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.

Well, if the did I would suppose I would like a blood less revolution!

Well, if the did I would suppose I would like a blood less revolution!

Ed Miliband’s wind of change is all puffed out

The Labour leader has neither the personality nor the policies to take the Tories down in 2015




By Dan Hodges

7:47PM GMT 26 Dec 2014

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Can you sense it? It’s in the air. Britain is on the brink of change. A new year, a fresh beginning. The old order is about to be swept away. The electricity of renewal. Can you feel it?


No. Of course you can’t. Because it isn’t there.


The year 2015 promises an election. Another of those moments when, for all the spin and sophistry, we will face a relatively simple choice: to continue along the road we’re on. Or turn off on to the path less travelled. Indeed, a path none of us has travelled before.


If you believe the pundits and the polls, we are torn. Labour and the Tories currently each command the support of a third of voters. The support of the final third is fluid. Ukip, the Greens, the Lib Dems – remember them? They swirl in and out of the electorate’s consciousness, clouding minds, confusing the issue. It is, everyone confidently predicts, the election no one can predict.


Perhaps. But for a moment, let’s set aside the polling graphs. Let’s ignore the vagaries of the constituency boundaries, and the thrusts and counter-thrusts of the parties that fight over them. Instead let’s ask ourselves: are we really 132 days from a great leap into the unknown? On the cusp of a new dawn? Something reminiscent of Obama in 2008; or New Labour in 1997?




I’m not entirely sure I can remember exactly what change then felt like. But one thing I do know. It didn’t feel like this.

On Christmas Eve, the three main party leaders issued their festive messages. David Cameron’s and Nick Clegg’s were traditional – if rather bland – evoking the spirit of the season, and “Christian values”. Ed Miliband’s, as even the Guardian acknowledged, was “more politically partisan”. It concluded with the following appeal: “Our country faces a choice next year. Let’s choose generosity and inclusion.”

I didn’t detect partisanship behind those words, so much as a sense of desperation. “OK, I may not have convinced you,” he seemed to be saying. “But please, don’t just think of yourselves. Think of those people who really, really need me in Number 10.”

In a couple of days, we’ll get the leaders’ traditional New Year’s missives, and they will be chock full of freshness, and newness and the repetitive mantra of change. But change isn’t coming. Or if it is coming, it’s arriving by stealth. And for those trying to divine the result of the next election, that represents a significant narrative omission. For the most basic job of an opposition leader is to build a consensus around change. First, you construct a desire for change. Next, you layer on top a sense that change is inevitable. And finally, you present yourself and your party as the agents of that change.

On all three counts, Mr Miliband has failed. He could have opted to attack the Coalition for the botched way they were implementing the politics of austerity. Instead, he chose to try to make the case austerity wasn’t necessary at all. And the British people – rightly – didn’t believe him.

Moreover, his agenda consistently proved incapable of passing the most basic of credibility tests. Take, for example, the famous pledge to freeze energy prices. People said they liked his the policy. But they also said they didn’t believe Mr Miliband would be able to deliver it for them. All too often, Labour’s offer has not seemed aspirational, but fantastical. And if something is seen as fantastical, then by definition, it will rarely be seen as inevitable.

These combined failures have meant Mr Miliband has never been able to adopt the “change” mantle. In Scotland, it has been ceded to the SNP; in England, to Nigel Farage’s People’s Army; and latterly, Natalie Bennett’s Green maquis. As a result of which, Mr Miliband has become neither the change candidate, nor the continuity candidate. He is Labour’s nowhere man, sitting in his nowhere land, making all his nowhere plans for nobody.

Every year for the past five years, a couple of days before his conference speech, I’ve rung Mr Cameron’s communications team for a read-out on the main themes. Every year, I’ve received the same message. Delivery. Continuity. Delivery. Continuity.

Five years ago, Tory strategists bet the farm on 2015 being a “safe pair of hands” election. Mr Miliband and his team bet the farm on it being a “change” election. That election may well now hang in the balance. But from the vantage point of December 2014, it is the Conservatives who look like winning their bet.

Over the past few weeks, Labour has come to recognise this. That is why we have seen the attempt – via their hyperbolic “Back to the Thirties” line – to present the Tories, with their proposed public service cuts, as reckless gamblers, while Labour offers stability and maintenance of the status quo.

