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.

MORI POLL shows Tories in front BUT.......

As usual it’s the unusual poll that gets the attention, when it should be the trend. The fieldwork for the poll was conducted between Saturday and Monday when the media was full of stories about Labour having a leadership crisis, so naturally enough people have concluded that Labour’s leadership row has damaged them in the polls.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,ends

Bring on Rochester.

d4
Thanks for that. I hadn't seen it. That's a nice lead. Hopefully the trend will continue. I will be happy when the Conservatives are 10%+ ahead of Lab. A clear majority in the GE would be good for the country. I hope that the Libs do well also as we will need an opposition after Lab loses Scotland and implodes.

Lies, damn lies and David Cameron's EU policy

The fate of both the European Arrest Warrant 'debate' and the EU bill underscore how Cameron is playing a Ukip game that he can't win.






By Tim Stanley

10:15AM GMT 12 Nov 2014

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/11224868/Lies-damn-lies-and-David-Camerons-EU-policy.html


There are lies, damn lies and then there’s David Cameron’s position on the EU. That became obvious this week in the parliamentary debate over the European Arrest Warrant. I watched those angry scenes hours later through the fog of jet lag, didn’t understand what Cameron was up to, called a friend, still couldn’t figure it out, tried to piece it together by reading everything available online and, finally, gave up and watched a Doctor Who marathon instead. Better to presume that the PM was caught trying to deceive us yet again. Which, upon sober reflection, he was.


Here’s what I can piece together. The PM said that there would definitely be a vote on the European Arrest Warrant. But someone realised that Britain doesn’t actually have the power to say “yay” or “nay” to the Warrant, so the Government whips decided to hold a debate on everything but that instead. Speaker John Bercow noticed the deception and called it out; Labour jumped on the Government’s mistake and took the opportunity to humiliate it; and Cameron was forced to rush back to Parliament to try to crush a rebellion against a motion that was designed to prevent a rebellion.


Yet again the Tory leadership is guilty of saying one thing on Europe and then doing something quite different. Evidence for the prosecution #2: the payment of the EU bill. When we were handed that tab for £1.7 billion, Cameron made a big (but carefully worded) objection to its size and timing. After a few days, George Osborne claimed to have successfully cut it in half in what appeared to be a victory for our proud nation again the profligate Eurocrats. Who knew it was that easy to reduce a tax bill by 50 per cent? Doubtless, the HMRC’s phone-lines glowed red with people calling to see if they could do the same.


But, of course, life isn’t that sweet. In reality, the EU has allowed the UK to deduct a separate rebate that it is owed from the £1.7 billion, with the effect that we are reducing our bill with our own money. Oh, some concessions have been won: we’ll have longer to pay and will do so without interest. But the victory looks pathetic when you consider the following analogy. Say A owes B £10, while B owes A £5 – which means that An overall is set to lose £5. B says to A “If you say that I don’t owe you £5, then I’ll deduct it from your £10 so that you will only pay me £5.” I’m not super hot at maths, but that still means that A loses £5 overall – as he was going to in the first place. Nothing has changed: A and the UK remain out of pocket.


David Cameron is in a tricky situation. He doesn’t want to talk about Europe and would have happily skipped gaily through his time in office avoiding the subject – but Ukip has forced him to pretend to want reform. However, the EU reforms that Ukip has put on the agenda are the kind of reforms that only really make sense to Ukippers – changes that demand such a fundamental alternation in our relationship with the EU that Brexit is their only natural consequence. Under our present relationship with the EU, Cameron cannot reject the European Arrest Warrant out of hand or refuse a bill that the EU’s accountants regard as entirely reflective of our ability to pay. Only a government on the brink of Brexit could threaten such things and mean it; only the government of a UK finally separated from the EU could guarantee them. In short, Cameron is talking a talk that he cannot walk.

And one might feel sympathy for him if he wasn’t so transparently deceptive. His Government could be accused of trying to mislead both Parliament and the taxpayer in the space of a fortnight – and for what? For fear of losing a paltry by-election to Nigel Farage? To paraphrase Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons, “It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world ... but for Rochester and Strood?”

When is Rochester next Thursday?

yep

Thanks G/F.

I am dodging Europe, but I am telling Russia what to do and sending the Ukraine some poppies.

Pity about Rochester and having to pay up to the EU and discrediting HP and my own party.

And just for starters

StockMarketWire.com

FTSE indices turned lower on retailers, banks and utility stocks after Bank of England warned UK inflation could fall below 1% in the next six months, and would not hit the target of 2% for three years. It also cut its forecast for UK economic growth to 2.9% in 2015.

And maybe stagnation.

But we will be OK.

Tim Stanley may be writing in the Telegraph, but he is a long term member of the Labour party since he was 15. He even stood as a Labour candidate in 2005. So you might expect an anti Cameron stance.

Yes Rochester is next Thursday.

Haystack, the interesting thing in Scotland is that Labour are losing the battle for minds to the SNP in areas like Glasgow and Dundee. Edinburgh and Aberdeen have always traditionally been Conservative strongholds, but the voters there moved their loyalty to SNP rather than Labour some time ago and the same thing is now happening elsewhere. Labour will be almost totally wiped out in Scotland in the GE. Poll predictions are that they will be lucky to get 4 seats and that is a loss of 37 seats - as you know.

BUT it will be a Labour/SNP coalition which is even better than a labour majority as the SNP are far more left wing than new labour.

Jolly good show they will put on I say.

Far better than the present coalition, will adopt the Mansion Tax and for once and all get rid of the scrounging rich in this country.

SIMPLE.

You will also know that year on year the "Con" party are digging there own grave.

WOW what a profitable day, I thought christmas had come early.

Labour could suffer because of Scotland not because they could not form a coalition, but because they might not be asked to. If they lose a large number of Scottish seats it could take them below the number of Conservative seats. The convention is that the party with the most seats is then given the opportunity to attempt to form a government. That might well be a coalition but the Conservatives will get the first chance. Labour will have to wait in line.

Oh indeed indeed Stan.

This last few days, phew.

He he he ho ho ho Hays your a stormer you really are.

Keep on dreaming bud.

However, the way the polling trend is going, the Conservatives could well have a clear majority by next year.

How long will it be before people start to try and get rid of Ed Balls? He is no better than Miliband.

Agreed Haystack, but hopefully we will not have another coalition after the GE and the Conservatives will indeed win a comfortable majority, as Hilary has predicted will happen!

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/nov/12/ed-miliband-is-the-most-unpopular-leader-among-labour-supporters-ever

Ed Miliband is most unpopular leader among his own party's supporters ever

The latest Ipsos Mori poll has the Labour party on 29% - its lowest level since 2010. Dissatisfaction with Ed Miliband among Labour supporters is at the highest level of dissatisfaction ever recorded for any leader among their own supporters

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11225334/Can-Ed-Miliband-recover-from-his-worst-week-in-politics.html