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.

So more trouble for Ireland.
The opposition party has called for a general election. I appreciate that calls such as this are not that rare, but the circumstances of the EU bale out could trigger an election through a no confidence vote.
It also looks like the UK is to provide Ireland with an additional loan, as they are according to our chancellor Mr Osborne a very important trading partner.
They may well be, but how much more money will be poured into this bottomless pit of the EU funded Euro.
Whats the point in delaying the inevitable.
If the Euro was a dog, it would have been put down by now to save it from further misery.
What is not generally accepted, is that the UK unlike Ireland has not disclosed all its bank debt, whereas we still have huge amounts still off the books.
Our total debt is far more than has been declared.
I love Ireland and the Irish, but it's about time the powers that be in the UK, realized as we the general public do, 'That the UK is just about skint'.
We can't afford any bale outs.

We are lucky that we do not have the EURO , so let them who are in it sort the mess out.

Maybe a fire sale is a good time to buy a stake in a Irish bank , after all Goldman's done alright buying Leman Bro's

Is this government going the crazy way of the last one.
We now have an idea to calculate how, 'Happy we are'.
If you are given the chance to complete a 'Happiness' survey, please don't do it.
I suspect that once the results of such a survey are know, there will be regulations/rules to abide by. I wonder if a scale of happiness would be forthcoming.
Eventually there could be a Government Happiness Zsar, with him/her as head of a Happy department.
How about a Ministry of happiness.
After all I remember a documentary in 1970, which showed a Labor Government Minister who was in charge of a Ministry of Silly Walks. At least I think it was a documentary. Cant remember the ministers name though.
Just had another thought. I wonder how high Gordon Brown would score in a happyness pole, as most of the time he looked like a dog chewing a wasp.

I do hope the bail out of Ireland's finances has nothing to do with the Baronetcy, of Ballytaylor in the County of Tipperary?


No, I am sure it is not.

Perhaps, it is just hoping for tory party funding in the future!

I am sure I am wrong.


8<()

"After all I remember a documentary in 1970, which showed a Labor Government Minister who was in charge of a Ministry of Silly Walks. At least I think it was a documentary. Cant remember the ministers name though."

G/M,

Not getting it confused with this are you? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqhlQfXUk7w

Stan,

And here was me thinking it was a Panorama type documentary.

On a serious note. I was a great fan of Yes Minister and Yes Prime minister.
I would love to see a follow up such as, Yes EU Minister. There would be far more scope for the script writers regarding stupid/idiotic decisions for them to have a go at.
Mind you many of the scripts from the Yes Minister/Prime minister series rang very true at the time, and still hold true today.

Thatcher was in it once .

Perhaps if 'Yes EU Minister' was made we could all apply to be extras.
The possibilities are endless.
You know, playing sheep in the Scottish Highlands, Cows in Greek fields, Olive trees in Italy, Pilgrims in Santuario de la Armada, Celanova.
This last example was where thousands of Euros were given to build a pilgrimage center in a place where 'No Pilgrims passed through.
See link for many more. If it wasn't so unbelievable, it would be funny.

http://www.openeurope.org.uk/research/top100waste.pdf

"We now have an idea to calculate how, 'Happy we are'.
If you are given the chance to complete a 'Happiness' survey, please don't do it.
I suspect that once the results of such a survey are know, there will be regulations/rules to abide by. I wonder if a scale of happiness would be forthcoming."

What do you expect from a government led by PR men?

.

Happiness?.. Just give Ken Dodd a ring if you want happiness.

If you don't ring Fred

.. And here's the lad himself http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a5vaIsaxB8&feature=related

Why should we give 7,000,000,000 to Ireland? How many nurses and doctors would that pay for here? It would stop all the proposed health service cuts. If your neighbour was 1 million in debt would you pay 10,000 into his bank account?

They wanted to be independent of the UK so let them be independent.

