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.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2888820/Labour-poll-crisis-Miliband-clashes-Election-chief-Insults-fly-Ed-labelled-indecisive-Douglas-Alexander-accused-sulking.html

Labour poll 'crisis' as Miliband clashes with his own Election chief: Insults fly with Ed labelled 'indecisive' and Douglas Alexander accused of 'sulking'

Insiders say Ed Miliband and Douglas Alexander are barely speaking
Shadow Cabinet Ministers fear fallout could rob them of victory in Election
Mr Miliband's allies accuse Mr Alexander of 'sulking' since Lucy Powell was put in charge of day-to-day campaigning in the General Election
Mr Alexander's friends say he is frustrated by Mr Miliband's indecisiveness

A growing rift between Ed Miliband and his Election chief has sparked new fears that the Labour campaign is in crisis.

Labour insiders say relations between Mr Miliband and chief strategist Douglas Alexander are so bad, they are barely on speaking terms.

Miliband's allies have accused Mr Alexander of 'sulking' after Miliband put Lucy Powell in charge of day-to-day campaigning in the Election. Alexander's friends have hit back, claiming he is 'frustrated' by Miliband's 'inability to act decisively'.

max - you're not entirely wrong, but if the company has to pay more at the base, then that increases their overheads as well as all the other bits like extra employers' NIC and holiday pay etc

what then should be done to ensure that that company can stay in business at all?

Sell it back to "Royal Mail" and raise charges or subsidise.

They are going to be bailed out by the public purse in unemployment "benefits" anyway.

Again..."You lot make me laugh, If you Right Wingers don't like it...then stop persistently voting for it."

Referendum would turn UK’s presidency of EU into a ‘farce’
MPs and Foreign Office officials alarmed over possible clash of in/out vote with Britain’s turn to lead member states

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/27/referendum-uk-presidency-eu-vote



Haze and Manuel's icon leading them into the wilderness.

Perhaps, where they belong.


Senior MPs and Foreign Office officials have raised concerns about the UK’s ability to conduct its next six-month presidency of the EU – scheduled for the second half of 2017 – because it is likely to coincide with an in/out referendum if the Tories win the next general election.

The UK is next due to take the chair of EU meetings and business from 1 July 2017 until the end of that year, with UK ministers chairing meetings and taking responsibility for forging agreements among the 28 member nations, as well as setting a British agenda during its period at the helm.

But MPs and senior mandarins believe it could prove unworkable, and that the UK might well have to apply to have the presidency shelved, because David Cameron has promised to hold an in/out referendum by the end of 2017. EU member states take turns to hold the presidency. The last time the UK held the reins was in the second half of 2005.

The Observer has learned that the issue is already causing headaches within the Foreign Office, which is in the initial stages of planning the next UK term as president, amid growing uncertainty about whether the country will even be in the EU after 2017.

A senior Foreign Office source said that, if Cameron were still prime minister and called a 2017 referendum, the ability of UK ministers to serve as neutral chairpersons of EU meetings would be in serious question. “It will be very difficult, and if the prime minister finds himself recommending a British exit it will be unworkable,” said the source.

Sir Menzies Campbell, the former Liberal Democrat leader and a member of the foreign affairs select committee, said that, if the Tories were still in power and had called a referendum, a British presidency would be chaotic. “It would not be so much a paradox as a parody, with Tory ministers in charge of the EU while trying to leave it,” he said.

Cameron has made clear in recent months that, if he cannot renegotiate the UK’s membership, including changes to the EU’s founding principle of “freedom of movement”, then he may be prepared to recommend an exit in a referendum. In the event that the Tories win the next election, a so-called “Brexit” has become more likely, after the German and French set their faces against fundamental changes to the EU treaties, including freedom of movement.

Conservative Eurosceptic Sir Bill Cash, chairman of the Commons European scrutiny committee, who wants the referendum brought forward to 2016, said: “It would be chaos. You could have some ministers in charge of EU meetings who were known to be in favour of the UK leaving and some who were in favour of staying in.”

Max,

Haze and Manuel don't have the attention span to read this article, but gives a fair assessment of the UK and consequence of right winged ideology,

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/28/rightwing-ideology-lost-britiain-war-afghanistan-and-is-destroying-state-and-country


Will Hutton

Right-of-centre ideology has lost us the war in Afghanistan and much more besides
The ignominious retreat from Afghanistan is emblematic of a wider malaise that is afflicting Britain today

----

short excerpt

"In some respects, as James Meek writes in the current London Review of Books, the whole enterprise is worse than a defeat. To be defeated, he writes, “the army and its masters must understand the nature of the conflict they are fighting. Britain never did understand, and now we would rather not think about it”. David Cameron’s assertion at the end of 2013 that the troops could come home because their mission “was accomplished” completed the political and military’s establishment’s catalogue of wholesale mis-statements, dishonesty, betrayal and refusal to acknowledge reality that characterised the whole affair. It matches the then defence secretary John Reid in 2006 declaring that the Helmand mission could be achieved without a bullet being fired. It is left to a war poet such as James Milton, who speaks to us as eloquently as the war poets of the First World War, or other ex-soldiers and ex-diplomats in their books and essays to expose the waste, delusions, third-rate thinking and grand failure of military and geopolitical strategy that led to the whole disaster.

