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.

Nice pics. Silly, but nice.

Representative.

Emblems of present day disconnected toryism.

This sounds serious E/L, better to put the house on the market to be safe.

LOL.

Whey Hey the socialist have it.

Camoron in for a real bad week.

Millis probs were a zit on his bum...................................

Ashcroft National Poll: Con 27%, Lab 32%, Lib Dem 7%, UKIP 18%, Green 7%
Monday, 24 November, 2014 in The Ashcroft National Poll


By Lord Ashcroft

Labour are five points ahead in this week’s Ashcroft National Poll, conducted over the past weekend. Labour’s share is up two points since last week at 32%, with the Conservatives down two at 27%, the Liberal Democrats down two at 7%, UKIP up two at 18%, the Greens unchanged on 7% and the SNP up one point at 5%

Max, ..........you can shove the Daily Express up your as-, you can shove the Daily Express up your as-. repeated like a football song.

hilary, your boys have taken one hell of a beating, one hell of a beating.

Meanwhile on Twitter, 'Camoron Must Go' is still trending at the Nos 1 position. This must be a record. Given younger people by and large use twitter and there as been an upsurge in tuition fees protests I wonder if the young vote is going to put Milliband in Nos 10.

Im now starting to wonder if the polls have got it right with the main partys.

By Jake Wallis Simons
12:54PM GMT 24 Nov 2014
By perpetuating the myth that Britain is a 'classless society', politicians on all sides have underestimated the power of the white working-class male, writes Jake Wallis Simons

He shaves his head, is covered in tattoos, and spends his spare time pulverising other men in cages. You know who I'm talking about: White Van Dan, the new hero of the British working class.

Over the weekend, the man whose enthusiasm for flags ended Emily Thornberry’s career published his “Danifesto” for the future of the country in the Sun (despite not being able to remember the last time he voted).

It included forcing people to have to work for four years before claiming benefits; jailing people who burn poppies, as happened in 2011; bringing back old-fashioned discipline in schools (“kids are too mouthy now, not like when we had the cane”); and toughening up on immigration (“if people show up uninvited, send them back”).

He seems to be a living, breathing cliché. But then, this has been a story of clichés: the out-of-touch Labour politician; the salt-of-the-earth working-class man; the hysterical media circus; the foot-in-mouth convulsions of Ed Miliband. And it took a man like White Van Dan to give the political classes a wake-up call.

Of all the idiocies that have been spouted by British politicians in recent decades – and there have been many – one of the most transparent is the notion that class is dead. When John Major said that we live in a “classless society”, and Tony Blair argued that “the class war is over”, they were speaking the most appalling guff. Yet it is a myth that is still perpetuated today.

Politicians, seeking to win votes from all classes, are too scared to talk openly about class divisions in Britain, preferring to continue to assert that “we’re all middle class now”. Ed Miliband and David Cameron refuse to even use the term “working class”, preferring mealy-mouthed, patronising euphemisms like “hardworking people” and “everyday people”.

Meanwhile when Emily Thornberry airs her true attitudes on Twitter, or when Grant Shapps commissions a poster suggesting that “hardworking people” are driven solely by bingo and beer, the mask inexorably slips.

Of course, the truth – as the popularity of White Van Dan has shown – is that although the old Upstairs Downstairs certainties have been broken down, Britain is as class-stratified and class-conscious as it ever was.

The London Health Observatory has found that those in the city’s poorest wards have a life expectancy that is almost 25 years lower than those in the most affluent.

In East London, middle-class hipsters can be seen on the same pavements as impoverished immigrants, but they frequent wholly different shops, pubs and cafés, talk largely different languages, and have vastly different future prospects and world views.

In state schools in the Home Counties, children from a variety of backgrounds might sit in the same classroom, but those from book-lined, hummus-eating homes simply will not become friends with the ones whose lives are dominated by Disney princess dresses, football shirts and Happy Meals. Even their names are different: Oliver, Isabel, Robin, Catherine; Lacey, Kayden, Madison, Reece.

In the north and in Scotland, entire communities of working class people feel profoundly alienated by local and national politics, ignored by the Tories and abandoned by a metropolitan Labour Party.

And all over the country, British people have very few friends, or even acquaintances, outside of their own narrow classes.

According to the Sutton Trust, just 21 per cent of children from the lowest incomes get five good GCSEs, compared with 75 per cent of the richest. Here can be found the clearest intersection of education, income and class: studies have shown that the single best determinant of a child’s success is the number of books on the shelves at home.

Moreover, the digital revolution has placed a greater pressure on the value of education. As mid-level jobs are replaced by technology, the poorly-educated are being driven into lower-paid employment in supermarkets, warehouses and cafés, while the well-educated are seeing their salaries soar as they harness technology at the top.

And in the Britain of 2014, world-class educations can be purchased for more than many working-class people would hope to earn in a year.

In 1845, Benjamin Disraeli wrote of a Britain comprised of two separate nations, “between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by different breeding, are fed by different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws”.

Plus ça change.

