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 - do you think we all have an obligation to vote?

I agree Cynic, I should vote, its my responsibility to help elect a government. But right now I see no point in voting as my options for candidate and party are all the same. Whoever I vote for doesn't have policies that I really want. I'll just help elect a party that I don't want but can't moan about because I either voted for them or didn't vote at all.... In simple terms my options are Fish & Chips, Fish & Chips or Fish & Chips, I only really get to choose the amount of salt and vinegar that gets sprinkled ontop.

so choose the least worst between huss (dogfish), skate (on thin ice) and battered saveloy (recovered meat sausage) :-)

I will also say that to call this country a "democracy" is a total joke. We like to think that we're Democratic and have choice but its the biggest illusion countless governments have used to control the people of this country.

You may have a vote, you may have a say, but is it really a vote if all the voting possibilities lead to the same end result anyway..

if you lived under a dictatorship, you might have a different view
would you rather have PR, leading to perpetual weak gov't?

No I'd rather have an open government with simple policies that were accountable.

Yep but Shortie you have to pay for salt and vinegar on your Fish and Chips around here now. In the past it was free.

Now what does that tell you.!!!!

Erm, I'm better off still living in the South of England as its still free??? Sometimes though we do get charged for ketchup

Apocalypse worsens

Posted on May 15, 2014 by Rev. Stuart Campbell


http://wingsoverscotland.com/apocalypse-worsens/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=apocalypse-worsens


Monday:


“On the basis of independent analysis, the UK Government has estimated that an average annual mortgage payment in Scotland could increase by £1,700.”

(UK government “factsheet” issued by the Scotland Office.)



Wednesday:


“For the average mortgage in Scotland, there would be £5,400 more [in] mortgage payments a year.”

(George Osborne to the Scottish Affairs Select Committee.)



Yikes! What the hell happened on Tuesday?



Of course, a 217% rise in the official UK government scare figure in the space of 48 hours doesn’t mean anything actually changed. It just means that the Treasury pulled both figures out of its backside at random because they don’t even respect you enough to get their lies straight.

There is no conceivable reason for anyone’s mortgage to go up at all in an independent Scotland. Mortgages are not a national transaction, they’re an individual one – the bank’s lending money to YOU, not to Scotland. Mortgage rates would continue to be based on the Bank of England base rate, which would continue to be set exactly as it is now and on exactly the same principles, which have nothing to do with mortgages.

(Any bank which attempted to unilaterally increase rates for Scottish customers alone would, obviously, be committing commercial suicide. It would clearly have no possible defensible reason for doing so – you didn’t just become a worse risk because your government changed – and not only would mortgage customers go elsewhere but ordinary banking customers in Scotland would desert in protest. And banks care about profits, not politics.)

We’ve said it before and we have no doubt that we’ll have cause to say it many more times before September – this is how little the Unionist parties think of you. This is how stupid they think you are.

Well Ill tell you shortie, it means they are hell bent on privatising everything and charging for it.

Take the NHS if this Tory lot got in again with a majority Id give them 5 years and the whole NHS would be in private hands sold off at knock down price to their chums from the past or in the city.

An institution the envy of the world sold off to private gruby hands.

And that would just be the start.

Shortie well your charge for Ketchup would be the privatisation of the Fire Brigade and Police Force.

Its best if you change your mind and go out and vote, but dont vote Tory if you want most services to remain free and be paid for by tax.

I think the NHS need to become tougher, everytime I go to the doctors there's a big sign saying how many appointments were missed or people were late to in the last week. The figures are no joking matter. A few weeks ago I was behind some young girl who got an earfull of the receptionist as she had missed two appointments and was over an hour late to her current one. Her only defence for not letting the doctors know she couldn't attend before hand was that she'd run out of credit on her phone...

Its an old saying that people respect more what they have to pay for, maybe timewasters / drunks would think twice if it cost them something.

By the way Shortie if Cynic rudely interupts and makes comment on what I have said please ignore him.

I have him on filter now(permanently) after his antics of yesterday evening playing on my disability of Dyslexia. He knows I have it I have informed him so many times but he chose to cruely use it against me last night and at the same time bring in innocent posters who didnt know I had it.

How cruel and sick is that!!!!!.

Theirs plenty wrong with him medicaly but I certainly wouldnt use it against him and bring in others to help.

And it was because I was easily winning the debate on political points we were discussing.

No Im afraid I have to agree with Fred about his personality. I thought Fred was kidding or overcooking it but little did I realise what a nasty piece of work he is.

Shortie I hope you know in these figures they publish for missed appointments they include ones where the patient as phoned up and cancelled.

And remember this when you have to wait 2 weeks your either dead or better when it gets to the day of your appointment.

These figures shouldnt be included but they are.

You pay for salt and vinegar either way. In the price of the fish and chips or as an extra. We pay more down south for cod and chips.

My surgery has a notifications bit at the main reception where they put their own figures. The missed appointments numbers are simply those not turning up. Also I have never waited more than a couple of days to see a doctor.

I hope you weren't in the waiting room all that time, Shortie? :o)

Nick Clegg indicates he won't block in/out vote

Prospect of second coalition and in-out vote comes closer as Nick Clegg indicates he would not block EU referendum



By Matthew Holehouse, Political Correspondent

10:01AM BST 15 May 2014



Nick Clegg has indicated he would not stand in the way of David Cameron’s plans for an in-out referendum on EU membership as part of new coalition negotiations after the next election.


The Deputy Prime Minister said he does not consider the issue a “red line” and said he has greater priorities – such as “fairer taxes” – in coalition negotiations in the event of another hung parliament.


Mr Cameron has said he will not lead another government unless he can secure a commitment to an in/out vote by 2017.


Mr Clegg says there is no need for a referendum unless there is a major treaty change in Europe. However, he indicated it is not a “die in the ditch” issue.


"I am going to disappoint you by not now drawing great red lines," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.




More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10832827/Nick-Clegg-indicates-he-wont-block-inout-vote.html

Is there a slight softening going on here with this Euro vote .

Clegg hedging his bets in advance. It wasn't long ago that he was against another coalition with the Conservatives. He knows that if he indicated that he would block a referendum, he would lose votes to the Conservatives. The in/out will be the critical item in the GE and the public will realise that there is only one way to get it.