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.

No matter how much Blair tries to wriggle, he clearly said the following,

"Ed Miliband will lose general election under 'left-wing' Labour, warns Tony Blair".

It has been widely reported by numerous newspapers and other media.

The interesting part is his view that it is the 'left-wing' that the public don't want. This is the same mistake that Foot, Kinnock and others have made. The UK wants parties of the middle ground. It has been a long time since socialism had any appeal; probably not since a brief period in the 1950s.

The US are now going to export oil!

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/dec/31/oil-price-dips-further-us-opens-crude-exports

How it all started





And how it ended up

what ho sticks! ...... really enjoyable golf this afternoon + ace dinner - cracking piece of beef - accompanied by yorkshire pud and savoy cabbage and some truly delicious old burgundy
and forgot to mention the "yippee" day on the dow :-)

Happy New Year




City Link administrators send out redundancy notices

Delivery company’s 2,356 employees told of fate at 4.30pm on New Year’s Eve



Rupert Neate and Sarah Butler


The Guardian, Wednesday 31 December 2014 19.08 GMT


http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/dec/31/city-link-administrators-redundancy-notices

so closed most shorts with a VERY juicy profit to finish 2014 but left a smallish short position running :-)

Anyway...happy new year all....oh great cheers all...
what's on the menu ?
.....Soupe de poiscaille degoulinante
.....Filet mignon avec squawk bitch
.....Fromage plateau du golan
.....Muller corner hors date unfinished from Christmas...
.....Wine is chateau Chinon Chirac
delicious...yummy...

what's on tv....?..isn't this the one evening when the ones you don't see the rest of the year appear ?
Angus Steak or whatever he's called, Mandy hold on... and such....dear...
I'll put a dvd on I.i think...
now where'z zat red vino..?
buenos noches allz...

How to pour champagne like a professional:

This is not 'How to do an F1 race win celebration'. It's the absolute opposite!

Champagne is expensive and so, as a drink it is to be respected. Doing the following will show the onlookers how you are 'not a champagne novice and quite used to doing it and dealing with it'.

1. Do notice how the sommelier (wine steward) holds the BASE of the bottle and not the neck!
2. Do notice how he doesn't bother unwrapping the foil from around the cork. But he does release the wire which holds the cork into the bottle. Do watch what happens to the foil after the bottle has actually opened. The foil wasn't any kind of a problem was it?
3. Do notice how he twists the bottle and not the cork so as to get maximum twisting leverage whilst at the same time safely holding the cork and hopefully preventing it from exploding right out of the bottle and hitting someone in the eye.
The idea is to get the cork to make a fairly unwasteful and pathetic 'popphh' noise (rather than a really loud 'POP'. Remember it is an extremely expensive drink and we do not want to waste it - and it is not a 'Formula 1 celebration')
4. Notice how he tilts the glass whilst pouring so as to avoid the champagne foaming up and right out of the glass

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/12/29/coffin-found-on-mars_n_6389284.html

Best in a magnum !...(P.I.)

Best just supping from the bottle, must admit I am a pleb though.

Did you notice El, that any engineer would do it the same way?


Anyway, get it down your throats!

Happy New Year to all.

Happy new year all. :-))

"Happy and Prosperous New Year to All!"

Labour elite thinks Northerners are stupid, MP complains
Ian Lavery attacks lack of working class MPs and 'frightening elite', during debate on Labour Party


Sadly in your case GF he has a point LOL!!!!!!


By Matthew Holehouse, Political Correspondent3:23PM GMT 31 Dec 2014
Ed Miliband's inner circle think people with northern accents are stupid, a Labour MP has claimed.
In a discussion of the Labour Party’s fortunes, Ian Lavery said he was “frightened” by a ruling “elite” in Westminster that has never held a manual job and looks down on working class people.
It came as Labour MPs embarked on fresh infighting over the direction of the party, after Tony Blair, its most electorally successful leader, warned Mr Miliband is leading it to defeat.
Mr Lavery, the MP for Wansbeck in Northumberland, is a former president of the National Union of Mineworkers, taking part in the 1984-85 strike. He was elected in 2010.
The remarks were made during a fringe event at a conference organised by CLASS, a left-wing think tank funded by the trade unions. He was speaking during a discussion on Labour’s welfare policy, in which he said the Labour Party is “in the wrong place” on the issue


