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.

ukip coming first has been a bit of a no-brainer for a few weeks, despite what hays liked to tell us :-)

however, though labour seems to have done well in london and the se, it was not as strong a showing as i would have expected, for the predictions were that the conservatives would trail in 3rd by several % points, and that was also not the case

there were some curious results withing mainland europe too, not least that (thank goodness) the blatantly racist right-wingers in nl got stuffed against the odds
on the other hand, their counterparts in france have done scarily well

overall, i would have thought a poor result for Europe United, as patently it is not!
but that should strengthen DC's hand in significant re-negotiation, as a good number of other countries are also clearly unhappy with the status quo

I'm not sure about the results strengthening cameroons hand, I think he is a lost cause and should resign toot sweet, theres no way he is going to win the next general election.

As for €uropaland, Le Pen is quoted as "only winning 25% of the vote" failing to say that it was the biggest slice of the vote by some margin.


Can Cleggy survive?

so max, who would you have in Number 10?
surely not EM .... he's dreadful and i really don't care which party he represents

clegg is dead!

===========

there was a coffee-coloured labour chap on tv this morning about whom i had forgotten .... now he certainly presents well and has some character and charisma as of course did DM

do the conservatives have anyone on whom one could hang one's hat?
hmm - none that i can think of i'm afraid

Dunno c, they're a rum lot...all of them, funny enough, Cleggy was probably the best of the current batch but he's a goner now...off the €uroland no doubt.

hehe, guido sums it up...


http://order-order.com/

Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills
Chuka Umunna MP

that was the chap's name on tv this morning

cynic

Philippines only 12, but UK same as Italy on 5 very hard to belive. Not very accurate i don't think , how did they get these results ?


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23231318

I am not surprised that the Libs got wiped out. It was madness to debate with Farage and then say they loved the EU and wouldn't have a referendum under any circumstances. It highlights why they are the 'silly party'.

Overall, the results were as expected. I thought the Conservative share stood up well for a mid term election. The surprise was how poorly Labour did.

The turnout is only half that of a GE. In a GE, I think people will return to type. There will be a dramatic choice if you want a referendum.

Vote for Conservatives for a referendum and vote for any other party if you don't want one.

among others, saudi arabia is skilfully omitted .... i wonder why that would be :-)

with regards to philippines, we do a fair amount of unbribed(!!) biz there, but certainly one senior banker we knew had to have a permanent armed bodyguard when he went there to investigate corruption in the company

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

umunna
oh dear oh dear!
part nigerian and part irish
private education (in part) and would not rule out educating his own children privately

doesn't matter that he looks good and sounds intelligent, for the above will no doubt scupper his chances at day 1 :-)

hays - when was there last a 72% turnout even at GE?


i'll save you the effort ....
between 1945 and 1997, turnout was consistently (every time!) above 70%
2001 = 59.4% = blair
2005 = 61.4% = blair/brown
2010 = 65.1% = cameron + clegg

cynic
I think the bribery stats are probably for personal activity. From my knowledge, Italy has very little bribery that affects people. It is restricted to the business world and it happens here as well. I have been asked dpfor bribes in the UK in the business world. In Italy the Mafia and its two or three variants control business almost completely in some areas, but people are left alone.

italy doesn't ask for bribes, it just wants you to support their extended family :-)
as for internally, racing certainty that bribes, protection money and the like are rife

Turnout at GE

2010 65.1
2005 61.4
2001 59.4
1997 71.4
1992 77.7
1987 75.3
1983 72.7
1979 76
1974 Oct 72.8
1974 Feb 78.8
1970 72
1966 75.8
1964 77.1
1959 78.7
1955 76.8
1951 82.6
1950 83.9
1945 72.8

labour seems to have done well in london

What do you expect when all those ethnic minoritys are growing in number. large numbers of them would not be in London if it was not for the EU open borders policy

Couldn't see them voting for UKIP

There is somewhat of a paradox in the recent result for the Libs. Because the council elections happened at the same time as the EU elections this means the same people voted. The voters have destroyed the EU presence of the Libs leaving them just one MEP. In a contrary result, the same people only caused the Libs to losse under 25% of their council seats. This looks like firstly a protest over the Libs' attitude to the EU and secondly may indicate a return to the Libs at the GE. I saw a series of interviews on Sky earlier where Lib supporters said they voted for UKIP as a protest and would wait for a change of attitude by the Libs in listening to their views.