It’s worth a try, but I suspect it’s come too late. Mr Miliband has spent too long embracing the politics of the student union for him to take up residence in the Master’s study.

Plus, real political change requires a confluence of circumstance. The stars behind each man – or, in one notable case, woman – who wants to achieve it, must come into alignment with genuine popular support for his or her political agenda. And at the moment, Labour appear to have neither the personality or the policies.

The year may be ending. But change is not in the air. Because of that, I suspect the 2015 election won’t be as close as many people think

Well said c ... Haystack needs to do some research

Perhaps this site will give some insight: If he can be bothered to read it.

http://www.indeed.co.uk/cmp/Yodel/reviews?jt=Seasonal+driver+-+Temporary+%28Horndean%29

C & M

I agree entirely that the self employed status of couriers is a bad arrangement for the couriers. However, the old system meant a salary and packages to be delivered if time permitted. I have been buying goods online for years and used to use couriers in businesses several times every day. The switch to self employed status has speeded up deliveries due to a price per item for the courier. They work longer hours and do more deliveries in a day. The courier companies charge less and promise faster delivery. EBay and Amazon have lots of items with free delivery. It is all driven by market forces.

I know it is not a good arrangement but what is the solution.

You already well know H/S. so stop playing the Mr. innocent.

It would be interesting to know what your solution would be. The reason Interlink gave for folding was the extreme competitiveness of the business.

Topline figures for today’s two polls are:

Opinium/Observer – CON 29%(nc), LAB 36%(+2), LDEM 6%(nc), UKIP 16%(-3), GRN 5% (tabs)

YouGov/Sunday Times – CON 32%, LAB 34%, LDEM 6%, UKIP 15%, GRN 8% (tabs)

Old polls with people away for Xmas. It will take a while for them to settle down. Don't forget the Ipsos More poll showing Conservatives in the lead.

Labour and the SNP IF the Tories were the biggest party would vote against everything they proposed.

They couldnt get anything through.

It would be pointless them trying to govern.

Sorry Hays one way or another ITS THE END FOR THE TORIES Happy New Year.

Ipsos Mori

CON 32 (nc); LAB 29 (nc); LIB DEM 9 (nc); UKIP 13 (-1); GREEN 9 (+2)

Labour p!us SNP is no bigger than now. The split just changes. Conservatives plus Libs may well be bigger.

No chance and your using an out of date poll.

The Greens would go with labour aswel given the U Turn Camoron as made on green policy.

courier drivers
a good and efficient courier driver is worth a fortune to his employer, as is true of any employee
if drivers are paid reasonably and are treated fairly, then they will stay ...... the perpetual churning of the very people who make the business work at all is a hidden disaster
regrettably, few employers manage to recognise this simple fact as the benefit cannot be easily identified by the dumbo accountants who tend to run the companies

cancelled surgery
what a terrifying report in today's ST

while it is certainly true that a myriad of people wrongly refer themselves to A&E - eg they have a headache or a (minor) cut finger - i'ld hazard that good proportion would previously have gone to their local cottage hospital or similar, which of course have now been wiped out .... but then there is a severe shortage of staff to man them

that said, the son a friend of ours had to be rushed to hospital in the last few days
the bureaucracy now imposed started off that he had to make an appointment(!!!!) though he had severe breathing difficulties
having got round that problem, there were then reams of paperwork to be filled out out

by chance, a nurse was passing by ..... she took one look and said, "i know exactly what the matter is", gave a steroid injection or some pills with an instruction for them to wait around for about an hour to ensure it had done the job

it had, so end of story in double-quick time

i wonder how long the wait would have been had it been deemed imperative that all the paperwork had to be completed before even being allowed to queue for the next stage

Anything to do with Lansley's "reforms" and the money wasted on them?

Four and half years wasted!

typical fred takes the bait of the easy political call, which has only an element of truth in it

the malaise of the NHS goes back many many years and in honesty, is not the fault of any particular gov't, nor even (just) a lack of funding by all those gov'ts

i really can't be bothered to set out even a small table of whys and wherefores as i have no wish or intent of spending my day(s) knocking back fred's undoubted blathering thereafter .... he can bore his poor family instead