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.

Perhaps cynic should start the - "I just want to talk about myself thread" since " I " seems to be his favourite word.:-)

Ive got German Blood in me Max(fathers side), blonde hair blue eyes Aryan Race, Zig Hile Zig Hile.

Well have all the Tories rounded up in ghettos after the GE win for labour. ie, socialist worker.

Diane Abbott attacks 'unscrupulous' Jim Murphy over mansion tax plan

Labour in-fighting breaks out over Mr Murphy's plan to use a mansion tax on homes mainly in the South East of England to fund 1,000 more nurses in Scotland, with Ms Abbott accusing him of trying to "expropriate" money from Londoners




By Simon Johnson, Scottish Political Editor

2:43PM GMT 06 Jan 2015

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Jim Murphy’s plan to employ 1,000 extra nurses in Scotland using the proceeds of a mansion tax in the south-east of England is “highly unscrupulous”, Diane Abbott has said as bitter Labour in-fighting over the controversial policy broke out.


Ms Abbott, the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, said the Scottish Labour leader’s proposal meant he wanted to “expropriate money from Londoners to win an election in Scotland.”


After getting Mr Murphy’s name wrong, the Labour MP then undermined the party’s mansion tax plans by predicting that the super-rich would evade it and suggesting those in the firing line are middle-class families who bought their London homes 30 years ago.


Mr Murphy, the East Renfrewshire MP, hit back by arguing it is a UK-wide levy and he would decide how the proceeds that would come to Scotland under the Barnett formula would be spent.


He said Ms Abbott’s gaffe over his name meant he could not take her views “seriously” and pointed out that the tax revenue from North Sea oil in Scottish waters was similarly spent across the UK.




Their row on BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme came after Boris Johnson accused Labour of being “vindictive” to the South East by seeking to bribe Scottish voters with the nurse pledge. He accused Labour of seeking to “milk, mug, tax and squeeze London until the pips squeak”.

Labour’s mansion tax plan would apply to homes worth more than £2 million, around 95 per cent of which Mr Murphy said are in the south-east, and is predicted to raise £1.2 billion.

The Scottish Labour leader said Scotland alone could not raise the money to fund his promise as there are fewer than 1,000 properties to which it would apply and it would only generate £15 million north of the Border.





Ms Abbott, a veteran Left-winger who hopes to run for London mayor told World at One: “I’m very surprised John (sic) Murphy is making these boasts. I support the mansion tax in principle but there are to big problems.

“It’s effectively a tax on London – 80 per cent of it will come from London –and there are problems. The super-wealthy plutocrats, who will all think should pay the mansion tax, probably using their lawyers and accountants will evade it.

“But you could be a teacher in Hackney literally who bought a house at the beginning of the ‘80s for £50,000 and it’s worth £1 million and climbing. Jim Murphy can’t surely mean he is going to expropriate money from Londoners to win an election in Scotland.”

She said many people bought homes 30 years that were in areas that were unfashionable then but are now “very worried” about the levy, before adding: “Jim Murphy isn’t helping matters.”

Ms Abbott accused the Scottish Labour leader of “jumping the gun in a highly unscrupulous way” by making the announcement before the details of how a mansion tax would be implemented had been finalised.

But Mr Murphy said: “It’s hard to take this argument seriously, I mean she didn’t even remember my name at the start of it, and I don’t have to consult Diane Abbott about what I do in the Scottish Labour Party.

“What I’m doing is arguing for and supporting the British Labour Party policy. It’s a UK-wide tax – people in houses in Scotland worth over £2 million would pay it, Northern Ireland, Wales and England.”

He said he does not have to consult Ms Abbott or Ed Miliband over how to spend the proceeds because “I’m in charge” of devolved areas such as the NHS.

“Diane Abbott should maybe concentrate on supporting the Labour Party’s policy rather forgetting my name or attacking my approach to what I do in Scotland,” he added.

Speaking from Aberdeen, Mr Murphy pointed out North Sea oil and gas has similarly generated tax revenues for the whole of the UK thanks to the “pooling and sharing of resources”.

He also rejected SNP criticisms of the plan, saying the Nationalists “can’t handle” the plan as they campaign only in Scotland whereas the mansion tax would raise money that would be shared across the UK.

If Labour wins the general election, Mr Miliband has promised to raise £2.5 billion for an NHS Time to Care Fund, which would be used to fund more health care staff in England. The money would be raised through the mansion tax, a tax on tobacco firms and a crack down on corporate tax avoidance.

But under the Barnett formula, which allocates money to Holyrood based on spending on devolved areas south of the Border, Scotland would be entitled to the £250 million, around £30 million of which Mr Murphy has said he would spend on 1,000 more nurses.

His plan also faced criticism from Labour’s other candidates for mayor, with Dame Tessa Jowell warning against treating London as a “cash cow” and David Lammy telling the Evening Standard it showed the mansion tax would mean money being “siphoned off” from the capital.

