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.

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?”

Supporting England at the World Cup is like voting UKIP

Football’s mega-tournament taps the same psychic source of self-regard, self-loathing and jingoism as Nigel Farage, says Chris Moss



'Flags are tied to a long tradition of claiming that Britain is God's chosen nation' Photo: Alamy



By Chris Moss

8:18AM BST 21 May 2014



Let me say this from the outset, just so you know where I’m coming from: I know no UKIP supporters. I would likely disown any putative friend who fancied Nigel Farage representing them in an arena he openly despises.


I’m glad to say that most of my friends are not nationalists. None are out and out royalists and a few are lukewarm republicans. I don’t know anyone with any strong feelings towards the St George’s Cross flag.


There’s nothing unusual about my friends in this regard. Notwithstanding the feeble attempts by state and media at revivalism, none of us pays special attention to St George’s Day and many of us continue to associate the St George’s Cross flag with poverty, sink estates, skinheads and bulldogs. That’s a pity, but it’s a fact.


Yet, come June 14, we shall all gush with what passes for patriotic fervour and, with the aid of alcohol and collective testosterone, may even let out a few cries of “Eng-er-land”. Facing that (suddenly) longstanding enemy, Italy, we will get behind our national squad and choke on prejudices we’d like to give air to, about our opponents’ propensity for fascism, dirty play, arrogance and slipperiness.


If we drink enough, we may even begin to make – or at least laugh at – quasi-racist jokes about Argentina, Germany and, well, any other country we happen to come up against.




More bilge here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/10840656/Supporting-England-at-the-World-Cup-is-like-voting-UKIP.html

Got to watch these Ruskys very closely.

Just like camoron and his tory boys.

They dont like it up em, no they dont like it up em.

stan - may one assume that you are firmly entrenched in the camp diametrically opposed to ukip? ..... that is to say, you also want no further discussion on the eu set up .... in other words, you're all for further federalisation and think that the present set-up is just hunky-dory?

you're not an mep by any chance, for that would certainly explain why you want nothing changed? ...... just keep my wallet filled would seem to be the mantra

Under David Cameron’s government, morale in the Armed Forces has collapsed and is getting worse - Coaker

Vernon Coaker MP, Labour’s Shadow Defence Secretary, commenting on the 2014 Armed Forces Continued Attitudes Survey, said:

“Under David Cameron’s government, morale in the Armed Forces has collapsed and is getting worse. Over a quarter of service personnel say they are dissatisfied with service life, and almost a third of all servicemen and women across the Army, the Royal Navy and the RAF rate their morale as low.

“Our Armed Forces personnel are the very best of British, so it is shameful that under this government fewer than 30% of them feel they are valued by their Service.

“No-one knows more about the Armed Forces than the Armed Forces themselves. So, after the government promised to sort out the Reserve recruitment crisis, it should be a cause of concern that only a third of those in the Army feel that the Reserves who have joined are well-integrated with the Regular force.

“Our servicemen and women demand and expect better. Defence Ministers need to show they are listening and will take action to address the concerns raised.”

ENDS


MAY 21, 2014 (12:42 PM)

Alf, "just keep my wallet filled would seem to be the mantra"... Talking of wallets isn't it about time that you got back to work? -):

Of course the Armed services are dissatisfied, they have faced extreme cut backs which have cost lives, lost support after exiting the services (help mentally and socially getting back into work) and have watched fellow service men die fighting causes Joe public doesn't support let alone agrees with the government financing.. Was it any different under Labour, actually no!

Guido Fawkes ‏@GuidoFawkes 52s
Top Tory MP Attacks "Panicking" Cameron Euro Strategy.........

MAY 21ST, 2014

Top Tory Attacks Cameron Euro Strategy..



The awkward squad are getting their verdict – and attack lines – in early on the Tory European campaign. David Davis lambasted the coordinated CCHQ attacks on UKIP last night, telling Guido that they have only driven more voters to UKIP:

“The only way to fight UKIP is to occupy their ground. Cameron has started to try and do that, but it’s too late… They only react when they are panicking and the no one believes it.”

Basher says he has come round to Lord Tebbit’s ‘forgotten Tories’ idea; Thatcherites who abandoned the party in 1992, and have not voted since, have been awoken. They’ve not come back to the Tories though. He predicts a 32 24 22 win for the ‘kippers, with the Tories in third and an unexpectedly high turnout for a Euro-vote. Consider this a preview of next week if those numbers are correct.

Was it any different under labour Shortie says re- to Armed Forces, well sorry have to disagree.........at least in them days they had a safe job but no longer under the Tories just look how they have substituted volunteers for reservists and the TA.

As always with the Tories its about setting the grounds/conditions for privatising so further down the road tax cuts can be made for their chums in the City.

Remember Iraq, lack of kit, suitable kit, plus half the country thought it was someone elses battle anyway.

"Lord Tebbit’s ‘forgotten Tories’ idea; Thatcherites who abandoned the party in 1992, and have not voted since, have been awoken. They’ve not come back to the Tories though. He predicts a 32 24 22 win for the ‘kippers, with the Tories in third and an unexpectedly high turnout for a Euro-vote."

That's about it for me. It sums up my feelings pretty well. I really do feel like an ignored Tory and one whose feelings and expectations of the Tory party have been forgotten.

My vote for UKIP in the MEP election should shake things up a bit.

And of course, there is still some time for mind changing ahead of the GE, not that it might affect me too much.

Actually, the armed forces were worse off under Labour and in particular Brown. Have we forgotten the lies Brown told about equipment shortages and lack of helicopters. It was a major scandal at the time.

Well they had a JOB, now they get laid off after serving their Queen and country slung on the dole que most of them with post tramatic stress disorder and what does IDS do??????

