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.

ok, so the future is burgers and houses.

Buy anything important from China/wherever.



Sounds like a recipe for success!

now try getting a grip on reality

Houses are another bubble waiting to burst , we never learn .
Just hope all these slimy estate agents go bust when it happens for running around pumping up prices thinking they are so clever .

What is reality today c?

I think Cameron and Osborne are investing in a Chinese tent making company and hoping to sell them to the homeless out on the streets.

Should be up and running by XMAS 2020.

=-=-=-=-=

I think I would be happier if Cameron went back to a bit of hunting with Rebecca.

The Scottish referendum has left the English with an identity crisis it is struggling to solve
As parliament considers English Votes for English Laws, Bernard Cornwell’s Warrior Chronicles offers an understanding of the country's past which could help determine its future role in the United Kingdom

By Philip Johnston6:59PM BST 19 Oct 2015 Comments889 Comments
I have a confession to make. Despite the encouragement of friends and family I have never watched Game of Thrones, missing out, I am reliably informed, on a spectacular tale of war, rivalry and treachery set in a world that straddles fantasy and reality. But I have not felt bereft, because I have instead been immersed in the gore-soaked saga of Uhtred of Bebbanburg (known to us today as Bamburgh Castle), the hero of Bernard Cornwell’s Warrior Chronicles, which are about to be dramatised on BBC2, starting on Thursday under the title of the first book, The Last Kingdom.
To the delight of his devotees, Cornwell has just published the ninth novel in the series, which unlike Game of Thrones has the merit of being rooted in history. While Uhtred himself is a fictional character (though the author claims descent from a Northumbrian Saxon kinsman of the same name) his exploits are a vehicle for telling a great story: the birth of England as a nation. As with the best historical literature (think of Cornwell’s other great creation, Sharpe) the adventures of a single individual are set against the backdrop of momentous events in order that we should better understand them.
I suspect that, like me, most people are monumentally ignorant of this period in our history.
Cornwell’s books are meticulously researched. This is the tale of how the Anglo-Saxons under Alfred the Great fought off the Danish invasion of the various fiefdoms that occupied what is now England and thereby established a single kingdom under his grandson Athelstan. The stone on which he stood, in accordance with custom, to take possession of the throne of England, can still be seen next to the Guildhall in Kingston-upon-Thames.
I don’t wish to presume too much but I suspect that, like me, most people are monumentally ignorant of this period in our history. Alfred is known for burning the cakes while hiding from the invaders in the Somerset Levels and not much else. The names that tumble from the books – Athelflaed, Alfred’s daughter; his son Edward of Wessex; Aethelred, Lord of the Mercians; Guthrum, king of the Danes; Wulfhere of York – are all characters from a time when the concept of Englishness was forged. Athelflaed, known as the Lady of the Mercians, is one of the greatest figures of this or any other historical era and yet many of us would be hard-pressed to identify who she was or what she did.

Indeed, it was this sense of a country unaware of its own heroes, heroines and foundations that persuaded Cornwell to start along this road in the first place. He told one interviewer: “For some reason the history of the Anglo-Saxons isn’t much taught in Britain and it struck me as weird that the English really had no idea where their country came from. Americans know, they even have a starting date; but the English just seemed to assume that England had always been there.”
Oddly enough it has taken the Scots to remind the English that they have an identity to preserve. The fallout from last year’s independence referendum has finally begun to uncouple Englishness from Britishness. It may not yet have permeated much into popular culture; but it is influencing proceedings in that most prosaic of forums, namely the legislature. The question of how to fit England into the constitutional dispensation brought about by devolution has festered for nearly 40 years ever since Tam Dalyell formulated his West Lothian Question. Derry Irvine, the former Lord Chancellor, once said that the best way to address this conundrum was to stop asking it; but that is no longer an option now that Scotland has been given what approximates to Home Rule short of independence.


Ministers, though, are anxious that this should not be matched in England lest the United Kingdom crack under the strain. After all, parity with Scotland would be an English parliament and that is not something the politicians are prepared to countenance because of its disproportionate size. Their alternative, English Votes for English laws (Evel), will finally be put to a vote in the Commons on Thursday after the Government postponed a decision from July. There were complaints then that the new rule was being introduced by way of a change to Commons standing orders rather than by legislation, though this seems eminently sensible as it might otherwise involve the courts in the procedures of MPs.

