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 can't actually quote the ST in full online anyway unless you pay for the priviledge !

stan - perhaps you'ld like to pop round to your library and read the article for yourself, for i'm sure they'll have a copy ... you'll then be able to give a balanced view

Murdoch is a very clever businessman, but the lefties don't like that sort of thing

55862 continued ...... go to http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/National/article1511215.ece
where you can read the opening paras for free, though there was a great deal more than that

Don't be soppy Alf it's a Murdoch propaganda rag much like the rest of his titles.

Murdoch is nothing more then a right wing propagandist among other things.

New evidence ‘clears’ Brittan over MP’s paedophile dossier

False assertions of a cover-up in Westminster blighted the former home secretary’s last months, writes James Gillespie

EVIDENCE has emerged that Leon Brittan, the former home secretary, who died of cancer last week, was unjustly accused of covering up child sex-abuse allegations.

Geoffrey Dickens, the MP who submitted the allegations to Brittan, praised him for “splendid support” and thanked the Home Office for its work in combating paedophilia, the evidence shows.

Brittan’s final months were overshadowed by the claims of some MPs and campaigners that Dickens handed in a “dossier” of high-ranking Westminster figures who were involved in child sex abuse while Brittan was home secretary and that the documents were “lost” as part of a cover-up.

An examination of a report by Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC, into the Home Office’s handling of the matter, as well as two internal inquiries conducted by an HMRC investigator and Dickens's speeches in the Commons, paints a different picture of what happened .......

==============

read the article in full and then you can comment from knowledge

It's a bent publication like most of the others that Murdoch owns.

Roussos snuffs it... and Beverley is distrught about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvx6CUOHo9Q

stop blithering stan :-)

Haze, I could imagine you being a blood brother of Murdoch's, especially on values.

======

I haven't a clue whether Brittan was culpable of any crime relating to the lost dossier, although from another favourite paper of the neo-cons:

Leon Brittan is quizzed over teen rape claim: Ex-Home Secretary accused of attacking student in his flat
Former Home Secretary questioned by police over claims he raped student
Assault alleged to have taken place at Brittan's central London flat in 1967
Brittan - who would have been in his late 20s - said to strongly deny claim


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2681909/Leon-Brittan-quizzed-teen-rape-claim-Ex-Home-Secretary-accused-attacking-student-flat.html#ixzz3Px3rMSCm
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook



My suspicions suggest to me that Maggie may have suppressed the dossier and that investigations were "prevented".

=-=--=-

Whether there were crimes committed,or not, the case, as it has been brought into the light, should be investigated, whether Brittan was a Conservative, or deceased.

Also, if there is evidence of "crime", then all those involved should be exposed, and that applies to whatever party they belonged to.
========

DB Your indignation reads as hollow to me.

The Labour Party has a new hero: Alexis Tsipras
Those who want Ed Miliband to move left are addicted to false comparisons with whichever foreign socialist is temporarily in the headlines that week


Dan Hodges By Dan Hodges3:32PM GMT 26 Jan 2015
Forget about letting Ed be Ed. This morning the Left has a new battle cry: let Ed be Alexis.
Alexis Tsipras is the new socialist prime minister of Greece. Or at least, that’s his day job. His real function is to act as the newly appointed chairman of the Association Of People Who Think Labour Needs To Be Very Left Wing If They Want To Win In May.
It’s an honorary position, and prime minister Tsipras will have no executive powers. Which is just as well, because, if history is any guide, it will prove to be a rather short-lived appointment.
A number of prominent individuals have held the role, not least Ed Miliband himself. You’ll recall that when he was first elected, the Left anointed Ed as one of their own. Quite literally, in fact, seeing as it was the votes of the trade unions that swung the Labour leadership election in his favour. You’ll also remember that for quite a long period - especially during those heady days when Labour had a relatively significant poll lead - Ed was the Left’s standard bearer. He was setting the agenda, and breaking the political mould, and proving it was possible to turn a progressive back on new Labour, and construct a popular and radical left-wing consensus.
But Labour’s poll lead has gradually melted away, and the Tories have now been installed as favourites to win the next election, so you don’t hear many people on the Left saying that any more. Though to be fair, the Left can be a bit fickle.


