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.

Labour will come back in Scotland as will the other parties. The GE was an oddity. I don't think it was such a landslide for SNP. You must remember that it was not such a long time since the referendum. My take on what happened, was that the referendum produced a monumental turnout. The GE maintained that level of voter turnout but only for the Scotland Out faction, which was SNP in the main. The other voters reverted to their usual turnout levels. This gave a huge bias towards SNP. When the Scots gets bored with elections again as most of the UK are, there will be a resurgence of voting for other parties. Although the SNP did get a landslide in terms of seats, they didn't win many with large majorities. It may be relatively easy to overturn many seats. History has shown that parties that gain so much success so quickly, often crash and burn later.

The Butchers from Tory Land

I can never understand what all the fuss is about Stonehenge ?....mystery...nobody knows what it's all about ?......I keep on looking at it and you know ..: I've come up with the conclusion that it must have been a center for failed stone carving pyramid trials !....

I think it's a clock .

Probably called it the henge(X) factor.........oh dear....oh dear...sorry...

There are hints about the place of some optimism and it would seem that 'they' are 90% of the way forward towards a Greek deal.

The Greeks will concede 'a little' and they will then gain 'some kind of' debt relief.

What game is Boris playing?



Greek catastrophe shows EU’s promised trade-offs are hot air

Losing sovereignty was supposed to be a price worth paying but it has ended in humiliation





By Boris Johnson

9:01PM BST 21 Jun 2015




I sometimes think we are missing the main point of this Greek crisis. We talk of deadlines and deadlocks and dénouements. We go on about the personalities and politics involved – and yet they are all irrelevant next to what has emerged as the one gigantic conclusion from which only a cretin would seriously dissent. It would make no difference to this conclusion, now, if the Greek government were a load of neo-Marxists in motorbike leathers or a junta of Frankfurt bankers.


It doesn’t matter – for the purposes of this argument – whether the whole thing collapses tomorrow, or next month, or next year. They can “kick the can” even further down the road, or just watch as that battered object is finally steamrollered by the logic of the markets. They can keep the Greeks locked for ever in the procrustean torture of the euro or they can allow them suddenly to print billions of new drachmas on the back of cereal packets.



Whatever happens, nothing can change the fundamental truth: the Greeks should never have joined the euro.


They were mad to abandon the safety valve of an independent monetary policy, and they are paying for that folly in a daily and escalating human tragedy: of falling life expectancy, of rising suicides and mass unemployment; of medicines they can no longer afford, of operations cancelled and hope extinguished.



More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11690200/Greek-catastrophe-shows-EUs-promised-trade-offs-are-hot-air.html

Boris is right. Even more important, is that Greece should not have been allowed to join. They faked all the convergence criteria an the EU knew it.

Yes, true!

But Boris is actually undermining Cameroon, effectively saying the renegotiations are a waste of time.


And it looks like they have come up with a nu fake fix for the land of €l Greco.

I don't' think he is undermining Cameron. He is supporting our position of not having the Euro.

Dogwalking this am...

"Did you enjoy your holiday? Where did you go?"

"Yes. We went to Skiaphos for a week. It was pretty quiet but it was relaxing. We took plenty of Euros, just in case the banks closed down for any withdrawals, etc."

"Got any comments about how the Greeks feel about things?"

"Well, some do realise they have to change some of their ideas, particularly on things like retirement. They expect to retire at age 50, don't contribute to their pensions and expect to take 100% pension on retirement. Apparently, the Italians are pretty much the same."

"Hmmm?"

What is Andy Burnham’s experience of the private sector?

Two years as a trade journalist

Labour leadership contender’s wife Frankie’s marketing business dissolved after three years


By Rosa Prince, Assistant Political Editor

7:00AM BST 22 Jun 2015


Andy Burnham, the frontrunner for the Labour leadership contest, has claimed he has experience of living in the “real world” - because his wife used to run her own business.


The 45-year-old Liverpudlian has put his claim to understand the lives of ordinary people outside the “Westminster bubble” at the heart of his campaign for his party’s leadership.


Challenged by Sky’s Dermot Murnaghan to relate his own experience of the private sector, Mr Burnham hesitated before responding: “Well, I worked in the private sector when I left university, albeit not for long but I did.




More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/andy-burnham/11689938/What-is-Andy-Burnhams-experience-of-the-private-sector-Two-years-as-a-trade-journalist.html

Grossly unsuitable': Mid-Staffs hospital whistleblower's verdict on ex-Health Secretary who is hot favourite to be Labour leader

Labour leadership favourite Andy Burnham labelled 'grossly unsuitable'
He was Health Secretary at height of the Mid Staffs hospital scandal
Whistleblower Julie Bailey said he showed no remorse over NHS neglect
She claimed Mr Burnham presided over a culture of denial and cover-ups

Labour's leadership front-runner was last night condemned as a 'grossly unsuitable candidate' by the whistleblower who exposed the Mid Staffs hospital scandal.

Campaigner Julie Bailey said she was 'shocked and appalled' that Andy Burnham – who was Health Secretary when the true scale of neglect at the NHS Trust emerged – had put himself forward to succeed Ed Miliband.

Mrs Bailey also accused him of showing no remorse and giving no apology over the scandal.

She told The Mail on Sunday: 'While Health Secretary, Andy Burnham presided over a culture of denial and cover-up over NHS care scandals that cost lives in failing hospitals across the country.

'From ignoring repeated warnings about high hospital death rates, to dodging calls for a public inquiry, Andy Burnham put politics before patients every time.

'Worse still, several experts have independently testified that under his leadership there was political pressure to present good news rather than expose poor care.

'Still today, he shows no remorse, has offered no apology and accepts no wrongdoing.

'We believe him to be a grossly unsuitable candidate. It would be a disaster for patients if he was ever to become Health Secretary again, let alone assume any higher public office.'

Last night, the Burnham campaign rejected the claims.

His spokesman said: 'Mr Burnham ordered the first and second inquiries into the terrible care failings at Mid Staffordshire, against civil service advice at the time.'

Mr Burnham, 45, faced fierce criticism last year after suggesting that the official report into the deaths should not have been published because of the damage it did to the hospital's reputation.

He's got to be a shoo-in with a record like that...also unemcumbered by any real work experience...classic nu lab!

He is not new lab. He is the union choice.

Similar to Cameron and Osborne being in the pockets of and puppets of the hedge funders, tax dodgers and bankers.

His turn will come!

That man is proven to be a man you can trust!

LOLC.