FlyTheNest

Morning.

The utter hypocrisy on so many levels contained in the latest DWP press release would take sometime to outline.How about attending to the basic obligations of your own department.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/high-street-could-be-boosted-by-212-billion-purple-pound-by-attracting-disabled-people-and-their-families

Morning all.

My radio alarm went off this morning at 6:45 and woke me up to the dulcet tones of Nigel bloody Farage ranting "THEY'RE GOING TO SEND THEIR BIG GUNS AFTER ME." in his best 'ordering from a busy golf club bar' voice.

No lazily stretching and yawning before rolling over for another 15 minute sleep for me. I'd leapt 3 feet out of bed before I realised I wasn't being attacked.

I really hope he ends up splitting the right-wing vote and lets Labour sneak in... just for waking me up.

Morning all. Labour lead at 4 points on Yougov:

Latest YouGov / The Sun results 26th August -

Con 33%, (-1)
Lab 37%, (+1)
LD 8%, (no change)
UKIP 13%; (-1)

APP -21 (no change)

Calls this morning for South Yorkshire PCC Shaun Wright to resign because he was in charge of Children's Services at Rotherham Council between 2005 and 2010.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-28947707

Morning All!

Interesting allegations on Twitter about links between Cure the NHS, Patients First, AvMA and the Care Quality Commission.

Of course these are just allegations, but we have noted before the fact that the Chair of the CQC is former Tory MP, and son of Jim, David Prior.

Funnily enough the Tories have picked a virtual identi-kit candidate, so splitting could well happen?

Morning all.

There's a terrible pun trying to find it's way out of me in response to that .... something about UKIP not letting you kip ... poor, I know, very poor. But I do reckon they could sell a lot of self censoring radios if they developed a system where you could programme them to instantly play 'blah,blah,blah, blah di blah' or any noises you choose over the words of specified people. I'd go for Nigel Lawson, Liam Fox and Melanie Phillips as my first three I think. I simply can't listen to them. The trouble would be if there was a limit on the number of people you could block I think I would struggle to limit my choices.

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Working on the wild side.

Wonder how much resources Labour will put into South Thanet, hope this is the case?


https://twitter.com/election_data/statu ... 9462267904

When will the penny drop for Alex Salmond? The day after the independence vote, hopefully?!


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... lmond.html

and



Meanwhile the HMRC and DWP redouble their efforts to 'reclaim' the results of their mistakes from the bank accounts of ordinary people ... heaven help you if you were overpaid tax credits through no fault of your own.

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Working on the wild side.

That's a very good write up of the 'debate' and the key arguments that Salmond didn't answer or back up.

And it's followed by this:

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Working on the wild side.

Agree. It's beyond words really.

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Working on the wild side.

Ian Birrell is an arse. That is all.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... our-leader

Good morning.

I'm so pleased to be able to post again. Thank you to everyone who must have put in such a iot of time and effort into moving us to this new place.

I had a bit of a problem with squirrels (?) yesterday but that was soon sorted out. However, I decided to savour the moment and waited until today to post.

Anyway - so glad to be able to be here. Apparently I was very irritable during the close season and that was attributed to my inability to commune with you all.

So - hooray!

Welcome back PF.

Did you see the Independent piece last week about Rennard reportedly still helping Lib Dem candidates during his time in the wilderness ?

It mentioned he is a pal of [& had allegedly been advising him on Lib Dem candidacy stuff recently] of Gerald Vernon Jackson. Creeps together.

Yay - welcome back Porfavor. You have been much missed - as have others who disappeared for a while (seeingclearly, parrotkeeper or pk1 as she now is and many more ....).

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Working on the wild side.

Morning PorFavor

Lovely to see you. Err I've heard of computer viruses and worms, but not before squirrels!

Yes. No big surprise there, eh?

But since you (nearly) mentioned him -

Did you read about Mike Hancock apparently being firmly back in harness and slaving away on behalf of his constituents although, strangely, his office in Portsmouth claims not to know where he is? How does that work, I wonder?

