Malcolm Robinson

Vic, I think we are really talking about quite specialist officers here. I didn't know the police had snipers, what's that all about? Most of the coppers we saw were dressed head to foot in black combats and all carrying rifles. There were units there from across the country, Yorkshire being mentioned and that would seem reasonable, but Cheshire? Looking at the parked up metal, there seemed to be every shape and size of vehicle, it was a wonder Rothbury could accommodate them! As for the plods does it really take half a dozen to police a plastic tape going across the road? We even saw a shift change after a few hours. I am not anti-cop, I think by and large they do a job most wouldn't really want to do and I think they deserve to be paid accordingly, as with the other emergency services. The problem I do have is that we have given them special powers to police the laws we lay down for ourselves, not make them up on the hoof, not adapt them to suit, not instigate new ones, just uphold our laws unilaterally with a modicum of common sense. We have invested a lot into each one and it grieves me when I see groups standing around 'guarding' plastic lines after the event! As for the acting Chief, I think we have to remember she has risen to this position in what has been described as a fundamentally racist and sexist organisation so there is more to her than meets the eye! Latest news is that police are to be questioned about the multiple use of Tasers in the final stages of this event. It's a wonder the guy could pull the trigger? No doubt Teresa 'the shoes' May will come on TV applauding the efforts made but if we had some real changes to the way the system works maybe dangerous criminals wouldn't be given their freedom. If Ken Clark gets his way Tommy probably wouldn't have even been inside on the assault charge! As for the 'answers, about what should be done, we have just had an election where the people making the laws said they had them!!!!!!!!

'Most of the 42 gun-related deaths last year took place in London, the West Midlands, Manchester or Merseyside, with swathes of the country recording no homicides, suicides or accidental deaths from firearms. One third of the victims were younger than 21 and four of them were female.' (Independent last year.) It would seem to suggest less than 14 under 21yr olds were killed?

Vic, Wouldn't the whole exercise be classed as extra costs? Wouldn't those officers have been doing their jobs elsewhere or were the 100's of coppers there not really needed elsewhere and if that's the case easy to see where the cuts will be made! In terms of manpower and equipment that cost will be huge and picked up by the tax payers. Tommy was a self-obsessed and mentally unbalanced body-builder with all the usual form: multiple arrests for weapons ownership and common assault, bouncer at various clubs, insanely jealous of other men and so forth. He had just done 18 weeks for assault and all that had done was heighten his hatred of his ex and her new partner. No doubt someone inside thought it a jolly jape to tell him a local copper was seeing to his ex…………… He then gets out and his mates give him firearms, what the hell did they think he was going to do! The prison service then phoned around telling the constabulary that they had just released a nutter! Maybe they should have done that BEFORE they released him or better still kept him inside under medication! The whole system has been taken out of the hands of normal people with common sense and that's the problem with so many of our institutions!

In an age of fiscal austerity Tommy has done the right thing and shot himself saving the country a huge amount of time and money. He has probably done more for tourism in Rothbury than NCC has ever achieved, alright they maybe ghouls but still they will spend money! The inevitable inquests will start now but I have a question, did it really warrant that amount of manpower, and for that read firepower, to bring this sorry episode to a conclusion? I didn't know we had so many armed coppers floating around, there seemed more at Rothbury than armed service personal who guarded Helmand! Before we get anyone saying they were needed to protect the public if that was uppermost in official minds he wouldn't have been let out of prison in the first place! I think if we get any change out of about £4 million for this episode we will be lucky!