Whilst Cameron's and Osborne's rhetoric sounds Christian and amiable with the British Tax Payers' money. They are disillusiopned when it comes to Ireland and the Irish. A large number of them bere a grudge against Britain which is maintained relentlessly,and they will unlikely change as the myths are perpetuated from generation to generation. Even amongst their educated elite the grudge is there. Look at the funding that came from the American Irish to fund the grotesque Terrorism, waged against Britain in the most cowardly and underhand way. Their Banks crept into Britain under the auspicis of the totally discredited EU. The so called Tiger Economy was paid for by Britain and Germany's tax payers. In addition the EU allowed Dublin to act as a Tax Haven for corporates poaching hundreds of companies out of the British, German Tax regimes to their Tax Payers huge loss.Cooperation is a two way process ,if you ask me it looks all one way ,what suits the Irish/ Tney will try and charm the birds of the Tree, but dont believe one word of it. Ireland will never be a competetive Economy unless Corporation Tax is half the rest of the EU, To=day Hewlett Packard threatened to withdraw its investment in Ireland if the Corporation Tax is changed. Case proven,

Ireland, where IRA terrorists convicted in Columbia of helping FARC terrorists to develop their bomb making techniques, walk the streets free as a bird, after being mysteriously spirited out of the country whilst awaiting sentence. Ireland, the country from where IRA terrorists plotted and exported their expertise to murder and maim British soldiers and civilians in England, N.Ireland. Germany, Holland and Gibraltar. Ireland the country that is happy to line its pockets with subsidies from the EU but unwilling to contribute troops to actually fight when and where the going gets tough. Ireland, where honest prime ministers are hard to come by. Bail the Irish out, you cannot be serious, let them sink or swim by their own efforts.

Take that as a no then T I M

This is me,

I do agree re why should we bailout Ireland, but this time it might be a case of having to.
I am about as anti Euro as you can get, and when I feel that dogmatic about a subject, nothing usually changes my mind.
But yesterday an article in The Telegraph by Jeremy Warner, a regular finance columnist changed my mind 'somewhat' regarding the bail out.
Jeremy Warner is a well know anti Euro, and I follow his column with interest, and usually agree with his views. He has for many years stated that in his opinion the Euro was never going to work for the obvious reasons of 'one size does not fit all'.
And yet his message was that the EU including the UK has no option but to bale out Ireland.
1 Alistair Darling signed us up to the bail out, just before the Coalition took over (yet another labor mess making decision).
2 It is the best of 2 evils, as if Ireland went under there would be several others who would follow, causing an effect on the UK far worse than the cost of the bale out. Just one example being British Banks have far more many billions invested in Irish Banks alone than the bail out cost.

His main theme though was 'EU must abandon this bail-out madness.
So although he stated the bail out had to happen, he then goes onto say that once the said bail out is out of the way, everything must be done to stop the rot.
He is suggesting that re-imposing market disciplines of varying credit spreads so that capital flows are reduced. He also advocates, countries then start to look at leaving the euro.
He also states that the only reason to refuse the bail-out would be if we thought that the disintegration of the Euro and the banking system was inevitable.
That is why I still think the bail out should not have taken place, as I still feel nothing except total European union, in all matters is the only thing that will save the Euro.
And I just can't see any countries, except Germany and France even contemplating this.
The EU is dead. I just wish they would get on with the funeral, and bury the bloody thing.

What an immature rant!

1) Cooperation is a two way process, if you ask me it looks all one way ,what suits the Irish

2) Ireland, where honest prime ministers are hard to come by.
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1~)

I believe one of the tory policies is, sorry was, to cut co-operation tax.

That utterance I assume was to put off the companies of other countries from investing in Britain.

(Mind it seems that a lot of try ministers put their spare cash off shore, prior to the election.)

=======

2)

I think Irish honesty compares well when considering the duplicity of, and the posturing of the ham actor Cameron and his various cohorts.

It seems to me, that this government for the last three months have hailed one policy after another on one today, to retreat from them the next.
(Strong firm government is what the country needs, is laughable.)

Tell me, which pre-election pledges are the present ideologues, who some say, are in charge, are going to go back on next.



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

By the way, is Osborne a member of the Irish landed gentry?

Don't know!

LOL jimmy

If the bail out had any hope of working then there would be a pragmatic argument for it. However the Greek bail out has just posponed the their bust and similarly Ireland is going down sooner (if an election is forced) or later (next year probably) Spain and Italy can't take the strain of their share of the bail outs and the whole house of cards just needs and puff of wind and it will all come tumbling down. Osborne might as well have blown up all the hospitals in London or flushed the 7,000,000,000 down the creaking sewage system in London.

From a letter to The Telegraph yesterday. They likened the bail out to 'Giving a patient with an gaping open wound, a blood transfusion'. I think they were spot on.
I think more like,' Trying to giving a corpse the kiss of life', or should that be 'Kiss of death'.
No doubt there are many such analogies our there. Any offers.