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.

Iturama

Your post motivated me to check TheTimes for myself. Sad to see you are perfectly correct with your comment.

From the BBC - the section UK Politics

Row erupts over Andrea Leadsom 'motherhood' interview
14 minutes ago

Leadsom says being mum gives her a 'stake in future of UK'
A row has erupted after Conservative leadership candidate Andrea Leadsom was accused of suggesting that having children made her a better choice to be prime minister.
The Times quoted Mrs Leadsom saying having children means she has "a very real stake" in Britain's future.
But the mother of three tweeted that she was "disgusted" with the interview.

Times journalist Rachel Sylvester has defended her article saying she was "baffled" by Mrs Leadsom's reaction.

Earlier Mrs May, who has no children, called for a "clean campaign" pledge.
The Times headlined its front-page lead story "Being a mother gives me edge on May - Leadsom."

It quoted the energy minister as saying Mrs May "possibly has nieces, nephews, lots of people. But I have children who are going to have children who will directly be part of what happens next".

According to the Times, Mrs Leadsom also said: "I am sure Theresa will be really sad she doesn't have children so I don't want this to be 'Andrea has children, Theresa hasn't', because I think that would be really horrible."

In a later statement Mrs Leadsom said she was "beyond anger and disgust" at the newspaper's front page.

"The reporting of what I said is beneath contempt," she said. "In front of the Times correspondent and photographer, I made clear repeatedly that nothing I said should be used in any way to suggest that Theresa May not having children had any bearing whatever on the leadership election. I expect the Times to retract the article and the accompanying headline."

The Times has not officially responded to Mrs Leadsom, but the newspaper's deputy editor, Emma Tucker, tweeted what she said was a transcript from a section of the interview

Mrs May's campaign team declined to comment on the story.

However, Treasury minister David Gauke - who supports Mrs May - said "an apology is due". He tweeted: "I'd like to think this is a case of verbal clumsiness, not calculation. If the latter, yuk."

But former Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe said Mrs Leadsom's words were probably misconstrued. She told BBC Radio 5 Live: "Even the most experienced politicians, even prime ministers themselves can be misquoted, misinterpreted, misunderstood, make some careless phraseology. It happens all the time."

'Clean campaign pledge'

It comes after Ms May challenged her rival in the race to Downing Street to sign up to a "clean campaign pledge". Mrs May said both candidates should ensure the campaign stays within "the acceptable limits of political debate". She said the public was tired of "people acting like politics is a game" and vowed to put forward a "positive vision for the future", saying the two of them should also agree not to work with other political parties or their donors.

Mrs Leadsom - who backed a vote to leave the EU - has received endorsements from ex-UKIP leader Nigel Farage and pro-Brexit campaign Leave.EU, led by UKIP donor Arron Banks. Mrs Leadsom has said she has "no allegiance" to UKIP.

Media captionAndrea Leadsom calls for 'honourable' campaigning
She told The Times: "I'm no UKIP sympathiser. They don't advise me, I don't know them, I've never even met Arron Banks. "My big hope in this campaign is that when we leave the EU UKIP will be a thing of the past.

Mrs Leadsom and Mrs May will battle it out to become the next leader of the Conservative Party, after two rounds of voting by Tory MPs reduced the number of contenders to two.
After the second MPs' ballot, Home Secretary Mrs May finished with 199 votes and Energy Minister Mrs Leadsom 84.
Conservative party members across the country will now decide the winning candidate, with the result due on 9 September.

Conservative leadership election Timeline
Ballot papers sent out mid-August
Ballot closes at noon on Friday 9 September. Votes will be counted electronically.
Conservative Party members can vote by postal ballot or online.
"Qualifying party members" of more than three months' standing can vote. In practice, anyone who joined the party by 9 June.
The spending limit set by the Conservative 1922 Committee is £135,000.
Hustings to be organised across the UK.

I bet all those clamouring for May is/was/still is Blairites...

HAHA..MAY a Blairite babe....

It is the tory party running to Matron.

Every PM lately has been to Oxford Unı.

Nothıng changes

I suspect, judging by this (ahem) article, that the lefty €urohuggers are actually terrified... it's so blatantly partisan, there can be no other reason.




Andrea Leadsom is the leader of an am-dram peasants’ revolt

Marina Hyde

Saturday 9 July 2016 06.00 BST


As a ferociously keen Bible student, Andrea Leadsom will know whether she is predicted in the Book of Revelation. For those of us operating on a lower plane, condemned to pick through the entrails of the past fortnight, the portents are not hugely encouraging. On the basis that most things that could have gone wrong have, there is absolutely no reason to think that Andrea doesn’t have an excellent chance of nicking this.


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/09/andrea-leadsom-tory-leadership-am-dram-peasant-revolt



Quote:

Which leaves us with Theresa May. Has it really come to this? Yes. Yes, I’m afraid it has. There are few neater indicators of quite how far we’ve travelled over the past 14 days than to find so many people, particularly non-Tory voters, now actively yearning for it to be Theresa May. “Christ,” muttered one friend with wry despair, “I now want this more than I did Obama.” Yup, we’re all realpolitikos now. Stick a fork in my dreams. They’re done.

It looks like Leadsom is lying again. I saw the journalist being interviewed this morning. She seemed a very sensible person. She stands by her article that Leadsom said she was better placed to win than May as she has children. It looks like Leadsom has been caught out again in a porkie. How long before the next lie?

I think the slapping has started.

Amazing how both major parties show an absence of competent and quality leadership.

But the Con party is running out of knives.

