BS: Welcome back Boris

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 13 May 12 - 05:18 PM

'I couldn't have put it better myself'

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 May 12 - 04:39 PM

well these state places, they do their best with what they're given. But you can't make a silk purse out of sow's ear.

Public School chaps like me and Dave and Boris - I suppose we'd feel sorry for you - if only you weren't such a lot of bloody little oiks.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 13 May 12 - 04:12 PM

Poorly educated at one of the country's top Grammar Schools if it's all the same to you!!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 May 12 - 03:50 PM

'I couldn't have put it better myself'

No I suppose you couldn't - that's the problem with being poorly educated, sub literate sort of thing. I really do sympathise with you lower orders of humanity - it must be awful for you.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 13 May 12 - 12:43 PM

"I don't see much point in discussing further with one so epitomising the very worst of working class inverse snobbery."

I couldn't have put it better myself - or even worse, "the very worst of middle class pretending to be working class"

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Musket
Date: 13 May 12 - 12:34 PM

When Sheffield Wednesday play well, I shout from the rooftop.

When they play crap (not that they ever do, you understand...) I give out a million and one excuses for them.

Methinks some see politics in the same light?

There is one way, and one way only to be empowered. Be a floating voter. In order to do so, you have to remove all chips from shoulders, accept that a bloke in a suit who stands for the same party your Granddad supported may not have all the answers after all, and be prepared to accept that whoever you vote for, you get the government. And in recent times, this has been an incompetent government who means well, accepts that a social program is needed but needs funding from growth and panders to soundbite populism. You couldn't separate either party from each other with Norman Lamont's Access card either.

But floating voters get them horny...



Not that voting on policy ever got many on this thread interested. I suppose that tradition is one of the things that makes people interested in being Mudcat members after all, and many songs are about how "that lot over there" are all bastards and "we" should inherit the earth...

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 May 12 - 11:21 AM

What is Don talking about?

Answers on a postcard....

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 13 May 12 - 06:55 AM

And now that you have proved you have no counter argument other than ad hominem attack, I don't see much point in discussing further with one so epitomising the very worst of working class inverse snobbery.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 May 12 - 08:06 PM

Its like that Austalian joke though, Don.

How do you get fifty poms in a phone box?

Make one a foreman, and the rest will crawl up his arse.

It may be a cliche (or a clitch as they say en Paree) but the reason is its a truism - is cos its true.

Honestly Don - you carry on like you're David Cameron's personal tapeworm.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 12 May 12 - 06:01 PM

""I think the source of all this information your brain processes must be The Beano. YOu have decided you're more of a Lord Snooty Fan, than Dennis the Menace.""

Please spare us that puerile fucking crap about all Tories being posh layabouts, and come to that about all rich people being Tories.

You know damn well neither is true, just as I know that not all socialists are poor ragged trousered sons of toil.

Just go through the list of the one hundred richest, and then look at all the fifty to one hundred thousand a year men who support the left.

Truly rich people are about 5% of the population, and even if every single one voted Tory (which is far off the truth), they could not have produced the roughly 40% that voted Tory at the last election.

Don T

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 May 12 - 02:21 PM

The point was not the extreme stupidity of this particular airport (and why should you be allowed Bonzo, to destroy the planet for your recreation?) but to point out that Boris is a menace not only to Londoners but also to others.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 12 May 12 - 07:42 AM

I suggest a combination of sex and travel might suit ;)

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 12 May 12 - 04:51 AM

But those of us who like to travel, rather than camping at folk festivals, need airport facilities.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 12 May 12 - 04:26 AM

I think Boris' effect on the Thames estuary WAS mentioned Richard. I was merely pointing out that other people have threatened upheaval in the region. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 May 12 - 06:42 PM

That, John, is irrelevant to the question of whether Boris is a threat outside London.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 11 May 12 - 03:54 PM

John Prescott talked about turning most of estuarine Kent into a new town/building site. So don't blame one person.
Governments for years have failed to address the problemm of the whole of England, (and Scotland) is predicated on the South East, and/or the Home Counties. It's too late to do anything about it now! Whoever plans it, or whatever colour he/she sails under.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 May 12 - 03:39 PM

Well, one reason is that Boris alas affects many outside London - as currently with his support for his own version of the pyramids - Boris Island - which would aggravate tidal heave in the Thames estuary, create the word's best terrorist target, destroy internationally protected wildlife, turn half of Kent and Essex into building sites for 10 years, and also engender the world's greatest risk of birdstrike - to create an airport that the airlines don't want there and which the head of air traffic control has called insanely dangerous - to provide more air travel which the world does not need and which will speed up the destruction of our ecosystem.

Boris "Bloody Stupid" Johnson. And that is not (as he would put it) a "fucking lie".

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 11 May 12 - 03:31 PM

WTF does it have to do with non Londoners, who is mayor?
All we ever see in these threads is doctrinaire crap.
Why don't you add, Labour, Conservative, or BNP to your Mudcat name, and we'll assume the rest of the shite, as read?

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 11 May 12 - 03:21 PM

"The rest of us vote the way we do because we are sick to f**king death of the "Nanny State" telling us how we can live our lives and what we can spend our money and leisure time on."

I suppose, Don, that you're really talking about that favourite Thatcherite word, "choice"(?) An inocuous word which seems so cosy and reasonable - until you realise that if you've got no money, you've got no choice.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 May 12 - 12:45 PM

Not all the blame John- 90% shall we say?

As for you Don,

'FYI I do not read the "Mail", or in fact any other of the supposed "News"papers.

There isn't one of them that's fit for use as arse wipes.

I keep my eyes and ears open and use my brain to inform myself'

I think the source of all this information your brain processes must be The Beano. YOu have decided you're more of a Lord Snooty Fan, than Dennis the Menace.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 11 May 12 - 11:43 AM

Big Al,
       Long before Mrs. T arrived on the scene as PM the far east(Japan, Taiwan, Korea, predominantly) had set out their stall regarding meaningful manufacturing. Having got past the copying era they developed their own design, development, efficient/cost effective production and quality levels. The die was cast and the world was hooked, even the USA. Ship building, m/cycles, vehicles, electronics, machine tools, cameras - where does one stop?. China has now taken the lead albeit now facing domestic pressure with their workforce seeking higher expectations. It was like a slow tsunami and not a lot could be done to stop it, especially in a world of free enterprise. Thank heavens we still command respect in the defence and aero business and certain far east companies have seen fit to invest in our country. Germany must also be congratulated for the way its private businesses have weathered the storm with strong exports outside the EU. To lay all the blame on Mrs.T without considering the above is somewhat off target.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 11 May 12 - 11:15 AM

At least do us the honour of telling the truth Don, avarice and greed is what you vote for.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 May 12 - 10:38 AM

""I seem to recollect that Gordon Brown invited the Limp Dems to coalesce but they preferred the arrogant posh boys.""

That has been hinted at several times, but when the LibDems were trying to decide where they were going they approached Brown first and he made himself unavailable.

So, no, he didn't!

