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.

Breaking News........................................

EU tells Britain to pay extra €2.1bn
Alex Barker and George Parker
16 Mins Ago
Financial Times

Britain has been told to pay an extra €2.1 billion to the EU budget within weeks on account of its relative prosperity, a hefty surcharge that will further add to David Cameron's domestic woes over Europe.
To compensate for its economy performing better than other EU countries since 1995, the UK will have to make a top-up payment on December 1 representing almost a fifth of the country's net contribution last year. France, meanwhile, will receive a €1 billion rebate, according to Brussels calculations seen by the Financial Times.

The one-off bill will infuriate eurosceptic MPs at an awkward moment for the prime minister, who is wrestling with strong anti-EU currents in British politics that are buffeting his party and prompting a rethink of the UK's place in Europe.
Mr Cameron is determined to challenge the additional fee and last night met with Mark Rutte, the Netherlands premier, to discuss the issue. His country is also being required to make a top-up payment, though it is smaller than the UK's.

A Downing Street source said: "It's not acceptable to just change the fees for previous years and demand them back at a moment's notice."

The source added: "The European Commission was not expecting this money and does not need this money and we will work with other countries similarly affected to do all we can to challenge this."

The surcharge stems from the EU changing the way it calculates gross national income to include more hidden elements such as prostitution and illegal drugs.
EU officials say the calculation simply reflects the longstanding practice of adjusting contributions of countries according to their pace of growth. "Britain's contribution reflects an increase in wealth, just as in Britain you pay more to the Inland Revenue if your earnings go up," said Patrizio Fiorilli, a Commission spokesperson.

While the EU budget is a perennial gripe for Tory eurosceptics, the surcharge will be an unwelcome development for Mr Cameron in what is already looking like a stormy few weeks in Westminster over Europe.
Partly in response to Nigel Farage's resurgent UK Independence party, which claimed its first seat in Westminster this month, Mr Cameron is eyeing a more profound renegotiation of EU membership terms that includes curbs on immigration. Any deal would be put to an in-out referendum in 2017.

Britain will make the top-up payment less than a fortnight after the Conservative party's expected defeat to Ukip in the Rochester by-election next month. According to latest polling by ComRes, Ukip is 13 points ahead in the race, which was triggered by the sitting Tory MP defecting to Ukip last month.

It will also coincide with a fraught House of Commons vote on whether to "opt-in" to 35 EU justice and policing measures, including the European Arrest Warrant. That must take place by December 1 and the prime minister has been warned that up to 100 Tory MPs might rebel.

News of the revised contributions, which the UK was told about last week, comes as Mr Cameron urged EU leaders at a summit on Thursday to stand-up to the European parliament's demands to increase EU spending to help boost growth.

The surcharge comes on top of the net UK contribution to the EU budget, which was £8.6 billion in 2013. Britain faces by far the biggest top-up payment: the preliminary figures show that the Netherlands pays an extra €642 million, while Germany receives a rebate of €779 million, France €1 billion and Poland €316 million.

In a note to EU member states explaining the adjustments, the commission said that it was "aware that in some cases this might have a significant budgetary impact in terms of cash flow".

Mr Cameron is braced for defeat in the Rochester and Strood by-election on Nov. 20, but has promised to "throw the kitchen sink" at holding the seat. A second by-election defeat to Ukip—the anti-EU party won the Clacton by-election earlier this month—would cause further ructions in the Conservative ranks only six months before the general election.

Some Tory MPs say it is unlikely Mr Cameron would face a vote of no-confidence, although only 46 critical MPs are needed to trigger such a vote. However the party fears further defections to Ukip would follow defeat at Rochester.

Looks like the Tories management of the economy is going to go further into disarray.

The €uroburgers want Cameroon to lose!



The scandal of Europe’s ever-expanding budget

Auditors have declined to sign off EU spending for years, so why is there no accountability for this?





