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.

Either or it will be codswallop.

I have a feeling you wouldn't understand either.

Examine the history and economics of the 20s and 30s, what Hitler built his "power" on and relate it to the present political period.

Could be wrong, but doubt that there is no similarity!

http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/5798/full

Labour has Lost Me

MAUREEN LIPMAN

For the first time in five decades, I shall not be voting Labour. I have always been a socialist and I believe in the principles of socialism. I have stood on the hustings beside Neil Kinnock and canvassed for my Aunt Rita in her constituency in Hull. I was, somewhat blurrily, a Blair luvvie and I used my dislike of Mrs Thatcher to fuel some deadly impersonations of her. My late husband, Jack Rosenthal, canvassed for Sydney Silverman in the 1945 General Election. "In them days," said the father in his seminal television play Bar Mitzvah Boy, "they handed you your Labour Party membership just after your circumcision. They gave with one hand and took away with the other.''

I still believe that, until the Iraq debacle, Tony Blair did great work to restore the party's fortunes. I still thumb through Tony Benn's diaries with a fond smile and I am Alan Johnson's number one fan as a politician, a writer and a humane human being. I have all the time in the world for Margaret Beckett and still admire Frank Field. I rather liked David Miliband and have a sneaking suspicion he may return strengthened by his time out in the real world. But this lot? The Chuka Harman Burnham Hunt Balls brigade? I can't, in all seriousness, go into a booth and put my mark on any one of them.

Ed Miliband's leadership coup was as biblical as anything in the book of Genesis, although the unions probably had less sway in those days. He comes from a family of secular Jews but his need for union approval is much greater than his need for Jewish support. We make up less than one per cent of the population, so why should he care if we vote for him or not? At a recent gathering he asked me if I was a practising Jew. I told him I was constantly practising and seldom achieving, but I did my best. "Do you do Shabbat dinners?" he asked. "Yes, when I can," I told him. "Would you like to come?" He expressed enthusiasm to learn more about his religion of his birth. We parted with a promise to ring each other's people. Two days later he was all over the papers, knocking back a bacon sandwich.

Now there is nothing intrinsically wrong with a secular Jew chomping on a thinly sliced, pan-fried pig rump — my late husband, before we were married, had been known to queue up for such a thing from the catering van on an early morning film shoot. That was fine with me. His choice. I just couldn't kiss him. Wouldn't or couldn't or both. Fair choice, I thought: treif or wife?

There is a story about a rabbi who longed to try a pig's head — just couldn't get the thought out of his own head. One day he had cause to travel many miles away and he decided to sneak under nightfall into a small, out of the way restaurant, famous for its pig's heads. The head was delivered steaming to his table, replete with an apple in its mouth. As the rabbi was about to take a large bite out of the pig, the doors opened and in walked one of his congregation. He turned to the incomer and yelled: "Can you believe this farshtinkener place? You ask for an apple and this is how they serve it!"

"More than 10,000 asylum-seekers 'left in limbo' ".....
epic nuts ....
and I always thought Poland(I mean my %!?!....) is a field of typical systemic poo poo...
well, poo poo here too...

48769 - yes indeed; one of a number remarkable and remarkably brave people who saved jews during the war

that said, there is no real parallel between that and the flood of economic refugees who want to enter uk by any means .... whether or not uk really is the land of gold and super-soft benefits is neither here nor there; that is what is perceived
i also fail to understood why the french do not send these people back whence they came; patently they do not want them in france any more than we do in uk

yes cynic , back to yesterday pm question time ,our can the public vote for any of those two parties con or lab they are a joke school children shouting at each other
but no answers and policy to stop the rot .
the uk voters have had enough of services been destroyed .

action is needed now if we can not say who can come to the uk then we do not need a vote just pull the uk out now .
if UKIP SAY A VOTE FOR THEM AND THEY GET ELECTED WE WILL NOT NEED A FURTHER VOTE WE WILL LEAVE THE EU IN 12 MONTHS AND PAY NO MORE CASH TO THECORRUPT EU

AND IF THE VOTERS ARE TOLD THAT UKIP WILL BEELECTED THAT IS FOR SURE A CERT

whatever you say, or whatever it is you are trying to say!
in 6/7 months time the ballot box will have spoken and we'll just have to get on with whatever that has dished us up with

just for you cynic the uk public will vote to leave the stinking rotten eu
and ukip are the only party that will give the voters the choice

I wouldn't be too sure about that Tanker.


