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.

Miliband was a disaster at PMQs again. The twittersphere is mainly a playground for left wing activist sycophants.

Milli won hands down at PMQT LOL!!!! Yeah right.

Hays how so wrong you are.

Tory MPs outnumber Labour MP tweeters just over 2-1 and the number of Tory blogs V labour blogs 3-1.

Just remember its quality that counts not quantity.

You must have been watching some sort of fantasy PMQs. The one one I watched was a car crash for Milibland.

so neither fred nor acolyte stan can actually admit that the unions were at least as culpable as management in the collapse of uk's heavy industry ..... ah, i forgot .... it was apparently all the fault of those in power, always provided that it was the conservatives

obviously fred and acolyte stan think the electorate are fools then

Also called alternative universe. (in science fiction, fantasy, etc.) a separate universe or world that coexists with our known universe but is very different from it.

Sounds like a perfect description of gf. He gets changed in a telephone box, don't you know :0)

Of course, the left wing fail to specify the motives of the right wing in ruining heavy industry.

That was simple enough Haystack...there was no (easy) money in it


Far easier to flog a few mortgages to numpties who don't know any better, and call it growth.


The "city" has long since been a driver of british growth, but it's more a bloodsucker these days.

In the days of decline or heavy industry there was little money in selling mortgages. That is a fairly recent phenomenon. The decline of our industry went hand in hand with the expansion of industry in emerging countries who undercut us with lower wages and cheaper natural resources. The same thing had already happened to our textile business. We cannot compete in certain businesses as our cost base is too high.

Are you having memory problems?

The 80's were nothing but mortgages, a bit like today.

It didn't happen in the 80s. The financial services market was a reaction to finding a solution to collapsing industry. It was considered that part of our future lay in the services sector. No one wanted to invest in industries that could not compete in world markets.

Really? look back.

You have to remember that the 70s in particular, were a period of constant strikes, restrictive practices and when we were called the 'sick man of Europe'. We had the three day week due to strikes, rubbish piling up in the street, people going unburied and the unions having brought down two governments. No one was going to invest in that mess.

And your point is?

Cos you havent made one.

The point is that it was the 70s. The unions were destroying our industry and no one in their right mind would invest. Edward Heath and Callahan both tried to curb the destructive power of the unions and failed. It wasn't until Thatcher that it happened. By that time industry was uncompetitive in the world. Restrictive practices and strikes ruined our industry while countries like Germany and emerging countries had more flexible working prectices. Our outdated union methods went back to the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Demarcation was a disease in our industry.

Bookies suspend betting on Queen announcing abdication in Christmas broadcast

Coral said it had decided to close its book on the Queen abdicating after a rash of bets in the past 24 hours, but Buckingham Palace laughs off rumour

The bookmaker Coral has suspended betting on the Queen announcing her abdication in this year's Christmas Day broadcast.

The betting firm said it had decided to close the market after an "unusual" rash of wagers which "instantly set alarm bells ringing".

Sources close to the Queen, however, laughed off suggestions that she might abdicate, saying it was "just not true".

At about midday today, Coral had several online inquiries for the odds it would offer on the Queen abdicating in her Christmas message. It began with a £200 bet, followed by several smaller bets in quick succession.

The bookmaker said the queries were "so specific" and so close together that it smelled a rat.

odds of 10-1 on the Queen abdicating during the Christmas message.

The speech to the nation has already been pre-recorded by the BBC, leading to suspicions that people with inside knowledge, either from Buckingham Palace or the TV camera crew, might have acted on leaked information.

Nicola McGeady, a spokesman for Coral, said: "Throughout the year there has been major speculation about the Queen’s future but today’s gamble has really caught us by surprise.

“As far as we are concerned there’s no smoke without fire when bets like this come through all in succession, so we have decided to be safe rather than sorry and pull the plug on the market."

hays talking out of his bottom again, in the car industry it was the UNIONS who alerted management to the Re Tooling the germans and the japs were carrying out and wanted the same and were prepared to take redundancies.

It was british greedy bosses along with a Tory government who wanted to break them .

hays goes on about the three day week i remember massive riots going on for weeks under the Tories which were far worse, more destructive and costly. 8 million people unemployed and tax revenues (the new savior) spent on keeping people on the dole.

Same was repeated in camorons first year albeit a shorter period, and if you want to look at restrictive practices look no further than professional bodies for solicitors, the Law pro in general and accountancy bodies.

Far worse than restrictive practice by the working man.

Thats the only reason that it costs you so much.

By the way hays Cynic as asked me to go a little lighter on you, but obviously when you get the chance to try and dominate you dont take an inch but take a mile.

All bets off cynic.

sticky - there was certainly a lot of really poor management throughout from the 50s onwards, but to pretend that the militant unions were out to do nothing more than help their members (did they ever fight for equal pay for women?) would be purblind in the extreme

several of the union leaders were in the pay of the russians, and there is no doubt that their brief was to wreck the uk economy
fortunately they failed

doodlebug4 - 17 Dec 2014 20:10 - 53201 of 53221

Maggie, Maggie, Maggie !:-))




Do you mean the Maggie who was the mother of a "GUN RUNNER"?

Did he benefit by side deals of his mother due to his mother's office and thought to have over £50 million in offshore bank accounts?

(The best type of conservative practices.)

If so she did make a suitable leader of the tory party and would fit in with the ethics of the present incumbents at No 10.

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