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.

sticky - skewed as the constituency borders are, i do not believe for one minute that even labour can get any sort of overall majority with just a 3% lead
i recollect, perhaps wrongly, that for labour to achive an overall majority, they need to poll not less than 39% across the country, though of course things are never quite that simple

38% (not 39%) Cyners but yep you are right, mind i think that means then that the Tories Libs and UKIP would have to form a government.

Cant see that happening.

Anyway dopey Nigel will take more seats from the Tories at the euros and a November interest rate hike will put labour back well in front.

The 4% points have moved from labour for 2 reasons

1. Osbournes pension budget, more pensioners vote Tory and UKippers have returned to tory ranks for a while.

2. Grass roots labour pissed that labour supported welfare reforms. (likely to come back though after sulking)

so i wasn't quite as silly as usual then :-)

i don't agree with your reasoning either .....

pensions
certainly even labour think this is a really good move, though the detail will be interesting as and when that is published and/or debated


interest rate hike?
fairly unlikely, but not impossible, though it will only be 0.25%, and whatever scaremongering may say, there then won't be another following shortly thereafter


i think many (ex?)labour supporters are generally cheesed off, but especially because of labours refusal to allow a referendum on EU membership and would not even seem to be prepared to take a firm stand on renegotiating anything at all with brussels

i don't think labour are anything other than totally wishy-washy on immigration either, but i'm happy to be told that is not so



that said, the real cruncher will probably be whether or not joe public will be starting to feel any better (money in the pocket) by next may

however, the thought of labour increasing taxes should they get in - no one is fooled that that will be only for those on £150k+ - and a tax on houses valued at more than £2m will certainly lose far more votes than it gains through the politics of jealousy

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seats at the euro elections will not really register with the general public, not least because the t/o will probably be comfortably <35%

With inflation falling, the pressure to raise interest rates is less. I can't see an interest rate rise this side of the election. It is one of the reasons that Osborne has kept fuel duty down.

shortie - why not just bite the bullet, hand in your notice and stick it out for one month. Is it really worth going through all the hassle and sleepless nights if you just walk out? If the aggravation at work isn't having a detrimental effect on your health, then why risk getting into a legal dispute with your present employer. jmop

LOL, the two tory boys in denial over interest rates hike YET Carney and an individual Government think tank are shitting themselves over the housing boom.

Cyners say it will only be 0.25% increase come november............. so thats 0.50% to 0.75%.........now that doesnt sound much does it, until you do the maths in other words its a 50% increase in mortgage costs.

Now can these young strapped kids who a lot are attending food banks and have pay day loans fork out a 50% increase in mortgage costs??????????????.

COME OFF IT.

Then theirs the interest rate rise in the spring 2015 god help this country.

Battersea power station bedsit goes on sale for almost £1m

Homes in not-yet-converted landmark will cost up to £4m, but developers insist they want to attract owner-occupiers


Robert Booth


theguardian.com, Friday 28 March 2014 00.01 GMT

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/mar/28/battersea-power-station-bedsit-sale



254 homes in the converted Battersea power station will go on sale in May. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images



For sale: Battersea bedsit. Price: close to £1m. In the latest sign of the boiling hot London property market, two-bedroom flats in the soon-to-be-converted Battersea power station have gone on sale for more than £1.5m, three-beds for more than £2.7m and four-beds for at least £4m. The 254 homes mostly fashioned from the derelict switch houses in the converted Grade II*-listed 1930s colossus will go in sale in May with "refined industrial-authentic" designs by the architect of David Cameron's former home, Michaelis Boyd.



An artist's impression of a flat in Battersea power station. Photograph: Battersea Power Station Development Company/PA



The developers claim they will be approximately 40% larger than the average London new-build, but with even a studio flat starting at £800,000 what London buyers can afford them? The Malaysian developers have responded to growing political concern at foreign investors snapping up British homes and leaving them empty by launching the scheme only in London "to attract owner-occupiers based in the UK or who have a commitment to the UK". Yet they admit they will not restrict purchasers, leaving the door open for agents for Hong Kong or Singapore "buy-to-leave" investors to fly in with bids. About 500 of the 866 flats being built by the same developer beside the power station were sold in east Asia.



How the garden is expected to look. Photograph: Battersea Power Station Development Company/PA

Rob Tincknell, chief executive of the Battersea Power Station Development Company, said the latest homes had been "designed with a view to attracting owner-occupiers who want to be at the heart of the vibrant community".