They all seem reasonable until their editor tells them to spice it up. Reasonable stories dont sell newspapers or promote the cause. They have to find a story or invent one. Doesn't matter as long as it makes the deadline. I have a bridge I can sell you, Hays.

Leadsom complained and asked for the newspaper to release the transcript. The Times has released it and it supports their version.

She was still whining about being misrepresented so they have released the audio of the interview which supports the newspaper again. Leadsom clearly caught out in a lie.

A distinct lack of experience in handling media.

Someone pointed out that Sadam Hussein, Stalin, Himmler all had children, so not much of a qualification.

Its quite easy to give the impression that you(haystack)is giving in your quick
response to the Times article.

If you'd heard or read it in context, then it wouldn't just serve to your agenda,
I'm not particularly bothered who becomes the Tory leader, but being a neutral
observer i didn't find anything offensive in what Leadsom said, In fact when she
said having children and gandchildren gives her an added incentive to think, and
believe that coming out of e.u and trading with the rest of the world would be better
for their future.....That I agree with..

I had heard the audio and read the transcript.

Here is a Tweet from Andrew Neil after listening to the audio

I've listened and concluded report of The Times @thetimes fair representation of interview https://t.co/CyVp8fDWlt

— Andrew Neil (@afneil) 9 July 2016

Chris Froome wins stage 8 of the Tour and has the yellow jersey. Steve Cummings won Stage 7 yesterday . Brits have now won 5 of the 8 stages completed. As they say - chapeau!

Conservative Party leadership candidate Andrea Leadsom is under pressure to match competitor Theresa May’s level of transparency, after the former published just a single year tax return.

Declaring an income of nearly £85,000 in 2015, Ms Leadsom paid around £22,000 in tax, compared with more than £40,000 paid that year by frontrunner Ms May.

A surprise contender to be the next prime minister, the MP for South Northamptonshire published one year of tax information, just days after rival Theresa May released four years of returns.

Michael Gove, the Justice Secretary, said all Tory leadership candidates should be “transparent about their income”, but Ms Leadsom had refused to publish the information unless she reached the final two of the Tory leadership battle.

Ms Leadsom’s tax return, calculated by Isis Accountants, shows she was due to pay an overall tax rate of 27 per cent, on income of £83,930 – more than three times the average UK salary.

What a surprise, she gets paid as an MP plus some investment income. Seems to me that she is being hounded by a bunch of Tory twits. Or should that be twats?
As a matter of interest, Theresa May gained about 50% more a year over the 4 years she declared, more than 4.5 times average UK salary - so where's the story?

This is the problem now two months of tearing someone apart and would you believe it they are from the same party . Just nauseous .

The "establishment" have made their choice, and appear to have thrown all caution to the wind.

There seems to be little in the way of balance to what is being reported on the mainstream news.

This echo's the UKIP and referendum run up...they appear to have learned nothing.

not sure what the last post means, but trade negotiations with eu or even the rest of the world are and were never going to be simple

Not sure what the last post is referring to??.

MAY , is a gutless baron weak and a bloody liar a woman who wil wreck the uk she is gutless and will be walked over and cry

There is an episode of The Simpsons where Bart becomes known as the "I didn't do it boy".

The reason for this is he smashes a vase on the Krusty the Clown show during a sketch which he was not meant to be in and shouts out loud "I didn't do it".

The audience laugh.

Then he appears in sketch after sketch uttering this line over and over again until he is tagged as 'the I didn't do it boy'.

It seems we have been living in the "I didn't do it society" since at least the war crimes trials at the end of The Second World War.

This has since become known as the "Nuremberg defence".

This is where all the Nazi's who were charged with crimes against humanity while not shouting "I didn't do it" were in fact saying "I was just obeying orders" hence the Nuremberg defence.

It was the same in the mid 1980s when there was the 'Yuppie defence'.

When the so called Yuppies worked in the city and did something terrible such as making someone go bankrupt or having people evicted from their homes,the yuppie would say "Someone's got to do it and I have to pay the mortgage". - The Yuppie defence

And last week, The Blair defence has emerged.

This is where you admit responsibility for something, in Blair's case, taking Great Britain to war with Iraq.

He accepts full responsibility for his actions, of course he does, because there is no punishment, any fool can do that. I am responsible but what I did will go unpunished.

It is like a child breaking a window while playing football in the garden.

He scores the best goal but breaks the kitchen window at the same time.

When challenged the child states: "It was an old window, at least 15 years old. I did you a favour in breaking it as now you will have a new window which will be so much better, you should be thanking me, not telling me off."

The parent would then ask " Are you deluded? "

It would be the same for a boy or girl when they fail an A level or GSCE in August, they too can use the Blair defence.

After failing the exam or exams they will say: "Yes I failed and I accept full responsibility for this, but I would have passed if it had not been for the examiner.

"He marked me down. It was a case of my paper being the last one marked on a Friday afternoon. A Friday afternoon fiasco, I am a victim. I should be applauded not booed. I am the injured party here."

The parent would ask : "Are you deluded?

Last month, the Australian rugby union team lost a test series 3-0 to England. You are now interrupted by Aussie Jim Diesel..."It is produced Dizel...not Diesel. And while I grant you, Australia lost the first test, we did not lose the next two. We let England win, lulling them into a false sense of security.

"Where is the joy in winning all the time?

"It was all part of the Michael Cheika Jedi mind games. It is browtal (brutal) and like me his is a geni (genius).

"Letting you win, giving you hope. That is such a good thing, we are good people.

"Next time we play you we will go back to winning. You won't know what hit you. We should be applauded for such a Christian act, a benevolent act, letting you win and giving you hope."

The English rugby fan would ask: "Are you deluded?"

The response would be: "No mate, I'm Australian".