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.

Thanks for that aldwickk.

The guy's name on the video clip is Pat Condell. If you want to watch/listen to more of his offerings, try starting out at:

https://www.youtube.com/user/patcondell

gf
You missed the last part of you Comes post

That’s a swing from Conservative to Labour of just one point, far lower than the swing shown in ComRes’s GB polls (it would be the equivalent of a national poll showing a Conservative lead of five points) suggesting Labour are doing worse in key marginals than in the country as a whole.

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/8828?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PollingReport+%28UK+Polling+Report%29

Nice one aldwickk....classy rant :-)

http://news.sky.com/story/1265690/police-to-patrol-more-than-100-polling-stations

Police will be stationed at more than 100 polling stations to combat voter intimidation and fraud at the local and European elections on Thursday, Sky News has learned.

The Electoral Commission has identified 16 areas as being at "high risk" for vote-rigging and bullying.

This includes Tower Hamlets, which in response has introduced what the council described as "the strongest measures to prevent fraud of any authority in London - and one of the most robust in the country".

The council said: "On polling day, police officers will be stationed at all 125 polling stations in the borough for the whole 15 hours of the poll (from 7am to 10pm) to deal with any alleged malpractice or public order issues."

Returning Officer John Williams said they were responding to allegations of intimidation during previous elections.

He said: "In general it has been enthusiastic campaigners gathering outside polling stations and trying to convince electors as they are coming in to vote who they should be voting for and sometimes that can be intimidating for people."

Councils are also investigating irregularities on nomination, voter registration and postal vote forms.

In Tower Hamlets they are not just screening signatures and birth dates on postal votes, but also visiting houses with high numbers of registered voters.

More than 5,000 names have been removed from the electoral register since February.

Pendle, in Lancashire, is another area identified.

Conservative council candidate Abdullah Zaid said activists have in the past coerced vulnerable voters on the doorstep.

He said: "They say, 'how do we know you're voting for us? To assure us you need to do the postal vote applications (now).'

"Then they do the applications themselves and get their signatures and send off the postal votes."

Lib Dem Councillor Tony Greaves, who has campaigned on the issue and sits in the House of Lords, said: "Fiddling postal votes has happened at every local election in Pendle since 2002 and it has taken this long for people and the police to sit up and take notice.

The at-risk areas are mostly Asian communities.

The others are: Hyndburn, Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley and Oldham, Kirklees, Bradford, Calderdale, Derby, Walsall, Birmingham, Coventry, Peterborough, Slough, and Woking.

Apart from Tower Hamlets, no other council is planning to police every polling station.

Police will be stationed at more than 100 polling stations to combat voter intimidation and fraud at the local and European elections on Thursday, Sky News has learned ....... The Electoral Commission has identified 16 areas as being at "high risk" for vote-rigging and bullying ....... Lib Dem Councillor Tony Greaves said: "Fiddling postal votes has happened at every local election in Pendle since 2002 and it has taken this long for people and the police to sit up and take notice.


has 1st April come around twice this year?
we aren't living in pakistan or afghanistan or similar

It's what I've been saying sleepwalking into this.Nothing but trouble in the future.

Hays rubbish, total carp. (your sort of reply.........note he he. )

Hays your going to feel really down in the dumps tomorrow and the few days after.

Camoron is in a defeatist mode already.

I have a rope if you want to borrow it, or maybe you have freind who can lend you one.

These EU polls don't matter to anyone except Farage, which is why the projected turnout is so low. The GE is all that counts and UKIP are stuck at the same nowhere level.

intrinsically correct, except that ukip still show GE support at about 14% (i think), which makes it hard to believe that they'll get zero mps

They have to get well over 20% to get just one MP.

If thats the case why is Camoron shit-ing at just the mention of their name.!!!!!!!

It is not that UKIP will get MPs. It is that UKIP could reduce the Conservative vote share and let in Labour in Conservative marginals.

i know your logic, but i don't think it's entirely correct .... or if it is, then lib/dems will assuredly have none, notwithstanding that they may only fight a few seats - and if they do that, then they really have written themselves off as a mainstream party

=======

anyway, overall i'll still put money on a hung parliament

reason for not voting for the (at present) big three



Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein

paraphrasing is really not difficult or time-consuming .... per below, it's a shame sticky refuses to read, let alone learn! .....

Bank of England minutes show some members closer to voting for rate rise
some Bank of England policymakers think the case for raising interest rates is becoming stronger
all members agreed it would be necessary to see more evidence of slack reducing before an increase in Bank Rate would be warranted

increasing concern that house prices are rising too far too fast. The bank said low rates could distort the property market.
The BoE said that its Financial Policy Committee could tackle the housing issue when it meets next month

The BoE reiterated that it would only raise rates gradually …..It could be argued that the more gradual the intended rise in Bank Rate, the earlier it might be necessary to start tightening policy,"
On the other hand, a premature rate rise could choke off growth, policymakers said.

