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.

"Haystack Send an email to Haystack View Haystack's profile - 20 Jan 2015 10:33 - 55345 of 55350

http://order-order.com/2015/01/19/were-healthier-wealthier-and-longer-living/

Oxfam was complaining today that some people were too rich. Truth is globally,

thanks to capitalism, we’re all getting richer."

1) Which group does "We" refer to. (Ukraine ? Nigeria? Palestine? Iraq?.)

2) Which groups in society are getting richer more quickly?

3) How are you measuring "richer", do you mean Cash, Assets, Health, "Quality" of life?

4) Is the endless drive to make a quick buck and drive GDP up beginning to become a false "measure" for measuring a modern society, although still useful for "underdeveloped" societies.?

5) Are "possessions" such as a Ferrari the measurement of success or simply another form of trinket?

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Umm.

Manuel,

Don't expect many answers

i'm just off to the gym anyway

Reading Haze's and DB3's 1/2,'s postings you can see why the tory party will be rejected in March!

Fred2old to understand anything - the brain has obviously completely gone.

Ho, Ho.

.

Manuel wrote "i'm just off".

A bit like torys' press releases!

LOL.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/11355642/Ed-Miliband-the-zoo-animal-no-one-wants-to-see.html

Ed Miliband 'the zoo animal no-one wants to see'

Voters are indifferent to Labour leader after four years, focus group respondents say Miliband 'the zoo animal no-one wants to see'

Voters are indifferent to Labour leader after four years, focus group respondents say.

If Ed Miliband were a zoo animal, visitors would “not be bothered whether you see it or not”.
That is the scathing verdict of members of a focus group that suggests that, after four years in the job, voters are at best indifferent about the Labour leader.

Voters are “puzzled” by Mr Miliband who they regard as “faffing” and “an interim leader”, according to focus groups conducted by Lord Ashcroft, the former Tory donor.

By contrast, the public have a far clearer idea of what the other main party leaders stand for.

Voters have concluded that Mr Cameron is “smart and sleek”, and liken him to a fox or a giraffe that “looks down on everybody,” Lord Ashcroft said in his most recent bulletin of polling.

They liken Mr Farage, the Ukip leader, to a “peacock or a weasel”, while Nick Clegg is regarded as a “Chihuahua in David Cameron’s handbag.”

Asked to liken him to an animal, one focus group member replied: “Certainly not a predator… one of those animals that, when you go to the zoo, you’re not bothered whether you see it or not.”

By contrast, Mr Cameron was said to show “authority” and an ability to stand on the global stage.

Lord Ashcroft said: “Perhaps the most notable feature of these groups of undecided voters was the absence of any enthusiasm for Labour – even among those who had voted for the party in 2010 – or any urgent desire for change. Nobody could recall any Labour promises, and the most positive thing anyone said about Ed Miliband was that ‘he talks sense on things like not privatising the NHS, but he’s not really on the ball, not in David Cameron’s league’.

“People could not say where he wanted to take Britain: ‘he hasn’t really made up his mind where he’s going… it’s as though he just wants to be a politician, and he’s faffing around to find some principles’ – and, ominously, ‘it feels like he’s the interim Labour leader until the next one’.”

Voters regarded Mr Miliband’s on the Conservatives with scepticism, Lord Ashcroft said. Labour have warned that Conservative plans would take public spending back to the levels of the 1930s, an era before the NHS.

Focus group members deemed the claim to be “very unlikely,” a “lie” and “completely misleading”, Lord Ashcroft said. By contrast, the Tories’ central message – “Stay on the road to a stronger economy” – was deemed to be “largely believable”, even if some voters were confused as to whether the statistics included were pledges or achievements.

The Ashcroft national poll put the Tories one point ahead of Labour, on 29 to 28. It is the first time in decades that both major parties are on below 30 per cent.

The Greens are up three points to 11 per cent, two points ahead of the Liberal Democrats. It suggests that the Conservatives’ demand that the Greens have a role in the TV debates ahead of the election may be boosting the party’s popularity.

WHOS GOT THE FITTEST BIRDS IN PARLIAMENT.

Got to be Labour


Labour MP Rushanara Ali sponsored the discussion.


Rachel Reeves


Lucianna Berger.


