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.

What you're voting for when you vote for an MEP:

MEPs are expected to attend four-day meetings in Strasbourg every month (not August) and two-day meetings in Brussels six times a year, where the Parliament's committees, political groups and other organs also mainly meet.

MEPs have few or no powers over health, education, housing, law & order or defence, but significant powers over environmental standards, consumer protection, trade, employment law.

Amongst other things MEPs: have to approve nearly all EU legislation, table parliamentary questions for Question Time or written answer, approve international agreements (such as trade agreements) and accession of new member states to the union, jointly with the Council of the European Union agree the EU’s annual budget.

Since the last election in 2009, the European Parliament has brought in a price cap on mobile roaming charges, worked on new financial regulations for banks - including capping bonuses, implemented farming reform by bringing in taxpayer-funded farm subsidies, brought in reform to save fish stocks by giving more powers back to fishing regions and backing down on quotas and written a number of anti tobacco laws.

Q: So if MEPs have few or no powers over health, education, housing, law & order or defence, then within the EU, who does?

A: Unelected EU beaurocrats.

Charlie seems to be taking over from his dad in the area of making gaffs.

Why was it a gaffe? I think he made the comment in a private conversation in full knowledge that it would reach the public domain and a lot of people agree with what he said.

I find it interesting that a 'private' conversation made by Charles is being used as his defence.

ie. He said it in private and what he said was not for public ears.

The same excuse didn't work for, say Ron Atkinson, did it?

It is a gaffe because he is not supposed to be involved in or comment on political matters.

If you're feeling unhappy, it might be an idea to move to Iran. There's plenty there to cheer you up:

FULL VIDEO:



Until you get arrested for displaying it in public.

THE ARRESTS, SUB TITLES and CLIPS of the VIDEO:

He has been around long enough to know that things he says in 'private' are very likely to be made public and for once I agree with Nick Clegg's comments.

And whilst the media are agog at charlies antics, the real business is being done behind the scenes....no dolla's involved either.



Russia seals £237bn deal to sell gas to China




Triumphant Putin hails ‘strategic energy alliance’ that will lessen dependency on trade with Europe


Peter Popham

Wednesday 21 May 2014


Vladimir Putin snatched triumph from the jaws of humiliation today, overseeing with President Xi Jinping a $400bn (£237bn) deal to sell Russian gas to China. The signing between Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation, which had been widely expected to happen during the hours of daylight, finally came at 4am, shortly before Mr Putin flew back to Moscow.

“This is the biggest contract in the history of the gas sector of the former USSR,” Mr Putin claimed after the signing in Shanghai.


More: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/russia-seals-237bn-deal-to-sell-gas-to-china-9411326.html

Great picture, should have a caption, "When Judo meets Kung-Fu!!"

BRUSSELS, May 22 (Reuters) - The European Union's marathon parliamentary election kicked off on Thursday when polls opened in Britain and the Netherlands, where far-right, anti-EU parties are forecast to top the ballot, spearheading a surge in protest votes across the continent. After two months of campaigning that opinion polls suggest has largely failed to inspire the electorate, up to 380 million Europeans are entitled to vote in 28 countries, choosing 751 deputies to represent them in the European Parliament. Despite efforts to mobilise voters by telling them they will for the first time indirectly be choosing the next president of the European Commission, pollsters forecast a low turnout, possibly below the 2009 nadir of 43 percent. With Europe struggling to recover from economic crisis, including record high unemployment and negligible growth, the election is expected to produce a surge in support for Eurosceptics on both the far-right and hard left. In Britain, the UK Independence Party, which wants to withdraw from the EU and impose tighter immigration controls, is expected to win the vote, pushing the governing Conservatives into third place behind Labour, latest opinion polls show. That could raise pressure on Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, who has promised an in/out referendum on EU membership in 2017 if he is re-elected next year, to take a tougher line on reducing the EU's powers. A similar story is expected in the Netherlands, where Geert Wilders' anti-Islam and anti-EU Freedom Party - which plans to forge an alliance with France's far-right National Front - is expected to win with up to 23 percent of the vote. The Dutch will release exit polls on Thursday evening, but Britain will only announce its results late on Sunday, once voting has finished in all EU member states. Consolidated results, including the allotment of seats in the parliament, will be announced at around 2100 GMT on Sunday. The bulk of countries vote on May 25, when the trend towards the political extremes may become clearer, particularly in France, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Greece and Austria. On the last day of campaigning, Jean-Claude Juncker, the top candidate for Europe's centre-right political group, urged voters to steer away from the extremes. "Do not give your votes to extremist xenophobes or fascists," the veteran former Luxembourg prime minister said at a rally in Brussels. "If you want Europe to function and to serve its citizens, we should vote for people who will work hard in the next European Parliament." Juncker and his Socialist opponent, Martin Schulz, the German president of the outgoing European Parliament, have held an unprecedented series of television debates in an effort to personalise the election and enthuse the electorate.

the salient and in part extremely worrying points of shortie's post above ....

the Netherlands, where far-right, anti-EU parties are forecast to top the ballot, spearheading a surge in protest votes across the continent

pollsters forecast a low turnout, possibly below the 2009 nadir of 43 percent.

With Europe struggling to recover from economic crisis, including record high unemployment and negligible growth, the election is expected to produce a surge in support for Eurosceptics on both the far-right and hard left

the Netherlands, where Geert Wilders' anti-Islam and anti-EU Freedom Party - which plans to forge an alliance with France's far-right National Front - is expected to win with up to 23 percent of the vote

Yes, but all those people are xenophobes or fascists, so they don't count.

Just casted my vote for UKIP , what a long list of candidates there was.

Just voted as well aldwickk - good turnout in my area evidently.

max - i'm afraid they very much do count, and the big worry is the wider picture of growing nationalism and extremism throughout europe

Indeed c, but you have to ask yourself why the rise in nationalistic tendencies if everything in the €U garden is fine and dandy?


Could it be that people have had enough of this multi-culti shit that is continually shoved down their throats by the powers that be?

Me too in the end I decided to go with UKIP and give Camoron and fellow liars a bloody nose.

Loads of UKippers about.

I'll be voting UKIP later tonight as will most the people I know. We've given too much to this European project which hasn't yielded any positive results for us. Time to knock the project on the head and call it a day I think. Can't keep throwing money down the drain especially when our own country men are suffering and going without.

In some parts of London there are 17 candidates.

Putin has done another neat sidestep. He knows Europe is going to try very hard to do without energy supplies from Russia. He needed to find a new major market for his oil and gas and then he can continue to behave how he wants.