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.

PS, How much an hour does he get paid as a tennis coach?

I thought today's 'Comment' in the Telegraph was an interesting take on yesterday's very aggressive spat between Miliband and Cameron over the Despatch Box at PM's QT.

From: HERE

Demonised by Labour simply for being wealthy
Ed Miliband's attack on Lord Fink is a depressing development


Ed Miliband, above left, has been accused of making 'untrue and defamatory' remarks about Lord Fink

By Telegraph View; 6:30AM GMT; 12 Feb 2015
Comments 347 (as I type)

To the Labour Party, “banker” is a four-letter word. At Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, David Cameron was pummelled with question after question concerning his relationship with Lord Green, the former executive chairman of HSBC, whom he appointed as a trade minister. Never mind that Lord Green is an ordained priest in the Church of England, whose imprimatur Labour eagerly sought in the days before it decided that rabble-rousing populism was a substitute for an economic policy. The goal was clearly to tar and feather the Tories as the friends of the wealthy. Ed Miliband even went so far as to accuse Lord Fink, the treasurer of the Conservative Party, of “tax avoidance”.

Unfortunately for the Labour Party leader, this was not something that Lord Fink was prepared to take lying down. He challenged Mr Miliband to repeat his claims without the protection of parliamentary privilege – given that what Labour calls “tax avoidance”, others might call “having worked in Switzerland”. Mr Miliband has let it be known that he will do so today, if asked.

It is difficult to know what is most lamentable about this episode. First, there is the Labour Party’s naked hostility to enterprise and job creation – its attempt to stir up popular feeling against business and businessmen. Then there is the slapdash way in which Lord Fink was accused. It mirrors Mr Miliband’s insistence that Stefano Pessina, the head of Boots, “should be paying his taxes” rather than voicing the concerns of many within the financial community about Labour’s threadbare economic prospectus.

In this instance, he ignored the fact that Mr Pessina was born in Italy and lives in Monaco – making HMRC’s claim on his assets a tenuous one to say the least.

Lord Fink, as it happens, is a grocer’s son and grammar-school boy who, by brains alone, built up Man Group into one of the world’s largest financial institutions – and whose philanthropic works include giving a third of his income to charity, sponsoring schools and supporting a children’s hospital. On any metric, he has done more good for the world, from a less advantageous starting point, than Mr Miliband – yet it is the Labour leader who postures and preens and lays claim to the moral high ground.

The danger here is that people are being demonised simply because they are rich and successful – that wealth creation is being labelled something to envy rather than aspire to. If Mr Miliband is privy to details of Lord Fink’s tax arrangements that are nakedly incriminating, then let him produce them. Otherwise, he should apologise forthwith for a lapse of judgment that ill befits a would-be prime minister.
...............

One of the 347 'comments' makes a very credible point about Tax Avoidance not being illegal. This includes the avoidance of Death Duty.

It goes on to suggest that both Miliband and most of the rest of his Shadow Cabinet will be doing the same. Namely practising tax avoidance by minimising Death Duty.

Can I be cheeky and ask how many of you are on the same situation?
or don't you feel sorry for * Jade *? crocodile tears


Ex IMF chief Strauss-Kahn tells court his sexual behavior should not be on trial

Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who is facing trial for "aggravated pimping" in the northern French city of Lille, has reportedly
admitted that he had "an appetite for rough sex" but told the court that his sexual activities should not be on trial.

Kahn lost his temper on the second day of his testimony in the Lille "pimping" trial and argued that he was being prosecuted for being
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, reported The Independent.

Declaring that he had "enough of all this," he said that while everyone had the right to have an opinion on hi sexual behavior in private
but it had nothing to do with this case.

Earlier, a former prostitute testified at the trial of Dominique Strauss-Kahn that she attended "classy" lunchtime sex parties at apartments in Lille.

The woman nicknamed Jade burst into tears several times as she told the court how she had been forced into prostitution to support
her two young children after her divorce.