Which brings us back to the cliché of White Van Dan. The politicians may be repressing the open acknowledgement of class, but the rest of the country does not.

From the Pub Landlord to Wayne and Waynetta Slob, from Little Britain and Shameless to The Only Way is Essex, British popular culture is saturated with class stereotypes. These are counterbalanced by Tory Boy, Made In Chelsea and Life Is Toff.

It is clear that we Britishers are not only conscious of class, we are conscious of how much we are conscious of it. We talk about it, think about it, lampoon it and joke about it, and with good reason: it affects all of our lives, and often adversely. Meanwhile, our political leaders affect not to know what we talk about when we talk about class.

The debacle in Rochester and Strood could almost have been an episode of The Thick Of It. But it has shown politicians that, sooner or later, they need to start taking class seriously. And for that reason, White Van Dan is my hero too.

KillingBritain @killingbritain · 2h hours ago

Because Cameron is a W⚓ #CameronMustGo

Tony Blair - a global legacy of saving children? That probably isn’t what he’s known for to most of us. But children’s charity Save the Children have given him an award saying just that. [1]

Miranda, a 38 Degrees member, has started a petition calling on Save the Children to take back the award. She doesn’t think the man who took the UK to war in Iraq should be given an award for services to children.

If enough of us sign the petition, public pressure could persuade them to rethink and give the award to someone who actually deserves it. Click the link below to sign Miranda’s petition:

Please sign the petition:

Save the Children work hard to protect children across the globe, and they do a lot of good work. [2] But this award seems more than a little misguided.

51080 - that was not remotely the question i raised so try again!

Student Movement Sparks Back To Life In Fight For #FreeEducation
Posted on November 20, 2014 by johnny void

A copper gets a paint job in response to the violent police attack
In a further sign that resistance to austerity is sparking back to life, students from across the UK marched in central London yesterday demanding the right to free education. This was the biggest student protest since the spiky demonstrations in 2010 when students smashed their way into the Tory Party headquarters.

As on previous protests, many students were not content to obediently march from A to B and then listen to politicians making boring and insincere speeches. Instead, when the march arrived at Parliament Square many protesters tore down the fences surrounding the square. These were erected after the recent Occupy protests and are intended to prevent any unofficial dissent against government policies outside the Houses of Parliament. So far they havent worked very well.

As hundreds of people occupied the Square, a large group broke away heading towards the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills where they were viciously attacked by police. This didn’t stop the Department, a local Starbucks and several coppers from being given an impromptu paint job as some demonstrators hurled makeshift paintbombs in resistance to the assault. Further sit down protests, and minor scuffles continued outside Scotland Yard and the Tory HQ as small groups headed off in different directions occupying roads and bringing traffic chaos to the capital.

11 people were arrested, although all were released without charge*. Many of those detained suffered injuries. According to event organisers, the National Coalition Against Fees and Cuts (NCFAC) one person who had been refused medical treatment in custody had to be taken to hospital immediately after being released. This is how the state now responds to even the most trivial civil disobedience.

There is no doubt that yesterday set the scene for the resurgence of a combative student movement in the run up to the next general election. And it’s not just students who should be pissed off. Young people now face a terrifying future of shit wages or workfare, inadequate and insecure housing and the healthcare and pensions they will need as they grow older being stripped away. Not one of the main political parties gives a fuck as an entire generation’s futures are demolished. So when you hear media commentators complaining about violence at these protests because a copper got his hat kncked off or someone threw a bit of paint at a government building then remember who the real criminals are.

The NUS were also targetted on the morning of the demonstrations, with graffiti accusing them of being scabs for not supporting the march. The unions pathetic excuse for this decision was concerns about health and safety as if some risk assessment is going to make a difference to a copper who’s decided to kick someone’s head in for not respecting their authority.

The last national student protest was organised by the NUS and featured a dispiriting march through the back streets of South London to a nondescript park in the pouring rain. It was probably the most depressing political non-event in history. The students who took action yesterday are better off without them.

More resistance is planned with a day of walk outs, occupations, protests and direct action called for on Wednesday December 3rd. On the following Saturday 6th December local marches will take place throughout the UK. Please help spread the word.

*Those arrested have been bailed to re-appear at police stations meaning they are not out of the woods yet. Activist support group Green and Black Cross have called on anyone who witnessed an arrest, or police violence, to contact them at: gbclegal@riseup.net.

GF,

Post 51151

“hilary, your boys have taken one hell of a beating, one hell of a beating.”

She knows how to use the whip lash.

I saw this image and thought of the Hairy one and Dave and George.

Hils

Many thanks - but wot a Bummer!

Wifey has put a parental ban on me Googling for beaver. :-(

Just for you

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/beaver/

Anyone see this Tory Tosser being interviewed on C4 tonight, protecting the culprits in RBS who helped and incentivised it's staff to get small businesses closed down. http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/commons/mr-andrew-tyrie/112

no, but it's assuredly true about RBS doing the dirty on small businesses ..... they nearly screwed us over, yet we make £500/750k profit every year

fortunately we had good contacts in NL so moved everything over there