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.

North Sea oil industry will recover - Ian Wood




by SCOTT MACNAB







Published on the
19 December
2014
16:39











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ONE of Scotland’s leading oil and gas industry figures says that growing fears for its future are “over the top.”


Sir Ian Wood insists the industry will eventually recover - but says thousands of jobs could be lost in the next year as oil prices remain below £60 a barrel.

It follows concerns by the explorers’ association that the industry was “close to collapse”.

Sir Ian said: “These comments are over the top for an industry which thinks and plans long term, has significant momentum from current production and from major investments made over the last two or three years, and where the operators make their investment decisions based on the anticipated price of oil in two to three years’ time.




“It’s important to have a balanced perspective at this time. The UKCS does face a very difficult year to 18 months which will see a slowdown in investment, the loss of some offshore production, up to 10 per cent, and the possible loss of around 15,000 jobs within an industry which employs 375,000, although this is difficult to estimate.

“It will be a tough time for the industry and the people that work in it, but we are entering a downturn from which we will recover.”

The price of oil is ‘likely to recover in 2015 or early 2016’, he added

LOL Chris. Fishfinger's trading system has only 3 followers on Twitter?

Correct. The World Famous Mick Tarquin(pretentious twat) Kipper System at the last count three (3) followers. Immense! :0)

Russell Brand read his best Question Time lines off a cue card, Nigel Farage claims

Ukip leader says comedian's quips during an appearance on BBC debating show were pre-prepared as row between the pair rumbles on




By Ben Riley-Smith, Political Correspondent

10:55AM GMT 19 Dec 2014

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Russell Brand pre-prepared his best lines when appearing on Question Time and read them off cue cards, Nigel Farage has said as fallout from the pair's on-screen clash continued to rumble on.


The UK Independence Party leader praised the BBC One programme's audience as "one of the best" he had seen after they rounded on Brand over his refusal to stand for Parliament.


Mr Farage also said he "deliberately" refused to challenge Brand as directly as he otherwise might have to avoid turning the show into a "ridiculous public punch-up".


The jibes are the latest in a prolonged back-and-forth between the pair after they appeared together in a much-hyped edition of the show last week.


Brand called Mr Farage a "pound shop Enoch Powell" on the show while Mr Farage later claimed the comedian's chest hair had been straightened by a stylist before the broadcast.




Speaking to LBC Radio about the clash, Mr Farage said: "I didn't confront him on the programme quite deliberately. I wasn't going to turn it into a sort of ridiculous public punch-up."

"He threw his terms of abuse at me, including the fact that I was against disabled people and all sorts of stuff. All read out from cue cards! Quite extraordinary."

"So I tried my best not to get engaged in fisticuffs with him. I didn't need to because the audience did. It got pretty heated, but in the main it was one of the best Question Time audiences that I've seen in a very long while."

He added: "As far as Mr Brand's concerned, I understand when he talks about the disadvantaged and people in Britain not feeling the democratic process represents them. I get that Russell.

"What I don't get is this attack on capitalism. It's corporatism that he should be attacking. It's that relationship between the giant multinationals and government at all levels that he should be attacking."

Russell Brand film on RBS bankers funded by City investors - including former RBS banker

Russell Brand's film about 'financial inequality' is largely funded by high net worth City investors who were able to offset their investment against tax






By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter

6:00PM GMT 19 Dec 2014

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When Russell Brand wanted to film himself confronting bankers about their bonuses, he chose to storm RBS, regarding the bank as the very embodiment of the capitalist system he so despises.


But, not for the first time, Brand has left himself open to accusations of hypocrisy after it emerged the film company he set up is largely funded by City investors - including a former RBS banker.


Brand raised almost £1 million by issuing shares in Mayfair Film Partnership Ltd, the production company making his next film, a documentary called Brand which will explore his ideas on the redistribution




At least 11 of the 21 main investors in the company are current or former employees of banks or other financial institutions, while a 12th is a pension fund.


They were all able to claim tax relief by offsetting the money they invested in the shares against their income tax, as part of a government scheme to attract investment in high risk start-up companies.




Brand has repeatedly argued that bankers should pay more tax, and has blamed them for much of the trouble faced by society’s poorest in the wake of the financial crash.

The investors in Mayfair Film Partnership include Tim Vaughan, who worked at RBS in 2007, the year the financial crisis began. According to an online biography of Mr Vaughan, he was part of the RBS Real Estate Syndicate Team, “responsible for structuring and distributing big ticket European real estate loans”. He invested £23,000 in Mayfair Film Partnership in 2009, the year he left RBS.

Mayfair is understood to have been set up to make a film called Happiness, which never got off the ground, before it switched its attention to the new film.

Mr Vaughan told The Telegraph: “I do not wish to comment on this investment nor on Mr Brand…Mr Brand is entitled to the views he had as much as you are entitled to yours. I have no issue with my investment or Mr Brand.”

Earlier this week Brand was accused of being a “bully” by an RBS back office worker after he and a film crew tried to get into an RBS office in London saying he was making a film about “financial inequality”.

Joseph Kynaston Reeves, who found himself locked out with his lunch going cold after security staff locked the doors to keep Brand’s film crew out of the building, wrote a blog describing Brand as a “prancing millionaire” which became an internet sensation.

Mr Kynaston Reeves pointed out that Brand, who is making his film with the director Michael Winterbottom, had picked the wrong building, as the traders he was targeting worked elsewhere. He also pointed out that Brand, with a personal fortune of between £9 million and £15m, was far wealthier than him or any of his colleagues.


