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.

Bit by bit Labour is heading down the drain.

LOL hes part of the coalition you banana.

Labour is sinking almost as fast as Miliband, the Titanic of the political world.

EU threatens to fine Britain £70 million a month

George Osborne says that "Europe is not working" for Britain as Brussels threatens punitive fines over £1.7 billion bill





Chancellor George Osborne

George Osborne says Europe is not working for Britain Photo: PA







Bruno Waterfield
By Bruno Waterfield, and Steven Swinford

10:00PM GMT 03 Nov 2014

Follow





The European Union will hit Britain with punitive fines of almost £70 million a month next year if David Cameron refuses to pay a £1.7 billion bill from Brussels.


Mr Cameron last month said he will refuse to pay the "completely unacceptable" bill and warned that it will reduce the chances of Britain staying in the EU.


The EU is now threatening to charge Britain an annual interest rate of 52 per cent, equivalent to £823 million, if it refuses to pay the full amount by December 1.


George Osborne, the Chancellor, will travel to Brussels on Friday for a meeting of EU finance ministers in an attempt to reduce the bill ahead of the deadline.


Tory MPs described the £2.3 million a day of interest payments as so exploitative that they would make "the most predatory payday loan shark blush".


Related Articles

Prime Minister David Cameron arrives for a European Union summit at the EU headquarters in Brussels
EU makes Britain pay for recovery
23 Oct 2014
EU threatens to fine Britain unless it pays £1.7billion bill
27 Oct 2014
David Cameron: Brussels' budget demand makes EU reform harder
27 Oct 2014
George Osborne under pressure over EU budget row
26 Oct 2014


It came as senior Tories clashed with Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, over plans to reduce the number of immigrants coming to Britain.

Mrs Merkel suggested she would rather see Britain leave the European Union than change the rules on freedom of movement, describing that the principle as "non-negotiable".

However, Mr Osborne said that "Europe is not working" for Britain and pledged to drive through freedom of movement reforms.

He suggested that European migrants should not move to Britain unless they have a job lined up and insisted that Germany "understands the disquiet" that people in Britain feel about the high levels of immigration.

Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said that foreigners could be barred from claiming tax credits to boost their wages for three years, a move which could be achieved without new regulations.

He said that Britain and a number of other European countries including Germany, Spain, France, Holland and Denmark are united in the belief that "something has gone wrong" with the current rules.

He said: "Most of that can be done by changing the regulations and the rules within the existing agreements. We are already pressing on others and getting a remarkable degree of agreement. Even Mrs Merkel agreed with that."

Details of the fine, however, are likely to further strain relations with Europe. According to EU officials, the fine for the first month will be charged at 2.5 per cent of the outstanding bill, equivalent to £41 million.

It will then rise by 0.25 per cent a month, hitting 5.5 per cent by December 2015 – equivalent to £90 million. The European Commission made it clear on Monday that the Government will be legally obliged to pay the extra interest if its does not pay up the extra money on 1 December following a “correction” of Britain’s EU contributions.

“All these corrections have to be reimbursed by 1 December,” said a commission spokesman. “Everybody has to pay what is due. If payment is not made by 1 December then there is the process of interest rates.”

The extra budget demand follows a revision of the value of Britain’s wealth, a statistic known as gross national income (GNI) over the period 1995 to 2013. Under the revision, which applies to all EU countries, France will receive cash back worth £790 million because its economy has performed worse than Britain’s.

Dominic Raab, a Conservative backbencher, said: "This unscrupulous rate of interest would make the most predatory payday loan shark blush. To many hard-working Britons, this just makes the EU look like an exploitative scam.

'The government should fight the idea of fines for economic success and rewards for failure to reform tooth and nail. If not, it just strengthens the case of those arguing the UK should leave altogether."

DWP orders man to work without pay for company that let him go

John McArthur is sanctioned by jobcentre after refusing ‘forced labour’ at firm where he was previously paid minimum wage


Shiv Malik


The Guardian, Monday 3 November 2014 17.27 GMT





A man who was let go at the end of a temporary job has been ordered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to work for the same firm for six months without pay.

Electronics specialist John McArthur, now unemployed, says he is living off 16p tins of spaghetti and without heating after being sanctioned by a jobcentre for refusing to work unpaid for LAMH Recycle in Motherwell, a Scottish social enterprise.

He says he was happy to work for LAMH under the now-defunct future jobs fund for the minimum wage in 2010-2011, but refuses on principle to do the same job unpaid.

McArthur, 59, says he is surviving on a monthly pension of £149 after the DWP stopped his unemployment benefit until January as punishment for his refusal to go on the 26-week community work placement (CWP).



More: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/03/dwp-benefits-electrician-work-placement-labour

That is pathetic Max, but sadly thousands of people are being treat in the same way, because of these sanctions.