The Ministry of Defence and the military establishment are revealed as over-optimistic boneheads. Everything militated against success. The amount of money that was squandered beggars belief. The initial assessment – asking 1,200 brave paratroopers to pacify a province that later required 30,000 Nato soldiers – was a monumental miscalculation by any standards. Too much of what was planned was driven not by military need or political calculation – but by trying to impress the US.

But the US, although much more effective than the patronising British, was, at a meta strategic level, wrong. The war against terrorism, developed by George W Bush in the hours after 9/11 with little consultation with his own military or cabinet, let alone his allies, is one of the great failures of the rightwing mind. The reflex reaction to an act of mass terror was not to outsmart, out-think and marginalise the new enemy – it was to get even by being even more violent, lawless and vicious, leading Nato into the Afghan quagmire, and the coalition in Iraq. Two trillion dollars later and hundreds of thousand dead and displaced, the world is predictably much less safe for the west than it was – and jihadism is much more entrenched."

===========-
If UK is kicked out of the EU, then USA will deal with EU direct and the UK will be the flotsam and jetsam left on the beach.

You forget Fred, it was that raving lefty loon Bomber Blair who led the charge into Afghanland and G'Daffyland.

And it took a lot of conservative rebels to defeat Cameroon's idea of a wizard wheeze caper in Syria.


As for the UK getting kicked out of the €U? Why should we be worried about that? The whole thing is going to collapse anyway.

Some reading for you Fred:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-02-231214.html

i assume a reasonable assumption that our resident red-bannerist won't like your stuff Max :-)

Max,

Follow Napoleon's banner and see where it gets you!

Read a balanced paper and not ones fit only for bad fish and chips.

If you read the article you may have a more informed opinion of thoughts about the Iraq affair and "success".

Napoleon's mind freezers over, if it the contents of an article are more than a sentence and are only half read when not in accord with his ill thought out position, or the latest Con party mantra.

Unfortunately, his brain, or the little he may have originally had, is now addled and reading time span and his concentration, from what he repeats is writes seems locked in his own meanderings.

He repeatedly states that those other than himself are stupid, or similar, but open appears to have the intelligence of a gnat and unable to concentrate for long enough to read any article to the end, which contradicts his indoctrinated previous views..

Mind some lucky "block" idiots last longer than one would expect!

I can see why his wife no longer wishes to entertain at home.



========

When are the Tory boys going to realise that the normal labour supporter doesnt mind who wins the election as long as its labour and another and perhaphs another.

WE JUST DONT WANT THE RICH BOYS IN POWER AGAIN.

GF.

Correct.

I think the majority of the UK want to see the back of this present elite cabal and hope for a more socially responsible government in its place.

By SCOTT MACNAB
Labour leader Ed Miliband has been branded an electoral 
“liability” after reports emerged that he was blocked from speaking in an eve-of-referendum rally earlier this year.


Pro-union chiefs in the Better Together Campaign in Scotland feared Mr Miliband’s presence could be detrimental to their campaign, it was claimed.

Labour last night insisted Mr Miliband played a “vital role” in the referendum campaign and was in Scotland more than any other Westminster leader.

But the reports placed fresh questions over the role Mr Miliband will play in the coming UK election campaign north of the Border, with Labour haemorrhaging support to the SNP.

It was also claimed Tories Philip Hammond and Iain Duncan Smith were banned from campaigning by members of their own campaign.

Nationalists last night seized on the reports, which also claimed Mr Miliband had a “hugely negative impact” on the campaign. SNP Glasgow Cathcart MSP James Dornan said: “These revelations prove that Ed Miliband was seen by his party as a liability during the referendum campaign – a Labour leader seen as so out of touch that he joined senior Tories Philip Hammond and Iain Duncan Smith in not being permitted to even speak to voters in Scotland.”

It was claimed that Mr 
Miliband was asked by then Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont “Why are you here? You are not winning any votes.”

Ms Lamont subsequently quit as Scottish leader after the referendum victory, accusing Mr Miliband of treating Scotland like a “branch office.” Another Labour source described Mr Miliband as a “total liability” who had a “hugely negative” impact on the referendum campaign and “didn’t win us one vote”.

But a Scottish Labour spokesman last night played down the reports. “The referendum was a decision taken in Scotland by people who live and work here,” he said. “Ed Miliband played a vital role in the campaign to keep the UK together and campaigned in Scotland more than any other UK party leader.”