Well there seems some good news coming out for a change and the markets have reacted accordingly. Instead of looking at where the punters are putting their dosh let's take a sneak at where the smart money is going, and for smart money I'm talking about the hedge funds. By Thursday, not the top end of the markets by any means, they were actively dumping equities and holding cash. In fact the $34B which went into cash markets last week was the highest amount since Jan 2009! Some hedge fund managers hold 2/5ths of their available funds in cash now. These people are expecting a market correction and want to hold enough reserves to get into the action once they think it has bottomed out! Anyone reading this thread, I suppose it has turned into a blog, will know that I think we haven't even begun the needed correction so fundamentals are rebalanced. In the UK, QE money has kept the footsie up and artificially low interest rates have kept the housing market up, we are now entering an austerity programme which will inevitably result in our economic progress stifled. Looking outside the UK we see Europe in what can only be described as a financial meltdown by certain member states, China with her own financial problems and the good old USA attracting investment money because it is being perceived as a safe haven yet at the same time starting her debt fires up again. And all the while everyone has taken their eye off the inflation ball never mind the deflation one! To paraphrase an American President……if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck……… Speaking of the UK economy, the new ONS statistics came out and before taking into account the costs of debt management and EU membership, UK plc. lost £46B during 2009. On the same basis during May 2010 UK plc. lost £4.6B. Taken forward for 2010 as a whole, that would project to an annual loss of £55B. Thanks to EU membership alone, that loss would double to £110B. Is that another £110B we have to add to our debt pile, I can hear the printing presses gearing up already! With losses and costs like this we need much more than the politically expedient 0.1% growth figures which seemed to get us out of recession! Even the newly revised down projected growth figures going forward will be compromised by our trading partners being in recession, can we really rely on our kids flipping burgers to add additional value? I agree we need cuts to rebalance our economy and we need to promote entrepreneurial flair but we need a higher skilled workforce and cutting that budget in a unilateral manner is not the way to achieve it.

Anyone got any ideas??????????????? http://spendingchallenge.hm-treasury.gov.uk/

Good question Merlin. I don't think any can compete with the Wetherspoon's business model, certainly not in a purpose built place, and with diminishing disposable incomes every pint supped in their bar is one less in the other bars. Unless we see a mass immigration of drinkers from elsewhere that is. It's not only drinking establishments who will feel the draught, the few restaurants and food outlets will too. It is a bit like the Tesco scenario, we want the upgrade but we are a bit fearful of the result.

Not just gossip anymore then............

There is a clear message coming from politicians wherever they are………we are in a fragile recovery stage and we should proceed with care. The Europeans seem intent on austerity programmes to try and rebalance national accounts; the Yanks seem to want more fiscal stimulus measures. These would seem at a dichotomy with each other and as already mentioned strange as both are members of an organisation supposed to harmonise world fiscal/economic measures? Looking at the data which is supposed to support both views there would seem an extra problem, I think we are still in and have never really left recession. We have used so much by way of QE etc. measures to support our delusion of being back on tract that is now weighing down on economies. The QE dosh has been used to protect an equities bubble, notably the banking sector, and ultra-low interest rates are being used to prolong a housing bubble, good for our GDP figures. Best case would be to deflate these two bubbles slowly by increasing our output and paying our way out. That is being compromised by the very austerity measures needed to reign in the debt figures. We have seen a 30% depreciation in our currency against our nearest trading partners to give our exporters a helping hand. The result, we are 30% poorer by comparison with no real benefits economically! We, the UK, have switched from a supposedly Keynesian approach to full blown neoliberalism, it might be worth examining what this means in terms of economic recession. Essentially, Keynes says in times of recession governments have a right to increase debt to stabilise and mitigate the worst effects of recession out of the economy and so provide populations with work, jobs incomes etc. The neoliberalists say that only private business should be providing those jobs and governments have to reign in their spending. There are many facets to each theory which have merit but shouldn't there be some common ground. It was this common ground NuLab said it had camped on but it now looks likely it was only paying lip service to each and therefore drifting on the current of an upturn in the economic cycle fuelled by a destructive increase in debt. What seem to be beyond doubt now is that governments are manipulating figures to provide statistics which suit them. Inflation figures have been compromised for the last 30+years, now it's been turned into an art form! In the same way GDP figures are manipulated to advantage so both sides of the sheet are out of sync with the real world. Other figures, like unemployment, are being massaged to provide politically expedient results, no question about it! We are living in La La Land with government departments providing the fairy dust! Listen for people talking about a double dip recession, it's not recession we will be dipping down into its depression!

