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.

The prospect of a Labour / SNP coalition will be very unappealing to the British public. That could weigh heavy on people's minds at the GE. I am sure that, as the GE approaches, that scenario will be brought to the public's attention.

What happened to jocks not voting on English affairs?

It is only a convention that they do not vote. They can come to Westminster whenever they want and vote.

Wee-Eck's daughter is unlikely to side with the tories, so Millibandus could form the next gov with her support...worst of all worlds.

What happened to non Bold type then?

Stan,

Have they stopped shouting to you.

Just found something interesting about fonts.

8-)

Max,

You are beginning to catch up.

Haze is beginning to live in bygone days.

Gets hazier by the day!

.

Fred2old, you don't need to repeat everything.! If you press the "post message" thingy then strangely enough it will post your message.:-)

I am lucky I can't remember what or when I have posted.

But strangely know that I understood if I did.

However, for the slower in the class it is necessary to give them a chance by repeating the information a few times.

By Christopher Hope and Simon Johnson
2:00PM GMT 24 Jan 2015
UKIP's Nigel Farage and the SNP's Nicola Sturgeon head for Andrew Marr's sofa. Get the popcorn.

It is set to be an uncomfortable sight on Sunday morning when Nigel Farage and Nicola Sturgeon – two of Britain’s most strident nationalist politicians – share the sofa after their expected interviews on the BBC’s flagship Andrew Marr Show.

Both Mr Farage, the veteran leader of UK Independence Party which has its main support base in England, and Miss Sturgeon, who recently became leader of the Scottish National Party, bring with them reputations for being outspoken.

Below we examine their five most outrageous statements. If you can think of any more, add them at the end in the comment section.

Nigel Farage, Ukip leader

1) “I am a boozer, but not an alcoholic” (January 2015)

He said: “I am very lucky – I am a drinker, often quite a steady one. I am a boozer, but I am not an alcoholic. And that is the point. People say ‘oh my God how are you going to manage’. Do you know what? Quite easily actually. It is the working hours that kill me – not the boozing.”


2) Enoch Powell was not a racist (2008)

“I would never say that Powell was racist in any way at all. Had we listened to him, we would have much better race relations now than we have got.”

3) Breast-feeding mothers should ‘sit in the corner’ (Dec 2014)

"I’m not particularly bothered about it, but I know a lot of people do feel very uncomfortable, and look – this is just a matter of common sense, isn’t it? I think that given that some people feel very embarrassed by it, it isn’t too difficult to breastfeed a baby in a way that’s not openly ostentatious. Frankly, that’s up to Claridge’s, and I very much take the view that if you're running an establishment you should have rules.” [Asked if the should go to the ladies toilets to breastfeed, Mr Farage said: “Or perhaps sit in the corner, or whatever it might be – that's up to Claridge’s. It’s not an issue that I get terribly hung up about, but I know particularly people of the older generation feel awkward and embarrassed by it.”

4) Feeling awkward among foreigners on the train (Feb 2014)

“Do I think parts of Britain are a foreign land? I got the train the other night, it was rush hour, from Charing Cross. It was a stopper going out and we stopped at London Bridge, New Cross, Hither Green, it was not til we got past Grove Park that I could hear English being audibly spoken in the carriage. Does that make me feel slightly awkward? Yes it does. I wonder what is really going on. I am saying that and I am sure that is a view that will be reflected by three quarters of the population, perhaps even more.”

5) EU President Herman van Rompuy has “the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low grade bank clerk” (Feb 2010)

“I don't want to be rude. But you know, really, you have the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low grade bank clerk. The question that I want to ask and that we are all going to ask is: who are you? I had never heard of you; nobody in Europe had ever heard of you. I would like to ask you, Mr President: who voted for you? And what mechanism - I know democracy is not popular with you lot - what mechanism do the peoples of Europe have to remove you? Is this European democracy? Sir, you have no legitimacy in this job at all, and I can say with confidence that I can speak on behalf of the majority of the British people in saying: we do not know you, we do not want you, and the sooner you are put out to grass, the better."

Nicola Sturgeon, SNP leader

1) 1) Scotland on the cusp of a second oil boom (August 2014)

Speaking in Lerwick: “Shetland is on the cusp of a second oil boom. Anyone who comes here can't miss the hundreds of workers coming on and off the islands and the impact all of this activity has on small island communities.”

2) SNPs will vote on policies affecting the English NHS (January 2015)

“On health, for example, we are signalling that we would be prepared to vote on matters of English health because that has a direct impact potential on Scotland's budget.”

3) The pound belongs to an ‘independent Scotland’ (April 2013)

"An independent Scotland will keep the pound because it is in everyone's best interests, and to try and suggest otherwise simply flies in the face of the facts. “For a start, the pound is every bit as much Scotland's currency as it is that of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and as such, it is simple common sense that we should continue to use it as an independent country.”

4) An independent Scotland would get ‘automatic entry’ to the European Union

“It is the very clear view of the SNP and of the Government that Scotland would automatically be a member of the European Union upon independence. There is very clear legal opinion that backs up that position. I don't think the legal position, therefore, is in any doubt.”

5) David Cameron ‘politicised’ the Olympics (Feb 2014)

“I can absolutely guarantee that neither myself nor Mr Salmond will politicise the Commonwealth Games in the way that David Cameron is politicising the Olympics."

UKIP suspect infects the "Con" party: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30967633

No wonder Call Me wanted the Greens on the panel, they make Monster look like moderates!

Posted on AFN




Bahtat
24 Jan'15 - 14:49 - 105249 of 105257 0 1


Thinking of voting 'Green' in the General Election?