Brand threatened to sue the Sun newspaper earlier this month after it accused him of hypocrisy for paying around £76,000 a year in rent for his London home to a company based in the British Virgin Islands.

A spokesman for Brand said he was unavailable for comment.

Meanwhile another of Brand's campaigns appeared to be paying dividends, as the US investors who planned to evict scores of families from the New Era estate in east London are on the verge of pulling out.

Brand joined protestors against the plans by Westbrook Partners, which is now said to be close to selling the estate to an affordable housing provider.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/11301145/Tony-Booth-Will-Ed-Miliband-win-the-election-In-your-f-dreams.html

Tony Booth: Will Ed Miliband win the election? ‘In your f****** dreams

Cherie Blair’s father says suggestion Labour Leader could become Prime Minister is ‘play school

Tony Booth, the veteran actor and father of Cherie Blair, has bluntly dismissed the idea that Ed Miliband could become prime minister.

In an interview with Newsweek, Tony Blair’s father-in-law laughed off the suggestion that Labour could win the General Election under their current leader, saying “'In your f****** dreams. This is not play school.'”

The 83-year-old said that Labour would have more chance at on polling day in May if Mr Blair made a surprise return to power.

He said: “Funnily enough, I think he might have an outside chance. “Because people would say: ‘Well, at least he is the devil we know.’

“And with Miliband, you find yourself thinking, ‘This is a good kid, but when is he going to get into long pants? Are we just putting him up as a dummy until we find the right person?’”

Mr Booth also said that it was time for Labour to choose a woman for a leader, and named Barbara Castle, who was employment secretary under Harold Wilson, as a role model.

“I hope that, lurking somewhere in the Labour ranks, is a female politician who will emerge and speak the truth," he said.

“The one thing the Tories really don't like is a nanny. Nannies frighten them. We need somebody in the mould of Barbara Castle.”

The 83-year-old, best known for his role in the 1960s comedy Till Death Do Us Part, is said to be suffering from dementia, but was described by his interviewer, Robert Chalmers, as “more coherent than most serving MPs I have met.”

goldfinger , making a mountain out of a mole hill again

Goldfinger says he has 900 followers on Twitter and it turns out that he has 3. You could say he is prone to fantasy.

Why is that a surprise?

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-2878106/ALEX-BRUMMER-Farewell-zero-society-Ed-Miliband-s-judgements-appear-running-steam.html

Farewell to the zero society as Ed Miliband's job claims debunked

The underlying numbers, however, are greatly encouraging. The number of people in work in the last year has increased by 588,000 and 95 per cent of the jobs are full-time.

So this is not the zero economy of Miliband’s fevered imagination. It is also worth noting that the claimant count, the best forward indicator of the jobs market, fell by another 26,900 in November – a helpful precursor of the future.

What also is significant is the trend in real wages. It may be a long time before the £1,600 fall in living standards during the recession years, part of Labour’s standard rhetoric, is eliminated.

No one should lose sight of the fact that in Britain the jobless rate is half that of our eurozone partners. That partly reflects the choice of British workers to be in a job, rather than on the dole even if the pay isn’t as good as it should be.

What it is certainly not is George Orwell’s ‘Road to Wigan Pier’.

The truth is that the wage data is encouraging. Headline pay growth climbed 1.4pc in the three months to October and with inflation falling to just 1pc, it means that real wages are heading in the right direction. Over the last two months the annualised wage data climbed by 4pc.

That should be better both for households, with more spending power, and for HMRC because it conceivably might push some people into a higher tax bracket.This may all feel a little academic down the Pig & Whistle.

What is very real will be filling up the car to set off on the final round of Christmas shopping with prices at the pump rapidly descending to the £1 mark according to the RAC’s latest forecasts. That is real money in the pocket and immediately.

Zero society, forget it.

http://swintoncircle.org.uk/

So how many of you right wing low life on here are members of this shower of Sh*t then?

Oh no not me Stan, they wouldn't let a Scot be part of that elite! : -)

Congratulations on :




But employment figure are better, sorry just another tory distortion of figures.


Nearly 5 years of incompetence and destruction of the NHS and Welfare services!

The little resident garden gnome seems to have gone very quiet since Chris pointed out that he only had 3 followers on Twitter, perhaps/hopefully he has drowned in a swimming pool of Stella.

More like Babycham. No doubt he'll be back pissed. Thread Trash Alert :o)

foodbanks and food waste
the following anecdote is indicative of why so much food goes to waste for ridiculous reasons

i was in waitrose a few minutes ago to buy some ground coffee
a certain "new arrival" batch had clearly been mislabelled with a sell by date of end november 2014 - assuredly it should have been 2015 per the same brand but different country of origin sitting next door on the shelf

i handed the packets to a member of staff who told me that they were obligated (not just obliged) to throw this coffee away and could not even give it away or even donate it to the local foodbank
when asked why, i was told it was through the company's fear of being sued

assuredly the same must happen with countless tons of perfectly good and edible vegetables and even dairy produce of all kinds .... and don't forget things like tea, rice, oil etc etc

no comment on my post fred, or can you not determine how to make relevant political capital from it?
yes, we all know you can go off on a tangent to do so, and no doubt you now will

People shouldnt be in a position in a wealthy country like this where they have to live off of handouts from others.

As that never ever passed your mind, or is it a case of one rule for me another rule for the poor plebs.