She alleged that Rene Kojfer, a former public relations manager for the Carlton, and Dominique Alderweireld, a Belgian brothel owner
known as Dodo the Pimp, had made the arrangements for her to attend lunchtime sex parties, the report said.

She recalled one of the parties that also involved Strauss-Khan and described how it was more of "carnage with a heap of mattresses on the floor."

In another testimony, one of Strauss-Kahn's mistresses claimed that the ex-IMF chief had offered her a brand new pair of designer
boots worth 900 pounds and promised to teach her sex games if she agreed to attend orgies.

In 2011, Strauss-Kahn was arrested on charges of assaulting a maid at the Sofitel in New York, which went on to significantly
affect his high-flying career.

The 65-year-old faces up to a decade in prison and a 1m pounds plus fine in a case already shining light on some of the seediest
corners of French public life, the report added.

there's plenty of anecdotal evidence that points to a significant % girls being "on the game" to support drug habits and/or being in pretty dire financial straits

i suspect that those at the upper end are much more calculating and can see a way of making an awful of money in a very short time

there was court case a few years back that rather highlighted this

I don't suppose that a significant % of boys were pimping to support drug habits ?

he was being prosecuted for being Dominique Strauss-Kahn

why not indeed?
almost certainly the case, though for some reason one does not think so readily of rent boys

Fink seems to have backed off.

I wonder why?

I wonder who else is in the net.

PMQs on the 25th should be interesting!

they both have, though i concede that EM had the better of this childish exchange

fink set up trusts for with wife and children in switzerland, though he may well have been working there (resident?) at the time
assuredly nothing remotely "dodgy" in so doing, as certainly EM effectively admitted

=========

this senior officer of HSBC being made a peer and more is more more stinky
prima facie evidence indicates he should be in the dock, not the house of lords
at the very least, it was gross incompetence by the powers that be that no one seemed to "notice" that he was heavily involved in this HSBC "aggressive avoidance" scheme, even if it was just about legal

I think he is finking again!

I would have thought Dodgy Dave knew of the lords CV or past record but as usual he preferred to continue on his arrogant way, probably ignoring advice.

I wonder who is else is under Con's ermine.

Manuel you must admit the tories picked a "winner" for their Captain.

Why?

Lib Dems sink to worst poll rating for 25 years

A poll puts Nick Clegg's party on just 6 per cent of the vote, significantly damaging Lib Dem hopes of having enough seats to form a coalition after the election



By Peter Dominiczak, Political Editor

2:25PM GMT 12 Feb 2015




Nick Clegg has been dealt a major pre-election blow after a poll found that the Liberal Democrats have sunk to their lowest support in 25 years.


An Ipsos MORI poll for the Evening Standard put the Lib Dems on just 6 per cent of the vote, behind both the Green Party and the UK Independence Party.


The Lib Dems have not had such a poor poll rating since 1990, when the party was still new.


The survey puts the Lib Dems behind the combined support for the Scottish and Welsh nationalists, two parties who do not run national campaigns.


Some senior Lib Dems are predicting that the party faces humiliation in the general election.



More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11408701/Lib-Dems-sink-to-worst-poll-rating-for-25-years.html

are hmrc now going to investigate fink if they do not then they should resign
I am going to e mail hmrc and request an investigation and they should act

MrT - you're being even more daft than usual .... setting up the trust in switzerland wasn't remotely questionable or "aggressive avoidance" in any way at all

Before one goes into to heavy!

Where's Dodgy Dave?

fred - harking back to one of your faves ......
today is the anniversary of the firebombing of dresden

Yes.

In Bomber Harris's seat and period, what would you have done?

Good question.

Manuel,

You like the South of France.

If you drive back or down there have a look look at Oradour-sur-Glane near Limoges.

(A beautiful part of France if you follow the rivers.)

The old town is a war memorial to the retreat of the Germans from that area.




I took my grandson there on the way down to the Dordogne, he was impressed.

It brought home to me the stupidity of war!

http://www.oradour.info/

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

There are some nice little restaurants in the new attached town.

56551 - quite so, and the victors always write history

Oradour - i know the story; another great one on the barbarity of man