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.

David Cameron and senior ministers to get dedicated plane

The government will give David Cameron and senior ministers the use of a converted RAF plane for official trips






By Steven Swinford, Deputy Political Editor

10:00PM GMT 18 Nov 2015



David Cameron and senior ministers are to be given the use of a dedicated plane for long-distance trips instead of chartered flights.


The government will announce next week that it will spend £10million refitting an RAF plane which is normally used for air-to-air refuelling.


Ministers insist that the plane will save the taxpayer up to £775,000 a year on the cost of Downing Street's flights because it will avoid the use of costly charter flights.


Downing Street is likely to face criticism over the announcement as it comes ahead of the spending review which will see deep cuts across Whitehall.


It will cost significantly less than Tony Blair's plans for "Blair Force One", which involved the purchase of two private jets for the Prime Minister's use and the Royal Family at an estimated cost of £100million.


Gordon Brown, the then Chancellor, blocked the plans and later abandoned them entirely when he became Prime Minister. The Conservatives criticised the idea at the time saying it was the “wrong moment to be splashing out taxpayers' money on funding the government to travel in style".



More austerity here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/12004343/David-Cameron-and-senior-ministers-to-get-dedicated-plane.html

The government will announce next week that it will spend £10million refitting an RAF plane which is normally used for air-to-air refuelling.
-----
The USA get Air Force One and Dave arrives covered in Diesel , maybe he's trying to get that Winston Churchill look .

i suspect that there are also a number of security elements in play

just fo JB

Back door Cam Force One.

£10m quid to convert...they are never going to use this plane as anything other than a vanity vehicle for the chaps.

Why cant they ride coach like the rest of us?

Telegraph
Nicola Sturgeon: SNP prepared 'to listen' to argument for Syria strikes
In light of the recent terror attacks in Paris, Scotland's first minister has said she is “prepared to listen” to the case for extending air strikes in Syria

Ken Livingstone, Jeremy Corbyn and the shaming of the Labour Party
Telegraph View: By refusing to sack his hateful ally, the Labour leader disgraces himself and his party.


David Blunkett: Ken Livingstone should stand down as co-chair of Labour's defence review
David Blunkett has said Ken Livingstone should stand down as co-chair of Labour's defence review, after he called for shadow minister with depression to seek "psychiatric help".


Together we stand, divided we fall!

Come on now JEZZA get on the ball!! LOL! Joke that is the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. More, More!

I hope they go through customs and security!

BBC News

Junior doctors in England vote in favour of strikes in December over new contract.

i confess i really do fail to understand why the two sides seemingly refuse to sit down and thrash this out
for the life of me, i cannot determine which party has the stronger claim, as i hear differing opinions even from the consultants and other senior medics

The Antibiotics news is quite worrying too.

Because they don't trust Cameron, Hunt, or this government on their dealing with them or the future of the NHS.

Things are getting worse for Corbyn in Scotland. They are only two points ahead of the Conservatives.

One of the comments I agree with :-

11% pay rise and they call that bad?
Most of us in the private sector get contract changes quite regularly, we don't get our knick knacks in a twist, we just sign and move on.
The NHS has huge debt and is in a poor state so it needs to change yes? if it continues as-is (which is what this mob of loonies want) then it's going to go bust.
Change or collapse, those are the choices.

Junior doctors make up their money by working in excess of 90 hours a week.
Dave says they can work a max of 72 hours a week, and at increased ra£e.

I have worked 92 hours a week at security{many years past} and at the end, I was knackerd and worn out.
Junior Doc's sometimes have to make life or death decissions, even when they are knackerd and worn out.
But now they are saying that it's about the money and not the wellfare of the patient!!
Someone should point out to them that it is a HOSPITAL they are going to work in, not a morgue.