Mr Johnson added to the wave of condemnation from Tories about the plan. He told his monthly LBC Radio Show that Labour has “decided to punish the south-east, or be fiscally vindictive to the south-east of England, in order to bribe the people of Scotland.”

He added: “It is no way to run a country. I don’t think it is right that the Labour Party should be saying one thing to Scotland and a different thing to London.”

Grant Shapps, the Tory chairman, said: “Jim Murphy’s comments show once again that Ed Miliband simply does not command the respect of his party. They don’t listen to him or consult him because he is a weak leader. If Miliband can’t prevent chaos from breaking out in his own party then he clearly isn’t fit to run the country.”

A Labour spokesman said: "The overwhelming majority of funding raised from the mansion tax will be spent in England, but as with any UK-wide tax, Scotland will receive a share of the proceeds under the Barnett formula, which has cross-party support.

"It is up to the Scottish Government how to spend this revenue."

I think it's time scootland paid for it's own give-aways, and to hell with Barnet.

sticky - 54415 - i think you've strange parentage through Zig-gy Stardust and Hile-da Ogden

Anybody end up in Casualty last night.

It is nothing to do with politics!

Cyners something for you............

http://www.sharecast.com/news/london-first-time-buyers-have-to-pay-nine-times-their-annual-income/22360539.html

the headline tells it all, and i'm quite sure that is so in central london
even a simple one bedroom flat in notting hill will easily go for ~£450k

however, there are still some good value areas outside london (kent and essex for example) where the rail/road links are excellent, good schools in the area and houses at £150-250k

Was pointing at the multiple. Im sure you could only get 2.5 times you and your wifes salaries when I first entered the market. Maybe 3 at a stretch with some providers.

re-arranging the deckchairs...


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11329124/Vince-Cable-demoted-as-Nick-Clegg-reshapes-top-team-for-the-general-election.html

my memory is that it was something like 3.5 or 4x the combined salaries, but that was back in the early 70's ..... and as a comparison, my 2-bed garden flat in shepherds bush - not the most salubrious area in those days - was something like £10/12.5k

i certainly remember a freehold house in markham street - a cul-de-sac off king's road - was £41k though it needed work

It's a bit late for that Max, Summer has been and gone for the LibDems. Now is the Winter of their discontent !

By Holly Watt
12:01AM GMT 07 Jan 2015
Bank of England meeting minutes reveal officials' concerns about Gordon Brown's plans to solve banking crisis

The Labour government put the financial recovery at risk by rushing through new laws despite the Bank of England warning they were ‘ill-conceived and misguided’, newly-released documents reveal.

Minutes from meetings held by the Bank's directors at the height of the financial crisis from 2007 to 2009 have been published for the first time.

The minutes reveal tensions between the government, the Bank and the Financial Services Authority, as they battled to stop the British economy collapsing.

Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown, then Chancellor and Prime Minister, claimed credit for saving the banking system, but the minutes reveal serious concerns over Labour’s strategy at the Bank of England.

The minutes reveal particular tensions over the drafting of key pieces of legislation to stem the financial crisis. According to the notes, Bank officials believed that the proposed legislation was being hurried for political purposes.

“It was stressed that it would be important to move HM Treasury from the current timetable,” the minutes noted. “If the present formulation was taken forward, there could be damaging effects on the existing system of bank regulation.”

The minutes hint that the legislation was being rushed “in the main by the need to demonstrate that the Government was acting to address the identified problem.”

The then Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, had to tell Mr Darling that “ensuring the legislation was right was far more important than meeting an arbitrary timetable”. Bank officials also debated “at what point in the process” they would tell the government that they would not commit to “an ill-conceived and rushed legislation programme”.

The current Governor Mark Carney said that the minutes provided insight into the Banks’ actions during “this exceptional period”.

“The financial crisis was a turning point in the Bank’s history,” he said.

Andrew Tyrie, the chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, said that the Bank’s structure had not provided checks and balances during the crisis.

“On occasion individual directors did ask searching questions. But the executive tended to swat them away,” he said.

The structure of the Bank of England has since undergone major reform.

The documents also reveal that the Bank’s “Court” or oversight body met the day before Northern Rock collapsed in September 2007. However, they were not told about the impending crisis because several of the members had conflicts of interest.

They also reveal that the building society Alliance & Leicester had to be offered a £3billion lifeline by the Treasury in November 2007 before it was sold to Santander. The building society was referred to by the code word “Tiger” in confidential bank documents, which “emphasised that there needed to be considerable secrecy about this facility”. Queues formed outside Northern Rock when plans for similar measures leaked.

bit late to make political capital from that, except by inference

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2899844/Yes-NHS-creaking-Labour-s-cynical-hypocrisy-truly-sickening-writes-IAN-BIRRELL.html

By Steven Swinford, and Bruno Waterfield
12:00AM GMT 07 Jan 2015
Angela Merkel will not meet Ed Miliband ahead of tense talks with David Cameron over EU reforms

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, did not ask to meet Ed Miliband during her visit to Britain, the Foreign Office has said.