Just ask François Hollande. He was L’homme. Yes, a touch academic. A bit geeky. But he’d won an election on an anti-austerity, high-tax, soak-the-rich manifesto - and as a result was that week’s future of socialism.
Ed Miliband’s aides scurried around briefing “if Francois can, we can”. Miliband himself described Hollande’s election as representing “a significant moment” on both sides of the Channel. “What does the Left have to prove across Europe and indeed in Britain? That we are the people who can work well in the tough times as well as in the easier times. That’s what he is trying to show in France, and that is what we are trying to show here”.
Again, we don’t seem to hear talk like that any more. Perhaps that because prior to the Paris attacks - which have momentarily and understandably distorted the political picture in France - Hollande was posting personal approval ratings that would have shamed Marie Antoinette, and desperately trying to ditch an economic program that had brought his country to the brink of fiscal Armageddon.
Everywhere you look, the Left’s heroes have been recast as false prophets. By the Left themselves. Barack Obama appeared untouchable, until he developed a fascination with drones, and committed the unforgivable sin of getting on the wrong side of Glenn Greenwald. Even Ed Miliband’s team have been forced to throw their West Wing DVDs out with the trash after Obama penned a joint article with David Cameron praising UK and US economic stewardship.
Democratic mayor Bill de Blasio was another US politician who was appropriated by Team Ed, following his victory in the New York mayoral election. He was invited to be the keynote overseas speaker at last year’s Labour conference, and senior Miliband aide Stewart Wood penned an article for this paper in which he explained – perhaps a little hopefully – how, “the overlaps between de Blasio’s campaign and the themes being developed by Labour under Ed Miliband have struck many an observer”. According to Wood, De Blasio “arrives in office with a unique coalition across a City too often known for its divisions rather than its unity, with a mandate for change and for bringing his City together to succeed in a very different way”. That’s the same Bill de Blasio who has recently managed to unite his city’s police force against him in an unprecedented show of public contempt. I suspect between now and polling day the “overlaps” between him and Miliband will be played down.
So Alexis Tsipras is in good company. And soon, when his grand experiment goes the same way of all of Greece’s other recent grand experiments, he will leave that company, and the Left will anoint a new champion.
To be fair, this is not just a product of fickleness, nor the Left’s inherent love of a betrayal narrative. Part of the problem is our current sense of national insecurity forces us to draw false parallels. Because everything currently has to been seen through the prism of “what will this mean for us”, we see patterns that don’t exist. François Hollande tells us as much about what Ed Miliband and a Labour government would mean for Britain as Margaret Thatcher’s election in 1979 told us about what François Mitterrand’s victory in 1981 presaged for France: nothing.
Another problem is that the Left are still unable to get their head round the fact that the electors of he world’s great democracies were not obliged to react to the crisis of 2008 in the way the Left wanted them to. For every Syriza there is a CDU. For every Alexis Tsipras there is an Angela Merkel. For every voter who thinks, “enough! I want radical change, and I want it now!” there is a voter who says: “These are dangerous times. We need a steady and measured hand on the tiller."
In fact, if anything, for every voter who thinks the former there are currently two who think the latter. For all the post-crash wishful thinking, the pendulum of history is not swinging leftward. It’s not just the Labour party but progressives globally who are still struggling to work out what to do in an age when there’s no more money to spend. They’ll find an answer eventually, and then the pendulum will swing back, as it always does. But in the meantime, Alexis Tsipras should be left to be Alexis Tsipras.

Labour trust falls after Better Together Tory pact


NEARLY a third of Scots say they are less likely to support Labour following the party’s involvement with the Conservatives in the Better Together campaign, a new opinion poll has found.

The Survation poll of more than 1,000 Scots, commissioned by the SNP, showed that 31 per cent of people are now less likely to trust Labour due to its role in the No campaign.

There were 14 per cent who said they are now more likely to be sympathetic to Labour following its Better Together role, with fifty per cent stating that it made no difference.

