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.

Poll tracker...clock the date


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11374181/General-Election-2015-latest-poll-tracker.html

Chilcot has made a mockery of the serious job he was given

Sir John Chilcot couldn't even finish his opening statement to the select committee in a timely fashion



By Dan Hodges

2:47PM GMT 04 Feb 2015

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/11389827/Chilcot-has-made-a-mockery-of-the-serious-job-he-was-given.html


Sir John Chilcot has just finished giving evidence before the Foreign Affairs select committee on his ongoing report into Iraq. It was a farce.


This man, so the accusations go, is taking so long over his inquiry that it’s starting to look like all the key participants in the decision to go to war will be dead before its published. Well, his opening statement began with the announcement that one of his committee members, the historian Sir Martin Gilbert, had indeed died.


He then began to explain why a report that had been scheduled to last a year, had not been completed after six. And he explained. And he explained some more. He would probably be explaining still if the committee chairman, Sir Richard Ottaway, hadn’t stepped in politely to ask him to conclude. Not only is he unable to publish his report on time, he can’t even complete an opening statement on time.


Things went downhill from there. Was the reason for the delay obstruction on the part of government? No, it wasn’t. Was the reason obstruction on the part of witnesses? No. Was the reason obstruction on the part of foreign governments? No.


The select committee tried to dig a little deeper. There were reports that the Maxwellisation process - whereby witnesses facing criticism are given the opportunity to respond to that criticism - was a major reason for the delay. Could he tell the committee how many people formed part of that process? No, he couldn’t. Could he confirm a report that one witness had been sent hundreds of pages of criticism? No, sorry, he couldn’t do that either. What he could say, though, was that the people facing criticism were all people who had appeared as witnesses at the inquiry. That revelation will have come as a relief to John, my local butcher - he’s been worried sick about whether the Chilcot report was going to criticise him.


The committee started to look slightly frustrated. Chilcot attempted to reassure them, by pledging he would try and avoid slipping into civil-service Mandarinese. Was the process of declassification of documents still ongoing, he was asked? No, he responded. Well, maybe a bit. Actually, this is how he would characterise it. There was “a tale of classification”.

He was asked if the evidence base, upon which the report’s conclusions would rest, was now broadly finalised. Yes, he said, essentially it was. So could that not be published? No. Sorry. It couldn’t. Because to publish the evidence without Chilcot and his committee providing the appropriate “context” would be unfair. People would be able to take the evidence and draw any old conclusion they liked. From the evidence.


For me, the most telling moment was when he explained how he had been unaware - when he took up the chairmanship - just how complex the inquiry would be. It had taken them off into all sorts of unexpected avenues, he said. This, remember, is an inquiry into the greatest single foreign policy blunder this country has made since the conclusion of Second World War. 100,000 dead. A region destabilised. Global consequences that we are feeling today, and will continue to feel for generations to come. Did he really think it was all going to roll out neatly in front of him, like an A level history primer?

If the chair of the inquiry into the war in Iraq was unprepared for the scope and scale of that inquiry, then by definition, he was the wrong man to chair it. But we knew that anyway.

Chilcot had one job. It wasn’t to produce a definitive report into Iraq. None is possible. It wasn’t to change perceptions of that war. Perceptions are locked in stone. It was to produce a report that at least demonstrated that the decisions taken in the run up to that catastrophic war would finally be the subject of open and transparent public scrutiny. And he’s failed. He’s failed because his inquiry is now tainted by the same suspicions of cover-up, politically motivated obfuscation and self-interested evasion as all the other Iraq inquiries.

Sir John claimed he didn’t want it to look he was “scamping the work”. Six years on, there is little danger of that.

i wonder what's happened to Hays?
he hasn't posted since 1st i think, so hope he isn't poorly

.

I am hopeful about Haze!

8-)

good morning fred .... i see you have DTs again this morning
i dropped a note to Hays a day or so back, but haven't heard from him

Holiday I expect.

Stan,

I hope he makes it a long one.

Or, even better they have locked him in the cloak cupboard and Party Central Office and forgotten about him.

========-=-=-=

Manuel,

Actually been more or less dry for about 6 weeks.

Double posting is B nuisance.

I think it it due to delay in uploading posting and my impatience and repeat keying.

It is irritating though.

