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.

Yes they are apparently underpopulated compared to us say and others .

Have a look at age distribution!

Yes Fred , I understood from someone they were of the older generation .

Nice front page after the Brit terrorists were killed bydrone

Good riddance .

Labour and the SNP are upset that they were killed , it might not be legal and Parliament were not told ............... Who care's just kill them all

LONDON — In just a few days, the Labour party looks set to elect possibly the most inexperienced and revolutionary leader in its 115 years of existence. If the bookmakers, pollsters and sheer quantity of new party members are a valid indication, Jeremy Corbyn will be crowned leader of Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition on September 12.

The 66-year-old MP for London’s Islington North has never led anything bigger than an anti-war march, nor has he had to deal with the difficult decisions that come with holding high office. Now that a Corbyn victory appears almost certain, Westminster is beginning to wonder what happens next. There has been much speculation about what Corbyn’s leadership would mean for both British politics and the Labour party. Given Corbyn’s total lack of record in office, it is pretty hard to say.

* * *

One thing is certain: the Conservatives see a Corbyn victory as a gift beyond their craziest, wildest dreams. To date, David Cameron has faced Labour leaders of varying quality — Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband — but Jeremy Corbyn is in a class of his own. He has never held even the lowest ministerial office and defied his party’s whip over 500 times between 1997 and 2010.

At first, the Tories were crossing their fingers for Andy Burnham to succeed Miliband as Labour leader. Burnham, the current shadow health secretary who has been an MP since 2001 and served in various frontbench positions, was an early frontrunner and Conservatives judged him the ideal opposition leader: close to the trade unions, an adequate performer who wouldn’t be kicked out prematurely, but not good enough to win in 2020. Then the one thing happened they never expected to see: Corbynmania.

Thousands of new members joined the party, the bookies’ odds shortened, the pollsters began predicting a Corbyn victory and the idea of a hard-left candidate leading Labour suddenly became a reality. As Corbyn has become increasingly more likely to win leadership of his party, the Conservatives have become ever giddier. Despite a spectacularly heavy loss at the general election, Labour has found a man even more unelectable than Ed Miliband. If the general election result was a fluke, the ascension of Corbyn to the leadership would be nothing less than a gift from above.

But this arrival of Corbyn is not being taken for granted. The Tories are already planning how to undermine and destroy Corbyn. Given the general election result, it might appear blindingly obvious that he is the wrong man to lead the country but the government is not leaving his failure to chance. Although Downing Street is being coy about its strategy for dealing with Corbyn, insiders say their core message will be the same regardless of who wins: Labour hasn’t changed. In the short term, the Conservatives will continue to argue that Labour has failed to learn the lessons of the past, that it no longer represents working people, and that all the party has to offer is more welfare, more debt and more taxes — pretty much the same message they proclaimed throughout Miliband’s leadership.

The Tories will emphasize ‘security’ if Corbyn is victorious. Tories will say emphatically that the new Labour leader poses a risk to Britain’s economy and national security. Instead of laughing off Corbyn as a joke — a simpler strategy that has been considered— he will be recognized as a real threat and everything possible will be done to undermine him. “It’s deadly serious,” as one Downing Street source puts it.

On September 7, a hint of this strategy was seen. The prime minister told the House of Commons of his plans to take in up to 20,000 refugees over the next five years, as well as revealing that a drone had killed British ISIS fighters in Syria. Corbyn popped up from the nether regions of opposition benches to ask about Britain’s “new relationship with Iran.” Cameron handily cited contentious remarks made by Corbyn about his “friends” in Hamas and Hezbollah: “Iran is still a supporter of terrorist organisations, like Hamas and Hezbollah, which I know he describes as friends but I see very much as enemies.” No jokes or quips, just a straightforward, lethal retort.

