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.

Put this on the London Underground ,at least their clothed.

Shame on you - I can actually see their ankles, and OMG, even their ELBOWS

VOTE CLARKSON.....................................
1 ENCOURAGE GLOBAL WARMING
Britons will be encouraged, through discounts and tax relief, to drive 4x4s, Jaguars and BMWs. Not only will this give a valuable boost to our oil industry, but it will encourage climate change. And what's not to like about global warming? Holland gets flooded and we get California's weather. That's what I call a win/win situation.

2 ABOLISH CRICKET
How can we take seriously a sport that stops for afternoon tea and whose followers wear striped blazers and bray like horses? Let's face it, we have been rubbish at cricket for years, so we should put an end to the endless cycle of misery in summer. My Government will bring back proper sports, such as jousting and bear-baiting.


Clarkson for Prime Minister? 28,0000 people think so


3 END THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP
The only thing special about our link with the U.S. is the amount of grovelling we do. My Government will stop acting as if Britain is the 51st state of the union. The last time I went across the Atlantic, I found people so stupid I'm convinced their nearest living relative must be a gherkin. They're the sort of people who can't read a road sign without moving their lips. Plus their cars are about as sexy as Ann Widdecombe's armpit.

4 BAN HEALTH & SAFETY
The safety bureaucrats are the abominable no-men, constantly dreaming up new reasons to abolish fun and hobble business. With their silly regulations, they have done more damage to British industry than the Luftwaffe. They are the human equivalent of a Lada. But at least you could drive a Lada off a cliff.

5 DEAL WITH YOUTH CRIME
It's true that some juvenile oiks come from broken homes where parents have all the child-rearing skills of King Herod. But let's stop making excuses. These delinquents have been creating mayhem for too long. They need to be taught some fear. Looking down the barrel of a sub-machine gun in a prison camp on the Outer Hebrides might do the trick.

6 REMOVE SPEED CAMERAS
Thanks to mass immigration, urban traffic moves at the speed of an arthritic snail. But still motorists are bullied by the rash of speed cameras, which are nothing more than a revenue-raising device. Serious criminals do not have to put up with this level of surveillance. My Government will tear down cameras and raise the motorway speed limit to 150mph.

7 TEACH BRITISH HISTORY
Pupils are taught to feel ashamed of their past, our national flag is treated as an embarrassment, our heritage as a source of shame. My Government would end this cultural cringe. The only problem with the Empire is that it wasn't big enough and didn't last long enough.

8 GET OUT OF IRAQ
Our involvement in Iraq has been the most misguided foreign adventure since Napoleon said: "I hear Moscow's nice at this time of year." As Prime Minister, I will bring back every British soldier and let the Iraqis get on with the national pastime of killing each other. And I'll put His Tonyness on trial for crimes against humanity and the Armed Services.

9 BRING BACK THE STOCKS
Despite Big Brother, there isn't enough humiliation in public life for those who deserve it. The medieval authorities had the right idea. The Beckhams will be the first in the stocks, followed by the chairman of the Health & Safety Executive.

10 END RECYCLING HELL
Putting out the rubbish used to be a simple task. Thanks to the tyrants of green officialdom, it has been turned into a nightmare. Placing the wrong garbage in the wrong bin is regarded as worse than mugging a granny. My Government will restore sanity by providing everyone with a bin the size of Bernard Manning, which will be emptied twice a week.

11 BANISHWALES
In my new-look Britain, Wales will be forced to go independent. Any country that has produced Neil Kinnock, Max Boyce and Charlotte Church does not deserve to remain in the UK.

12 AND EAST ANGLIA
That boring lump of flatness stretching out into the North Sea will have no place in Clarkson's Britain either. Then all those tiresome luvvies with second homes in Norfolk and Suffolk can have the thrill of going to a foreign country without flying to Tuscany.

13 BAN DIESEL CARS
A diesel has all the excitement of a vegan dinner party. It might be good for you, but so is cod liver oil. The same goes for lowemission cars such as the Toyota Prius. Feeling self-righteous as you tootle around at 10mph may earn you Brownie points with the knit-your-own-lentil brigade, but to the rest of the world, you look like a sanctimonious idiot.

