JackFrost

Not sure about that. I don't think the Tories are pretending to be anything other than Tories. Yes, there's one or two issues where they've adopted a rather liberal stance (gay marriage for example) but in the main they seem to be pretty Tory on most of the policies they've pushed through, and they've ensured anything unpopular has been all the Lib Dems fault. They have problems themselves (Gove being a complete liability for one) but in the main they've been pretty mediocre and predictable thus far. Labour are currently in limbo but that isn't just down to Ed Miliband. The party is a poor man's Conservative party (pun not intended) which comes with a transparent socialist/working man's facade and at the current rate they'll struggle to get their own voters to vote for them, never mind attract voters from other parties. The party has turned it's back on what it believed in for generations and all it stands for now is barely anything more than meaningless rhetoric. Labour are a directionless shambles and unless they appoint a Diane Abbot or another curveball that can get the party heading somewhere it once stood for, it won't matter who leads the party.

The Cubans are still very fiercely proud of their country and there are Che Guevara/Castro paintings everywhere in Havana depicting the revolution. It's not so much oppressively communist, it's more very nationalistic and socialist. Since the Soviet Union collapsed Cuba lost their main trading partner and their tourism trade must be their main income of hard currency. The government are now encouraging free market reforms to boost the economy and you'll find all sorts of people including doctors selling car parts/kitchen parts etc. on the street corners when they're not in their full-time jobs. My sister said that anyone going to Cuba has to take a taxi ride in a GAZ, it is an experience like no other.

David Miliband would have been no different because he'd have had to tow the party line ala Ed and I'm afraid Labour's problems go way deeper than Ed Miliband. David Miliband has now left politics altogether so he's got a lot more freedom as to what he can say at the moment. It's the party's complete lack of direction and the "New Labour" era leaving it in complete limbo on the political spectrum. Their more interested in slamming the Tories with meaningless rhetoric than actually being a credible alternative to the coalition, because in reality they are not. Labour are barely any different from the Tories and spend most of their time pretending they're something they're not, because they no longer have substance as to what they are supposed to represent ie. the working class.

My sister went earlier in the year and she loved it. She described Havana as a city in colour and London as a city in monochrome in comparison, the best way to get around is going is a taxi service where they run old GAZs or on rickshaws. She had a wonderful time and you can literally buy anything from the markets they have there. Whatever you do don't get a hire car unless you're a vastly experienced car mechanic, and can fix anything with cellotape and a piece of string

LOL, Ed Miliband was distancing himself from the unions in his first speech after being elected as Labour Party leader (just after their votes had helped elect him) As for choosing the wrong Miliband, or Labour having a leader that could tear the government to shreds, just who on earth could do that exactly? Ed Balls? David Miliband? I don't think so. They'd have been exactly the same. The only MP that could have genuinely made Labour a real alternative to the Tories in that leadership contest would have been Diane Abbot, but she's way too much of a loose cannon and a free-thinker to ever be elected. The real issue is that the Labour Party the unions have always been associated with no longer exists. It's now a directionless entity in the most elitist parliament in modern history, that is the first to bash the Tories cuts yet will do nothing to reverse them, that advises it's wealthy donors on how to avoid paying tax on their donations, that says the coalition's budget shouldn't be trusted because George Osborne didn't buy the right ticket when travelling on a train. Some of this is down to a shift in culture over a period of time, for instance in the 1980s 40% of Labour MPs had a background in manual or office work, now it is less than 10%. But some of it is also down to "New Labour" shifting the party to the right and them effectively becoming a knee-jerk party of spin that in reality is little different from the Tories.

I read in the Independent that two of the deaths were two Chinese kids of 16 years of age. It's thought that one of them died in the crash and the other survived the crash, and was then killed by being knocked over by a rescue vehicle that was arriving at the scene.

Do you honestly for one moment think rehabilitation clinics (NHS or otherwise) have got the resources or money to house every individual with serious mental issues indefinitely?

They have. On at least two occasions http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7431283.stm

Tell the hoardes of Murray fans in centre court/henman hill dressed in countless Union Jack costumes that Andy Murray doesn't represent Great Britain. They and the entire media would disagree with you and 99% of those fans only support him because he is British and representing Great Britain, not because they know him personally. Incorrect, in pro tennis (and most pro sports in fact) players represent their respective country because they have to declare what country they are representing before they can compete in any event (and this is checked). For the majority of competitors it'll be a simple case of playing for the country they were born in, for others like Greg Rusedski or Nathalie Tauziat you can compete for an adopted country you are eligible to compete for. They have to be officially representing their declared country because for tournaments like the Olympics there'll be no legal jurisdiction stopping e.g. Murray competing for the USA or Botswana. The system would be open to abuse and ridicule and tennis would never be let into the Olympics as a sport otherwise. The only difference with the Davis Cup/Olympics is that there is a "team competition" format and the olympics at least are based on the country's performance as a whole as well as individual athlete's performances. That is merely down to the format of the competition and doesn't mean that any other sportsmen/women in any other sports tournaments/competitions don't represent their countries. Quite, an exploitation of Andy Murray's achievements to send out his own subtle political message. The flag just so happened to be in his wife's handbag apparently.