By Telegraph View

6:20AM BST 23 Oct 2014



Jean-Claude Juncker, the man Britain did not want as European Commission president, yesterday won the backing of the parliament in Strasbourg for his new team to run the EU for the next five years. His first action on being formally confirmed in his post was to tell David Cameron that there would be “no compromise” with the UK over the issue of the free movement of migrants within the single market. In this, he was seamlessly reaffirming the absolutist stance voiced earlier this week by his predecessor, José Manuel Barroso.


Mr Juncker followed this up by pledging to embark upon another great spending splurge. He plans to unveil a 300-billion-euro investment package before Christmas to boost jobs and growth, amid global fears of a return of the eurozone debt crisis. Meanwhile, MEPs rejected the budget cuts imposed by the Council of Ministers, at Mr Cameron’s behest, earlier this year. National leaders had accepted the argument that if they were having to bite the austerity bullet, then the EU should too – but MEPs have not only voted to reverse their suggested cuts of £1.7 billion but to add an extra £3.7 billion on top. There will now need to be further talks between the two bodies, before a final budget is set next month. The chances are that it will end up higher than expected – and that British taxpayers will have to find up to £680 million extra at a time when their own living standards are being squeezed. Even the wider seven-year budget deal negotiated by Mr Cameron is now in jeopardy.




http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/11180190/The-scandal-of-Europes-ever-expanding-budget.html

Cameron is playing his cards well.

He must be advised by hazyone, Tinker amd Aldict!

Watch you don't lose too much money on TCG, Fred The chart is looking distinctly dodgy!

TCG are still closing branches. Difficult to compete with the likes of Expedia and all the other similar online companies. CGT looks like a dinosaur.

I'm not a great fan of Tom Winnifrith - gf usually likes to quote him line & verse - so I would take his comment that "Harriet Green is on borrowed time" with a pinch of salt. However I would be concerned if I was still holding TCG shares. If you have tight stop losses in place then nothing to worry about Fred!

db4,

That is why I am using short stops.

The charts are not for the feint hearts, but I am in profit.

From other info have a look to-morrow.

Check fundies as well.

But even I make mistakes.

But I would trust target prices a lot further than I would trust hays.

Haven't had a body guard for many years but certainly would consider one if I dealt with Haze1.

Quite happy with my present profit but would take a little more!

Harriet was the new darling of the city when she first took over the helm and to be fair she did a great job, but I wouldn't be surprised if she decided to move on sometime in the not too distant future.

DB4, Haze1, and camp followers if you wish to decide the future of the tories have a look at Question time which was on tonight.

You should enjoy it.

Well said Fred!


The UKIP burd fair tore the nickers off Nu Labs piece of fluff and her stupid positions.


The rest were a waste of space, worst tory performance ever.

I did, a Labour walkover.

You bin at the firewater gf?

QT was as expected as it was from Liverpool. LAB and UKIP shouting at each other like a couple of fish wives was very entertaining with both of them delivering nonsense.

Alex Salmond spoke the most sense of the lot of them. Imagine being married to that Flint woman, what a self opinionated ignorant bitch she is. Len McClusky is just well Len McClusky you know exactly what your going to get from him. The others were a waste of space. And what a fine unbiased audience, the only items missing were the red flags :0)

The EU , what a wonderful thing to be part of.

British serial entrepreneur missing as $1.4m bitcoin is apparently stolen
Moolah has gone bust amid questions of its ownership and business practices


seemingly the owner, who has a string of bankruptcies and crooked dealings attached to him, has disappeared with the loot

i confess i have never remotely understood this bitcoin thing and have always regarded it as several layers of honesty beneath tulip bulb futures ....... and so indeed would seem to be the case

Bitcoin is a bit like a politicians promise.

by JANE BRADLEY
Published on the
24 October
2014
00:00
Print this
55 comments
Have your say!

A ROW broke out last night over the long-term viability of Scotland’s oil reserves as the discovery of a new oil field off the Aberdeen coast sparked fresh claims of “scaremongering” by the No camp during the independence campaign.