Here are some of their policies:


Top-ups [will be] given for people with children or disabilities, or to pay rent and mortgages. No-one will see a reduction in benefits, and most will see a substantial increase. Parents will be entitled to two years’ paid leave from work.

•The policy will enable people to “choose their own types and patterns of work”, and will allow people to take up “personally satisfying and socially useful work”. It will cost somewhere between £240-280 billion a year – more than double the current health budget, and ten times the defence budget.

•Under Green plans, inheritance tax – “to prevent the accumulation of wealth and power by a privileged class” – will no longer just tax the dead.

•Under radical reforms, it will cover gifts made while the giver is still alive – raising the prospect of levies on cars, jewellery or furniture given by parents to their children.

•New resource taxes would apply to wood, metal and minerals, and steeper levies imposed on cars.

•Crucially, import taxes will be levied on goods brought to Britain reflecting the “ecological impact” of making them – with tariffs reintroduced for trade between Britain and the rest of Europe, ending the free trade bloc.

•All elements of the sex industry will be decriminalised, and prostitutes could no longer be discriminated against in child custody cases.

•The Greens also want to see “significantly reduced” levels of imprisonment, with jail only used when there is a “substantial risk of a further grave crime” or in cases where offences are so horrific that offenders would be at risk of vigilantes. Prisoners will be given the vote.

•SATS, early years tests and league tables will be abolished, and “creative” subjects given equal parity to the “academic”.

•Independent schools will lose their charitable status and pay corporation tax, while church schools will be stripped of taxpayer funding. Religious instruction will be banned in school hours.

•Tuition fees will be abolished – but state research funding for universities will increase to reduce a reliance on “biased” commercial research.

•The “overall volume” of advertising on TV and newspapers will be controlled and cut, as part of a war on the “materialist and consumption driven culture which is not sustainable”.

•The England football, rugby and cricket teams would no longer play against countries where “normal, friendly, respectful or diplomatic relations are not possible.” Football clubs would be owned by co-operatives and not traded on the stock markets.

•No more new airports or runways will be built, and existing ones nationalised. All new homes and businesses must by law provide bicycle parking. Helicopter travel would be regulated “more strictly”. The sale of alcohol on planes and airports will be tightly restricted to prevent air-rage, and the air on inbound flights tested for disease.

•Advertising of holiday flights will be controlled by law to halt the “promotion of a high-carbon lifestyle”. New taxes would be imposed on carriers to reduce passenger numbers.

•Assisted dying will be legalised, and the law on abortion liberalised to allow nurses to carry it out. “Alternative” medicine will be promoted. Private healthcare will be more heavily taxed, with special levies on private hospitals that employ staff who were trained on the NHS.

•It will be a criminal offence, with “significant fines”, to stop a woman from breastfeeding in a restaurant or shop, and formula milk will be more tightly regulated.

•In order to prevent “overpopulation” burdening the earth, the state will provide free condoms and fund research for new contraceptives.

•Merely being a member of al-Qaeda, the IRA and other currently proscribed terrorist groups will no longer be a criminal offence under Green plans, and instead a Green Government should seek to “address desperate motivations that lie behind many atrocities labelled ‘terrorist’,” the policy book states.

•Terrorism, it adds, “is an extremely loaded term. Sometimes governments justify their own terrorist acts by labelling any groups that resist their monopoly of violence ‘terrorist’.”

•Britain will leave NATO, end the special relationship with the US, and unilaterally abandon nuclear weapons. A standing army, navy and airforce is “unnecessary”. Bases will be turned into nature reserves and the arms industry “converted” to producing windturbines.

•“Richer regions do not have the right to use migration controls to protect their privileges from others in the long term,” the party’s policy book states.

•A Green Government will “progressively reduce” border controls, including an amnesty for illegal immigrants after five years.

•Access to benefits, the right to vote and tax obligations will apply to everyone living on British soil, regardless of passport. The policy book states: “We will work to create a world of global inter-responsibility in which the concept of a ‘British national’ is irrelevant and outdated.”

•Political parties will be funded by the state, and the electoral system changed. The monarchy will be abolished.

while ukip do their level best to smear - the timing does smack of that - the outspoken critic who wants to return to the tories, ukip's pr chief blasts a hole in that party's feet by stating (see ST headline), "we speak for bigots, and ukip is proud to stand up for them"

It's all getting a bit desperate eh c?

certainly very silly but i'm am afraid uk politics has been on this slimy and slippery slope for rather a long time now

UK politics is way behind the curve, if true, this takes some beating..



EU want to ban the word 'bankrupt' to avoid stigma of going bust

EU language dictators want to see the word "bankruptcy" erased from the English language, and replaced with the phrase "debt adjustment".


Published: 15:52, Sun, February 16, 2014
By Owen Bennett - Political


The proposal is part of the EU's drive to remove the stigma of going bankrupt for those in financial trouble.

One Tory MP has labeled the move "madcap".

Riccardo Ribera d'Alcala, the EU's Directorate-General for Internal Policies who drafted the plan, wrote: "The use of stigmatising labels should be ended, and the pejorative term 'bankruptcy' should be replaced with the more neutral 'debt adjustment'."

It is argued that abandoning the word will make it easier for people who have been through bankruptcy to persuade banks to loan them money for new projects.




More €U bollox here: http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/460097/EU-want-to-ban-the-word-bankrupt-to-avoid-stigma-of-going-bust

if you're being paid a big wad of tax-free € every month, albeit worth a lot less than a year ago, the you have to dream up something, however nonsensical, in order to justify same

It's a good move tho, when you think about it.


The land of €l Greco owes about €30k for every man, woman and child...€320 billion and rising...so a non stigmatizing get out clause might be a very good thing.

Hopefully, the Greeks will vote with their feet and get out of the €uroloonybin before it's stripped bare by their benefactors.