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.

LOL!!! Scouser Andy Burnham Mayor of Manchester! Gonna love that at Old Trafford :0)

wasn't that one the tories had hopes of winning?

No idea cynic, just tickles me that a scouser is now Mayor of Manchester. He's an Evertonian not a Kopite not sure that helps :0)

Must be something to do with globalisation Chris

:0) George

Andy Burnham Mayor of Manchester! Gonna love that at Old Trafford

only 29% bothered to vote if that had been a union vote the gov would say it is void

i am afraid turnout at local elections is pathetic, rarely getting above 35%

LOCAL ELECTIONS
the following link is pretty much current .....


if you want to read a sensible and balanced analysis, go to https://uk.news.yahoo.com/local-mayoral-elections-2017-results-154319778.html

today's times is suggesting that labour may take its worst drubbing in history at GE
personally, i don't believe it, and in many ways i hope the tory majority is not more than say 50 seats

that would still indicate that the country remains firm in its wish to get out of europe -
yes, there are indeed side issues re ineffectual corbyn's total incompetence as a leader - and give TM a solid base to negotiate in brussels without being distracted by the spoilers and disrupters

for sure whatever is ultimately agreed, and that may well take more than the abitrary 2-year time limit, will assuredly make some very unhappy and most grudgingly accepting
nevertheless, the country will have appointed a leader whom i happen to believe is strong enough to shoulder the heavy burden and accept the responsibility

I agree with the sentiment but the reality is likely to be different. It is healthy to have a strong opposition but few of the Islington group of Corbynistas will lose their seats. I doubt if the Corbyn clan actually want power. They are a protest group. Post the election, we will likely still have Corbyn leading labour and spouting the same nonsense, but with no prospect of power, or being an effective opposition, since he will still have deep divisions within his own party.

One suggestion that is getting popular, is for the UK to have a Norway style deal with the EU for an interim period of say 7 years

It's not the problem of the Tory's that the opposition is weak and incapable,
and the bigger the majority the better, which will transfer into a stronger
more clear cut mandate.

Popular by who....The LibDems....Labour???

So long as we LEAVE the single market and the customs union, which would
enable the UK to trade FREELY with the rest of the world, and to get rid of the
ECHR, and no more laws, regulations emanating from Brussels, etc..

hays - forget all the rubbish polemic and other nonsense emanating from assorted politicians and other empty vessels ......
as had already been said in more sensible quarters, if there is a mutual will to find a formula for a deal, then one will be found

Maybe, Labour would prefer to be out of power and not be responsible for the grave digging of the UK which Teressa is doing so well.

Mind she does look as she would be at home in a graveyard.

When I see her, I can't help thinking of a Praying Mantis in her lifetime turning and eating her mates.

Time to move more cash off-shore.

Talk about twisted mind , boy you win on that one Freda .

is that the same as saying labour doesn't have the balls to negotiate a deal?
if it sounds that way and looks that way then it most certainly is that way

fred - you're being even more knobbish that usual

Manuel,

I would'nt sign a contract with somebody like Maybe who says one thing one day and does another thing days or weeks later.

I wouldn't do a deal with mobsters who shout, boast and swaggers like the Brexiters.

I think Cameron and tory pals has created chaos because he was, using your words a "smart arse", and trying to manipulate his "authority" to keep himself and ilk in power at the expense of the public and his country.

May by not "supporting" Cameron was placing herself in a position of "self-advantage" for her own conceit.

She is untrustworthy in the little and what she speaks, and I doubt any clue to what the results of her said "negotiations" will be, but is prepared to scapegoat others for her own and her party's mistake which will become more apparent over the next 1-10 years.

Her rush for an early election I think is due to a realisation of damage to the economy are beginning to occur, as can be seen by looking at recent economic figures and the jitters in the market.



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

U-turns of Maybe!

As the Chancellor abandons his plan to increase National Insurance Contributions, here is a full list of Theresa May's U-turns during her time at 10 Downing Street.

National Insurance Increase
In the 2017 Budget, Philip Hammond announced he would be increasing National Insurance Contributions for self-employed
people, despite a promise in the Conservative manifesto not to do so.

The idea caused controversy, despite it costing no more than 60p per day. And a week on, the Chancellor did an about-turn and revealed that he would no longer be increasing NICS in this parliament.

