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.

In this game of TV chicken, will David Cameron be first to blink?
Andrew Rawnsley




Here’s a list of things that you wouldn’t want to be called if you were a party leader facing an election in 60 days’ time. Scared. Arrogant. Cynical. Hypocritical. Cowardly. Calculating. High-handed. Feeble. Duplicitous. Undemocratic. Chicken.


Like iron filings flying on to a magnet, these accusations are all sticking to David Cameron over his refusal to appear in any TV debates except the one he has condescended to offer and that no one else wants. The result has been to combine all his opponents into an anti-Cameron coalition of scorn for the prime minister.

Etc......................

There is now a standoff with the Tory leader on one side and everyone else on the other. Will David Cameron blink? Two things we have learned about him during his time as prime minister. He hates exposing himself to attack. And he can be extremely stubborn about changing his mind. We will see which of those strands of his personality prevails. He will hate climbing down. To surrender now would make him look weak. Yet he will no less hate being defined as the no-show prime minister, a man too cowardly to debate Ed Miliband and too cynical about democracy to subject himself to public scrutiny. That could make him look even weaker.

The Tories wanted to make this election turn on the character of the Labour leader. This has made the issue the character of David Cameron.






http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/08/tv-election-debate-will-cameron-hold-firm

IMHO, Cameron is committing political suicide over this tv debating stuff.

Albeit, that he, surely to God, must know what he is doing.

Quite right, Cameron does appear to be a coward in regard to television debates by some.

Tell you what let's vote for:-

A Backstabbing Baxxxxd, who will crawl over anyone including his own brother David in order to gain power. The irony is if David Milliband was leader of the Labour Party they would be miles ahead in the Polls. Shame!

And not the least!

Selling off Britain is not a sign of strength, but profound weakness
Will Hutton


The British are giving up on owning things. For a generation there has been an extraordinary selling-off of public and private assets to all comers. It is not just the privatisation of former public assets, with the government last week congratulating itself on the sale of its stake in Eurostar for £750m – the latest mindless cashing in of a key public asset.

This is matched by the private sale of companies – cumulatively £440bn sold abroad over the last 10 years alone. The average Briton will now work, drink, travel, eat, drive, and use energy from assets and services supplied by foreign owners more than ever before – and in a growing and escalating deficit. Globalisation obviously means increased inflows and outflows of capital. But overseas investors are buying a great many more British companies than we are buying abroad – a ratio of more than two to one. It is not just that the control of our economic destiny moves abroad with nobody turning a hair; the associated flows of income abroad are beginning to be alarming.

It is an ownership crisis – and it should be the subject of huge national debate. But in a forthcoming Channel 4 programme Selling off Britain – to be shown on March 21 – I report that it is one that scarcely surfaces. The great trends of our times – globalisation and growing economic interdependence – cannot be stopped. Indeed, together with the multiplying possibilities of new technologies they present enormous opportunities. The problem is that British structures mean that our companies are losers in this game, when we could so easily be winners.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/08/selling-off-britain-ownership-crisis-debate

Labour plan to make TV debates compulsory in law roundly mocked
SNP’s Alex Salmond asks if Prime Minister would be jailed for refusing to take part

Telegraph.

Labour candidate rejects Tony Blair's £1,000 donation
Lesley Brennan turns down cash from the former prime minister to help her win the election

By Ben Riley-Smith, Political Correspondent11:34AM GMT 08 Mar 2015
A Labour parliamentary candidate has rejected a £1,000 donation from Tony Blair to help with her election campaign.
Lesley Brennan, who is the party's candidate in Dundee East, said she had discussed the gift with her team and decided not to accept it.
The decision contradicts her party's headquarters, which welcomed Mr Blair's decision to donate £1,000 to 106 battleground seats last week with just two months left before the vote.

At the time a Labour spokesman said: "We’re delighted that Tony Blair has given so generously to the local campaigns in the battleground seats our party is targeting at this general election."
But it seems the party's Dundee Seat candidate disagreed, tweeting: "Received donation from Tony Blair. Instinct was to not accept. Discussed with team. Dundee East is not accepting the £1,000."

The news a prospective Labour MP appears to believe Mr Blair's legacy is so toxic that she cannot accept his money is an embarrassment for the former party leader.
The SNP has repeatedly criticised the Mr Blair's controversial decision to invade Iraq and his abandonment of more traditional Left-wing policies while in office.
Polls suggest the SNP could win as many as 50 MPs at the next election as Labour voters abandon the party en masse in favour of the Nationalists.
Mr Blair had written to Ms Brennan and other candidates saying: "I know how hard it can be to raise money to fund a local campaign, but for you, in one of our 106 battleground seats, it is even more vital. This is where the election will be won for Labour and that is why I am making a donation to all 106 campaigns.
"As one of our key seat candidates you know better than most the scale of the challenge we face, but I have every confidence that with your drive, determination and organisational skills, you will deliver a successful local campaign that will also see our party returned to government."


