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.

You gotta love DC if for nothing else than, only he can pull an expression that says it all over a live TV debate... Captions Please!! LOL

He looks as if he needs a laxative!

I think he's just eaten a laxative by the look on his boat.

Dozy snuffs it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-30811311

EMPTY CHAIR Camoron.............with a tub of lard.

They should do it. Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband should push ahead with their threat to “empty chair” David Cameron in a series of general election television debates. And they should see where it gets them.


The debate about the debates is getting ridiculous now. There was some good sport to be had by the Prime Minister’s opponents over his ill-judged decision to pretend he’d developed a burning sense of injustice towards the Greens and the failure to grant them major party status. But talk about overplaying your hand.


Let’s think this one through for a second, because Miliband and Clegg clearly haven’t. What if the broadcasters call Cameron’s bluff?


Say they find a legal loophole and decide, “Screw it. We’ll take the hit to the viewing figures and we’ll have a debate without the Prime Minister”. At that point, Clegg and Miliband are boxed in.


First there’d be a lot of hoo-ha about Cameron being frit, and then attention would switch to Natalie Bennett. A debate is now happening. Miliband and Clegg have talked big about not running scared. Are they really going to exclude the only female leader?

Yep. They are. So Natalie Bennett cries foul, and pops up on Today and in the Guardian waxing lyrical about how this shows Westminster is still an all male club and for all their warm words, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg are only too happy to act as its doormen.

And then the debates happen. And onto the stage stride Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister, Ed Miliband, Leader of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition and Nigel Farage, hail fellow, well met. Miliband and Clegg’s credentials as political insurgents are destroyed before a question is even asked.

The debate begins. Nick Clegg knows his only chance of surviving the election is to peel away some of the Lib Dem support that has defected to Labour. So he tears into Miliband from the Left. Miliband, because he knows his only chance of surviving the election is to somehow cement his 35 per cent strategy, knows he dare not be outflanked on the Left. So rather than duck the punch and position himself in the centre, he has to fight fire with fire, and pitch himself as a pound shop Karl Marx.

At which point the leader of the people’s army comes piling in. Nigel Farage knows he’s already squeezed as many votes as he can out of the Tories. So as Ed Miliband stands their proudly waving the red flag, Farage barrels into him from the right. Immigration. Welfare. The oppressed white van men of Kent. Farage is hitting all the classic Blue Labour notes and because there’s no David Cameron to distract him, he’s free to play them in the right order.

Then the debate ends, and the polling lines light up. Moments later, we have the result. Nigel Farage wins. He always wins. Nick Clegg is humiliated, again. Ed Miliband is humiliated, again.

The next morning breaks bright and warm. The nation has seen Clegg and Miliband – two bald metropolitan, liberals – fighting each other to a standstill over the same intellectual comb. Farage is already on his first pint, and basking in the acclaim. And then we see David Cameron, shirt sleeves rolled up, strolling up a Yorkshire high street, easily glad handing the passers-by.

Did he see the debate? No, he was too busy reading the kids a bedtime story. Does he regret not taking part? No, he much prefers being out here, away from the TV studios, meeting ordinary voters, taking his arguments into the country. Undermining democracy? He breaks away for a moment to tell war veteran Charlie Sprigott, 87, not to worry, his winter fuel allowance will be safe under the Tories. Undermining democracy? This is democracy.

Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband need to be careful what they wish for. Or rather, they need to careful what David Cameron wishes for. The big winner from a debate that empty chairs the Prime Minister would be the Prime Minister. Nick Clegg doesn’t need to look into the crystal ball to see what happens when he debates Nigel Farage, he can simply read the opinion polls. And if Ed Miliband intends to submit himself to the Ukip leader's tender mercies, Labour MPs in northern and southern marginals may as well start writing their concession speeches now. Without Cameron to act as a lightning rod, Miliband and Clegg will get electrocuted.

So if Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband want to taunt the Prime Minister, they should by all means continue to do so. But they should also watch out. Because if they keep threatening to have a three-way debate with Nigel Farage, someone might make the mistake of believing they really mean it.

Telegraph

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30809224



"Nigel Farage: PM 'does not want to debate EU'
3 hours ago
The Labour, Lib Dem and UKIP leaders say they will ask broadcasters to press ahead with general election TV debates even if David Cameron refuses to take part.
Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage have written to Mr Cameron saying it would be "unacceptable" for the prime minister to refuse to appear.
Mr Cameron has said he will take part only if the Green Party is included.
Speaking to Radio 4's Today programme, Nigel Farage said that the TV debates should go ahead with or without the prime minister.
The UKIP leader also suggested that Mr Cameron had done badly in the 2010 election debates, and did not want to go head-to-head with him on the issues of Europe and immigration.">Nigel Farage: PM 'does not want to debate EU'
3 hours ago
The Labour, Lib Dem and UKIP leaders say they will ask broadcasters to press ahead with general election TV debates even if David Cameron refuses to take part.
Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage have written to Mr Cameron saying it would be "unacceptable" for the prime minister to refuse to appear.
Mr Cameron has said he will take part only if the Green Party is included.
Speaking to Radio 4's Today programme, Nigel Farage said that the TV debates should go ahead with or without the prime minister.
The UKIP leader also suggested that Mr Cameron had done badly in the 2010 election debates, and did not want to go head-to-head with him on the issues of Europe and immigration.

Brad Pitt is set to team up with Christian Bale and Ryan Gosling for the movie adaptation of a Michael Lewis credit crunch novel.

The three Hollywood actors are in talks to star in 'The Big Short', based on bestselling book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, about the Noughties credit and housing bubbles that resulted in the global financial crisis.

So that's nice.

More HERE (but not a lot more)

55016 - they already have some padding, for else one is likely to be reclassified as brontesorarse cynicus

wrong thread

More lazy/incompetent Policing: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-30820349

Anybody on here watch Tip TV , very interesting today

It just gets better, and better, and better.

Excellent!

In a Twitter message, Mr Farage told his rival: "The more, the merrier! @almurray".

And a spokesman for UKIP added: "At last, serious competition in the constituency."

Garage must be pissed off. The very least it will split the UKIP vote.

He might well be at that, btw, by what date you have to register as a candidate?

Not sure.

1.1 To become nominated as a candidate at a UK Parliamentary general election in Great Britain, you need to submit a completed set of nomination papers to the place fixed by the (Acting) Returning Officerby 4pm on the 19th working day before the poll (by 4pm on 9 April 2015).

Thanks Haystack.


So, there is plenty of time for someone to register as the "New Conservative" candidate.


Muddy the water a little more.