The poll found that 44 per cent of respondents in Glasgow said they are now less likely to trust Labour, compared to just 16 per cent who said they have more trust.

Nationalist leaders said the findings showed Labour was set to suffer major losses in May’s General Election.

SNP Depute Leader Stewart Hosie said: “Labour are fatally wounded by their Tory alliance, and have clearly lost trust.

“This poll shows the trust problem that Labour now have in Scotland. In the General Election, the one party that can be trusted to stand up for Scotland is the SNP.”

Dan Hodges isn't holding out much hope for Alexis Tsipras in the land of €l Greco.

Well, I suppose history is on Hodges side on that one, but surely he cant be any worse than the crew that went before?

Nicola Sturgeon: SNP a ‘progressive force’ in UK


by DAVID MADDOX
Updated on the
26 January
2015
06:43
Published 25/01/2015 12:42
Print this
comments
Have your say!

THE SNP can be a “progressive force” in UK politics as part of a multi-party alliance in Westminster as well as being a “loud voice” for Scotland, according to leader Nicola Sturgeon.

The First Minister appeared to put her desire for Scottish independence on hold and made her immediate priority working with Labour, the Greens and Welsh Nationalists Plaid Cyrmu to reshape politics across the UK and end austerity.

She restated that scrapping the Trident nuclear deterrent is “an absolute priority” but also made it clear her party intends to vote on more English-only matters other than health including taxation to make sure the UK is more progressive. Ms Sturgeon dismissed suggestions that Scotland could declare independence without a referendum.

“The only way for Scotland to become independent is for a majority of people in Scotland to vote for independence in a referendum – that is the route to independence,” she said.

“Do I think that will happen? Yes I do.

“I can’t sit here right now and tell you exactly when that will happen.

“It will happen when there is a demand in Scotland for a referendum.”


Ms Sturgeon also extended the principle of Scottish votes for English laws at Westminster on issues that don’t affect Scotland after 
her party’s U-turn on health last week. “I think there is a very, very strong case for English votes for English laws but, if you take health for example, we know that because of the Barnett Formula that decisions on the English health service impact on the budget of the English health service and 
that has a direct knock-on effect for Scotland’s budget,” she said.

“That is why it would be perfectly legitimate, in those circumstances, for SNP MPs to vote on matters like that.”

She went on: “But I would also want to see SNP MPs being a constructive and progressive force in the House of Commons looking to make alliances for progressive politics where we can, working with parties like Plaid Cymru and the Green Party to be a progressive force.”




Trident is one of those big questions that need a big party to deal with. That's why the SNP views are irrelevant. They are a small party in a smallcountry. A gob in tights!(and that's just john swinney).

Max.

In 10 years time Greece will still be in the E.U.

When I looked (glanced) at ECB's QE I noticed that Mario Draghi seems to have the ability to aim, or direct the money to buying up assets, which were not specified.

Allowing him and colleagues to direct the funds where needed.

(It should have been done 3 years ago and I will be interested in seeing German economic figures in 2-3 months time.)

I am wondering if one of the reasons for the pressure to get Mario Draghi to make the announcement before the Greek Election, was to allow him flexibility in ongoing negotiations with the NEW GREEK GOVERNMENT.

=============

But I am guessing and the above may bunkum.

======

Interesting to watch the market to-day, didn't wobble as much I thought it would, but DOW seems down at the moment!

I jumped out of share bets within the first five minutes of the open, and have slight regrets, but think I will stay out for the rest of the week, until the after effects of Greek election is more apparent. (I have asked my wife ties my hands down.)

she'll relish the chance of giving you a good flogging for all the grief you've given her over the years

Greece's previous government was doing fine. They are in surplus before repayments on loans. That is a huge improvement compared to when they came in.

Fred, you're probably right on the €l Greco situation, but somehow the debt will be cut.


Haystack, what are you drinking?

"They are in surplus before repayments on loans"


What did you think the problem was in the first place?

My wife tells me that she loves me.

Mind she used to say that to the dog.

The only thing I notice is that she beats me harder than she ever did the dog.

Must be trying to tell me something.

Have to think about it!