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.

how many will be true and deserving political refugees, and how many just economic refugees, for whom i don't feel we have any great duty - unless with worthwhile and marketable skills

jimmy - prob there for another week, but perhaps they get a special deal and will be able to enjoy basking in the sun for a while longer

Labour MPs have just given Jeremy Corbyn a big 'screw you'

The Parliamentary Labour Party has shown it isn't going to stay comatose while its Corbynite comrades run wild. What happens next?



By Tom Harris

1:33PM GMT 05 Nov 2015

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Politics, eh? One minute you're bemoaning how your party resembles a coma patient and you might as well pull the plug. The next, the patient is positively kicking the NHS blankets onto the floor and asking for a glass of water.


As a word of explanation, there now follows quite possibly the most boring sentence on the internet this year: the results of elections to the chairmanships of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) committees have been announced.


No, don't click away! This is important. Each committee covers the remit of a Whitehall department, and the chair of each committee, in theory, at least, speaks for the PLP (note: not the front bench) on those subject areas.


PLP committees are an oft-overlooked institution, rarely meeting and never noticed — by Labour MPs, let alone the media.





Congratulations to all my colleagues on being elected as PLP Departmental Committee Chairs pic.twitter.com/NJvxfOHXVl
— Caroline Flint (@CarolineFlintMP) November 5, 2015


That is about to change. Because for the first time, like, ever, a great deal of importance is being attached to these elections in which only Labour MPs can participate. And look at who's been elected: Ian Austin at education, Tristram Hunt at Communities and Local Government, Caroline Flint at Energy and Climate Change, the heroic Mike Gapes at Foreign Affairs.

The list — and the pattern — goes on. The first thing to grab your attention is that almost every new committee chair is a staunch and high-profile critic of the new Corbynite regime. Sensible, sound chaps and chapettes, each one.

The second thing to notice is that the cast list is arguably more impressive than the current Shadow Cabinet, and indeed features some who refused to serve under Corbyn.




Little known fact about PLP Departmental Committee chairs: they technically have right to speak from despatch box. https://t.co/BovtRnfeng
— Conor Pope (@Conorpope) November 5, 2015

These election results are essentially a two-fingered salute by the PLP to its "leader", Mr Corbyn, and his extremist allies. This is the PLP saying: "Okay, we screwed up by allowing Corbyn on the ballot paper back in July. Sorry about that. We won't make the same mistake again."

In normal peacetime, these elections wouldn't matter a damn. I was chair of the PLP Northern Ireland committee at one point and I don't recall being called on to comment on the peace process at regular intervals. But these are not normal times. PLP committee chairs can now be expected to have wildly differing views from their Shadow Cabinet equivalents — or at least will have, as Corbyn uses his mandate to roll out whatever policy-making process he will inevitably use to stamp his authority upon policy.



And given the mandate (see, Jeremy? You're not the only one!) now enjoyed by these individuals, the nation will understand that they speak with the authority of the whole PLP. Shadow Cabinet ministers, on the other hand, will speak only with the authority of one man.






"This unexpected sign of life in the patient is encouraging"









On one hand, this unexpected sign of life in the patient is encouraging. It's an indication that the PLP seems determined not to allow the party to go quietly into that dark night. On the other, it's a tentative first step towards the civil war that was inevitable from the moment the leadership election result was announced.

This is the shelling of Fort Sumpter by Confederate troops. And Jeremy Corbyn is no Abe Lincoln.

Hope so ,still the flight home should be safe ...

Dan Hodges: If people won't protest peacefully, we should remove their right to do so


If people can't protest peacefully, they shouldn't be allowed to protest at all

Tonight's anti-austerity 'Million Mask March' is almost certain to descend into kicking, punching, screaming and smashing. That's not striking the balance between the right to political expression and the right to live in an ordered society



By Dan Hodges

11:40AM GMT 05 Nov 2015

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Tonight, there is going to be a licensed riot in central London. We know there will be a riot, because the Metropolitan police service – whose job it is to prevent riots – have told us there will be one.