See my post above (90)

Try telling that to the crowds watching in centre court/henman hill/the BBC who are mentioning Fred Perry every 5 mins

LOL at Alex Salmond choosing the moment to wave a Scottish flag, even though Murray is representing Great Britain

Is the 37 strong team all police officers, or does that number include interpreters etc.? If it is indeed 37 officers, to give you an idea that's the equivalent of taking 1 officer each from half of the parliamentary constituencies in London. Anyway the media are obsessed with the case because the McCanns can afford to keep it in the public eye unlike 99% of parents whose kids go missing. It's entirely possible Madeleine is still alive but sadly I don't think she'll ever be found, I suspect she was trafficked, sold and brought up with a new identity, and it's entirely possible she'll live her life without ever knowing who she really is.

Er, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, bulimia and OCD years ago, as well as serious alcohol withdrawal syndrome when he's tried to stop drinking. He was also first taken into therapy at 10 years old for obsessive behaviour. He's a very ill man although sadly has a complete inability to help himself, and at the current trend he isn't going to last much longer

Sorry mate, apart from being ordered by the home secretary to review the original investigation from May 2011 they've had nothing to do with the active investigation of this case until now. The Met have way more resources than any other constabulary in the country and they're probably one of the few constabularies that would have the resources to even do it. I worked for the Met for over 15 years and whilst it's had more than its fair share of problems, there are a hell of a lot of decent, hard-working and reputable people working for it as well.

Not strange at all considering the Met has never investigated the case up until the last few days. It was handled by Portuguese police from 2007-2008 and the officer in charge was a bent copper and cocked the initial investigation up. He apparently had previous for ordering or overseeing the beating a false confession out of the mother of another little girl that went missing in 2004, and they failed to do even basics in the hours after Madeleine disappeared. This was during the most crucial time of the investigation. I think the Leicestershire constabulary assisted soon afterwards but the Portuguese authorities were in charge during this period. Then for the next few years the McCanns hired numerous firms of private detectives until the government ordered the Met to launch Operation Grange in 2011, which was an investigative review (different from an investigation) into the case. It's only this month in the last few days that the investigative review has become an investigation. The bugging of the Lawrence family doesn't surprise me at all. At the end of the day the Lawrence's took on the entire establishment and brought it crashing down. The Met were officially exposed by MacPherson in the late '90s but after personally spending most of the '80s working on the front desk of a London police station I could have told you back then that they in-part prioritised cases by the colour of the victim's skin. Every tiny piece of unraveled information about the original Lawrence case was handled has been broadcast by loudspeaker in the media in the last 20 years and rightly so. The Met were exposed for what they were (and I suspect the problem hasn't fully gone away to this day) and I've got nothing but admiration for the Lawrence family. As for plebgate it's evident that there are still officers in the Met who are stupid enough to think they can take on a politician and win

Fair enough. I spent 30 years of witnessing and dealing with the horrible things human beings can do to each other. There were things that still shocked me in the twilight of my career, not even things I've witnessed myself but cases colleagues have dealt with and credible things I've heard about. Even those articles have stated the police had to have some of their property seized because it was deemed a health hazard, and it's entirely possible personal possessions were seized from those homeless people for their own well-being. There were many times when I had to seize the property of homeless people for a whole host of reasons but it was always because I had to seize it by law. Either because it was a health hazard/item that had recently reported stolen/something that was illegal for them to possess or for another reason. Both articles you've posted clearly only tell one side of the story and the police cannot divulge every detail about operations to the media, but the chances of those articles containing the complete truth are almost non existent. Those homeless people could easily have been druggies that had their drugs seized and then claimed to a local journalist the police had removed all their possessions or could equally easily be a few homeless guys that have been the victims of heavy handed policing. I may not have put my point across very well earlier. When I mentioned an "isolated incident" I was merely referring it to potentially an isolated incident of heavy handed policing, and there would in no way be a regional operation to immediately seize all the property of every homeless person a police officer comes across, like the articles are implying. The bad PR would be horrendous to the point of national scandal, and I 100% agree that it would be completely bonkers. It would not only be draconian but counter-productive as well. Fair play, after myself and many personal friends spent years putting our personal safety on the line I admit I get irritated by media articles that do nothing but aim to generate a emotional and ill-judged response against the police, for the purposes of money. I totally agree with you on this. I would never have seized any property from a homeless person unless it was illegal, suspected recently stolen or a danger to themselves or others. There are homeless people in London who I've been friends with (and still am) for decades and we've always had a good mutual understanding. They've always known I was a police officer from day one but they've willingly let me form a friendship with them over time like any other person. When I'm in London and near their area I usually visit their regular haunts in case I bump into them just to say hello and ask how they are. They DON'T WANT to be housed, it's just not their way of life. They've never known anything different. It'd be like a jail for them and they are perfectly happy how they are. Then at the other end of the spectrum there are homeless people who you wouldn't want to meet in an alley in the daytime never mind at night. I never treated them any differently to people who aren't homeless. (except they are rather harder to find)