14 END HUMAN RIGHTS
Under my Government, the rights of ordinary British citizens will have a higher priority than those of Islamic terrorists, Somalian gang-leaders and knife-wielding thugs. Homosexual pornography for deranged serial killers will not be regarded as a human right, nor will multi-million pound fees for hypocritical Leftwing lawyers milking the system.

15 KICK OUT BUREAUCRATS
The former U.S. President Ronald Reagan once said that the state was like a baby's alimentary canal: endless appetite at one end and utter irresponsibility at the other. My Government will reduce taxes by cracking down on all pen-sucking, paper-pushing jobsworths, outreach counsellors and parking enforcers, equality officers and drugs co-ordinators. Those who resist will be fed very, very slowly into their own office shredders.

16 FREEDOM TO SMOKE
In my Britain, smoking will no longer be seen as a crime against humanity. In fact, cigarettes will be encouraged in order to reduce the burden on the NHS and state pensions. After all, smokers perform a valuable public services by paying extortionate taxation, then generally failing to reach old age. The Marlboro Man has done more for our economy than any Chancellor.

17 BRITISH INDEPENDENCE
We fought the last war for our independence, and now we're under the heel of the unelected eurocrats of Brussels. Under my rule, Britain will withdraw from the EU, so we will no longer be governed by a bunch of sausage-eating Germans, French cheese-eating surrender monkeys and kebab-swallowing Greeks.

18 NO MORE COOL BRITANNIA
Cool is just a fancy word for pretentious or unpopular. The Clarkson Downing Street will not be interested in appearing "cool". Instead, my team will be encouraged to listen to Seventies rock music and wear figure-hugging blue jeans, no matter what their age.

19 CRACKDOWN ON CYCLISTS
Cycling is just as dreary as recycling and twice as pointless. My Government will come down heavily on this sanctimonious activity by introducing new taxes on Lycra, plastic helmets and the bicycles themselves. Altogether now: "Four wheels good, two wheels bad."

20 PUBLIC EXECUTIONS
Only those without any romantic sense of the richness of British history could pretend not to miss the public hangings at Newgate. The restoration of judicial killings before a cheering crowd would not only bring back some muchneeded colour to British life, but would also give the doomed prisoner the satisfaction of a brief burst of celebrity.

MY CABINET
CHANCELLOR: Ken Dodd - very sound on taxation.
MINISTER OF TRANSPORT: Richard Hammond - a man with the right sense of priorities when it comes to modes of travel.
HOME SECRETARY: Henry Cooper - a knockout for criminals.
CABINET SECRETARY: Heidi Klum - no Cabinet meeting would ever be boring with the presence of the supermodel.
MINISTER FOR FOOD & DRINK: Keith Floyd - no more puritan lectures about alcohol units.
FOREIGN SECRETARY: Boris Johnson - diplomacy is his middle name

Jimmy b,

Re gorgeous birds post. Don't know what party they belong to but they have my vote.

I go for Clarkson at the next general election

20 PUBLIC EXECUTIONS
Only those without any romantic sense of the richness of British history could pretend not to miss the public hangings at Newgate. The restoration of judicial killings before a cheering crowd would not only bring back some muchneeded colour to British life, but would also give the doomed prisoner the satisfaction of a brief burst of celebrity.

Rowan Williams WILL be pleased with this one

Don't go much for public hangings (OK for minor crimes, such as shoplifting, dropping litter and the like) but for the more serious stuff, murder, rape, muggings, MP's fiddling their expenses and watching TV without a license, what's wrong with a back to basics, hanging, drawing and quartering.

Foot note....Health and safety.....No chance of bring back hangings, just think of the hangman suing in later life for traumatic stress, and as for the old 'Off with their heads system', that axe was bloody sharp, poor old executioner could cut himself. Also with all that blood spraying about, half the crowd would be wanting tests re AIDS.
So I suppose we will have to stick to the use of community orders which according to the government are not a soft option. Who are they trying to kid.

Clarkson's got my vote as well.

You'd just have to vote for Clarkson wouldn't you ,he's got it spot on.. .

MrCharts

its the unclarity of it all that confuses the liberal in us.