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 May 12 - 10:32 AM

""How the Dons of this world can be so blind, I can't understand. I never blamed Thatcher - she was only taking care of her own. I blamed the Daily Mail readers who voted for her.""

There are more of us than there are of any other political group in the UK.

That ought to tell you something.

The "filthy rich" so detested by the Richard Bridges of this land, with their ingrained hatred of those they secretly envy, represent only a tiny percentage of those who vote Tory.

The rest of us vote the way we do because we are sick to f**king death of the "Nanny State" telling us how we can live our lives and what we can spend our money and leisure time on.

FYI I do not read the "Mail", or in fact any other of the supposed "News"papers.

There isn't one of them that's fit for use as arse wipes.

I keep my eyes and ears open and use my brain to inform myself, and I make up my own bloody mind.

So, Labour party? Bollocks!.... You've got to be terminally stupid to vote for that bunch of useless wankers.

The closest kin of that lot would be the chimps at the zoo, running round and round their enclosure, stopping only to hoy their own shit at the visitors.

Just what Millipede et al are doing politically.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 May 12 - 06:08 AM

"[Labour] wimped out of forming a coalition, the first choice of the LibDems, because they knew that they could not deal with the deficit without alienating the public, and they preferred to dump their mess in Cameron's lap, so that the brickbats would come his way."

How very true indeed, and a fact that the arrogant left prefer to forget.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 May 12 - 06:05 AM

The only thing that would revive the power of the unions is if we had a thriving economy and manufacturing industries, the ones Thatcher destroyed.(oh yes it was the wicked unions - no! she did for 28% in her first year of office - that was some going - England is still reeling from the trauma of being ruled by an idiot)

Can't see it happening under labour or anyone else. We have to move on to whatever is next in our history.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 May 12 - 05:00 AM

I seem to recollect that Gordon Brown invited the Limp Dems to coalesce but they preferred the arrogant posh boys.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 11 May 12 - 04:43 AM

"The last thing on the minds of Ed Millipede and his cronies is the welfare of the country. They stand for the Trade Unions who pay for their campaigns, and for the Labour Party which wants to control the population from cradle to grave."

I'd agree with most of that except the bit about the Trades Unions. When in power Labour did little to restore the Unions after Thatcher had decimated them.

Labour is now a centre right party which stands primarily for International Capital and the Free Market - and only marginally for the Trades Unions.

"[Labour] wimped out of forming a coalition, the first choice of the LibDems, because they knew that they could not deal with the deficit without alienating the public, and they preferred to dump their mess in Cameron's lap, so that the brickbats would come his way."

That's true as well (what the hell am I doing agreeing with Don!). As the Journalist, Mark Steel said in the 'Independent' the other day, Labour would be making the same cuts ... but, possibly, implementing them more slowly.

And Labour has achieved something else as well - destroyed the LibDems - the only vaguely centre left party we had left. It's not only Daily Mail readers who use their votes unwisely!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 May 12 - 04:41 AM

The consultant requesting the DEXA scan was seen privately, but he referred her to the only hospital providing this scan locally, being the NHS hospital - the delay is totally unacceptable to my wife with the amount of pain she is suffering, so she spent yesterday morning phoning numerous private hospitals within reasonable travelling distance, hitting the jackpot with the London Independent Hospital in London.

She now has to complete the circle by seeing a GP today for a referral letter. It's amazing how many people think they always have to go through their GP - no no no no no.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Musket
Date: 11 May 12 - 04:23 AM

Notwithstanding my views on Boris, Ken, Tory, Labour etc.

The second class stamp Bonzo refers to is the PAC system where the GP would look at the scan in real time at his or her desk.

Although the consultant is the person who would be most interested, not the GP, and scans sent to a GP are few and far between unless the GP is carrying out the intervention..

My last scan was asked for by the consultant (actually the registrar) when I was at the clinic and was carried out about an hour later, (including the 20 mins finding the radiology department....

The NHS still has a long way to go, but it isn't either the bonzo nor indeed the Lansley NHS that reflects reality. I find it bemusing that we have a secretary of state who is using ten year old statistics to make the NHS look bad in order to drive through his privatisation reforms.

The problem is, and as a dirty rotten stinking troughing capitalist myself, I find it doubly curious, the NHS has consistently shown that some socialist ideas work and work well. Not that the drug barons like it, as they don't get to medicalise lifestyle as much as they do in The States...

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 11 May 12 - 03:37 AM

Don T, the tory party may have polled the most votes but in fact as you well know, more people voted against them than for them.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 May 12 - 02:53 AM

And on top of that - no chance of an NHS hospital handing a copy of the DEXA report to my wife, it has to go to the GP - by second class post, so is unlikely to be in the hands of her back surgeon for a further two weeks at least.

Well worth the cost of a service and MOT to my car.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 May 12 - 02:38 AM

Well we work for our private medical treatment, in fact we are paying for a DEXA scan for my wife - £230, who will walk away with a written report to hand to her back surgeon a couple of hours later.

The waiting time to have this done on the NHS is 4-6 weeks - which is after collecting "the form" from the NHS hospital, completing it, returning it and then waiting for them to notify you the appointment time - without any regard to whether that time is convenient!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 May 12 - 07:53 PM

yes but would he have more money if he had to pay the market value of any drugs or medical treatment he or his family received.


I feel genuinely sorry for our American cousins on mudcat - I've heard them trying to decide which drugs their doctor has prescribed for them they can afford - which they can risk trying to do without.

That's what tories are voting for - working class ones anyway. the Borises of this world will always be all right.

How the Dons of this world can be so blind, I can't understand. I never blamed Thatcher - she was only taking care of her own. I blamed the Daily Mail readers who voted for her.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 10 May 12 - 07:52 PM

""Don has this idea that he had more money in his pocket under conservatives.""

The Tories were, whether you like it or not, the party which polled most votes.

Your preferred party wimped out of forming a coalition, the first choice of the LibDems, because they knew that they could not deal with the deficit without alienating the public, and they preferred to dump their mess in Cameron's lap, so that the brickbats would come his way.

The last thing on the minds of Ed Millipede and his cronies is the welfare of the country. They stand for the Trade Unions who pay for their campaigns, and for the Labour Party which wants to control the population from cradle to grave.

It is not so much that I have more money in my pocket under the Tories, though generally I do, it is more that I get to choose what I do with what I have.

I prefer to be a free agent paying tax on what I choose to spend, rather than a slave to Labour taking it off me before I even see it, and spending it on whatever they choose without concern or reference to my wishes.

I know that willing serfs like RB will never understand this in a million years, simply because they truly believe that all property is theft.

What they can never tell me is this. If I have, by the sweat of my brow earned a few quid, what right has the government, once having received its tax, to tell me how I must spend the residue?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 May 12 - 03:57 PM

Buggered if I know Pete. Don has this idea that he had more money in his pocket under conservatives.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 May 12 - 02:03 PM

wild generalisation....I thought I had been quite particular, and personal.