HE FINDS THEM FIT FOR WORK and cuts thier benefits. Shame on the Tories.

And if were talking about equipment, what the F good is 2 Air Craft Carriers without airplanes on them??????????????

Come of it both of you the top brass in the military say its never been as bad.

And shame on you Hays, the tories used to be the party for the forces, no longer anymore, even the Police Force are distancing themselves from the party these days.

Just look at the funds taken away from them today, Teresa May and the tories are despised.

I don't think the tory party is despised in itself, but it's leadership is, no doubt.

Simply not credible.

i am now :-)
mind you, i was working for a project in the caribbean at 10:00 last night, so i took a few hours off to compensate

We just spend too much on military expenditure. We are number 4 in the world for spending behind US, China and Russia.. A little island spending that much is absurd. I would vote for major cuts.

Whatever voters now think of Ukip, they despise the liberal elite even more


By Tim Stanley Politics Last updated: May 21st, 2014



For some, Ukip is more recognisable than the mainstream parties (Photo: GUZELIAN).

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100272357/whatever-the-voters-now-think-of-ukip-they-despise-the-establishment-even-more/



Ukip, it would seem, has invented a whole new racial slur. Before now, Brits haven’t had much of an opinion about Romanians – except, perhaps, as good looking vampires. But in the last two weeks, Ukip (without much prompting) has launched a character assassination of an entire nation. It’s been inaccurate and nasty, and reconfigured a basically libertarian Right-wing party into a populist nationalist one. But will this descent into xenophobia push it into third place on Thursday? Probably not. After all, about 40 per cent of the votes have probably already been cast by mail – and popped into the letterbox long before Nigel Farage declared war on the “communist people smugglers” of eastern Europe. And many voters have already cast their vote on a more existential level, too. Ignore all the clever-clever psephology. This election is about kicking the establishment, pure and simple, and no amount of national chauvinism will change people’s minds about that.

The establishment finds this state of affairs very confusing. Normally, elections are won on policy and advertising and lost on gaffes – so Ukip ought to be doing badly. Very badly. But what the establishment doesn’t realise is that many voters are actually tired of consensus and slickness. They don’t regard the European elections as particularly significant to their lives (ironic, considering how “all powerful” Ukip insists that the EU is), so they’re seizing upon this electoral round as a low-risk chance to reject the mainstream parties, their multiple failures and the spin that they’ve used to disguise them. They are probably voting not for Ukip but against the powers-that-be – and the more that the establishment expresses its surprise and contempt for this fact, the stronger the rebellion grows. Yes, all the “Farage is a fascist” stuff might even help him in the short-term.

This was crystallised for me in a conversation I had with a journalist friend. He said, “Can you believe that people are even thinking of voting Ukip?” I replied, entirely as a joke, “I’m on the fence.” He then looked at me with a mix of anger and confusion and said, “But I thought you were intelligent?”

London liberals believe that a) their liberalism is self-evidently smart and b) anyone who rejects it is a bigoted moron. For years, those who do not subscribe to London’s fashionable politics have had to put up with being told not only that they are wrong but also mentally deficient and prejudiced. Hence, the attacks on Farage as a racist fool inspire, if not sympathy, a recognition that this slight is daily inflicted upon almost everyone who lives outside the M25. By treating so many of their fellow Britons with contempt, the London establishment has built up a tide of bitterness against it. And, on Thursday, that tide will probably break against the shore.

As a Ukipper might put it, a vote for Ukip is to vote against “those high taxing, crazy spending, wind farm building, country-side demolishing, latte drinking, yoga practising, Taliban tolerating, bearded lady loving, over regulating, cigarette banning, French speaking, politically correctifying, Christian bashing, Dawkins reading, border opening, Daily Mail burning, unpatriotic, suit wearing London snobs who tell the rest of the country that they need to be more egalitarian while sending their own kids to independent schools and jetting off to India to rediscover themselves every six months.” Polly Toynbee, for short.

A vote for Ukip is also a reassertion of a small-c conservatism of the heart that the Tories and Labour have rejected. While neo-liberalism and the cult of the new dominate in Westminster, many folks adhere to a conservatism that is a protection of tradition, economic self-interest, the nation state, the way that things have been because it sort of worked. Of community, cricket, patriotic poetry, white weddings, Anglican Christenings, the Vicar of Dibley, holidays in Wales, politeness, modesty, chivalry and so on into the golden nostalgia of a better yesterday. The stuff of Britishness that is romantic, spiritual and which the voters look for longingly in the mainstream parties and no longer find (no wonder that the Scottish independence campaign, with his hymn to national values, is doing so well). The voters look at Ukip and see a parody of these things that borders on the prejudiced – but that distaste can be set aside during something as inconsequential as a European election. “Vote Ukip,” they might think, “and reject the post-modernity of the London elite. Vote Ukip and assert that there is a different, older definition of what it means to be British that – damn it – still counts for something in some parts of this country.”

The good news for the establishment is that however Ukip do on Thursday, they’ll do much worse afterwards. The party has become defined now as nationalist and the British actually hold it as part of their national identity to reject nationalism. But we can probably still expect a significant protest vote this week, one that will perplex the tiny elite who run our country and try to dictate its tastes and beliefs. And isn’t it a good thing occasionally to give the establishment a good, sharp slap in the face? By most narrow Ukip definitions, I’m probably a London liberal – but I’d be the first to say that we’ve got it coming and that it’s richly deserved.

rory mac and woz sent out wedding invites at the w/e and today they call everything off including their relationship
all a bit sad, though both were really too young to marry anyway

rory mac and woz?? Never heard of them, what are they, members of the Wombles?