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.

Let's give Freddy Boy a trip down memory lane! :0)

Top 10 most shocking Labour party scandals
By Harry Cockburn


Cash for access, MPs’ expenses, egg pelting and more…

In Britain, we love a political scandal. Sleaze, corruption and hypocrisy maintain public interest in the political sphere in a way that debate over policies will never quite match.

It might be argued that revelations of politicians’ acts of moral turpitude are essential - a yardstick by which we can measure ourselves and our political system, and a reminder to those with power that they are not above scrutiny.




No large political party has managed to avoid having to deal with uncomfortable issues at one time or another, and the Labour party is no exception. Indeed, Labour can rival major contenders such as UKIP and the Tories when it comes to scandalous behaviour.

We take a filthy trawl through some of the party’s most compromising moments:

1. Formula 1 and cigarettes, 1997
In the year Tony Blair steered his party to a landslide electoral victory, Labour soon managed to become ensnarled in a scandal involving a £1m donation from Formula 1 Boss Bernie Ecclestone. The large sum of money began to raise eyebrows when the incoming government changed its policy to allow Formula 1 to continue being sponsored by tobacco manufacturers. When the scandal came to light, the party reversed its policy and returned the donation.

2. Mandelson’s loan, 1998
Peter Mandelson had barely been a member of Blair’s cabinet before he was forced to resign. Mandelson kicked up a storm after it emerged that he’d taken an interest-free personal loan of £373,000 from fellow Labour MP Geoffrey Robinson to help buy a house in Notting Hill in 1996. This wasn’t a problem in itself; however, Robinson was the subject of an inquiry into his business dealings by Mandelson’s department. Mandelson later said that he’d not taken part in any decisions directly relating to Robinson, and he had also failed to register the loan with the Register of Members’ Interests. After coming under pressure from Blair, Mandelson resigned his position on 23rd December 1998. Robinson was also forced to resign. Not such a Merry Christmas after all.

3. Ron Davis’s mad moment, 1998
Meanwhile, Welsh Labour MP Ron Davies was busy making life difficult for himself, and stood down from his position as Secretary of State for Wales after a “moment of madness”, during which he was mugged at knifepoint when he picked up a man on Clapham Common and took him for a meal.

4. Prescott I, 2001
During the 2001 election campaign, John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister and a former amateur boxer, delivered a deft punch to the face of farmer Craig Evans who had thrown an egg at him.

5. Burying bad news, 2001
Later that year, and on the same day as the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in New York, Labour spin doctor Jo Moore made a catastrophic error of judgement and wrote an email to a press officer suggesting it was a good day to bury bad news. “It’s now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury,” she wrote. “Councillors’ expenses?” A story about councillors’ expenses subsequently appeared. When the email emerged publicly a month later, Moore made a public apology for the insensitivity. But the following year, another email appeared suggesting Moore had tried a similarly crass tactic again, a mistake for which she was force to resign.



2003 was the year of “Jowellgate”, named after the financial brouhaha that engulfed Tessa Jowell, Labour’s secretary of state for culture, media and sport. The scandal arose when her husband David Mills, a lawyer, was alleged to have corruptly received £340,000 from the bunga-bunga loving Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Mills was subsequently investigated in Italy for money laundering and alleged tax fraud. Jowell was investigated over the allegations against her husband due to a potential clash between her personal life and ministerial duties. Tony Blair, a political ally of Berlusconi, eventually cleared her of any wrongdoing.

In 2006 it emerged that Prescott had been having an affair with his diary secretary Tracy Temple between 2002 and 2004. The affair, and Prescott’s entertainment of Temple at Dorneywood, his official residency, raised questions about use of public finances.

8. Cash for influence scandal I, 2009
Four Labour party life peers with names not dissimilar to Harry Potter villains were the subject of a scandal that saw them become the first peers in 367 years to be suspended from the house. Lord Snape, Lord Moonie, Lord Taylor of Blackburn and Lord Truscott were exposed by Sunday Times journalists to be offering to help make amendments to legislation in return for up to £120,000.

The House of Lords privileges committee found that Lords Moonie, Truscott and Blackburn had all breached the House’s code of conduct, but that Lord Snape had not.