But for sure, ukip are going to cause a lot of squeaky bum problems for sitting mp's in former so called "safe seats"


When a party can cause such large swings in the voting pattern, no one is safe.

it must be a great comfort to be so sure in such weighty matters

i wonder how deflated he'll be (if) when his red-hot favourite falls at at the first?
perhaps he's a manic depressive, in which case, he'll no doubt have the medication to deal with the inevitable mood swings this sort of failure will bring about

The emotional part of immigration is these foreign buggers are coming to this country to steal our goodies and food, and some big boys and girls don't like sharing.

The real problem is that the immigrants usually are not attempting to swamp another's country but fleeing from the problems in their own "countries" and until those problems are addressed then the "floods" will continue.

Addressing the problems by building bigger and bigger walls down stream has only a temporary effect.

Storming into the EU or elsewhere telling them what they should do to "save" the Uk will have benefit. It needs a fully organised response by UN ad EU rather than small individual countries demanding their supposed "rights", especially some of the complainant have plunder and are attempting to plunder those countries.

cynic . nothing that happens will affect me loads of cash good pensions and getting near to the grave . I just feel sorry for the young who have not brought on the problems they are going to have . innocent of the crime of destroying what their grand fathers fought for all going down the pan by crooks running the country from all the 3 main parties they have all just looked after them selves and put two fingers up to the public and the public are now waking from the nightmare

fred your post . if the brits had ran away and not fought to save their country they would be no were to run the scum should stay at home and fight to get it better not
go begging to other countries who fight . they are just cowards and scum

I suggest somebody reminds the tinker about the effects of devaluation of sterling and the effects of inflation.
I have index linked pensions etc.. which I felt "safe" with and was protected against the "bank" collapse, but I am a little less certain about being "safe" in the future with another "upset",

I agree with you to a certain extent Fred, about people fleeing from the problems in their own countries - but who is going to address them? How much money does Britain have to keep pumping into other countries to help them. I wonder how many people living in this country honestly give a toss about what is happening in places like Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Liberia, Romania etc.

fred - i really can't be bothered to humour MrT, and usually only answer his ramblings when have nothing better to do

more importantly ......
countries need to help themselves
it matters not how much aid in cash or goods or whatever is thrown at these regimes, especially those in africa, for only a small % is ever put to the use intended, the balance being appropriated by whichever dictator and his mob holds sway at the time

not entirely unassociated, the above is why i refuse point blank to support any charity related to africa, heart-wrenching as the pix and other publicity and propaganda may be

OK. So time has moved on and here we are 3 or 4 years hence....

We are now out of the EU, having voted to leave in the referendum.

So now we can trade with the rest of the world.
And we can trade with the EU too.

Indeed, there are bent cucumbers from Holland in the shops just to prove it. They sit side by side with oranges from Israel. Holland is in the EU; Israel is not in the EU.

Funny that about the stock in the shops, since cucumbers are 'salad vegetables' and oranges are 'fruit'. But you can put orange slices on a salad if you want to do so.

We are also selling Range Rovers to anyone in the world who wants to buy them and aeroplanes, powered by engines made by Rolls Royce are the mode of transport used to bring things in and take things out.

There is a big problem in most areas of the UK because there are no cheap car washing facilities anywhere. Groups of school kids do come door knocking offering a car wash service but they are pretty useless at it, really, and don't seem to use enough water, IMHO. They don't use water soluble wax either so the cars don't seem to stay clean for as long these days either. I might have to do the damn job now myself!

We now seem to be in control of making and upholding our own laws and the police and other legal systems seem to have become re-energised with enthusiasm.

Apparently, several other EU countries are considering leaving the EU too. Word on the street, now that the UK has left the EU, has it that Greece definitely wants to leave the Euro Zone and have its own currency. Commentators say this will be a marvellous thing for them as everything sold in Greece will be comparatively very inexpensive and so boom times for Greece are forecasted for at least the next decade.

One massive problem is that Angela Merkel is talking about going to war with us and France may possible join in against us too. However, the Italians seem to want to be on our side because of the strong ties with Formula 1 and word has it, that whatever happens, Lewis Hamilton will continue to drive for Mercedes.

So that's nice, isn't it?

I thought Merkel already was at war with us - smiling through clenched teeth when she shakes hands with Dave.

Where do you see Scotland's position 3 or 4 years hence Exec?

Merkel is hostage to her coalition partners. Very little of what she does or says is what her party wants.