For the Tories


Anna Soubry


Conclusion

Labour win hands down, or is that Tits up.

Lucianna Berger is the top of them all.

Public school educated!

ooooooooops her indoors just given me right back hander. Hates me looking at other birds.

Luciana.........who cares when your poking the fire. he he.

Look out her indoors is coming for me again.

If Anna Soubry screeches and shakes here index finger at me once more I will cut it off!


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I think if there are inter-party political debates it would be sensible to have the Greens, UKIP and SNP included.

Should be interesting.

========
Haze.

Strange the animal, that people suggest to me to be representative of Cameron, is the SNAKE!

That was before his chicken came along.

Mind for you and Cameron the Ostrich comes to mind, especially after his strutting across the stage in Brussels.

It amazes me how she can pull so many faces.

55354 - i would concur that the world at large is indeed getting richer, by pretty much any standard you wish to use

at a very basic level, life expectancy is getting longer even in the most backward countries (i think)

climbing a level to the slums in south africa ...... a very large proportion of the population of these comprises of "illegals", for they perceive that that life is far better than the current

=======

a very short and rather inadequate response

This is what happens when you invent policies as you go along.

http://news.sky.com/story/1411454/ukip-and-farage-split-on-nhs-privatisation

UKIP And Farage Split On NHS Privatisation

Nigel Farage suggests private insurance should fund the NHS but his health spokeswoman says UKIP supports state funding.

Divisions at the top of UKIP have started to emerge after Nigel Farage and his health spokeswoman disagreed over the need for private health insurance to fund the NHS.
The UKIP leader said in an interview that the state-funded health service would in future need to be replaced with a private insurance model.

However, hours later he was slapped down by his own health spokeswoman Louise Bours who said Mr Farage was "entitled to his opinion" but the party had discussed and "rejected" the ideaMr Farage had said private health insurance would be a "debate" to be returned to as the health service struggles to cope with an ageing population.

In a video from 2012, which emerged last year, Mr Farage set out his ideas for health funding, saying: "I think we are going to have to move to an insurance-based system of healthcare.

Mr Farage had said private health insurance would be a "debate" to be returned to as the health service struggles to cope with an ageing population.

In a video from 2012, which emerged last year, Mr Farage set out his ideas for health funding, saying: "I think we are going to have to move to an insurance-based system of healthcare.

"Frankly, I would feel more comfortable that my money would return value if I was able to do that through the market place of an insurance company than just us trustingly giving £100 billion a year to central government and expecting them to organise the healthcare service from cradle to grave for us."

In the interview for Radio 4's Can Democracy Work? today, Mr Farage added: "There is no question that healthcare provision is going to have to be very much greater in 10 years than it is today, with an ageing population, and we're going to have to find ways to do it."

He has also said no foreigners should be allowed into the UK unless they can prove they have private health insurance to pay for medical expenses.

NHS funding has become a key battleground ahead of the General Election with the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems all pledging increases in state funding.

In parts of the country Labour has seen UKIP make inroads into its support and a move to privatising the NHS would likely prove a vote loser.

Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said a vote for UKIP was a "vote for the privatisation of the NHS".

He added: "UKIP claim to stand up for working people, but in reality they are more Tory than the Tories. Farage will never be able to distance himself from his real views. He should be honest with the public."

Ms Bours told the Huffington Post: "What people have to realise about UKIP is that we are much more democratic than other parties.

"Nigel is entitled to his opinion and others are entitled to theirs, we don't whip people into all thinking the same thing, like the establishment parties. As he has said before, he raised the idea for discussion a while ago, the party discussed it and rejected it.

"I am certain that if the party discuss it again, we will reject it again. The vast majority of UKIP members, the British public and I will always favour a state-funded NHS."

A spokesman for the party said: "The UKIP position on healthcare funding is simple. The NHS is and will remain funded through general taxation and free at the point of delivery.

"This is a position supported by Nigel Farage and Louise Bours, and has been endorsed by the NEC."

Nothing wrong with private insurance for health, works well in other countries.

Australia and France to name two.

GF,

She has her own plasticine face.

=-=-=-=-=-

Manuel,

What about "happiness" as a "quality" of life.

It seems to have dropped of Cameron's calendar.

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