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.

Manuel,

Every time I look at Gaza and Israel and M.E. I think of :

"Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?"

Strange some of the lyrics of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez mean for me now than they meant in the 60s.

that's the least of my concerns ..... for once, i am appalled by the humanitarian aspect, the piracy issue coming second

Max,

Is Farage and the Kippers reneging on its immigration policies in face of reality?

Here to-day, gone to-morrow comes to mind.

Sounds like herrings being smoked!

of course farage is backing off

suddenly he can't just bluster but has to come up with policies and at least a plausible explanation as to how he'll implement same
for sure the interrogators will gun for him, and rightly so
however, farage is a smart chap - even if his acolytes aren't - so it'll be interesting to see what he can get away with to avoid being shown as just as much a charlatan as all the other political leaders

=========

what does a smoking herring sound like?

Sizzling!

At too high a temperature!

8-)

Would you trust this man?

The face of modern toadyism!

Bring back GF.

He would have enjoyed to-day's Dodgy Dave's bluster at PMQs.

He really is a disaster!

Would you trust this lady? (She's my local Tory MP)



independent.co.uk

Andrea Leadsom: 'I was a little stern, but he paid up and we’ve recovered £1.3bn'
Right, says Andrea Leadsom, let’s get straight to the point: “I want the taxpayer to know four things about what we are doing to restore trust in banking.
by Margareta Pagano March 4, 2015

First, the £134bn they spent in rescuing the banks is being repaid. Second, bankers are being disciplined. Thirdly, bankers can never get away with such appalling behaviour again and, finally, we are restoring confidence and improving banking for all consumers.”

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury goes further: “I understand and get completely how angry people are about the banking crisis and its crucial we – the Government – explain what is being done to restore trust in banking.”

Ms Leadsom pauses for breath – she doesn’t have much time – to say that if the Treasury were to receive all loan payments in full and the Government were to sell shares at their current values in RBS and Lloyds, there would be an overall cash surplus of around £8bn.

She brings out her notes, and reels off the numbers. “So far we have recovered £53bn from all the different loan and asset protection schemes that were put in place. This includes £36bn in repayments and capital loans, and £7.2bn in interest fees as well as repayments from Icelandic banks, Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley Building Society.”

And if you add in the value of shares in RBS, where the Government, through the UK Financial Investments (UKFI) body, owns 80 per cent, as well as the 24 per cent in Lloyds, which is being dribbled out for sale, then you get to the surplus, she declares.

It may have taken Ms Leadsom longer than she hoped to get to a position of control over getting back taxpayer money, but she has made it the priority of her new banking brief. But it’s also a frustrating one. “While I love what I’m doing, it’s tough when you can’t get things done as quickly as you want or hope.”

The room chosen for our meeting at Westminster’s Portcullis House has the slightly sweaty feel of a sixth-form classroom, and the 51-year-old MP for South Northamptonshire makes the perfect headmistress. By all accounts, a bolshie one. Not just with the banks but overseas politicians too.

She recounts the story of how, last autumn, she met Iceland’s Finance Minister, Bjarni Benediktsson, to persuade him to hurry up and pay back the couple of billion pounds that the UK spent on helping bail out one of the country’s banks.

“It was a friendly drink and chat. He was charming and agreed the money would be paid back,” she says. Then a couple of days later a well-known Icelandic blogger wrote that Bjarni Ben, as the dashing minister is known at home, had been looking forward to a “collegial meeting” with the economics secretary. Instead, the blogger reported, what he got “was an almighty dressing down from the fearsome Leadsom. There are even rumours that she was waving around a legal writ.”

A Leadsom handbagging, then? “No,” she laughs. “I was a little stern but I didn’t think I had been that hard. But he paid up and we’ve now recovered £1.36bn from the Landsbanki estate in Iceland, which operated as Icesave in the UK. We’re now in talks about getting the last £700m.”

