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.

Pickles said the report painted “a deeply concerning picture of obfuscation, denial, secrecy the breakdown of democratic scrutiny and a culture of cronyism risking the corrupt spending of public funds”.


I thought for a moment he was talking about a cabinet meeting.

====

He looks more and more like Benny Hill.

I suppose he is a bit player in a comedy group!

8-)

Unison pledges support for leftwing rival Neil Findlay ......
and no doubt they were also the ones who had EM elected as their puppet rather than DM who would not have played ball

Nothing changes on the union influence story. The dead hand of socialism rears its head again.

If he doesn't behave that is not the only things she will squeeze.

HAYS said.........

Haystack - 04 Nov 2014 14:16 - 49157 of 49171

There is not necessarily anything wrong with the demand sent by the EU. There are balancing amounts paid and received all the time. This one just stood out as it was larger than normal. We may well pay it or a smaller amount. The figure is not that much in the scheme of things. For instance, it is less than the rebate that Blair gave away........ends

Well Hays is right if he thinks we should pay up on the dot, LETS NOT FORGET ITS A PENALTY FOR OUR GOVERNMENT FIDDLING FIGURES WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU EXPECT???????????????????

The figures WE SUBMITTED HAVE BEEN USED.

Now come on Tory boys get yourself out of that one.

Socialism strikes again

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/france-on-collision-course-with-brussels-over-budget-1.1963441

For at least the next two weeks, President François Hollande will be caught in a vice between the French left, who claim the budget is “unjust”, and his European partners, who are losing patience with France’s refusal to make deeper spending cuts or undertake genuine structural reforms, particularly of the labour market.

http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-france-faces-eu-budget-showdown-2014-10?IR=T

France Is The New 'Sick Man Of Europe'

Brussels (AFP) - France headed for a showdown with the EU over its 2015 budget Wednesday with deficit-ridden Paris under threat of becoming the first country to have its spending plans rejected by Brussels.

Eurozone countries have until midnight to submit their draft budgets to the European Commission and all eyes are on France, considered the new "sick man" of an increasingly unhealthy Europe.

Paris announced last month that next year's budget deficit -- the shortfall between revenue and spending -- will hit 4.3 percent of annual economic output, far above the 3.0-percent ceiling set by the European Union for member states.

In a stark warning, the government of French President Francois Hollande said the deficit would not drop to this level until 2017.

HAYS you are looking around corners again.

Address the question I put up to you, at least you are 80% right and I was giving you browny points for that.

sticks - what is interesting, is that eu (not the treasury i think) decided to estimate for gdp the amount earned from drugs and prostitution .... i'm sure it was all declared to hmrc!

it's not much different from when hmrc arbitrarily decides how much a waiter or cab driver has earned from tips and taxed accordingly .... the victim then has to somehow prove a negative

about as fair as morton's fork of medieval times

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0IA0JU20141021?irpc=932

Weary French bosses square up as Hollande takes on '50th worker' reform

PARIS (Reuters) - Of all the decisions that Dominique Goubault says have helped to keep his 117-year-old family business alive, one in particular raises eyebrows: limiting his staff numbers to 49 or fewer.

The CEO is among many bosses in France who won't hire a 50th worker, in order to avoid the subsequent obligation to run and pay for an in-house works council - something Goubault says is costly, time-consuming, and "entirely useless".

Goubault's frustration is shared by bosses of small and mid-sized businesses right across France, who say their growth is stifled by endless bureaucratic demands regulating everything from worker representatives to office space to healthcare.

It's a cry that President Francois Hollande - watching the country's economy stagnate and its unemployment levels stick above 10 percent - is finally heeding. While all of Europe is grappling with poor growth and the threat of deflation, France is one of its weakest members - and under pressure from its euro zone partners to take action to halt the drag.

Though Hollande is now pushing through market reforms such as limited deregulation of protected jobs and more Sunday opening times in order to get more people into work and jumpstart the economy, Goubault says it may be too late.

Bosses have been for so long cowed by high taxes, punitive workforce rules and worries about the wider European economy that, even unshackled, they may still balk at hiring.

