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.

Calls for Arsene Wenger to be investigated for match fixing after journalist's memo records him saying, 'I hope Middlesbrough can win on Sunday.'.

Cynic

That's what younger voters who didn't live in the 70's don't realise, what it was like when the unions were a law unto themselves. Liverpool held ransom to Derrick Hatton , the Winter of discontent when people couldn't bury the dead ., The three day week and the blackouts, Red Rob and Jack Dash, car and dock strikes.

ah yes; i'd forgotten about derek hatton, now transformed into a property developer

what price principles, one might ask?

Tory principles.

Perhaps he is a reformed man!

Any similarities with you?

absolutely :-)

"what price principles" was actually said to me many years ago by a very good solicitor - ie you may win the case, but is it actually worth the cost
there are quite frequent occasions when pragmatism or a commercial decision is the correct course of action

Red Fred has no principles.

The fat cat capitalist who bought all those gas,water , power and Royal Mail shares.

100% certain that mccluskey will have a union pension (and why not indeed), and that the money for that emanates from the stock markets

I have another serious concern: Teddy Bears - and other similar Blue Tooth linked toys and stuff.

Boy, 11, hacks cyber-security audience to give lesson on 'weaponisation' of toys
Reuben Paul, 11 tells conference that smart cars, fridges, lights and even teddy bears can be used to spy on or harm people

Reuben Paul showed how a teddy bear which can connect to the cloud can be hacked. An 11-year-old “cyber ninja” has stunned an audience of security experts by hacking into their Bluetooth devices to manipulate a robotic teddy bear, showing in the process how interconnected smart toys “can be weaponised”.

Reuben Paul, who is in sixth grade at school in Austin, Texas, and his teddy bear Bob wowed hundreds at a cyber-security conference in the Netherlands.

“From airplanes to automobiles, from smartphones to smart homes, anything or any toy can be part of the Internet of Things (IOT),” said the small kid pacing the huge stage at the World Forum in The Hague.

“From terminators to teddy bears, anything or any toy can be weaponised.”

To demonstrate he deployed his cuddly bear, which connects to the cloud via wifi and Bluetooth to receive and transmit messages.

Plugging into his laptop a device known as a “Raspberry Pi” – a small credit-card size computer – Reuben scanned the hall for available Bluetooth devices, and to everyone’s amazement including his own, suddenly downloaded dozens of numbers, including some of top officials.

Then using a computer language called Python he hacked into his bear via one of the numbers to turn on one of its lights and record a message from the audience.

“Most internet-connected things have a Bluetooth functionality ... I basically showed how I could connect to it, and send commands to it, by recording audio and playing the light,” he told AFP later.

“IOT home appliances, things that can be used in our everyday lives, our cars, lights refrigerators, everything like this that is connected can be used and weaponised to spy on us or harm us.”

They could be used to steal private information such as passwords, as remote surveillance to spy on kids, or employ GPS to find out where a person is, he said. More chillingly, a toy could say “meet me at this location and I will pick you up”, Reuben said.

His father, information technology expert Mano Paul, told how aged about six Reuben had revealed early IT skills.

Using a simple explanation from dad on how one smartphone game worked, Reuben then figured out it was the same kind of algorithm behind the popular video game Angry Birds.

“He has always surprised us. Every moment when we teach him something he’s usually the one who ends up teaching us,” Mano Paul told AFP.

But Paul said he been “shocked” by the vulnerabilities discovered in kids’ toys, after Reuben first hacked a toy car, before moving on to more complicated things.

“It means that my kids are playing with timebombs, that over time somebody who is bad or malicious can exploit.”

Now the family has helped Reuben, who is also the youngest American to have become a Shaolin Kung Fu black belt, to set up his CyberShaolin non-profit organisation.

Its aim is “to inform kids and adults about the dangers of cyber-insecurity”, Reuben said, adding he also wants to press home the message that manufacturers, security researchers and the government have to work together.

Reuben also has ambitious plans for the future, aiming to study cyber-security at either CalTech or MIT universities and then use his skills for good.

His a bit old for a Teddy bear ? That should worry him more.

The dad is on the make, and the son will be coming out soon.

Things to look forward to when Theresa May gets back in control.

I bet you wish that was you there eh ,being grappled by our boss .

Vicky darling,

I am not as gullible as you seem to be.

But I can see why Miss Whiplash appeals to you.