Never mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,petecockermouth
Date: 10 May 12 - 12:00 PM

'unless you are very rich there is nothing for you in voting tory' interesting point al. (mind you, unless you are quite happy with a government who is going to tinker around with the details of a grossly unjust and destructive capitalism there is nothing for us in voting for any of the major parties)
Could any of the usual tories on here - seriously- answer this question, something a bit more thoughtful and honest than the typical banter and slagging off?
i feel i should vote for a candidate that is most likely to represent my concerns - my interests(certainly financial)-may not always be the prime concern. i won't vote for warmongers and i won't vote for anyone prepared to favour the wealthy over the rest of us or profit over the environment.
what motivates anyone to vote tory?

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 May 12 - 11:47 AM

WE ARE THE MAJORITY - that's dubious. Opinion polls have indicated that most of those who voted LibDem disagreed with the decision to sign up to a Tory agenda. They felt conned, and without them there wasn't any "MAJORITY".

In an electoralsystem where the number of people voting is so small, no party should ever claim the right to say they speak for "the people". Even on those occasions where they are not doing stuff they promised not to do when they were standing for eection.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 May 12 - 11:45 AM

So there you go!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 10 May 12 - 11:15 AM

Since more of the public voted Tory than Labour, your wild generalisation is meaningless Al.

WE ARE THE MAJORITY until another election changes that, maybe not even then.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 May 12 - 07:29 PM

I don't know much about the newt man - except if Thatcher needed to get rid of him - he was probably all right.

Its you who needs the reality pill Don. These tories - they laugh at you. Unless you are very rich, theres nothing for you in voting for them.

For about a year I went to a public school through my church - a sort of scholarship, an exhibition grant. the kids called me Fred - they thought that was a working class name. The local grammar school were referred to as 'grammar school thickos'. I was told to get back in the gutter because of my northern accent and cheap unfashionable clothes.

Some of those buggers are tory MPs nowadays. I'm abit sorry you don't get it. Sorry I can't communicate to you why the tories would never have thought of a health service or an Open University - why such generosity of spirit just isn't in their emotional vocabulary

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 09 May 12 - 05:42 PM

""A school will not be built or a library closed cos Boris's mates in number 11 are seeing Boris (and all the other Boris's) all right - usually to the exclusion of the rest of us.""

Whereas of course Red Ken doing the same thing will affect nobody??

Take a reality pill will you?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 May 12 - 03:53 PM

Doesn't Boris drink rather a lot of beer?

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,petecockermouth
Date: 09 May 12 - 02:02 PM

i would spend more money on beer if i could afford it. great english product (sorry scotland -the beer is one thing that is definitely better south of the border)and while we are on the subject, it is long past time that more of us spent more time in the local pub. we are in danger of losing one of the really good things about this country - it's your duty to community and your country to drink more. and where else do we (when this pub closes) plan the revolution? cheers!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 09 May 12 - 01:48 PM

Bloody good job - you would all only spend it on beer.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 May 12 - 01:45 PM

yes but if more money is going in Boris's pocket. Chances are, its coming from a poorer person's pocket.

A school will not be built or a library closed cos Boris's mates in number 11 are seeing Boris (and all the other Boris's) all right - usually to the exclusion of the rest of us.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Musket
Date: 09 May 12 - 01:26 PM

If you were elected then, how would you ensure you could never gain by your policies? After all, politicians should be "of the people" and your aim is to further the cause of "the people."

The problem is; the gain of the country and the gain of the individual are not mutually exclusive. Especially if you are a one nation Tory...........

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 May 12 - 12:16 PM

Using power to change the law for personal gain not the gain of the country should NOT be what politics is all about. But it does alas typify Boris and most conservatives.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 09 May 12 - 09:57 AM

Richard, please stop trying to patronise me. You aren't qualified to do so.

I am well aware of the difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance, and the subject of this discussion is the latter.

If it were evasion in either case, legal action would take care of it quite nicely.

The only way to stop avoidance is to close the loopholes which make it possible, something which I would heartily applaud, as would anyone with six or more working brain cells, who was not involved in exploiting them.

Meanwhile, you have a lot of clever people legally saving themselves money, and fulminate as you may, the law cannot touch them, not even the Tory ones.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,Ian Mather sans cookie
Date: 09 May 12 - 09:44 AM

Who's mithering now?

Wrong is right if I agree with it? No wonder you left school and wanted to be a legal eagle. Takes a certain blinkered logic chopping to defend the indefensible.

Limiting your liability is a sound business practice and I commend it. Ken has done what I would do. However, the business owns the money not the person so getting at the money for your own use is where the tax first comes in.

I fail to see many differences between their situations. If one is clean so is the other and vice versa unless either happened to commit an offence, which neither has been charged with.

Wanting to change the law is what politics is about. Are you saying you shouldn't vote for someone if you benefit from their manifesto?


Tut tut.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 May 12 - 09:10 AM

I never understand tax stuff - but as I understand it, the money concerned wasn't personal income available for use on personal expenditure, it was political income, reserved for expenditure on political activities such as employing political workers. No different in principal from a lawn machine maker using money from selling lawnmowers to employ people to make them for his company.

Perhaps the money taken in by companies like that should be taxed at the same rate as personal income, but that's not how it's done. I can't see how it can be seen as a tax fiddle, using loopholes in the law, like a company setting up a fictitious branch overseas where tax rates are lower.

The criticism seems to be assuming that political activity is a luxury hobby, like playing golf or buying yachts, and that taxed accordingly.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 09 May 12 - 09:03 AM

I doubt that very much.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 May 12 - 08:24 AM

I don't think that had been invented when I was young, Bonzo!

Don - there is tax evasion (and this is not it) and there is tax avoidance. Tax avoidance occupies a continuum from actually claiming the allowances to which you ARE entitled and to which you are intended to be entitled, to creating very artificial structures and transaction sequences to try to get round parliamentary intention. What Ken was up to is at the less dodgy end of the spectrum. Not nice, but not that nasty. What Boris did was get his mates to change tax law for his betterment. Verging on corruption.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 09 May 12 - 06:56 AM

"It is worth pointing out (as I can't expect Bozo to do the honest thing) that if money is retained (for the time being) in the company it will be taxed later when it comes out, one way or another."

Have you forgotten Entrepreneurs' Relief?

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 09 May 12 - 06:26 AM

""Don - Ken saved about £77,000 tax. Boris supported changing the rules to save himself £48,000 tax. In each case over 3 years. Why can you not see that changing the rules to benefit yourself is the less acceptable?""

And why can you not see (through your red tinted specs) that neither is acceptable.

You scream blue murder about legal tax avoidance by the rich, who, according to you, are all Tories (very sloppy thinking there for a legal mind), yet it's all right for Red Ken to use similar tactics, because he's on your side of the fence.

NEWSFLASH!!   Neither is acceptable, and the answer is to change the tax system so nobody can do it. No political party has grasped, does grasp, or ever will grasp that particular nettle, simply because what they all really want (in common with your recent comments) is to stop the other side doing it while retaining their own fiddles.

Don T.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 May 12 - 05:05 AM

Comes down to if you trust the law, and the press. When they 'investigated' MP's expenses. Three Labour MP's went to jail and one black guy.

