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.

Max,

It may be a test of "popularity", but many would shirk the responsibility being a candidate and if successful a MP.

He probably realises where his "talents" lie.


As we know it is easy to be critical, but being constructive and thinking out future policies and the evaluate feasibility is daunting.




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I am interested in politics, but the responsibility of being an MP and doing the "necessary" to "succeed" on the the greasy poll to achieve a goal is step to far.

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MaxK - if Brand supposedly has got 16 million followers on Twitter then I would suspect he has 15.9 million twitarse dumb blonde peeps he could persuade to get into bed with him and vote for him!!

A lot of his followers are not from the UK. He was in the US for a long time.

Brand is a man of the people...I know that for a fact, because he keeps telling us he is!

It's not as if he is short of the odd £grand for a deposit.


It would be interesting anyway, as his chosen target (must be tory) might get a big surprise.

No one with any sense would vote for Brand. It would be a wasted vote. Mind you, I think that about all UKIP candidates as well.

I thought she was the Home Secretary who Haze knows!

I thought it was a bloke Fred.

Low pay and zero-hours contracts rise dramatically, figures show

TUC report shows one in 12 in labour force now in ‘precarious employment’, huge rise since 2008



Yvonne Roberts


The Observer, Saturday 13 December 2014 21.11 GMT

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/dec/13/zero-hours-contracts-low-pay-figures-rise



Business secretary Vince Cable has proposed that those on zero-hours contracts should have the right to request a fixed-term contract. Photograph: PA



New figures have revealed the dramatic spread of low-paid, insecure and casual work across the British economy since the financial crash of 2008.

In that year, one in 20 men and one in 16 women worked in the casualised labour market. Now, one in 12 of both men and women are in precarious employment, which includes zero-hours contracts (ZHCs), agency work, variable hours and fixed-term contracts, according to new TUC data.

According to the analysis, in 2008 there were 655,000 men in the casualised labour market. That number has risen by 61.8% to 1.06 million. The casualised female workforce has increased by 35.6%, from 795,000 in 2008 to 1.08 million in 2014.

The TUC is also publishing research showing that since 2008, only one in 40 new jobs has been full-time. Over the same period, 60% of net jobs added have been self-employed and 36% have been part-time.

Employers argue that casual work often leads to a permanent post. According to the Work Foundation, however, only 44% of zero-hours contract jobs last for two years or more and 25% have lasted for five years or more. A survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development estimated that there are more than a million zero-hours contract workers – 3.1% of the UK workforce – four times the estimate of the Office for National Statistics in 2012.

The business secretary, Vince Cable, has proposed that those on zero-hours contracts should have the right to request a fixed-term contract. Labour has proposed that an employee on a ZHC has the right to request permanent work after 12 months.

In its report, Women and Casualisation: Women’s Experiences of Job Insecurity, the TUC makes a number of recommendations to tackle precarious employment, including written contracts for those on zero- or short-hours contracts guaranteeing work patterns; payment for the time that a casual worker is on call; better enforcement of the minimum wage; better enforcement of statutory rights, such as the right to permanent work after four years; and more help from larger employers on childcare.

“For many women, ‘flexibility’ has become synonymous with being at the beck and call of employers,” said the TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady. “Job insecurity isn’t just something that affects women in industries like retail and social care; it is a problem across the labour market.”

It's only taken Vince four and a half years to twig this....

For Haze and Napoleon!

Here is a Radio 4 programme which will no doubt appeal to the left wing posters on this thread who seem to be obsessed with Margaret Thatcher;

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2873006/Thatcher-murder-BBC-s-Book-Bedtime-Radio-4-ignores-protests-author-s-sick-perverted-fantasy-coveted-broadcast-slot.html

I thought the tory Neo-cons were obsessed with Maggie.

Milibland's speech did help him any!

Conservatives and Labour tied

Latest YouGov / Sunday Times results 12th December -

Con 32%, Lab 32%, LD 7%, UKIP 16%;

The commentators have been scathing regarding Milibland's speech. There was no detail and no promise of it until after the election.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/poll-shows-voters-believe-ukip-is-to-the-left-of-the-tories-9923416.html

Shock poll shows voters believe Ukip is to the left of the Tories
Labour fears that Nigel Farage is eating into its support are borne out by an intriguing survey asking voters to place parties and leaders on a political spectrum

Voters see Ukip as more left wing than the Conservative Party in a shock poll finding that will fuel concerns among Ed Miliband's allies that Nigel Farage is "parking his tanks on Labour's lawn".

A poll for The Independent on Sunday exposes what Labour strategists have been fearing for months – that voters do not regard Ukip as a party of the far right, but as one closer to the centre ground than the Tories. As such it could win Labour votes in the North. It suggests that attempts by Labour to portray Mr Farage's party as "more Thatcherite than Thatcher" have fallen flat.

Which commentators, Scnapps or Central Office?

IDS was made to look a liar over his barbaric and inhumane Welfare ideological reforms, by Andrew Neil on Politics show, which of course he is for many voters.

I think the tories should stick with him as he is one of their own!

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Interesting what Polly Toynbee and other journalist thought of IDS, representative of Cameron's government.

Come on Theresa, you know you can reform the Tories.

How do you fancy being leader for 10 years and doing it while out of office.