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.

Faced with the Eurozone crisis, EU leaders and our government are not only calling for fiscal centralisation, but are also trying to impose a regulatory regime on our financial institutions that will undermine the City of London's position as the world's leading international financial centre.

David Cameron, his MPs and MEPs cannot stop this.

The dangers


•The Financial Transaction Tax would add €60bn to EU coffers, mostly from UK firms

•The EU Commission estimates that around 80% of derivatives trading will leave the UK if this tax is implemented

•The EU Commission estimates that its own regulations will destroy 50,000 City jobs

•The Alternative Investment Fund Management Directive, which we did not need, has already forced firms overseas

•The newly-created Paris based European and Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), will effectively operate an exchange control mechanism has already driven American and Asian investors to invest outside of UK private equity and hedge funds resulting in job losses

•With 80% of all European hedge fund business conducted in the City of London the ESMA Directive's impact on the UK is grotesquely disproportionate

•The UK has very little power to stop these directives.

Conservative MEPs vote to push this legislation through and David Cameron is powerless to stop the onslaught of directives.

Michael Barnier, EU's Commissioner for the internal market and services warned in July 2011: "We are moving towards a single European rulebook, with more directly applicable legislation. Rules which will be imposed on everyone will have to be interpreted in the same way across Europe, unlike what is happening now."

And yet, astonishingly, Conservative MEPs voted to support this regime.

On the November 11, 2010, Conservative MEPs voted to support a proposal for a directive on alternative investment fund managers (A7-0171/2010). This directive saw the regulatory control of the UK financial sector pass to the newly created European Security and Markets Authority (ESMA). Previously, control of the UK financial sector was the responsibility of the UK government.

Dr Kay Swinburne, Conservative MEP for Wales and spokesperson on economic and monetary affairs, supported the proposal. She was recently reported as saying that there was an urgent need for or "constructive communications" over financial regulation. Her voting record shows otherwise.

Prior to this in September 2010, all but three Conservative MEPs voted in favour of a proposal for establishing the ESMA (A7-0169/2010).

Voting records of Conservative MEPs

http://www.votewatch.eu/cx_vote_details.php?id_act=1097〈=en
http://www.votewatch.eu/cx_vote_details.php?id_act=2012〈=en
http://www.votewatch.eu/cx_vote_details.php?id_act=933〈=en
http://www.votewatch.eu/cx_vote_details.php?id_act=938〈=en

Help us to save the City before it is too late. UKIP is the only political party devoted to the recovery and preservation of our national independence, our financial services industry and our City's jobs.

APARTMENT for RENT"

A businessman met a beautiful girl and agreed to spend the night with her for £500. They did their thing, and before he left, he told her that he did not have any cash with him, but he would have his secretary write a cheque and mail it to her, calling the payment 'RENT FOR APARTMENT.'

On the way to the office, he regretted what he had done, realizing that the whole event had not been worth the price. So he had his secretary send a cheque for £250 and enclose the following typed note:

'Dear Madam:
Please find enclosed a cheque for £250 for rent of your apartment. I am not sending the amount agreed upon, because when I rented the place, I was under the impression that:
#1 - It had never been occupied;
#2 - There was plenty of heat; and
#3 - It was small enough to make me feel cozy and at home.

However, upon entry I found out that:
#1 - It had been previously occupied,
#2 - There wasn't any heat, and
#3 - It was entirely too large.'

Upon receipt of the note, the girl immediately returned the cheque for £250 with the following note:

'Dear Sir:
#1 - I cannot understand how you could expect a beautiful apartment to remain unoccupied indefinitely.
#2 - As for the heat, there is plenty of it, if you know how to turn it on.
#3 - Regarding the space, the apartment is indeed of regular size, but if you don't have enough furniture to fill it, please do not blame the management.

So, please send the rent in full or we will be forced to contact your present landlady...!!

Happy New Year to all landlords and investors

UK Tories outperform Labour in new poll


http://www.presstv.ir/detail/218726.html

That is a load of tosh! The UKIP moved into third place last month.

Can you post that poll result ?

aldwick, only had info above. Heres a Reuters one from the 14th Dec.




Tories take poll lead after EU veto - Reuters/Ipsos MORI pol
By Keith Weir

LONDON | Wed Dec 14, 2011 12:54pm GMT

LONDON (Reuters) - Conservatives have overtaken the Labour opposition in an opinion poll for the first time this year, enjoying a bounce from Prime Minister David Cameron's veto of a new European Union treaty, the latest Reuters/Ipsos MORI poll showed on Wednesday.

The rise in support for Cameron's Conservatives is all the more remarkable given Britons' increasing pessimism on the economy, with only 12 percent expecting it to improve in the next year, the lowest figure since the credit crunch began to bite in September 2008.

Support for the Conservatives rose by seven percentage points to 41 percent, while backing for centre-left Labour slipped two points to 39 percent.

A YouGov poll for the Sun newspaper also put the Conservatives two points ahead of Labour, while the two largest parties were tied on 38 percent according to a survey by ComRes for the Independent newspaper.

The polls could worry Labour leader Ed Miliband, whose party is defending a parliamentary seat in a by-election in a West London suburban constituency on Thursday.

