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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/11204405/MPs-to-escape-expenses-investigations-after-paperwork-destroyed-by-Parliament.html No doubt Bercow is in line for a knighthood whoever gets in at the GE. Services to establishment graft would seem the appropriate category Your Maj! Why don't we have a National Record Destruction Day, destroying all accountancy data more than 1000 days old in the interests of data protection? Sorry Mr Tax Inspector, nothing at all to do with covering up fiddles. Oh, so there's a legal requirement to keep records far longer? Would that be the law which applies to the Westminster elites, or the law which applies to us dumb provincials?

An enquiry is never going to happen Adam, for the simple reason that the Westminster elites don't give a damn. That goes for Labour too. In fact it goes especially for Labour! Despite all the rhetoric, at no point in history has Labour ever reversed or even amended any Tory industrial legislation, though they've had numerous opportunities to do so. Why? Because they essentially recognise that it was needed. They are masters of the two-faced con! What is your enquiry going to achieve apart from making a few fat-cat establishment figures even richer with the countless millions that will be thrown at it? The truth is out there; you don't need a millionaire lawyer to point you to it. Let's have just a tiny fraction of this sum spent on our local services instead of lining the pockets of the Westminster inner circle! Lavery could have been on his legs years ago on this one. He wasn't - don't you see it's simply electioneering, and will be buried at the first opportunity? We've addressed "the government lied" here before and there simply is no evidence for this. The government was economical with the truth, the government misled, that's for sure. But Scargill had a hidden agenda too, and it was his stubborn refusal to negotiate that led to the all the bitterness, otherwise it would have gone the way of any other strike and be ancient history now. You'd have to drag Arthur kicking and screaming before any enquiry, and he would be entirely uncooperative and say as little as possible. The only sort of "closure" we are going to get is to remove this area from the political machinations of the establishment and put it back on the path to prosperity. Labour voters are now facing a triple bluff: Lavery's electioneering bluff; the shill bluff that he in any way represents what Labour's liberal elitists themselves believe, and the bluff that Labour represents the interests of the common man in this country when they are consistently working to undermine the wages of the lower paid, whilst happily feathering their own nests. The prospect that even a small number of tribal Labour voters can see through these layers of bluff fills them with dread. Their (apparent) rapid shift on immigration, and total confusion, or indeed failure to acknowledge major issues like the economy, electoral reform, or the EU vividly illustrates what an unprincipled bunch of self-serving shysters they are. No one from Labour will come on here and discuss the real issues intelligently because they know they'd be exposed, and then the game would be up. So come on Mr Lavery, you undoubtedly read this; let's have a discussion on real issues facing the electorate! For once treat your electors like intelligent beings; show us all that you are worthy of a vote, and not just an ignorant and embarrassing shill being used by the Westminster elites. The same invitation is extended to other parties.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/11196959/Maureen-Lipman-abandons-Ed-Miliband-over-Israel.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/11198691/Labours-first-Jewish-leader-is-losing-the-Jewish-vote.html What those don't relate is how he got to where he is today, and exactly who footed the bill. I will leave that as an (internet search) exercise for the reader. My only observation would be that you don't take the moola, smack the generous donors in the chops at the first opportunity, and then expect that there will be no consequences. British Jewry is a powerful and coherent force in the land. Its loyalty is finely divided, deep, and spans multiple generations; its wrath is something even gentiles should do their very best to avoid. It seems that it wasn't just Ed's father that suffered massively conflicted loyalties!