Lesley Brennan @LesleyEastend
Follow
Received donation from Tony Blair. Instinct was to not accept. Discussed with team. Dundee East is not accepting the £1000.
9:27 AM - 8 Mar 2015


Greg Pope @GregoryPope
Follow
You're a Labour PPC and you get offered £1000 by Labour's most successful leader ever. You turn it down. Frankly, you don't deserve to win.
12:06 PM - 8 Mar 2015

I think she is right...Blairhole really is toxic!

i think DC has certainly dug himself a hole and whether he can extarct himself with any dignity remains to be seen

Cynic,

All he has to do is another U-turn!

8-)

He's good at them!

ah, but "with dignity" will be the problem

I don't see how he can avoid the debates, because they will empty chair him if he don't turn up, and that would be a disaster for the tories.

The only Dignity left to Dodgy Dave is a the use of their funeral services.

He is a dead man walking having shown himself "Scared. Arrogant. Cynical. Hypocritical. Cowardly. Calculating. High-handed. Feeble. Duplicitous. Undemocratic. Chicken".

Max,

He is, along side Osborne a disaster for the tories.

Fred.

Ozzy gets terrible press, but given the cards he was dealt with, he's not doing too bad imo.

Well, you know what I think of Cameroon. but that goes for Millibandus as well.

The most capable of the lib/lab/cons imo, is Cleggy, but he made a fatal error with the uni fee's, thought he could blame the cons...next stop Brussels?

Max,

When I played cards I used to look at the deck.

A large percent of the work of stabilisation of the economy was done before Osborne came into office.

He cock it up by ploughing to harshly the austerity program for 2 years plus before pumping money into the economy. That is why there has been a slower than necessary recovery and misery for poorest and less able to defend themselves in society.

But DEBT is up!

----
I am not sure of Miliband, but with the hand and deck afte the election he had, he has done well. At least he seem collegial, which I think necessary for a successful PM with the reforms this country needs. Maybe I am wrong.

I think he is more capable than the right wing press suggest he is and certainly the right wing tory party are frightened of him, as can be seen by the constant arrogant attempts to smear him.

I have sympathy for Clegg and Cable and they had a difficult choice to make by forming part of the coalition, but I think their decision on Universities fees was wrong.

===-==--

Education, at all levels, is for the benefit of society as a whole and should be paid for out of general taxations.

If an individual earns a higher salary tax at a higher rate etc. to repay society for the advantage gained those earning lower salaries at a lower rate.

The high earners and lower earners are as necessary as one another to keep an economy functional and efficient.

(There are other arguments.)

Man for the moment!

We are all safe in Dodgy Dave's hands.

He has made a pledge!

LOL




When is next pledge or is it down to George and his next recipe for disaster!

So, do you know what the difference is between Sunni and Shia Muslims?

No? I thought not.

They both have roughly the same religious beliefs so the difference is mainly political:

http://islam.about.com/cs/divisions/f/shia_sunni.htm

There's more info' too on the above site.

The universal greeting of Muslims is 'Peace be unto you." Hmmm?

Do you know what the basic beliefs of ISIS are?

No? I thought not.

Apparently, followers of ISIS have 10 basic beliefs, most of which are pretty crazy:

Importantly, ISIS believes that those who do not convert to its version of Islam should be executed; it wants to cleanse the world of those who do not believe what it believes.

http://elitedaily.com/news/world/10-beliefs-isis-reveal-craziest-group-ever/705032/

ISIS believes that violence is the path to paradise.

From our point of view, ISIS is so blinded by its own delusional ambitions, that it does not care if it drags the rest of the globe into chaos in the process as it goes about its task.

It is perhaps the most radical group the world has ever seen.

Accordingly, ISIS must be taken seriously and responded to swiftly.

EL - not quite true, any more than catholic and anglican beliefs are pretty much the same, and history tells us what a bloody conflict that became

Actually, I looked at the "said differences" back at the Iran Iraqi war and quickly forgot them, relied on history of "Mohammedism" taught to me 60 years ago. (I was generally bottom but one of the class and that accounts for lack of knowledge.)

But how many could list 5 or more differences between the Church of England, Catholic Churches, Orthodox and then start on the various Welsh, Irish and Scottish Churches and Chapels, besides the more important Druids and Pagans.

Sometimes, I think religions are like soccer jerseys but worn on Sundays rather than Saturdays.

But again it has made me look it up!

Urhrhrhrh.