Critics also felt too little time was given to debate the issue (even though it has been discussed ad nauseam for the past four decades) and that the proposals were liable to create two classes of MP – those who can vote on English (and Welsh) laws and those who can’t. In fact, the plan means everyone can vote on a measure that only applies to England but English MPs will have the final say. The distinction is between having a voice, that can always be overridden, and having a veto, which can’t be.
This seems a reasonable approach and yet it has had constitutionalists and the SNP in a lather of indignation. The Commons Procedure Committee has recommended that the new formula should only be applied to three Bills to begin with, to see how well, or badly, it works. Since the Government has planned a review after a year everyone now seems to be singing a similar tune, though Labour and the Nationalists will oppose the measure.
Labour – if it is at all possible to divine what the Opposition thinks about anything – agrees with Evel but thinks this is the wrong way to go about it and wants a convention to discuss bigger matters arising from the shake-up of the constitutional kaleidoscope. These could include the idea of a federal UK as proposed by the Marquess of Salisbury, who considers the Evel proposals to be “ill-conceived and hurried”.


Some Conservative MPs share these concerns; others feel the changes do not go far enough. For now, though, the prospect of a Tory rebellion over what seems like an innocuous rule change appears to have dissipated and English votes for English laws will at last become a reality. How long this state of affairs will last, however, is anyone’s guess. Eventually, the Government will need to erect a shield wall to fend off its assailants on the issue; and anyone unsure of how one of those works should watch the Last Kingdom. Believe me, it’s bloody.


comments
I always considered myself British first and then maybe English. I never thought about my Christian roots or other peoples faiths and the colour of ones skin meant nothing to me.
The creation of a PC state however has had the opposite effect with its endeavours to brainwash me. I am accordingly a repressed homosexual as straight no longer exists as a norm, trans genders are more normal and applauded by the PC crowd.
I am all taught to despise my own country and its history and can get nicked for flying my own flag or be told to take it down lest it offend the invader. Self loathing of my skin colour country and faith is now the new national norm for the long term indigenous..
I am now proudly English and if any was asks me if I am British I state clearly NO I am English.
I am sick and tired of gay rights and abhor the sea of colours in my street. I detest with a vengeance the crowing of one particular faith/cult which is allowed to subvert my country with impunity.
To hell with our rulers.


The likes of Peter Sutherland and Frans Timmerman don't help with their appalling anti nation cant. The nation state matters even if they would rather see it destroyed to bolster the corporations chances of getting what they want when they want it.
GMOs in Europe for example. TTIP. MAI before it , ten years ago.
Its no surprise that England is losing touch with itself considering the rate of immigration our political class have imposed without consultation on top of us all
since 1997. We have far too much Islam in our country I make no apology for saying it. And we are throttled in all discussion of it. It has never been a positive in European history and there is no reason to think it will be this time. They are different. Period.
I'm sick and tired of it. I resent it very strongly. And too many of them are unemployed and unemployable. And too many of them are in our prisons.
We need control of our borders and our immigration rate and our education system and the politically correct brigade are only storing up problems if they wont discuss it all openly


Why wouldn't England and the English have an identity crisis when so many forces have conspired to eradicate our history (not taught in schools), our culture (being ground down by barbaric invaders) and our sovereignty (subsumed into an alien, vindictive and corrupt foreign entity)? Yet if anyone raises their voice to object in even the mildest manner, they are condemned as racist, islamophobic, zenophobic, and much else.

It's a pity someone can't invent a time machine so that we could go back and undo the disastrous mistakes that have brought us to this tragic situation. It makes me want to weep!

While I would encourage everyone to read up on the Anglo-Saxons, Philip has fallen for the separatist distortion of history in this article. Edinburgh is quite clearly an Anglo-Saxon name while Scots is quite clearly related to Old English. The history of this time is more complicated than certain politicians think and certainly more complicated than the BBC think when they prattle on about "Celtic nations" during their coverage of The Six Nations. I would also point Philip to the very interesting genetic studies that indicate most of us are descended from the original Germanic migrants to this island.

To make steel, you need iron ore, carbon and oxygen.



The problems with the steel industry started several decades ago when it no longer became cost effective to mine coal in the UK. In short, the UK steel industry will only ever be profitable during the short periods of high global demand.

Otherwise, it's a lame duck. The good folks of Redcar and Scunthorpe should have moved on years ago, but, like most northerners, they're stuck in a time warp. Get over it.