Yesterday, Chief Superintendent Pippa Mills, of the Metropolitan Police told the Telegraph, "We will always facilitate peaceful protest and have a strong history of doing so. However, over the last few years this event has seen high levels of anti-social behaviour, crime and disorder. This year we have strong reason to believe that peaceful protest is the last thing on the minds of many of the people who will come along. It is unacceptable that a small minority should believe they have the right to break the law, harass people, damage buildings and attack police officers”.





Expect us. #Anonymous #MMM #MMM2015 #MillionMaskMarch #Nov5th pic.twitter.com/ork1ka84oK
— Million Mask March (@AnonymousNov5th) November 5, 2015


Strong words. The problem is that the small minority do have that right. And they have been granted that right by the Metropolitan Police. The “protestors” – the self-styled anti-austerity group Anonymous, who are marching against capitalism – asked for the right to demonstrate in Trafalgar Square from 5.00 pm to 9.00 pm. “No”, said the police. You can only demonstrate there from 6.00 p.m. to 9.00 pm. Or, in effect, you can only bring disorder and chaos to western Europe’s most vibrant capital city for three hours, instead of four.


I actually have a lot of sympathy for the police. In these situations they are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. Ban the demonstration and they are accused of facilitating the establishment of a police state. Allow it to proceed – with the inevitable violence that follows – and they are condemned for their inaction.


Which is why we need to start to take these decisions out of their hands. Public, commentators, politicians. We have to start banging on about the right to protest a lot less, and start banging on about the right to law and order a lot more.

Every time there is a “democratic protest” in Britain now – especially if the target of that protest is that catechism “austerity” – it is accompanied by intimidation and violence. We saw it at the Tory conference in Manchester. We saw it yesterday during the student protests. We will see it again tonight.


People have the right to protest peacefully. But they also have an obligation to protest peacefully. And if they can’t meet that obligation – and it is increasingly apparent that many people cannot – then their right to protest has to be removed from them.

“But, but, but”, wail the organisers of these protests, “it wasn’t that bad. There were only a handful of arrests. It was only a few idiots. The vast majority of the marchers were peaceful”.

Tough. There are too many arrests. There are too many idiots. Not enough marchers are acting peacefully.






"It may grate with some people, but we had a massive expression of our right to protest in this country back in May. Tens of millions of people took to the streets to make their voices heard. It was called a general election."









If, as the TUC and the National Unions of Students claim, it is only a small, unrepresentative number of people causing the disruption at their events then it should be simple to marshal them in such a way that they cannot cause disruption. But they don’t.

In a democracy we have to strike a balance between the right to political expression and the right to live in an ordered society. And we are not striking that balance.

There was disruption and disorder in central London yesterday. There will be disruption and disorder in central London again tonight. It may inconvenient for those who would like us all to live in a state of perpetual agitation, but people actually have to live and work in this city. And they have a right to do so free from continuing intimidation from a group of juvenile – invariably-privileged – delinquents.


“We cannot ban these people, it will be an assault on our democracy,” the civil libertarians storm. No. The people who are assaulting democracy are the people who are kicking police officers in the head, attacking women because they have “posh” accents, vandalizing cars and shops, and bringing our transport system to a standstill.

Let’s imagine for a second if tonight’s “demonstration” was being organized not by anti-austerity protestors, but anti-immigration protestors. If thousands of them spent the night rampaging across London, attacking people who they thought had “the wrong” accent, assaulting the police, and claiming their actions were on behalf of Britain’s silent majority. You wouldn’t be able to hear yourself think over the clamor of the liberal progressives demanding they be banned from our streets.

And they would be right to make that clamour. They should be banned. Just as tonight’s demonstration should have been banned.



I’ve written this before, but it needs repeating. It may grate with some people, but we had a massive expression of our right to protest in this country back in May. Tens of millions of people took to the streets to make their voices heard. It was called a general election. If people want to protest against the result of that election, that’s fine. If they want to try and convince people to speak with a different voice at the next election, that’s fine too.


But what they can’t do is what we’re going to see tonight, which is to try to kick and punch and scream and smash until they get their way. Because if they do, than that will represent the ultimate assault on our liberty.