Monday, May 26, 2014


Where’s Cleggy?





No sign of Britain’s biggest loser. Nick Clegg is said to be holed up in the Cabinet Office doing a ring round. Crying?


http://order-order.com/

i read an interesting comment earlier today from Theresa May I guess, who was saying that the conservatives had had some pretty serious arguments with lib/dems re restricting immigration and/or restricting their benefits etc once they arrived in uk

not for that much longer .... and possibly the conservatives won't have the worries either except in opposition! .... who knows

anyway, i still put my money on a hung parliament with the largest party being so by just a few seats

that won't do the markets any good either!

MaxK -he's just been on the news bulletins gibbering about about the Lib Dems standing up for their beliefs.

Things might now start to pick up. We have now got rid of Mr Bean, who has previously been helping to run the Bank of England.

The Staggering Cost Of One Man’s Delusions: £25 Billion Squandered On Bungled Welfare Reforms

Posted on May 25, 2014 by johnny void | 65 Comments

iain-duncan-smithThe recent report from the Major Projects Authority, which revealed that Universal Credit is such a fucking disaster they had to invent a whole new category to describe it, also laid bare the astronomical cost of Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms.

Just under £11 billion is budgeted to be squandered on some of the DWP’s largest projects, and that figure doesn’t include Universal Credit. The cost of this hare-brained experiment is shrouded in mystery now it has been classed as ‘reset’, but last year the Major Projects Authority reported the that bill would reach £12.8 billion.

Even this is far from the whole story. Community Work Placements, the latest mass workfare scheme, will cost almost a third of a billion. The costs of other Jobcentre schemes, such as Mandatory Work Activity, are not included in the above figures. At the very least the budgeted costs of welfare reform exceed £25 billion pounds. The true figure is likely to be much higher as reforms such as the Bedroom Tax unravel and start to cost the tax payer even more money.

The good news is that not all of this budget has been spent. It had been assumed by the DWP that the Work Programme would actually help some people get jobs. They thought wrong. Such has been the dismal performance of the payment by results scheme that it is one of the few of Iain Duncan Smith’s pet projects that is actually running under budget.

The bad news is that this kind of crazed optimism has led to ludicrous spending projections in which IDS has decided his reforms will lead to the cost of Jobseeker’s Allowance falling by over a third by 2017. This is likely to be because of all the new jobs that he thinks will be magically created by Universal Credit. What it means is that there is a time bomb in the social security budget for whichever bunch of bastards manages to win the next election.

With all this money being thrown around it might be expected that spending on social security would fall, especially as claimants themselves have been subject to huge cuts. This is not the case however and total spending on social security this year is forecast to be £10 billion higher than before the cuts began. This figures includes pensions, but spending on unemployment benefits, housing benefits and tax credits has all reached record levels under this Government. Even spending on sickness benefits seems back on the rise despite Atos and the DWP’s attempt at curing people with endless assessments and workfare. It turns out people are still getting sick.

It is genuinely astonishing that a Government obsessed with austerity has given a blank cheque-book to a fucking idiot like Iain Duncan Smith. The real tragedy is that if some of this money had actually gone into to those who needed it then some of the worst impacts of the economic downturn could have been avoided. Instead the opposite has happened. The very poorest have been driven to destitution whilst billions has been shovelled into the pockets of grasping crooks in the welfare-to-work industry like A4e and G4S.

We are all paying the price of this reckless spending spree, and the social costs of child poverty, homelessness and despair that Iain Duncan Smith has spent billions creating will last for generations. One day people will look back in horror that one man’s folly was allowed to run rampant through so many lives. But for now the horror show continues unabated, and the financial cost is nothing compared to the tragedy of future’s destroyed and lives demolished.

To view the Major Project Authority report visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dwp-government-major-projects-portfolio-data-2014

To see benefit expenditure and projections download the spreadsheet: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/310483/outturn-and-forecast-budget-2014.xls