Thank goodness the minister – now to be known as Fearsome Leadsom – hasn’t lost her touch or gone too native since being promoted to the Treasury team in last year’s reshuffle. She has a reputation to uphold: one of the most highly rated MPs of the 2010 intake, she first made the spotlight with her forensic questioning of Barclays’ Bob Diamond during the Treasury Select Committee’s probing of the financial crash, suggesting he lived in a parallel universe to the rest of us.

Rare among MPs, she knew the subject matter better than most, as a former Barclays banker, although even she admitted the committee had been “useless” in getting Diamond to come clean. While her questioning impressed her peers, less politically cute was her demand to George Osborne that he apologise to Ed Balls for falsely accusing him of involvement in the Libor-fixing scandal.

Making matters worse, she was reported to have told Mr Osborne to “fuck off” after he asked her to vote against an in/out EU referendum in 2011. She has always denied this. Her version is that they agreed to differ and that she would never speak to a colleague using such language.

Knowing her a little, I believe her. Equally, there’s no smoke without fire and it always seemed odd that someone so knowledgeable had spent so long in political Siberia without promotion. Luckily, Mr Osborne appears to have born no grudges.

On top of retrieving the bailout cash, she wants us to know that serious disciplinary action, and criminal investigations, are being pursued against those who have misbehaved. “It’s essential that the public knows that action is being taken against bankers whose behaviour was appalling. Many senior bankers have quietly either lost their jobs, or had bonuses taken away from them after internal inquiries.” The Serious Fraud Office is also investigating multiple cases of misconduct.

More pertinently, Ms Leadsom says they won’t get away with such misconduct again. The introduction of the Senior Managers and Certification Regime by the new Bank of England regulator, the Prudential Regulation Authority, should make sure that bankers will be legally accountable for their behaviour, with strict criminal sanctions for reckless behaviour or failure, she says.

“This means that regulators will have such sharp teeth that if people either transgress or are complicit, then they will go to prison. That means a jail sentence and never working in finance again.”

More banks will also mean healthier banking. “The PRA now has a new competition objective which will make it easier for new banks to be launched – there are 25 new licences in the pipeline – and should improve services of the existing high street banks.”

Once a champion of breaking up the banks into smaller pieces, Ms Leadsom has also led the drive for a new payments regulator which will make it far easier for new banks to operate and for bank account switching.

On the subject of the latest HSBC tax avoidance fracas, Ms Leadsom is more careful: “David Cameron has done more than any other prime minister to crack down on tax avoidance and evasion. Essentially, the Government has done superbly well in reducing tax rates and at the same time making sure people and businesses pay them.”

And what about the accusations last year – in this newspaper – that her office was funded with £70,000 that came from family members, paid out of companies run offshore. Although the payments were within the rules for political donations, they were criticised because of the Treasury’s stated aim of preventing tax avoidance by channelling money through offshore firms. At the time a spokesman for Ms Leadsom said the “donations are made by UK companies, employing hundreds of UK staff and generating UK profits – they are fully transparent and properly declared”.

There is nothing more to add, she says. With that, Leadsom is off: she is running late for a meeting with James Leigh-Pemberton, the UKFI chairman. Hopefully not to deliver a handbagging.

NO!


“David Cameron has done more than any other prime minister to crack down on tax avoidance and evasion. Essentially, the Government has done superbly well in reducing tax rates and at the same time making sure people and businesses pay them.”



Could we have a look at his full accounts?

.

Good for her EL at least the Tories are recovering monies owed to the taxpayer and criminal investigations are being pursued against the banking miscreants. It would have been no good waiting for Labour to recover our money I mean Milibland forgot we even had a deficit.
2517

A bit like Dodgy Dave and Georgie boy forgetting where they placed their loot or stubs.

She sounds ok to me!


"told Mr Osborne to “fuck off”"

Allegedly - but not proven, apparently. :-)

There's many think this lady would make a very good PM. Watch this space.

