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.

Wouldnt mind Fred but its OUR OWN fiddled figures they have used to decide the scale of the surcharge.

EU £1.7bn charge
it's certainly quite difficult to convince oneself that this wasn't all a charade, but that said, how does one ever prove a negative? ..... That is, prove that it was NOT a charade from the outset

got to be the biggest con in the history by any pm

Put a positive in it and notice whether it gets bigger or smaller!


8-)

cynic I new it was a con and posted to say it was .and posted first thing this morning
knowing today it was going to come out . a big con done behind closed doors to give Cameron a boost . a dam dishonest scam

Hello all,

This is a national appeal on behalf of the "National Debt to the European appeal fund donation" hotline... please have your debit cards ready. phone 0845 833 4020.

Please give generously!

http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/politics/9362882/how-ed-miliband-lost-his-winning-hand/

Ed Miliband’s internal critics used to complain that he had a 35 per cent strategy. They claimed that his unambitious plan was to eke out a technical victory by adding a chunk of left-wing Liberal Democrats to the 29 per cent of voters who stayed loyal to Labour in 2010. Those close to Miliband were infuriated by this attack, insisting that their election strategy was far more expansive. Today, however, 35 per cent would sound pretty good to Labour, now becalmed in the low thirties in the polls.

Ed's Mr Bean moment

http://youtu.be/AtXqzD2UNdQ

49603 - i posted similarly a couple of weeks back, but no matter

And then comes Rochester!

Ed does his Mr Bean impression

http://awkwardedmilibandmoments.tumblr.com/

Back to reality!

Haze you will have to pop down to HQ again.

Drop in at the Food bank as well while you are on your way!

live and learn ..... i never knew a cartoon was reality :-)

.

Has Osborne halved the EU’s £1.7bn bill? 7/11/2014


George Osborne: It seems he can save money when he wants to.

The UK will only have to pay half of the £1.7bn budget surcharge demanded by the European Union, according to George Osborne.

The EU itself has yet to make an announcement at the time of writing.

Osborne’s words came after a four-hour meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels, in which he said it had also been agreed that the UK would pay the money in two interest-free instalments, totalling £850 million, before September 2015.

It seems the Treasury wants to claim it has cut the 2.1bn Euro top-up charge in half by ensuring the UK’s rebate applies to the payment.

But even the BBC’s Tory-supporting Political Editor, ‘Tricky’ Nick Robinson, said the deal would be scrutinised.

he he he ha ha ha.........caught out yet again Giddeon.

You have to laugh when you look back and wonder how they chose their leaders such as Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock, Gordon Brown and now Ed Miliband. All it wants now is for Ed to call someone a bigot. He has 6 months to make a few more gaffs.

Reality is what you make it.

Cartoons often get to the heart of the matter!

Not sure which are the most interesting dreams, nightmares, or cartoons?

But sometimes wonder if the old boys and sniffing in the club again!

8-)

MPs call Duncan Smith’s Work programme a ‘scandal’ (#ids #welfare #bedroomtax #uk #politics)
NOVEMBER 6, 2014 BY ORDER OF TRUTH

The way private companies have been running the Work Programme under contractual conditions imposed by Iain Duncan Smith and his Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has been called a ‘scandal’ by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

Despite ‘promises’ to focus in hard-to-help claimants, less than half of the financial resources companies originally pledged to help claimants with disabilities and mental health problems have been spent.

The companies have been concentrating on finding jobs for people considered easier to help in to employment, and have ‘parked’ people with more complex needs who have been placed in the ‘work related activity group’ of the Work Programme by the DWP.

Margaret Hodge, the PAC’s chairman, said: “Evidence shows differential payments have not stopped contractors from focusing on easier-to-help individuals and parking harder-to-help claimants, often those with a range of disabilities including mental health challenges.

“Data from Work Programme providers shows that they are, on average, spending less than half what they originally promised on these harder to help groups.

“It is a scandal that some of those in greatest need of support are not getting the help they need to get them back to work and are instead being parked by providers because their case is deemed just too hard.

“The Department must do more to encourage providers to work with harder-to-help groups.

Mrs Hodge also warned that the DWP’s sanctions regime could cause “significant financial hardship” to individuals.

“Feedback from some constituents suggests the number of sanctions has been increasing, and some providers have been recommending sanctions more than others,” she said.

Many of the work programme providers are subsidiaries of large, government ‘preferred partners’ such as Serco.

The £5 BILLION scheme has been criticised and been described as ‘worse than doing nothing’.

In half the areas where the scheme is being run, people would have been more likely to get a job if they hadn’t taken part in the programme.

Other figures showed that just one in 20 people on sickness benefit who were on the programme found work. The target was one in six.

The government has been accused of “spin” after claiming that there had been a “profound” improvement since the scheme was launched in July 2011.

The facts are that the Work Programme has cost the taxpayer far more than if the scheme had not been implemented, primarily because of the lucrative contracts given to private companies, and the government has used the programme to manipulate unemployment figures.

The number of people who have found employment is no higher than would be expected without the scheme, and there have been no savings in welfare payments. In fact, costs have sky-rocketed directly because of the incompetence of Iain Duncan Smith and his ‘reforms’.