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.

Manchester United should not have sacked David Moyes, Arsenal supporter Nick Clegg has said.

The deputy prime minister told LBC radio this morning that the former manager had not deserved to be out of a job after less than a season in charge.

"I thought they were just going to let him try and make the best of it, and then take on the new signings," he said. "Personally I think they should have held onto him - but it's a personal opinion."

Cynics might argue Clegg would naturally take the side of an under pressure leader whose team is lagging behind other teams in points.

Ukip leader Nigel Farage boasts: We will hold balance of power at next general election, just as Nick Clegg did



Adoring crowd in Labour stronghold cheers Ukip’s leader at his biggest rally yet



Jonathan Brown

Wednesday 23 April 2014

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ukip-leader-nigel-farage-boasts-we-will-hold-balance-of-power-at-next-general-election-just-as-nick-clegg-did-9278972.html



The 1,200-strong crowd had waited for the best part of an hour, marinated on a diet of soft jazz and expectation in the cavernous surroundings of the Sage in Gateshead.


Abdul Bashir, Ukip’s small business spokesman and master of ceremonies, who had paid for the hire of the hall out of his own pocket, did his best to whip them up into a frenzy. “Cometh the hour, cometh the man,” he intoned.

Striding on to the stage to a standing ovation at the largest public meeting the party had ever held, Mr Farage was a man radiating belief that the time was now and the man was indeed him.

The Ukip leader was on Tyneside to take the fight to the Labour Party in its political fortress. Shrugging off the shouts of two noisy protesters who had evaded the tight security, he took little time in striking out.

“They [Labour] have turned their backs on you in favour of the European project and big corporations in the private sector. You are no longer represented by that party – we will stand up and fight for you,” he promised to waves of applause.

According to Mr Farage, a strong showing by his “people’s army” will mean neither Labour nor the Conservatives will be able to “rat on the deal” of an in/out European referendum. Moreover, at the next general election Ukip would “hold the balance of power as Nick Clegg did in 2010,” he added. “There will be a referendum then.”

But it was not just Europe which lit up a crowd clearly disaffected by the mainstream parties. There was immigration too – a central plank of the “bomb-proof argument” which is threatening a political earthquake under the political establishment, he claimed. “We want our country back… We are run by a bunch of college kids who have never done a day’s work in their life,” he warned.

The North-east has yet to return a Ukip MEP but the numbers are stacking up. Last time the party came fourth with 90,000 votes, with Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats returning one MEP each.

The collapse of Mr Clegg’s party – down to just eight per cent in some polls – means a seat here is almost guaranteed. The party is talking loudly about winning two.

Since the televised debate Ukip polling puts it just four points behind Labour in the North-east, where it believes it is likely to replicate recent second places in parliamentary votes in Middlesbrough and South Shields as well as a close finish in a recent Sunderland council election.

It may have been a sign of how rattled they are but Ukip’s opponents had campaigned hard against the event even taking place, pointing out that the Sage – the centrepiece of Gateshead’s regenerated quayside – was the beneficiary of £5.6m of European funding.

Ukip argued back that this was just a tenth of the daily amount it claims the UK pays to Brussels each day. And when social media opponents urged the venue to refuse to host the rally, it fell to Billy Bragg to speak out in support of the party’s freedom of assembly.

On the night, the main door was picketed by Labour activists, Socialist Workers and gay rights campaigners proclaiming “migrants welcome – racists not”. Supporters of the English Defence League protested at the side door.

Inside there was a mixture of the committed, the hopeful and the curious. Bryan Ray, 73, a retired oil and gas worker, had been a Ukip man since 1996. This year he persuaded his wife to join too.

“It was very, very slow up here starting up. The branch I belong to only really got cracking in July. It’s about getting the right people with the right enthusiasm,” he said. “The difference is Nigel Farage without a doubt. Without him as a leader and his personality we would not be where we are.”

Shaun Rowland, 14, was here with his mother. One day he fancied being an MP and was shopping around for a party. While Labour once offered the only choice for aspiring politicians, times have changed. “I think in this part of the country we have voted for Labour for too long and we have seen nothing happen. We need to vote for a different party. We have been stuck in the 1980s for too long,” he said.

Hays Hays Hays Hays...........just out................

electionista ‏@electionista
UK - YouGov/Sun poll:

CON 32%
LAB 38%
LDEM 8%
UKIP 14%

Food Banks in the Worlds 5th most rich country..........PATHETIC and a disgrace for everyone here in this country.

better to have foodbanks that serve a purpose and a need than to have none and pretend no problem exists

btw, do not say usa, germany and france have foodbanks?
if not, why not?
china almost certainly does not, and there's sure plenty of undernourished there, as well as of course in india
japan is too closed a society, but i'm sure they have similar problems too

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

on a different tack, i find it amusing that you and your other (pretend) egalitarian/socialist buddies don't get stuck into NF
he most assuredly went to a public school (dulwich), and is a frequent attendee at that most elitist golfing event (halford hewitt) in plus-fours and a loud blazer

The first food bank was opened in france in 1984
The first food bank was opened in Italy in 1989

There are food banks in virtually every country in the world. The US has a huge food bank system feeding a much bigger percentage of their population than we do.

Food Kitchens Hays. Please get it right.

Well, they seem to be called food banks and they give out food parsrls.

Food banks, food kitchens...who gives a toss what you call it?


People are in tough times, whilst bankers and political tossers eat fillet steak and piss it up on subsidised expenses.


Do you notice any HoC/eurobods searching out the old food bins?


trebles all round!

Kay Burley ‏@KayBurley 12m
BREAKING; Virgin plane hijacked and forced to land in Bali - Reuters

Flightradar24.com ‏@flightradar24 11m
Virigin Atlantic flight VA41 is squawking 7500 (hijack) on ground on Denpasar Airport

BBC Breaking News ‏@BBCBreaking 3m
A Virgin aircraft flying from Australia believed hijacked at Bali airport, reports quoting Indonesian officials say http://bbc.in/1pwkujc

At least it's on the ground.

All over, it wasn't a hijack, it was a piss artiste making trouble.

Just a reminder for Manuel!

.

It would seem to me to be sensible not to have increased the need for Food Banks by 4years of mismanagement!

.

Boris Johnson could fight Sir George Young's seat at 2015 election, admits David Cameron

Prime Minister says Boris Johnson could serve as MP and London Mayor after general election





By Christopher Hope, Senior Political Correspondent

6:50PM BST 24 Apr 2014



David Cameron has admitted that Boris Johnson could fight his chief whip’s seat at next year’s general election.


The Prime Minister accepted Mr Johnson could become his candidate for North West Hampshire, a safe seat being vacated by Government chief whip Sir George Young.


Mr Cameron also said that he would have no objections if Mr Johnson served as MP for a year while being London Mayor.


Rumours that Mr Johnson wants to return as an MP – he was last in the Commons as MP for Henley between 2001 and 2008 – have swept Westminster all week.


Mr Cameron was pressed about the suggestions during a series of local radio interviews.


more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10786294/Boris-Johnson-could-fight-Sir-George-Youngs-seat-at-2015-election-admits-David-Cameron.html

As a part timer will he renegotiate his contract after 11 months.

But by then he will have another job of a torrid leader.

Should go down a bomb on the Shires and Thames Valley, or should that be the Thames Embankment.

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