Absolute rubbish, they didn't "deny everything", they said an operation had taken place but not in the way the article described - which actually happens the majority of the time. A couple of clues in that article "Homeless people and street drinkers are often raised as a significant cause of concern by local residents, schools, businesses and local politicians. These are about health risks from dirty items left in public areas, anti-social behaviour, shouting and swearing, drunkenness and drug misuse. “We carried out an operation on 15th May to tackle some of those issues." In other words police responded to a complaint from a member of the public regarding these individuals (as police have far more important things to do than explore every abandoned building in North London searching for homeless people on the offchance they are doing something illegal) and Streetscene removed something that was a health hazard. In other words the police had good reason to be there. "Because obviously, these men were just having a laugh being homeless. Now the police have made sure it isn’t fun any more they’ll go off and buy a nice semi, and eat in restaurants like normal people." Translated - "I'm a left wing publication sensationalising hearsay, portraying one side of the story as fact and chucking in a bit of sarcastic guff to provoke emotion and therefore increase my readership". Like I said, it's an isolated incident that's been turned into a sensationalist news story.

That's a naive response to a sensationalist and one-sided news article. Whatever the papers claim, police don't just go up to homeless people and seize their possessions without good reason. As a junior officer from the recession in the early '80s to the illegal rave scene in the early '90s I encountered homeless people regularly and we had to load their possessions in the back of the police car many times. You'd be surprised how often we'd have 5 minutes of "Please don't take my food/mattress, it's all I have", occasionally accompanied with floods of tears, just before we find their cache of Es or other hard drugs in their tin of baked beans/sewn in their sleeping bag. Obviously I don't know the circumstances here but it's a very one-sided article which says virtually nothing about why the police took the action they did. If the police didn't have sufficient grounds then it's an isolated incident and they'd be subject to disciplinary procedures (given that it's made the national news). Either way it isn't the start of some draconian police crackdown on homelessness, otherwise we'd have had hundreds of news reports by now. If something like this happens once it may make the national news if they speak to the right people, if it happens more than once the story explodes and spreads like wildfire in the media. In other words it's an isolated incident that's been turned into a sensationalist news story.

Lambert will be 32 years old in the latter part of next season and he isn't getting any younger. A player like Leandro Damiao is the sort of signing The Don would have in his vision for the club and we'd need to start progressing to be finishing in the top half of the PL. I think Lambo would benefit from having the occasional match on the bench because I feel he'd tire towards the end of the season. We have been very reliant on him in the last few seasons.

The prize money is now unequal in favour of the women because they win the same despite playing significantly less tennis. Haven't noticed much flab myself, their all bound to have some muscle mass on them and have sizable thighs. It was a massive shame Kristina Mladenovic exited the tournament early IMO even if I am not that far off being old enough to be her grandad

Indeed, but I wouldn't call founding and supporting a organisation that bombed shopping centres/magistrates courts/other public places which resulted in innocent civilians being killed/injured 'justifiable'. They were considered to be a terrorist organisation internationally, not just by the South African regime. Mandela did a lot of good things through diplomacy in his later life and that's putting it very mildly, but he's said himself he should not be put on a pedestal because of his previous wrongdoings.

17 laps in and Hamilton, Massa and Vergne have all had left rear punctures

Yep, The ANC were also heavily financed by Colonel Gaddafi for a very long time (I think he was one of their biggest donors), and Amnesty International refused to support Mandela when he was in prison, due to his refusal to renounce violence. The ANC's bombings were killing innocent people even as recently as the late '80s. Mandela isn't exactly the shining light that the media portray him to be.

Radiohead - The Bends Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works '85-'92 Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Volume 2 Matt Darey - Blossom & Decay Metallica - Metallica That apostrophe in the thread title