"It's great that they are finally doing something about these idiotic rules," said Goubault, 49, the fourth generation of printers to run Goubault Imprimeur in western France.

"But in the current context, with all the other issues we have, I don't think we should expect companies to start recruiting aggressively overnight."

DEAL BY YEAR-END

Hollande has asked managers and unions to strike a deal by year-end to work around rules mandating escalating bureaucratic obligations that kick in at 10, 50 and 300 employees.

France's Ifrap think tank wrote in a recent study that removing threshold effects could create 140,000 jobs, with more than 22,500 firms likely to grow if thresholds were removed.

In 2012, France counted 1,600 companies with 49 employees, which fell abruptly to 600 firms with 50 employees, according to CGPME, the main lobby for small- and medium-sized businesses.

"Companies just don't try to expand, which means they don't have enough critical mass to export their products," said Genevieve Roy, vice president of social affairs at the CGPME.

It's this lack of export capacity that has hurt the French economy and set its firms at a disadvantage to competitors in Germany - a raft of mid-sized, export-oriented firms that have steadily gained market share from France in the past few years and helped keep Germany's economy afloat.

Germany's firms are helped by more flexible worker representation thresholds. A works council can be elected in any unit with staff of five or more, but is not obligatory, while firms with more than 20 employees need only choose one 'safety advisor' - rather than the committee of several that is required in French firms with 50 workers or more.

In 2013, Germany had 55,510 medium-sized firms with more than 250 workers versus 21,418 in France, according to European Commission data. Medium-sized firms accounted for 2.6 percent of all firms in Germany versus 0.9 percent in France.

Among French law's most irksome features for managers - aside from electing worker representatives at set levels - are rules requiring them to set aside designated office space, create permanent health and wellness committees, set up profit-sharing schemes and, in the case of downsizing, strike collective severance deals - all of which drains resources.

Hiring a 50th staffer also increases the amount of paperwork the companies must file to the state. That extra head means companies then have to apply a further 30 legal norms, including obligations to maintain detailed records of their hiring activity to ensure gender equality.

SATELLITES

The rules are so off-putting that many small business-owners simply prefer to start new, satellite firms rather than hire a 50th worker - creating yet more tiny corporate structures.

"I've been tempted at various points to hire a 50th worker," said Goubault, 49. "But when you look at the costs - 3.5 percent of my total salary costs - and all the obligations, you think, what's the point? It bothers me and doesn't help my workers."

cynic - 04 Nov 2014 16:41 - 49175 of 49176

sticks - what is interesting, is that eu (not the treasury i think) decided to estimate for gdp the amount earned from drugs and prostitution .... i'm sure it was all declared to hmrc!...........................................ends

according to big wigs on SKY it was our OBR that submitted the figures and dont forget Osbourne as still to tick them off, make no wonder him and his department kept it quiet from Dave.

HAYS stop deflecting from your creeps actions.

Most bent government ever.

Use 1 figure for the homeland and say its in our best interests and then use the same figure against the EEC, make no wonder Merkel and Co want to pi-s on us.

Look at the 3 month figures for unemployed.

AT LEAST 1.5 MILLION LEFT OFF THE LIST.

Have they become MOLE PEOPLE???????????????

FRED........ IM in top form.

Her indoors looked at this earlier and she said KICK THE SHIT OUT OF THEM. That hays.

She said she liked how Max posted??????????????????????????????

Hey watch it Max.

ah well, rumour has it that she likes flogging dead horses too :-)

according to big wigs on SKY it was our OBR that submitted the figures

why would they do that?
nothing to gain

Hey watch it you. Thats private. You never know whos looking in eg, the chuckle brothers.

Ed Balls said Labour should be proud of its achievements in office, but should also be 'grown up' about where mistakes were made and learn from them



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. First published Monday 22 September 2014 in National News .
© by Press Association 2014


Shadow chancellor Ed Balls has apologised for "mistakes" made by the previous Labour government, saying it is important to explain how the party will do things differently in future.