Yes, the LD's have a pretty distorted view. They focus on the local community part of the interest tree, and avert their gaze from the national level. They can't see what is really happening at the national level because they are totally hung-up on the supra-national (the EU). Because of this they fail massively as internationalists too. And, whey hey, the Greens! They have their heads in the air, constantly gazing and wondering about the upper echelons of the interest tree, and refuse to even consider the roots. To them the roots and trunk of the tree are subservient to the twigs and leaves, if they matter at all. They are not only battling unenlightened self-interest, they are taking on enlightened self-interest too. What about the Tories you say? Well the Tories have tried to be all things to all people and are currently in self-destruct mode (note the recent "cut the green crap" instruction from Cameron). Just as Blair/Brown tried to emulate Thatcher, Cameron has tried to emulate Blair. Cameron and Blair are now near totally indistinguishable. Soon all that will be left of the Tory Party is the same sort of dumb tribal loyalists that Labour is always accused of depending on. If you want to see a view of Cameron from a thinking, traditional, Tory perspective then you couldn't do better than this: http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2014/09/a-tory-ukip-pact-would-be-bad-for-britain.html So... with Labour in self-destruct mode too; it's vital Scottish base not only under attack from constitutional change, but core support defecting in droves to the Scot Nats, it's all getting rather interesting. It looks like the best guess at the GE result is the Scot Nats calling all the shots under Miliband, or Ukip calling the shots under Cameron. No one this side of the border should relish the former, whatever their traditional loyalties. The fact that Miliband is such a klutz - he can't even act like a good Jew - means that we'll be bled even more by the Jocks. And, I think that many people in Ukip would rather see a pathetic, neutered, one-off Miliband administration than do any sort of deal with Blair II. But.. six months is a long time in politics, and if Ukip continues to pick up support we may just see our very first truly democratic government, messy though it will surely be. The shock to both Tory and Labour would bring in a new era, mirroring the changes at the beginning of the 20th century.

Now, if I were a screaming lefty Tony I'd be accusing you of making ageist (and possibly sexist) remarks there! I stand to be corrected, but from what I've seen so far of the new pensions rules they simply increase people's choice. The nanny state is retreating from its one-size-fits-all dictats. Sure, a few people will blow the lump sums and foolishly pay more tax than they need to. But, as long as they are warned of the consequences, it's their choice, and they shouldn't expect the state to bail them out. Only socalists wouldn't respect the god-given intelligence of others to be able to make the right choice for themselves. And remember, what produced your pension in the first place was that evil thing "profit". In a free market profit is the difference between the production cost of a voluntary producer, and the perceived value to a willing buyer, in a free market where other producers can employ their skills to produce a possibly better deal. Nobody rips anyone off, as the price and quality of goods and services are decided by nothing other than the supply. It can sometimes get a bit messy, but if left well alone it's the finest mechanism nature has to ensure the best possible deal for everyone. It's total hypocrisy for a trade unionist to use the "profit" word as an expletive; everything they have and everything they do is driven by the prospect of an honest profit.

Maggie, the truth about the Miners strike most people simply don't want to hear. The nearest I've heard recently was from Neil Kinnock. He frankly, honestly admits his own mistakes and regrets from that period, and has certainly gone up in my estimations. Scargill - still living in his fantasy world - won't even discuss it. It's easy to see why that is. The present-day NUM holds a pretty balanced view, and it is in no way aligned with what Lavery wants people to believe. But, they understandably have to tread a precarious path not to upset too many in the mining and ex-mining community. Notice that there's a general election coming up. Lavery is feeding on local people's sensibilities in order to further his own ends. He has nothing to offer the present or the future, so must invoke the past. The Westminster liberal elites regard him as a joke, and his very presence as our representative sends the message that they want to hear. That message is that we ignorant provincials don't even know what century we are living in, and that we need them to do our thinking for us. The message that they don't want to hear is the UKIP message that ordinary people refuse to be manipulated by PR and spin; told what and how they must think, and will no longer dumbly vote against their own interests in order to advance the careers of a new age, produce-nothing, unprincipled, believe-in-nothing-but-self-advancement ruling class. It's a confusing new world. There are no people to demonise; only people with unenlightened self-interest who need to be taught that others aren't as dumb as they cosily assumed, and those with enlightened self-interest who always knew that to be the case. Both Communism and Socialism failed because they took no account of "the interest tree". The tree that starts at root self-interest, moves rapidly on to family interest, then to local community interest, and expands upwards and outward to the entire universe. Balance your view of this tree and life is good; focus too much on any part of this tree and things become very troublesome. Try to distort the view of this tree, to pretend that one part looks like a different part, and you get er... the modern-day Labour Party!

What about 1400 current cases that The Labour Party would rather no one mentioned? https://twitter.com/RobBurberry/status/525946048888713216

He's grandstanding for the benefit of what Labour's (American) spin doctors currently call the core 35% strategy. That's the percentage of the population that have no knowledge of the issues facing the country, and still dumbly believe that "Labour is for the workers". They truly believe that they can win power by BS'ing only one third of the voters, whilst actually promoting liberal-elitist policies that undermine the wage structure of the lowest paid. It's a reliance on apathy and ignorance that's is sickeningly cynical. They duck all the real issues with PR garbage like "that's not what we are focussing on right now". Well.. Lavery is focussing on the past because he has nothing to offer for the future. In fact it's questionable if he knows what kind of political party he is now in, let alone what century it is! But, don't look too closely at that past either, else you might discover just how catastrophic his tenure of the NUM was. Can only be his core 0.01% strategy! But, hey, there's an election imminent so what brilliant initiatives are we going to see? Ones which are totally forgotten about within hours of the polls closing!