Mr Miliband, the labour leader, complained that he had not been told about the visit and was said by aides to be "irritated" by the oversight.

However, the Foreign Office said that Mrs Merkel did not request to see Mr Miliband during her six hour visit to Britain on Wednesday. It was also pointed out that details of Mrs Merkel's visit appeared in newspapers 10 days ago.

Mrs Merkel's decision will be interpreted by some as a snub to Mr Miliband, who has been accused of failing to project himself on the international stage.

Mr Cameron will use the meeting at Downing Street to push for further reforms of Britain's relationship with Europe ahead of a planned referendum in 2017.

However, Mrs Merkel is expected to say that major treaty change will be a "no go" despite Mr Cameron's warning that he is prepared to take Britain out of Europe if he cannot secure sufficient reforms.

She will instead say that any restrictions on migrants and access to welfare must be within the bounds of existing European Union laws.

In a joint statement ahead of the meeting, Mr Cameron and Mrs Merkel said that the European Union "must do more" to become "more stable and competitive" than it is today.

However, one of Mrs Merkel's most senior allies told The Daily Telegraph that Mr Cameron is being "held prisoner" by his own party over the EU referendum.

Elmar Brok, a senior German MEP from Mrs Merkel's Christian Democrat Union party, said: "I am not quite sure whether this referendum is for a better Europe or an instrument in an election campaign.

"Is it about dealing with the shortcomings of the EU, which exist to be sure, or is it part of a domestic election campaign where Mr Cameron is held prisoner by his internal party debate?"

Mrs Merkel will arrive this afternoon and visit the British Museum with Mr Cameron, where they will see an exhibition on German history. They will then hold talks at Downing Street before hosting a joint press conference.

As well as reform of the European Union, they will hold discussions on improving economic security, defusing the crisis in Ukraine, climate change and the lessons that can be learned from Ebola.

In a joint statement they said: "We meet to discuss key issues to advance our common agenda, in particular with regard to the German G7 presidency. As partners with growing economies, we must work with our European neighbours, G7 partners and others to secure the global recovery and to ensure that we come out of the financial crisis stronger than we were at the start.

“Our aim is to increase economic growth and create prosperity for our citizens and this will be the focus of our discussions today. In the G7, we will jointly address global issues including climate protection and lessons learnt from the Ebola crisis as well as other health issues.

“At the same time, we must do more to make the EU more stable and competitive than it is today. We have both taken steps at home to consolidate our public finances and it is important that we continue to pursue this long-term plan.

"We must do more to harness the potential of the single market and reduce regulation that is hampering business. We must also dismantle further barriers to trade, in particular by agreeing an EU-US trade deal in 2015, which was launched at the UK’s G8 summit in Lough Erne.”

A Labour spokesman said: “The Foreign Office usually contacts the Leader of the Opposition's office in advance of visits from heads of government and state. Unfortunately on this occasion they failed to do so.

“Ed Miliband recently raised Labour's agenda for European reform with Chancellor Merkel in a private meeting when she came to Britain to address Parliament, and has done so on other occasions in meetings with the German Foreign Minister & other party leaders.

“We will let Chancellor Merkel explain to David Cameron how damaging it is for Britain to be dragged closer to the EU exit door by the Conservatives' actions.”​

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We always inform the Leader of the Opposition on formal State visits. For other visits by senior foreign leaders, like Chancellor Merkel’s this week, we inform the Leader of the Opposition in those cases where the visitor has asked to meet the leader of the opposition."

Iain Duncan Smith MP ‏@IDS_MP 2 minutes ago
If you’re concerned about the NHS crisis affecting your health simply use BUPA instead.

Without a flu outbreak, are any of these hospitals near you/


Hospitals currently most affected
The Royal Stoke University Hospital
The County Hospital, Stafford
Gloucestershire Royal Hospital
Cheltenham General Hospital
Ashford and St Peter's Hospitals
Walsall Manor Hospital
Peterborough City Hospital
Croydon University Hospital
Addenbrooke's Hospital
line break
In a letter to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said there had been a "failure" to anticipate the situation.

=======


They were warned!!!!!!!

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/01/07/voters-expect-conservative-victory/

What does it mean if Labour leads in the polls and yet voters expect them to lose?

In spite of the current consensus among professional pollsters that Labour will have the most seats after the next election, a YouGov poll conducted for Red Box reveals that the public still believes the Conservatives will end up the winners. Among Conservative voters, the proportion who believe their party will win is 72 to 7, among Labour voters it is 57 to 15, while both Lib Dems and Ukip supporters (by margins of 54 to 5 and 36 to 10 respectively) believe that the Conservatives will end up ahead.