He said the elite in Westminster have not “done anything” in their lives, and think people with northern accents do not “really know too much”.
He also warned there is a dearth of ethnic minority and disabled MPs.
“I’ve got to say there are some superb MPs, Labour party MPs. Sadly there’s not enough MPs who’ve actually worked on the coalface, on the factory floor.
“We haven’t got enough ethnic minorities, we haven’t got enough disabled people in, who have actually been there. We’ve got an elite in, we’ve got an elite in Westminster which quite frankly frightens me. They haven’t been anywhere or done anything, and when you’ve got an accent like mine they think well that man doesn’t really know too much.”


In a statement today, Mr Lavery said: "My comments were about the need for more working-class MPs and in no way a criticism of Ed or his office.
"For the record, I believe Ed Miliband is absolutely the right man to bring in policies that will be of great benefit to people in the North and across the country."


Mr Blair insisted that his apparent warning of a Labour defeat had been “misinterpreted”, and he has confidence in Mr Miliband.
The former Prime Minister had told the Economist magazine that May’s general election risks becomes one in which a “traditional left-wing party competes with a traditional right-wing party, with the traditional result”.
Asked by the Economist magazine if he meant that the Conservatives would win the general election in those circumstances, Mr Blair replied: “Yes, that is what happens.”
David Lammy, the MP for Tottenham and a likely contender for the London mayoralty, urged colleagues to listen to Mr Blair “very seriously indeed”.
He said Labour must be the party of aspiration and enterprise, and “not give the impression that we are solely focused on the public sector.”
He added: "I don't think that anyone should underestimate a leader of the Labour Party that won three consecutive elections and fought hard to make Labour electable again after 18 years in opposition.”



But Mr Blair was slapped down as yesterday’s man by Lucy Powell, one of Mr Miliband’s closest shadow cabinet allies.
"Tony Blair, he has his experience and his knowledge from his era as leader of the Labour Party and that is not the era that we now live in,” she said.
Paul Kenny, the general secretary GMB union, a major Labour donor, said: “Tony Blair is now a very wealthy person sitting on top of the pile and is disconnected from the lives of ordinary people.”
Mr Blair said in a Tweet: “My remarks have been mis-interpreted, I fully support Ed and my party and expect a Labour victory in the election."
Charlie Whelan, a former press aide to Gordon Brown, responded: “Don’t be surprised if no-one believes you.”

The country is on course for a brighter future
Over the past five years we have gone a long way to restoring our fortunes, but letting Labour into power risks throwing it all away



By David Cameron11:00AM GMT 01 Jan 2015Comments54 Comments
2015 is a big year for Britain – the year we decide whether to stick to the long-term plan that is turning our country around, or to squander the progress we have made.
Cast your mind back just five years. The year 2010 dawned to an increasing sense of anxiety across the UK. We were on the brink of bankruptcy.
Investors around the world wondered whether Britain was a safe bet any more. One warned that the UK economy was a “must to avoid” – dangerously close to the edge. In businesses there was panic about shrinking order books.
In homes families talked about repossession, and parents wondered whether things would get worse and worse for their children.
It all added up not just to an economic crisis but an identity crisis – as in the Seventies, people were wondering if Britain would ever be truly great again. That was just five years ago. On May 11, 2010 we came into office determined to clear up the mess and set Britain back on her feet.


We set in place a long-term economic plan. We asked for the patience, sacrifice and hard work of the British people to see this plan through – and together we have been turning our country around.
We took our country out of the mire of the Great Recession and in 2014 turned it into the fastest-growing economy of all the major advanced nations. We have made real progress on reducing our deficit – cutting it in half. Together we have turned the doom-mongering on job losses and unemployment on its head, transforming this country into the jobs factory of Europe.
For every day we have been in government, an average of 1,000 new jobs have been created. This long-term economic plan is making a real, tangible difference to people’s lives.


