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Why not relax, and converse into the night on the day’s events in PB NightHawks.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/8059876/Walter-Potters-Museum-of-Curiosities-bizarre-Victorian-collection-of-stuffed-animals-goes-on-show-again.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/10101660/EU-put-eurozone-safety-before-Greece-during-bailout-IMF-report-claims.html
"The internal report on the handling of the Greek crisis has detailed a catalogue of errors, which led to the IMF breaking three out of four of its own rules relating to lending money to bankrupt countries.
It also admits that the impact of austerity policies in Greece was badly underestimated as EU institutions and leaders tried to save their political skins at the expense of the Greek economy.
The report, leaked to the Wall Street Journal, explained that in 2010 the IMF lent €36bn (£30.5bn) to Greece despite a risk “so significant that staff were unable to vouch that public debt was sustainable”."
Mr. K, that's an outrageous slur against rogues and thieves.
Caught part of a Sky News report about the EU (linked to its poll). Hopefully the previous section was more balanced, because the bit I saw was all about what we'd lose. Nothing about costs or loss of sovereignty.
Reminds me of the BBC News at Ten last night. Whilst Landale did say at the very end that more Conservative peers backed gay marriage than voted against all 3 speakers against in his video piece were Conservatives, whereas the pro-speakers were Labour and 2 Crossbenchers. Hardly a fair reflection of how the voting stacked up.
Salmond won't have a debate with Alistair Darling? What a coward!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-22787837
James Kelly - FPT
Saying you are tedious is not as good as acknowledging you're right. It's just saying you're tedious.
Complaining that only a "London Establishment" figure is likely to be PM is possibly right (although in his dreams Nigel Farage might hope otherwise). That doesn't mean that it is wrong that in a national debate it should focus on the potential leaders of the country.
Your claim that because we have a parliamentary system Salmond should be represented in a debate is simply wrong. If we have a true parliamentary system, then we shouldn't have debates at all: the only thing that should matter are local people's views of their local candidates. But that's simply not the case.
So, off the hobby-horse and accept that the SNP isn't directly relevant to the mass of voters in the UK. Frankly, if Scotland votes for independence: good luck, we'll survive perfectly well without you. And if you vote to stay: great, good to have you.
The museum has been terribly mismanaged though. Although their digitisation efforts of their archives are mostly praiseworthy.
A Nighthawks question for you: what railway first happened at Derby, and was noticed for six months?
Tony Gallagher @gallaghereditor 22m
Major tax avoidance row about to hit Labour Party & Ed Miliband. Full details in the @Telegraph tmrw
Tony Gallagher @gallaghereditor 14m
Gift by Labour's biggest new donor John Mills structured to avoid £1.5m tax bill - and the party knew all about it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Forester_Mushet
Various versions of the story exist, one of which is that no railway wanted to try the experimental rail (at the time rails were short, and had to be turned at regular intervals to even out wear). He therefore bribed a railway ganger to place his rail instead of a wrought iron one, and it lasted for a long time on a busy stretch of track. After which steel rails suddenly became possible.
Some parts of the story seem dubious to me, but it sounds fun!
I would ask more questions (for instance what did the Midland Railway do a few years earlier, which effects British railway passengers to this day?), but this is a politics blog...
A week or so ago I reported on the impending attack by Assad's forces on Al Quasir, a town that sits on the Strategic corridors west and North. Much focused on Assad's need to get hold of a town that helps control access to the highways for his own communications. For the rebels the town has similar significance, helping then secure their own supply routes from Lebanon, routes that now are facing a bit of a choking in the central region as Assads forces look to be on the verge of controlling the town.
Recent fighting has set the rebels back in Homs and Damascus. Assad's favoured infantry forces, Hizbollah have also turned up near Syria's largest city, Aleppo, in the Golan area and Deraa province as Assad seeks to hit rebels in areas where they are much stronger.
For the rebels the threat constitutes the biggest crisis since the early days of the insurgency when it threatened to fade away due to shortages in kit and lack of organisation.
This puts the increasing French and British pressure on Washington to back the transfer of weapons to rebels into context. Everyone knows that the current situation may represent a critical phase in deciding how long this war will go on.
