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.

If you need a plumber then just call Ed - he will unblock your system along with Lucy.

I am just watching Miliband saying that all the criticism of him is nonsense. It is like watching a bad stand up comedian. You just want to hekel him and shout, "off!, off!".

Just as an observation if you were watching your enemy self destruct why would you waste bullets on them.

Haze and the dirty tricks office as the torrid party central office are trying to put up carboard shields arounf U-bend Dave in order to save his and their own skins.

The tories would get rid of Cameron at the first chance they have, but in such a crew he has around him there is no alternative, unless like Haze you fancy Theresa or IDS?

What a death march politics is on!


PS,

Just a thought why not elect the intellectual Haze for tory party leader?

By the way, I thought this government believed in capitalism and its efficiency.


If so why are the poking their fingers into the petrol price market.

The market should find its own level.

===========


Tut tut tut.

Osborne is having his photo shot at the pump again!

DB4, can't keep up with all the shenanigans which goes on in your neck of the woods.


Tell me more.

I love a bit of gossip!

8-)

I hope Milibland does survive. He is the greatest asset that the Conservatives have.

Obviously you do Fred. You probably phone in to all these radio chat shows to help keep yourself amused.

I have them all on hold in expectations.

Can't stop dribbling as the news pours in.

==================

When is your Dave off to Europe to put them in their places.

Last time he was there and asked for the exit somebody pointed to the toilet!

=======

Have to go back to trading volumes.

Yes indeed, Haystack, Milibland is DC's secret weapon.

:o)

Cameron will struggle to get anything of importance from the EEC to encourage him to believe in a possible stay in the eec if the referendum ballot was to be held.
I am beginning to feel very strongly that the major leaders of the EEC wil not give Cameron anything of importance because their biggest fear is if they do, they will then have to give similar changes internally with the large anti eec groups that are apparent elsewhere. Similar demands will be made as we will find here, ''If it is good for the Scots it will be good for the English/ Irish/ Welsh'
I will be happy for us to leave the eec as currently run, I expect that if we were to leave then within a few years there would be some agreement made for a much looser tie, and more countries will by then have realised that current arrangements cannot continue.
I will still suport the Tories rather than UKIP as I firmly believe that we will be out of the current EEC sooner with them rather than UKIP. If UKIP were to win more seats that I expect, than to have any power it would have to be a coalition without the tories and neither the Labour or Liberal would not support us leaving.If it is a coalition with Tories than Cameron will take us out, if only to save his job.

Cameron could win the next election because the Labour party is currently run by an unelectable, but I fear for Cameron if even at this late stage they found someone elseto lead.
The point is that Unite, the purse holder are more concerned with having left of left policies and loose, rather than win with a moderate.They must hate Blair.

Ironic, just like Milliband stabbed his own brother in the back, what goes around etc.
I do agree though he is without doubt DC's secret weapon,

A good day today, an Everton win under the floodlights at Goodison tonight will be the icing on the cake :0)

Stable.

A lot of people hated Blair and still many do, especially in Iraq and the M.E. as a whole.

He had the Messiah complex similar to, but more pronounced than Cameron.

A large amount of the instability in the World can be put down to Bush and Blair.

As far as Miliband concerned if you compare the fractious nature of the tory party with its multiples of opposing groups, policies, ideologies, lack of direction and posturing, the Labour party seem amazingly unite and goal orientated even if a little "depressed".

But labour are not in charge or picking the battle field but they at least they know what the battle is over.

Personally, and I hope I am not wrong when I think of Miliband I can see the packaging is not the best, but the content is thought about and I think he is pretty shrewd. He may bring a breath of fresh air to politics after Thatcher, Blair and Cameron.

I think the packaging of Cameron is slick, the contents of the package is mediocre and toilet paper would have been sufficient wrapping.

Spurs just kicked off ITV 4

MrT - no nhs in Poland ...... so why should you be surprised that there's no free medical care! ...... and as fred says, setting up home in jersey is very difficult indeed, though that is an irrelevance

just flitted through the posts since i went out this morning ...... as usual, missed nothing of interest :-)

I said that cyners!!!!!!!!!!

This article is about dave and ma merkel, complete with the junker.

However, there is a contribution from a poster who suggests a deal has already been done. If this is the case, and the conditions altered to stop benefit tourism etc, I can see dave being able to fight and win an election on the back of it.


http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2014/11/03/eu-exclusive-juncker-doctrine-spells-out-why-uk-cannot-change-the-essentials/



3] Merkel has given UK Government a get out if they choose to use it. The free movement is for people to seek work, not benefit tourism. Suggest the UK follows the Main EU countries, pay Tax credits, unemployment benefits etc, by a] ring fencing them from general taxation b] let the employers pick up the tab with increased Nat Ins contributions, c] these benefits only paid after 2-3 years of paid employment in the UK.

Number Of Low-Paid Workers Hits Record High Of Over Five Million 6/11/2014

The proportion of employees in low-paid work across Britain increased from 21 to 22 per cent last year – to just over five million people – a Resolution Foundation report revealed this week.

Resolution Foundation’s report, Low Pay Britain 2014, found that the number of people earning less than two-thirds of median hourly pay – equivalent to £7.69 an hour – rose to 5.2 million, an increase of 250,000 on the previous year.

The increase in low pay partly reflects the rapid growth in the jobs market, say Resolution Foundation, with the number of employees rising by around 340,000 between April 2012 and April 2013. But the research also shows that the proportion of employees earning less than £7.69 an hour rose slightly, reversing a small improvement in the previous year.

Resolution Foundation says ‘the report send a challenge to employers, government and all political parties to prevent people getting stuck in low pay and help them to move out of in-work poverty’.

The report also highlights that:

The ‘stickiness’ of low paid work is a serious problem. Almost one in four minimum wage employees who have been in work over the last five years have been stuck on the minimum rate for the entire time.
Women are still far more likely to be low-paid than men. More than one-in-four (27 per cent) female employees earned less than £7.69 an hour last year, compared with 17 per cent of men. This gap has slowly but steadily narrowed over the last three decades. Back in 1983, one-in-three (33 per cent) women were low paid, compared with 8 per cent of men. However, the steady decline in the proportion of women in low paid work halted last year (rising by one percentage point).
The UK has among the highest proportion of full-time low-paid workers across the OECD. Although the proportion remains higher in the US, employees in Britain are likelier to be low paid than those in other broadly comparable economies like Germany or Australia; twice as likely to be low-paid as workers in Switzerland; and four times as likely as those in Belgium.
Matthew Whittaker, Chief Economist at the Resolution Foundation, said:

“While recent months have brought much welcome news on the number of people moving into employment, the squeeze on real earnings continues. While low pay is likely to be better than no pay at all, it’s troubling that the number of low-paid workers across Britain reached a record high last year.

“Being low paid – and getting stuck there for years on end – creates not only immediate financial pressures, but can permanently affect people’s career prospects. A growing rump of low-paid jobs also presents a financial headache for the government because it fails to boost the tax take and raises the benefits bill for working people.

“All political parties have expressed an ambition to tackle low pay. Yet the proportion of low-paid workers has barely moved in the last 20 years. A focus on raising the minimum wage can certainly help the very lowest paid workers in Britain, but we need a broader low pay strategy in order to lift larger numbers out of working poverty.

“Economic growth alone won’t solve our low pay problem. We need to look more closely at the kind of jobs being created, the industries that are growing and the ability of people to move from one job or sector to the other, if we’re really going to get to grips with low pay in Britain today.”

Responding to the report, Labour’s Shadow Treasury Minister Catherine McKinnell MP said:

“These figures show that too many people are in low-paid jobs under this Government. Working people are over £1600 a year worse off since the last election which is why most people are still not feeling the recovery.

“Labour’s economic plan will create more good jobs and make work pay. We will raise the minimum wage to £8 an hour by 2020 and give businesses tax incentives to pay the living wage. We will also boost vocational education and apprenticeships, expand free childcare for working parents and introduce a lower 10p starting rate of tax.

“In contrast, the Tories only stand up for a privileged few. They want to cut tax credits again for millions of working families while keeping a £3 billion a year tax cut for the top one per cent.”

TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady added:

“Last weekend 90,000 joined our march to call for a pay rise for workers across Britain and this report shows why.

“Many of the jobs created since the crash are very much of the low-paid, casual and zero hours variety. This risks many people and their families simply being left behind, unable to share in any benefit from the economic recovery – while those at the top take an increasing share of the nation’s wealth.

“What’s more, once in a low-paid job, it can be hard, if not nigh on impossible to get higher paid work. Without a new approach it’s quite likely that the overwhelming majority of the five million workers currently in low-paid work will still be stuck there a decade from now.”

Cynic.

Well you could at least get your post accurate.

If you haven't read the 4th Protocol by Frederick Forsyth try it.

Based on cold war and you may see from the "Philby" letters where your paranoia of communism may have originated from.

Fascinating period and the book is well written although sometimes I felt I needed a note book to list the characters.

It is a longish novel, but you should be able to get to the end of the book it you start now!

Ps, never thought much of Freddy before I read this one,