Whitey Grandad

Yes, 4 weeks and all we saw were the three 'presidents'.

Silly me. It just seems like longer.

There are no easy answers and after more than a decade of government dithering we are in a very sticky situation. Wind is useless for long periods of high pressure. The most efficient use of solar heating is to pre-warm water in roof panels but they are best installed on new-build properties, which isn't happening.

August 19th 1987. Blair was elected PM 2nd May 1987. I checked of course before I posted, but I am certainly not blaming Labour for the shootings any more than I will give them credit for the handgun act.

Please Sir, can we have a 'None of the Above'?

It's a very slender majority and from what I've read would be unlikely to get through the Commons. Meanwhile, the damage would have been done to the Liberals. Add to that the uncertainty over the seats where the voters were turned away plus the by-election and nothing is likely to happen for some time. That's without the civil unrest caused by Brown squatting in number 10

And has a much bigger share of public spending...

That's rather meaningless, isn't it?

Yes I agree with you, he must be gutted, and he must take a lot of the blame for that on account of his leadership style. Too much has been decided by a narrow clique and we have seen almost nothing of the more 'normal' Conservative personnel who would have provided a more balanced offering.

Brown can offer voting reform, even though Labour has had 13 years to do something about it, but he has no hope of getting the legislation through the Commons. A Lib-Lab pact (again) would achieve nothing for the Liberals and would not produce a stable govenrment. There are only three people who can become Prime Minister. Clegg has no chance and Brown would quite rightly be chased out by the mobs. I expect to see fudges and empty promises until just after the party conferences followed by a new Labour leader and a General Election on October 14th. In the meantime the country carries on going down the pan until we join Greece and the others in bankrupcy. We are on a ship that is heading for the rocks and those on the bridge are not deciding which course to steer but are still arguing about how to even think about coming to that decision. It's the worst possible outcome to the election, almost about as bad as a Labour victory.

Absolutely. Any talk about voting reform must include the removal of the Scottish hegemony. (And I don't mean December 31st)

I can't be bothered to go on with all the others. You forgot to add an increase in the National debt from 41.92% of GDP to 53.50% and more to come.

Oh yes there is!

Don't forget that Brown has never been elected to the office of Prime Minister, and we don't actually have a constitution.

... or how England is run by the Scottish mafia?

Have you ever seen or heard Sandra Dribley?

Absolutely spot on! Nuclear is the only option, like it or not.

Vince Cable has some extremely loony proposals, especially on stealing pensions.

They affect everybody. The really wealthy can avoid the worst.

Not a brave move at all, it was the only possible decision. Interestingly the share price of RBS is almost up to what the government paid. We go a couple of banks on the cheap!

Of course trade would continue but it is a hell of a lot more bother. Everybody would be happy to sell to us but when it comes to buying our products it's a different story. I hate trying to trade outside the EU, it's a pain in the bottom. The difference between shipping something to France or Germany and sending it to Switzerland is enough to make you give up. The thing is Wes, building a long-term relationship with overseas agents is difficult enough without customs getting in the way. Some people still think of trade as hauling bags of coffee and sugar up out of ships' holds where they can be traded in commodity markets and it doesn't matter if the price floats up and down because the end user will absorb all the differences, but what matters are price stability, security of supply, speed of delivery. We are stuck on an overcrowded island with all the associated transport costs and uncertainties and we have to persuade those on the mainland that it is better to buy from us rather than some low-cost eastern european company that's only a few hours lorry ride away. Nobody has to buy from us, we're just an afterthought these days.

Frank Field was the only one of them to talk any sense.

It is a lot more complicated dealing with countries outside the EU. At the moment all I have to do is chuck stuff in the car or in a van and drive it there, it's as easy as selling to someone in Manchester. Every time that I have to deal with countries outside I have to spend hours sorting out the customs paperwork and there are delays. I had £90k of shipment held up in Saudi Arabia for nearly 4 weeks waiting for customs. I don't want to go bak to the bad old days, thank you very much.

:confused:

Clegg is as much a public school toff as any of them, Blair included.