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.

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.

as i wrote before .....
i have a feeling that the notice wasn't actually that short but that it wasn't greatly publicised

Max.

But Haze will probably have the latest Lynton and Dave's spin on it:


There is the connection:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/12010764/Tatler-Tory-scandal-22-year-old-activists-lost-night-with-MP.html


Tatler Tory scandal: 22-year-old activist's 'lost night' with MP
Party source tells The Telegraph young woman has "no recollection" of how she ended up staying the night with politician
Mark Clarke in 2006
Mark Clarke was dubbed the "Tatler Tory" after the society magazine tipped him for cabinet stardom before the 2010 Election Photo: Martin Pope/The Telegraph
By Tom Morgan and Laura Hughes10:00PM GMT 22 Nov 2015
Conservative chiefs investigating the "Tatler Tory" sleaze scandal have received a complaint about a 22-year-old activist who claims she woke up naked in a Tory MP's bed with no memory of the night before.
The incident was raised to Tory HQ by a concerned friend who said the Conservative campaigner is terrified the incident could derail her career.

-=-===

What do the tories get up to at their parties.

Fred.

Are we supposed to give any credence to that story?

The woman seems to have a memory problem.

ie, why did it take 9 years to come back to her?

This is why I haven't squelched Fred,kept me amused for years. The Labour Party is imploding and still he bangs on about the Conservatives. He's a clever wind up merchant. Every credit he's red till he dies, no embarrassment shown. :0)