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.

Lord Ashcroft’s weekly poll today has topline figures of CON 33%, LAB 31%, LDEM 9%, UKIP 15%. This is the first Conservative lead in a poll since that brief narrowing in mid-May.

Poll: Support for Britain to stay in EU falls
Last updated Mon 30 Jun 2014



Jean-Claude Juncker’s presidency was opposed by David Cameron. Credit: PA

http://www.itv.com/news/update/2014-06-30/poll-support-for-britain-to-stay-in-eu-falls/


An ITV News/ComRes poll has found that the proportion of Britons that would vote for the UK to stay in the EU has fallen by four percentage points.

The figure has dropped to 36 per cent following the row over Jean-Claude Juncker’s appointment as President of the European Council last week.

If a referendum was to be held, 43 per cent of people would vote for Britain to leave the EU.

And 34 per cent believe membership of the EU is a “good” thing for the country, a fall of three per cent, while 44 per cent say it is a “bad” thing.

WHAT HAYS DOESNT WANT YOU TO SEE

Despite the small Conservative lead, voters overall would prefer to see Labour in office than the Tories. Nearly a third (32 per cent) said they wanted a Labour government, and a further eight per cent a Labour coalition with the Liberal Democrats. A quarter wanted the Conservatives in government alone (25 per cent), and a further nine per cent in another Con-Lib Dem coalition. Notably, only four fifths of Labour voters and three quarters of Tories wanted to see their respective parties governing alone.

UKIP voters said they would rather see the Conservatives in government (35 per cent with a majority, 10 per cent with a coalition) than Labour – though 27 per cent said they didn’t know what they wanted the outcome to be, the highest proportion of any party’s supporters.

WHAT HAYS DOESNT WANT YOU TO SEE

Despite the small Conservative lead, voters overall would prefer to see Labour in office than the Tories. Nearly a third (32 per cent) said they wanted a Labour government, and a further eight per cent a Labour coalition with the Liberal Democrats. A quarter wanted the Conservatives in government alone (25 per cent), and a further nine per cent in another Con-Lib Dem coalition. Notably, only four fifths of Labour voters and three quarters of Tories wanted to see their respective parties governing alone.

UKIP voters said they would rather see the Conservatives in government (35 per cent with a majority, 10 per cent with a coalition) than Labour – though 27 per cent said they didn’t know what they wanted the outcome to be, the highest proportion of any party’s supporters.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/oliver-carteresdale/ed-miliband_b_5536317.html

Other than the shame of the Blair and Brown years, Labour's biggest problem is currently that of its leader, Ed Miliband's charisma. Or, more accurately, the lack thereof. Certainly, Miliband was never going to have it easy after the reign of his two predecessors: Two unwanted wars, with now since greatly questioned motives; playing lapdog to Bush's America; and presiding over the country whilst the global economy went into meltdown were never going to prove a rich history to look back on, but Labour's spin-camp haven't exactly been helping themselves of late.

A recent YouGov poll for Prospect Magazine showed that 68% of people don't know what Miliband stands for, compared to just 28% of those who do. And, bar his off-hand comment about 'bringing back socialism' in Brighton during the 2013 Labour Conference, it's a bit hard to see what his motives actually are.

43032 - some good imagination at work there

The Sistine Chapel

Sums up the Cameroon's approach:

You know you're a Southern English ponce when...

Written by rob macintosh Google


◾Introduction

In a country where making sweeping generalisations is a habit ingrained in its citizens, it’s not surprising that the entire UK populace was at one time divided into "northern monkeys" and "southern ponces." Northerners were classified as uncouth morons while southerners were labelled posh. Of course the tags are mainly good for a laugh, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t stereotypes of this sort walking around among us. If you’re not sure if you’re one of them, see if any of this rings true for you.







More stereotypes here: http://www.ehow.co.uk/slideshow_12278416_southern-english-ponce-when.html?utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=outbrain&utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=outbrain#pg=1

He is only chained to Unite and the other unions.

ComRes and YouGov both show 2 point Labour leads

Update - Labour lead at 2
by YouGov in Politics
Tue July 1, 2014 6 a.m. BST

Latest YouGov / The Sun results 30th June - Con 35%, Lab 37%, LD 8%, UKIP 12%;

The monthly ComRes telephone poll is out tonight and has topline figures of CON 30%(nc), LAB 32%(-3), LDEM 7%(-1), UKIP 18%(+4).

To whom, or what is the con party chained to?

City spivs, right wing press and those living on Daddy's (mummy's) money!

If ever there was a gathering of capitalists, it is this web site and BBs. Fred, Stan, Goldfinger are all capitalists. If you buy or own shares you are a capitalist, you support capitalism directly and by proxy. The lefties on here can only refute their membership of the capitalist class by selling all their shares. Union members are capitalists, though ungrateful ones, by virtue of their pension funds and the investments that the union makes. Capitalism is still the best system as it is infinitely modifiable.

Up the workers...Noo Lab style! or nepotism central



What Labour’s Red Princes tell us about Britain


The UK has the lowest level of social mobility in the developed world, and the nepotism at the heart of the Labour Party reflects this.


by Sophie McBain Published 26 June, 2014 - 12:09

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/06/what-labour-s-red-princes-tell-us-about-britain


Royally red: Straw, Blair, Kinnock, Prescott and Dromey Jr. Montage by Dan Murrell


If Labour wants to convince disaffected voters that its politicians aren’t drawn from a narrow, self-serving Westminster elite, it has a few problems. The latest research found that 54 per cent of the party’s candidates selected in marginal or inherited seats (those with retiring MPs from the same party) for 2015 have already worked in politics or for think tanks. In comparison, 17 per cent of Conservative candidates are political insiders.