Obama isn't for budging, at least yet, refusing to admit the evidence of chemical weapons use (even though he's been presented with it by his own security people). More proof is the call but its essentially false. They know the story but the President got himself caught on his own hook by suggesting it would be a game changer. Now its proven not to be both sides can feel free to use it on a small to medium scale.
For the West the threat of strategic defeat in the region now actually comes on the radar for the first time in quite a while. Assad survives after all the calls for him to go, the US looks incredibly indecisive as its spent its time turning on and off taps off supply, including persuading its Saudi and Qatari counterparts to do the same.
Moreover US policy espoused by the current administration to isolate Iran will look stupid if the Iranians are on the winning side.
On the battlefield, Assad has a way to go (latest Israeli assessments is that he holds 40% of territory (much of it contested) though he has the majority of the interesting parts, and his Hizbollah supply of bodies does have a bottom to that well.
For the West though. decision time is coming. Rumours have it the conference sponsored by the USA and Russia looks a sham with no one genuinely willing to make compromises getting anywhere near suiting the other. Russia, which long believed that Western intervention was inevitable seems to considering now that it isnt due to lack of backbone.
Ironically the rebels largest outside assistance in the immediate may be Israel, who apparently haven't bought Russian threats not to attack Assad's regime again.
. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/747fe80e-cdcc-11e2-8313-00144feab7de.html#ixzz2VNSgjpqN
Paris is threatening to block EU-US trade talks that Britain wants to launch at this month’s G8 summit in Northern Ireland if French demands to exclude cultural industries such as music and film are not met.
The Labour Party has helped its biggest financial backer avoid tax worth up to £1.5 million on its largest donation so far this year.
John Mills gave the party shares in his shopping channel company, JML, valued at £1.65 million in January. In an interview with The Telegraph, Mr Mills said that the donation was made in shares rather than cash so the tax on the deal would be significantly reduced.
Describing the donation as “tax efficient”, he said the form of the donation was agreed with figures in Labour’s fund-raising team.
Mr Mills said that if he had given £1.65 million from his own income he would have had to pay nearly half of that sum to the taxman.
Asked why he made the donations in shares, Mr Mills said: “To be honest with you, it is the most tax efficient way of doing this.
“Because, otherwise, you get no tax relief on donations to political parties for understandable reasons.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10102190/Donor-John-Millss-gift-to-Labour-avoided-tax-bill-of-1.5m.html
"...Every other politician I knew said that in order to win elections you had to win the centre. [Mrs Thatcher's] position was that you have to articulate your position as clearly as you can and the centre will come over to you."
We sat on our hands so long that the radicals overtook the moderates for control of the insurgency movement.
However, at this point I feel that we need to screw Assad, because otherwise chemical weapons will be used in conflicts the world over with impunity.
So when Cammie bottles out of debating Farage you'll be calling Farage a coward will you?
LOL
Before the war really got going, I remember a news piece about Christians in Syria. Some feared that they'd end up being oppressed (more oppressed?) under any new regime because it'd be more theocratic than the secular dictatorship of Assad.
Not that Assad's a good guy, of course.
It's one thing for individual MP's to own shares of course but an actual 'party' shareholding is surely a more material risk? Is this unique and if so, might that be for good reasons that it hasn't been done before?
The obvious issue is the tax planning and his words that "“To be honest with you, it is the most tax efficient way of doing this. “Because, otherwise, you get no tax relief on donations to political parties for understandable reasons.
As an IFA, I agree it's a sensible route to donate but politically it must be hypocritical in the extreme mustn't it?
- Apathy: so what? If it's legal, it's fine.
- Anger: the f'ing hypocrites! They lambast others for doing it, yet are doing it themselves.
- Curiosity: how usual is it for a political party to own shares in a large business (in a non-pension way?) Does such ownership risk conflicts of interest, for instance when addressing problems in the media?
More details is needed.In light of your blog for the telegraph, I think you may be appreciate this story in the Times
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/crime/article3783773.ece
Damian Green, the Tory minister said this
“If you come and live in 21st-century Britain then you obey the laws and observe the conventions of 21st-century Britain. And the law says that exploiting children for sexual purposes is a serious and disgusting crime.”