Dear prim minista,
i went to school today cos knuckles McQueen in the fifth form was gonna kick his form tutors ed in, and I wanted to video it on my fone. I aint bin in yonks, but i sat in this lesson called economics and it was all about setting up a business, an i wanna set up a business in nicked identitys cos my mate did it an made loads of money an if you get caught like he did you only get told to dig a few gardens.
Anyway, my teacher said you needed something called seed capital to start a bisness (is that for when you get caught and have to go gardening).
Anyway, my dad says you are going to give him some money if he looks for a job, so i looked it up on my interweb on that MSN site and this bloke says that you gonna give money for lots of things, so can i have some please.
I'm gonna start going to school, well sometimes, and he says I'll get more if i stop drinking and smoking. Is that like all smoking cos i can do without the fags but i like a bit of crack now and then. An i'm gonna lose a bit of weight as well, so i should get a couple of quid for that. My dad says can he have his money back what he lost on the lottery cos if its the bookies fault that guys skint from betting, its your fault hes not won a million on the scratchcards.
Anyway if you can send me the money i can buy loads of nicked bank cards from these illegal immigrants what live near us. My dad says im writing to the rong bloke cos he says you look after all the big mistakes and you have another bloke to look after the cash, called darling (is he a poof? with a name like that he'd get his nose broke at our school).
I promise to stop getting pissed on our estate every night if you send me a couple of hundred quid cos that'll get me 50 bank cards and i can flog em on an buy my dad a new telly from our neybour what broke into the sony shop the other week.
thanks,
Dwain Skuffle
Aged 12 3/4

Dwain,
You should ashamed of yourself. At your age you should be into international drug dealing, arms trafficking or most lucrative of all, politics.
To still be messing around with bank cards suggest you have no future at all.

What is interesting about the reaction to Rowan's (everybody is on first name terms these days - regardless of not knowing one another) nonsense is everyone saying how clever he is.
Is this because they are merely parroting what others have said or because in this politically correct environment we all think that religion deserves respect?
Using clumsy language without thinking through the consequences, however finally nuanced those inappropriate words may be, suggests a degree of stupidity, blindness and unreality appropriate to someone who only sees part of the picture and is obsessed with their own imaginings - a man of religion perhaps.
Richard

So the government fancies the idea of introducing smoking licences?
A quick fag packet calculation estimates this will save the NHS about 4.50 a year in treating smoking related diseases. Of course it will save about 20million, or some other ridiculous figure, but it will cost about 19.999995 million in extra hip replacements and senile dementia treatments for a population that refuses to do the decent thing and die at about age 70.
This 4.50 saving will only cost the collapse of the welfare state as the country becomes unable to fund the extra pension payments, the end of our tourist trade as smokers from the rest of the world choose somewhere more liberal (such as China) and hand over the cross channel booze cruise trade to Russian mafia bosses, but it is such a small price to pay in these days of political correctness to save that 4.50.
I now propose a stupidity license along the same lines that might save us even more. After all, most MP's would be incapable of filling the forms in correctly so they would be unable to speak. Don't believe me? Check their expenses claims and income tax returns.

On the subject of smoking, a few random thoughts on the health warnings.
Any advice my business gives or advertises must be backed up, by government decree, by evidence and proof of the claims. The small print is never ending. Why not on fag packets?
"Smoking can seriously harm you and others around you". So can strapping 20lbs of semtex to your waist and running into a marketplace, but I never saw the warning on belts and waistcoats at Marks and Spencer. And not smoking can harm others even more. When I cannot have a fag (on a flight for instance) I have an uncontrolable urge to choke the living shit out of anyone who talks to me.
"Smokers die younger". Younger than what? Would this apply if I didn't start smoking till I was 87?
"Smoking can cause a slow and painful death". So can repeatedly running headfirst into a wall. So can being born for that matter. From the moment we are thrust into this world we are merely putting off the inevitable. And whats wrong with a slow death? I'll volunteer for one right now as long as its very slow. About 80 years should be okay.
"Smoking while pregnant can harm your unborn baby". The reverse is undoubtedly true. All genitals should be stamped with the warning that getting pregnant can harm your smoking habits.
No. Its about time the government practised as it preaches and put a caveat on all these warnings;
"Smokers die younger".*
*This claim is based on an internet poll on youdead.com. It applies only to people aged under 68 and living in places with good diets and little stress, cos if you eat Mcdonalds all day and don't exercise, you're knackered anyway. The figure for comparison is 68.2% ADR (Annual Death Rate) and your lungs may be at risk if you do not keep up breathing.
Thats better.

