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.

Right on c!

The rebate has been brought forward as it wasn 't due till the next year. We would have had to pay the bill in full and then claim the rebate later. We can pay much later in installments. The rules have been changed. We can now challenge the calculations and get some money back if there are errors. Lastly, we are not being charged interest on paying later.

It all looks like a great result.

Eurosceptic Tory MEP Daniel Hannan said the government's argument was "insulting".

He said: "If Brussels had come to us and said you are going to have to pay £850m - enough to hire and fund the pensions of 350 nurses - it would have caused outrage.

"And what we have done instead is we've pretended that the rebate did not apply, we've gone up to a much higher figure, we've then reapplied the rebate, come back to the figure that there was all along and claimed a victory.

"I think that is insulting our intelligence."

"I think that is insulting our intelligence."

You attempt to do exactly the same every day Mr 90% Arf!

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/

Over the last year couple of years Labour’s lead has gradually been whittled away, from ten points in 2012 they are now holding onto only the very narrowest of leads, with many polls showing them neck and neck.

Lord Mayor's show on now on BBC1

Whats the betting that none of the three stoogies will be party leaders after the next election?

Whoever is PM of the three will still be leader.

None of the 2 and a half can win outright, and that's before ukip tear them a nu asshole.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/nov/07/ed-miliband-more-pressure-quit-labour-leader-byelection-failure-critics

Miliband will face more pressure to quit in case of byelection failure, critics say

Critics of Ed Miliband say he will face further pressure to step down as Labour leader if the party fails to put in a credible performance in the Rochester and Strood byelection later this month.

As he launched a pledge to win the general election “street by street”, one party source said a poor performance in an area held by Labour under Tony Blair would raise questions about Miliband’s ability to win over centre-ground voters.

The warning came as a series of shadow cabinet ministers rallied round Miliband after party sources confirmed that unease about his leadership had been passed to Dave Watts, the chair of the parliamentary Labour party. Tristram Hunt, the shadow education secretary, declared Miliband was on course to become an “innovative, reforming, radical” prime minister.

A withering attack on the sneering political elite from Labour mutineer:

Our leaders can't keep ignoring what voters care about, writes IAN AUSTIN MP


By Ian Austin, Labour Mp for Dudley North

Published: 00:38, 8 November 2014 | Updated: 00:52, 8 November 2014



Everyone knows immigration is controversial, but I wasn’t prepared for the reaction when I raised it with the Prime Minister last week.

I stood up in the Commons and said voters in Dudley don’t think people should be able to come to Britain and be unemployed. They think people should have to work and pay taxes before they can claim benefits. They certainly don’t think it’s fair that child benefit can be claimed in the UK for children living abroad.

Judging by the emails and letters I’ve received since, most people think that’s plain common sense. Many said they were really pleased to hear a Labour MP saying it.



Ian Austin stood up in the Commons and said voters in Dudley don’t think people should be able to come to Britain and be unemployed



I’m afraid it didn’t go down so well in Westminster.

The Prime Minister scoffed and sneered and said I shouldn’t be raising the issue. The Left-leaning Guardian accused me of sticking a jackboot into immigrants. I knew some people would not agree with me, but I didn’t anticipate being called a Nazi.


I ought to be used to it by now. When I told ministers in the last Labour Government they’d made mistakes – including on Eastern Europe – and immigration was too high, I was told I sounded like the BNP.

But this Government is getting it wrong too. David Cameron promised he’d get net migration down to the tens of thousands but it’s actually gone up to over 240,000.

The asylum system is in chaos and foreign criminals aren’t being deported. It’s no wonder people in Dudley think politicians in Westminster haven’t been listening.

Well, I’ve been listening to ordinary people in my constituency and raising their concerns since I became an MP nine years ago.

I’ve always said that if you want to live in Britain, you must be prepared to work hard and pay your way, obey the law and speak English. There’s no other way to play a full part in British society.



More quite radical stuff here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2826183/A-withering-attack-sneering-political-elite-Labour-mutineer-leaders-t-ignoring-voters-care-writes-IAN-AUSTIN-MP.html

UKIP may alter the balance in individual constituencies but won't get enough MPs to have any serious impact over a coalition.

