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.

bollox - that's just a photo of the north african coast and the med :-)

Nah.

It is the planet he lives on!

8-)

:-)

Just because you guys don't know Jack Shit about Mars, there's no need to be jealous and afraid.

In fact, if Mars were to ever adopt Christianity, it might never look back. Not a lot of people know that.

The others are already in the lunatic asylums or think they are running them!

Wonder why Dodgy Dave want the debate/s before he launches the next book of party lies. Sorry his personal manifesto.

Is it before he wants the "package" open to scrutiny.

I hope the the Broadcasters have the guts to tell him to think again and prepare for a debate 1 month before the election and leave an empty chair for him.


He and his advisers are even lousy PR agents.

Hmmm? I think I'm a bit bored.....

Actually, I've just had a refund from a guy who sold me a 'part used' £200 M&S Gift Card. The card had £185 left on it according to the seller, who had quite a good trading history too.

When the envelope containing said gift card arrived, duly posted 'Signed For', guess what?

Correct.

Someone had forced open the end of the envelope and removed the gift card from the envelope. Of course, you find out the envelope is actually empty after you have 'signed for' the envelope and the post man has gone past and is well down the road.

How would you differentiate between whether the seller ever put the gift card into the envelope to start with and therefore perpetrated a scam - or whether the envelope was interfered with, say somehow inside the post office? All so as to defend yourself against an accusation that you had taken the card yourself?

To me, this had all the hall marks of a clever and brilliant scam done by the seller. There was quite a bit more 'individual related aspects to the buying/selling relationship, which didn't quite fit together neatly too. I 'smelled a rat' sorta kinda. I totted up about 15 weird aspects to the whole thing.

The amount I paid for the £185 gift card was only £155 and which was a bloody good deal, I thought. It turns out it was too good! Of course it was! How could I not have seen that this was going to one of things that was sure to go wrong?

Looking at the time of the month the deal took place, I do now believe too, that it was actually a 'Pay Day Loan Scam' sale. The discount was far too high and the Seller wanted some 'instant cash' for sure.

You'll have to give this 'story' of mine some thought. Perhaps you might like to think how you yourself would try to perpetrate such a scam and at what time of the pay cycle in the month you would do it?

Do you think you could get away with sending an open ended empty envelope, using insured Royal Mail postage and which had a slit or opened end, so that the empty contents would be discovered only upon very close examination by the buyer well after it had been delivered?

How do you open your envelopes? Do you just turn them over and then look where to slit the envelope with a knife blade?

In this case, that's when you get to find out, that this has already been done!

Well, I did have a bit of a fight on my hands with this guy but did manage to win in the end. I did get my refund from him eventually, although it did take quite a lengthy fight. He is actually a courier by profession too! That stinks too! He didn't appear to be very good at wrapping a Gift Card inside an envelope though - or did he? Where might someone have learnt that trick from, eh?

I am very lucky getting my refund back! But what a fight!

For Exec. Jb, and 2517,
=-=-=-=

Labour lead gone to 4 overnight from a Tory lead of 2 at yougov the Tory pollsters.

You know why don't you.........chicken camoron and debates.......

todays figure......... Labour lead at 4

Latest YouGov / The Sun results 5th March - Con 31%, Lab 35%, LD 6%, UKIP
15%, GRN 8%; APP -21

=====

Thins getting even more promising!!

Exec,

Well done on the parcel.

So far, touch wood, the post around here has been reliable.

Britain under the Green Party: Zero growth, no army, and everyone either high or hungry

What would happen if the Green Party were actually given the chance to put its politics into effect? Here's one vision



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/green-party/11454646/Britain-under-the-Green-Party-Zero-growth-no-army-and-everyone-either-high-or-hungry.html

''Thins getting even more promising!!''---------Should help the NHS budget Fred.
You really should be careful what you wish for.
2517

Max,

thanks for that:

Outcome: Labour majority of 40
Labour 345
Conservatives 256
Liberal Democrats 19
Ukip 0
Other 30

What about Scootland and the tartan terror Fred?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31729808


An example of successful tory economics?



Andrew Mitchell in £80,000 libel payout to 'plebgate' PC
Andrew Mitchell
Andrew Mitchell denies using the word "pleb"
Continue reading the main story
Related Stories

Mitchell 'turned down' libel deal
'Plebgate' row: Timeline
Police Fed reps in 'plebgate' probe
The police officer at the centre of the "plebgate" row has accepted £80,000 in damages from Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell.

