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.

Business Secretary Vince Cable has said he does not understand why people need to earn £1m per year.

"I've asked one or two of the more sympathetic bankers to explain it to me," the Liberal Democrat said in an interview with the Observer newspaper.

He said their response was "because others get it so I should, too".

"That is a ludicrous mindset. What on earth do these people think they are doing?" said Mr Cable, who recently criticised bonuses paid out by RBS.


Very good choice for a Business Secretary with those views , I don't think

Update - Labour lead at 7
by YouGov in Politics
Sun March 16, 2014 6 a.m. GMT


Latest YouGov / Sunday Times results 14th March -

Con 33%,

Lab 40%,

LD 8%, UKIP 12%;

APP -25


-----------

U-turn Dave is certainly winning the case!





For Labour!!!

This week's PB YouGov Weekly Average with changes on last week and latest poll (Mar 16)




http://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2014/03/16/the-tories-close-the-gap-by-1-4-percent-in-this-weeks-pb-yougov-weekly-average/

What would the union jack look like if the Scottish bit were removed?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25205017

The result of a poll

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/shortcuts/2014/mar/02/scottish-independence-new-british-flag-poll

"Hays Milliband is in difficulty" errr......what does that say of dave then???.

electionista ‏@electionista
UK - ComRes #EP2014 poll:

UKIP 30%
LAB 28%
CON 21%
LDEM 8%
GRN 6%

The serious Polks show UKIP coming third in the EU elections.

Here are previous polls on EU

Your one looks like an outlier anomaly.

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/european-elections

The polls show that the main parties are going to get a bloody nose.

A few ideas spring to mind about the Malaysian aircraft is that it could be that the plane has landed in a remote location and is going to be used for an attack on a high-rise building somewhere or an atomic powerstation somewhere after being refuelled....possible...or is this a massive cover-up story because of a collision between a secret aircraft /shuttle of some sort ?.....or perhaps there was a cockpit fight between the pilots/passengers and the kidnappers resulting in a crash !?.....all possibles......did anybody on the aircraft try to use a mobile phone or did the kidnappers confiscate them ?....what a mystery !....

R F

!?.....all possibles......

There are possibles that are impossible, and impossibles that are possible but we don't know what is possible or impossible .......

The suggested target is the Petronas Towers in Malaysia. The pilot seems to be a supporter of an extreme Malaysian polital party.

Another poll showing UKIP doing well........ Looks like the momentum is behind them and the Tories sweating on just 30%.

electionista ‏@electionista
UK - Opinium/Observer poll:

CON 30%
LAB 35%
LDEM 10%
UKIP 16%
Expand

16% is NO MPs. Even 30% will not get them an MP.

The usual Daily Express nonsense

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/465126/Missing-Malaysia-Airlines-plane-may-have-been-cyber-hijacked-using-mobile-phone

I think before there is a change of the English flag, there should be a debate and referendum in Wales and N.I. and as to whether there is any wish to be included in the flag.

Also, if the answer is yes, then they have to consider whether they will allow a Red Dragon at the centre of the flag and how big it should be.

Of course that will need another referendum or two.

I think before there is a change of the English flag, there should be a debate and referendum in Wales and N.I. and as to whether there is any wish to be included in the flag.

Also, if the answer is yes, then they have to consider whether they will allow a Red Dragon at the centre of the flag and how big it should be.

Of course that will need another referendum or two.

Published: March 16, 2014




Luke de Pulford: Why are our leaders cheering on unelected ones abroad?


By Luke de Pulford

Last updated: March 15, 2014 at 5:13 pm





International relations nerds must be wondering whatever happened to Democratic Peace Theory. For the uninitiated, this is the simple idea that democracies tend not to go to war with one another, and so the best way to solve global conflict is to ensure that as many nations as possible are democratically organised.

As a piece of political spin, it has been uncommonly enduring. Woodrow Wilson invoked it first to advocate for America’s involvement in the First World War on the grounds that ”a steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations”. Nearly a century later you could barely get a cigarette paper between this and George Bush’s “Global Democratic Revolution” rhetoric prior to the intervention in Iraq.

Now the international community seems to have exchanged the zealous language of democracy evangelisation for pom-poms to cheer in unelected leaders from Italy to the Ukraine.

It’s a dramatic shift in consensus, demoting democracy from its status as the most hallowed and unimpeachable weapon in the diplomatic arsenal, to something about which the international community seemingly couldn’t give a hoot, and all in the space of a few years.

Glancing at the Middle East, it’s not hard to see why. Few would argue that the imposition of democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan had succeeded in bringing about a “democratic peace”. Tragically far from it, as president Hamid Karzai confirmed recently.

But there’s another, perhaps more pertinent explanation. People are increasingly sceptical about whether or not Western concern for other governments has anything to do with the democratic credentials of their leaders. Rather than being the principle employed to avert crises, democracy has successively been relegated to a bureaucratic box reluctantly ticked after the event.

The example par excellence is technocrat Mario Monti of Italy, Prime Minister for 18 months despite the fact that no one ever voted for him. He was imposed by a European community who liked the look of him and judged that he could probably do the job. Perhaps more revealing of the general trend is the Ukraine, and the fascinating obstinacy of certain commenters on the left in calling Yanukovych’s government a regime. Reprehensibly bad it may have been, but a regime it was not.




More: http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2014/03/luke-de-pulford-why-are-our-leaders-cheering-on-unelected-ones-abroad.html

zero hour contracts
does the employee still qualify for holiday pay?
if not, then there's even less difference between that and being self-employed than has been purported

Zero hours workers are entitled to annual leave, the National Minimum Wage and pay for work-related travel in the same way as regular