It is vital we protect our right to free speech. It is vital we protect our right to protest. Which is precisely why tonight’s “demonstration” should not be taking place at all.




The Million Mask March, where anti-establishment protesters don Guy Fawkes masks in hundreds of cities around the world, has been described as “the largest world protest”, at least by its own website.


It is organised by Anonymous, the anarchic ‘hacktivist’ network linked with cyber-attacks against governments including the US and Israel, multi-national corporations such as PayPal and Visa, child porn websites, the Church of Scientology, the British National Party and defenders of media copyright, among others.


The movement is also closely identified with the Occupy protests, Wikileaks, and the Arab Spring.


Last year, 2014, may have been the largest Million Mask March so far, with protests in 481 cities. London’s has always been one of the largest since its inception in 2012.


The UK Anonymous website describes the march on Parliament as a “protest against austerity … the infringement of our rights … mass surveillance … war crimes … corrupt politicians.”


Another site advertising the march links to a scene from the film, 'V for Vendetta', in which a hooded figure, wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, calls for an uprising on the streets of London against the dystopian authoritarian British government.


It’s not difficult to see why Russell Brand, who calls in his latest book for a revolution against as the capitalist system, might sympathise with Anonymous.


But the movement is avowedly loose and leaderless. It makes a virtue of dissent. There were both cheers and cat-calls for Brand as he addressed the London crowd, while some ignored him when he asked them to “not get arrested”.


One protester asked: "Why’s he here? Shouldn’t he be doing interviews with the BBC or something?"

Neil Kinnock warns Labour cannot win without Trident

The former Labour leader issues his warning as Labour and SNP MSPs vote together at Holyrood in favour of scrapping the nuclear deterrent.





By Simon Johnson, Scottish Political Editor

6:20PM GMT 03 Nov 2015

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British voters will not back a party that supports unilateral nuclear disarmament, former Labour leader Neil Kinnock has warned Jeremy Corbyn as Scottish Labour and SNP MSPs voted together to scrap Trident.


Lord Kinnock said his party must confront the “reality” that it will not win a general election with a defence policy opposing the renewal of Britain’s nuclear deterrent.


UK Labour abandoned unilateral nuclear disarmament in the late 1980s as part of his campaign to purge the party of Left-wing extremists and make it more electable.


But only hours after he issued his warning Scottish Labour MSPs voted with Nicola Sturgeon’s Nationalists at Holyrood for a motion calling for Trident to be scrapped. The vote followed a poorly-attended debate at the start of which there were barely 30 MSPs present.


Neil Findlay MSP, Mr Corbyn's closest ally in Scotland, would only say that Labour remains committed to membership of Nato "at the moment" and "at this stage".


Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader, did not break her silence on the issue but she voted with her party despite confirming as recently as September that she supports replacing Trident on a like-for-like basis.

Jackie Baillie, whose constituency includes the Faslane naval base where Trident is housed, was the only Labour MSP who rebelled against the party whip and supported its retention.

As Labour infighting over the nuclear deterrent intensified, Tom Harris, a former minister appeared to threaten to quit the party after it suggested it would consult the Stop the War coalition before taking a view on military intervention in Syria.

The former Glasgow South MP said Labour’s decision to consult “a mad cap coalition of trots, Islamists and anti-west fury chimps” meant the party’s policy on the issue had gone from “a bit bonkers to irredeemable … And I give up. That’s it from me. Goodbye.”



MSPs debated Trident at Holyrood two days after the Scottish Labour conference voted overwhelmingly to scrap the deterrent provided defence workers were found alternative employment.

The vote was seen as a major victory for Mr Corbyn in his battle with his Shadow Cabinet to abandon support for renewing Trident but Maria Eagle, his Shadow Defence Secretary, insisted it was only one “input” into her ongoing review of party policy.

Asked about the Scottish Labour vote, Lord Kinnock said: “The debate is wide open. What I do know is the British people will not vote for unilateral disarmament. And that reality has to be dealt with."

When he became Labour leader in 1983, he was passionately opposed to nuclear weapons and in the 1987 general election, his first as leader, the party was committed to unilateral disarmament.