A judge ruled last year the MP probably had called PC Toby Rowland, an officer on duty at Downing Street's gates, a "pleb".

Mr Mitchell accepted using bad language but said he had not used that word.

The ex-chief whip has already paid £300,000 in legal costs to the Sun newspaper and the Police Federation.

He lost a high-profile action against News Group Newspapers, publishers of the Sun, in November.

A judge said he had reached the "firm conclusion" that Mr Mitchell had used the "politically toxic" word "pleb" in September 2012 when he was not allowed to cycle through the main Downing Street vehicle gates.

Toby Rowland
PC Rowland brought a libel action against Mr Mitchell
PC Rowland's lawyer, Jeremy Clarke-Williams, told Mr Justice Warby that since that judgement Mr Mitchell "has abandoned the other defences he had raised to my client's claim and consequently terms of settlement have been agreed".

The solicitor added: "The payment of £80,000 damages by Mr Mitchell sets the seal on PC Rowland's vindication, as well as providing compensation for the injury to his reputation and the distress caused to him and his family over many months.

"PC Rowland never felt that the events in Downing Street were anything more than a minor incident.

"He was not responsible for the publicity which followed and would have much preferred that the whole matter had never entered the public domain.

"He now simply wishes to be left in peace to continue his police career."

Neither Mr Mitchell nor PC Rowland was in co

Fred1new Send an email to Fred1new View Fred1new's profile - 06 Mar 2015 13:45 - 57305 of 57320

JB,

My point was Fred that we are swamped with immigrants more than defending any party ...
And you can see we are !!!! millions !!!!!


Reflect on your words chosen.

Perhaps, reflect on 1930s in Germany and the rhetoric of that period.
=-==-=

Many might think they are they reflect your core values.
===============================

Fred go fcuk your self and don't write anything aimed at me like that again . you utter tosser.

I feel safe with Cameron's finger on the button and planning Britain's future.

Thank "god" he will be gone in May!

How many more U-turns before May's election?


===============
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31771198


TV election debates will 'go ahead' say broadcasters
Breaking news
Broadcasters have said plans for three TV debates before the general election will go ahead, despite David Cameron saying he will only take part in one.

The BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky News said they would forge ahead with plans for three debates in April.


Two of these are scheduled to include seven party leaders with a head-to-head between David Cameron and Ed Miliband.

The broadcasters have urged Mr Cameron to reconsider his decision only to appear in one seven-way encounter. etc............

----=-=-=-

Exec, please keep your same leader after the next knifing, sorry election.

fred - from where did you source your prediction of seats?
there is one obvious and glaring error, for it predicted zero seats for UKIP ...... at the very least, farage will assuredly get in and probably 2/3/4 others

Labour can reverse ‘bloody awful’ polls - Murphy

SCOTT MACNAB
10:24Friday 06 March 2015
101
HAVE YOUR SAY
SCOTTISH Labour leader Jim Murphy insists the party can still get “back into the contest” in Scotland ahead of the May election and reverse its “bloody awful” poll ratings.

The East Renfrewshire MP insists the party can stem the SNP tide by focussing on the NHS after midweek polling suggested the Nationalists could be on course to take more than 50 of Scotland’s 59 seats in two months time.

“The poll was bloody awful for Labour”
Jim Murphy
He was speaking as Labour prepares to gather for a special one-day conference in Edinburgh tomorrow which will be addressed by UK leader Ed Miliband.

“The poll was bloody awful for Labour,” Mr Murphy told BBC Radio Scotland today.

“The way Labour gets back into this contest and the way in which we win the election isn’t a perpetual competition over what happens after the election.

“It’s about talking to people’s lives now, today - the fact that so many mums and dads who go to work can’t afford to balance the books and feed their kids and put money by for a rainy day.”

He added: “The biggest issue for Scots is the National Health Service.”

“If David Cameron cuts UK spending even deeper it has a massive effect on Scotland because of the way the funding system works. We all know that.”


The Scottish Labour leader said the mansion tax on homes worth over £2 million, which largely mean London and the South-East of England, will benefit Scotland.

“We will use that money to fund Scotland’s NHS and the first thing we’ll do is introduce 1000 more nurses in Scotland.”

Mr Murphy also dismissed the prospect of a “grand coalition” after the election involving Labour and the Conservatives as “nonsense” after it was suggested by his colleague Gisela Stewart.

“Gisela is talking nonsense,” he added.

LOL! LOL! LOL!