A weekend poll forecast that Labour is facing heavy losses at the general election in May to the SNP, which is expected to take 45 of Scotland’s 59 seats. The collapse of Labour in Scotland would offset any gains the party makes in England and Wales and could put Downing Street beyond Mr Miliband’s reach.

Labour has slumped to 26 per cent in Westminster voting intentions, while the SNP is on track for 43 per cent, an ICM poll of 1,004 Scottish adults states. Labour’s previous hold on 41 seats could slip down to 10, while the SNP is set to increase from six seats to 45 of Scotland’s total 59 places in the Commons.

Spot on Fred.

Been up at my local Con Club quite a bit these hols had to get away from her indoors, driving me mad.

No kidding Camoron and Osbourne are detested now.

The older Tory voter now turning against them.

Say they are all going to UKIP mind, so TANKERS theory might have something to it.

TANKER,Fred,Stan and goldfinger , Labours dream team.

Hello... it's the holiday Troll.

DB4


"It was also claimed Tories Philip Hammond and Iain Duncan Smith were banned from campaigning by members of their own campaign."
>

I wonder how many times Osbourne, Cameron, IDS, Theresa and many others of the torrid party cabal will appear at the hustings outside London and SE.

I am sure there will have a welcome in the Welsh Valleys, Scotland, North East and West of England, The Midlands.

This current government has fragmented the UK economically and politically and in March this will be seen in the ballot box.

Interesting, to see the effect of "said" 3 million "new young voters" (18-24 year olds) facing up to the cost of the "charges" of "education" and broken "promises".

Also, the effects of the "LANSLEY NHS REFORMS" will be coming home to roost.

Interesting!

Just seen a poster outside a school used as a polling booth:

"Vote UKIP and get your medication here!"

There maybe a sense of realism by next March!

8-)

now that one is entertaining :-)

SCOTTISH Labour's brief period of unity has ended after the former spokesman for Jim Murphy's defeated rival accused the new leader of "abandoning truth" and "making stuff up" about Scottishness.

Stephen Low, who was the spin doctor for leadership candidate Neil Findlay, said Murphy's comments about an "ingrained" Scottish character amounted to him "buying into fantasies".

Murphy beat left-winger Findlay and Sarah Boyack MSP earlier this month to become Johann Lamont's successor as Scottish Labour leader.

Lamont had quit her post in acrimonious circumstances after blasting Westminster "dinosaurs" and accusing UK Labour of treating the Scottish party as a "branch office".

During the contest, Murphy addressed Lamont's claims by stressing his Scottishness and insisting he would take no orders from his MP colleagues.

He said he would hire Yes voters to his team and, 24 hours after winning, promised to rewrite the Scottish Labour constitution to reflect the country's perceived national identity.

Murphy explained: "We are a socialist party yes, but we recognise that our political faith grew out of something deeper which is ingrained in our Scottish character.

"It was there before our party in the ethics of Burns's poetry, the economic vision of New Lanark, the actions of the Highlanders who took on brutal landlords."

However, Low took to Facebook to criticise Murphy's comments, saying of the "ingrained" Scottishness remark: "This is fiction, not history.

"All I can suggest now is that peddling myths - either out of ignorance or calculation, will do us few favours."

He said it was not a "statement that bears any relation to either history - nor the sociology of nations", adding: "We do ourselves no favours by abandoning truth and reality nor buying into fantasies that nations have 'ingrained character'."

Low added: "Are we going to start discussing the ingrained nature of the German or Hungarian or African culture next ... The idea that the labour movement ... arose from a sense of national rather than class identity would get you a bad fail in any history class.

"Jim does, of course, have the right to say what he wants - but when he maintains things that aren't true, the party does have a duty to point these things out."

He accused Murphy of "making stuff up" and concluded with a warning: "We are making a rod for our own backs here."

The leadership contest was broadly good natured but Labour's biggest trade union affiliate, Unite, launched a personal attack against Murphy.

Union general secretary Len McCluskey said Murphy stood for "reheated Blairism", which would be a "sentence of political death for many Scottish Labour MPs" at next year's General Election.

Low was Findlay's press contact during the election and is a policy officer for another trade union, Unison.

SNP MSP Stewart Maxwell said: "The fact that there is a great deal of unease within the Labour party over the election of Jim Murphy will surprise nobody given he is an MP who backs Trident, voted for the Iraq war, campaigned with the Tories in the referendum and has a track record of voting for tuition fees.

"With a recent opinion poll showing that the SNP has actually increased our lead since the election of Jim Murphy, it is clearer than ever that it will take far more than the election of a new leader to address the fact that Labour is fundamentally out of step with people in Scotland."

Low said: "The campaign is over. These views are mine and no-one else's."

A Scottish Labour spokesperson said: "The new leadership team means it's a fresh start for Scottish Labour and Scotland. We will be working together in the new year to take our positive message of radical change all across our great nation."

The Herald Scotland