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.

Cynic the DOW, man made engineered phenomenon so that funds can go back in and make a bob or two on the way back up to new highs. Mark my words.

fine by me, as long as i can make a bob or two while it motors south :-)
i never said we were re-entering a bear phase, but merely that pull-back and consolidation was overdue (i think)

Yep and theyl use Iraq as an excuse. Agreed.

Good ol Tony, that Iraq adventure turned out to be a good wheeze|

Manuel,

I always thought Hazyone was a donkey wearing party blinkers, but it seems you are wearing a pair now.

The cons are on for a hiding at the GE.

The figures of those who have left or made redundant at the Home Office don't tally with reports from somebody working there or the feeling of the discontent in the departments.

=================================

The present problems tie in with the previous border control problem and lack of staff.

They are putting the UK at risk!

============

Max.

Hear your dear leader is having a little problem with ? fiddling expenses.

Interesting!


=====

just because you (fred) and sticky keep on and on and on droning out the same old mantra, does not make the result any more likely - or less for that matter

as and when there is a result from the ballot box, then you can either say "told you so all along" or you can take the unusual step for you, of grovelling somewhat humbly

i'ld still put my money on a hung parliament, but would not be foolish enough to bet as to which will party will have the most seats

No mention of Hays I see from Cynic. hmmmmmm.

oh he prattles on just as boringly and inanely i must agree :-)

that said, i don't think he keeps repeating time after time how the tories will sweep back into power with a 20/40 seat overall majority - that is certainly unlikely too

gf
You have to distinguish between the characters who are in EastEnders and the actors, who are generally not from the East End. I know it is difficult for you to tell the difference between fantasy and the real world, witnessed by your nonsense above, but EastEnders is NOT real.

U.S. Said to Rebuff Iraqi Request to Strike Militants

The New York Times \ By MICHAEL R. GORDON and ERIC SCHMITT

As the threat from Sunni militants in western Iraq escalated last month, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki secretly asked the Obama administration to consider carrying out airstrikes against extremist staging areas, according to Iraqi and American officials.

But Iraq’s appeals for a military response have so far been rebuffed by the White House, which has been reluctant to open a new chapter in a conflict that President Obama has insisted was over when the United States withdrew the last of its forces from Iraq in 2011.

The swift capture of Mosul by militants aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has underscored how the conflicts in Syria and Iraq have converged into one widening regional insurgency with fighters coursing back and forth through the porous border between the two countries. But it has also called attention to the limits the White House has imposed on the use of American power in an increasingly violent and volatile region.

A spokeswoman for the National Security Council, Bernadette Meehan, declined to comment on Mr. Maliki’s requests. “We are not going to get into details of our diplomatic discussions,” she said in a statement. “The current focus of our discussions with the government of Iraq and our policy considerations is to build the capacity of the Iraqis to successfully confront” the Islamic extremists.

The Obama administration has carried out drone strikes against militants in Yemen and Pakistan, where it fears terrorists have been hatching plans to attack the United States. But despite the fact that Sunni militants have been making steady advances and may be carving out new havens from which they could carry out attacks against the West, administration spokesmen have insisted that the United States is not actively considering using warplanes or armed drones to strike them.

Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq’s foreign minister, last year floated the idea that armed American-operated Predator or Reaper drones might be used to respond to the expanding militant network in Iraq. American officials dismissed that suggestion at the time, saying that the request had not come from Mr. Maliki.

By March, however, American experts who visited Baghdad were being told that Iraq’s top leaders were hoping that American air power could be used to strike the militants’ staging and training areas inside Iraq, and help Iraq’s beleaguered forces stop them from crossing into Iraq from Syria.

“Iraqi officials at the highest level said they had requested manned and unmanned U.S. airstrikes this year against ISIS camps in the Jazira desert,” said Kenneth M. Pollack, a former C.I.A. analyst and National Security Council official, who is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and who visited Baghdad in early March. ISIS is the acronym for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, as the militant group is known.

hey sticks - you should have done as you were told and shorted dow :-)

Big Dave outmanouvered....again




Blow to Cameron as centrist MEPs back Juncker for European commission job

PM's European policy in disarray as coalition plan dents efforts to stop Juncker and German Eurosceptics join Tories' MEP bloc


Ian Traynor in Brussels and Nicholas Watt


theguardian.com, Thursday 12 June 2014 17.17 BST






David Cameron's hopes of striking a deal with the German chancellor to stop Jean-Claude Juncker securing one of Europe's top jobs suffered a significant blow on Thursday when the centre-right and centre-left in the European parliament announced that they wanted a five-year grand coalition behind Juncker as the new head of the EU executive.

In a further setback, the Conservatives were outvoted in Brussels when their parliamentary grouping agreed to include Germany's new Eurosceptic movement, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), against Cameron's objections and in what Angela Merkel may regard as a hostile act.

The decision to make the AfD's seven MEPs bedfellows of the Tories in the Strasbourg parliament suggested that Cameron has lost control of his own creation, the grouping of European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) he set up when he took the Tories out of the mainstream centre-right European People's party bloc in 2009.



more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/12/cameron-european-policy-disarray-centrist-meps-back-juncker-commission-job-eurosceptics

Fred.

Whats this about expenses?

MEPs don't decide. The heads of state of each member state decide. Another non story from the lefties' favourite comic.

hmm .. if juncker gets in, that will certainly be a blow to DC .... puzzled that eurosceptics should suddenly want to hold hands with juncker and his cronies

Nigel Farage could face fine over undeclared donations

The Ukip leader failed to declare more than £200,000 worth of donations and faces further questions about his use of European Parliament expenses




"When questions were raised about his expenses earlier this year, Mr Farage previously said he would be happy to have his office accounts audited by an independent accountant “if it would settle the argument”.

Mr Farage, along with every European MEP, receives a monthly allowance of £3,580 to cover his expenses in the UK but he does not have to provide any receipts to account for how that money is spent.

A Ukip spokesman said: “Every year since 2001, Mr Farage has declared in his European Parliament Register of Interests the use of a rent-free office from J Longhurst Ltd. The premises has been used as his MEP office so the European Parliamentary register was the logical place for it to be declared. "

“Mr Farage was surprised to learn that the Electoral Commission thought it should be informed as well as this did not accord with the professional advice he had received at the time.”



Full-ish story here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/10895939/Nigel-Farage-could-face-fine-over-undeclared-donations.html

He we go again

US President Barack Obama says his government is looking at "all options" to help fight Islamist militants in Iraq, including military action.

Ian Hislop on the panel of QT tonight

DRONES.

Hays you made out you came from the east end.

Remember Cynic.