Edinburgh supermarkets run out of eggs ahead of Millibandus visit!!

Scottish Labour in civil war over strategy
DAVID MADDOX
23:36Thursday 05 March 2015 00:00Friday 06 March 2015
63
HAVE YOUR SAY
SCOTTISH Labour is gripped in a civil war over where to concentrate its resources to take on the surge by the SNP and hold on to some of its 41 seats north of the Border.

After the latest round of constituency polls from the former Tory Treasurer Lord Ashcroft, which showed that 56 of Scotland’s 59 seats could fall to the SNP, senior Labour figures have told The Scotsman that Scottish party leader Jim Murphy is concentrating money and campaigners in the wrong places.

With the Scottish Labour party due to hold its conference in Edinburgh tomorrow, several MPs have demanded that the party forgets trying to save the west of Scotland while one said that they should abandon Glasgow.

At the heart of the angry internal debate is Mr Murphy’s focus on the 200,000 former Labour voters who supported independence and he believes will make the difference in Scotland and deliver a Labour majority in Westminster.

Most of the 200,000 are in Glasgow and the west of Scotland, but the Ashcroft polls have revealed that in all parts of the country Labour seats are at risk.

Alarm bells rang over the major swings in former prime minister Gordon Brown’s Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency and ex-chancellor Alistair Darling’s Edinburgh South West seat, both of which would fall to the Nationalists.

The row over strategy has emerged as UK Labour leader Ed Miliband has continued to resist demands that he rules out any deal with the SNP despite being handed an ultimatum to do so by an “overwhelming majority” of his Scottish MPs.

One MP said: “We really should forget about anywhere west of the Lothians and concentrate on areas which voted strongly No.”
The MP added: “Jim [Murphy] has got most things right so far but his one mistake is not being brutally honest with some MPs that resources need to go elsewhere.”

There is anger that seats in the east such as the ones in the Lothians, Edinburgh and Fife have been privately designated as ones the party will win and resources instead are being focussed in seats in Glasgow and the west of Scotland.

One senior figure said: “We really need to forget about places like Airdrie and Shotts or Margaret Curran’s seat [Glasgow East]. We have probably lost those. We should probably hold on to Willie’s [Bain] seat [Glasgow North East]. At this rate he will be the next Scottish secretary because there will be nobody else left standing.”

There was also a concern raised that Ms Curran was “using her position” as shadow Scottish secretary to divert resources to her seat and Glasgow.


But a source close to Ms ­Curran hit back, suggesting that those complaining have not put together a campaign team of local activists to defend their seats.

He said: “This is nonsense. Margaret is sharing an organiser with other seats in Glasgow and she is relying on local activists.

“There is no special treatment, it is all about us knuckling down and trying to defend our seats.”

Questions have also been asked within the party over why money and resources are been spent on former targets which Labour do not currently hold, ­including Edinburgh West, which is one of the seats to receive money from the £106,000 donated by former prime minister Tony Blair.

A senior Scottish party figure said: “It is mystifying why the party is putting resources into seats like Edinburgh West. We are fighting a defensive election, we should forget about winning new seats.”
It has been pointed out that, in the past six elections, Labour has lost just five seats in Scotland – Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, East Dunbartonshire, the Western Isles, Dundee East and Aberdeen South.

One MP told The Scotsman: “The trouble is our Westminster group has never contemplated defeat. Even with the SNP winning the Holyrood elections, we have always assumed the vote would come back and this time it looks like it might not.”

Last night, Scottish Labour tried to play down the splits within the party and warned votes for the SNP would mean a Tory government is more likely.

A Scottish Labour spokesman said: “We need to do everything we can to stop the Tories being the largest party, and the way to do that is to vote for Scottish Labour.”
It has been pointed out that, in the past six elections, Labour has lost just five seats in Scotland – Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, East Dunbartonshire, the Western Isles, Dundee East and Aberdeen South.

One MP told The Scotsman: “The trouble is our Westminster group has never contemplated defeat. Even with the SNP winning the Holyrood elections, we have always assumed the vote would come back and this time it looks like it might not.”

Last night, Scottish Labour tried to play down the splits within the party and warned votes for the SNP would mean a Tory government is more likely.

A Scottish Labour spokesman said: “We need to do everything we can to stop the Tories being the largest party, and the way to do that is to vote for Scottish Labour.”
Did you hear Jim on radio Scotland this morning phew! talk about hysteria. I know Ed Milliband has put Jim Murphy in an absolutely terrible position when he made it plain to Jim that the only future he had was in Scottish politics. I also realise that Jim is increasingly under strain as the polls turn more and more against him but boy what a car crash of an interview. You would think that someone that aspires to lead his party would have greater control over his emotions.