Listening to John Reid and David Blunkett makes you realize how far Labour has gone downhill. Now "led" by mental dwarfs supported by syncophants.

are you SURE that doctors work "in excess of 90 hours a week"?

do not confuse working with being able to sleep for much of a shift at hospital

when doctors/consultants are or were on call, they too actually worked very few hours of that time

It,

I thought until I checked you were talking about the conservative party and the blue-rinsed brigade.

how frightfully droll

Scotsman.

Leaders: The worst kind of political posturing

The security services have a tough enough job dealing with terror plots against society without pontificating politicians chiming in

The horrific attacks in Paris have simply reinforced the murderous and ruthless nature of the cult calling itself Islamic State and their single-minded aim to spread terror.



Read more: http://www.scotsman.com/news/leaders-the-worst-kind-of-political-posturing-1-3952176#ixzz3rwHP0fFb
Follow us: @TheScotsman on Twitter | TheScotsmanNewspaper on Facebook

While the depravity of the terrorist group cannot be overstated, its ability to strike at the heart of the French capital underlines the job our police and security services have on their hands.


Yesterday’s police raids in the suburb of Saint Denis were the latest chapter in an unfolding horror which has gripped France since Friday night. The hunt for Abdelhamid Abaaoud – the apparent mastermind of last week’s attacks – led to a flat where a women wearing a suicide vest blew herself up and a suspect was killed in a hail of police bullets and grenades.

Five members of France’s anti-terrorism unit were injured in the incident and a police dog 
was killed.

The French police deserve a huge amount of praise for the courage they have shown, putting their lives at risk to strike back at those who brought terror to their capital on Friday night. That is reinforced by the suicide bomber they faced

But while they have approached their task with a stoic resolve, an unseemly debate has raged across the Channel about whether British police should be able to “shoot to kill”.

Earlier this week, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn found himself fighting off attacks from his own MPs when he confessed to being “not happy” about the policy.


He has since backtracked, telling his party’s ruling executive committee that he supports any “strictly necessary force” to protect against a terrorist attack.

Prime Minister David Cameron has backed the police’s use of shoot-to-kill, as has the SNP’s deputy leader, Stewart Hosie, who yesterday said it was right that police be allowed to use “necessary force” against anyone posing a “real and immediate risk”.

After Friday’s attacks many of us were left with feelings of impotence and frustration for the plight of those innocent civilians gunned down with no chance of fighting back. But that frustration and desire to help must be felt tenfold by police officers and those others who spend their lives protecting the public.

The debate over shoot-to-kill is political posturing at its very worst.


It’s an attempt by politicians to take ownership of a situation where the grief of those who lost loved ones in Paris is still raw.

Their pronouncements on shoot-to-kill are designed to show us they are tough and willing to make the hard decisions.

But these are the sort of decisions which should be left to professionals who face tough calls in life-or-death situations and who know the realities of those situaions.

In the wake of the French attacks, our own security services confirmed that a number of plots had been foiled in the UK in recent months. The job our security services face is immense; from monitoring those returning from Syria to scouring electronic communications data from terrorist “chatter”.

The last thing they need now is for pontificating politicians to make their jobs harder.


Comment:-


And Nicola Sturgeon was at it again today, using an international crisis to try and big up her role and to pretend to be a leader on the world stage. She is not a head of state, she leads a regional assembly. She has no role in defence, no role in foreign affairs, no role with the security services and even her nationwide police force has to work on plans dictated by the UK anti-terrorist branch.

Her party, which as stated has no role in foreign affairs or UK development aid somehow manages to convince itself that the Scottish Parliament needs an International development minister. This is nothing more than an opportunity for Mr Yousef to fill his expenses form and have a few nice foreign holidays.

It would be far better if Nicola Sturgeon concentrated on those domestic policies for which she has responsibility.

As for the futile 55 plus one at Westminster, yet again they have a side-lined role in events. Even though there are a few Conservatives against bombing ISIS in Syria, there are likely more than enough Labour rebels to help the Prime Minister get such action through, if that is what he wants. As each day passes, the decision to impose 56 charlatans as Scotland's Westminster cohort looks an increasingly foolish thing to have done.