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.

Current First Minister in tears as he faces the prospect of Labour losing control of Wales.

You'd be crying too if you saw the chuck wagon pulling out of Dodge.

Not content with being pushed into third place in Scotland, Labour may lose control of Wales altogether.

He is probably upset as he may lose the £140,000 salary as First Minister.

He just assumed that he would be allowed to be the First Minister again and lead a Labour minority government in fact he had already made a speech to that effect.

"He is probably upset as he may lose the £140,000 salary as First Minister."

A bit like Cameron then.

What do they expect with Corbyn as leader ,it's a shame because right now we need a strong opposition .

You have half the con party as opposition already.

How many more do you want?

Dumbo try and read this,




WILL THE UK GO DOWN THE SAME ROUTE AS BRAZIL?




http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/12/crony-capitalist-corruption-david-cameron-british-tax-havens-avoidance

Was it a spoof? Was it a set-up? Was it real? Like a hologram from Madame Tussauds, the Queen, the archbishop of Canterbury, the prime minister and the Speaker of the House of Commons stood in a circle, while cameras roamed round them. They instinctively defaulted to type, discussing Kipling’s “lesser breeds without the law”. Ma’am, said the prime minister, they’re fantastically corrupt, those Nigerians and Afghans. Ho-ho, they all laughed. The archbishop did his bishop bit, suggesting the Nigerian chappie was not all bad. But did he buy his own ticket, quipped Speaker Bercow on cue. Ho-ho again. The Queen added her bit at the garden party, that theChinese too were dreadfully rude.

Nigeria not seeking a Cameron apology, but 'wants its assets back'

Read more
It was the diplomatic equivalent of a drone attack. George Osborne had spent two years meticulously crafting good relations with the Chinese, in a desperate bid for cash for his Hinkley Point and HS2, vanity projects so imprudent that no British or European bank would touch them. Whitehall knew the Chinese would swap a bad loan for a western kowtow, and the Queen’s role had been to grovel. This week she deftly took her revenge.
Meanwhile, Cameron had decided to make “war on corruption” a personal crusade, culminating in this week’s bizarre London conference. Participants accused of “fantastic corruption” would quaff British government hospitality, accept their aid goodie bags and queue up, like sinners in Guys and Dolls, to sing Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat.
Then along comes a palace-owned, camera-launched, hypocrisy-seeking missile. It was devastating. A mushroom cloud rose over Hinkley Point. Splat went theBritish Virgin Islands. The Nigerian president demanded Cameron return his stolen goods. On to our screens came yet more footage of Osborne saying Beijing was “Britain’s best friend” (ie not the EU). The shaky edifice of international diplomacy dissolved into a mush of champagne, canapes and mildly xenophobic chit-chat. Nemesis chased hubris round the chandeliers.
We assume that in some palace dungeon a press officer is having evil done to his private parts. The essence of monarchy is symbolic discretion. Opinionated remarks at a virtual press conference infringed that discretion. Whoever let a microphone near the Queen was way out of order.
Yet all clouds have silver linings. We know that diplomacy is 90% a waste of time, but no one can tell which is the other 10%. To watch Cocktails at the Palace is to see the 90% lurching towards the 10%. Something suddenly mattered.
The essence of a corrupt state is “crony-capitalism”. It is the deployment of covert influence to subvert the disciplines of the market and revenue. It is bribery, tender-fixing, lobbying, tax-evading and otherwise abusing political power to secure individual or corporate gain. This week’s Economist carries a survey of thestate of play in world crony-capitalism. It publishes a league table showing Britain’s record as appalling. It is the worst country in Europe, and 14th worst in the world – worse than France, Germany, America and Japan.
What are the top 10 most secretive tax havens?
Nor does the index cover Britain’s role in oiling the wheels of crony-capitalism, through its supply of homes and tax havens to the global rich. It appears that the British establishment, Labour and Conservative, has sincerely believed that Britain is squeaky clean, as if in the same camp as Scandinavia, Germany and North America, rather than down with Switzerland, Luxembourg and Brazil.

