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.

Fred I cant believe they dont know how run down certain parts of the midlands and north are.

They are obviously living in a different world from us.

Its shame full, but then again I suppose its not there faults but this rotten governments fault.

Cyners obviously posts crossed or you are trully in denial.

not so old chap ..... read above (51967)

Chatam where the F is Chatam? Never heard of it.

shame on you ...... used to be one of the finest dockyards in the country
it's on the medway in kent, next door to rochester

before the constituency boundaries were messed about in 2010, i think the "old" area regularly (but not always) returned a labour mp

Whats Kent go to do with Yorkshire lanchashire and the Midlands?????????????

Of course now I know where you mean but you cant compare Kent to anywhere in the Midlands and the North.

For Christ sake catch up with whats going on in the country.

i can only talk from first hand knowledge
of course there are loads of deprived areas throughout the country which lack decent schools, but this is getting a million miles away from the initial question i asked ..... so herewith yet again ....

51948 - absolute bullshit! .... what about ensuring that you live in an area where there are good quality state schools? ..... how do you rate that, or do you only wish to berate those who choose to use the private sector?


and another


51967 - i wouldn't call parts of chatham and its environs remotely posh or even smart or anything else that you wish to use perjoratively, but it happens there are a few excellent state schools in the vicinity

of course what it does mean is that properties that fall within the "correct" catchment areas will inevitably increase at a faster rate than those that do not

do you now suggest that people should not be allowed to relocate to take advantage of those schools?

DB4,

In my playing days, Rugby was considered a "Toffs' game" in England and playing for the county was something akin to playing tennis in the UK as a whole. A large number of public schools played both the round ball game and rugby.

Played with a number of ex county players, who play for English county team while they were stationed in England doing the National Service.


Mind the English players who were playing rugby in England were often thought of educated thugs and had the P taken out of them by others.

In Wales rugby was a "working" man's game, similar to the North of England although due to the split rugby league was prominent as the "mans" game.

The problem was if you played league in NE, you were banned from playing rugby or entering the club houses, in South Wales, unless you changed your name.

But the English girls like the Welsh talent when they had a home match.

By the way, who was your mother?

If you have kids and are thinking of moving, one of the first things you consider is the schools in the area. The same applies if you are thinking of having kids. It is natural to choose an area that has the best schools where you can afford to live. That means your kids end up going to a school depending on how much money you have. That is far more insidious than people choosing to pay for private education. It means that poorer people automatically end up going to the worst schools.

Mary Queen of Scots, Fred.

The situation becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. The best schools have better off parents who generally take education very seriously and the schools get better and better results. The poorer parents end up with low quality schools with many pupils from families that don't really care. That drives down standards and results and attracts more and more poorer people as it will be cheaper to live there.

GF,

Over the last year or so, I have returned to Cardiff and with my daughter have driven around some of countryside, villages and towns near to it and also driven through the old mining valleys.

They are depressed and miserable, many decayed as a result of the previous tory's mismanagement of economy and the murderous culling of the pits and associated engineering and support services.

Disconnected and apathetic communities remain and they are only slowly regenerating,

It wasn't the closing the pits which was the problem, but the manner and speed in which it was done. Maggie and her tribesmen were responsible for the misery they wreaked. (They could have looked back and examined the 30s and the building of replacement trading estates.)

(Scargill had a responsibility as well and was stupid, but he did tell the truth about what would happen.)

The problem is that the crowd of schoolboys in charge of the country at the moment have learnt nothing from that experience.

Green party membership doubles to 27,600 as Ukip’s reaches 40,000

Figures suggest trend away from mainstream politics and put Greens only just behind the Liberal Democrats



Patrick Wintour, political editor


The Guardian, Tuesday 2 December 2014 13.47 GMT



Natalie Bennett, leader of the Greens in England and Wales, addresses a rally in London's Hyde Park. Photograph: Mark Kerrison/Demotix/Corbis



Membership of the Green party of England and Wales has doubled since January this year to reach 27,618.

Ukip has seen its membership rise to 40,000 in October; close to that of the Liberal Democrats, suggesting a trend away from mainstream Westminster parties to smaller parties.

Both Ukip and to a lesser extent the Greens have been given a fillip by increasing publicity, including over how they should feature on TV in the coming election debates.



Nigel Farage is interviewed at his party’s office in Kent. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA



Graun Greeny article continues here: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/02/green-party-membership-doubles-ukip-mainstream-politics

DB4,

I thought I knew her!

8-)

Gordon Brown leaves British politics with a legacy few can rival


His role in saving the Union, his decisive action during the financial crisis and his championing of the NHS mark Brown out as a political colossus of a kind we will rarely see again.


by George Eaton Published 1 December, 2014 - 17:13



http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/12/gordon-brown-leaves-british-politics-legacy-few-can-rival

You wouldn't expect anything other than biased left wing nonsense penned by a left wing columnist!

What a load of utter bollocks;


"Few economists now doubt that Brown's decision to intervene decisively during the financial crisis by bailing out the banks and enacting fiscal stimulus was the right one. Again, to describe him as the man who "saved the world" would be an overstatement, but he has a better claim to the title than anyone else."

End of an ERROR!!!

DB4.

With all his faults, he may not have been the "saviour", but he did that was necessary with the G20, after the Banks and Financial services and financial wide boys, crashed the world economies.

Considered beside him, I would think you are a pygmy".

And, to Broons credit.

He did put the block on St Tone's €uro ambitions.

That in itself is worth a gong imo.