As for donating shares to a political party as a way of avoiding tax, one looks forward to all those commentators who have berated Starbucks and others for arranging their affairs in the most tax efficient manner to make as much noise over this. Perhaps we will all wake to hear Margaret Hodge pointing out the immorality of it all, not to mention - as Scrapheap points out - the risk of a conflict of interest.
Not that Assad is any better but it's remarkable that the Assad regime the US and UK were happy rendering prisoners over to be tortured turns out to be less than concerned about human rights and chemical weapons. Who could have foreseen that?
http://turniprail.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/rise-and-fall-of-second-class-passenger.html
LOL
Apparently a Black Russian was involved...
:-)
Democracy only developed in the West once people had moved away from the idea of a religion having the primary role in defining the state's laws / who should be a citizen etc. Furthermore, in Germany there was some vestigial - albeit weak - memory of what a democracy was, a political/philosophical and cultural history which had contributed to Western development and the very strong example of the rest of the West together with the fear of Soviet Russia.
Let Syria get on with it. Britain and France are behaving as if this was 1917-18. It isn't. When we interfered then, we made a mess of it and are still - in part - living with the consequences. We should butt out and limit our contribution to providing food and tents and medical help to the refugees in Jordan and elsewhere.
This from one of the prize gullible twits who actually believed Cammie's EU flounce and his incompetent EU posturing as well as being so stupendously gullible that you believed Blair on Iraq. No wonder you think this is yet another master strategy of 'genius' from Osbrowne.
Stick to plagiarising PB posters for your Telegraph 'columns'.
I quite like these times. I drink a little too much at times, but she has never, ever seen me drunk. Yet she tends to get drunk very easily - the last time at a party last Christmas in Edinburgh. It gives me ammunition to use against her for the next few weeks.
At least she's not as bad as an ex of mine, who once asked me to wipe her bottom after she got outrageously drunk at a Jubilee party in 2002. I told her my love for her would only go so far. The worst thing was that we were guests in a local councillor's house, and everyone could hear as she shouted out of the bathroom...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-22779345
edit:""By taking these down we are trying to reduce publicity," said the Mayor of Newham, Robin Wales."
Out of sight, out of mind.
This is easy.
The PB tories were definitely beside themselves with glee over Cammie's flounce that wasn't and me and a few others absolutely indicated it was laughable posturing at the time.
Indeed it was only when his eurosceptics had their amusing gulliblity rubbed in their faces did Cammie's backbenchers show their displeasure. Nor do any of his Eurosceptics have the balls to remove Cammie so Cammie will just keep making a fool of them and they'll just have to like it.
There is a clear difference between means-testing the winter fuel allowance, means-testing bus passes, and means-testing the NHS. It is foolish to say that we are incapable of drawing a line in the sand.
I have to say I've never got this lefty obsession with the so-called 'principle' of universal benefits. It's a modern nonsense, of course: Old Labour was all about "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". Quite how Labour supporters get their head round the proposition that it's progressive, modern, just, and economically sound to tax the rich much more than the poor, whilst at the same time believing that only the most retrograde, ideologically-motivated, 'rabid libertarian fantasists' would want to make welfare payments to the poor but not to the rich, is a complete mystery to me.
Well, my friends who support Labour: you'd better steel yourselves. Ed Balls is planning to take those straws away from your clutches one by one.
Am I a PBTory today? I was told by tim just the other day that I wasn't one any more.
Really? Suddenly it all makes sense, Richard. Just keep doing what you've been doing.
No it's not, you understand perfectly well, you're just spinning (as you will, heroically, until the bitter end of the Tory Govt in a year or two).
If you get run over you should have medical treatment, if you are a child you should be educated, your streets should be policed no matter how much money you have. It should all be free to you, paid for by society as a whole. Because society, ultimately, benefits hugely from this.
But if you are a millionaire you should pay for your own bus fare, as there is little or no benefit to society from subidising you.
It's pretty easy.
If it's 'small beer' then why are you talking it up? Not very clever since this is quite blatant blue labour triangulation where Balls can claim he's tougher on welfare spending than Cammie.