The SNP won't affect much either. Labour looks like losing a slab of MPs in Scotland but it won't make much of a difference to a coalition. The sum total of SNP plus Labour will not change. SNP would almost certainly go into a coalition with Labour. That means that Labour would be no better or worse off in terms of a coalition. So SNP will not be Labour's saviour as any seat they lose they will pick up in a coalition with SNP.

It still comes down to who will get the most seats. That party will have the first chance of forming a government. That is where Labour's losses in Scotland could be important. If Labour lose a lot of seats in Scotland then it will affect their ability to get the most seats and then be allowed the chance to form a government.

There is a difference between hearing, listening, and considering what they say in order aid in making your decision.

But following baying mobs whipped up by thoughtless mindless individuals for their own personal benefits is becoming the norm for the majority of UKIPPERS, the far right wing of the tories (especially some of the latter's present leadership) and minority of far left detached old Labour.

--------
Cynic,

The problem is the liars are no longer plausible!

does that mean that plausible liars are more than acceptable? :-)

======

No, but at least one had a better standard of lying!

So why doesn't he go over to UKIP

Haze,

Leadership.

If as expected the Cons lose the next election there will probably be a split in the party and the R/Wingers will switch to UKIP.

Cameron will resign or be rejected by the party and god only knows who will be the puppet leader of the haunch.

------------------------

I have a feeling Clegg will hang on, but Alexander and maybe one or two other Libs will defect to the Haunch.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2826121/SIMON-HEFFER-Dave-pray-Miliband-doesn-t-quit.html

There will have been cheers in Downing Street at the news that, despite some panic-stricken Labour MPs calling for his resignation, Ed Miliband was staying put as party leader.

For the increasingly hopeless Mr Miliband is David Cameron’s most powerful not-so-secret election weapon in his fight to remain prime minister.

When Harold Wilson was similarly said to have lost the confidence of the Labour faithful in 1969, he sharply retorted: ‘I know what’s going on. I’m going on!’ Mr Miliband, sadly, lacks both the wit and the stature to disarm his own critics so easily.

Since his pitiful conference speech and Labour’s plunge in the polls in its Scottish heartland, Mr Miliband looks like a loser.

Haze,

The tories are s==== scared!

Ed play it cool and let them destroy themselves.

The public groan when Osborne the U-bend's names are mention.

======

Any news at Party HQ about Hague taking over from Cameron?

Mind I wouldn't turn my back on Theresa.

Another Socialist leader found out to be useless.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0IQ14R20141106?irpc=932

Hollande popularity plumbs new low in mid-term French poll

PARIS (Reuters) - Half-way into his five-year mandate the popularity of French President Francois Hollande hit a new low on Thursday, hours before the Socialist leader addresses the nation to defend his shaky record on the economy.

In the worst score for a president in modern-day polling, Hollande received a 12 percent approval rating in the monthly survey by pollster YouGov, down 15 percent from the prior month. Other recent polls have put his popularity at 13 percent.

Earlier the chief executive of France's third-largest bank, Credit Agricole, slammed Hollande's government for its uncertain efforts to kickstart the eurozone's second largest economy.

"The absence of a clear vision and lack of coherence in economic policies is weighing on confidence and therefore investment and economic activity," CEO Jean-Paul Chifflet said during a conference call to present the bank's results.

Hollande is due later to face journalists and members of the public for a question-and-answer session on prime-time TF1 evening television. He will likely face criticism about broken promises to cut rising unemployment and public deficits.

Hollande failed to meet his goal of reversing the rise in unemployment by the end of last year. A pro-business strategy to boost the economy through tax breaks for companies who boost hiring has alienated many of his left-wing former backers.

His impopularity has stoked a backlash from rebel lawsmakers on the left of the Socialist Party seeking to block his supply-side economic reforms, even as the far-right National Front has made inroads with disillusioned French voters.

A Harris Interactive poll published on Monday found that 92 percent of respondents said they were not satisfied with Hollande's track record, with 96 percent saying he had not held to his campaign promises made before coming to power in 2012.