======

have a stiff drink to calm you down then :-)

I see that the morning tv perves have been on about bondage and such.....what tremendous standards that dirty perverted TV rabble set....

must be something to do with the "50 shades of grey" effect

it's amusing that what some consider perversion others will consider just good fun
is it not perversion only when one of the partners does not enjoy it and/or it is carried out in public and offends passers-by or similar?

No.

Outcomes have to be consider!

.

Somebody is making me nervousssssssssss!

which two outcomes have to be considered pray?

Start reading :

'
when you have finished it you will understand!

i might if it had been in english!

but more seriously .... some would regard anything other than missionary position intercourse as perverted and that includes masturbation ...... would you?

Some may.

exactly so, and that is because one or other of the partners (or both) find it repugnant or perverted if you wish to use that word

Max.

you missed this and what the voters think of Cameron,

Cameron's Recent Lies

FIB 1 Labour manifesto backed the sell off of the Royal Mail.

Speaking on April 2, 2014, the PM said the Labour manifesto in the 2010 general election pledged to sell off the Royal Mail.

“It was in his manifesto. It was a commitment of the last government,” he taunted Ed Miliband.

In fact the manifesto said: “The Royal Mail and its staff are taking welcome and needed steps to modernise work practices. For the future, continuing modernisation and investment will be needed by the Royal Mail in the public sector.”

FIB 2 His government would spend more on flood defences.

On February 26, 2014, Mr Cameron claimed at Prime Minister’s questions that spending on flood defences between 2011 and 2015 would be higher than in the previous four years under Labour.

In fact flood defence spending was £2.37billion between 2007 and 2011, according to House of Commons library figures.

Between 2011 and 2015 it will be £2.34billion – a £247million cut in real terms.

FIB 3 All disabled people are exempt from bedroom tax.

In December 2013, at PMs questions, Mr Cameron said: “Obviously, what we have done is to exempt disabled people who need an extra room.”

The bosses of 18 charities subsequently wrote to Mr Cameron to complain. “Far from being exempt or protected, day after day we are seeing the evidence that disabled people and their families are among the hardest hit by this policy.”

The etter was signed by Carers UK, the RNIB, Mencap, Disability Rights UK, Leonard Cheshire Disability, Rethink Mental Illness and others.

FIB 4 NHS spending going up.

In November 2013, Mr Cameron claimed the government was increasing NHS spending. He said: “We rejected Labour. We invested in our NHS. We are proud of our NHS.”

The UK Statistics watchdog said the claims were misleading and should be withdrawn.

In a letter to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, the watchdog said Treasury data suggested real-terms health spending was lower in 2011/12 than in 2009/10.

FIB 5 Hospital waiting times are down.

On February 8, 2012, the PM claimed waiting times were down.

But the Department of Health figures at the time showed an increase of 43% in patients who waited more than 18 weeks and a 217% increase in people waiting more than a year for treatment.

FIB 6 Government is increasing university funding.

Mr Cameron said on March 30, 2011, that “because of the system we’re introducing we will actually be spending more overall on universities, that’s right”.

In fact, the Spending Review set out a 40% cut in the overall resource budget for higher education by 2014-15.

FIB 7 We’re spending more on school pupils.

The PM said on March 9, 2011, that “the per-pupil funding that is in place is not going down and is being maintained”.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies rising pupil numbers mean that average spending per pupil will fall in real terms by 0.6% per year, or by 2.15% over four years.

FIB 8 We’re not cutting the Winter Fuel Payment.

On September 7, 2011, Mr Cameron claimed the Government was “going ahead with the winter fuel payment set out by the previous Labour government in their Budget”.

In fact, Labour never had the opportunity to set a Budget for 2011/12.

George Osborne’s March 2011 Budget indicated that the winter fuel payment would revert to £200 for the over 60s and £300 for the over 80s in the winter of 2011-12 – a cut of £50 and £100 respectively.

FIB 9 The number of kids in workless homes doubled under Labour.

On January 25, 2012, Cameron spoke of “the real shame… that there are so many millions of children who live in households where nobody works and indeed that number doubled under the previous government”.

In fact, according to the Office for National Statistics, the number of children living in workless households fell by 372,000 between April-June 1997 and April-June 2010.

FIB 10 Child poverty went up under Labour.

The PM said on September 7, 2011, that “in better economic times, under the previous government, child poverty actually went up”.

In fact, according to the latest Department for Work and Pensions figures, Labour lifted 900,000 children out of relative poverty and 2 million children out of absolute poverty between 1998/99 and 2009/10.



Basically many of the voters think the PM Cameron is a liar.