-=-=-=-=-=


What are the tax arrangements in Austria and China like for overseas visitors?

max - do we actually manufacture cars? ...... no, we add value by assembling the bits that are manufactured elsewhere, though i suspect that quite a lot of the electricals and similar are still produced in uk .... nevertheless, we're obviously very good and efficient at the assembly side, with the result that the country earns a huge amount from the industry


jimmy - estate agents do not pump up house prices, as the current soft london market shows ...... you can ask whatever you like for a property, but at the end of the day, there has to be someone who is prepared to pay that price ..... certainly some estate agents deserve their somewhat spivvy reputation, but the good ones do actually earn their keep

Estate agents might not pump up house prices, but I can certainly think of a few estate agents that I'd like to pump up. :o)

Iv'e seen them at work over the last few years cynic and most of them are slime bags .

I am friendly with one who i have dealt with , who is about the best of a bad bunch and i have come to the conclusion even he is a creep .
Your absolutely wrong on the fact that they don't pump up house prices as i have seen it first hand .

i don't know where you live, but prices obtainable in central(ish) london are down 10% or more on a about year ago ...... as i said, you can ask whatever price you like, but if no one wants to pay that price, you won't get it

i accept that one or two very well known agents over-estimate to the potential clients just to get a property on their books ..... after a month or so, they'll then go back to the client and effectively say "whoops!"

Perhaps, we should stop making "gunpowder", as it is cheaper to import from other countries.


-=-====

It is time to fall back on the "city", with its profitable businesses to finance the UK.

But, now that China is up and running, how long will it be before China learns to build offices and how to use computers and think of shifting the "financial centre and services from London" to Beijing?

Perhaps, they have a crafty plan!

Crafty Bs. these Chinese.

Just look what they put in their soups.


-=-=-=-=

Mind, I am sure they will offer Osborne a tip or two after he services them.

Bend over Dave, it is your turn next!

unlike most of you here, i have made the effort to edit this article into something more concise

China invests £5.2bn in UK projects
Chinese investment group SinoFortone plans to invest more than £5bn in the UK.
It will invest £2bn in Orthios Eco Parks to develop waste power and food stations, initially at Holyhead and Port Talbot in Wales.

The company also said it would invest in developing an amusement park in Ebbsfleet, Kent, reports The BBC.

Development of the amusement park should begin in 2017 and should be completed by 2020, SinoFortone said.

The two power plants in Wales will be developed over the next three years, after which the technology will be rolled out to China and developing countries.

The modular plants take waste heat from power stations that will be used to warm water for king prawn farming. The UK currently imports king prawns.

Other types of seafood, such as Dover Sole, will follow while the process can also be used to help grow vegetables.

The system is also designed to capture carbon dioxide emissions.

The 299 megawatt Holyhead plant in Anglesey will employ at least 500 people, as will the 349 megawatt Port Talbot plant in south Wales, Orthios chief Sean McCormick told the BBC.

Thousands more people will be employed building the plants, he said.

In exchange for the investment, Orthios will source between 50 per cent and 60 per cent of the materials and components needed to build the plants from China.

=================

OK all you grizzlers ......

while i too have misgivings about the massive inward investment - it happens to be from china at the moment - there are very obvious benefits in job-creation at the simplest level

so would you rather not have the investment and then bitch like crazy about the gov't not doing enough to create jobs?

would you applaud ANY gov't that decided it was a "good idea" to subsidise (waste huge sums of money some would say) the steel industry when there was no obvious long-term foreseeable benefit in so doing?

No.

Due to a rush to the emplace a rotten ideological economic policies, by this incompetent bunch of neo-cons, it has been 6 years wasted by serial incompetent government actions, which Cameron and Osborne are now looking for an escape route from their own creation

cut the crap fred and try to write something sensible that is not imbued with your ideological splenetics

and "no" is in relation to what?

Well you seem to know a lot more about crap than I do.

You swallow enough of it and then regurgitate it.

oh well done fred! ...... several chapeaux for that brilliant witticism

for once, try commenting without ideological crap and about the present day and not history

You would understand even if I could take you seriously.

Go back to your barrow.

Read and consider implications of actions taken by your government:

Doctors, teachers, the police – public servants are demoralised

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/18/doctors-teachers-police-public-servants-demoralised

It is very brief and sums up what is happening as a result of barrow boys' dogma.