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.

.

Boost for David Cameron EU renegotiation as Merkel and Hollande make migrant benefit offer

Eurosceptics will claim that Mr Cameron has failed in his flagship bid to stop benefits claims by EU migrants for four years



Big Dave's fighting again



By Peter Dominiczak, Political Editor

2:47PM GMT 25 Dec 2015


David Cameron's EU renegotiation has been given a boost after it emerged that Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande have offered to allow him to stop migrants claiming benefits in the UK for three years.


The two EU leaders have suggested the compromise deal in a bid to save Mr Cameron's flagging renegotiation and ensure Britain does not leave the EU.


Mr Cameron had initially demanded that Britain is able to stop EU migrants claiming in-work benefits for four years.


However, this was overwhelmingly rejected by EU leaders, who said that it threatened the principle of "freedom of movement".


The news that Mrs Merkel and Mr Hollande have offered the deal will be welcomed by Downing Street and will allow Mr Cameron to claim that his renegotiation has been largely successful.


More miracles here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/12069131/Boost-for-David-Cameron-EU-renegotiation-as-Merkel-and-Hollande-make-migrant-benefit-offer.html

Three or four years, what's the difference? More important in my view is to deport those that shouldn't be here or in the EU.

i think there would be general consensus across the country for that - fred would be the inevitable objector

unfortunately, this is where we and others get hamstrung by the likes of the human rights act

Why did I think of the neo-cons and Manuel and other wannabes would want to share this:




Some wanting to bring back the 1930s and the "social" revolution1

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-not-trusted-to-safeguard-national-security-by-71-of-britons-a6787776.html

Jeremy Corbyn not trusted to safeguard national security by 71% of Britons

Exclusive: Survey's findings will worry Labour leader, with 54% of participants trusting David Cameron

Seven out of 10 people do not trust Jeremy Corbyn to safeguard Britain’s national security, according to an ORB poll for The Independent. Fifty-four per cent trust David Cameron to maintain the country’s security, while 46 per cent do not.

The findings of the survey of 2,000 people will worry Labour critics of their party leader, who claim that people would not vote for a potential prime minister they regard as weak on security.

Terrorism, the Syria crisis and the question of whether to renew Britain’s Trident nuclear weapons system are bound to keep the issue in the spotlight in 2016.

Lord (John) Hutton, the former Labour Defence Secretary, branded Mr Corbyn a threat to national security after the Labour leader said he would never press the nuclear button. The poll found that only 29 per cent of people trusted Mr Corbyn on the issue, while 71 per cent did not.

According to the results, men are more likely than women to have faith in Mr Cameron on security. Six out of 10 men (59 per cent) trust him on the issue, compared with 49 per cent of women.

.

Haze,

Is this the man haunting you?

Saudi Arabia posts $98B deficit, raises petrol prices
Originally published December 28, 2015 at 5:25 am Updated December 28, 2015 at 11:32 am

By ABDULLAH AL-SHIHRI
AYA BATRAWY
The Associated Press

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia on Monday said this year’s budget deficit amounted to $98 billion (367 billion riyals) as lower oil prices cut into the government’s main source of revenue, prompting the kingdom to scale back spending for the coming year and hike up petrol prices.

A royal decree announced that petrol prices would go up by 50 percent effective Tuesday. Even with that jump, Saudis will pay just 24 cents (0.90 riyals) for a liter of 95 octane gasoline, less than a dollar per gallon. The Saudi-based Jadwa Investment estimates the government spends around $61 billion on energy subsidies annually, almost $11 billion of that on gasoline alone.

For two consecutive years the kingdom has posted a deficit, and it is planning for another budget shortfall next year, projected at $87 billion (326 billion riyals).

The deficits represent a sharp turnaround from just a few years ago, before oil prices tumbled in mid-2014. Instead of cutting oil production to drive prices up, Saudi Arabia has aggressively kept its production levels high in what analysts say is an attempt to keep its market share and stymie the reach of U.S. shale producers in the global market.

Unlimited Digital Access. $1 for 4 weeks.

The Saudi government has been digging into its large foreign reserves, built up during years of higher oil prices. To cover the difference between its spending and revenue over the past year, Saudi Arabia has drawn its reserves down from $728 billion at the end of last year to around $640 billion.

The Saudi fiscal budget is being watched closely by investors to see how the kingdom plans to consolidate after years of heavy spending when oil prices were more than double what they are now. Benchmark U.S. crude was trading Monday at $37.46 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

One area where the government is not cutting back is defense and security, where it allocated $57 billion (213 billion riyals) for 2016. Saudi Arabia has been leading a coalition against Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen since March and is a member of the U.S.-led coalition battling the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.

The government said it is anticipating $137 billion (513 billion riyals) in revenue for the coming year, around $26 billion (95 billion riyals) less than the total for 2015. As is typical for the published version of the budget, it did not include a projected oil price.

