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.

Will Netanyahu go down in history as the Jewish Hitler, after all he is changing Gaza into a Ghetto and using the same tactics as the Nazis?

What he is forgetting is that Hitler's actions in the end failed!

Will he be tried for War Crimes.

We are prepared to use sanctions against Russia where is is unlikely to be effective, but not against the Israeli government when it may be effective and drive a decent resolution to the continuing "strife" in Gaza.

The film Gran Prix is on at the moment. I was at the British Grand Prix in 1965 when they filmed some of it at Brands Hatch. They asked the crowd to stay behind for a couple of hours after the race so they could film a crash and a car burning. Jim Clark was in the race I saw. Phil Hill was driving a white AC Cobra with a cameraman in front of and behind racing cars to get the movie footage. I still have photos I took in the race of Jim Clark and of Phill Hill. The film cast is amazing :- Bruce McLaren, Graham Hill, Jack Brabham, and lots of racing car drivers plus the actors.

..How interesting -):

Stan,

Do you know my father knew Lloyd George!

8-)

Emily Benn, daughter of Labour dynasty, to run for Parliament

Emily Benn, 24, grand-daughter of Tony Benn, selected to fight Croydon South



Emily Benn, speaking at Westminster Academy school in London back in 2010 Photo: EPA



By Matthew Holehouse, Political Correspondent

10:50AM BST 20 Jul 2014

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10978794/Emily-Benn-daughter-of-Labour-dynasty-to-run-for-Parliament.html



The granddaughter of the late Labour grandee Tony Benn is poised to become the fifth generation of her political family to sit in the Commons after being selected to stand in next year's general election.


Emily Benn, who will contest Croydon South for Labour in May next year, insisted that her famous surname was not the reason she was selected for the seat.


Ms Benn, 24, who was elected as a councillor in Croydon earlier this year, faces an uphill battle to join her uncle Hilary Benn, the shadow communities secretary, in the Commons.


She will have to overturn a 15,818 majority to unseat Richard Ottaway, the sitting Conservative MP. Labour came third in 2010.


It is not her first attempt to enter the Commons. She lost in the battle for the East Worthing and Shoreham seat in 2010.


She works at UBS investment bank. She is quoted as having told a Labour in the City event that her colleagues regard a Labour victory as a "political risk".

Earlier this year, Prime Minister David Cameron attacked Labour's political dynasties as the “Red Princes”.

Jack Straw's son Will and Lord Kinnock's son Stephen are also candidates, while the sons of John Prescott and Tony Blair are also known to be seeking selection.

In the Commons last month Mr Cameron said: "It is the same families with the same message - it is literally the same old Labour. That is what is happening."

Last month Jon Cruddas, the Labour policy chief, was recorded criticising the trend of “certain families are reproducing their control over the Labour Party through inheritance of seats”. It had “hollowed out” the party, he claimed.

Ms Benn said it was "insulting" to the local party to suggest her selection was for any other reason than her abilities as a would-be MP.

She said her family name placed no extra pressure on her. "The pressure and responsibility comes from the people who voted for me as their candidate and from Labour supporters."

Ms Benn said: "It"s obviously a challenge for Labour, but I firmly believe that there should be no 'no go' areas for the Labour Party."

As well as her uncle and grandfather, Ms Benn's great-grandfather William Wedgwood Benn and her great-great-grandfather, Sir John Williams Benn were MPs. Another great-great-grandfather, Daniel Homes, was also an MP.

No I didn't Fred,

..Do you know my father was Lloyd George -):

I wish Emily Benn the best of luck.

At least she is not being parachuted in to a safe seat like some of the tory are-nots who suck up the party grandees and slip a few bob into right hands.

Name em and shame em Fred, the tory ones.

Go on!

Do you own homework!

Mind the con party seems to me to be more incestuous than the lib/dems and labour parties.

God help them in their choices!

lol, you cant find any Fred, cos the cons haven't thought of it ...yet!


As for Emily Benn, she is being put through the wringer to make it look good, why else the puff piece?

No doubt a safe seat will be forthcoming.

A little starter.

Start with Winnie and move on since those days.

Have a look at ancestry of other tory playmates!

It is interesting to see the links.

Some have shorter trouser legs than others.

Max.

If one is born into a politically enthusiastic family it is more than likely that a proportion of off springs will share their parents interests and be "activists" in one way or another.

(Values are introjected into children at early ages and replicate in patterns of behavior in later life, unless challenged.)

Look at other professions and one will see the same patterns of family "traditions".

The difficulty is when it is becomes an expectancy or a right and is unchallenged.

===========

Then there is you Fred who just shags sheep!

........... And gf of course :0)

Everybody...........CHRISTINE SUPPORTS EVERTON........ LOL LOL LOL the big cissy boy.

Today’s UK polls

Opinium:
LAB 34%
CON 30
UKIP 17
LD 9

ComRes:
LAB 34%
CON 31
UKIP 17
LD 9
GRN 4

YouGov:
LAB 37%
CON 32
UKIP 13
LD 9
GRN 5

A walk in the park since the re-shuffle.

Meanwhile George is ducking and diving

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/you-wont-hear-the-chancellor-boasting-about-the-biggest-drop-in-living-standards-since-the-war-9617471.html





David Blanchflower
20/7/2014


You won’t hear the Chancellor boasting about the biggest drop in living standards since the war

The young have been hurt the most by the recession. They don’t vote Tory and can’t buy a house, so who cares?
Last week I appeared on Iain Dale’s LBC radio show to discuss an interview he had just conducted with the Chancellor George Osborne on a trip to the South-west. Iain managed to get Osborne to repeat the dumbest statement that I have ever heard from a Chancellor – that is ‘four years ago the country was close to bankruptcy’. Such a claim that the country was broke is unequivocally false. A big fat pork pie.
In the quarter the Coalition took office in 2010 the economy grew by 1 per cent, which As I have frequently predicted in these columns, real wages continue to plunge. The latest ONS data showed that. Average weekly earnings were £478 a week, down from £479 in December 2013 and exactly the same as observed in April. Pay was up 0.3 per cent over the last twelve months, which is the lowest ever, and exactly zero in the five months that we have data for since the start of 2014. We have now had monthly estimates of £478 in January, February, April and May and one of £476 in March so there isn’t much growth there. In contrast the Retail Price Index grew 2.6 per cent over the last year, so real wages are currently falling at more than 2 per cent per annum. The AWE is up by 6.5 per cent since May 2010 while the RPI is up 14.6 per cent. So real wages are now down 8 per cent and that drop has no chance of being restored by election time. I do recall the Bank of England’s ex-chief economist Spencer Dale explaining at the last inflation report press conference that the MPC was fully expecting real wage growth in the second half of 2014, a claim recently repeated by Governor Carney who is headed back to the drawing board.
Elsewhere the news is little better. There was new evidence from a recent study published by the Department for Work and Pensions* showing how Iain Duncan Smith’s much hated bedroom tax had further hurt living standards of the vulnerable. The study found there was widespread concern that those who were paying the tax were making cuts to other household essentials or incurring other debts in order to pay the rent. More than half reported cutting back on household essentials and a third on non-essentials in order to pay their shortfall. A quarter said they had borrowed money, mostly from family and friends.
The UK’s younger workforce is struggling as well. The unemployment rate of those age 16-24 was 18 per cent compared with 5 per cent for those ages 25-49 and 4 per cent for those 50 and over. A report by the Institute of Fiscal Studies** confirmed that the young have been hurt the most by the Great Recession. They don’t vote Tory and have little or no chance of buying a house. So who cares? Actually, I do. I went back to Cardiff University to accept a Fellowship at the Business School graduation last week; my MSc thesis there in 1981 was about the scourge of youth unemployment.
is the fastest quarter of growth since 2007. The economy grew by an average of 0.6 per cent a quarter from the final three months of 2009 to the third quarter of 2010 compared with an average of only half of that in the fourteen quarters since then. The UK – with its own central bank and currency – has been able to borrow at historically low rates throughout the recession under both Labour and coalition governments and was never anywhere close to being insolvent. Imagine if the chief executive of any of the biggest 500 companies in Britain declared that their company was close to bankruptcy when it wasn’t – or even if it was – they would be relieved of their duties.

Final paragraph for those with short attention.


Despite steady falls in the unemployment rate, living standards for the vast majority continue to drop like a stone. Indeed, the Coalition has another record, it is responsible for the sharpest deterioration in living standards of any post-war government. But you won’t hear the Chancellor boasting about that.