Nuff said.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 May 12 - 03:29 AM

Richard ~ Sorry, but I can't help thinking that Don is right: you wouldn't be so comparatively insouciant about K.Liv's peculations if it had been a tory who had committed them. In that indispensable formulation of that lawyer character in one of Shaw's early plays ~ "You think you would, but you wouldn't."

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 09 May 12 - 02:56 AM

You are forgetting that livingstone's company will have paid corporation tax - little can escape that.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 May 12 - 01:16 AM

Don - Ken saved about £77,000 tax. Boris supported changing the rules to save himself £48,000 tax. In each case over 3 years. Why can you not see that changing the rules to benefit yourself is the less acceptable?

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 May 12 - 10:11 PM

'Ken Livingstone did about as well as Labour,'

no he didn't. He lost and Labour won.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 08 May 12 - 06:10 PM

""Ken saved (ignoring the point I made about other employees and the the further point about deferred taxation) about £77,000 over 3 years using a company.""

About seven years household income for me and my wife combined, and you would have been raving had he been a Tory. Nice to see such even handedness.....NOT!

""What, I think, we need is a truly general anti-avoidance principle, and I have explained my views in more detail before.""

Well now, that's a departure.

Until your favourite socialist was found wanting, it was all about the "rich Tories" of whom you are so envious.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 08 May 12 - 05:52 PM

""Doubtless he has his faults, but many Londoners really liked him and he was elected despite Thatcher wriggling and jiggling with democratic process with the aim of ousting him.

Why am I reading your post and getting the impression that you are gibbering with rage....?""

Not gibbering at all Al. I really don't give stuff who runs London. I don't even live there.

On the subject of biased reporting, Ken's financial arrangements made all the papers and Radio and TV too. RB is the one that's gibbering, after all it is he who waxes strong on the subject of Tories in general (not just Tory politicians) and their, according to him, corrupt and evil nature. It really gripes him that his socialist hero has been caught out behaving like the rich he so envies and avoiding tax.

Far from gibbering, this accords me quiet satisfaction.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 May 12 - 05:20 PM

That is a very sad comment on my country.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 May 12 - 04:55 PM

Of course he didn't win. That's not relevant to the point I'm making, which is it that Ken Livingstone did about as well as Labour, which did well - but Boris Johnson did a great deal better than the Tories in general, who did badly.

People like a laugh, and Boris is a laugh.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 May 12 - 04:40 PM

McGrath - he didn't win. No prizes for runners up in that game.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 May 12 - 04:19 PM

Sorry - those figures I gave were for the mayoral vote after second preferences had been included.

The first preference votes were 971,931 for Boris Johnson and 889,918 for Ken Livingstone.

So Ken did get a few thousand less than the overall Labour vote - but the big difference was that Boris got several hundred thousand votes more than the Tories as a whole.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 May 12 - 04:17 PM

'Well it's a great pity that Screaming Lord Sutch isn't still around! '

well we agree about one thing at least Bonzo. David Sutch was an original. One ofthe most original rock and rollers ever. Precursor of Theatre in Rock and Roll. A great influence on Alex Harvey, The Doors, Alice Cooper. A great performer.

Most of the stuff he campaigned for - votes at 18, etc are accepted parts of the political process.

mental illness is a terrible thing, and i'm sorry it robbed us of him.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 May 12 - 04:00 PM

"Screaming Lord Sutch" With a title like that surely he must have a clone in the cabinet?

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 May 12 - 03:58 PM

Well it's a great pity that Screaming Lord Sutch isn't still around!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 May 12 - 03:58 PM

Which goes to demonstrate how we are conned and let down by journalists who fail to actually check the facts - and who gaily went on writing about how Ken had done far worse in the mayoral election than Labour had done in the Assembly election.

And we believe what they write and say...

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 May 12 - 03:53 PM

Figures to substantiate what I wrote in my previous post:

Total votes for Labour in the London Assembly election: 911,204
Total votes for Conservatives in London Assembly election: 708,528

Total first preference votes for Ken Livingstone: 992,273
Total first preference votes for Boris Johnson: 1,054,811

So in fact Ken Livingstone's vote was higher than the vote for Labour in the Assembly election. Just not higher enough.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 May 12 - 02:09 PM

Looking at the actual voting figures it is apparent that it wasn't a matter of lots of people who voted Labout being reluctant to vote for Ken. His acual vote was pretty well in line with the Labour vote generally, a vote which resulted in a landside for Labour in the London Assembly.

The trouble was that Boris got a much higher vote than the Tories generally - probably because a lot of non-Tories see him as a laugh. The same way that when elected mayors were introduced in 2002 the voters in Hartlepool elected a man dressed as a monkey. (And in this picture he actually looks quite a lot like Boris, but with a darker mane.)

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Musket
Date: 08 May 12 - 12:01 PM

On the subject of Boris... as opposed to tax arrangements etc.

Whatever his policies, whatever his person, whatever his background...

1. His book The Dream of Rome is perhaps one of the most thoughtful well written books I have enjoyed in a long time.

2. His car reviews used to make me chuckle.

The problem is that both he and Livingstone are characters, and we need more of them instead of the faceless spokesmen for PR spinners. A pity in some ways that two colourful characters had to be in for the same job.

That said, Boris running the country? Nah, the civil servants would never have it. Cameron is safe for the time being. At least until we have a leader of the opposition to weigh up against him.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 May 12 - 07:23 AM

What I think you would do well to focus on Bonzo is artificiality. It is a somewhat elusive concept, but it is very odd that Osborne promised to come down "like a ton of bricks" on certain things (in fact only really stamp duty), missed the boat entirely by failing to account for long leases, and utterly failed to reverse the principle in IRC -v- Westminster.   Of course some say we should reverse Saloman -v- Saloman, and that would stop the use of companies for tax planning as such.

Ken's arrangements were AFAIK not in the least artificial although I don't immediately see why they were not caught by close company principles. Maybe deemed distributions disappeared while I was not looking.

What, I think, we need is a truly general anti-avoidance principle, and I have explained my views in more detail before.

Part of the problem is that the press is largely more than somewhat right of centre, and it became quite difficult to get to any grips with what Ken actually did in the face of wholly ignorant flak like Gilligan's - and in the face of outbursts like Boris's comment "fucking lies".

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 08 May 12 - 06:40 AM

LOL MtheGM! I'd love to see our Boris doing a spot of pole dancing! (Dressed in a pair of spangled budgie smugglers perhaps?)

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 May 12 - 06:32 AM

No, I am far too busy saving our clients tax!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 May 12 - 06:19 AM

Bozo - As I said, bit difficult here to sort out the wheat from the scabloid chaff.
The worst that can be said of Livingstone's tax affairs is that they was certainly no worse than the practises that have been common in Britain for a long time and which have been either openly supported or excused by the Tories as long as I can remember.
However - none of this addresses the shameful and dishonest (not to say blatently undemocratic) behaviour of your particular knights in shining armour regarding bulldozing out of existence anything that gets in their predatory way.
Perhaps instead of your triumphalism over the London circus, you might like to comment on the council election results, or even stretch your limited imagination even further and have a look at what's happening in France and Greece, where there does seem a serious effort is being made to clear up the devastating results of the greedfest indulged in by corporate big business and rubber-stamped by crooked and incompetent politicians of all persuasions.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 May 12 - 06:17 AM

Eliza's idea is a good one; but I think it would be unfair to confine party-pieces purely to folk. How about some acrobatics or pole-dancing or opera-singing. It is after all only a few years since we had a Speaker of the House of Commons who began her working life as a Tiller Girl.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 May 12 - 06:01 AM

I have no idea if Livingstone fiddled his taxes – that seems to be 'what politicians do'

Childish comment.

