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...and who was the most stupidly exposed? ...and where were the first tremors felt? You don't have to flee to South America these days, you only need to repeat enough times "it is a global problem", and otherwise keep your head well down. Where are you now stupid Northern Rock lady director? How's the weather on your country estate?

That's actually disastrous for Labour, and a pretty good turn-out for the Euros. Labour are coming off an all time low after Gordo's little binge, and should have done far far better. Only in London are they holding their own, and it's not hard to see why. There's now a disconnect between their "multi-ethnic" support base in London, and traditional Labour supporters in the rest of the country. They are blaming Miliband, but that's not even half the story.

The Euros of course. The biggest mass political shift in 104 years - it has been a long time coming! Very close to a second UKIP MEP and beating Labour here. Country-wide it wasn't the close contest the polls predicted, UKIP stormed it! The party is now attracting more Labour voters than Tory ones, so Cameron's ploy that voting UKIP lets in Labour is sunk. That makes a lot of sense as Labour voters have been disproportionately disadvantaged by the influx of foreign labour from the EU. We are going to see a UKIP manifesto that's far more in tune with former Labour voters than anyone would have imagined. There are still masses of thinking Labour supporters who are yet to see things as they are in the 21st century (the real class-war against the London-liberal-elites), but not that many more Tory eurosceptic votes to pick up. Over 13,000 votes for the bogus UKIP in Sunderland though. How thick is not even reading the ballot paper properly? And those were some of the more intelligent Labour voters! Yes, a lot of work to do yet! Far closer than anyone would have predicted in Welsh Wales, and that hasn't been affected yet anything as much as Eastern England by the immigration tide. Salmond's nose put out in Scotland too. He claimed that UKIP was unelectable there. Altogether a very good day for freedom, popular democracy, and our country. The chattering classes are now really rattled! Goodness, I didn't even mention the LDs! Commiserations local LD's, but you know what you need to do. Yes, you were right to do what you did, but that is not what you are being punished for. You are being punished for playing politics in times where people are educated enough to see right through the ploys. If you'd very reluctantly supported the government ONLY for the sake of national stability you wouldn't be getting it in the neck now. But your lot chose to punch way above your weight, block essential reforms like the boundary changes, and claim "credit" for other things. Well, when you claim credit you also claim blame. The same lack of clear thinking extends into your policy on the EU. Become the party of maybe (on the right conditions for the UK), and you will become a political force again. Even UKIP is prepared to be flexible if the terms are right *and* we get what your bunch of Europhiles originally sold to us, but you're now treating the electorate with the same contempt as the other two lots!

Our little pathetic Northern Rock was the trigger. Nothing much has changed in the US. Lehman was "let go" more for political than financial reasons (other bankers hated Dick Fuld's guts). The same structural problems are there, though the private loans-crisis has abated. We're back to the massive state borrowing, which can be more easily concealed, until...

Once worthy of respect it seems the BBC has had its day! I won't catalogue recent history here, but after the anti-UKIP antics in the newsroom - and more particularly how it was (mis)handled - I'm rapidly losing all respect for the whole concept of a state-sponsored broadcaster. People from within are distancing themselves from the liberal lunacy, but no one is able to offer solutions. Jeremy Paxman hasn't chosen his exit a moment too late. The London-liberal-elites are doing for the Beeb exactly what they've done for politics; they are treating their audiences with the same disdain and contempt. For what it's worth here's today's episode of PC lunacy: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10854915/BBC-in-censorship-row-after-the-word-girl-is-cut-from-documentary.html My solution: move the whole thing lock stock and barrel organ as far away from London as possible, and simply leave a tiny news gathering crew in the capital. The North East would be the best place; here they'd have to rub shoulders with real people; see the country they were actually broadcasting to, and not a city that is no longer recognisable as part of our country. The Nation would save the huge London Premium on its TV licence, and feel a lot more comfortable about being told what to think. Salford? A cosmetic exercise that's only tinkering at the edges of the principal problem. The rise of Al Jazeera on the world stage is not a little unconnected I think. The mouthpiece of a dictator in Qatar is becoming more respected than the BBC's tainted output! So, I think the BBC needs a new motto. No longer Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation. How about the more contemporary Liberals Shall Speak PC Unto Provincial Barbarians? ------------------------------------------------------- P.S. If anyone thinks this is simply my lunatic ravings, there is a whole forum on the subject here, with more examples than any normal person could possibly wade through: http://biasedbbc.proboards.com/ I sort of suspect that many of the posters are disgusted BBC insiders.