Next year’s budget suggests Saudi Arabia is basing its revenue on an even lower price of $40 a barrel for export crude, if production remains at 10.2 million barrels per day, said Fahad Alturki, chief economist and head of research at Saudi-based Jadwa Investment. That’s less than the $56 per barrel priced into the projected 2015 budget.

In the 2015 budget, oil revenues accounted for 72 percent of total revenue as opposed to 87 percent in 2014. Coinciding with that drop, non-oil revenues rose by almost $10 billion from 2014.

Saudi Arabia and its Arab Gulf neighbors have been working to diversify their economies and decrease their dependence on oil, and to support the private sector to absorb the millions of young people coming into the workforce.

Saudi Arabia says it expects to spend $224 billion (840 billion riyals) in 2016, which is $5 billion (20 billion riyals) less than what had been projected for this year. However, the government has also put aside $49 billion (183 billion riyals) in discretionary spending to use on infrastructure projects if oil prices improve.

Nearly half of this year’s spending, or around $120 billion (450 billion riyals), went to wages, salaries and allowances. The budget revealed that the kingdom spent $30 billion more in 2015 than it had initially planned, reaching $260 billion (975 billion riyals) in total expenditures largely because of financial handouts King Salman doled out to the public when he ascended the throne earlier this year.

“There hasn’t been any major overspending, which shows the government’s determination to rationalize spending,” Alturki said. “I think it’s a positive signal.”

The London-based research consultancy Capital Economics said in a report issued this month that the Saudi budget takes on additional prominence because it is the first under the new monarch. The budget is also being heavily scrutinized as it was prepared under the guidance of a newly-formed Council of Economic and Development Affairs, which is headed by the king’s 30-year-old son, Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman.

This is not the first time for Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing Gulf countries to run budget deficits. When oil prices steeply dropped in 1986, Saudi Arabia ran a budget deficit for some 15 years, significantly increasing public and external debt until oil prices finally recovered in the 2000s.

__

Batrawy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
ABDULLAH AL-SHIHRI
AYA BATRAWY

Jeremy Corbyn's enemies are dead men walking

Moderates in the shadow cabinet can’t be surprised that Corbyn has decided to seek revenge on them




By Dan Hodges

5:52PM GMT 28 Dec 2015


Did you have an enjoyable and festive Christmas? Yes? Then it’s a safe bet you’re not a member of the shadow cabinet.


“Our Christmas was ruined”, one shadow minister told the Telegraph. Burnt turkey? Fell asleep in front of And Then There Were None before the first murder?



Nope. Jeremy Corbyn has been playing The People’s Grinch again. “There’s a level of fear within the party that’s worse than anything I’ve seen since the 1980s. It’s insidious. We [moderate members of the shadow cabinet] feel as if we have targets on our backs.”


Those of us who have spent the last couple of days dodging a fusillade of Nerf bullets know how they feel. But apparently this wasn’t a reference to the awesome firepower of the new Millennium Falcon, this season’s must-have gift. Instead, it was a response to reports that Labour’s leader is preparing a new year’s “revenge reshuffle”. Hilary Benn. Angela Eagle. Rosie Winterton. They are just three likely targets of the proposed purge




More good news here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/Jeremy_Corbyn/12071763/Jeremy-Corbyns-enemies-are-dead-men-walking.html

While Canute Cameron invests in his future.






Hear that he is popular in the Thames Valley.

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

I wonder, if he and his fractious party, after exiting the EU, devolving Scotland
will he devolve the North of England and N.I..

A new domestic abuse law comes into force today. The College of Policing says the new law presents "challenges". I'll say. It appears to be a recipe for making a bad situation worse.
Domestic abusers who control victims via social media or spy on them online could face up to five years in prison under the new law.
The new offence criminalises patterns of such behaviour against an intimate partner or family member. So the kids dont like you viewing their facebook pages? Will you be hauled down to the police station for a formal interview? How are trivial complaints screened? By the police? Aren't they short staffed as it is?

Just a load of waffle, you only have to look at the number of knife carriers who have been let off.
2517

Your future is safe in his hands!

The thing is that the rivers need to be dredged properly as rainfall increases....and steel shuttering needs to be put in place on approaches to every bridge,...buildings close to riverbanks in the UK.....it's a massive task and has to be future proof !.....priority to areas that have been badly affected by this terrible flooding....the flooding is not just a one off....the seas are rising in global warming across the world.....not an easy task ahead....

Not an easy task at all rf, but if some of the foreign aid budget/foreign climate change budget money was used for UK flood defences then the relevant barriers could be installed much quicker.
2517

dutch flood defenses
as most of you already know, much of NL is below sea level
when they had very serious flooding in the 90s, i recollect that they abandoned the idea of ever higher dykes, and gave back much land to the sea - rather as they did in somerset flats

==============

personal debt
there was a moderately interesting prog on the wireless this morning about personal debt
almost without exception, the callers blamed the advertisers, the gov't or indeed anyone else but themselves
it is now almost unheard of for people being told very firmly that they have to accept the responsibility for their actions

One shouldn't trust the media or the lenders!