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.

Tymoshenko seeks western military help for Ukraine
Ukraine’s best-known politician Yulia Tymoshenko has urged the west to bolster the country’s military defences and impose “immensely strong” economic sanctions on Moscow as the only way to deter further Russian military incursions

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

it may be on her wishlist but i doubt very much if it is on anyone else's
start down that route, and the end will be truly nasty

Don't forget the 'black economy' where large numbers work for cash in hand. We are talking about very large numbers. All this means that real unemployment is much lower than official figures.

bullshit hays .... the black economy has always been strong, and perhaps even more so in the 70/80s when certainly most restaurant staff and the like were paid cash

Manuel,

I am happy to read GF's postings, but would be happy if you shorten some of yours.

Put the kettle on!

--



If Tymoshenko is the lady who I think she is, then I can recall her having some very less than savoury friends.

But, I think at the moment sanctions directed at the Putin associates are the way forward.

I can't see Putin mad enough to resort to more military intervention in the bordering countries.

But similar was said about Hitler.

=======

GF. forgot thanks for NWS I think it will be profitable!

So you are agreeing with me then.

Scotland to switch to driving on the right if independence given green light

Current road signage system would also be scrapped under scheme nationalists say helps show country is 'part of Europe'


Bruce Roberts


The Guardian, Tuesday 1 April 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/01/scotland-driving-on-right-independence-road-scheme


Scottish nationalist leaders will attempt this week to give the trailing yes campaign a boost by revealing a series of measures aimed at showing what an independent country would look like.

Seeking to capitalise on the arguments this week about "bullying" England and keeping the pound, they will unveil an ambitious scheme to scrap the current – English inspired – road signage system. M for motorway will be replaced with a new S – for Scotland and the A trunk roads will become N roads – for Nationalist in honour of the new country. Blue will be the predominant backing colour.

The scale of the scheme is enormous: Scotland has 2,174 miles of road, including the 273-mile long A9 stretching from Edinburgh to John O'Groats – known as the "spine of Scotland".

It is estimated that 58,000 signs will have to be replaced – scrapping the famous road sign font known as "Transport" with a new Celtic-tinged typeface, Proclaimer. And it could be that they may take the opportunity to renumber all of Scotland's roads, beginning at one.

Independence strategists are believed to have sought advice on the plan from the Stirling University professor of transport semiotics, Lana Gocaireachd. "It's exciting, it gives us a clear difference from the English and is a tangible manifestation of a new, vibrant and independent national," said one official close to the scheme. "A more conscious uncoupling, perhaps."

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he revealed that if the proposals were seen to swing the needle towards the yes camp then the next stage would be revealed: switch driving on the left of the road to the right – from the first day of independence in 2017.



Road names will change to reflect independence, with M (motorway) becoming S (Scotland) and A roads becoming N roads (nationalist). Photograph: Stephen Finn/Alamy



To ease the transition, Scottish transport planners, under strict conditions of secrecy, have begun drawing up plans for a series of spiral interchanges at the major border transport nodes. These will transition drivers to the correct side of the road – whether travelling south–north or north-south – and avoid cross-border crashes – "a PR disaster worse than horsemeat in haggis", according to one planner.

The campaigners take their inspiration from what Sweden – a much larger country than Scotland – was able to do in a single weekend in September 1967. Adopting the Swedish model, Scotland would need all signs ready, an intensive information campaign, and temporary speed restrictions. Backers say it would be more than symbolic – it would let Paris, Berlin and Brussels know that Scotland was serious about an EU role.

"It sends out an explicit signal: we are part of Europe," said one of the brains behind the scheme. "The little Englanders who want out of Europe are the only ones driving on the left-hand side. We've been the smaller relative dominated and having to copy their ridiculous ways for too long. No more. Just think, this will be an indignity for little England – isolated in Europe and pootling along in the slow lane on the left," he added.

They are concerned, however, that opponents of the move to the right might mobilise under the emotive slogan: "Proud to be left." Some fear that when the plans go public, the charismatic MP George Galloway would not be prepared to stand on the sidelines but would launch his own appeal: "Stay left, hard left."

It is understood that another proposal involving traffic light sequencing has been rejected. Instead of red, amber, green, it would have become red, amber, blue. But there was a fear that this would be adopted south of the border by the Conservatives and so lose any distinctiveness.

Update - Labour lead 3
by YouGov in Politics
Tue April 1, 2014 6 a.m. BST

Latest YouGov / The Sun results 31st March - Con 34%, Lab 37%, LD 11%, UKIP 13%;

Thats nice labour slowly but surely winning back voters.

And another one........

electionista ‏@electionista 22h
UK - Populus poll:

LAB 37%
CON 34%
LDEM 10%
UKIP 11%

Piers Morgan is to take up a media-consulting role for the Liberal Democrats ahead of the next general election, according to a senior party figure.

In a surprise appointment, Nick Clegg has recruited the former CNN host to help communicate the Lib Dem message in the run up to the 2015 vote.

Isn't it amazing Cameron , Osborne and Cable selling off the the country's silver and junk to level to their friends and saying it is a success.

Their economic strategy for 4 years has been disastrous and incompetent and they have cheated the public out of funds in a rush to bolster up the increasing deficit.

A bunch of bumbling crooks comes to mind.

Piers Morgan would be a more suitable candidate for the torid party or UKIP.

Same sort of publicity seeking standards.

Mind I suppose he would fit in with nicely with Rebecca and the party cronies.

better than gordon selling off the gold for next to nothing! .... or doesn't that count?
at least the gov't retained a large slab of RM, which is more than can be said about the gold reserves

Better than this


Labour’s record in selling Qinetiq. That went for £125m, the civil servants and advisers got £107m, and the company was promptly valued at over 10 times the initial offering: £1.3bn.

that doesn't count either!

Manuel and Hazy One.

Gordon is not in charge any longer but these BFs Cameron, Osborne and Cable are.

Also, relate gold sell to period and and reasons. (DYOH).


The present idiots are glorifying their actions like thatcher did flogging off oil contracts.

And attempting to cover up deficits and incompetence.

(The members of the Bulliingdon club must still be on cloud 9. I think even Fauxpage would make a better job even when drunk.)


(Again to cronies.)




North Sea Oil.



Her 'conviction' would have been nothing but folly without the North Sea's black gold. It was oil revenues that bankrolled the unemployment, the destruction of manufacturing, the high-exchange rate, the termination of British coal mining, and the big-bang that turned London into a capital of global neo-liberalism and pumped growth into the South-East in the early 1980s.

As North Sea Oil came on stream bringing in an estimated £70 billion in revenues, it turned the UK into an OPEC country, an oil-exporter, and it overturned a chronic balance of payments problem rooted in the post-war period of clinging to imperial over-stretch.





Must make you proud to be old tory right wing reactionaries!

so you mean because it happened several years ago "it doesn't count" unless of course it was something done by MT

well of course no one would ever expect you to admit an own goal, so no disappointment or surprise

Manuel are you forgetting Maggie sold off

1. North Sea Oil Tax revenues.......this in itself far bigger than gold Brown sold

2. Council House, 66% of them now in the hands of bent landlords

3. Public Utilitys for give away prices.

Now Take Osbourne into account aswel,

1. Royal Mail 40% too cheap

2. Lloyds 50% too cheap

Theirs far more aswel cant be assed to think of them.

Labour have a far better record than the lying Tories.