9. MPs expenses scandal, 2009
From 8th May 2009, the Daily Telegraph began publishing daily instalments of leaked documents providing the shocking details of MPs expenses claims. Labour MPs were well represented in the naughty list. Indeed, of the six MPs that were eventually convicted for false accounting and other expenses abuse, all were from the Labour party.

Some of the Labour Party’s members’ most ridiculous claims at the tax-payers’ expense include:

Prescott III: John Prescott’s £312 claim for fitting mock Tudor beams to his constituency home, and for two new toilet seats in as many years, according to the Telegraph.

David Miliband allegedly claimed for gardening expenses and nearly £30,000 in repairs, decorations, and furnishings his family home in South Shields.

Margaret Moran claimed £22,500 for treating dry rot at her third home in Southampton, and later argued that MPs need a London home, a constituency home and a third home for family life. She later agreed to repay the sum, saying she understood her constituents’ anger.

Quentin Davis, who defected to the Labour party when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, claimed £10,000 for window repairs at his second home, an 18th century mansion.

Three former Labour cabinet members managed to get themselves into hot water after they were secretly filmed by Channel 4’s Dispatches journalists admitting to using their positions to influence government policy in return for cash. Geoff Hoon, Stephen Byers and Patricia Hewitt were all interviewed along with other MPs. Some of the most memorable recorded comments include Byers describing himself as “a cab for hire” and Hoon saying he wanted to make “some real money”. Hoon was banned from Parliament for five years and Byers for two years.



Beyond 2010 – The Miliband years

Not so much a political scandal as a fraternal one, Ed Miliband became a late runner in the Labour leadership race, challenging his brother David to lead the opposition government. The plucky upstart garnered the support of influential unions and sealed his victory. Relations between them are reportedly very frosty.

Since then, Miliband has steered clear of major controversy, but did make people groan with despair when, during a 2011 public sector strike over cuts, Miliband repeated himself like a crazy robot to ITV’s Damon Green who was interviewing him for television.



The biggest New Labour scandal was the illegal invasion of Iraq based on the lies told by Blair and Campbell.


I seem to recall that after the Labour party lost the general election Gordon Brown still signed a treaty with the EU before David Cameron could confirm the take over by the conservative/lib dem coalition committing

going back a page or two ....

apart from prurient interest, what does it matter in the slightest if a minister has been shagging his mistress in a member's club or even a hotel room? .... they're both much the same thing

that he was claiming the room on expenses (it was cheap by london prices) is also a total irrelevance, for it seems he was fully entitled to do so, and that he took his mistress there, is again, totally irrlevant

Who woke you up Bamber?

just back from golf and a very good lunch :-)

Time for a nap then.

fred's customary and incessant burbling in certainly good for any insomniac

I thought you liked digging into past histories.

-=-==-=-

Ps.

Was it lunch for celebrities?

United we stand, Divided we fall!!!! LOL!!!


Labour MP John Mann attacks Ken Livingstone over 'psychiatric help' row
John Mann calls former London mayor ‘appalling bigot’ for his comments to shadow defence minister Kevan Jones.


The row over Ken Livingstone’s remarks that shadow defence minister Kevan Jones “might need psychiatric help” was reignited on Saturday when the former London mayor was labelled a bigot by Labour MP John Mann.

In a live phone-in on LBC radio, Mann called Livingstone “an appalling bigot” and “all mouth” and criticised him for refusing to campaign for Labour in the Oldham byelection in 12 days’ time.

“I think it would be far better if you stopped your excruciating apologies for your bigoted views,” said Mann. “To be honest, so shocking, so appalling they’re unfit in any political party.”

Livingstone, an ally of Jeremy Corbyn, struck back by accusing Mann and other MPs on the right of the party of undermining Labour’s leadership more “than I have ever seen in the past”.

When the veteran Labour politician then refused Mann’s invitation to campaign in Oldham, the MP accused him of being “all mouth”.

The former mayor responded: “You’re on the radio and TV all the time, criticising what this party leadership is doing. All the time.”

Mann then demanded that Livingstone give him an example and later accused him of “twisting things and failing to apologise for … your bigoted remarks about Kevan Jones. You’re the one who’s creating dissent.”