Today there are one million more children learning in good or outstanding schools – with their parents walking away from the school gates knowing they are getting a great start in life.
There are record numbers of apprentices learning a trade; two million started in this Parliament. Our Help to Buy scheme has helped to get over 71,000 people into homes of their own – the vast majority of them first-time buyers. Thanks to major tax cuts, over 24 million people are keeping more of their hard-earned money.



For those who have worked hard for decades, we are making profound changes, increasing the State Pension by £800 so far – and allowing people to pass on their pension to their loved ones tax-free.
So this plan is not just fixing the economy – we are changing the values of our country. As Prime Minister I want Britain to be a country where effort is rewarded: where those who put in, get out; where if you put the hours in, you keep more of your own money; where if you’re willing to save, you can buy a home of your own; where those retiring can have dignity and security in old age. Put simply, I want Britain to be a country that everyone is truly proud to call home – and after almost five years, we are getting there.


All this is at stake in the general election in May. The backdrop to this election is stark. The global economy is still struggling, with the eurozone teetering on the brink of a possible third recession, emerging markets slowing down and global trade talks stalling.
Against this uncertainty, the stakes for May’s election are raised even higher. It is not just the next five years people will be voting on, but the direction that we take as a country for the coming decades.
This is a critical moment for Britain’s future – and the choice is clear: between the competence of sticking with our long-term plan, or the chaos of the alternative.


Labour have no plan beyond more spending, more borrowing and more debt. Ed Miliband revealed recently that Labour would never clear the overall budget deficit. He would run a deficit – permanently adding to debt – indefinitely. That would leave us dangerously exposed should any further shocks hit our economy, like they did in 2008.
What’s more, because they refuse to make difficult decisions on spending, a Labour government would raise the spectre of higher taxes on every family and business in Britain. The money for their profligacy and incompetence would have to come from somewhere – and it would come from you. After all the hard work of the past five years, a Labour Government would suck Britain back into the chaos of debt, uncertainty and instability.



As for Ukip, all they can deliver is Ed Miliband into Downing Street.
A vote for Ukip is a vote to prop up a failing Labour government – a government that would refuse to give people a referendum on Europe and that would take us back to the days of open-door immigration, an out-of-control welfare budget and a something-for-nothing society.



In contrast to this chaos, the Conservatives offer the competence of a plan that is working. With a second term in government, we can go so much further. We have committed to cutting the taxes of hardworking people – by the end of the next Parliament, no one would pay the 40p tax rate until they were earning £50,000; and no one would pay income tax at all until they are earning £12,500.
We would fund three million more apprenticeships and build 100,000 starter homes especially for young first-time buyers.
Labour’s Human Rights Act would be scrapped – and an in-out referendum on Europe delivered. And we would carry on with the job that we have started: creating more jobs; helping more children get a decent education; giving more young people the opportunity to get on in life; giving more families peace of mind about the future.
So this is the clear choice before the British people: between the competence that has got us this far, or the chaos of giving it up, going backwards and taking huge risks.
I say our national New Year’s resolution for 2015 must be to stick to the plan, stay on course to prosperity, and keep securing a better future for our children and grandchildren.

Bla...bla...bla....don't rock the boat...make sure the super rich get richer....and hush people up....this country is just like Spain in the days of Franco....you can go there...live there...enjoy lovely holidays...but step out of line and wham !....they come down on you hard...

Another gestapo poster ?

Prime Minister Ed McMiliband? It's pure fantasy
Salmond and Sturgeon are not floating the idea of a deal with Miliband to help Labour. They’re floating it because they want to destroy Labour


By Dan Hodges12:21PM GMT 31 Dec 2014 Comments1116 Comments
So the narrative shifts. Again. As 2014 draws to a close, the bookmakers have now officially installed David Cameron as favourite to be prime minister after the general election in May.
Tony Blair agrees with them. We are facing an election where a “traditional Left-wing party competes with a traditional Right-wing party, with the traditional result,” he told The Economist. Yesterday, the Spectator’s political panel dispensed its wisdom for 2015. Not a single columnist could foresee Ed Miliband in Downing Street.
The narrative will shift again. Narratives do that. A couple of opinion polls showing Labour in the lead and the punters will punt in a different direction. The conventionally wise will again begin pointing to the Ukip insurgency, and the Ashcroft marginal polling and the boundaries.
But as things stand it is the Conservative Party’s election to lose. Which of itself represents a pretty amazing transformation from where we were this time last year, never mind New Year’s Eve 2012.
As a result, where the Labour Party once expected to enter 2015 reaching for power, it is instead desperately clutching at straws. Or rather, it is desperately clutching at Nicola Sturgeon.