Taking In Refugee Children
Ministers accepted the Dubs amendment last year, saying they will take in 3,000 unaccompanied children from the Jungle migrant camp in Calais. But after accepting just 350 children, the government changed their mind and decided not to accept any more.

Responding to the decision, Lord Dubs said: "During the Kindertransport, Sir Nicky Winton rescued 669 children from Nazi persecution virtually single-handedly. I was one of those lucky ones. It would be a terrible betrayal of his legacy if as a country we were unable to do more than this to help a new generation of child refugees."

Foreign Worker Quotas
Barely a week after Home Secretary Amber Rudd announced a controversial proposal to force companies to publish the amount of foreign workers they employ at the Tory party conference, the government was forced into a humiliating climbdown.

A cacophony of condemnation helped topple the policy, with commentators from across the political spectrum lining up to slate the policy.

Gradual privatisation of Health System and possibly Education system.

Etc/

=-=-=-

Are you a cuckoo?

Lol ... jitters in the market.

We would be in bloody free fall if anyone thought Corbyn even had the remotest chance of winning the election.

Didn't Churchill say that of Atlee?

Dil.

Your living in a past world.

Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee joke -Exchange
Winston Churchill was tossed out of government at the end of WWII while he was negotiating at Yalta, and replaced by Clement Attlee, a Labor socialist. Attlee made instant peace with Stalin, giving him eastern Europe, and instituted free healthcare paid for by over-taxing and taking over the British coal mines, steel companies, and railroads. The electric and gas companies, several major trucking companies, The Bank of England, The Thomas Cook’s Travel Agency, and several other companies that Labour thought were too big. The following joke exchange between Churchill and Attlee is supposed to have happened when they found themselves in the men’s room of Parliament

Churchill is supposed to have moved as far as possible from Attlee among the stalls.

“Feeling standoffish, Winston” Attlee is supposed to have said.

“No. “Frightened,” Churchill is supposed to have replied: “Whenever you see something large you try to nationalize it.”

It’s funny because ….. there is a fundamental similarity between personal freedom and economic freedom. Nationalize the business a person built with his sweat, friendships, and optimism, and you take away a lot of the person. The difference between social democrats and the rule of republican law is thus more than just who is better at running a railroad or electric company in terms of the trains running on time, it removes the chance of a person to be a person, and makes him or her part of an undifferentiated mass. A mass with equal comforts, and not the ability to succeed or fail as an individual.

There is merit in both sides as shown by the following exchange of speeches.

Clement Attlee, the last and perhaps greatest of mustached British PMs
Clement Attlee, the last and perhaps greatest of mustached British PMs

In May 1945, Winston Churchill said on radio: “I must tell you that a socialist policy is abhorrent to British ideas on freedom. There is to be one State, to which all are to be obedient in every act of their lives. This State, once in power, will prescribe for everyone: where they are to work, what they are to work at, where they may go and what they may say, what views they are to hold, where their wives are to queue up for the State ration, and what education their children are to receive. A socialist state could not afford to suffer opposition – no socialist system can be established without a political police. They (the Labour government) would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo.”

Attlee’s response the following day was: “The Prime Minister made much play last night with the rights of the individual and the dangers of people being ordered about by officials. I entirely agree that people should have the greatest freedom compatible with the freedom of others. There was a time when employers were free to work little children for sixteen hours a day. I remember when employers were free to employ sweated women workers on finishing trousers at a penny halfpenny a pair. There was a time when people were free to neglect sanitation so that thousands died of preventable diseases. For years every attempt to remedy these crying evils was blocked by the same plea of freedom for the individual. It was in fact freedom for the rich and slavery for the poor. Make no mistake, it has only been through the power of the State, given to it by Parliament, that the general public has been protected against the greed of ruthless profit-makers and property owners. The Conservative Party remains as always a class Party. In twenty-three years in the House of Commons, I cannot recall more than half a dozen from the ranks of the wage earners. It represents today, as in the past, the forces of property and privilege. The Labour Party is, in fact, the one Party which most nearly reflects in its representation and composition all the main streams which flow into the great river of our national life.” (The long Quotes are from Spartacus.edu, the joke is from The Past Laugh).

Churchill claimed, of Attlee that “there’s a lot less there than meets the eye.”

Look what happend.