I think we've picked up one of those too on the homepage! Didn't know we had Guardian writers living locally! It's either "Bedlington" or simply use the definite article journos!

Tony, I don't seem to be able to get this through to you: It doesn't make a scrap of difference if you vote either Labour or Tory, we are in deep doo doo. After the election the cuts will be massive, they simply have to be! This is Gordo's globalisation and it's shaping up really badly. There is no room for either Labour or Tory to manoeuvre. Miliband and Balls can spout all the empty rhetoric they want but their hands are totally tied. Ditto the Tories. They are both trying to buy votes with our own small change, and taking the public for fools. It's all PR and spin; if you vote tribally you buy into that spin. If Miliband gets elected the honeymoon won't last the usual year or two; you'll realise you've been had again by the Westminster elites within a few weeks - whether you vote Labour or Tory! You can't believe a word Labour or Tory or LD say, all they will do if re-elected is to try to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. The Euro area is certainly going to break up, and even though we have been sane enough to stay out of the Euro its failure is going to make things even worse for us. Just about every economy in the world is balanced on a knife edge. On a worldwide scale things have never looked so economically precipitous. Forget all the Labour -v- Tory crap, it's completely irrelevant to what is happening. It's a sideshow put on for fools who don't know what century they are living in. We need to distance ourselves from the EU ASAP. We need to slash the foreign aid budget massively. We need to pull back forces from overseas. And, we need a complete rethink about how this country is run. If we don't act fast the scale of the economic disaster that is going to overtake us will be like nothing you or anyone else has ever seen. It's the 21st century, so leave 20th century politics where it belongs - in the history books.

That's nothing to do directly with the EU Tony. The £12M we've agreed to pay the French towards their policing costs of the channel ports is a drop in the ocean here. This is the EU taking a huge sum of money off us and handing it on to France and Germany for no reason other than their economies are performing poorly. It's is an out-of-the-blue demand for an extra £30 or so for every man, woman and child in this country! It's on top of the £55M we pay to Brussels every day of the year for telling us what to do. Add to this our ridiculous foreign aid budget, the huge sums we pay for doing other nation's policing for them, and we are the biggest soft touch in the world. It's something our politicians have always gone along with because it buys them "influence". We'll, King Influence has no clothes. When we are about to be forced into huge cutbacks in public services it as to stop, and stop quickly. Not on Cameron's time scale with the national debt still soaring, but on the time scale the British public demand. Both Labour and the Tories aren't coming clean with voters. The scale of the cutbacks that have to come soon are truly massive. I will put you a few figures together, but believe me we are still living in a dream world. The current level of government spending is totally unsustainable, and things are rapidly coming to a head now. Malcolm has touched on this many times here, but it's now worse than I ever though possible.

Now that there's new management we are into throw in the kitchen sink territory. So, all the skeletons will quickly be located and trotted out for everyone to tut-tut over. This will make any recovery look a far better bit of magic, and inflate the reputation (and salaries) of the new lot when they move on to their next lucrative "rescue" job. All part of the great merry-go-round that is big business. Mind you it's still a lot more transparent than big government, or - even worse - the legal profession! Normally now would be the time to think about investing in Tesco shares for the recovery, but to anyone who was thinking that way I'd say stop and think again. The 25%'ish margins enjoyed by big food is a thing of the past. Things..... can only get tougher! I've kept the contents of my own piggy bank completely out of retailing for many many years, and haven't regretted this at all. Yet another example of the great British public wising-up, and long may this trend continue.

