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.

Stop drinking or get a smaller garden!

... Can't see your garden? Just as well I would have thought.

The good old days

https://youtu.be/jINZBOxdja8

Christmas count down.

Spot on Fred!

Re: #64255


But it goes for all the main three parties. (Not sure what to make of the fishwife)

Just for H/S.. Been lovely weather in Wales -):

A new record temp for UK in November.

Australia's honours system:

a. Australia began awarding its own honours in 1975 - the awards eventually replaced the existing British honours system.

b. Anyone can nominate an Australian citizen for an award for service, excellence or achievement.

c. The awarding of knighthoods and damehoods was discontinued in 1976 but brought back very briefly in 1986 - Tony Abbott reinstated them in 2014.

d. Republicans had said the honours system was an outdated remnant of colonialism.

.. Make your minds up -):

it may be "outdated", but it is also public recognition to all sorts of people for services they have provided .... certainly the recipients, with just the odd dissenter, are much appreciative

for sure there are also "oddball" nominations, but those can also be discounted

i'm all for keeping the system - it harms no one

Manuel.

Are you hoping for recognition?

Or down on your heels and just out of luck?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-


Meanwhile, get ready for the next U-Turn.

Straight talking toff tells it how it is.....




Labour is turning into a sect, says Tristram Hunt


Former shadow minister tells Cambridge University students party is ‘in the shit’ and they are ‘the top 1%’ who must take charge


Frances Perraudin

Monday 2 November 2015 08.37 GMT

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/nov/02/labour-is-in-the-shit-tristram-hunt





The Labour party is “in the shit” and risks turning into a sect, the former shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt has reportedly told students at Cambridge University.

Speaking to Cambridge University’s Labour club in an event entitled Principles, Politics and Pathway to Power, Hunt said: “My fear is algorithmic politics [where because] everyone shares the same views as you on social media and in your social circles you become a sect rather than a party.”

According to the Cambridge University student newspaper Varsity, Hunt told students: “You are the top 1%. The Labour party is in the shit. It is your job and your responsibility to take leadership going forward.”

Hunt was one of a group of former members of the Labour shadow cabinet to rule out serving on Jeremy Corbyn’s front bench if he was elected Labour leader and has been outspoken about the party’s need to prioritise efforts to return to government.

Speaking last month at Sheffield University, Hunt argued that Labour had “marched decisively away from the views of voters on issues that are fundamental to our electoral prospects: immigration, personal financial interest, welfare, public services, and business”.

Asked about Corbyn’s leadership, Hunt reportedly told members of the Cambridge Labour club that Corbyn was “leader until he is not”, stressing that he had won 60% of the vote. “The way you serve the Corbyn leadership is to be as dissenting and creative as possible,” he said, adding that the party was in a “period of intellectual renewal”.

Tristram Hunt = famous for being famous.

so much of labour is beset with its fixation on so-called "class" - it's actually more of a figment than reality - that they would never elect as leader someone as competent as tristram hunt

Jeremy Corbyn = famous for being a commie bxxxxxd!

Jeremy Corbyn questions why Britain commemorates the First World War
Footage from April 2013 shows Labour leader criticised the "shedload" of money due to be spent remembering centenary of WW1

By Ben Riley-Smith, Political Correspondent, video source YouTube/Communist Party1:14PM GMT 01 Nov 2015

Jeremy Corbyn has said he cannot see the reason for commemorating the First World War in footage that has surfaced ahead of Remembrance Sunday.
The Labour leader criticised the “shedload” of money which the Coalition was planning to spend marking the 100th anniversary of the war.
Some four million people visited a remembrance project that saw 888,246 ceramic poppies laid out at the Tower of London in 2014 - one for each British military fatality.

In a video uploaded to YouTube by the Communist Party in April 2013, Mr Corbyn is seen questioning why the country was spending so much remembering the conflict.
"Next year, the government is apparently proposing to spend shedloads of money commemorating the First World War,” he said.
“I'm not quite sure what there is to commemorate about the First World War, other than the mass slaughter of millions of young men and women – mainly men – on the Western Front and all the other places. It was a war of the declining empires.”


The comments were criticised by Tories who said it would be a betrayal for the memories of the fallen not to commemorate the war.
Tom Tugendhat, a Conservative MP who served as an army officer, said: "Commemoration of sacrifice is not glorification of war, as anyone who has fought knows only too well. Not to remember would be a betrayal of that courage."

Jeremy Corbyn critic blocked from running for Oldham West seat 'after being vetoed by trade unions'
Kate Godfrey, who questioned hiring of Seumas Milne, rejected within hours of deadline as party selects seven candidates to interview for by-election.