I don't believe that "left of centre" have any ideals. Or, for that matter, do any of the LibLabCon alliance. It may have become a cliché, but that there's nothing between them has never been more evident. It's the power game, and there's the added dimension of London Power. There's a lot of crap in The Telegraph these days, but Janet Daley tells it as it is: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/10853265/London-land-cant-ignore-this-Ukip-protest.html The bit about the Beeb is classic! Well of course a few banks should have folded. This in-the-public-interest thing is always taken past the bounds of reason. If the public finances were in better shape there wouldn't be the continual fear of triggering a meltdown, and market forces would take care of things. The mistake is to believe it's lack of regulation when in fact it's lack of government self-discipline at a remove. The bankers really had nothing to do with problem, they were only following herd instincts. How long would anyone's job have lasted if they'd refused to ape competitors "innovative strategies" on the grounds of traditional prudence? The whole crazy climate was fuelled by Gordo's self-delusion.

The damning thing about our former nationalised industries isn't that they were inefficient in themselves, and always had the cap out for more "investment". It was their monopoly position which put the brakes on everything else. BT poured huge amounts of money into R&D on the promise of new technology whilst keeping consumer prices way up and limiting consumer choice on the grounds of standardisation and efficiency. What did any of this produce? Oh yes, a proprietary plastic plug that you cut off and replace with an American RJ6, and Prestel (incredibly slow Internet without a keyboard at 3p for a each fiftieth of a page!). Phones were the thing that the US had the good sense to break the monopoly on very early, and their business benefited hugely. The Post office still has the monopoly mindset. They are now bleating about needing to maintain one for "the universal postal service", and once again complaining about unfair competition. Heck it's 2014 not 1954! If you trust Fred's Emporium down the street to deliver your post (and not shove it in his spare bedroom) then why shouldn't you have the choice? If letters have to be repriced to reflect the true cost then there will be gainers an losers, and people will need to think more about the true costs of dead-tree email! Can you imagine being able to send a text message for free to any part of the world if the UK government still had a monopoly on all communications? There'd be regulations about everything you could do, and we'd have hectoring adverts about the responsible use of bandwidth - a nationally important resource. But enormous amounts of effort would be poured into Prestel 2 (or incompatible Minitel Deux if you are French) - which would forever be tantalisingly only three or four years away. It's the analogue of those 1950's sunny-uplands NUM banners. Yes, the Euro will fail big time, as every LD will now be able to tell you. And, they knew this all the time, but simply wanted to be "good Europeans" by not upsetting our partners by exposing them to brutal reality! They were only showing solidarity with the European Ideal, until such time as this dawned on other nations. I was thinking principally of a credit union. Do you have a wider vision?