He told Labour's annual conference in Manchester that delegates should be proud of many of Labour's achievements in office, including the minimum wage, nursery places, civil partnerships, children's centres and "saving" the NHS.




But he said where mistakes were made, governments should be "grown up" about them, adding: "We should put our hands up, learn from the past and explain how we will do things differently in the future.

"So conference, we should have had tougher rules on immigration from Eastern Europe - it was a mistake not to have transitional controls in 2004, and we must change the rules in the future.

"Longer transitional controls for new countries, a longer time people have to work before they can get unemployment benefit, stopping people claiming child benefit and tax credits for families abroad, cracking down on employers who exploit migrant workers and undercut wages by avoiding the minimum wage and proper rights at work.

"Tough controls, fair rules, that is what we mean by fair movement not free movement.

"And conference, while it was the banks which caused the global recession, and it was the global recession which caused deficits to rise here in Britain and around the world, the truth is we should have regulated those banks in a tougher way.

"It was a mistake. We should apologise for it. And I do.

"As we get the deficit down, we must reform our banks for the future so that can never happen again.

"We didn't do enough to tackle the underlying causes of rising spending on housing benefit and in-work poverty.

. .

"So the next Labour government will raise the minimum wage, build more homes to get the housing benefit bill down and cap overall spending on social security."

Mr Balls added that Labour should not have scrapped the 10p starting rate of income tax.

It is because we are too honest in our stats. Italy and France in particular, lie about their economies. We are regarded as the gold standard regarding our statistics.

whoops - sorry!
just been corrected, it's you she likes flogging but apparently it's mutual pleasure
she says that the reason you weren't on here for a couple of weeks is that she got over-excited and you then couldn't sit on a chair to type

OBR are now like Bank of England, separate and give an unbiased opinion. ..........My arse.

Thing is tho they are based at nos 11 Downing street and we all know who lives,there.

Would be same under labour. ...........certainly.

Which was the worst New Labour mistake, joining the attack on Iraq or the mass immigration tsunami?





















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Best AnswerAsker's Choice

Veritas answered 7 years ago



Without doubt, immigration. Iraq will stop one day, the effects of immigration will be with us forever. We should never forget which Government was responsible, that, and many other crimes.

Asker's Rating & Comment
5 out of 5absolutely right Veritas, bad as Iraq is it will someday be history. mass immigration will not only be our history it will be our future
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Other Answers (16)
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Rodriguez answered 7 years ago


Getting into power - actually no, that was the mistake of other people for thinking they would improve the country, not make it 10 times worse. Everyone sing along now...

There's a circus in the town, in the town
Gordon Brown is a clown, is a clown
And Alistair Darling's a tight-fisted ****
And Labour, are going f**king down!

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Simon600 answered 7 years ago


Veritas is right, mass immigration has spoilt our old community and I hope the electorate never forgive them

Gordon Brown, please go and take your experimental internationalisation of the UK with you. If your party ever gets into power in say 50 years I hope you ASK the people before making such a change to the UK.( By then you may need to ask in Arabic)

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lucii answered 7 years ago


Nothing goes as it is promised. This lot may go, but the other party's have to clear up, make their own mistakes, and were back to black But in my opinion immigration is the worst.

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Nicholas answered 7 years ago


In terms of immigration is not all labours fault, some of this is stipulated by the EU about freedom of movement within the EU. Am not saying labour are blameless but there are other factors involved.
To be fair i would like more British people getting access to British jobs and think its a disgrace that British doctors who graduate from Britian are not picked first by the NHS but go for the option of foreign graduates/doctors.

Before anyone comments i am not racist i would just like to see our country support our people. I am talking about graduate opportunities not the job market in general as foreign workers do help contribue where they are a shortage of skills

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Zed answered 7 years ago


Harriet Harmon in a Stab Vest has got to be one of their biggest mistakes. lol...

A fine example of what 10 years of Labour Government does to a country. They've f*cked it up so bad, they themselves feel unsafe in their own constituencies. What an appalling message to the nation.