Houses of Parliament will have to be abandoned without £3bn renovation





Speaker John Bercow warns the building could become unusable in less than 20 years




Nigel Morris


Deputy Political Editor


Monday 02 March 2015


The Houses of Parliament will have to be abandoned unless huge sums are spent over the next decade to renovate the crumbling building, the Commons Speaker John Bercow has warned.



The cost to taxpayer of restoring the Palace of Westminster, which has not been refurbished since repairs to war damage in the 1940s, has been estimated at more than £3bn. The scale of the task is so vast that MPs and peers could have to move out for five years to allow the work to be completed.

Mr Bercow called for the authorities to face up to the issue, predicting that the Victorian building would become unusable in less than 20 years unless it underwent a massive and expensive overhaul.




More bollox here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/houses-of-parliament-will-have-to-be-abandoned-without-3bn-renovation-10081125.html

Downing Street's Letter To Broadcasters
David Cameron's communications director has sent a letter to broadcasters about the Prime Minister's involvement in a TV debate.
23:10, UK,
Wednesday 04 March 2015
From Sky News

The letter reads:

Dear Sue,

I am writing to you in your capacity as Chair of the broadcasters' "Leaders' Debates" committee.

As you know, I have had serious concerns about the way in which this has been handled from the start.

Despite the Prime Minister having been clear about his concern around holding debates in the short campaign, you did not consult us before issuing a press release last October outlining your plans for three debates during that period.

Had you consulted us, we could have also told you that we also did not think it was appropriate to exclude the Green Party from the process.

Despite all of this, we then entered into negotiations in good faith, during which I made the case for a more representative debates structure, including the Greens. It is fair to say that the desire to exclude the Greens was clear from all other parties present.

Three months later - and again without consultation - you surprised us again by proposing a new seven-party structure, this time not only inviting the Greens, but Plaid Cymru and the SNP as well. Again, this was a flawed proposal - that has resulted in the DUP initiating what appears to be legitimate legal action.

Since this proposal has been suggested, there has been chaos. In recent weeks, you have avoided letting the parties sit in a room to hammer out proposals, making progress impossible.

In order to cut through this chaotic situation I am willing to make the following proposal:

There should be one 90 minute debate between seven party leaders before the short campaign. As well as the Prime Minister, the leaders of the Green Party, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, SNP and UKIP should invited. The leader of the DUP should be allowed to make his case for why he should be involved. If the broadcasters cannot agree amongst themselves who hosts the debate, lots should be drawn, though the debate should be freely available to whoever wants to broadcast it. In order for it to be organised in time, the debate should take place during the week beginning the 23rd March. I will make myself available to negotiate the details. Having been the editor of numerous broadcast news and current affairs programmes, I know this is ample time to organise a programme.

This is our final offer, and to be clear, given the fact this has been a deeply unsatisfactory process and we are within a month of the short campaign, the Prime Minister will not be participating in more than one debate.

Yours sincerely,

Craig Oliver

Prime Minister's Director of Communications

How to recognise a coward when you see one!

He is an insult to the condom!




Perhaps, he should move over and use one of his mates!

Perhaps, what Cameron can't face up to:

UK living standards lag 2010 levels as election nears - think tank

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/03/04/uk-britain-pay-ifs-idUKKBN0M000T20150304?feedType=nl&feedName=uktopnewsearly

fred - i wouldn't disagree with the analysis above, though it could hardly be a surprise given the total mess then of both uk and world economies ...... i think even USA is only just back to 2010 levels

the following is interesting though .....

The quarterly rate of UK house price growth firmed up for a second consecutive month in February as a result of increases in real earnings and spending power, the results of Halifax's latest survey showed.

Over the three months to February they gained 2.6%, up from the 1.8% rise seen in the three months to January.

Data from Germany, the Eurozone's powerhouse economy, on Thursday showed industrial orders fell 3.9% month-on-month in January after a revised increase of 4.4% in December. The reading undershot economists' expectations for a 1% decline. Orders slid 0.1% from a year earlier.