It's the IF! State run means state financed, and we all know what happens when the state finances anything. It's just far too tempting to print more money and/or promise jam tomorrow. Rationalise this by a "we need more investment", "the industry suffers from underinvestment". What this actually means is lets paper over the structural problems for now because it will inevitably turn out to be someone else's problem.. The left corrupts the meaning of words like investment (and indeed democracy). The simple reason we are in the current mess is that Gordo kidded himself that the he'd ended "boom and bust". He squared this by pretending that we were at the bottom of the economic cycle when economists were telling him we were at the top. But the ultimate rationalisation - which I noted only his blinkered supporters lapped up - was that he hadn't created the problem at all, it was a global problem! Self delusion is part and parcel of a left wing mindset! If state controlled industries could be subject to normal market forces then, as you say, there'd be no problem. But the very fact that no one - even in communist/ex-communist countries - still has any, clearly illustrates that they can't be. "New Labour" certainly doesn't believe in nationalisation, but here the essential duplicity and dishonesty of the left creeps in. When you spout silly ideas you have to go through amazing logical contortions to rationalise them. This is why politicians like Boris and Nigel get so much support, they tell things as they are and don't try to rationalise daft and doctrinaire ideas. The public is not as stupid as most politicians would like to believe, and is increasingly wising up! The co-op long since ceased to be a mutual in the sense that its founders would ever understand. No, I think there is a future for genuine mutuals. They can and do work, and there are many models to learn from. I fully agree - we do need manufacturing. But current employment "protection" legislation has gone far too far, and that is a big drag on what is now possible. It's a very brave politician that will touch that particular subject.

I don't understand why the BNP would be against it, but they are an irrelevance anyway. It would be interesting to ask them though. The Greens are pretty much an irrelevance too - most people can see straight through them. At the end of the day they'd do things which cause real environmental and economic damage rather than abandon their left-wing prejudices. I can also understand why the Stalinist left would be opposed - any expression of individualism is bad, and we must all be subservient to an all-powerful state. But, I can't see that there is any reason why all regular politicians can't give this their full support. That's actually the reason I'm so interested in mutualism - not to mention that my grandfather was a mover in the movement. Like Malcolm I think our community could and should do a lot more here than it has. It's an apolitical way of improving things for the entire community.

Are you talking about the left or right? If it's the right you'd be seriously wrong. People with right wing views do not have a problem with worker's cooperatives. They don't oppose nationalisation on doctrinaire grounds, it's simply that it doesn't work! One of the several reasons it doesn't work is that the bureaucrats that the state puts in charge have no direct interest. They run it as their own fiefdom for their own career advancement. That's human nature I'm afraid! A lot of people in the early cooperative movement were strongly anti Labour Party, but the coop movement was hijacked.

Well... it's not lost on the bulls! They are wising up to being taken for granted too! Normally I'd make a remark like the Spanish idiots deserve a tiny bit of their own bull treatment, but that would be entirely non-PC and possibly Spanishist - so I will desist, and hope they get well soon! Yes, I will keep my "Eu-racist" remarks on ice for the snout-in-troughists in Brussels - or is it Strasbourg this week? But you know it CAN be reformed! Do tell me more about this Nick! Yup, looks like those are people who are gagging for reform!

Brilliant subject! You know the really great people in this world are at pains to admit to copying other people's ideas - only the small-minded (and creepy) attempt to "own" them. Though Isaac Newton might have admitted that he copied his famous phrase too!

Can you expand on this Adam? I'm confused as to possible motives for not supporting them. It seems to me that this is something which no rational person could offer any arguments against.

The biggest shift in politics in living memory. It gives the lie to the rationalisation that UKIP is only a bunch of disaffected Tories. That may have started the ball rolling, but Labour voters are now joining them in droves. Labour should have been piling on votes, but in places have lost control of councils to the Tories. So, Cameron's ploy that voting for UKIP can only lead to a Labour victory is also full of holes. The telling thing is that only 24% of committed Labour voters think that Miliband is competent. They have to notice that Gordon Brown's always-wrong architect of economic failure Ed Balls is still there when he should have been long since retired. The trades unions still control Labour, and they are totally out of touch with Labour's new electorate, which is increasingly new immigrant. Labour's flood-gate immigration policy of packing out its voter base at the expense of traditional Labour supporters has been rumbled. As the black UKIP guy in Croydon says, they've use the racist name-calling card against concerned and decent folks so much that it has ceased to have any meaning. Established immigrants are rumbling Labour too; the very values they came here for are being undermined by all the parties. That significant numbers of upwardly mobile immigrants are also turning to UKIP should be no surprise. The absurdity of Labour's loony left was no more clearer illustrated than the sixty-year-old Jewish lady who'd lost most of her ancestors in the holocaust being shouted down as a "racist" for simply expressing support for her adopted country. The left-leaning liberal elites (the grown-up loony left) which still control our major media have a lot to answer for, and what we are seeing is as much a judgement on them as it is on our out-of-touch politicians. Is anyone now in doubt that we have a social revolution taking place? The wealth generators are taking back control of our country from the chattering classes who dissipate and mismanage that wealth. The LabCon divide and conquer strategy is no longer fit for purpose! This has left many people confused, but the penny will drop there too.