LOL, Mr D I feel impaled by your literary dexterity and sardonic humour!

Mr D do you know what a rhetorical question is..........

http://www.milaadesign.com/wizardy.html How does it work?????????????

With equity markets worldwide experiencing triple digit moves, up and down, we have been focussing on the European levers at play but it might be worth looking at what the Chinese politburo are doing which is rattling Asian markets. China's central bank has just announced a £7 billion bond sale. Because we are not privy to the reasons behind this move we can only speculate. On the face of it China would seem to be doing quite nicely given her balance of payments but there are just as many problems being a wholesale exporter, just ask Japan, as there are in being a net importer. This is somewhat of a surprise to the markets as the bank has only just got through a recent bond sale. The offering would add to the $45.6 billion in fundraising already announced by China's biggest banks, and come amid the longest losing Hang Seng streak in over a decade. China's largest lender by customers, China Agricultural Bank, is also in the midst of a $20.1 billion initial public offering in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Fears are growing that, in the light of China's sudden government-imposed credit squeeze, the BoC may have either over lent or be holding subprime debt on a grand scale - or both. In 2009, Bank of China granted more loans than any local rival. We also have to consider the possibility that this is only a measure trying to keep up with demand as two of the largest banks there face a capital shortfall of about $70 billion as they seek to comply with regulatory requirements and meet loan demand. Murky waters indeed and without any sort of explanations there is only one possible result. We do have to add into the mix that the Chinese authorities are really quite new to the world of consumer capitalism and considering the heady mix of floating currencies, asset bubbles, demand curves, economic slowdown, a rising Yuan, industrial unrest, property boom and a credit squeeze, all of which are taxing the most versatile and proficient western economists, we have to ask if they are up to the job and we have to be fearful of the answer!

Ripped this off another site............ Just a headsup from a friend who works at Wetherspoons that they will be slashing prices on a selection of food and drink from January 4th 2010 Ruddles Best Bitter 99p a Pint Single Gordons and Tonic 99p (other mixers available) 125ml Glass of White, Rose, Red 99p a glass Guiness £1.99 a Pint Carlsberg £1.49 a Pint Bottle of mineral water 49p Ham Egg and Chips £1.99 Spicy Tomato Pasta £1.99

Is that Mr D jumping ship????????????

A preacher said, "Anyone with 'special needs' who wants to be prayed over, please come forward to the front by the altar." With that, an Aboriginal man got in line, and when it was his turn, the Preacher asked, "Mulrunji, what do you want me to pray about for you?" Mulrunji replied, "Preacher, I need you to pray for help with my hearing." The preacher put one finger of one hand in Mulrunji's ear, placed his other hand on top of Mulrunji's head, and then prayed and prayed and prayed. He prayed for Mulrunji, and the whole congregation joined in with great enthusiasm. After a few minutes, the preacher removed his hands, stood back and asked, " Mulrunji, how is your hearing now?" Mulrunji answered, "I don't know. It ain't 'til next week."

Had to happen..............

Well Merkle scraped by yesterday but it took 3 goes to get her man elected! Not quite the walk in the park normally expected!

Well it would seem on the face of it the figures released by the ECB yesterday were much better than expected. However on closer inspection a slightly different picture emerges. The ECB is in fact lending nearly E900B to banks within the Eurozone. This is an all time high. The E132B figure comes in when we look at the 1 in 7 banks who need to take up the roll over 3 month notes at the 1% over rate. That's quite a few banks! It is worth noting here that there is a figure of E163B held not in 3 month paper but 7 day paper! Course these are not part of the E132B! Banks with 1, 4 & 6 month paper needing refinancing is worth something over E100B so we are really looking at around E400B of medium term refinancing. If we then add the medium term to the long term paper we see a figure of around E550B and an easy subtraction from the headline would suggest a 'hidden' figure of E350B at least! The ECB response to this question………. "Well, now you are straying into those areas where we prefer for other observers to make their own judgements". Ok then I would hazard a guess someone somewhere needs more support than we have been told and releasing the information would damage markets further! If an organisation can 'hide' E350B can we really take them seriously?