Although Britain's economy is still slightly smaller than before the financial crisis, the BoE forecasts it will grow by 3.4 percent this year, which would be its fastest rate of growth since 2007.

The history of elections since 1900 shows the Liberal party never won fewer than six seats even when its national support slumped to 2.5% in 1951. More recently, the Liberal Democrats managed to win 52 seats in 2001, with only 18% national support. Why did UKIP win no seats in 2010 with a vote share of 3.17%, and why does it need around 20% support to win a few seats.

The answer is a combination of three separate factors:

Established local strength The Liberal party had been one of the two major parties until 1922. It had built up strong local roots in many areas, and was able to maintain some of these roots even as its national support withered. That left some concentrated pockets of Liberal support, which were able to elect Liberal MPs. For instance, four out of the six Liberal seats in 1951 were in the "celtic fringes" of Scotland and Wales.
Strong candidates Having strong well-known candidates can draw in support from other parties and beat the national trend. This "incumbency factor" was visible at the 2010 election in seats like Eastleigh (Christopher Huhne) and Brent Central (Sarah Teather) where a well-known Liberal Democrat incumbent held the seat against the odds.
Tactical voting The Liberal Democrats have benefitted from tactical voting in recent years. Where they are in second place to one of the major parties, they can benefit from tactical votes from natural supporters of the third-placed party. Typically they gain tactical Labour votes in the South to "keep the Tories out", and vice versa some tactical Conservative votes in the North.

None of these factors apply to UKIP at the present time. They do not have particular local roots, although their 2013 council wins may be an opportunity to plant some new ones for the future. They do not yet have particularly well-known and strong candidates, other than the leader Nigel Farage. And they are unlikely to benefit from tactical voting, since they are viewed as being to the right of both major parties (rather than in-between), and they do not start from second place in any Westminster seat.

an interesting article .... source?

Have you Little Englanders considered all moving to the same area and then setting up your own "Little England Country" within it? You could then lobby the government for some sort of Independence/Self Government, something like Wales, Scotland or more recently Cornwall?

This place is probably to far north for most of you http://http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-27313889 ... But I think you may get the idea with a bit of intelligent thinking.

No takers? Bit further to go but how about this one then http://www.property.org.uk/unique/islands.shtml

http://www.interpretermag.com/budget-figures-show-putin-has-been-preparing-for-war-for-four-years-nemtsov-says/

Budget Figures Show Putin has Been Preparing for War for Four Years, Nemtsov Says

Staunton, May 12 – A government’s priorities and plans are most clearly shown in its budget, and over the last four years, the budgets Vladimir Putin has proposed and imposed are those of a leader preparing for war rather than someone concerned about the needs of the Russian people, according to Boris Nemtsov.

In a report on Ekho Moskvy on Saturday, Nemtsov, a Russian opposition leader, publishes a table showing Russian budgetary figures by sector and year since 2011. Over that period, military spending has risen 80 percent, and spending on the special services [intelligence] and police has gone up 50 percent.

Putin’s priorities are obvious, he says. They are headed by “preparation for war and repressions inside the country.” They do not include education, health care or infrastructure development.

The greatest budgetary loser, Nemtsov points out, is education, spending for which if one takes inflation into account has fallen by 30 percent. That has led to the imposition of tuition at the university level and “the degradation” of higher education. The Russian opposition figure says that he is “certain that this is the conscious policy of the highest authority.”

Putin “doesn’t need the intelligent and the educated,” he says. Such people “give unnecessary questions, aren’t loyal and are more difficult to zombify.”

Spending on health care, again with inflation taken into account has fallen by “almost a quarter.” Given that high levels of mortality exceed fertility and “under conditions of African-level life expectancy,” such a pattern of spending on health “cannot be characterized as anything but that of an occupation regime.”

Nemtsov says he is “convinced that the preservation of the nation is not among the plans of the Kremlin.” Instead, Putin and his regime want to continue to depend on immigrants and the sale of raw materials. And in that event, they do not need all that many workers. Fifteen million would suffice.

The central Russian budget has also cut financing, with inflation taken into account, to the regions by 40 percent over the past four years. Given that the Kremlin has imposed a wide range of unfunded liabilities, it is no surprise that many regional governments are in debt and have had to freeze development projects, pay and benefits.

As Nemtsov points out, even the regime’s main support group, the pensioners, have suffered. This year, the pension budget “practically did not increase,” even though the number of pensioners did and the prices for the goods they need did as well.

The opposition leader concludes with a rhetorical question: “Is this not too high a price to pay for the desire of one man to rule forever by enslaving his neighbors?”