You're the one who keeps posting pics on her , just admit it , you fancy her .

ah so fred remembers wistfully his jolly times when under the care of lindi st clair :-)

Manuel.

You know more about these things than I do.

Was Theresa may a member of the Corrective party before she took over the little boys in the tory party?

Or was she Lindi St Clair in a former life?

i recollect lindi st clair was much more attractive

Conservative Manifesto - General Election (June 8th 2017) - Key Points

Social Care

• Winter fuel payments for pensioners will be means-tested and people will pay more towards home care visits to plug the £2.8 billion social care funding gap.
• Pensioners will stop paying for their own care once their savings and assets are down to £100,000. At present only £23,250 is protected.
• But a person's home will be counted among their assets when they are means-tested for domiciliary care (currently this only applies to people needing residential care) meaning more people will pay.
• No-one will have to sell their home during their lifetime, as they will be able to borrow money which will be paid back from their estate after their death.

Schools

• Lifting the ban on new selective schools.
• Build at least a hundred new schools a year.
• £1 billion more per year for schools, paid for by ending universal free school lunches for children aged 5 to 7 (a policy brought in by Nick Clegg in 2014).
• All children to be offered free school breakfast.
• It will mean no school will be worse off when a new funding formula - designed to give more money to schools that most need it - comes in.
• Banning failing schools from accepting new pupils
• 100 top private schools could lose charitable status

Tax

• David Cameron’s tax “triple lock”, which guaranteed there would be no rise in national insurance, VAT or income tax, will be scrapped in favour of a general statement of intent to lower tax and simplify the tax system.
• No increase in the level of VAT

Income Tax

• A commitment to raise the tax-free personal allowance to £12,500 by 2020 will stay.
• The Tories will also keep a commitment to raise the threshold for the 40p tax rate to £50,000 by 2020.

NHS

• A pledge to increase NHS spending by a minimum of £8 billion in real terms over the next five years.

Deficit

• A pledge to eradicate the deficit by the middle of the next decade.

Pensions

• Maintain the triple lock pension guarantee until 2020, then replace it with a double lock - meaning pensions will rise in line with earnings or inflation, whichever is highest.
• Tougher punishments for those caught mismanaging pension schemes.
• New powers to be given to the Pensions Regulator to issue “punitive” fines for those found to have “wilfully left a pension scheme under-resourced” and, if necessary, powers similar to those held by the Insolvency Service to disqualify the relevant company directors.
• New criminal offence to be considered for company directors who “deliberately or recklessly put at risk” a pension scheme’s ability to meet its obligations.

Immigration

• An objective to reduce annual net migration to the tens of thousands. Overseas student numbers will remain in the immigration statistics.
• Students will be expected to leave the country at the end of their course unless they meet new, higher, requirements allowing them to stay.
• The Immigration Skills Charge levied on companies employing migrant workers, to be doubled to £2,000 a year by the end of the parliament, using the revenue generated to invest in higher level skills training for workers in the UK.

Markets

• Make it clearer for mobile phone customers to know when they have paid off the price of their handset and consider a ban on companies which cold call people to encourage them to make false personal injury claims.
• Review rail ticketing to remove “complexity and perverse” pricing, with a passenger ombudsman introduced.
• Minimum service levels agreed with train companies and staff during times of industrial action. A pledge to make this mandatory if a deal cannot be reached voluntarily.

Foreign Aid

• The UK will retain its commitment to spending 0.7 per cent of GDP on foreign aid but the way in which the money is spent will be changed.

Defence

• A pledge to spend at least two per cent of GDP on defence and increase the budget by at least 0.5 per cent above inflation in every year of the new parliament.
• A pledge to “maintain” the overall size of the armed forces and retain the Trident continuous-at-sea nuclear deterrent.

Media

• The second part of the Leveson Inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the press will not take place.
• Repeal Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2014. This would have forced newspapers to pay their opponents’ libel and privacy action legal costs, no matter who wins in court, if not signed up to an officially-recognised regulator.
• New powers to force internet firms to remove explicit or extremist material, backed by legal power to impose fines.

Justice

• A “national infrastructure police force” will be set up combining the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, the Ministry of Defence Police and British Transport Police.
• The Serious Fraud Office will be incorporated into the National Crime Agency.
• £1 billion will be made available to modernise the prison estate.

