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.

"And who is the blinking-eyed penguin who is controlling him?"


LOL !

What would YOU ask David Cameron in Public Prime Minister’s Questions?

27 Sunday Jul 2014
Posted by Mike Sivier in Austerity


Mile-wide: Mr Miliband explained his idea to bridge the gulf between the public and the Prime Minister to Andrew Marr.

Ed Miliband engaged in a particularly compelling piece of kite-flying today (July 27) – he put out the idea that the public should have their own version of Prime Minister’s Questions.

Speaking to Andrew Marr, he said such an event would “bridge the ‘mile-wide’ gulf between what people want and what they get from Prime Minister’s Questions”, which has been vilified in recent years for uncivilised displays of tribal hostility between political parties and their leaders (David Cameron being the worst offender) and nicknamed ‘Wednesday Shouty Time’.

“I think what we need is a public question time where regularly the prime minister submits himself or herself to questioning from members of the public in the Palace of Westminster on Wednesdays,” said Mr Miliband.

“At the moment there are a few inches of glass that separates the public in the gallery from the House of Commons but there is a gulf a mile wide between the kind of politics people want and what Prime Minister’s Questions offers.”

What would you ask David Cameron?

Would you demand a straight answer to the question that has dogged the Department for Work and Pensions for almost three years, now – “How many people are your ‘welfare reform’ policies responsible for killing?”

Would you ask him why his government, which came into office claiming it would be the most “transparent” administration ever, has progressively denied more and more important information to the public?

Would you ask him whether he thinks it is right for a Prime Minister to knowingly attempt to mislead the public, as he himself has done repeatedly over the privatisation of the National Health Service, the benefit cap, the bedroom tax, food banks, fracking…? The list is as long as you want to make it.

What about his policies on austerity? Would you ask him why his government of millionaires insists on inflicting deprivation on the poor when the only economic policy that has worked involved investment in the system, rather than taking money away?

His government’s part-privatisation of the Royal Mail was a total cack-handed disaster that has cost the nation £1 billion and put our mail in the hands of hedge funds. Would you ask him why he is so doggedly determined to stick to privatisation policies that push up prices and diminish quality of service. Isn’t it time some of these private companies were re-nationalised – the energy firms being prime examples?

Would you want to know why his government has passed so many laws to restrict our freedoms – of speech, of association, of access to justice – and why it intends to pass more, ending the government’s acknowledgement that we have internationally-agreed human rights and restricting us to a ‘Bill of Rights’ dictated by his government, and tying us to restrictive lowest-common-denominator employment conditions laid down according to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a grubby little deal that the EU and USA were trying to sign in secret until the whistle was blown on it?

Would you ask him something else?

Or do you think this is a bad idea?

What do you think?

What would you ask David Cameron?

Would you demand a straight answer to the question that has dogged the Department for Work and Pensions for almost three years, now – “How many people are your ‘welfare reform’ policies responsible for killing?”

Would you ask him why his government, which came into office claiming it would be the most “transparent” administration ever, has progressively denied more and more important information to the public?

Would you ask him whether he thinks it is right for a Prime Minister to knowingly attempt to mislead the public, as he himself has done repeatedly over the privatisation of the National Health Service, the benefit cap, the bedroom tax, food banks, fracking…? The list is as long as you want to make it.

What about his policies on austerity? Would you ask him why his government of millionaires insists on inflicting deprivation on the poor when the only economic policy that has worked involved investment in the system, rather than taking money away?

His government’s part-privatisation of the Royal Mail was a total cack-handed disaster that has cost the nation £1 billion and put our mail in the hands of hedge funds. Would you ask him why he is so doggedly determined to stick to privatisation policies that push up prices and diminish quality of service. Isn’t it time some of these private companies were re-nationalised – the energy firms being prime examples?

Would you want to know why his government has passed so many laws to restrict our freedoms – of speech, of association, of access to justice – and why it intends to pass more, ending the government’s acknowledgement that we have internationally-agreed human rights and restricting us to a ‘Bill of Rights’ dictated by his government, and tying us to restrictive lowest-common-denominator employment conditions laid down according to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a grubby little deal that the EU and USA were trying to sign in secret until the whistle was blown on it?

