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.

Cheers Hays , they are all very different .Who knows what will happen nearer the time .
I still think we may vote out .

On balance I would like to leave, but I think we will stay due to fear. I am happy with the Common Market aspect but I don't want ever closer political union leading inevitably to federalism.

A very tasteless publisher has brought out a Where's Wally style book to find MH370

germany - economic asylum seekers
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/11945890/Germany-to-deport-economic-migrants-in-military-transport-planes.html?ref=yfp

sorry but i don't know how to set that as a proper link
anyway, the article is well worth reading, with a slight caveat that it comes via the telegraph, and of course its political stance is very well known

in a nutshell, germany's great philanthropic open-door policy for all refugees whether political or economic is suddenly in reverse ...... economic and asylum-refusals are no longer welcome and will apparently be deported in droves

we in uk always grizzle at the lack of action against asylum-refusals, but germany has exactly the same problem, but on a larger scale

Stop winding Jimmy no jumper up Alf.

Re-lighting of Germany to their 1933 period of enlightenment!

Reminds me of Oswald Mosleys early days.


Always believe in the needs and purity of one's own race.

I wonder what race will have me!

The underwater boat race

ps Fred and Stan would make two good whores

This is worth a read. It highlights very well the mistaken dogma of the blind hard left.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2015/10/i-wanted-believe-jeremy-corbyn-i-cant-believe-seumas-milne

Soon, it wont make any difference who you vote for, you will always get €U.




Eurozone crosses Rubicon as Portugal's anti-euro Left banned from power

Constitutional crisis looms after anti-austerity Left is denied parliamentary prerogative to form a majority government




Portugal's president: 'This is the worst moment for a radical change to the foundations of our democracy'


Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

4:30PM BST 23 Oct 2015


Portugal has entered dangerous political waters. For the first time since the creation of Europe’s monetary union, a member state has taken the explicit step of forbidding eurosceptic parties from taking office on the grounds of national interest.


Anibal Cavaco Silva, Portugal’s constitutional president, has refused to appoint a Left-wing coalition government even though it secured an absolute majority in the Portuguese parliament and won a mandate to smash the austerity regime bequeathed by the EU-IMF Troika.


He deemed it too risky to let the Left Bloc or the Communists come close to power, insisting that conservatives should soldier on as a minority in order to satisfy Brussels and appease foreign financial markets.



"Democracy must take second place to the higher imperative of euro rules and membership."

“In 40 years of democracy, no government in Portugal has ever depended on the support of anti-European forces, that is to say forces that campaigned to abrogate the Lisbon Treaty, the Fiscal Compact, the Growth and Stability Pact, as well as to dismantle monetary union and take Portugal out of the euro, in addition to wanting the dissolution of NATO,” said Mr Cavaco Silva.



More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11949701/AEP-Eurozone-crosses-Rubicon-as-Portugals-anti-euro-Left-banned-from-power.html

Portugese president looks like something out of "clear and present danger" !.....

portugal
a very very strange state of affairs ......
how on earth can the president of a democratic country be allowed to arbitrarily decide that it will not allow the party that gained an overall majority to take power?

The same can happen here. The current government is allowed to stay in power until a vote of no confidence. We have had minority governments here in the past. If the Portuguese government is voted down then there are several options. One is to still leave the existing PM in power until the next elections, which would be next June after a new president is voted in some time early next year as he is coming up for reelection. He could just let the left wing party take power with their coalition partners such as the Communist party.

The left's intentions are quite severe and far tougher than Greece. They want to leave the Euro, not pay back most of their debt, nationalise all transport, nationalise the banks, increase spending on health and public employees, spend on infrastructure etc. How they will pay for it all is a mystery. No one will buy their bonds or lend them money. They risk a return to the stone age in terms of their finances.

if the report is correct, the left was presumably the winner of the greatest number of seats and had formed a workable coalition which would give an overall majority

if the first part is correct, then thank goodness our own constitution would not allow action such as has been taken in portugal

that the policies of this coalition may be appalling to us and the rest of europe, to deny the right to rule on the basis of "i don't like you even if you have the most seats" is imposed dictatorship

We have had minority governments when the sum of the other parties would give them a majority. Even if Labour plus SNP had the majority, Cameron could have chosen to continue as a minority government. That is until a no confidence vote. We have no written constitution in the UK.

you're being very obtuse today ......
this is the key ..... the left (party) was presumably the winner of the greatest number of seats ..... add other parties who have agreed to coalesce and they have an overall majority, but that is the second part

Sorry. I thought you realised that the centre-right got the most seats. The left came second, but add the communists and it is a majority.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34611274


Their arrangements may be similar to here. The PM in the UK is still the PM after the election irrespective of the results, even if he got no seats at all. It is then up to him to resign. If he doesn't then he faces a no coincidence vote. It was possible for Cameron to have had a minority government if he would not resign.

ah - thanks for the clarification .... then of course you're correct

Here's another one for you both to comment on:

Saudi Arabia could be bankrupt within five years, IMF predicts
Saudi Arabia generates 90 per cent of its income from oil - a commodity which has recently plummeted in value

The Independent (Adam Leyland)
24.10.2015 (circa 11am)

Saudi Arabia’s cash reserves are in free-fall and the country could have only five years of financial assets remaining due in large part to the fall in oil prices, according to a report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In its World Economic and Financial Surveys, released every October, the IMF said that the kingdom will suffer a negative 21.6 per cent “General Government Overall Fiscal Balance” in 2015 and a 19.4 per cent negative balance in 2016, a massive increase from only -3.4 per cent in 2014.

Saudi Arabia currently has $654.5 billion in foreign reserves, but the cash is disappearing quickly.

The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency has withdrawn $70 billion in funds managed by overseas financial institutions, and has lost almost $73 billion since oil prices slumped, according to Al-Jazeera. Saudi Arabia generates 90 per cent of its income from oil.

Earlier this year the kingdom doled out a massive $32 billion spending spree distributed to the public, to celebrate the coronation of King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.

In 2015 Saudi Arabia also bypassed Russia to take over the world’s third spot in military spending, with a defence budget of $80.8 billion. Meanwhile the war in Yemen, being carried out mostly by the kingdom, shows no sign of abating.

The country is now expected to run a deficit of more than 20 percent of GDP in 2015, according to the IMF.

Masood Ahmed, the IMF’s Middle East director, told reporters in Dubai that the fall in oil prices amounted to a ‘staggering $360 billion this year alone’.

Because the oil price drop is likely to be large and persistent, the kingdom is expected to join other oil exporters and make substantial budget cuts, Al-Jazeera wrote.

But even this may be counter-productive if consumers and companies decide to hold back consumption and investment in response to the cuts.

A more sensible evaluation:

October 23, 2015 2:11 pm
Portugal faces months of political upheaval
Peter Wise in Lisbon



http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d41a28ac-7972-11e5-933d-efcdc3c11c89.html


Wilson led a minority government in 1974 and it had been done on other occasions.