This is just about the first common sense I've heard from the NUM. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-27519353 Their efforts deserve every possible bit of support from all political parties. But, why oh why couldn't we have arrived at this point several decades ago, and still have some sort of mining here?! It's about putting YOUR money (and your efforts) where your mouth is, and not expecting that the World to owes you a living. This isn't something that our own Mr Lavery has ever impressed me as being any good at!

Actually: Intel Inside, avaricious near-evil American megacorp Outside. Jobs spent a lot of his life knocking Intel products, whilst moving the religious following from one dead end to the next. Then, in typical Apple fashion, left customers high and dry and moved to them. New-speak at its finest! Who do you suppose Google had in mind?

That's how it should work, and work in favour of the consumer. But Apple doesn't see it that way at all, and the US courts are heavily biased in their favour: They want to brainwash people into believing that Samsung and others weren't producing phones and tablets long before they were, and that Apple hasn't borrowed heavily from other people's designs. In fact, that they own the customer, and everything else! If anyone invented the tablet it was Nokia - I had three different Nokia Internet Tablets long before the iPad was ever heard of, and there were plenty of touch-screen phones before the iPhone. Their products have always used plenty of carefully concealed Samsung components. They are masters of spin, and still fool many people. I'm pointing out here that the next two Apple products will undoubtedly be blatant copies of Samsung firsts. That's OK by me; many people will buy them, and good luck to them. But.. when Apple start bleating about unfair competition and trying to stop competitor's products being marketed no one should believe the propaganda for five seconds. Though, that US courts will buy into their anti-competitive behaviour is pretty much a given. Look at how the US courts have treated our own BP over problems created by an American drilling company in the Gulf! A US company would have been treated quite differently. The much vaunted A-for-Apple CPUs at the heart of the iPhone and iPad are in fact British designs from ARM. Much of the graphics silicon is from British company Videologic. These UK companies receive only a few cents royalty and are bound to secrecy, whilst Apple pretends they are its exclusive intellectual property, and stacks up billions in profits offshore. They don't repatriate these excess profits because they refuse to pay their taxes to the very government who aids them in their unfair practices. Only the lawyers and the spin doctors get filthy rich. Now doesn't that sound rather similar to some situations nearer home?