Labour confirms Tory strategy: Vote Nigel, Get Ed

David Blackburn 28 July 2014 7:48



Talk to most Tory strategists about Ukip and Ed Miliband and they say something along the lines of ‘Vote Farage, get Miliband’. They hope that this will deter people from voting Ukip or win back those Ukip supporters who are not irreconcilable to the Tories.

The Telegraph has news that Labour’s private polling confirms the Tory view: Ed Miliband will win Downing Street if Ukip polls 9 per cent of voters, which it is more than capable of doing on current projections.

The Tories, I suspect, will be fairly pleased that Labour has published this information. It reinforces what we’ve known all along: an unpopular left-wing party will win power if the right remains divided. The challenge for Lynton Crosby et al is to fashion a strategy that splits those Ukip voters who might return to the Tories, if only for fear of Miliband and Balls, from the die-hards.

THE SPECTATOR

The Telegraph has news that Labour’s private polling confirms the Tory view: Ed Miliband will win Downing Street if Ukip polls 9 per cent of voters, which it is more than capable of doing on current projections.

A long way to go!

Your SWEATING HAYS.

Lord Ashcrofts Poll..............just out.

Labour were on 34 per cent with the Conservatives on 32 per cent, the Liberal Democrats on 9 per cent, and UKIP on 14 per cent. The narrower Labour advantage reflects that of other polls published over the weekend. This looks a temporary problem associated with Ed Millibands recent image.

I notice UKIP on 14% way above the labour target of 9%, so all is well in the labour camp. These being marginals it also means it gives extra weighting towards Labours thoughts that UKIP will get them in through the back door.

Theres nothing temporary about Millibandus's image problem.

Where are the boys in blue?



'Industrial-scale fraud’ in mayor’s victory

Labour rival of Lutfur Rahman, the extremist-linked mayor of Tower Hamlets, says he saw ballot papers at the count where a vote for him, or candidates supporting him, had been crossed out and a different vote written in





By Andrew Gilligan

9:00PM BST 26 Jul 2014

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10993065/Industrial-scale-fraud-in-mayors-victory.html



The extremist-linked mayor of Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman, benefited from “industrial-scale” postal ballot fraud and may also have been helped by “organised fraud in the counting of the votes”, according to his Labour Party rival.


John Biggs, who was narrowly defeated in May’s highly controversial election, said he and party colleagues had seen a number of ballot papers at the count where a vote for him, or candidates supporting him, had been crossed out and a different vote written in.


He accused Mr Rahman’s supporters of a “considerable amount of election fraud, principally centred around the manipulation of postal votes” and said there were “very significant doubts about the integrity of the ballot”.


The accusations form part of a damaging dossier of evidence, some of which will be submitted to the High Court tomorrow as part of an attempt to overturn the election result.


In a separate article for a local newspaper Mr Biggs said: “I remain a good loser, provided it was a good competition. But I am becoming clearer by the day that, remarkably in this mother of democracies, it could ultimately be declared that the election was bent.”

The dossier, seen by The Telegraph, contains dozens of specific and detailed allegations of electoral malpractice, by and about named individuals, compiled by Labour and three other parties in the election. The dossier alleges that:

Þ Bengali voters, especially women, were intercepted by Mr Rahman’s supporters outside polling stations, then “accompanied” into the polling booths and “directed how to vote”.

Þ In Lansbury ward, Labour votes were “crossed out” on ballot papers and “Tower Hamlets First [Mr Rahman’s party] votes entered with a different colour pen”.

Þ In Weavers ward, the Labour votes “appeared to have been erased” on a “substantial number” of postal ballot papers.

Þ Count agents for Whitechapel ward “reported that many postal ballots [and the accompanying declarations of identity] appeared to have been completed in the same handwriting”.

Þ The counting venue, a converted cinema, was owned by the partner of one of Mr Rahman’s key allies.

The dossier also alleges that Rahman supporters were allowed to conduct “campaigning inside polling stations”, handing out leaflets and telling voters that the Labour candidates were racist or had “sided with a non-Muslim”.

Hundreds of Rahman leaflets were allegedly found inside the polling booths where people cast their votes, while “hostile and threatening” Rahman supporters mobbed polling station entrances, deterring Mr Rahman’s opponents from entering to cast their ballots. One Labour activist in Bow West said a Rahman supporter “came right up to her, shouting and wagging his finger in her face”.

According to the dossier, Labour supporters in a number of blocks and streets “especially those with external mailboxes… complained that their postal votes had not arrived”, while voters in the Prusom Street area had their blank postal ballot papers taken from them by Rahman supporters pretending to be from the Labour Party. It also alleges that a number of people came to vote at polling stations and found their votes had already been cast by someone pretending to be them.

The papers include witness statements from individual voters supporting many of the allegations. One, a commodity trader from the Isle of Dogs, stated that he witnessed a campaigner for Mr Rahman “blocking the route of three young women so they could not pass him into the polling station.”

According to the witness, the campaigner “then produced the very same [Rahman] leaflet I had removed from my polling booth and proceeded to forcibly tell the ladies who they had to vote for” before taking them inside the polling station and registering them with the clerk.

Another white voter, from Bow, stated that she was approached by a Bengali family on the street who said they had been “bullied” by a crowd of Rahman supporters outside their polling station. They asked her to escort them for their safety.

“I went inside the polling station and found a police officer who came out to escort the family safely through in order to vote,” she said.

Sanu Miah, a Labour council candidate in the St Peter’s ward, came top in the first count, with 2,270 votes. However, Mr Rahman demanded a recount to take place the following day, with the votes stored at Tower Hamlets’ headquarters, Mulberry Place, overnight. In the recount Mr Miah dropped from first place to fifth, with his vote falling by a quarter to 1,722 votes.

Some Labour sources believe the first count was a genuine mistake, since there was another candidate with the same surname. However, in his statement, Mr Miah alleges that the seal on one of the ballot boxes was “tampered with and opened” overnight and that “something took place with the ballot papers whilst they were held at Mulberry Place”.

He added: “On the first count, I saw many single votes for myself with other [parties’] candidates, ie many mixed ballots. However, in the second count these were not there. If my ballots had been kept [overnight] in the police station [as another recounted ward was], I am confident I would have won.”

In the chaotic count, which took more than five days to return final results for all contests, senior Labour Party sources said that, as well as ballot paper tampering, the way the votes for the mayoralty had been counted was also suspect. Votes for each candidate are normally sorted into bundles of 50, with the tellers then counting the number of bundles to give each candidate’s total vote.

However, according to the Labour sources, some of the bundles for Mr Rahman contained only 47 or 48 votes, resulting in him getting more bundles than he deserved. Meanwhile, some bundles for Mr Biggs contained 52 or 53 votes, resulting in him getting fewer bundles than he should have. With around 64,000 first-preference votes cast between the two men, a difference of five or six votes in each bundle may have been enough to affect the result, the sources said. Mr Rahman’s majority after second preferences were included was 3,252 votes.

Mr Rahman, who was expelled from Labour in 2010 after The Telegraph exposed his links with an Islamic extremist group, the IFE, won re-election as an independent despite his council being under two separate investigations, one by the Government for alleged misuse of funds and another by the police for fraud.

The High Court hearing tomorrow is to consider an application by Mr Rahman to “strike out” the petition, which he claims is an “abuse of process.” If this is defeated, the full hearing on the petition, which seeks a rerun of the election, will take place in September, when the full evidence will be presented.

Separately, auditors in the Government investigation of Tower Hamlets’ finances are believed to be focusing closely on deals where lucrative council assets were transferred to close associates of Mr Rahman at a fraction of their true value.

An official council report seen by The Telegraph reveals that Mr Rahman appears to have been closely involved in a decision to sell the Old Poplar Town Hall, valued by council officers at £1.5 million, to a company called Dreamstar for £875,000. Dreamstar’s principal shareholder is Mujibul Islam, the owner of Mr Rahman’s 2010 election campaign website, who admitted that he had “had an affiliation” with the mayor and had “helped” him in the election.

In official answers, the council appears to have lied that Dreamstar’s was the “highest bid”. In fact, the report shows, it was only the fifth highest. Dreamstar missed the deadline at the “best and final offer” stage altogether but was allowed to submit a higher “late” bid after all the others, though it did “not comply with the council’s procedures”.

Even Dreamstar’s revised bid was still only the third highest and was recommended for refusal. Instead, it was entered into a “contract race” which saw the two higher offers rejected.

Dreamstar has now received planning permission to turn the listed building, on Poplar High Street, into a 25-room hotel, expected to raise its value to around £3.5 million. The lucrative permission was given in secret by Mr Rahman’s officers, though applications of this scale would normally be decided in public by elected councillors.

The council claimed that the report on Old Poplar Town Hall found “no evidence of illegality or maladministration causing injustice” and that “no elected individuals have been involved in the processes investigated”. The Government audit report into Tower Hamlets is now expected after the summer.

Mr Rahman said that allegations of electoral misconduct were the unfounded claims of “sore losers.”

SUN SAYS
The Sun Says
Last Updated: 28th July 2014

THE NHS is one of Britain’s proudest innovations. Nearly 70 years old, it is now in a state of collapse. It needs radical reform to survive.
The Government trumpets that it has just been voted the world’s best healthcare system. Why then do so many of us say it has got markedly worse in the past year?

The Tories bellweather paper says the NHS is in a state of collapse.

You cant trust the NHS with the Tories.

The Sun launches a major investigation into what it says is "the NHS in crisis".

Over three pages, the paper examines the health service which it says is "at breaking point" with "record numbers using GP surgeries", and "swamping A&E units when they cannot get appointments".

The paper lists the pressures on the 66-year-old state service - a record 10.6m Britons having some form of surgery last year; prescribed drugs up by 60% since 2004; GPs surgeries conducting 40 million more consultations than in 2009.


In a series of graphics, the paper shows some of the biggest annual costs for the NHS (including mental health services - costing £13.5bn and diabetes treatment, which takes a £10bn slice of the budget) and looks at waiting time for GPs.

In the worst areas - Bradford, Slough, Redbridge and Newham - around a fifth of people said they had been unable to get an appointment to see their GP, the paper says.

Even in the best performing area, Bath and north-east Somerset, 5% still couldn't book a consultation.

The paper has commissioned a YouGov poll suggesting that a third of those in England and Wales feel their local health services has got worse in the past year.

In its opinion column, the paper blames "lax immigration policy", increased obesity and people living longer, for the crisis.

"Funding quicker access to GPs is key. That will ease pressure on hospitals.

"But we must accept that long-term the old NHS model is failing and will only deteriorate.

"It must be reinvented with a far greater role for the private sector in treatment and care," the paper concludes. ..............Editor.....but is wrong.

The Times also headlines figures about lack of access to GPs, saying that patients will be turned away by doctors 40 million times this year.

The figures are from the Royal College of GPs.

Its chairwoman Maureen Baker tells the Times "Surgeries are being faced with no choice because they don't have the resources to cope with the increasing number of older people who need complex care, whilst also meeting the needs of families and people of working age.

"The profession has been brought to its knees by a chronic slump in investment and the fact that there are simply not enough family doctors to go around."

A government spokesman is quoted in the paper saying "we know GPs are working under pressure, which is why we have cut GPs targets to free up time with patients and are increasing trainees, so that GP numbers continue to grow faster than the population."

line

"The profession has been brought to its knees by a chronic slump in investment and the fact that there are simply not enough family doctors to go around."

Miliband's appalling image is very permanent and it will cost him the election.

Class War 2014: The Rich Kids of Snapchat
Posted on July 19, 2014 by David Hencke



If ever David Cameron’s claim that we are all in it together needed to be proved false, look at a site on Facebook called the Rich Kids of Snapchat.

Set up by a 17 year old British public schoolboy and liked by 244,000 people this site celebrates the life style of the super rich public schoolboys – the new generation expecting to run Britain in a decade or so.

Far from having any concern for the rest of us, this ” fun ” site worships money, fast cars, Gucci, luxury yachts and private jets,champagne and has an unhealthy interest in guns.

It is virtually the calling card of the new ” Bullingdon Club ” and the kids know they are the new ” boss class ” – the future generation of Tory Cabinet ministers, entrepreneurs and flashy businessmen and bankers. And some will have the vote in next year’s election,

Among the fun pictures are kids using £50 notes as toilet paper, £20 notes for tablecloths, handling guns to protect their estates from the ” peasants”, and commuting from home to public school by private helicopters or showing they have a £10m private bank account at Coutts.

Not surprisingly this has produced a reaction across the net with people calling for the site to be taken down, and a spate of hostile comments – sometimes producing ripostes like warning people to shut up as they will be their boss in future life.

More seriously as the Inforrm blog reveals these antics have posed problems for the more mature seriously rich parents who wish to hide their opulent life styles from the rest of us and pretend “we are all in it together”.

As the Inforrm blog says : ” The consequences could be very serious for those wealthy teens, and their families, where potentially inflammatory images appear which include identifying information such as faces, car registrations and locations.

One 19 year old, who frequently posted about his lavish lifestyle and who was featured on Tumblr site “Rich Kids on Instagram”, has already run into trouble, having had several luxury cars from his father’s rental business subsequently set alight by vandals, causing over £500,000 worth of damage to his father’s business.

Another featured ‘rich kid’ was Alexa Dell, daughter of Dell Inc. CEO Michael Dell, who posted an image of her brother tucking into a feast onboard a private jet, bound for Fiji. She also used her Twitter account to regularly post details of her location, complete with GPS location tagging- somewhat undermining the annual US$2.7 million her father reportedly spends on family security. Upon discovering this, Alexa’s account was removed and her image has been taken down.”

The blog rightly points out that in an era of unemployment and poverty where ceo’s have made people redundant this can be inflammatory.

It rightly adds:” a teen bragging about the lavish lifestyle of his or her CEO parent who has recently made redundancies or been the recipient of a sizeable bonus can easily catch the eye of a journalist on the hunt for a story – as can any images posted by a naive child who has a parent in the public eye. “

But to me the whole site seems symptomatic of a yawning divide opening up in the UK and the last thing I would want to see is it taken down. Such antics provide the perfect foil to attack the wealthy Lynton Crosby and the image he wants the Tories to present to the electorate of the ruling class in the next election. Spoilt brats revealing themselves for what they really are!

Meanwhile in true entrepreneurial fashion the site is up for sale by its 17 year old owner. He has been offered $150,000 by an American but might let it go for a mere $40,000 to a Brit with spare cash from his pocket money.

Ohhhhhhhhhhh sit down, shut that door everhard.....

Max, by this post do you mean you are going to vote for UKIP????????????

MaxK - 28 Jul 2014 10:06 - 44375 of 44404

I've had enough of the same old bollox, so I'm going to try something different.

If it fails, so what, I will be no worse off....But should it succeed in breaking up the cozy consensus, then we might have a chance.

Fishfinger - 28 Jul 2014 10:52 - 44381 of 44404
And all this talk of the lib/dems and UKIP cant influence policy whatsoever, absolute bile.

... Dont tell me they dont have any influence because they do.

Sorry, Fishfinger, but the LibDems have had no influence in this current government whatsoever. They are there for one reason only - to take the blame if anything goes wrong. With the country in deep recession when Cameron took office, it was always going to be a difficult period of government and it was important at the time that the Conservatives had someone to blame if things had gone reels of cotton. And Clegg was stupid enough to put his hand up for the job.

And in return for all that, Clegg got a few ineffective ministers (remind me again, what does Cable do exactly?), and a referendum on AV which both the Tories and Labour knew from the outset would never get voted in, because they knew they'd be able to turn the public sufficiently against it and maintain the two-party system.

So, if you really want to think the LibDems have been influential in this government, that's your prerogative, but from Cameron's viewpoint, it's a win-win situation now and it always has been.

Probably gf, whats the alternative?


Anyway, short of miracle, the tory guy will get in around here (Hampshire).