The former mayor then appeared to again backtrack on his apology to Jones, saying the MP should have spoken to him before criticising his appointment as co-chair of Labour’s review of Trident.

On Wednesday Livingstone tweeted that he “unreservedly apologised” to Jones for telling the Mirror: “I think he might need some psychiatric help. He’s obviously very depressed and disturbed … He should pop off and see his GP before he makes these offensive comments.” Jones, MP for North Durham, experienced depression in 1996.

But appearing on Channel 4 News later on Wednesday, he then watered down his apology by saying: “If I’ve upset anyone, I’m really sorry. But this row isn’t something I started. It’s because I was attacked as not fit for this job.”

Livingston told Mann on Saturday: “I didn’t attack Kevan Jones. Kevan Jones attacked me and I responded. Why don’t you say something critical about an MP who comes out and attacks someone he’s never spoken to, smears them and says [they’re] not fit to do the job.”

Mann responded: “You are a bully attacking Kevan Jones. Your language is appalling. You’re a bigot. You’ve failed to apologise … Even today, you’re failing to do so.

The show’s co-host, former Conservative minister David Mellor, then intervened, saying: “Can listeners kindly be reminded that these are two members of the Labour party who’ve been discussing their love for one another.”

Still waiting H/S

Ministers must answer to those who will lose out under the new state pension

A million people will lose valuable benefits under the new state pension scheme, but officials remain stubbornly silent



By Richard Dyson

8:03AM GMT 21 Nov 2015



To be fair to committed reformers such as Ros Altmann, the current pensions minister, and Steve Webb, her predecessor, the Government’s plans to radically overhaul the state pension are well intentioned. And overdue.


As I’ve said here before, the state pension system we’ve got at the moment is barely comprehensible even to Department for Work & Pensions staff whose awful job is to administer it.


It should go.


But as we report this weekend, the transition from today’s deficient state pension, with its multiple components, to a new, “single-payment” type of pension, is going to be painful.


Some groups will lose out - with millions estimated to end up being more than £1,000 worse off.


We have highlighted just one group in particular, those people soon to retire who were paying into final salary type pensions through the Eighties and Nineties.

They may forfeit the inflation-linking element of part of their pension, effectively meaning that the real value of that chunk of pension payments will decline.




More vote losing here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/12007871/Ministers-must-answer-to-those-who-will-lose-out-under-the-new-state-pension.html

How much income tax has Osborne bought the higher earners with?

How much in death duties has he saved his pals from paying. They are really suffering from his austerity cuts.

But what has he done for the most impoverished and weakest in society?

I hope he spends a night or two on the embankment this Christmas.

And now Ossie is going to include millions of disgruntled pensioners to his list of admirers.



Are we heading towards a "son of poll tax point"?

One of the biggest pension scandals in recent years is the robbery that women have been imposed with by firstly the Labour (I think I'm right in saying) and then successive "Con" artist Governments on moving their retirement ages back at very short notice. Result being that they lose 1000s of £'s at very short notice.

An absolute outrageous imposition, they have only been allowed to get away with it because most women are to damn soft.

Not the women I know.

You can have anyone of my five wives.

Thanks you for that kind offer Fred but one's enough thanks -):

stan - i have a feeling that the notice wasn't actually that short but that it wasn't greatly publicised .... can't remember exactly but heard it on the wireless a month or two back

however, can one really object that the pensionable age for women be made the same as for men? ..... after all, their lifespan is actually a few years longer

with regards to pensions in general, these have been a target for boosting gov't revenues for at least a decade or two, by lowering the amount of tax benefit on them to imposing taxes on the funds that provide the source of the pension

I cant get my head around the pensions thingy at all.

But I cant help thinking that two neighbours, one aged 65 now, and the other 65 next year will have a difference of £35 a week in their basic pensions, and the gov expects this to fly.

What are the pensions gods/politicians thinking/drinking?

Max.

Their own vanity!

Alf, I have no problem in an "age adjustment" on start of Retirement Pensions for Women or indeed Men but it's the "very short notice" given to Women especially that I think has been outrageous.

Also when one considers that an awful lot of Women have not worked or worked part time so have accrued less credits.