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.

The people are cheesed off with dave, ed and nick, and they don't believe a word that comes out of their mouths.

And that's the real problem Haystack!


"The findings suggest Mr Farage has not sustained significant damage from recent furores over his expenses, "racist" posters, criticism of misleading campaign literature, and dubious comments from activists."

Farage's appeal is to the anti immigration sentiment that is an undercurrent these days. The 'little Englander' attitude has gained in prominence due to economic problems. If there was a boom and full employment, very few people would care about immigration and UKIP would be dead in the water. I don't think it has anything to do with the public's view of the leaders of the main parties. Farage is a rabble rouser in the same tradition of all extreme one policy parties. It is no coincidence that the right wing fringe parties are on the rise across the world at a time of ecenomi problems. UKIP are just opportunists with a hidden nasty agenda,

You have no coherent answers, do you Haystack?

All you can do is drag out the usual smear tactics and hope for the best.

There are no answers. It is a fringe party with some support. I have seen it before with several parties that had a lot of support and then vanished again. This another one policy party and looks little different from the previous incarnations. They just seem to be better at hiding their underlying racism.

UKIP is not a party. It is a political pressure group..

You don't need to smear them, they manage that very well themselves. It is a party for unrealistic people to support.

The tory party is a rabble without a leader.


Their political ideology is out of date!

It is kick Cameron time!

a thumping win for ukip in the eu elections would come as no surprise even if they seem to do bugger all there once elected - but then nor do any of the others

the local elections should also see ukip doing well

the great unknown is how that will reflect in general election results, as come the crunch, much of ukip's support could easily dissolve

HS2 should get voted through tomorrow. There are a few Conservative rebels but Labour have said they will vote with the government.

new treasury lady or whatever she is, is certainly anti
she reckons it isn't economic sense

I am more inclined towards the project than I was, once I was reminded that this is infrastructure to last the next 100/150 years

There is nothing a relatively cheap upgrade to the signalling and rolling stock wouldn't achieve. Spending £60-80 billion + on dave's legacy is a step too far.

He is also pissing off a lot of conservative voters.


Why?

It matters little what we think as it is going ahead. The vote is at 11:00pm tomorrow? From what I know of it, I am in favour. Thee is never a suitable time to start costly infrastructure projects. If we hope to compete internationally we need projects like this. The same goes for new runways and airports. Just build them and argue about compensation later. It is a Labour project that now has good cross party support.

Here in Northampton, we could do with some of this 'easily found' £50billion of government HR2 money to fix some of our thousands of pot holes.

I will put some photographs up for you later to give you a bit of an idea.

And don't tell me it's down to our local council to fund repairing them. I actually pay my Road Fund Licence to the government.

At night we can't even see lots of the pot holes either. Half the street lights have been switched off.

There are often two schools of thought on driving through potholes: speeding up to "jump" over them and jamming the brakes hard to hit them as slowly as possible. Both might work occasionally but the best way is somewhere in between. :-))

It is now called Vehicle Excise Duty. The term 'road fund licence' was dropped in 1936 at the same time that the money was transferred to general taxation. Originally roads were to be self financing. That also stopped in 1936. There are now NO taxes earmarked for specific purposes. All of it goes into one bottomless pit.

I like the Italian method of fixing holes in roads in rural areas. Ever so often you see heaps of gravel and tarmac by the road. Sometimes they are in large rectangular bins. There will be a designated road mender who is paid a small retainer to fill potholes. They are given some training on the job and contact the depot when supplies run low or a hole too big to fill. The process saves a fortune as it stops most holes when they are very small. Perhaps it could work here, but the council would have too many regulations.

Norfolk has all the good road surfaces and new bypasses. :-))

And generally outside a local councillors dwelling.

I nominate Hazy One for chief potty filler!

What would be the result of a referendum taken in the UK, excluding Scotland, on whether we want Scotland to stay in the union. I think that the Scots would be better off with the UK, but would we be better off without them? I am getting used to the idea of Scotland leaving and I think I like it.

It would be a definite NO from me regarding letting them have the pound. While we are at it can we get rid of the Welsh as well. I would keep NI as the majority there want to be part of the UK.