strand of the social security system at once, without taking any advice at all from people who actually live with illnesses or disabilities, and at a time when money is short and compassion shorter.

The chaos at the Department for Work and Pensions is now so widespread, so universal, that we can only report daily on each new disaster.

Last week alone, the doomed universal credit project bade farewell to yet another IT manager. Over budget, with more than £60m already written off in failed rollout, it seems increasingly unlikely that the scheme can be saved at all.

Reassessments of employment support allowance (ESA) have been suspended as Atos grinds to a halt under the sheer volume of new applications, reassessments, and transfers from old benefits – and the new personal independence payment (PIP) assessments. There are no doctors assessing disability living allowance any longer, and PIP decisions are taking up to eight months. The bulk of PIP reassessments have also been deferred until after the 2015 election, just too toxic to expose to the electorate.

The Work Programme has failed almost completely to help sick and disabled people into work, with fewer than 1% sustaining work over the longer term. Nick Clegg's Youth Contract has failed spectacularly to help younger people into work.

The new PIP benefit is resulting in a shocking two-thirds of disability claims being rejected, successful ESA appeals have soared to an unprecedented 43%, and tribunals say they cannot keep up with demand, leading to yet more frightening delays.

Food banks report that welfare changes now make up 50% of their referrals, but the welfare minister David Freud believes that it is "very hard to know" why people use them. Church groups are united, blaming Duncan Smith for creating "hardship and hunger".

Social care budgets, respite care, day centres and carers' support have been slashed by up to 40% up and down the country, leaving people with conditions such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cancer and kidney failure increasingly isolated. Perhaps most shockingly, sick and disabled people are being forced into unlimited, unpaid workfare that takes no account of their conditions.

So, at a time when sick and disabled people face uncertainty in every aspect of the support and services they rely on to lead active, inclusive lives, we might think it vital for the DWP to be at the very top of its game. Firing on all cylinders. Cooking on gas.

But perhaps this government really is so incompetent as to believe that, at the same time as it attempts to dismantle the welfare state and rebuild in its own image, it can attempt to make unprecedented cuts to departmental running costs. Perhaps this has contributed to the repeated failures and forced U-turns.