We are about to have a glimpse into the money supply situation within EMU members. What seems to be happening is that the PIIGS have seen a complete lock up of interbank landing and the ECB stepped into that role. The question is how long can the ECB maintain that position, never mind how much has it cost. We should be able to see that better tomorrow! How many times have we heard politicians talk about Global Markets, either blaming them for a loss of jobs or the need for domestic cuts. What they seem not to have taken onboard is that if there is a global market then there has to be global terms and conditions for it to run under. Even the countries which on the face of it look to be profiting from this type of market are under the cosh because they don't understand the principles either! For instance we see Obama increasing the American fiscal stimulus whilst us Europeans are tying ourselves into austerity programmes and both are members of the G20 group which provides a platform of consensus for international fiscal agreement. There is an interesting vote in Germany today as we might see Merkle's coalition loose what should have been a normal business vote. If the German people are not happy playing paymaster to the EMU under performing members this might well be a litmus test! So the ONS have admitted they have been using and issuing wrong figures! Seems to justify my disbelief of most of them for a while! They seem to have been used for political advantage for some time and justify political moves rather than provide independent information with which the politicians could make informed decisions! I will be interested in seeing exactly where the discrepancies have been!

Well someone is starting to take this stuff seriously.......... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/politics/10305817.stm

com'on there's more than me heard the latest goss.............

If Capello picked the best 'in form' team available there is something very wrong! The writing was on the wall in the group stages as none of the big stars shone, in fact they should have all been sitting with Becks as we fielded the under 21's! Rooney, world class, really, he looked tired and unfit. Steve G, has been out of sorts for most of the last season. Lampard, shouldn't have been on the pitch. John T, shouldn't have been there at all. We wouldn't even of had the 1 goal yesterday as I wouldn't have had Upson on the pitch after his previous howlers. So we picked a team made up of the old guard and they let us down. These are supposedly the cream of the professionals playing in football today, well their wage packets would suggest that! We now have to consider the strategy Capello employed and the fact that he put players into unnatural positions, even that isn't really an excuse for the simple errors made during the game! Hardly surprising we got turned over as soon as we faced a class team! Maybe some of those footballer star wages should be going into the English game at grass roots level.

There would seem to be some interesting murmurings concerning public sector pensions, an area I have long since held as the real elephant in the room! On the face of it these look as if the claimants have put the scheme together and in many ways they have! They are certainly out of sync compared with current private sector schemes where final salary schemes have either been stopped or members have increased premiums dramatically. It would seem the government want to use these very generous schemes to get savings in other areas? It looks very likely that if unions accept public sector redundancies and members pay in a little more these schemes will be continued. So that's around 9/10ths final salary index linked for life, sweet! We now have to consider the real costs and take into account the explosion in public sector employees over the last 10 years and not only that but the associated salaries as well! Gone are the days when public sector employees could claim they earn less during their working lives and see generous pensions as mitigation and as a reward for public service. I will qualify that statement however by saying the least paid in the public sector do have a legitimate gripe, but anyone above that level seems to have a pretty good comparable salary! I know there have been changes recently and that is why we have just seen a mass exodus of the great and good at NCC so they could claim enhanced packages but there are still some very real concerns. This is of huge concern to ratepayers in our county as almost half of all jobs in our county are in the public sector and the largest employer is NCC! With a pension deficit of over £430M just for our county, or over £3,000 for each household considering just the NCC figures, this is quite a burden for local tax payers to have to endure especially as we will see cuts in our services and no doubt rises in rates bills! Looking at the latest budget NCC only just got through and the £14-15M of cuts, now followed by an extra £10M imposed by central Government for this financial year, this will bring the aim of budget savings over this and the following 3 years to around £100M! This year we saw rates increases which amounted to about £2.5M and cuts which took us up to those totals and what happened to the NCC pension pot, we paid in £5M, or about twice what was raised in rates increases, so in effect we are having cuts in our services to pay for pensions in the public sector! Like charity, austerity begins at home!