The SNP said that the find, 150 miles east of Aberdeen in the UK Central North Sea area, demonstrated that the region’s oil industry had a “bright future ahead of it” and insisted it could have proved to be a key economic driver in an independent Scotland.

The party claimed that the latest discovery, made jointly by oil and gas explorers BP and GDF Suez, could be worth about £157 million a year at current ­prices, but experts warned that the final flow rate of the field was as yet unknown.

It is believed that the field is likely to yield about 50 million barrels of oil in its lifespan – compared to the nearby Alba field, discovered in the mid 1980s, which had estimated recoverable oil reserves of around 400 million barrels. Pro-independence campaigners called for Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander – who in the weeks before September’s vote highlighted figures showing that tax receipts from North Sea oil and gas had dropped by almost a fifth – to apologise for “misleading” the public.

• Leaders: New North Sea oilfield welcome

Mr Alexander said at the time that the fall had “serious consequences for the public finances of a separate Scotland”.

Maureen Watt, SNP MSP for Aberdeen South and North Kincardine, said: “This latest discovery highlights the ongoing great success of the oil and gas sector and underlines, as we have consistently said, that the North Sea has a bright future ahead of it.

“Danny Alexander and the No campaign’s oil and gas scaremongering now looks very foolish indeed. Mr Alexander should apologise for trying to mislead the people of Scotland.”

She added: “New technology that has the potential to extend the lifespan of oil and gas fields is proving hugely significant for jobs and Scotland’s economy and I am sure there will be more good news to come regarding viability of existing oil fields and more yet-to-be discovered fields.”

But the Unionist parties denied the SNP’s claims, saying that, on a long-term basis, the discovery “changes nothing”.

North East Conservative MSP Alex Johnstone said: “What the SNP knows perfectly well is future oil projections take into account discoveries like this. So today’s announcement is encouraging but, as far as forecasts go, it changes nothing.

• John McTernan: Turning referendum win into a defeat

“If anything, it proves oil can be a volatile and unpredictable industry which is why we’re so much better absorbing those changes within the wider UK.”

Supporters of independence took to Twitter to claim they had been “duped”, questioning the timing of yesterday’s announcement, which comes just over a month after Scotland voted to remain part of the UK.

“Ever had the feeling you’ve been cheated?” asked Partick West SNP councillor Kenny McLean.

But BP said it had released the information about the find – called “Vorlich” by BP and “Marconi” by French company GDF Suez – at the “earliest opportunity”, saying the timing was driven by when drilling was completed and the drilling rig moved off location. “That did not happen until 30 September,” said spokesman David Nicholas.

Mr Nicholas told The Scotsman that the field was “far smaller” than the big finds of the 1970s and early 1980s, but described it as a “good discovery” in the current climate.

“To be frank, it is too early to see the scale of the resource,” he said. “The discoveries we tend to find in the North Sea are far smaller now than in its youth in the 1970s and 1980s, but this is noteworthy in comparison with the other discoveries we make in the UK these days.”

• Andrew Whitaker: Can SNP surge withstand failure?

Initial testing has revealed the field could produce a maximum of the equivalent of 5,350 barrels of oil per day but BP said it was not yet clear whether that flow rate would continue.

“It is too early to say,” said Mr Nicholas. “That is a good flow rate, which is very promising, but the eventual flow rate depends on a range of factors.”

The find was welcomed by Oonagh Werngren, operations director at trade body Oil & Gas UK, who said the industry needs to improve its efficiency “as a matter of utmost importance” to compete in the global market.
“At a time when exploration in the UK Continental Shelf is facing severe investment and cost pressures, it is heartening to see two UK explorers apply their expertise to understand the risks of the CNS [central North Sea] and demonstrate that there are still significant economic plays to be developed within the basin,” she said.

“The UK Continental Shelf needs to secure substantial investment and increase exploration and this will come both through an improved fiscal regime and better technical understanding of the basin.”

In August, oil services tycoon Sir Ian Wood suggested there were only about 15 billion to 16.5 billion barrels of recoverable oil left in the North Sea.

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