Over the last couple of weeks the SNP have suddenly – and rather bizarrely – emerged as Ed Miliband’s new, last hope. Ask any Labour MP, and all thoughts of a Labour majority have gone. Hopes of a pact with the Liberal Democrats are also fading. “The party and the unions wouldn’t wear it,” one Labour frontbencher told me.
So a new scenario is being openly discussed. One involving Prime Minister McMiliband.
The door to a possible deal between Labour and he SNP was first opened – tentatively – by Alex Salmond a couple of weeks ago, when he announced he would be prepared to “listen to other counsel” on the issue of voting on English legislation to prop up a future Labour government. His comments followed a speech by his successor, in which Sturgeon told her party "Scotland could well hold the balance of power in a Westminster parliament with no overall majority. If that happens, I promise our country this. You won't need to have voted Labour to keep the Tories out, because that's what we'll do.”



The idea of a “Nat Pact” has become the talk of Westminster. The odds on Sturgeon entering the cabinet have been slashed to 6-1. Labour’s dire poll ratings in Scotland suddenly don’t seem so dire after all, presaging possible seat transfer within an informal Labour-SNP coalition, rather than an outright loss.
Unfortunately, it’s also a fantasy. The Labour-SNP pact is not going to happen.



Salmond and Sturgeon are not floating the idea of a deal with Miliband to help Labour. They’re floating it because they want to destroy Labour. By hinting they would prop up a Labour government they are hoping to remove the final obstacle to an SNP landslide. “Vote SNP, and you can have the best of both worlds,” they are saying. “You will give Scotland maximum negotiating leverage in the event of a hung parliament, but you also have an insurance policy against a Tory government.”
It’s clever politics. But it’s also ruthless politics. Or, Scottish politics.



Those speculating about a Labour/SNP deal do not understand the basic psychology of how politics operates north of the border. It isn’t business, it’s personal. Scottish Labour politicians hate the SNP far more than they hate the Conservative Party, and the feeling is reciprocated.



Any political deal has to built on some sort of basic foundation of trust. No such foundation exists between the Scottish leadership of the Labour Party and the SNP leadership. Jim Murphy would hurl himself from the battlements of Edinburgh Castle before even countenancing such a deal.
Another issue is that, from the SNP’s perspective, the 2015 general election does not represent the main event. Yes, Sturgeon sees a huge opportunity to redraw the Scottish political map next year, and in so doing keeping the flame of independence burning. But she will not do anything to jeopardise her party’s chances of maintaining power after the Scottish parliamentary elections which follow in 2016. To win those elections she needs to maintain clear yellow and black water between herself and Labour, and she has no intention of becoming Scotland’s Nick Clegg.


And then there is the price Sturgeon would extract for handing Miliband the keys to Downing Street. Before Parliament rose for Christmas recess, Sturgeon set out her demands. In fact, it was primarily one demand. No renewal of Trident.
“For me [Trident] would be pretty fundamental. I make no bones about this,” she said. “In principle I am opposed to nuclear weapons but renewing Trident is also economic lunacy at a time when we’re facing the scale of public sector cuts.”



The SNP have already – very publicly – set out their main red line for supporting Labour. And it’s a red line Ed Miliband cannot cross. Labour’s leader cannot even kick the issue into the long grass. Even Miliband – fond though he is of his flights of student political fancy – isn’t going to put Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent up for grabs before he’s even accepted the prime ministerial seals of office.
So as a new dawn breaks, it may indeed break upon a year where the bookies are proven wrong. A year where Blair’s famously accurate political antennae fail him. A year where we commentators predicting a Cameron election victory end up with egg on our faces.
But one thing is certain. If Ed Miliband is going to prove his doubters wrong, he will have to do so without the help of Nicola Sturgeon.