That sounds like a viable master strategy.
After he's run some poor bank or media company into the ground with his 'quite good' consultation skills of course.
The last time I had a run in with Black Russians on a night out, was so long ago it was before I was married. On the upside, I did get carried down a snowy brae by a gorgeous RAF Officer from the Mountain Rescue team. That memory still makes me smile.
To the tories, this is manna from heaven - to be repeated every day until May 5th 2015.
No doubt the Conservative party will now ask its big business donors to do the same (without fear or conradiction or, better yet, they will remove this loophole - retrospectively - I am sure the Lib Dems and 100% of tories would vote this through - and Labour cannot really complain as they voted through retrospective legislation fairly recently.
I even wrote a longish post on the subject a few weeks ago. Basically I think Scotland has a surprisingly diverse economy for such a small country, but is being held back by a mindset of dependence on the UK taxpayer. That has blunted what used to be the entrepreneurial, Protestant work-ethic, canny, prudent tradition of Scots. I think you'd have a bit of a short-term shock as the defence jobs, other UK government jobs, and UK benefits payments were withdrawn, but once that Thatcherite medicine was swallowed, you'd be in a very strong position. You've got a fairly well educated, English-speaking workforce; you need to up your game in schools, but you've still got a very fine legal profession, world-class universities, medical schools, and so on. You've got oil, plus oil and gas services, fishing, tourism, some hi-tech manufacturing, whisky, high-end agricultural products, hydro-electric power, call-centres, a slightly damaged but still significant financial services sector specialising in insurance, pensions and fund management, and so on - that's plenty for a population of less than six million.
So if I were you I'd go for it. But I fear Scots won't abandon the comfort blanket, and also Salmond has made a spectacular mess of answering the most basic questions on the currency, the EU and NATO. It's a pity, but as a betting man I need to assess what I think will happen, not what I think ought to happen.
It really is trivially simple if your financial affairs are simple (and, if they're not, you'd be filling in a self-assessment form anyway).
'But if you are a millionaire you should pay for your own bus fare, as there is little or no benefit to society from subidising you.'
So all those years of Labour telling us the importance of benefits universality was simply bull$hit.
http://mobile.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/06/fundrise_real_estate_crowd_funding_could_beat_nimbys.html
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0At91c3wX1Wu5dGFzVHZ3ZU0zNkF3MWN5cGZKVjlad1E#gid=0
He doesn't even appear to grasp what he's doing which only makes it funnier.
As is the spectacle of all those piling in actually praising his attempts at patronising drivel completely oblivious to why even SLAB have realised that kind of out of touch lunacy is the last thing the No campaign needs.
Maybe people are commenting on it on another Telegraph page, which is what happens sometimes when comments are closed.
On top of all the other plagiarised columns from PB posters.
Perhaps someone should post on the Telegraph pointing that out?
*chortle*
Hopefully Gwent police have been told to get a fuc$ing grip and to stop this nonsense.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10Rofm6o57A
One question, how many self inflicted traps have Ed Miliband and Ed Balls already set themselves in the last three years by opposing every spending cut or reform implemented by this Coalition Government?
The danger is that Labour's lengthy policy vacuum has already been been filled in by the electorate, and is now seen as refusal to face the tough choices needed. I am not sure that a smoke and mirrors conversion to Osborne's economic policies just as the economy is turning a corner will be regarded as genuine new thinking from the two Eds. Far more likely to be viewed as a cynical and dishonest attempt not to scare the electorate off more of the same thinking from the same Labour politicians who got us into this economic mess.
It's ok for people to admit that they were wrong, in fact it's a good thing. I'm glad to see Labour starting to understand the Maths.
So after three years of Ed Balls spinning the line that this Coalition Government were cutting too far and too fast. We can now look forward to a new slogan from Balls as he tries to spin that a Labour Government will not spend and borrow too much, or too fast if they get back into power in 2015. I doubt the 'iron discipline on the public finances' line will last any longer than the straight faces of the next focus groups asked to road test it.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/405188/BANNED-British-shopkeeper-forced-to-stop-selling-obey-our-laws-or-get-out-T-shirt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFGagRUiGIA
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22793181