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.

Don't forget that the Parliament Act can be used to override the Lords. If the Parliament Act is used then the Lords can only delay the Bill for one month and then it automatically passes to the end of the process. The last time it was used was in 2004 when Blair forced through the hunting bill against the Lords.

What is good about tax credits?

All it is doing is undermining the minimum wage at tax payers expense.


Oh, and making Big Issue sellers a viable "business"....what a joke!

The government's strategy is to lower tax credits, give employers tax breaks and raise the living wage and raise the tax free allowance. One essential is to enforce the minimum wage. In the medium to long term it will rebalance the economy. Brown brought in working tax credit as a bribe to win an election. It is going to be tough on some people for a time but what is the alternative. It is currently a vicious circle enabling employers to pay low wages in the knowledge that the government will top them up.

Corbyn has decided to conform

ICM’s latest weekly tracker on the EU referendum has voting intentions of

REMAIN 44%(-1), LEAVE 38%(+2)

The Lords have removed the 'fatal' motion as it would have created a constitutional crisis.

tax credits cuts
whenever you make changes to the taxation system, there will be people who are disadvantaged by them, and this is assuredly no different
i don't care at all what the likes of fred may say on the subject, as i know full well that he will be quoting from the socialist worker manual, so for me, it has no cadence (i think that's the right word)
however, when i hear impassioned speeches in protest coming from the tory benches in both the commons and the lords, then perhaps closer scrutiny is required

whether or not there should be some "softening" and if so, how much, i am not remotely qualified to judge

Your last remark is obvious!

did you have similar objections when Tata, an indian conglomerate, bought these steel works?

Cadence ,not really the right word .

cadence
ˈkeɪd(ə)ns/Submit
noun
1.
a modulation or inflection of the voice.

------------

Talking bollocks would be more like it ..

Reminds me of PFI contracts!

Your mate Broon is the expert on PFI Fred.

Perhaps credence? But I prefers jimmys definition. Better english.

Max,

Check your facts.

PFI initiated in their present form by John Major!

And Labour continued the stupidity.

But the present bunch of incompetents have had nearly 6 years to change the system.

There has been an interesting development on the migrant front. Two boats with 140 migrants have landed on the south coast of Cyprus at the RAF base in Akrotiri.

The RAF base is UK sovereign territory!

How many 'Back to the Future' comments will there be at PMQs today.

The Future of London?

Credit Suisse boss delivers blow to costly London
LONDON | BY ANJULI DAVIES
A long time exposure shows light trails of a tram driving past the headquarters of Swiss bank Credit Suisse at the Paradeplatz square in Zurich, Switzerland October 21, 2015. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann
A long time exposure shows light trails of a tram driving past the headquarters of Swiss bank Credit Suisse at the Paradeplatz square in Zurich, Switzerland October 21, 2015.
REUTERS/ARND WIEGMANN

Credit Suisse is looking at moving nearly 2,000 jobs out of London because of its high costs, the bank's new boss said on Wednesday, dealing a blow to the city's status as Europe's dominant financial centre.

Chief executive Tidjane Thiam estimated the Swiss-based bank could save 230 million Swiss francs (156 million pounds) a year if some back-office positions were moved to lower cost centres such as in Poland and India. This would potentially mean a saving of 128,000 Swiss francs for each of the estimated 1,800 jobs in question.

Thiam, who swapped London for Zurich after six years at the helm of London-based insurer Prudential, was speaking after the bank set out plans for a major overhaul, including measures to "right-size" its staff numbers in London, where most of its investment bankers are based.

"We have 6,600 jobs (in London), 2,400 front office, 4,200 back office. Out of the 4,200 about 2,400 are directly connected to the front office so they need to be co-located with the front office," Thiam said at a press conference on Wednesday.

"The other 1,800 frankly don't need to be in London and that's the potential we're looking at plus a little bit of efficiency in the front office."

The City of London regained its crown as the world's leading financial centre in 2015, after losing it to New York in 2014, following a decisive national election victory by the Conservative party, according to research company Z/Yen.

Jobs in London's financial and related professional services industry reached an all-time high of 729,600 as at June 2015, the latest survey by lobby group TheCityUK said this month.

But tough regulation imposed since the financial crisis and uncertainty about Britain's membership of the European Union have prompted a number of big banks, including HSBC to look at the economic viability of remaining in the City.

"Definitely London is too expensive,” one Credit Suisse IT contractor based in Canary Wharf told Reuters.

In Canary Wharf, for example, where Credit Suisse's has its London offices, property prices have risen by 27 percent since early 2013, outstripping the 10 percent growth seen across prime central London over the same time, according to an index from property company Knight Frank.

Prime office space in Warsaw costs around 270 euros ($306.40) per square metre compared with around 670 euros per square metre in Canary Wharf, according to Savills, another property group.

Other major banks have already set up operations in locations that are cheaper and often more attractive for IT and back-office staff.

Citigroup has IT hubs in San Francisco and Israel, JPMorgan has sites in Delaware on the U.S. east coast and in Bournemouth on Britain’s south coast. Deutsche Bank has moved people to Birmingham, in central England, HSBC's technology centres include Curitiba in Brazil and Barclays has opened a new technology hub in Dallas, Texas.

Credit Suisse is currently in discussions with the Irish central bank about opening a regulated office in Dublin to relocate some functions including prime broking, which provides services to hedge funds, to the Irish capital, according to a source familiar with the matter.

"What we're seeing is Credit Suisse accepting the logic that they have too much in London ... he's acknowledging that if he's shrinking the investment bank he needs to shrink that hub," Chris Wheeler, analyst at Atlantic Securities, said.

"London hasn't done as much of the outsourcing as they have done on Wall Street already."

(Additional reporting by Sinead Cruise, Kit Rees, Lisa Barrington, Louise Ireland, Steve Slater and Joshua Franklin, editing by Jane Merriman)

Meacher snuffs it:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34592381

I see Cameron has sold out to the Chinese!

Is that a nice little earner for the Arthur Daley of Politics?

How much did?