To put fee income through a limited company is perfectly within current tax legislation introduced I believe by a Labour government - you may not like it but there it is, and if an accountant is not advising his clients accordingly, he is not acting in their best interest.

The downside of owning a limited company is compliance with numerous filing deadlines, and the requirement for expensive software in order to produce accounts in accordance with Companies Act and Accounting Standards and also in ixbrl format now required by HMRC, and in the near future to be required by Companies House.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 08 May 12 - 05:10 AM

Now wouldn't it be absolutely excellent if prospective Mayors performed a party piece before the cameras in order to persuade people to vote for them? Playing the spoons is just a start. What about a quick burst of Morris Dancing, or a melodeon solo? Or a few hearty choruses of well-known folk songs? Further suggestions please, on a postcard...

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 May 12 - 04:32 AM

It all seems a bit pointless to me - the leader of the council used to do that job. My wife was on Nottingham council as a disability awareness consultant. Councillors aren't bad eggs - they sort of do their best - according to their own lights.

I remember one day we had to go round all these tourist attractions - they were all astonished to find out that it was dufficult to push a wheelchair along deep gravel paths. Cross party amazement...! Brilliant!

Surely this new Mayor business is an additional expense for the taxpayer, and we're supposed to trying for financial austerity. Presumably we have to give this bugger a salary - be it Ken or Boris. If theres a lot of money involved - they'll all want to do it.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 May 12 - 04:26 AM

Jim - I agree - except that AFAIK there was nothing wrong with Ken's tax planning - it was nowhere near "aggressive" policies not did it involve shipping money or activity to offshore low-tax areas.

Facts - from a tax journal - here - http://www.taxation.co.uk/taxation/38091/blog/how-much-did-ken-save

It is worth pointing out (as I can't expect Bozo to do the honest thing) that if money is retained (for the time being) in the company it will be taxed later when it comes out, one way or another.

It is also worth pointing out that Ken's company does indeed have other shareholders and employees and expenses. The right-wing propagandist Gilligan could not figure this out.

Boris will save about £16,000 per year from the cut that he supported in top rate tax - £48,000 over 3 years. Source http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/04/05/ken-livingstone-boris-johnson-tax-figures_n_1405547.html

Ken saved (ignoring the point I made about other employees and the the further point about deferred taxation) about £77,000 over 3 years using a company. But at least he did not lobby for changes in the law to reduce his tax bill.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 May 12 - 03:43 AM

"GIGANTIC VANITY DRIFT"
And another.
I had the pleasure of encountering Ken Livingstone several times while we were recording Travellers in London in the 70s and 80s. This would be before Thatcher showed her dedication to democracy by operating her scorched earth 'what you can't control, you destroy' policy by banning the democratically elected Greater London Council and selling off its headquarters to a Japanese millionaire to create a luxury hotel for the very, very rich.
Livingstone always struck me as a dedicated and compassionate politician who was prepared to stick his neck out for causes that were more likely to make him unpopular with the electorate than to be vote winners (this would be his support for Bozo the Dodo's "crippled homosexuals" and "lisping fools" activities).
The Travellers we knew were grateful, and more than a little surprised to receive help, advice and compassionate understanding for their campaign for getting stopping places, drinking water, sanitation and education for their children, from a politician.
All a little different from when a later John Major Government abolished the 1968 Caravan and Camping Act which required councils to provide a set number of sites, throwing thousands of families onto illegal stopping places at the side of Britain's roads.      
It's hard not to notice that despite the fact that Livingstone was first voted out of office with the aid of a scabloid press (backbone of Tory power in Britain today) campaign against the congestion charge – still in place after four years of Borisrule and still helping to make Central London's roads negotiable.
Also that the "Boris's Bikes" scheme was in fact a Livingstone proposal in the first place. Who said Boris has no policies or ideas – pity the ones he does have are not his own.
I have no idea if Livingstone fiddled his taxes – that seems to be 'what politicians do' – to borrow a phrase – not acceptable, but nothing to do with the present argument of who is most suitable to lead London. At least he wasn't claiming expenses for building palaces for his ducks – or newts.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 May 12 - 03:22 AM

But, Al ~~ the analogy is not with other cities, but with states like the USA: Congress doesn't appoint the President; he is separately elected to fulfil a real governing function in consultation with the elected representatives, rather than just a ceremonial symbolic role like those of countries where the government chooses the president, or cities where the council chooses the mayor. So the purpose of the recently created post of London's Mayor. Within the City, you still have the Lord Mayor for symbolic and ceremonial stuff.

Best

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 08 May 12 - 02:18 AM

"Why go to the bother of electing councillors if you'ree going to pass on executive power to some 'Mayor' - makes no sense at all. I can't believe it is, as you say it is."

And not just London of course. Various other English cities have mayors. Some voted against setting up a mayor in votes last week

http://www.london.gov.uk/who-runs-london/mayor/role


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 May 12 - 06:53 PM

when has Boris ever played the spoons, or anything as newsworthy.

if he could have played the spoons , he would have been on all the talk programmes - boring us all shitless.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 May 12 - 05:52 PM

GIGANTIC VANITY DRIFT - talking of Mayors

My Uncle David was Mayor of Ipswich in the year of the Silver Jubilee so got to welcome Her Maj & all that. Predictable; everyone knew when the Jubilee was & Uncle David was the man they chose for the job. But they couldn't have predicted that he and Auntie Nan, who was an Alderman herself as well as Mayoress, would get the even more important job of welcoming home the FA-Cup Winning Ipswich Town team from Wembley ~~ the only time they have won it.

Goodie for Uncle David, eh?

~M~

GIGANTIC VANITY DRIFT ENDS

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 May 12 - 04:41 PM

The mayor of Weymouth plays the spoons quite well at the folk club. That never gets in the news.

That's pretty scandalous!!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 07 May 12 - 03:53 PM

Very dyed hair - like most Argentine ladies!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 07 May 12 - 03:39 PM

Good name though

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 07 May 12 - 02:16 PM

I think we should all be worrying about this hideous new Argentine ambassador Alicia Castro - a former air hostess no less, who is making a thorough nuisance of herself.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 May 12 - 01:52 PM

weif that's how London does it -they're daft. They should do it as democratically as all the other councils.Why go to the bother of electing councillors if you'ree going to pass on executive power to some 'Mayor' - makes no sense at all. I can't believe it is, as you say it is.

Incidentally Don, I've done lots of gigs for old aged pensioner Londoners and to a man and woman they had nothing but praise for Red Ken. I think maybe you are overstating your case a bit.