Little wonder Food Banks are growing and growing.

The Nasty Party at work again.

Ingenious
sticky - i care not who benefits from avoiding tax through legit means ...... HMRC has no morals at all, so where does such come into the equation?

indeed, i still can't get HMRC to live by their own rules and 18 months on, i am still awaiting a vat rebate of about £30k

Ahhhhhh thats why you hate them so much, £30, grand owed.

Must admit its all about making sure we the tax payer pay up but the other way around?.

Get a sickly feeling every time I get a brown letter with BELFAST marked on it.

WOWcampaign ‏@WOWpetition 4m minutes ago

Osborne's letter to the public which misleads on welfare is pitting a section of society against each other whilst we ignore rip off at top

Just closed my MKS long at a small loss, results tomorrow, have been reading for the first time a big hedge fund is shorting it.

Plus IG sentiment reading 67% of clients short.

A sign of the times I suppose. ............plus a long warm summer.

Lowest Labour rating since 2010 elections in the latest poll of polls


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/lowest-labour-rating-since-2010-elections-in-the-latest-poll-of-polls-9836836.html



A couple of comments from the above article:



Gully Foyle 8 minutes ago


The Labour MP for Rochdale, Simon Danczuk, wrote an excellent blog on 02.11.14 on the Telegraph. It explained, very rationally and reasonably, how uncontrolled immigration has damaged the employment prospects of working class people across the north of England. Frank Field has blogged recently on the same subject, and has a book out next year, 'Blue Labour; forging a new politics'.
If these real, working class stalwarts of the Labour party can have this dialogue with the electorate, why are the shadow cabinet seemingly incapable of it?
I leave you with a quote from Danczuk; 'Commentators frequently anguish over 'left wing' and 'right wing' policy differences in Westminster, but the reality is there are only two types of politics on offer in the UK. That's metropolitan politics and rest of the country politics'.
I think that sums up rather neatly why Labour are doomed.




TWilson 15 minutes ago



I'm sorry, but I simply do not understand nor can I comprehend why 64% of those polled would vote for either Labour or Tory.

We know for a fact that labour have no financial sense and have ruined this country with their open border policies (which they still will not resolve if elected). Blair and Brown were both a disaster for this country.

The Tories have doubled the national debt and reneged on most of their election promises. They have persecuted the old and poor. We know they will never give us a vote on the EU and spent billion on vanity projects (HS2/3).

Where both are concerned, they have betrayed the voting public with the expenses scandals (which they now choose to hide from us), pay rises way above inflation and a whole host of other 'slap in the face' type policies and actions.

Are they sorry for what they have done? No, not one bit. Are they going to reform their ways? No. Are they listening to the voting public? No.

The above is just the tip of this very large iceberg of where these two parties ave systematically dragged this country into the murky depths. They both are going to continue on as if nothing has happened.

Yet, this poll suggests that 64% will vote either Labour or Tory and want more of the same from these two bunch of idiots?

Totally unbelievable. I despair.

Max dont forget you have to add on 1.7% to Labours total because of first past the post system so in fact the Labour % is 34.7%.

They are looking for 35%which will be achievable after the Reckless By Election and further Tory defections.

Cake Walk.

Not so sure gf.

The kipper effect is going to play merry hell with the results in the marginals.

As for how it will effect the once safe seats of both labour and conservatives, who knows?

Nu Lab very nearly lost the last by-election in what was a very safe labour seat. And the tories are about to lose a con safe seat (if the polls are anywhere accurate)

Then you have the Dim/Libs, who (again by the polls) are going to get annihilated.


It's all to play for imo.

Surely, you don't think UKIP could run the country. UKIP are a good protest party, but not capable of running anything. They may cause problems in the balance of power in some seats, but are not going to end up with any power.

Bet they get 20 seats at least. Some from labour aswel.

Who said anything about the kippers running the country?

It's about upsetting the cosy complacent status quo.


Also, the present lot and the ones before didn't do a very good job, now did they?

It may upset the balance, but you will still have one of two parties.

http://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/11/03/dont-write-off-liberal-democrats/

Looking at wider voting considerations – rather than stated voting intentions – suggests the Liberal Democrats have the potential to exceed expectations

I expect the Libs to do very well. The poor showing in the polls does not affect them much as it is an average figure across the country. It only matters in their own constituencies. The Libs have always had very solid support in a specific areas. They may well lose seats that they picked up in 2010 but the rest are pretty safe. They have very well organised party machinery in each area, particularly in constituencies where they have MPs for a long time. They hold databases of every voter in the constituencies built up over many years. They are very good getting their supporters out to vote. They ring people up on the day to remind them and take them by car to the polls. I was a volunteer working for them years ago and was amazed how efficient they are.