There’s another reason why Labour politicians might seem hard to tell apart. Let’s start with Aberavon, a constituency in south Wales that has voted Labour since the 1920s. There is little to tie Labour’s candidate to this safe seat. When not knocking on doors in Wales, he splits his time between Mayfair, where he works as a business adviser, and Denmark, where his wife, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, is prime minister. There’s a lot tying Stephen Kinnock to Labour, however. His father is the former party leader Neil Kinnock and his mother is Glenys Kinnock, the erstwhile Labour MEP.

Or take Labour’s hopeful in Rossendale and Darwen, Will Straw. His father, Jack, a former home secretary, has held the neighbouring constituency of Blackburn since 1979. David Prescott, son of the former deputy prime minister John Prescott, has had less luck, having made three failed attempts at Labour candidacy. But in May, Joe Dromey, son of Jack Dromey MP and the deputy Labour leader, Harriet Harman, was elected a Labour councillor in New Cross, London. The decision by Euan Blair, Tony’s eldest, to quit his job at the investment bank Morgan Stanley in London in 2012 and move to a recruitment firm in Coventry suggests that he, too, might fancy a career in politics.



Labour’s so-called Red Princes have all worked in politics – in think tanks, for the European Parliament or US Congress, or as campaign strategists. Neil Kinnock is the son of a coal miner and Jack Straw grew up on an Essex council estate but their offspring enjoyed affluent upbringings and effortless transitions from Oxbridge into high-flying jobs. What does this tell us about the state of the Labour Party – or even British democracy?

The House of Commons is a close-knit, domestic place. One in 12 MPs is related to another current or former MP. As inexplicable as it may seem to the electorate, sometimes politicians fall in love with each other: 14 MPs are married to current or former MPs. This leaves 22 children of MPs, 11 grandchildren and a smattering of cousins, nephews, nieces, great-nephews and great-nieces. Three MPs are the third generation of parliamentarians in their direct family (Labour’s Hilary Benn and the Tories Nicholas Soames and Nick Hurd, son of the former foreign secretary Douglas Hurd).

Political families are curiously common in democracies across the world. In 2013, Justin Trudeau became the leader of Canada’s Liberal Party. He is the son of Pierre Trudeau, who was prime minister between 1968 and 1984 (with a break in 1979-80). Also in 2013 South Korea voted in its first female president, Park Geun-hye, daughter of Park Chung-hee, the country’s authoritarian leader from 1961 until his assassination in 1979.

America’s founding fathers opposed inherited power but the son of John Adams, the second US president, went on to become the sixth president, and since then the Bush, Kennedy, Roosevelt, Clinton and Rockefeller clans have dominated modern state and federal politics.

Five years ago, the US-based economists Ernesto Dal Bó, Pedro Dal Bó and Jason Snyder published a study of American political dynasties in the Review of Economic Studies. They found that since 1966, roughly 7 per cent of US legislators have been related to other congressmen or senators (a smaller proportion than in the UK). Their analysis aimed to debunk a few convenient myths about political families.

First, are the children of politicians simply more likely to inherit political talent? Not if the Review of Economic Studies findings are anything to go by. When a congressman or congresswoman holds power for more than one term, this doubles the probability that one of their relatives will enter Congress. In the words of the authors: “Political power . . .
begets power.” Labour’s Red Princes can’t put their success down to superior social-democratic DNA.

Or perhaps it was natural for Straw, Prescott, Dromey and Kinnock to follow in their parents’ footsteps. The authors found that 10 per cent of lawyers in the US have fathers who do the same job, as do 14 per cent of carpenters and doctors (but just 1.5 per cent of economists). Yet, once you account for the relative size of these professions, politics emerges as by far the most dynastic. A GP’s child wanting to become a medic is striving to join a workforce of about 150,000 NHS doctors, while an MP’s son or daughter is hoping to take up one of just 650 seats in the Commons. That 22 have succeeded suggests that having a parent in politics is a big advantage.

So what do the Red Princes have over the rest of us? The Institute for Government estimates that it costs £41,000 over four years to become a parliamentary candidate. This is a lot but nothing compared to the $1.7m that American candidates need to raise for a seat in the House, or roughly $10m for one in the Senate. US candidates need to be good fundraisers; in the UK, it’s more important to ingratiate yourself with the party leadership.

So if you felt like being kind, you could say that Labour’s Red Princes have benefited from “high social capital”, but perhaps you would prefer the term “nepotism”. The children of MPs enter politics with an understanding of the Westminster system, as well as ready-made political connections and influential backers, which all help if you are looking for a parachute into a winnable seat.

In this way, at least, Labour reflects the society it aspires to represent: the UK has the lowest level of social mobility in the developed world. A 2011 survey by the recruitment agency Aldi found that over a third of Britons were not even interviewed for their job, having been recommended by a friend or relative. Politics, because it involves the trading of favours and the formation of alliances, lends itself quite naturally to nepotism – which might be why top-down attempts to tackle the problem have been so embarrassing. Last year, it emerged that the government’s anti-nepotism tsar, the Dragons’ Den entrepreneur James Caan, had given jobs to two of his own children.

For Labour, this is a problem. How does a party of political princelings and Westminster insiders convince anyone it can represent the working classes? Opening Labour up to less privileged candidates will require decisive reform

Young father collapses and dies after catching the worst disease of the human race (*)






(*) = the disease of mysticism

Here's a measure of just how bad this disease is getting to be:

Police chief is now too scared to go into town

Seeing as how you've been reading the Mirror, Doc, I'd have thought the bum baring bridesmaids story would've been more your tasse de thé.

:-)

Yeah, I did check it out, Hils, but I'm damned if I could actually find any bare bottoms.

Bummer!

Here's what happens when someone 'loses the disease of mysticism and gets themselves a dose of reality'. In this case, that someone is an American traffic cop: