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.

Labour are promising a crack down on sarcasm on the internet. Ed Miliband said: “These people deliberately say one thing while meaning another. Sarcasm is a linguistic device designed to cause annoyance and humiliation, it is never pleasant. I have been on the rceiving end of this cruel behaviour.” Anyone using sarcasm on social media will face a maximum eight year prison sentence, depending on whether it was mild irony or flat-out piss taking.

You are in good form tonight Haystack!

On the subject of piss taking;


By Michael Deacon, Parliamentary Sketchwriter
3:26PM BST 20 Oct 2014
Speaking in London, the outgoing President of the European Commission urges Britain to remain in the EU, and warns British people that they wouldn’t be ‘better off outside’

Today I watched Jose Manuel Barroso give a speech. Afterwards I read the transcript, to find out what he’d said. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with his English; it’s just his accent, whatever accent it may be. Mr Barroso is Portuguese, but I’m not sure his voice is. One moment it sounds vaguely Dutch, the next vaguely French, the next vaguely Spanish… It’s like some awe-inspiring amalgam of every accent in Europe. Fitting, in a way, for a man who’s filled the European Union’s top job – President of the European Commission – for 10 years.

Actually, I’ll tell you what his voice sounds like. It sounds like the cassette of an old heavy metal album being played backwards in the hope of uncovering a hidden satanic message. Zzzzurp. Nnnnnyerp. Ziiiiiiiiip. Nnnnyip. I wonder what would happen if you played Mr Barroso’s speech backwards. Perhaps you’d hear the greatest hits of Judas Priest.

Mr Barroso – due to be succeeded next month by Jean-Claude Juncker – had come to Chatham House in London mainly to talk about his decade as Europe’s biggest, ripest-smelling cheese. But he’d also come to tell the British why their country should remain in the EU.

“Are you sure you are better off outside than in?” he asked. “Only the British people can weigh up the pros and cons and decide that. But from our side, the door will always stay open.”

In silence his audience contemplated this metaphysical conundrum. The British could shut the door, yet the door would remain open. The British could lock it, jam the back of a chair under the doorknob, block up the keyhole with chewing gum – and yet leading politicians from Europe would still be able to stroll straight through. Hmm. There was definitely something wrong with this door. Best get a locksmith in to have a look at it.

Mr Barroso (in case you can’t quite place him, picture Jabba the Hutt after a fortnight on the 5:2 diet) rebuked those who call Brussels meddling and authoritarian. It worried him, he said, that so few politicians in Britain “are ready to tell the facts as they are”.

“Since 2004, the Commission has cut red tape worth €41 billion to European business,” he explained. “We have not interfered with the height of hairdressers’ heels, or the ergonomic design of office chairs. We have scrapped legislation on bendy cucumbers!”

With all this endless boring talk about immigration, social security and treaty reform, Mr Barroso must feel frustrated that his important work on culinary vegetable shape law has been consistently overlooked.

After the speech he invited questions. Someone noted that Grant Shapps, the chairman of the Conservative Party, had called Mr Barroso an “unelected bureaucrat”. Did Mr Barroso have a message for Mr Shapps?

“I don’t know who the gentleman is,” replied Mr Barroso.

Not to worry. Given his habit of calling himself Michael Green or Sebastian Fox, I’m not sure Mr Shapps does, either.

Suggest that one looks at this to measure the success of the bullingdon boys over their 4 years of misgovernment.

But don't worry Dave and Nigel will get us kicked out of the EU.




GF.

I think this is the one!

THE SNP is in a “strong position” ahead of next year’s Westminster election, the party’s business convener Derek Mackay has claimed.

The party says analysis of Scottish voting intentions collected in every YouGov poll since the independence referendum on September 18 puts its support at 40.1%.

The “super-poll”, which includes a sample of 4,845 people, has support for Labour at 27.9%, the Conservatives at 17.8%, the Lib Dems at 6.2%, Ukip at 4.1% and the Greens on 3.2%.

• Keep up to date with all aspects of Scottish life with The Scotsman iPhone app, completely free to download and use.


Mr Mackay said the analysis would put pressure on Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont.

He said: “These are very welcome figures showing that the SNP is in a strong position going into next year’s Westminster election - while Labour’s support is sinking as the whispering campaign against Johann Lamont’s leadership continues.

“With a strong team of SNP MPs elected next year we will be in a good position to hold the Westminster parties to account on their ‘vow’ of extensive new powers for Scotland - and to get the powers we need to make Scotland a fairer, more prosperous place for everyone who lives here.

“No matter what Labour do between now and the election, the fact is that traditional Labour voters won’t forget or forgive Johann Lamont’s decision to enter into the toxic alliance with the Tories in the No campaign.”

by ANDREW WHITAKER
Published on the
20 October
2014
00:00
Print this
comments
Have your say!

SHADOW cabinet minister Jim Murphy has ruled out running for Labour leader in Scotland and urged the party to “come together and work hard” to support Johann Lamont.

Mr Murphy yesterday issued a rallying call to the party to unite around its leader Ms Lamont after the direction of the party was criticised by two former Labour First Ministers.

His intervention follows weeks of speculation that Mr Murphy, who played a high-profile role in the No campaign during the run-up to the independence referendum, was considering a switch from Westminster to Holyrood and that he could be in line to take over from Ms Lamont.



• Brian Monteith: Labour between rock and hard place

However, the former Scottish Secretary said Ms Lamont was a “perfectly good leader” and that he wanted to remain as a member of Ed Miliband’s shadow cabinet at Westminster.

Ms Lamont, who was last month forced to deny reports she was set to quit after less than three years in post, faced criticism from two of her predecessors about Labour’s performance in opposition at Holyrood. Former First Minister Lord McConnell said Labour had become “a political machine that is angry about what has happened in Scotland in the recent past” and warned that it must now rediscover its “sense of purpose”.

He added: “I joined the Labour Party because it was a movement. My loyalty over years has not been to a party structure, it has been to a cause. The Scottish Labour Party needs to be a cause.”

• Lesley Riddoch: Parties must say what they want

Another former First Minister Henry McLeish said many Labour voters in Scotland “don’t know what the party stands for” and raised concerns about the party’s vision on extending devolution.

Mr Murphy’s fellow shadow cabinet member Margaret Curran said Labour needs to return to its “socialist principles” and move away from the politics of Tony Blair. Shadow Scottish Secretary Ms Curran insisted that Labour was not the same party it had been a decade ago, when Mr Blair, Labour’s longest serving prime minister, was in charge.

Mr Murphy, MP for East Renfrewshire, insisted that Ms Lamont would lead Scottish Labour into the 2016 election and said he would not be “directly involved” in the party leadership.

He suggested Scottish Labour could defeat the SNP in 2016, despite trailing the nationalists in most opinion polls for Holyrood voting intentions.

Mr Murphy said: “The Scottish Labour Party has been knocked before, has had its detractors before. It’s picked itself up, dusted itself down and got on with it.”

He added: “I think we’ve got a perfectly good leader in Johann Lamont, I think she will continue to lead the party but it is for all of us to come together and work hard. I am confident we can do that. Rather than being involved directly, I’m determined to be a member of Ed Miliband’s cabinet next year.”

However, SNP MSP Sandra White said the “whispering campaign” against Labour’s Scottish leader was “growing louder by the day”.

She said: “Labour finally lost all credibility with people in Scotland when Johann Lamont signed up to the toxic alliance with the Tories in the No campaign – which is why their poll ratings are tumbling, and why more and more people in traditional Labour heartlands are switching straight to the SNP.”


Labour are history in Scotland. Every cloud!

What is a troll?



Internet trolls to face two years in jail

Internet trolls could face two years in jail as Justice Secretary Chris Grayling seeks to quadruple the sentence following a number of cyber attacks on high profile figures



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/11172231/Internet-trolls-to-face-two-years-in-jail.html

DB4

If you hear Portuguese spoken it is guttural similar compared to Spanish and similar intonnation Dutch.

But wouldn't you wish to speak German. French, Spanish and English as well he does.


Perhaps he is a grade or two above you!

Perhaps you prefer the strutting and posing of Nigel and U-bend Dave.

PS.

IF you look at the chart look at the 97-2008 period.

Spot on Fred, makes Hays look a real -wat after his post 48084.

Now we can see who the real big spenders are in government.

The myths that Hays spread are making him look foolish.

Before the last election Labour were looking to raise money by re-jigging the council tax, they said that as rates were set years earlier it needed updating, anyone who has improved their property whether by an extension/garage/conservatory or any other improvement which added value to the property will almost certainly find they are in a higher bracket for council tax should Labour form the next government. This is the reality of the Mansion Tax.
2517

Here we are Hays now come on tell us who the real big spenders are in government.....

Isn't a Troll something to do with "Lord of the Rings" ?.....better not mention G. Strachan not getting through the Dwarf auditions then !...(great player by the way)...

Can't help feeling that this Troll crackdown will be another excuse by the criminal-corrupt establishment to stifle free speech on the internet...if somebody is being insulted nastily or threatened...by all means yes....they should be punished but the way it goes in Britain is that these rules end up by protecting the criminals amongst the ruling elite !...

Who decides what an insult is?

GF,

There were not many of the voters saying who tough it was in the period 97 -2006.

The tories wanted to spend more and loosen the reins on the city!

The big boys were boasting about how much money they were making on their houses and flying back and fore to second house in France, Italy Spain and Portugal etc..

They were the stupid buggers who broke the bank and tories and labour politicians were stupid enough to allow it to happen.


Glad to know that as far as Cameron is concerned the public rule over EU. he just listens to them.

A statesman or good PM is supposed to LEAD not to creep behind the public.



========

The lousy state of politics at the moment is partially down to Farage, but also the fragmentation of UK by scapegoating and finger pointing policies of this government who call themselves tory. (Divide and rule has backfired.)

Tories from previous periods must be turning in their graves.

Just wondering can Maxk be used as an insult!

8-) or 8-(

Farage is representing discontent amongst UK voters for the common market !...immigration....etc...in France where I have contacts : it's the same !...they are fed up to the teeth !.....most French people would prefer to have retained the Franc....the Euro was forced upon them !...so it's not only us moaning....there has to be some radical changes about the way we are governed right across Europe !...

You've lost me Fred.

MK.

It won't be the first or last time!


======
RF

As long as Wales, Scotland can leave the sinking boat that is OK.