Doubtless he has his faults, but many Londoners really liked him and he was elected despite Thatcher wriggling and jiggling with democratic process with the aim of ousting him.

Why am I reading your post and getting the impression that you are gibbering with rage....?

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 07 May 12 - 01:01 PM

""More dangerously, the mayoral election was however probably decided by badly biassed press coverage,...""

By which, I take it, you mean that the press had the bad taste to let slip that Red Ken is as unscrupulous, greedy and corrupt in his financial affairs as any "arrogant posh boy"?


""I stll don't get it. the mayor goes and shakes hands with pensioners, meets royalty when they deign to appear, opens fetes, says well done everybody....

thats what mayors do.""

You are right Al! You don't get it!

That is what most mayors do, but the London mayor is different. He has administrative powers similar to those of a company CEO and can make policy decisions which are implemented on his authority.

Just as an aside, it may have (in fact in one case it definitely has ) slipped by unnoticed, but the BBC headquarters are in Manchester and most of their programs come from studios there, so perhaps we will, in the fullness of time have cause to piss and moan about coverage down south.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 May 12 - 12:15 PM

I stll don't get it. the mayor goes and shakes hands with pensioners, meets royalty when they deign to appear, opens fetes, says well done everybody....

thats what mayors do.

Boris as soon as anybody else. how could it matter?

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 07 May 12 - 12:07 PM

I like that, the sun just came out here!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 May 12 - 11:11 AM

Still fine here, but it's looking black o'er granny's (as we say out here in the Backwoods!) :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 07 May 12 - 10:33 AM

I quite agree - enjoy the Bank Holiday, even though the weather is diabolical.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 May 12 - 09:45 AM

Really quite OK ~~ no apology necessary, but thank you.

Good Bank Hol to you too. It's raining here! Bah!

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 May 12 - 09:15 AM

"Thank you for the implied compliment, BWM, and I grieve to have caused you such disappointment by failure to maintain those Olympian heights of courtesy and urbanity you purport to have observed in me!"

It was indeed a compliment, Michael - I'm always pleased and entertained to read your well-reasoned contributions. Whilst I may ofttimes disagree with your arguments, I can never fault the style with which you make them!

"But surely you can see that your chosen nickname had a peculiar, nay irresistible, reference and relevance to the point you were making? You really do insult a bit easy, it seems to me."

I understand the point, Michael, and you might well be right that I insult a bit easy. But, as the kid who was bullied at school, until he found out at around the age of 13 or 14, that the way to deal with an aggressor is to give him a fuckin' good knuckle-sandwich (several, preferably), I do occasionally take offence somewhat early in an argument. My apologies are due on this occasion, I feel.

"I always leave the car at Trumpington Park & Ride & come in by Nat Xpress coach to Mile End or Embankment. It's not just London traffic that is so bloody, but London parking!"

As it takes only an hour and 40 minutes by train from Retford to KX (an hour and 30 from Newark), it's far preferable to driving the God-awful A1, infested as it is by homicidal HGV-drivers and young, lunatic-driver bimbos in flashy, overpowered company cars (the kind of cars they could never hope to drive were they not provided by their employers). And, of course, I can read a book as I travel on the train.

Enjoy the rest of the Bank Hol.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Edthefolkie
Date: 07 May 12 - 08:19 AM

I see this is as usual becoming a slanging match, originated and continued by a troll. Come on, it's obvious from the start of this thread (and his constant postings on others) that it's pointless having a sensible discussion with him. When he posts stuff like "But it is right that an Eton boy is Mayor" he's clearly on a mission to annoy.

He's ALWAYS doing it - "The socialists are so easily wound up - good job I inherited from my hard working parents!!". The first bit is of course true, not just of socialists, but of anybody - look at the way "Dave" Cameron goes all crimson and Bullingdon when anybody has a go at him. The second bit is impenetrable - did our scribbler inherit a good job from his parents? Sorry, 3/10.

He produces the following explanation for the recent local election results - "Because the British mob are like sheep baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!". Now there's a diamond-honed mind at work. Who needs Nick Robinson and Evan Davies when we've got him?   

There you go - he's wound me up now. Must be the echoes of fourth form debates/shouting matches at my Alma Mater.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 May 12 - 07:55 AM

BWM and MGM - both delightful company. Don't know you Bonzo - but neither of those guys would say offensive things to each others face.

In the north we have this sort of annoyance factor. The BBC never seems to know anything about us - even in something important like the miners strike, there were geographical howlers in the news every night.

And yet they seem to want us to know who the mayor of London is. Would they know the mayor of Weymouth, Cambridge or Nottingham.

The mayor of Weymouth plays the spoons quite well at the folk club. That never gets in the news.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 07 May 12 - 04:59 AM

School playground...........!!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 May 12 - 04:52 AM

Thank you for the implied compliment, BWM, and I grieve to have caused you such disappointment by failure to maintain those Olympian heights of courtesy and urbanity you purport to have observed in me!

But surely you can see that your chosen nickname had a peculiar, nay irresistible, reference and relevance to the point you were making? You really do insult a bit easy, it seems to me.

~M~

I always leave the car at Trumpington Park & Ride & come in by Nat Xpress coach to Mile End or Embankment. It's not just London traffic that is so bloody, but London parking!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 May 12 - 04:41 AM

Well, Bozo, the Headmaster, teaching-staff and house-staff of Eton should hang their heads in shame that they have turned out such a scruffy, arrogant, ignorant clown.

I thought that Public Schools stood for the highest possible standards. Clearly I was wrong. Thank God I went to a State Grammar School.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 07 May 12 - 04:40 AM

"childish insults and name calling" - what, you mean "fucking bollocks"?

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 07 May 12 - 04:09 AM

But it is right that an Eton boy is Mayor.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 May 12 - 03:07 AM

Of course I understand that, Michael and yes, I do have the occasional weekend dahn Landon (I take the train, BTW, I leave the car at home). I realise the importance of the election to those who live and/or work in Landon, and I have no objection to the appropriate media-coverage in that area.

But for those who don't live and/or work in Landon (and we are the vast majority it's of far less consequence, and therefore the media-saturation becomes.....well, absolutely ball-aching. Surely, you can understand that?

It wouldn't be quite so unbearable if the candidates (and, in particular, the incumbent) weren't such insufferable twats.

BTW and FWIW, I had you down as one who rises above childish insults and name calling ("I suppose that's why you chose your nickname, BWM. Headinsandman might have been better".

You disappoint me.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 May 12 - 02:09 AM

You can call it 'sense' if you like, Richard; but it won't make any difference to the result, teehee.

I suppose that's why you chose your nickname, BWM. Headinsandman might have been better. Do you really never visit the capital and hope to be able to drve where you want to be, or that your tube train or bus will actually arrive? Goodness how sad...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 May 12 - 01:57 AM

I also wonder why the vast majority of the UK population, who live outside London, have to be assaulted non-stop by this 'Landon Mayor' horse-shit every time we switch on our TVs or radios, or pick up a newspaper?

Why don't the media (and, for that matter, all Landoners) realise.......WE DON'T GIVE A FLYIN' F**K ABOUT YOUR SHITTY DIPSTICK MAYOR, HE'S A TOTAL F***IN' NONENTITY AS FAR AS WE'RE CONCERNED!

I'm sick to the back teeth of hearing about those two pricks whose election, or even existence, makes not one iota of difference to my life.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 06 May 12 - 07:25 PM

If the election of the Mayor was decided on policy then I can't complain about the result of the election. However, we live ina society where we can speak openly about the wrong-doings of those who hold power.

Those who hold power have responsibilities not just towards those who support their policies, but to society as a whole.

But... I think the result of the Mayoral election was based on the less disliked personality.

One good result was that a certain party which I won't mention by name as it would attract the troll(s) got wiped of the map.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 May 12 - 07:06 PM

Well, let's talk some sense.

In fact Boris has done absolutely nothing of any value as mayor of London (save implement some previous Labour plans) and has failed to show any grasp of policies or appreciation of the lack of viability of his glib assurances. For reasons that I do not understand people regard Ken as a megalomaniac but his policies have always been better for the bulk of Londoners. This election in London was not decided on policies but on some sort of foolish personality cult.

More dangerously, the mayoral election was however probably decided by badly biassed press coverage, the London evening papers (and City AM) being in effect part of Boris propaganda machine - or as Boris's educated and nuanced expression would have it "fucking bollocks".

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 May 12 - 06:19 PM

well if Boris is that bad - you have to wonder how bad the guy was that he beat.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 May 12 - 06:09 PM

SPB ~ you have every reason to feel disappointed; but, if you have any pretensions to believing in democracy, surely no 'right' to 'complain' that more people disagreed than agreed with you? What about their 'rights', then?

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 May 12 - 06:01 PM

Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone are both entertaining enough stand up comics, and Boris's slapstick act as an amiable buffoon straight out of Jeeves seems to have come across better than Ken's slighly dated Cheeky Chappy.

But watching the French election coverage I was struck by how all the Presidential candidates shared one thing - they knew how to speak inspirationally in public. A skill apparently completely unknown in English politics, with the possible exception of George Galloway. I suppose they've been told that a rather slimy conversational style is what is required.
.........................
I note that almost all of the voters in the London election failed to use their second vote in a meaningful way. For it to mean anything, you cast your first vote for the person you'd really like, and the second for the one among the two people you know are going to come first and second whom you dislike less.

I wonder if that failure to use the second vote effectively was intentional or just that the voters aren't too clever in understanding how this strange voting system in London works.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 06 May 12 - 04:50 PM

Actually, Newport Boy, as a Londoner myuself, and along with nearly a million fellow Londoners who also voted against Johnson, I have every right to complain - especially as being a bus user I have already face a 50% increase in bus fares and in outer London an 80% increase in the cost of the daily oystercard 'workers???' sorry overpaid, overbloated, nasty, greedy Boris clones who lined their pockets at they ****ed up the economy had their fared kepted comparitivley down.

I hope that if the nasty ignorant buffoon if he doesn't keep Livingstone's promise to cut fares, will at raise the London statuory minimum wage to a 6 figure annual sum so that care workers, and those in sh** jobs that make life in London worth living have to make choices of wheter to p[ay bills or travel to work

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 06 May 12 - 04:38 PM

Spanish babies fighting over a dummy!

This has some significance I think!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 06 May 12 - 04:34 PM

And the socialists are so easily wound up - good job I inherited from my hard working parents!!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,petecockermouth
Date: 06 May 12 - 04:12 PM

mais oui -franglais! la tongue de les gods (et ils sont about as posh as vous can get) pourez-yersel un grand tasse de vin rouge et get la marsellaise on you tube - preferablyment serge gainsbourg chantetit en une reggae-stylee while eric cantona kicks out contra la racisme. c'est insouciant, mon braves!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 May 12 - 03:19 PM

Cor! Franglais!

How posh!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,petecockermouth
Date: 06 May 12 - 03:03 PM

allez les francais -la neighbour who just keeps on giving! eric cantona, emile zola, vin, simone de beauvoir, camembert, serge et jane, zinedine zidane, les filmes boring but stylish, daniel auteuil, balzac, sartre, la guillotine, camus, isabelle hupport,le grand jambon -gerard depardieu! et maintenant, un petit hope against les austerity orcs! salut comrades!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 06 May 12 - 02:33 PM

Oh, I think he has plenty of 'sausage' in good working order, from the various gossip one reads about. I can't imagine what women see in him, but there's no accounting for taste!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 May 12 - 02:29 PM

Re the hair, & the affectation of a sort of bumblingly distrait quality ~ he always seems to me, mutatis mutandis to be aiming at something of the same sort of 'marmite' anti-style as our dear late friend Peter Bellamy. I think he triumphantly pulls it off. YMMobviouslyV.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 May 12 - 02:22 PM

I cannot, for the life of me, fathom how anyone could trust the judgment of an adult who can't even manage to comb his own hair, or even have the self-respect to get a decent haircut.

He looks and sounds like a complete fuckwit - truly a sausage short of a barbecue.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 06 May 12 - 02:01 PM

"You can call Labour all you want bonzo3braincells, but the Tory's and the Fuckwits still got a stuffing last Thursday."

Do I take it that you're a Labour supporter, Dave? Anyone who supports Labour these days has no justification for calling anyone else a "fuckwit"!

If Labour supporters were really anti-Tory Socialists they would be working much harder to transform their pink-skinned, blue-centred party.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 May 12 - 02:00 PM

Right, Al. What Boris has got, say what you will of him, is "style" in ♠♠♠♠♠♠

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,petecockermouth
Date: 06 May 12 - 01:58 PM

boko-'english as tuppence' - but you feel yourself above the rest of us mob. why?

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 May 12 - 01:56 PM

I vote Labour because the majority of the wealth in this country is in the hands of people who see no responsibility to the people who made this country what it is. At least people like Henry V111 spent money raising armies and defending the place.

But what do the present lot do? they just sit on inherited wealth and play the markets. They tried to run the factories with sixty and 70 year old track - didn't occurr to them to reinvest. Then when they started losing money - they blamed it all on the unions. Then when their industries folded they put it all in tax havens.

The tories are the allies of these over rich, over privileged bums.

labour has in part paid back the debt the country owed to the men who fought the wars by giving their kids a better life, free education, health care, better housing than was available pre-war.

Yets its a curates egg. Blair lied to us about WMDs. However the tories wanted us in that war as well. But if you're not absolutely stinking rich and you vote tory - youseem like a bit of a mug to me.

Having said that, I quite like the patrician style of Boris. It reminds me a bit of Macmillan who always used to sleep in a new suit, because he said new clothes looked 'inexpressibly vulgar'.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 06 May 12 - 01:41 PM

Call me Dave,' I want a Boris in every city ', you might do Dave but the British people have told you to fuck off, question over and done with.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 06 May 12 - 01:37 PM

You can call Labour all you want bonzo3braincells, but the Tory's and the Fuckwits still got a stuffing last Thursday.