Well... actually... it's the joke for tomorrow: Cameron, Miliband and Clegg are on a long flight in RAF One. Clegg produces a £50 note and says "I'm going to throw out this £50 note and make someone down below very happy." Not wanting to be outdone, Miliband says, "If that was my £50 note, I would split it into 5 x £10 notes and make five people down below very happy." Of course Dave doesn't want these two characters to outdo him, so he boasts "I will take 100 x £50 notes and throw them out to make 100 people even happier still." At this point the UKIP candidate pilot, who has overheard all this bragging and can't stand it anymore, comes out and says, "I'd like to throw all three of you out and make 60 million people absolutely ecstatic." Yes! Use your vote to support the UKIP Pilot! Cameron, Miliband and Clegg are on a long flight in RAF One. Clegg produces a £50 note and says "I'm going to throw out this £50 note and make someone down below very happy." Not wanting to be outdone, Miliband says, "If that was my £50 note, I would split it into 5 x £10 notes and make five people down below very happy." Of course Dave doesn't want these two characters to outdo him, so he boasts "I will take 100 x £50 notes and throw them out to make 100 people even happier still." At this point the UKIP candidate pilot, who has overheard all this bragging and can't stand it anymore, comes out and says, "I'd like to throw all three of you out and make 60 million people absolutely ecstatic."Cameron, Miliband and Clegg are on a long flight in RAF One. Clegg produces a £50 note and says "I'm going to throw out this £50 note and make someone down below very happy." Not wanting to be outdone, Miliband says, "If that was my £50 note, I would split it into 5 x £10 notes and make five people down below very happy." Of course Dave doesn't want these two characters to outdo him, so he boasts "I will take 100 x £50 notes and throw them out to make 100 people even happier still." At this point the UKIP candidate pilot, who has overheard all this bragging and can't stand it anymore, comes out and says, "I'd like to throw all three of you out and make 60 million people absolutely ecstatic."Cameron, Miliband and Clegg are on a long flight in RAF One. Clegg produces a £50 note and says "I'm going to throw out this £50 note and make someone down below very happy." Not wanting to be outdone, Miliband says, "If that was my £50 note, I would split it into 5 x £10 notes and make five people down below very happy." Of course Dave doesn't want these two characters to outdo him, so he boasts "I will take 100 x £50 notes and throw them out to make 100 people even happier still." At this point the UKIP candidate pilot, who has overheard all this bragging and can't stand it anymore, comes out and says, "I'd like to throw all three of you out and make 60 million people absolutely ecstatic." Yes! Use your vote to support the UKIP Pilot!Cameron, Miliband and Clegg are on a long flight in RAF One. Clegg produces a £50 note and says "I'm going to throw out this £50 note and make someone down below very happy." Not wanting to be outdone, Miliband says, "If that was my £50 note, I would split it into 5 x £10 notes and make five people down below very happy." Of course Dave doesn't want these two characters to outdo him, so he boasts "I will take 100 x £50 notes and throw them out to make 100 people even happier still." At this point the UKIP candidate pilot, who has overheard all this bragging and can't stand it anymore, comes out and says, "I'd like to throw all three of you out and make 60 million people absolutely ecstatic."

We've known for a while that the iPhone 6 was going to be a fair bit bigger (once again), but here is a leak of one of the dummies supplied to case manufacturers to ensure they have their sizing absolutely correct. The white phone is, of course, a Sammy Galaxy S5. The Apple copy of the Galaxy Note seems to be due later. That this exists is in no doubt, and is another climb-down for a firm which ridiculed the original Note (and just about everything else they have slowly backtracked on). The Note 4 will be out near year end, so Apple have a lot of catching up to do. What it will be called is intriguing as surely they won't stoop to calling it the iNote? iPadPhone sounds more than awkward! None of this would matter if Apple adopted a live and let live attitude to competitors, and didn't constantly spin that their own originality and innovation was being compromised. The truth is that they are the biggest cloner of other people's ideas on planet Earth!

Myners (and other's) shock tactics seem to be working - there's a surprising unanimous vote for fundamental reform. Pity he can't do the same for parliament! Give the man a peerage - oh!

LOL they'll have to do a lot more than that to sell Norton AntiVirus to me!

Here's cast-iron* proof that you can still go on conning at least half the populace. The people who voted this down were fooled. Notice that the description on this vid clearly says: But.. still more than half the audience ignores the label and sits through an almost ten minute spoof video because they want to believe in something for nothing! Some have even wasted materials and even more time actually trying something that "has a zero percent chance of improving your internet and download speeds". There's a lesson in this, and it's one not lost on the political establishment! ------------------------------- * English words used in their regular sense, and not the Cameronian meaning of please fall for my bogus promise yet again.

Sounds rather like yet another of those nuggets of ancient folklore - that someone just invented. At least Wikipedia would demand attribution.

You know you are old when... your jaw drops watching this: ...or... when it's hard to remember how we used to send our text messages.

Yup, you could have bet money on it! I wonder what a current generation BBC journo would make of CP/M?