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.

ken clarke was excellent in his day, hush puppies and all and certainly portillo is no idiot .... nevertheless, these are all "yesterday's men" so the question remains, if you want to ditch cameron (i confess i'm not enamoured of him) who would you have in his place and who in the cabinet?

the tories, as with labour, seem to lack any people of charisma (and gravitas?) to whom one can look up and whose opinion would be genuinely and generally valued

WHAT.........Hays you deserve what you get then.

FTSE 250 diving again, this looks rather serious.

Lost £80 grand in 1.2 days and im down to 95% cash.

Hays why would Portillo be a terrible PM??? dont forget he was Thatchers blue eyed boy and as since matured. In fact I remember Thatcher saying he would make an ideal succesor to herself.

I cant understand what you have against him!!

it would be interesting to know whom sticky (perhaps to re-christen as Godfather "Triste Pecore") would like to see on the tory front-bench and leader so that he would once again vote for that party

goldie

I didn't like my brokers dealing platform [barclays ] , Think i will go with IG Index , am still reading up on s/betting, one advice was if you put a stop loss at 10 points away then place your sell limit at 30 points

Alders I think you have picked the right one for alround service. And your advice yep thats the return ratio most in the industry advise you to go for.

Actualy Im putting together my 3rd System. It involves getting shot of stock very quickly but allowing winners to run a lot longer.

Ill let you have first look(will send it you via DM on here) and you can tell me please what you think. Always best to check things out with someone who is presently looking into trading ideas.

Think it will be ready as Im testing it but these markets arent ideal at the moment.

Probably September but I think Ive come up witha corker. cheers.

goldie

ok , cheers look foreward to that. Am waiting to raise some cash to deal with by selling a few Afren @ 170 , but it now looks like a long wait.

i think you'll be well-served by IG .... i've worked with them for many years

Alders yep markets in free fall be carefull bud.

Just 3 stocks long running now , had 5 yesterday got rid of Pace and Easyjet, yesterday afternoon.

Yep this new system ive put together i reckon is one hell of a corker but it means getting shot very early on losers and you have to have the mind set to be able to do that but if you think about it on spread betting why not get shot very quickly if for some reason your trade kicks off in the wrong direction,why play catch up.

Anyway Ill let you have first look and ask you for your conclusion and advice. cheers.

alders - Have you considered opening a demo account with IG and or Capital Spreads, cost you nowt. That way you can paper trade, learn at the same time as well as comparing the suitability of either platform for your needs. Obviously, needless to say big difference in mindset paper trading than when it comes to using your own dosh. :O)

Britain's richest 1% own as much as poorest 55% of population

ONS figures reveal growing wealth disparity and north-south divide, with nation's top 10% owning 44% of household wealth



Phillip Inman, economics correspondent


The Guardian, Thursday 15 May 2014 19.22 BST

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/may/15/britains-richest-1-percent-own-same-as-bottom-55-population




Houses along Kensington Palace Gardens in London, Britain's most expensive street. Oxfam recently reported that five billionaire families controlled the same wealth as 20% of the population. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images



Britain's richest 1% have accumulated as much wealth as the poorest 55% of the population put together, according to the latest official analysis of who owns the nation's £9.5tn of property, pensions and financial assets.

In figures that also lay bare the extent of inequality across the north-south divide, the Office for National Statistics said household wealth in the south-east had been rising five times as fast as across the whole country.

The average wealth of households in the southeast had surged to £309,000 at the end of 2012, up 30% since the first wealth report published by the ONS covering 2006-8 – while the average rise in England was only 6%.

But wealth in the north-east had fallen, the only region where it did so, to an average of just under £143,000. In Scotland the figure was £165,500.

The data also shows that one in nine households have second homes or rental properties and one in 14 sport a personalised number plate on their car.




Northern regions lost out after a dramatic rise in stock market values that was grabbed mostly by households in the south east, the ONS figures show.

The situation is likely to have worsened following an 18% surge in house prices over the past year in the south-east and even higher at the top end of the market.

A rush to save among richer households as the recession deepened boosted the nation's total wealth and ensured Britain's long-established financial inequality remained in place, with the top 10% laying claim to 44% of household wealth – while the poorest half of the country had only 9%.

Rachael Orr, Oxfam's head of poverty in the UK said the figures were a "shocking chapter in a tale of two Britains".

The charity recently reported that five billionaire families controlled the same wealth as 20% of the population. "It is further evidence of increasing inequality at a time when five rich families have the same wealth as 12 million people," she said. "We need our politicians to grasp the nettle and make the narrowing gap between the richest and poorest a top priority. It cannot be right that in Britain today a small elite are getting richer and richer while millions are struggling to make ends meet."

Duncan Exley, director of the Equality Trust, said: "The grotesque concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny minority is fracturing our society, weakening our economy and giving disproportionate power to the richest. Unless policymakers adopt a clear goal of reducing the gap between the richest and the rest, they will have to govern an increasingly dysfunctional nation."The report comes after French economist Thomas Piketty has ignited international debate about inequality by documenting the rapid accumulation of assets by the top 1% over the four decades since the 1970s.




Britain's top 1% saw their share of wealth increase slightly in the four years before 2012, grabbing the same share as 54.9% of the population, up from 54.2% in 2008/10.

But the Treasury said the report showed that wealth inequality had remained the same throughout the six years up to 2012 while income inequality had declined to levels last seen in 1986. A spokesperson said the government's efforts to protect the poorest during the recession had worked.

"The effects of the Great Recession are still being felt which is why we have taken continued action to help hardworking people by cutting income tax and freezing fuel duty.

"And we want to help more people to save for their future or own their own home which is why we are giving people more flexibility over their pensions and introducing Help to Buy. At the same time we have introduced new higher rates of stamp duty on the most expensive homes and done more than any previous government to crack down on tax evasion and avoidance in order to ensure that everyone pays their fair share in tax."

Critics of the wealth report said it failed to capture the huge diversion of wealth to offshore tax havens, which account for trillions of pounds worth of savings.

A series of investigations into offshore tax havens have documented the success of their banks in attracting a steady rise in the savings and financial assets of the richest 1%.

There was also a clear disparity between women and men over who owns the most homes, pensions, cars and stocks and shares. The average value of men's total pension wealth was nearly twice as high as women's in 2010/12 – £63,000 compared with £34,800.

The power of the grey pound is highlighted in the report by several measures, including one showing that couples without children, where one person is over and the other under the state pension age, have the highest total wealth at £607,800, up from £452,000 in 2006.

More politics of envy from the Guardian.

Chris ,

It will be with IG , and i will use the demo account, but i also read that you should go stright in trading with a small amount because like you said its a different mindset using your own money you could pick up some bad habits

Labour's new election campaign adviser has misspelled Ed Miliband's name in a tweet praising the party - which then linked to a spoof Twitter account.

David Axelrod wrote: "Enjoyed my visit with @Ed_Milliband and his @UKLabour team."

The reference to Ed Miliband with its incorrect spelling actually links to a spoof Twitter account in the Labour leader's name. The site includes tweets saying: "I am resigning."

Mr Axelrod has now corrected the tweet.

But the Conservatives leapt on the error, querying whether Mr Axelrod "had actually met" the Labour leader

Absolutely alders, but while you are waiting to accrue funds won't do you any harm either.
Good Luck.

aldo - you may like to follow the IG research bits too ... i assume you can readily access those

Good to see you supporting others Chris.

Thats the way we should all be, helping each other to make a bob or two.

Perhaphs as the thread author I should try and support this a lot more.

Ill try and have a go.

I speak to Evil K every tuesday evening, Ill try and get his ideas on here.

The Tory Euro threat exposed
16
Friday
May 2014
Posted by Mike Sivier in Benefits, Conservative Party, European Union, Human rights, Immigration, Justice, Politics



Here at Vox Political it has come to our notice that some of you are still thinking of voting ‘Conservative’ in the European Parliament elections. This would be a mistake.

The Conservative Party is trying to hoodwink you into thinking it has a host of great ideas dependent on having a large number of MEPs after May 22, but its own manifesto tells a different story.

Here are just three examples:

1. The lynchpin of the Conservative campaign is the pledge to hold an in/out referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. The party’s European manifesto states, “The British people now have a very clear choice: if you want a referendum on whether Britain should stay in the EU or leave, only the Conservative Party can and will hold one.”

This has nothing to do with your vote on May 22. It is a General Election promise involving the UK Parliament, not the Parliament of Europe. It is Westminster MPs who would push through the Tory plans for a referendum during the next UK Parliament, not MEPs in Brussels.

The suggestion that the proposed referendum – which is heavily promoted in the manifesto – has anything to do with these elections is a flat-out lie.

Long-term readers should not be surprised that Conservatives are lying again, but this may come as a surprise to Tory adherents. To them, we should say: “Wake up!”

2. One of the “key changes we will fight for”, listed on page seven of the manifesto, is “National parliaments able to work together to block unwanted European legislation”. If this seems like a good idea to you, it may come as a surprise to learn that it is a key feature of the Lisbon Treaty, that was signed by the last Labour government in 2007. That’s seven years ago!

It’s called the Ioannina Compromise, and it means that, if Member States who are against a decision are significant in number but still insufficient to block it (1/3 of the Member States or 25 per cent of the population), all of the Member States must commit to seeking a solution.

It seems likely that the reason the Conservatives are even mentioning it is that this part of the Lisbon Treaty is only due to come into force this year – 2014.

Tories have ‘form’ in this kind of legerdemain, having recently convinced the British public that they had imposed new rules on benefits claimed by immigrants, when these were in fact already enshrined in UK law.

3. One change the Conservatives are determined to impose is the removal of your ability to defend your human rights.

The manifesto states that they will “Undertake radical reform of human rights laws and publish a detailed plan for reform that a Conservative government would implement immediately: we will scrap Labour’s Human Rights Act, curtail the role of the European Court of Human Rights in the UK and make certain that the UK’s Supreme Court is in Britain and not in Strasbourg.”

Conservatives hate human rights laws because they forbid slavery, servitude and forced labour - such as the Tory-led government’s ‘mandatory work activity’ schemes; they provide a right to a fair trial – currently being removed in the UK by the Tories’ restrictions on Legal Aid; and most importantly they oblige nation states to “prevent foreseeable loss of life” such as that caused by the assessment regime for disability benefits, imposed by the current UK government.

You can read about these, and more, in a previous Vox Political article here.

The European Court of Human Rights is – as everyone should be aware – nothing to do with the European Union at all. It is part of the Council of Europe, which is composed of 47 European nations. The Conservative Party does not need a majority of MEPs to withdraw from it.

However, such a withdrawal would represent a betrayal of the Conservative Party’s great Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the man who is considered most directly responsible for the creation of the Council of Europe and the court. Dedicated Conservatives should consider this point well. None of the people currently running the Conservative Party have anything approaching the stature of a Churchill, yet they are taking it upon themselves to cut Britain off from his legacy – and they are lying to the public about how they need to do it.

In fact, let’s face it, the Tory European Manifesto for 2014 is a pack of lies.

The Conservatives currently have more MEPs than any other UK party, but any unbiased examination of their claims will lead to the conclusion that they deserve to have none at all.