@PaulfromYorkshire

Hello, there!

It was some message citing sql(?) which said "squirrel" to me . . . .

@PF

The mention of Hancock in the same sentence as 'harness' and 'slaving' rather conjures up something from his Portsmouth Lib Dem pal's adult 'parties'

[By pal I don't mean Rennard or Vernon Jackson [in case their lawyers are reading] but
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... rties.html]

Morning all. Thanks to the mods for sorting out the move, it is very much appreciated

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Wow Bob Wow. Fire walk with me

It's those squirrel servers - they're powered by rodents on wheels

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Wow Bob Wow. Fire walk with me

Welcome back PV, very nice to see you again.

As predicted, and predictably, I see Scottish business chiefs have come out against a 'yes' vote. From their viewpoint, it makes little sense, and I sympathise with their reasoning. I note that in both the Graun and the Torygraph, the response from 'yes' advocates is to refuse to listen and to steadfastly insist that independence makes sense when all the data points to the exact opposite.

No-one denies the right of Scots to become independent and to forge their own path. That's not the point, and to continue to insist that Scots have the right misses the point by a country mile. It's whether it's actually sensible for Scotland to do so. RR2's first link is an excellent article that knocks lumps out of Salmond's assertions about independence and points out, sweetly, that Salmond can have as many plans in his back pocket as he wishes regarding the currency. They all though require a monumental leap of faith and an adherence to the belief that rUK will go along with the SNP and that business and money markets will be benign and act in fashion of a kindly uncle.

Were I a Scot, that sort of thinking have see me packing my bags, scanning the jobs columns and putting the homestead on the market toot sweet.

Hello!

I've been thinking about the Scottish currency thing for a while now. It seems to me (in an over-simplistic fashion) that Alex Salmond is saying that he would keep the word "pound" but its actual future definition is as yet unclear. A bit like saying that he'll keep the word "platypus" but which, in future, could be used as a label for, say, an armchair. Or, indeed, anything else as circumstances dictate.

Edited

Alex not Alec Salmond (a fact which I know perfectly well but, for some reason, often ends up incorrectly typed by me).

Usual lack of response from any of those involved with Cure

It reminds me though - I understand that moving everything across is a mammoth task & in some sense, of little value but please can a special case be made for moving the 'members only' stuff in its entirety ? The work we put into collating then documenting the allegation around Mid-Staffs & the claims by Cure that don't stack up for instance, deserves to be moved here, not cast into the cyberspace wilderness.

The same goes for Roger's Education work.

Fingers crossed & all that

I've always been of the opinion that Scotland would probably be OK if it gained independence, even if Scots would pretty soon have to face up to a bit of a fall in living standards and generally tougher times. However, some of the things I have read recently lead me to think that independence might end up being catastrophic. If Salmond's plan of defaulting on the first day of a new country is anything to go by, it seems the Nats want to dive over a cliff in the expectation that Westminster will relent and put down a crash mat. If I had been in the tentative 'yes' camp, I'd be moving towards 'no' pretty significantly.

I just saw a tweet which said something along the lines of 'The case for independence relies on the assumption that the SNP is much cleverer than the entire Irish political class'. Quite.

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Wow Bob Wow. Fire walk with me

Interesting that Prior has been nowhere to be found with the recent negative press about the CQC being unfit for purpose. He's only too happy to pop up when there's a bit of NHS-bashing to be done. For him to come out and name hospitals that he would not want to be treated in was an abuse of his position.

I maintain that Prior should never have been given the job. His previous private 'healthcare' interests, which made money from NHS contracts, should have called his independence into question, and the fact that he had been investigated for fraud by the NHS (and very publicly attacked the NHS for doing so) means he might well have an axe to grind.

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Wow Bob Wow. Fire walk with me

Would it be worthwhile seeing if the original authors (eg RogerOThornhill, Temulkar - just names off the top of my head) have stuff, er, squirrelled away and could repost here? It might be worthwhile doing that sort of audit (although I appreciate that any attached comments to the original would be lost).