Anyway could I just correct Jim on one of the pieces of misinformation Jim keeps on repeating which is quite wrong of him. Jim keeps saying that the largest party gets to form the govt., that is just wrong! Being the largest party but without being able to command a majority in the Commons achieves nothing. So there we have it you can be as large as you like but unless you can command a majority of seats you can't form a government. So common Jim stop misleading the voter. Sending Labour MPs to Westminster hasn't helped us for many a year Labour uses its'Scottish MPs as cannon fodder to persue policies supported by the 85% that live south if the border. SNP MPs on the other hand don't have divided loyalties, the voter realising this, trust the SNP more and more to be focussed on Scottish voter interests. I wonder what Uturn Jim will announce tomorrow, rebuttal of the Smith commission?
Labour viewing Scotland as Glasgow with some little extra bits round the edge? You don't say, who'd have thought it! They obviously need to do ignore the rest of Scotland and turn back their politics to entice back Clyde-Magnon man.

For all my dislike of the SNP, the joy of staying up to watch Curran's mug if she loses her seat to the SNP, I'll allow them that one :)

Labour claim that they are trying to win votes from the SNP, but in reality they still feel that our votes somehow belong to them. The fact that the Scottish and British Labour Parties have supposedly different policies, and that Murphys new found socialism is fooling nobody doesn't seem to register.
wooden spoon for salmond

Ruth Davidson answered every question brilliantly and avoided the pety points scoring and showed them both up to be immature parties that can not be trusted to run a bath never mind a country

======
Ruth Davidson has done her fair share of petty point scoring in the past perhaps she has decided that it doesn't work.

She has perhaps been asking why Labour are doing so badly in the polls and decide to no longer follow their lead. As far a petty point scoring goes when I watched FMQ I found Johann Lamont & Ruth Davidson to be like two peas in a pod.

Why labour are doing so badly in the polls was one question I though wasn't answered well. I find it hard to believe that it's all down to Labour joining the Tories in Better Together.

Could it be more down to the fact that the Indy Ref has served to waken people up.

I don't think Kezia's performance on QT will help struggling Labour.
I would suggest that the best strategy for Labour would be to start acting in the best interests of the people they represent rather than themselves.

Instead they are intent on threatening the electorate with a Tory government if we do not vote for them. They were in bed with them during the referendum campaign, colluding with Whithall civil servants and Osborne to threaten us over the economy and told us we had to accept Tory governments sometimes. They followed up by promising the earth in terms of devolution if we voted No and then trying to push through as little as possible after they got the No vote.

If they don't understand why they are tanking in the polls it might be best if they disband altogether and make way for something else.

Is loser Ed's only hope the SNP?

One of the more astonishing results from the recent batch of Scottish opinion polls is the revelation that Ed Miliband is actually less popular in Scotland than David Cameron. Survation's poll for the Daily Record suggested that 23% of Scots think David Cameron would make the best Prime Minister as opposed to 19% who favour the UK Labour leader.

This confirmed similar findings in the Lord Ashcroft constituency polls a fortnight ago. But looking at Scotland's political make up, where the Tories have been moribund for the last three decades, this is surely quite extraordinary. I'm at a loss to explain it myself. Can Scots really favour a privileged, Eton-educated Tory over Labour's state-educated son of a Marxist academic?

But this apparent antipathy towards Ed Miliband in Scotland is perhaps an extreme example perhaps of what is called the "Ant and Dec" phenomenon - the fact that many long term Labour voters, like the diminutive TV duo, just don't seem to be able to see Ed Miliband as a credible prime minister.

This is partly down to the media projection of Ed Miliband as a gormless, Wallace and Gromit character who forgets names, speeches and can't eat a bacon roll in public. But it extends beyond the "Tory Press"

Even the left-wing commentator Mehdi Hasan, quoting Labour insiders, argued in the New Statesman last week that Ed's very personality is Labour's main electoral handicap right now. This speculation is of course highly damaging because there is no possibility of Labour changing leader only weeks before he election campaign begins.

Actually, Labour's overall opinion poll ratings are not bad and most surveys show the party with a narrow but consistent lead over David Cameron's Tories. Out-dated constituency boundaries mean that the Tories actually need a lead of 4-5% to secure victory over Labour.