Housing

• A pledge to meet an existing commitment to build a million homes by the end of 2020, with a further 500,000 by the end of 2022.
• New “council housing deals” to allow local authorities to build more social housing.
• Fixed-term social houses will be built and sold privately after 10 to 15 years with an automatic right to buy for tenants. Cash raised from sales will be used to build further properties.

Democracy

• Pledge to go ahead with a boundary review and to reduce the number of MPs to 600.
• Voters will be made to present identification before they can vote while the traditional voting method of using a pencil and paper will be kept.
• The honours system to be reviewed to make sure it commands public confidence and to protect the integrity of the honours bestowed.

Homelessness

• A commitment to halve rough sleeping over the course of the next parliament and eliminate it by 2027.
Fishing

• A pledge to work with the UK fisheries industry to develop a new regime for commercial fishing post-Brexit.
• A promise to withdraw from the London Fisheries Convention.

Corporate Pay

• The Tories will legislate to make executive pay packages subject to strict annual votes by shareholder.
• Listed companies will have to publish the ratio of executive pay to to the broader UK workforce.
• Companies employing more than 250 people will be required to publish more data on the pay gap between men and women.

Scotland

• A referendum on Scottish independence will only be allowed to take place after Brexit has “played out” and should not take place “unless there is public consent for it to happen”.

Fox Hunting

• A free vote will be given to MPs on a government bill to repeal the Hunting Act.

Energy

• A fixed cap on energy tariffs, to be set by the regulator Ofgem and reviewed every six months.
• Smart meters to be offered to every household and business by the end of 2020.
• Make it easier to switch energy providers.