The rest of the power station is to be converted into a "unique luxury retail, office and gastronomic experience" and apartments on neighbouring land will eventually create 3,400 new homes.

sticky - start crowing if and when your forecasts become reality ..... should they not do so, then of course the chickens will not only come home to roost, but you'll have the added treat of egg on your face too

for myself, there's no case of denial or anything else, but merely my own view of what i think is the most likely

love and kisses for w/e :-)

Teacher...leave the kids alone....

moi? ..... they just need a clip round the ear occasionally :-)

100 years of fashion in 100 seconds from aneel on Vimeo.

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So a 0.25% interest rate hike equates to a 50% increase in mortgage costs?

How does that work?

It doesn't. Mortgage rates are around about 3% to 4% for variable rates. So you can see what the increase would be.

The people feel ignored – and they are angry

Not one leader of a major party has a true connection with ordinary folk. This is dangerous


Nigel Farage may sound like the guy down the pub, but that is more in tune with the public mood than smart-talking little boys doing debating society tricks Photo: PA/IAN WEST



By Janet Daley

6:30PM GMT 29 Mar 2014



There will really be only two contestants in the next general election: the political class and the people. And by the “political class”, I mean the entire operation that runs, manipulates and communicates the activities of government. That conglomeration of politicians and their special interest lobbies, media followers and professional handlers is now more self-referring, inbred and profoundly detached from the reality of most people’s lives than at any time in a generation.


This fact was brought home very sharply by the grotesquely embarrassing fault line that appeared in the brief lapse of time between the ending of the Farage-Clegg debate – during which a vast army of esteemed press commentators declared Nick Clegg the winner – and the release of the YouGov poll, showing that a large majority of the ordinary public believed Nigel Farage had won. Most alarmingly, there was a remarkable media consensus: it was not just wishful-thinking Europhiles who thought Clegg had walked it.


In the mortifying aftermath, which saw pundits scrambling to amend – or explain away – the bizarre discrepancy between their initial judgment and that of the wider world, an awful truth began to emerge. It was, indeed, as if the Westminster media and actual voters in the country had been listening to an entirely different event – as, for all intents and purposes, they were. And strangely enough, the preconceptions of the two camps were almost exactly the opposite of what might be expected.


It was the pundits, not the public, who were obsessed with personality quirks and presentational cool, where the public were much more attracted to convictions and basic values. The press commentary focused on Farage’s sweaty anger and contrasted it with Clegg’s calm smoothness: political success had to be all about clever presentation and professional delivery. But real people clearly saw Farage’s anger as genuine and appropriate, and reacted against Clegg’s glib patter, which they presumably perceived as untrustworthy.


So maybe all those post-Blair assumptions about politicians needing to be sold like products with the slickest possible advertising techniques need to be re-examined. When the electorate feels that its own concerns are being ignored or marginalised, it will embrace a spokesman who looks as if he genuinely shares their strong beliefs, even if he is amateurish or unpolished in his delivery. It is the Westminster club that is addicted to image-led politics, not the country.



More:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/10730787/The-people-feel-ignored-and-they-are-angry.html

Labour opinion poll support falls to lowest level since 2010 election

Labour's two-point fall in Opinium/Observer poll leaves it just one point ahead of the Tories, with Ukip up to 15%


Toby Helm, political editor


The Observer, Saturday 29 March 2014 18.21 GMT





Labour's support has slumped to its lowest level since soon after the 2010 election, according to a new Opinium/Observer poll. Ed Miliband's party now has a lead of just one percentage point over the Conservatives.

The findings – showing a clear bounce for the Tories after George Osborne's budget – will put more pressure on Miliband, whose party was 10 points ahead of the Tories a year ago.

The poll puts Labour on 33% (down two points on a fortnight ago), the Conservatives on 32% (up two), Ukip on 15% (down one) and the Liberal Democrats unchanged on 10%. Since the budget on 19 March, several polls have shown Labour's lead cut, but Labour strategists hoped the Tory bounce would be shortlived.

The Conservatives and Labour have not been so close in the polls since before Osborne's so-called "omnishambles" budget of March 2012 in which he abolished the 50p rate of tax and imposed other controversial taxes on pasties, caravans and charities.

The only comfort for Labour is that, as its support has fallen, the Conservatives have failed to record any strong increase and are still well down on previous highs in this parliament. In early March 2012 Opinium had the Tories on 38% and Labour on 36%.





More: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/mar/29/labour-support-falls-lowest-2010-observer-opinium-opinion-poll

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Yep but were still in front and that means a lot at this stage.