Scottish Labour's Trident vote does the impossible and makes Jeremy Corbyn's nuclear policy even more absurd
Would a Labour goverment retain Britain's nuclear weapons? Some questions in politics need straight and consistent answers

By James Kirkup10:32AM GMT 02 Nov 2015

Consistency is over-rated in politics. Differences of opinion between colleagues do not automatically worry or deter colleagues, who are generally grown-up enough to realise that no group of adults will ever see things in precisely the same way. And after all, successful companies are full of creative tension between leaders, tension that often improves performance. Politically, a well-managed difference of opinion can even be beneficial, since it means your party appeals to both sides of the argument. The Blair-Brown wars often had the effect of allowing Labour to reach traditional left-leaning voters, who backed Brown and New Labour soft Tory types, who backed Blair.
So when Jeremy Corbyn says he embraces debate among colleagues, a plurality of opinion, he may be on to something. The fact that members of his front bench don’t agree about, say, free schools need not be fatal, as long as the debate is managed well and produces a single coherent policy. So it can be a good thing that “Labour democracy has opened up” and party members take divergent views

Sometimes though, consistency is all. On some binary questions, you need one single clear answer, and it needs to be the same answer, no matter who is speaking for your party. Questions like: should Britain have nuclear weapons?

And on this question, Labour under Jeremy Corbyn has done something many people had thought impossible. It’s become even more absurd, shambolic, contradictory and unconvincing.


Over the weekend, the Scottish bit of the Labour Party voted in favour of getting rid of Britain’s nuclear weapons. The vote came even though Kezia Dugdale, who leads the party in Scotland, wants to keep Trident, which is based in, er, Scotland.
The Scottish aspect of this is more important than some people realise. The Royal Navy believes that Coulport in Scotland is the only place in the UK where the boats that carry Trident can be safely based and maintained. If the Trident successor was banned from Scotland, there would no other home for it, at least until a new base was ready, perhaps in Plymouth, something that could take so many years that for some time, Britain's subs would not have a British base.
Meanwhile, the UK Labour Party is led by Mr Corbyn, a man who wants to get rid of nuclear weapons. But his shadow cabinet is full of people who don’t, including his shadow defence secretary and his deputy leader. Mr Corbyn has suggested that in the event of such disputes, the party membership at the annual conference should be "sovereign" and take the final decision. The party membership as it now stands would probably vote to disarm. But the membership isn’t being asked, not least because the unions who largely fund the party are in favour of nukes and the jobs that depend on them.


Let’s boil this down to simple questions: would a Labour government under Mr Corbyn go ahead with the replacement of Trident and so retain Britain’s nuclear strike capability? If so, where would it be based? And under what circumstances would that government authorise the use of those weapons?
Today, it is simply impossible for any voter to know the answers to those questions. You don’t have to nuke-loving Cold Warrior to see that this is a problem for Labour, a very big one.
Lots of people try to reduce lots of political questions to binary choices, when of course they’re more complicated than that, shades of grey not black and white. Those are the issues when a bit of internal debate can be a good thing.
But some things are binary. Being a nuclear-armed state is like being pregnant: you either are or you’re not. Either is a perfectly acceptable state to be in, but you need to know which you are and act accordingly. Labour needs a single position on nuclear weapons, soon. Otherwise, it's dead. This really is a black and white issue.


Tom Watson, deputy leader: “I think the deterrent has kept the peace in the world for half a century and I hope we can have that debate in the party”
Kevan Jones, shadow defence minister: "It would appear that as leader he is acting in the same way he was when he was on the back benches - picking and choosing what he supports"
Hilary Benn, shadow foreign secretary: "I think a British prime minister has to have that option… You have to negotiate them (an enemy) out of existence”
Maria Eagle, shadow defence secretary: “I don't think that a potential prime minister answering a question like that, in the way in which he did, is helpful”
John McDonnell, shadow chancellor: "It’s ultimately a matter of principle about the morality of using nuclear weapons, which would cause such loss of life and destruction the planet" (March 2015)

Perhaps, Tristan should question what is the "land of shit" and who led them "there" and why others failed to divert them the "followers" to a better "outcome".

Perhaps, a period of discord and resolution may re-evaluate the political goals of the labour party.

-=-=-=-=-=

Interesting articles by Will Hutton and Nick Cohen.

We'll lose something vital if we stop debate on campus and beyond
Will Hutton

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/01/universities-enlightenment-values

-===--==

Traduced by all sides, who will defend the BBC?
Nick Cohen


http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/01/bbc-traduced-by-left-and-right-who-will-defend-it


-=-=-=-=

Both a little too thoughtful for Manuel and the Hazy one.

The most prosperous countries in the world, based on happiness and financial health

The UK took fifteenth place, having achieved the biggest turnaround in any major developed economy

What you mean after deliberately shrinking it, they then inflate it and then claim the credit... you must fancy ever ones daft.

Your argument doesn't hold up as we are fifteenth most wealthy in the world. If you were right then we would not be so high up. Luckily the right government is in power with no possibility of it changing for at least 10 years.