Anyone have any sympathy for the Hedge Funds that are bleating on about the Nationalization of Northern Rock. In spite of being informed (and well aware before hand) that if the company was nationalized, the shares could be almost of no value, they bought massive tranches obviously hoping for massive profits. Now with massive losses looming they have stated their intentions to look to legal redress. Whilst I agree that those with loans, mortgages with Northern Rock and those with savings should be protected, because if they were not the whole trust in the banking system (what there is of it) would diminish even more, I have little sympathy for investors in the company itself. After all, any shareholder in any company takes risks either way. You pays your money as they say.
As to the decision to nationalize, my own opinion is that it's the correct decision,(with the guarantees it was nationalized in all but name) as at least if profit after losses covered materialize us the tax payers will benefit whereas if the alternative decision and been made we would have had a heads (private entity wins) tax payer breaks even, tails (private entity still wins via government guarantees) tax payer looses.
I only hope the government allow those chosen to run Northern Rock to get on with the job and keep their incompetent noses out.

In this society people in positions of power, influence and control get away scot-free whatever they do, however they mess up.
Remember Norman Lamont? Fixed parity range nonsense. Now treated as a guru on financial matters.
Applegarth of Northern Wreck? Had to be forced out. Lent long, borrowed short in the wholesale markets.
Another "expert" coming to a screen in your living room soon, no doubt.
Rowan (Sharia, sharia, I've just met a pearl called sharia) Williams. Poisons Moslem/Christian relations. Still in position.
Coming to a shopping mall near you:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7260314.stm

I don't think you will have seen a lecture like this ever before.

Hans Rosling: "Watch the end of poverty"

Corruption in the EU.

According to The Daily Telegraph, a report has been completed into corruption in the EU. The report has been so damaging that only MEP's and a select band of other officials are allowed to read it. It must be read in a sealed room where no notes are allowed or any other form of record can be taken. A form of confidentiality also has to be completed and signed. When the newspaper approached officials re this document being secret, they replied that it is not secret, it's confidential. They went on to explain that if a document is secret, no one would be allowed to see it, whereas if a document is confidential only certain persons can see it, (true). Obviously it is not for the likes of those who pay vast amounts of money into this corruption machine, IE us, to have the knowledge of it's contents. No wonder the EU accounts have not been signed off for the last 10 years. At least Robert Mugabe is only screwing his own country.
Thank goodness we are still ruled mainly from this country where our own politicians can be trusted in the knowledge that they are honorable, honest and generally incorruptible.
And before anyone tries to persuade me otherwise, I still believe in the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, and little green men.

A couple of interesting indicators from my area of expertise (?), for anyone interested.
The lender who has tried to plug the gap by using Swiss money has announced that their lending criteria is to be made more robust.
Secondly, there are virtually no lenders prepared to consider 100% lending at the moment. There are a couple of minor ones who will do so for professionals only, but other than that its down to C&G on the high street.
Even those who are part of a group of lenders and whose specalist area is designated as the 100% arena (such as Birmingham Midshires of the HBOS group) have withdrawn their 100% offerings.
This seems to me to mean that the sector is no longer confident of property values remaining stable. It is not the banks, it is the mortgage indemnity insurers who have decreed the risk to be too high to take on their books. Indeed we are seeing the higher lending charge applied at lower and lower loan to values recently. 12 months ago, a LTV of 85% was rarely charged such a fee. Now 75% is common.
No matter what they say in public, this points to them predicting a worst case scenario of values falling by as much as 15% over the next couple of years. Prices sold only indicate the history. The underwriting criteria indicate the potential future and it doesn't look too rosy.
it may not come to pass. Bankers and insurers get it wrong, but they are planning for it.
Alan

Alan,

Spot on. A very rocky ride for the next 12 months at least. It's a sign of lacking confidence in the countries finances and peoples spending power.