But after Labour’s defeat, he reluctantly concluded that the party would have to change its policy and by the time of the 1992 election it was committed to only disarming on a multilateral basis with other countries, a stance that has survived until today.

In a purely symbolic vote, as defence is reserved to Westminster, the Scottish Parliament voted by a margin of 96 votes to 17 to scrap Trident and establish “defence diversification agencies” to find Faslane’s workers alternative employment.

Speaking in the debate, Ms Baillie, the Dumbarton MSP, said Faslane is the largest single employer in Scotland and cited warnings from union leaders at the base that the promise of alternative jobs is a mirage.

The Conservatives, who also voted against the Scottish Government motion, attacked it for portraying the decision to replace Trident as a straight choice between “warfare and welfare” and pointed to polling showing a majority of Scots want it to be renewed.

at least some sort of un-freeze from sharm starting tomorrow
details not apparent

just walked back to whitehall via traf sq ....... all very peaceful though heavy police presence ....... what a waste of police time time, money and resources, though i'm sure the scene would have been very diff had the police not been around

Russian plane crash: British spies uncovered Isil bomb plot

The Telegraph has learnt that an Isil bomb plot was uncovered by British spies, as Obama says a bomb "certainly possible" - yet Russia and Egypt insist it is too early to say

Anyone here own a Vauxhall Zafira B? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34743833

Not sure any one would admit to that !

Tissues at the ready for the new John Lewis Christmas TV Advert, featuring a delightful little girl with a telescope and "The lonely old man on the moon".

Putin has offered Russian flights to be suspended to Egypt. They have 45,000 tourists stranded there now.

http://news.sky.com/story/1583071/jeremy-corbyns-head-of-policy-suspended

Jeremy Corbyn's Head Of Policy Suspended

Jeremy Corbyn's head of policy has been suspended from the Labour Party pending a report by its ruling NEC.

Andrew Fisher had faced calls for his expulsion after suggesting people should back a Class War candidate at the General Election.

Jeremy Corbyn faces backlash after political adviser Andrew Fisher describes Ed Miliband's cabinet as a 'collection of s****'

The former union activist, also referred to Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell as 'scumbags', called Jack Straw a 'vile git'.

Jeremy Corbyn is facing a backlash from Labour MPs after it emerged that the man he appointed as his political adviser described Ed Milband’s shadow cabinet as “the most abject collection of absolute shite”.

Andrew Fisher, a former union activist, also referred to Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell as “scumbags”, called Jack Straw a “vile git” and accused Yvette Cooper of pushing “racist” policies when she was shadow Home Secretary. Mr Fisher, a prominent figure on the left who was one of Mr Corbyn’s first appointments, is also facing accusations of party disloyalty for backing an anarchist candidate against Labour at the election and taking to Twitter to celebrate the downfall of the shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls.

LOL!!! What a shrewd chap Handy Andy is.

Sounds as if he has habited the same gutter as some tories have.

Where is hays you dossing nowadays?

Problem he's got of course is he's part of an even bigger 'bag of shite' :0)

Getting the boot for telling the truth.

And you cant fault his position re: Balls Up.

Hero of the week is undoubtedly the cleaner at the Museion Bozen-Bolzano in Italy. Faced with a horrible mess in the main gallery – fag ends, empty bottles, party streamers – she cleaned it all up, put it in black bags and chucked it out. Yes, of course – it was an ‘installation’ by the artists Sara Goldschmied and Eleonora Chiari. As the Italian art critic Vittorio Sgarbi put it, ‘If she thought it was rubbish, it means it was. Art should be understood by everyone — including cleaners.’

Quite – and you’d think that would be an end to it. But no, the Guardian’s art critic said instead that the cleaner’s peremptory actions were ‘proof of the enduring vitality’ of modern art. Proof of your enduring delusion, mate. There’s a fine exhibition in London right now by the artist Peter Goodfellow which debunks the narcissism and worthlessness of our own conceptual artists, the Emins and Hirsts etc. But I fear that while the public – especially the cleaners – may be right with him, the critics won’t be. They have a dog in the fight, after all.