The UK’s deals worth billions with China: what do they really mean?

Read more
Since the 1987 big bang, when Margaret Thatcher and Nigel Lawson boldly smashed the old City cartels, London’s bankers, lawyers, accountants and consultants simply booked the same comfy seats on the gravy train. They gained privileged access to Westminster and Whitehall. Privatised utilities and transport oligopolies ran rings round regulators – as did BHS round the pensions police. Party financiers bought seats in the House of Lords, making Britain the only assembly anywhere whose membership is auctioned annually. There is no need to bribe the British establishment, as was once said of its press, “seeing what unbribed [it] will do”.

As with crony-capitalism so with tax avoidance and tax havens. For decades British governments have maintained offshore vehicles for rich people and corporations to evade their obligations to whatever they call society. British havens were set up as cheap ways of holding colonies without having to subsidise them. They now constitute a massive diversion of global resources away from sovereign states, for no other reason than to avoid taxes.

A British corruption conference is like selecting Libya in 2003 to chair the UN Commission on Human Rights

Some $20-30 trillion is now estimated to be lurking in tax havens round the world, of which £9 trillion is from poor countries. In 2011, the British audit office found 91 British government PFI (private finance initiative) contracts had been channelled offshore. The loss of money from the world’s welfare states is astounding. Offshore finance is way beyond a minimal blip on the world economy. According to an Economist survey, 30% of global foreign investment is now channelled through havens, mostly British.

For six years Cameron and Osborne have promised to clean up this mess. A British world corruption conference is a bit like the selection of Libya in 2003 to chair the UN Commission on Human Rights. Little or nothing to end the plague has been done. British ministers are happy to impose the world’s most draconian electronic surveillance on the British people, yet are curiously reluctant to get tough with the finances of the rich.

A feature of the top 10 crony-capitalist countries is that their citizens feature prominently as (notional) residents of the Royal and Empty Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

The stories you need to read, in one handy email

Read more
Gaffes may make British politicians less inclined to rudeness about foreign corruption, and more ashamed of their indolence in not cleaning out their front and back yards. On these pages today Cameron does offer more pledges and hesitant steps towards greater transparency. We have heard this so often. Continuing to allow British dependencies to refuse transparency is a continuing smear on Britain’s name.
Cameron should tell these enclaves, from Jersey to Gibraltar and Bermuda to the Virgin Islands, that they and their citizens can go independent and federate to Panama or elsewhere if they want. Otherwise their hospitality to thieves from the world’s taxpayers should end. They should be treated by the Treasury in the same way as the Isle of Wight, and taxed accordingly.

Thicko please refrain from posting anything aimed at me i am not interested .

Don't know why Freda seems to think this sort of thing just comes from the Cons all the time .

Sadiq Khan accuses Jeremy Corbyn of failing to 'call out' anti-Semitism

Laura Hughes, political correspondent
12 MAY 2016 • 8:35AM
The new Mayor of London has accused Jeremy Corbyn of failing to call out anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.

Sadiq Khan's comments come after a row about anti-Semitism dominated headlines in the run-up to last week's local elections, as a string of councillors, members and even MP Naz Shah were suspended over controversial social media posts.

In an interview with the New York Times, Mr Khan said Mr Corbyn was failing to speak up about the issue, ramping up the discord between the pair.
“I’ve been the victim of hate crime because of my ethnicity and my faith,” he said.

“If somebody is saying views that are appalling, disgusting and clearly anti-Semitic, I’ve got to call it out.

“The fact that that person happens to be from my party, the fact that the leader of my party is failing to call it out, that’s irrelevant. I have to call it out.”


Mr Corbyn has faced deep criticism that he has a blind spot regarding comments about the Jewish faith, which has led to antisemitism not being taken seriously enough in the Labour Party.