and to keep balance

Labour

Key policies
Scrap student tuition fees
Nationalisation of England's nine water companies.
Re-introduce the 50p rate of tax on the highest earners (above £123,000)
Income tax rate 45p on £80,000 and above
More free childcare, expanding free provisions for two, three and four year olds
Guarantee triple lock for pensioner incomes
End to zero hours contracts
Hire 10,000 new police officers, 3,000 new firefighters
Moves to charge companies a levy on salaries above £330,000
Deliver rail electrification "including in Wales and the South West".
Bring the railways back into public ownership as franchises expire
Regain control of energy supply networks through the alteration of operator license conditions, and transition to a publicly owned, decentralised energy system
Replace water system with a network of regional publicly-owned water companies
Reverse the privatisation of Royal Mail "at the earliest opportunity"
Create at least one publicly-owned energy company in every region of the UK, with public control of the transmission and distribution grids.
The economy
Extra tax take in total £48.6bn
£6.4bn from income tax from the top 5%
Extra £19.4bn from corporation tax
£6.5bn from tax avoidance programme
Income tax rate 45p on earnings of £80,000 and above - and 50p to be reintroduced on earnings above £123,000
Boost wages of 5.7m people earning less than minimum wage to £10 an hour by 2020
Create a National Transformation Fund that will invest £250bn over 10 years in upgrading the economy
Deliver universal superfast broadband availability by 2022
A National Investment Bank as part of a plan to provide £250bn of lending power over the next decade for infrastructure
Reinstate the lower small-business corporation tax rate
Scrap quarterly reporting for businesses with a turnover of under £85,000.
Workers' rights
An end to zero-hours contracts to guarantee workers a "number of hours each week"
Introduce four extra public holidays each year to mark national patron saints' days
Maximum pay ratios of 20:1 to be rolled out in public sector
Raise minimum wage to "at least £10 per hour by 2020"
Ban unpaid internships
"Clamp down on bogus self-employment" and extend rights of employees to all workers - including shared parental pay
Guarantee trade unions a right to access workplaces
End the public sector pay cap
Repeal the Trade Union Act and roll out sectoral collective bargaining, whereby industries can negotiate agreement as a whole
Enforce all workers' rights to trade union representation at work
Abolish employment tribunal fees - so that people have access to justice
Use public spending power to drive up standards, including only awarding public contracts to companies which recognise trade unions
Give all workers equal rights from day one, whether part-time or full-time, temporary or permanent
Shifting the burden of proof, so the law assumes a worker is an employee unless the employer can prove otherwise.
Education
Reintroduce maintenance grants for university students and abolish university tuition fees
A National Education Service for England to incorporate all forms of education
Overhaul existing childcare system and extend 30 hours of free childcare to all two year olds
Promise to reduce class sizes to "less than 30" for five, six, and seven-year-olds
Devolve responsibility for skills to city regions or devolved administrations
Free school meals for all primary school children, paid for by removing the VAT exemption on private school fees.
Health and social care
Deliver safe staffing levels and reduce waiting lists
End hospital car parking charges
One million people will be taken off NHS waiting lists by "guaranteeing access to treatment within 18 weeks"
Scrap NHS pay cap
NHS will receive more than £30bn in extra funding over the next parliament
Mental health budgets will be ring-fenced, and Labour will ensure all children in secondary schools have access to a counselling service.
Social security and pensions
Cuts to bereavement support payment will be scrapped, as will the bedroom tax and the "punitive sanctions regime"
Reinstate housing benefit for under-21s
Guarantee state pension triple lock, as well as the winter fuel allowance and free bus passes
"Rejects" proposal to increase state pension age further
A commitment to "protect the pensions of UK citizens living overseas in the EU or further afield".
Energy
Ensure that 60% of the UK's energy comes from zero-carbon or renewable sources by 2030
A ban on fracking
Nuclear power "will continue to be part of the UK energy supply"
Introduce an immediate emergency energy price cap to ensure the average dual fuel household energy bill remains below £1,000 per year
Maintaining access to the EU's internal energy market and retaining access to nuclear research programme Euratom will be a priority in Brexit negotiations.
Housing
Build over one million more homes, with at least half for social rent
Homeowners willbe offered interest free loans to improve their properties
Guarantee help to buy funding until 2027 and give locals buying their first home "first dibs on new homes built in their area"
Legislate to ban letting agency fees for tenants, and look at giving the Mayor of London power to give London renters "additional security"
Make 4,000 additional homes available for rough sleepers to end homelessness.
Transport
Extend high speed rail link HS2 to Scotland
Build a new Brighton main line for the SouthEast
Build Crossrail 2 - to run north-south through London between Hertfordshire and Surrey - "to ensure our capital continues to prosper"
Recognise the need for additional airport capacity in the South East (but there's no mention of Heathrow).
Families and communities
30 hours free childcare to be extended to two-year-olds and "some" to one-year-olds
An end to the so-called "rape clause" - part of the policy of restricting child tax credits to the first two children in a family. It means mothers who have a third child as a result of rape can be exempted, but would have to provide evidence in order to do so
A review into reforming council tax and business rates, in favour of options such as a land value tax
A national review of local pubs to examine the causes for their large-scale demise, as well as establishing a joint taskforce that will consider future sustainability.
Democracy
Scottish Parliament
Labour opposes a second Scottish independence referendum
Establish a Scottish Investment Bank, with £20bn for local projects and Scotland's small businesses, creating work and stimulating the economy
Build on the Development Bank of Wales using more than £10bn from Labour's new National Investment Bank
Continue to fully support the principles and structures inherent within the Good Friday Agreement
Foreign policy/Defence
Support the renewal of the Trident submarine system
Work with international partners and the UN on multilateral disarmament "to create a nuclear-free world"
Commit to the Nato benchmark of spending at least 2% of GDP on defence
Will have a complete strategic defence and security review
Insulate the homes of disabled veterans for free.
Migration
Labour will not "scapegoat migrants" and will not set a cap on immigration, describing targets as "bogus"
International students will not be included in immigration numbers, but the party will crack down on "fake colleges".
Labour believes in the "reasonable management of migration" but "will not make false promises on immigration numbers".
Brexit
Accept the EU referendum result and "build a close new relationship with the EU" prioritising jobs and workers' rights
Guarantee the rights of EU nationals living in the UK and work to "secure reciprocal rights" for UK citizens elsewhere in the EU
A "meaningful" role for Parliament throughout Brexit negotiations
Scrap Conservatives' Brexit White Paper and replace with "fresh negotiating priorities" with strong emphasis on retaining the benefits of the single market and customs union
Reject no deal as a viable option and if needs be negotiate transitional arrangements "to avoid a cliff-edge for the UK economy"
Keep EU-derived laws on workers' rights, equality, consumer rights and environmental protections
Maintain UK's leading research role by seeking to stay part of Horizon 2020 and its successor programmes
Seek to maintain membership of European organisations which offer benefits to the UK such as Euratom and the European Medicines Agency
Will not allow Brexit to be used as an excuse to undercut UK farmers and flood Britain's food chain with cheap and inferior produce.

goes on a bit doesn't it!