While Corbyn can look forward to a frosty relationship with the prime minister thanks to his 32 years of controversial actions and comments — which Conservative HQ has spent all summer archiving — there is one particular policy area where friction would be a given. Britain is set to have a vote on its relationship with the European Union sometime before 2017 (campaigners are preparing for spring next year but many suspect September is most likely). While the Conservative party remains split on whether to remain in or leave the EU, Labour has in recent years been united on staying ‘In.’ But with the arrival of Corbyn, that might be about to change.

Corbyn is easily the most Euroskeptic of the four leadership candidates; the other three are avowed Europhiles. During the final televised debate of the leadership contest, Corbyn said he was “concerned about the way the European Union is increasingly operating like a free market across Europe, tearing up the social chapter and damaging workers’ interests across Europe.” Although he has not ruled out campaigning for Britain to leave the EU, some suspect Corbyn sympathizes with his comrades in the trade unions who think Britain should be prepared to leave if workers’ rights are endangered under a new deal with Brussels.

Despite Corbyn’s concerns, his leadership team insist they will not be siding with the ‘Out’ campaign if he is elected Labour leader. I understand that if Corbyn is victorious, one of his first tasks would be an attempt to take control of the negotiations and do his utmost to ensure David Cameron is not dictating the terms of the EU debate. A Corbyn-led Labour party would look to take an active role in negotiations — playing hardball on the social chapter, for example — and the leadership would want to work closely with Alan Johnson, the former home secretary who is leading Labour’s campaign to remain in the EU.

Corbyn’s interest in the referendum would pose a problem for Cameron — one of his own making. If he is going to accept him as a serious and credible threat, he has little choice but to take his policy demands seriously, too. Withdrawing from the EU’s social chapter is precisely what the most rabid Eurosceptics in the Conservative party want, but Cameron has already realized this will put him on a collision course with Labour and has scrapped demands for a full British exclusion. Many right-wing Tories already distrust the prime minister and believe he is trying to stitch up the renegotiation to avoid any changes too radical. As the EU debate ravages on, Cameron will have to be careful to show that he is listening and taking orders from his party, not Jeremy Corbyn. Otherwise, the gift from above might turn out to be his worst nightmare.

Who have the best weapons and if we think we have we will use them!


uuuuummh

Oh dear Fred feels sorry for terrorists now .

Jimmy - Fred is to be more pitied than laughed at. Just filter him then you don't have to see or read his posts. For many years he has achieved the accolade of 'Gobshite Of The Year (recurring)' Don't feed him.

Maybe the terrorists should feel sorry for us having Fred here.

killing of 2 terrorists
i confess i remain somewhat uneasy about the "legality" in its broadest sense

in this specific instance, i am very happy to accept the argument of "serious threat to national security", and i most certainly do not think the intelligence information behind this should be made public

however, if you take this considerably further down the road, how do you differentiate or draw the line between this sort of "judicial murder" and say the poisoning of litvinenko?

JB,

It isn't the action which counts but the unintended consequences of the action.

In the case of "the drones" it is the stupidity of the action which and the probable lies around the action and the use of it to divert public attention for Cameron's other actions.

But of course it appeals to the hot heads and the up and at them brigade of camp followers.

Interesting forecasts for economy, employment (not minimum hours). But, of course, problems all due to Labour previous incompetence (six years ago) not due to Osborne's incompetence, and/or World economy.

But it is all down to immigrants.

Another diversion by a rotten government!

Maybe they were about to carryout an attack on someone or something , so you either have those two gloating over slaughtering innocents , or you take them out at best opportunity you have . You can be sure of one thing , that there are people walking around today that wouldn't be if those two were still around . I know which way I would want it .

When leaders of ISIS have been targeted there has been no outcry about extra judicial executions. These current couple are essentially no different. They are part of the ISIS terror group. The only difference is that they are British. That should make no difference. In a war, do we shrink from killing British people who have gone over to the other side? In WWII would we have hesitated to fight British people who were fighting for the Germans. What difference is there between shooting an enemy face to face on the battlefield, killing them by shelling at a distance, dropping bombs on them, firing missiles at them and killing them with a drone?

Hays - That is too much like common sense to the loony left.