So this is no time for Labour to be trashing their own leader. But prominent Labour figures like the former cabinet minister Alan Milburn have been maintaining a drumbeat of criticism of Ed.. Labour's been here before.

Roll back the years to the early 1992 and it was very much the same with Neil Kinnock. Labour looked like it was on course to overwhelm the Conservatives who were divided over Europe and emerging from a deep economic recession. Plus ca change. But many voters just couldn't bring themselves to back Neil Kinnock - 'the Welsh windbag' as he was called.

Like Miliband, Kinnock was a rather effectively leader, at least on paper. He showed courage in taking on Militant Tendency, saw off the breakaway Social Democrats and was a formidable public speaker. Labour's policies were expansionist and radical. But he just seemed to irritate a lot of people.

And Ed Miliband is not a bad leader either. Indeed, Peter Oborne, the Telegraph journalist who resigned over his paper's collusion with commercial interests, says he is the best Labour leader since Clement Atlee. That may be going a bit far, but Miliband is certainly is not afraid to be radical.

If anyone cares to look at what Ed Miliband actually stands for, they are likely to be surprised. He is not "Red Tory Scum". In fact, he is arguably the most radical Labour leader since Michael Foot in the early eighties (though few in the party will relish the comparison because of memories of the "longest suicide note in history" that lost Labour the '83 general election).

Ed Miliband has promised to repeal the Tory NHS privatisation Act, freeze energy prices, renationalise rail, tax mansions (£2m) and millionaires (50p); build a million homes by 2020, introduce £8 minimum wage; and bring in 25 hours free childcare for 3-4 years olds.

He is also pushing a raft of rather complex measures for ending tax avoidance and evasion including blacklisting British tax havens abroad. It's not surprising that the Conservative Daily Mail has been banging on about the menace of "Red Ed".

But Miliband is tough as he showed when he took on the Daily Mail over its claim that his Marxist father was a traitor. In 2011 he took on the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch over cross media ownership. He has called for a break up of the banks.

More recently, Miliband refused to back down over Lord Fink's claim that he had defamed him over tax avoidance. And the Labour leader has pursued the HSBC scandal despite the attempts to portray him - wrongly - as a tax-avoiding hypocrite. He stood his ground over Syria too, refusing to endorse military action against the Assad regime.

All the more surprising then that Ed Miliband's image is that of an ineffectual bumbler. The media can be a playground bully of course, and likes to pick up on personal idiosyncrasies and exaggerate them. The panda eyes and the teeth are a gift to cartoonists.

I must say, when I hear Ed Miliband on the radio at Prime Minister's Questions I sometimes think that it's Rory Bremner impersonating him. But surely we are not so shallow as to allow these personal characteristics to shape our attitudes to political leaders.

Okay - we probably are.

In Scotland I think the resistance to Miliband is partly personal. Voters in post-referendum mood have come to dismiss all Westminster party leaders as peas in the same elitist pod. Interchangeable upper middle class policy wonks speaking their own language and using spin and advertising to get their messages across. They all dress the same, talk the same, speak the same.

That's also what Ukip has been trading on, as well as its hostility to immigration. Clearly, many working class people think Milliband just a bit too Oxbridge and rarified.

Is there any way he can change in time? I doubt it. Mehdi Hasan criticised him for not working hard enough on coaching his media image - but that can end in disaster. Remember when the former Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith, said: "the quiet man is turning up the volume" back in 2005?. Better to let Miliband be Miliband.

It may be that he'll do better in the general election campaign once people have a chance to hear him directly in debates and interviews. But my suspicion is that time has run out for the Labour leader. Most voters have already made up their minds about him and believe he is well-meaning but not cut out to be prime minister.

However, there's a twist. He may still make it to Number Ten.

Miliband's programme, Trident aside, is actually very similar to that of one Nicola Sturgeon. Which means that there is a very sound basis for there to be post election co-operation between Labour and the SNP (and indeed with the Liberal Democrats though no one wants to talk about them right now).

David Cameron and Nick Clegg had to go through long and difficult negotiations to find common ground in 2010. Miliband and Sturgeon have a detailed agenda of common policies staring them in the face; crying out for an agreement, if not a coalition. Wisely Ed has not listened to those in his Scottish party who want him to rule out any cooperation with the nationalists

Perhaps David Cameron was more right than he realised on Friday when he told the Scottish Tory Conference that the SNP and Labour were "already half way up the aisle and choosing the honeymoon". Though I doubt if poor Ed Balls will relish holding the ring.