After being told to go hang when we suggested we wanted to place some sane controls on immigrants fleeing from the failing EU economy, we now have to suffer another outrage. http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/526713/EU-demands-1-7bn-from-booming-Britain To add further insult to injury Brussels is going to hand this extra money form our intolerable EU burden straight to a failing France. Penalising success and rewarding failure is stock in trade for the Brussels mandarins. This is about the amount Labour is proposing to raise from their "mansion tax" over a whole year. A tax that will be totally counter productive, because it will cause quite a number of foreign investors to quit the UK, and will itself depress the very property prices it 's intended to leech on. Whatever is wrong with this government it hasn't embarked on a something-for-nothing nonsense of Hollande's bankrupt socialist France, but that's the same economic stupidity that Miliband and Balls is trying to sell to voters. We need out of this sinking political experiment now, and not in five or ten years time. The only sane thing to do is to vote Ukip to achieve this. It may not produce a Ukip government, but Ukip is setting the agenda now, and the Peoples Army has the London liberal elitists on the run. We can easily stand on our own feet in the world and prosper. This isn't being a little Englander or trying to wind the clock back, it's good business and plain common sense. When politicians warn of "losing influence" what they mean is them losing influence, and the prospect of a cushy exit from domestic politics to a gravy-train job in Brussels. Influence doesn't pay the bills. They are pedalling a meaningless concept because they have no real-world arguments to justify their own self-serving views. If we stay in the failing EU - an EU we never agreed to in the first instance - we will sink with it. Any dalliance is going to cost us mighty dearly!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ukip-Calypso/dp/B00OG4HPDQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1414086922&sr=1-1&keywords=ukip+calypso Get your copy before the establishment lean on Amazon to pull it too! The BBC refuse to play it. Your Italian Job one could be great for our Ed. Isn't he the guy that was "entirely comfortable" with immigration less than a fortnight ago? But today he's no longer comfortable: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11182300/Ed-Miliband-promises-immigration-crackdown-within-weeks-of-winning-power.html Amazing how Labour was in total denial of any undermining effect of immigration on lower paid workers just days ago. It's the Ukip U-turn effect, and there's more of them to come from establishment parties, and not just from Labour. I'm now waiting for Cleggy to stand up and say that the EU was the biggest mistake we've every made (and BTW the LDs have been trying to tell us this for years!)

Is this another UKIP song which the "impartial" Beeb will refuse to play?

Well now is the time to press for a hand-back, because they have far bigger things on their minds at the moment, and the incoming executives won't want any more bad PR. This begs the question what our council actually intends to do?

I sent him an email at the HoC several months ago carefully explaining that I was one of his constituents. It took his office a month and a half to send out a standard reply saying that he could only deal with emails from constituents. At that point most people would simply give up; I certainly did!

Does this say something about society then, or about society today? I think your answer might correlate with your age. I'm appalled that Mike Read was heavily and repeatedly leaned on about the quite innocent UKIP Calypso, but politics had much more of a hand in it than sensibilities. Never mind, the PC mob will pay in the polling booths where people can't (yet) be gagged or monitored. I noticed the appalling PC Maria Miller at PM's Question Time yesterday. Seems she's trying for a come back. I suspect that she's the biggest single reason why Cameron won't win the next GE, and likely he quietly suspects the same.

A mosque? http://www.mosque-finder.com/

...or the threshold level will be increased rather a lot. Because, Miliband is starting to realise just how many of his never-a-real-job-in-their-lives socialist buddies (mainly living inside the M25) now own properties worth over £2M. Ruling class turkeys only ever vote for someone else's Christmas.

Had to share this one:

You hit the edit link at the bottom of the appropriate post. If you are in a mess then just leave a note to a moderator on the thread and they will clean everything up for you, MODERATOR: Please delete my first duplicate post. --- sort of thing. ...OR Personal Message (PM) your chosen moderator with the request. Looks like you'll need to upload a profile photo again, it seems to have got trashed.

Yes, but everyone is capable of redemption, and reformed poachers make the best gamekeepers. Personally I'd draw the line at Oxford PPE graduates and old Etonians, but as it is only former EDL, BNP, etc. are barred. Anyway, the BNP seem to be finding a cosy new home in the Labour Party, so no need even to feel sorry for lonely fascists!

Hi Naomi! You can add your events to the Community Calendar, and also include your group and its full contact details in the free Classified Ads. If you need any help PM (Personal Message) a Moderator or Admin. The tabs for both features are up top. We'll also run your display ads if you have someone who can produce suitable web art. Best of luck with your project! _____ Important Note: I'd strongly advise you to delete you private e-mail address above, else you will get A LOT of spam and other c**p as a result of it being openly displayed to every moron and scamster in the world. Registered members can easily PM you if they need to contact you, and you can set up email notifications in your control panel if you aren't a frequent visitor.

From the Local Government Chronicle: