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.

Yes it must be very hard for residents living in Calais .

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University

Just received a copy of a report in the Diario de Pernambuco. A newspaper in the NE Brazilian state of Pernambuco.
Most of the cases of microcephaly have occured in that state. It refers to a report just published by Argentinian researchers which considers the possible relationship of a larvicide called pyriproxyfen with the condition. The larvicide is recommended by the Brazilian Ministry of Health to combat the mosquito Aedes Aegypti, the carrier of the zika virus, and is said to be used in potable water tanks since 2014 in areas where sanitary conditions are very basic. It replaced a larvicide called Temephos, that proved ineffective.
The researchers point to the fact that microcephaly is only occuring in areas where pyriproxyfen is being used. It also highlights the fact that Columbia has the second highest rate of expectant mothers infected by zika, 3,000, but there has not been one case of microcephaly reported.

Looks like Fred and Stan have taken over the old Labour party...




Revealed: The radical hard-Left Momentum activists mounting a ruthless purge of Labour

The identities and backgrounds of those controlling Momentum can be revealed for the first time



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/12156177/momentum-activists-jeremy-corbyn-labour-purge.html

P 67771

Perhaps, that would be better than a con party taken over by hedge fund managers, Russian oligarchs, overseas donators and little Englanders.

talking to a couple of consultants today, and between us, none can understand what on earth the gov't is actually trying to achieve, though we all agreed that the NHS in its present format is totally unsustainable and will get progressively less able to cope

of course, one answer might be to raise NIC by say £1 a week for most wage earners, always presupposing that would actually go towards funding more doctors etc, but for any party, that would be almost political suicide - the public will always want something for nothing

None of NIC goes toward the NHS. All taxes just go into the pot.

The BMA is a trade union like any other. Their leaders are quite political and several board members are strong Cornyn supporters. Like all unions, they dislike change.The walls of the BMA headquarters are covered in political posters at the moment.

Jeremy Corbyn will quit as Labour leader by 2020, warns GMB leader
Sir Paul Kenny has said Mr Corbyn had never "wanted to win" the leadership contest and would not want to "go into 2020"


By Laura Hughes, Political Correspondent9:52AM GMT 14 Feb 2016
Jeremy Corbyn will have quit as Labour leader by the 2020 general election as he is failing to provide a "credible alternative" to the Conservatives, the general secretary of the GMB union has warned.
Sir Paul Kenny, who is standing down from his post in coming weeks, has said Mr Corbyn had never "wanted to win" the leadership contest and would not want to "go into 2020."
The union leader criticised Mr Corbyn's senior team for having demonstrated "naiveness" and warned they needed to stop treating the job like a "wine bar discussion".

Sir Paul has called on those surrounding the Labour leader to let him focus on "bread and butter" issues.


But he added: "It is refreshing that he does not actually have any dreams of personal glory. He isn't bothered about which bedroom he uses in No 10."
Sir Paul, who had led the third biggest union since 2006, was awarded a kinighthood by Ed Miliband when he was Labour leader.


When Mr Miliband was Labour leader the GMB donated more than £7million.
He told The Sunday Times: "The object of the exercise here is to emerge with a credible alternative to the Tories for power and at the moment we are not doing that.
"There is a naiveness in some people that ‘these are the things where we have gone along to rallies and meetings and people have cheered us for saying them, so this must be what the rest of the country thinks'.
"So all I can say is get out more. It is not what the rest of the country thinks."


The GMB leader has previously warned the union would not go "quietly into the night" if the Labour leader tried to change the party's policy on Trident.
He has warned that that Mr Corbyn's commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament threatened to make the party unelectable and has said there were tens of thousands of jobs at around 50 sites in the UK that depended on defence contracts.


“I am not at all convinced that the British public are unilateralists. I think the nature of a Brit . . . is if you hit me, I’m going to hit you back,” he said.
“You have got to have power to put a policy into operation and if the people will not give you that power then that policy is self-indulgent hot air.”


Tom Watson, deputy leader: “I think the deterrent has kept the peace in the world for half a century and I hope we can have that debate in the party”
Andy Burnham, shadow home secretary: "I would vote for the renewal of Trident. We always knew this was going to be a difficult decision for the party. There are two positions here that are difficult to reconcile, perhaps impossible to reconcile."
Hilary Benn, shadow foreign secretary: "I think a British prime minister has to have that option”
Maria Eagle, shadow culture secretary: “I don't think that a potential prime minister answering a question like that, in the way in which he did, is helpful”
John McDonnell, shadow chancellor: "It’s ultimately a matter of principle about the morality of using nuclear weapons, which would cause such loss of life and destruction the planet" (March 2015)


Perfect harmony in the Labour Party Fred LOL!!!!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/nhs/12092224/The-BMA-has-Corbyn-fever-and-is-more-interested-in-politics-than-patients.html3

It is surely not irrelevant that the doctors’ leadership – the BMA council – would appear to be heavily infiltrated by people who are not just Labour voters but who regard Jeremy Corbyn as the messiah. One BMA council member, Jacky Davis, tweeted “Now we can all vote Labour again”, when the bearded one was elected.

Another council member, David Wrigley, said that with Corbyn in charge “we can beat the Tories and make this country great again”. One member of the BMA junior doctors’ committee, Yannis Gourtsoyannis, said “a victory for the junior doctors would signify the first real crack in the entire edifice of austerity in the UK”. It strikes me that at least some of these people are more interested in politics than their patients.
The BMA leadership is in the grip of advanced Corbynitis. They need to get back round the table

67776 - a facile comment ..... i was talking to real people who are involved at the sharp end and not some would-be politico smartartse who trots out some stupid semi-party line .... ditto 67778

I regard the BMA as no better than any trade union. The doctor's union has always been difficult to deal with as every government has found. The current GP contract is absudedly generous due to a Labour government giving into demands. The current dispute is politically driven. There is also a number of junior doctors who earn very high rates for long hours cover and they are upset at losing their cash. I also know several doctors who are opposed to the strikes and agree with Hunt. The real cause of this dispute is the BMA supporting the doctors in opposing a government determined to break the stranglehold that the BMA has on the NHS and their reluctance to accept change. I have zero sympathy with the doctors.

Don't worry about Brexit:

you really do talk a load of bollocks, at least some of the time

that BMA is a trades union is no secret, and they also haven't done a very good job in putting across to the public the nuts and bolts of the case for doctors

you might like to consider how long it takes to become a qualified GP - at least 7 years in fact - and how many hours they work both while and after qualifying ... perhaps you'ld like to spend a friday/saturday night or two at a busy A&E and see how you would deal with the drunks, addicts, and generally abusive and other unpleasant riff-raff on top of the usual traffic accident, heart attack and other run-of-the-mill stuff

perhaps then you would like to tell us all how much someone with a doctor's skills and qualifications should be paid - or not as the case may be

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

from another angle, perhaps you'ld like to question the logic of alienating actual and would-be medics, when they are patently in short supply
common sense surely should be to encourage (induce) the newly qualified to stay within the service when so many £000s have been spent in training them

The new contract is quite reasonable. The BMA have been encouraging the doctors to be militant. The government have done a bad job at putting across their side of the deal. What a doctor is worth is not the point. The pay is what it is. Nurses are worth more and footballers less. The government decides the pay and not the doctors or the BMA. The BMA sees it all as a trial of strength. It is behaving as a militant trade union.

The doctors' militancy is due to the amount of resentment which has been engendered by the government over the last 5years.

The constant changes of working conditions and expectancies..

The present government and Hunt, in particular, have been arrogant and dismissive of the "medics" as a group.

-=-=-=-==

An interesting article by Will Hutton.

Read before the market opens on Monday.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/17/china-economic-crisis-world-economy-global-capitalism

Here is another interesting article (for some) :

Britain’s future in Europe lies in the hands of the Labour party
Andrew Rawnsley

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/14/eu-referendum-labour-tories


David Cameron faces the most severe challenge of his career and only Labour can solve it for him. The campaign to keep Britain in the EU can be won only if enough Labour supporters cast a ballot to stay in.

This under-appreciated twist in the referendum plot puts the prime minister in the deliciously ironic position of looking to Labour to save him from the wishes of much of his own party. It also places a momentous burden of responsibility on Labour. In normal times, what the opposition says usually makes a marginal contribution to the destiny of the nation. In the extraordinary circumstances of the referendum, the future of the United Kingdom and its place in the world is in the hands of Labour and its supporters to a degree few have fully appreciated.

Here is another interesting article (for some) :

Britain’s future in Europe lies in the hands of the Labour party
Andrew Rawnsley

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/14/eu-referendum-labour-tories


David Cameron faces the most severe challenge of his career and only Labour can solve it for him. The campaign to keep Britain in the EU can be won only if enough Labour supporters cast a ballot to stay in.

This under-appreciated twist in the referendum plot puts the prime minister in the deliciously ironic position of looking to Labour to save him from the wishes of much of his own party. It also places a momentous burden of responsibility on Labour. In normal times, what the opposition says usually makes a marginal contribution to the destiny of the nation. In the extraordinary circumstances of the referendum, the future of the United Kingdom and its place in the world is in the hands of Labour and its supporters to a degree few have fully appreciated.

Britain can enjoy the good life after Brexit

The case for leaving the EU is getting stronger every day, and now we must show what Brexit looks like




By David Campbell Bannerman

10:48AM GMT 10 Feb 2016



Now that the draft EU "deal" has been revealed the choice for the British people is crystallising. Remain will mean an unreformed EU free to steamroller forward its plans for an EU Army, common welfare and pensions, harmonised taxes and all the other trappings of a superstate. We will have a single European country.



The supposed triumphant "deal" will not make the slightest practical difference, nor is it legally enforceable or irreversible. So the deal is no more than an IOU, and addresses none of the key issues.


The other option is Leave - meaning the UK secures a trade deal with the EU which allows it to escape the political chains of the fast approaching EU Superstate and to take back control of our country. Leave means leaving the EU, not Europe, and staying in the international community – we would not exit the Council of Europe, UN, G8, NATO, IMF, Commonwealth or many other international bodies.


The Remain campaign is entirely negative. Yes, such "Project Fear" worked in Scotland - I was there from Inverness to Glasgow - because it was real.


The Remain campaign is entirely negative. Yes, such "Project Fear" worked in Scotland - I was there from Inverness to Glasgow - because it was real.


But the scaremongering wont work for Brexit and the UK, because the reality is that up to five million EU jobs depend on access to the UK market, with an annual UK deficit in goods with the EU larger than some economies - a staggering £56billion. The UK is the EU's single largest trading partner and fifth largest world economy.



More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12148307/Britain-can-enjoy-the-good-life-after-Brexit.html