A national election is not due until 2015 and the Conservative-led coalition has vowed to serve until then to try to break the back of a big budget deficit.

Analysts say they expect the bounce to be short-lived as rising unemployment and public spending cuts are likely to cap Conservative support.

However, continued buoyancy in the polls may tempt some Conservative lawmakers to press for an early election to try to secure an outright majority.

The Liberal Democrats, the junior partner in the coalition that took power in May 2010, were on 11 percent in the Ipsos MORI poll, down one point, at less than half what they polled in the election 18 months ago.

Ipsos MORI spoke to around 1,000 Britons on December 10-12, after Cameron's historic use of his veto last week prevented the bloc from creating a new EU treaty to tackle the euro zone crisis. Cameron says he used his veto after failing to achieve safeguards he wanted for Britain's financial services industry.

The Liberal Democrats, who disagree with his decision, failed to support the Conservatives in a motion in parliament on Tuesday night commending Cameron's action.

The motion passed by 278 to 200, but all 57 Lib Dem MPs abstained, breaking coalition unity. The motion was put forward by Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party.

The Ipsos MORI poll showed that support for Cameron's and finance minister George Osborne's response to the euro zone crisis had risen by four percentage points since November.

Fifty-six percent of those asked said the two had responded very or fairly well to the crisis, while only 40 percent said politicians such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel had responded well.

BOUNCE TO FADE?

The EU summit fallout has reversed the effect of Osborne's autumn statement last month, when he cut economic growth forecasts and announced that austerity measures would continue until 2017, two years after the next election.

Commentators said they expected the Conservative bounce to be fairly short-lived.

"The surprise for me would be if it lasted longer than two months," said Justin Fisher, politics professor at Britain's Brunel University. "Cameron has been very good at selling his veto as something that is good for Britain," he added.

Economic factors are likely to dominate after Christmas.

"I don't think that David Cameron or George Osborne can sustain their previous popularity ratings," said Simon Lee of Hull University in northern England. "At some point, public patience with austerity is going to diminish."

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg criticised the outcome of the EU summit as "bad for Britain," but many Britons are sceptical about the benefits of closer European integration and much of the press is openly hostile to the EU.

The slump in support for the Lib Dems means they have to remain in the coalition or risk an election drubbing.

Seventy percent of those polled identified the weak state of other countries' economies as the greatest threat to Britain's national interests.

Osborne has said that a recession in the euro zone would be likely to push the British economy into recession too. Britain does around half of its trade with the EU.

Sixty percent of Britons said the economy would get worse next year, against 12 percent who saw an improvement. Unemployment is expected to rise over the next year and the economy to grow slowly, at best.

Britons were divided on whether the government had made the right decisions on cutting the budget deficit. Forty-six percent said it had made the wrong decisions, while 44 percent backed tough cuts in public spending.

* Ipsos MORI interviewed 1,001 adults across Britain between December 10 and 12 by telephone; data are weighted to the profile of the population.

(Editing by Alistair Lyon)

Happy new year all.

Couple of interesting postings in Saturday’s Guardian

1) "Why Britain should think about doing things the German way"

The British economy is built on flimsy and unreliable foundations. We should be making more things
".by Johnathan Glancey

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/30/doing-it-german-way

===============================
And of course another from Polly Toynbee.

2) As the cuts bleed harder, the cruel Tory truth will emerge

In my political lifetime, I have never seen a more callous or inept crew in charge. This is no time for Labour to lose its nerve

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/30/cameron-brutal-cuts-bleed

========

"The year ends with the country in a worse state than the government's severest critics expected. Yet worse is to come, as 2012 slides towards the second recession in three years. Virtually everything David Cameron's government has done has made matters worse; most policy initiatives are creaking while others are mere words without substance. In my political lifetime there has been no more callous or inept crew in charge – nor a government more skilful at disguising its nature."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/30/cameron-brutal-cuts-bleed
========

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


But another editorial which may give the less thoughtful or more implacable Food for Thought. ( Probably too difficult at this time of year I know, but has resonances.)

"Unthinkable? A Luddite reappraisal"

Editorial: Economists rubbish the notion that technology leads to unemployment as 'the Luddite fallacy' but this interpretation is itself fallacious

…Unthinkable? A Luddite reappraisal … is itself fallacious. So how about a smashing anniversary – and a reappraisal? Most Luddites did not oppose innovations as such, but the circumstances of their use … Economists rubbish the notion that technology leads to unemployment as 'the Luddite fallacy' but this interpretation is itself fallacious


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/30/unthinkable-the-luddite-fallacy?INTCMP=SRCH

Ps.

Happy and Joyous New Year to ALL.

You can always count on the Guardian to have an article suggesting the wrong path.

Hays,

You probably wouldn't see the right path even if you were standing on it.

Give yourself a chance, broaden your perspective for 2012.

Talking of Luddites, my son's Economics teacher is so left wing that she won't use self check outs in the supermarket as it does someone out of a job. She refused to watch The King's Speech because it portrayed royalty.

What about the workers who make the self checkouts, doesn't she want a strong manufacturing industry ?

Happy New Year one and all.

.

aldwickk made in China was he? That explains a lot

.

I know I know, surprise me self some times these days mn -):

.

Absolutely mn, I'll sleep to that.