Mr Khan, who nominated Mr Corbyn for leader, has increasingly sought to distance himself from the leadership of the party since becoming Labour’s candidate for mayor.

He chose to attend a Holocaust memorial event in north London over the weekend, as his first public engagement as mayor, in a move which was greeted with praise by Jewish leaders and Labour MPs.
Last month Jeremy Corbyn was forced to announce an inquiry into racism within the Labour party after a number of antisemitic comments made by members emerged.

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis who has warned that Labour has a "severe" problem with anti-Semitism that will get worse if the party's inquiry into the issue is used as "sticking plaster" to placate voters.

Earlier this week Mr Corbyn publicly rejected a call from new Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to broaden Labour's appeal to voters, heightening tensions between the two men.

Speaking at an event in London the Labour leader said the party already has an "enormous" political tent, dismissing Mr Khan's call for inclusive "big tent" politics in order to win the 2020 election.

The new Mayor warned Labour MPs the party must appeal to voters from other political groups if it is to turn over the Conservative majority in four years.

But Mr Corbyn appeared to reject those claims.
Timeline: Labour's anti-Semitism crisis
February 16 2016
Oxford University Labour Club co-chair resigns after claiming that its members have "some kind of problem with Jews" and sympathise with terrorist groups like Hamas.
March 6
Two former shadow Cabinet ministers, Michael Dugher MP and Rachel Reeves MP, accuse Jeremy Corbyn of trying to “bury” the Party’s problem with anti-Semitism after refusing to publish an investigation into harassment of Jewish students at Oxford University.
March 15
Vicki Kirby, the vice chair of the Labour’s Woking branch is suspended after tweeting that Jews have “big noses” and “slaughter the oppressed”. MPs attacked the Party leadership after they initially refused to suspend her.
March 16
Jeremy Newmark, national chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, says Jeremy Corbyn is "impotent” in his failure to tackle a resurgence of anti-Semitic views
March 20
Labour peer Lord Levy threatens to leave his party unless Jeremy Corbyn publicly rejects antisemitic comments made by party members.
March 25
Labour Chancellor John McDonnell says he wants to take a “harder line” against anti-Semitism, adding that anyone making anti-Semitic remarks should be thrown out of the party
April 2
President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews warns that Jeremy Corbyn is "failing to lead" Labour away from a damaging trend of anti-Semitism
April 10
Labour councillor Aysegul Gurbuz is suspended over a series of anti-Semitic tweets in which she praised Hitler as the “greatest man in history” and said she hoped Iran would use a “nuclear weapon” to “wipe Israel off the map”.
April 27
Labour MP Naz Shah is suspended after backing calls for Israel to “relocate” to America. She had resigned as an aide to the Party’s shadow chancellor the previous day, but Jeremy Corbyn was criticised by MPs for initially declining to suspend her from the party whip.
April 28
Ken Livingstone becomes embroiled in the row. In a BBC interview he defends Naz Shah, saying, "I’ve never heard anybody say anything anti-Semitic, but there’s been a very well-orchestrated campaign by the Israel lobby to smear anybody who criticises Israeli policy as anti-Semitic."

The resulting outcry leads to his suspension from the Labour party.
May 4
Britain's Chief Rabbi enters the row for the first time to call on Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to take "decisive action". Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis criticised the “poisonous invective” and “politics of distortion” from party members such as Ken Livingstone, and in an article for the Telegraph warns that “there must be no place for anti-Semitism in our politics”.

This is just the start maybe .

IOM that's the place for you RW nutters.

I'm starting to feel sorry for you two Stan and Fred.

The shambles of Labour! The Party that just keeps giving LOL!!

Third in Scotland! Oh dear!

How touching.. I'm almost in tears

You're not alone Stanley ask Kaskia!

JB has only ever felt sorry for himself.. understandable in his circumstances.

Is this Fred and Stan ...

Before they put makeup on , be fair .