The devil's not just in the detail, in this case it's in the headline story. By all means be an independent country (for good or ill), but the 'yes' camp seem to believe that they can insist on a lot of stuff and that their threats aren't the equivalent of holding a gun their own heads and threatening to shoot if they don't get what they want.

I'm rather reminded of our glorious ronsealed bum-faced leader's attitude towards the EU.

Hard to disagree, tbh.

Rotherham council is a basket case and has been for years. Needs to be a clearout of both officials and councillors IMO.

Morning all. Was it Rotherham which had the English Democrat mayor?

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Proud to be part of The Indecent Minority.

That was Doncaster IIRC

If someone sets up a section for Education I'm happy to recreate the threads I have that are there on the other place. I don't think there were too many replies...apart from my own additions...so not important if they don't come across.

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If I'm not here, then I'll be in the library. Or the other library.

Rotherham is an interesting constrast to Doncaster, actually. There, a previously complacent and at times corrupt Labour "fiefdom" *has* been reformed.

It can also be done next door if there is the will.

Features & Analysis and Education Matters have now been added to the main page.

Oh excellent - I'll do some copying over later.

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If I'm not here, then I'll be in the library. Or the other library.

Thanks. I often get those Southern towns confused

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Proud to be part of The Indecent Minority.

On Twitter this morning:

News & Star ‏@newsandstar 25m
Wildlife experts say the spread of red squirrels across Cumbria is the best to be found in any English county http://ow.ly/ALMKJ

Here you go PF.

It probably was a squirrel

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We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop

@ohsocynical

Hello!

Hope all's well. How are the eyes? Spike?

(I meant to ask yahyah about the situation on the cat front, too).

Sorry, I'm blathering . . .

Here's a Telegraph report on the interview Faisal Islam did with Salmond I mentioned last night, it's worse than I thought, I only caught the end of it. Man leaves me cold with his jocular personality hiding his bullying tactics.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... rview.html

Welcome PF!

And the basic questions remain unanswered. Who will underwrite the Scottish banks, borrowers and loans?

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Spike is very frail, but we're keeping him going while he still enjoys life.

Had a secondary lens fitted to my right eye ten days ago...Seems to be okay although I'm getting some funny flashes at times
Check up on Monday. Hope it hasn't gone wrong again, but I can see quite well which after seven years has been a shock. I'd forgotten until I looked out of the window last night, that there is colour even when it's dark.

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We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop

@Por Favor

Thanks for asking...she is currently recovering from another bout of urinary problems, vet thinks her long term anti-inflammatory and thyroid medication side effects have taken their toll on her.

Her spirit is very strong for a 21 year old cat and the vet is happy that she is still destined for this world for a little longer, but if she hadn't responded to the treatment it would have been the end for her. Of course that time is nearing anyway.

Her condition mean we tend not to venture far from home, going to Aberystwyth tomorrow for the first time in ages.

OhSo - glad to hear Spike is soldiering on too & you are seeing benefit from your op.

Don't be so negative

Seriously, with any important and irreversible decision in life who takes the leap without having some firm idea what the outcome will be ?

If I were Scottish I'd be fuming there are only going to be two options on the ballot paper.

Nice of Jim Pickard to remind us it is a year today that No 10 were briefing against Ed Miliband, the remember ''he's a fucking ****, and a copper bottom shit'' yeah, that opinion held well with what has happened in the ME during the last 12 months.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/a ... cour-assad

Unbelievably, there are still pundits trying to claim events in the past year proved Ed was wrong

Aye, any day time soon he will be blamed for creating the IS.

Here's an interesting link that explains clearly the currency options and problems relating to Scottish independence. In fact, the whole site's full of interesting goodies, and is written by a Scottish business who I suspect is firmly in the 'no' camp. He does, though, at least explain why - in stark contrast to that nice Mr. Salmond.

http://chokkablog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/0 ... metry.html

No no, according to one of the kippers on Andrew's blog, IS is all down to Blair & Brown !



http://discussion.theguardian.com/comme ... k/39925479