The people have spoken.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 May 12 - 01:21 PM

"the presentational skills that seem to come easily to posh boys and PR liars. (we all know what 'posh' means by the way.)" ---
.,,.,.
In fact, pete, we could all think of 20 or 30 different overtones for the word; nearly all of them wearisomely ironic-pejorative. Occasional exceptions occur: "It's going to be quite a posh occasion, so put on a suit and tie, please", could be quite a vanilla thing for a wife to say as the couple prepare to go out, e.g. ~ but generally my pejorative view of 'posh' as pejorative will hold IMO. And, as such, it has, like 'bourgeois' or 'capitalist' lost thru over-definition any real meaning it might ever have had. Words like that I think best avoided in serious discussion; their use reflects badly on the unthinking nature of the remarks being made in which they occur.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 06 May 12 - 01:13 PM

English as tuppence.........

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST
Date: 06 May 12 - 12:54 PM

" ... but many people do have a preference for being represented by someone [Labour] who they know who has recognisably similar concerns - at least at local level."

Oh, Peter, if only that were true! In the city where I live the Labour council is only interested in two things: aiding and abetting property developers and airport expansion. The only party who take a really active role locally are the much maligned Lib Dems (who, of course, have been decimated).

I'm also have great doubt about local Labour's commitment to democracy. A large majority of local Labour councillors represent wards where hardly anyone bothers to vote (all the most powerful and influential councillors represent such wards). Before the election one leading councillor was crowing about making our city a 'one party state'. Finally, one of my Labour councillors doesn't even speak to me because she knows that I don't automatically fall into line and support her party (I thought that this just applied to me - but yesterday someone told me that she is well known for having this attitude). At least the LibDems, the Greens, the Socialist Workers etc. (we don't seem to have any Tories these days) are all prepared to debate the issues!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,petecockermouth
Date: 06 May 12 - 11:16 AM

so bonzo - not british then? where are you from then elevates you above us mere woolly souls? of course labour trade on an amount of largely outdated and sentimental capital(?) that they are on the side of ordinary people. i think for the majority of its supporters that is largely still true - at least in comparison to the tories who are unashamedly on the side of the wealthy and powerful. new labour was a high-jacking of a party and an ideal that will be forever tainted and damned as cosying up to global capitalism and illegal war.i would never vote for them again given the choice of green or Socialist but many people do have a preference for being represented by someone who they know who has recognisably similar concerns - at least at local level.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 06 May 12 - 10:56 AM

"What baffles me is why did so many people vote Labour in the recent elections?"

Because the British mob are like sheep baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 06 May 12 - 10:48 AM

What baffles me is why did so many people vote Labour in the recent elections?

OK, so the Tories are evil, and the party of the posh, rich and selfish, but what has Labour got to offer these days? It's just another right of centre party which slavishly supports the madness of neo-liberal, free market economics. Apart from some inept social engineering they are virtually indistinguishable from the Tories (perhaps not quite so posh?). They also have an idiotic and insufferably smug rank-and-file who all seem to be living in some sort of imaginary Ramsey-MacDonald-Red-Flag theme park.

Listen up, all you Labour Party supporters: LABOUR ARE NO LONGER THE GOOD GUYS - so stop f***ing voting for them!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 06 May 12 - 10:29 AM

""One swallow doesn't make a summer, and one Boris doesn't make a trend.""

And one mid term dip doesn't make a loss at a general election. Look at the last fifty years and see how often it meant nothing.


""posh = people who think it's OK to go into someone's business premises and trash it because they can pay for the damage afterwards? (And I know someone who directly knows a restaurateur that happened to in Oxford.) And it's OK because they talk proper?""

That really isn't worthy of you Penny. Only a very few idiots act in that way, and there are as many dustmen and ditch diggers as posh twerps in that group.

There are two differences however:-

1. The posh boys make the national press, while the ditch diggers and dustmen get sympathy for their hard upbringing.

2. The proprietors get the damage paid for by the posh boys. I'm not sure that applies to the others (and I've heard quite a number of working class lads talking about taking sums of money on a night out which would pay for my one week holiday this year).

In reality, of course, POSH simply means people who speak correct English with proper pronunciation and has nothing to do with money, or I'd be able to afford two weeks holiday.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,petecockermouth
Date: 06 May 12 - 08:56 AM

ok -the sun isn't a very posh paper- unless you 'read' the sport perhaps. uncle boko 3 legs - new name? same politics?
p and l, pete

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,petecockermouth
Date: 06 May 12 - 08:48 AM

i'm not defending any labour politician who voted for illegal war (never mind the pointless tinkering around with vicious global capitalism) ..but...gordon brown? a smart guy and very conscientious but clearly lacking in the presentational skills that seem to come easily to posh boys and PR liars. (we all know what 'posh' means by the way.) had GB not bailed out the banks then would capitalism have collapsed in this country? i feel it was wrong to do it but would have expected the fans of capitalism would have been grateful. as it is, all GB ever got was abuse -some of it extremely nasty. i recall plenty of complaints a few years back there were too many scots in the cabinet - if the same people are not now complaining that there are too many people from the same class at eton in the cabinet-it's a fair bet they are anti-scottish. and fair enough-scots have no time for thatcherite posh boys or their brain dead and compassion free supporters. daily mail, sun or telegraph? - by all means buy these papers for the crossword or sport (other newspapers do have these things too, you know) but know if you are seen buying them north of watford then many people assume you are posh tories who share the prejudices of these nasty organs.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 May 12 - 08:13 AM

"Incidentally, 'Port Out Starboard Home': not true."

From A Dictionary of Slang and Cant Barrere and Leland 1890
Jim Carroll

Posh (society), modern term for money, originally used for a halfpenny of small coin, From the gypsy pash or posh, a half. In Romany poshero, the affix ero being corrupted from haro, copper, i.e., a copper or a penny. Posh an' posh, half and half, applied to those who are of mixed blood, or half gypsy. Also a dandy.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 06 May 12 - 08:06 AM

Absolutely!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 06 May 12 - 08:02 AM

Just use of language rather than chips on shoulders! As I said if I described Boris Johnston and George Osbourne as bastards then people might think I am anti-Tory. If I described them as English bastards then people may also think I am also anti-English. As i'm not, and as I wouldn't wish to give that impression, then I wouldn't describe them in that way. Seems common sense to me. Megan seems to have got the impression that the poster has an issue with Scots and because of the use of language in the original post it is easy to see why she came to that conclusion! I've alreay said if he says he hasn't then he hasn't. But it just goes to show how the language you choose to use can give a fale impression.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 06 May 12 - 07:38 AM

Usual chips on shoulders I see!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 06 May 12 - 05:47 AM

"I believe 'Woodsie' was responding to the comment:" The comment was in response to his original short post describing "Scottish wanker" and fellow "Scottish banker scum" so it is not surprising that someone questions his prejudices. Woodsie has since come back and explained that he is not anti-Scottish so I take that as being so. It is a case of if folk don't want to give the wrong impression then watch what you type. It works the other way too. If a Scot were to describe George Osbourne as a bastard then the worst he can be accused of is perhaps of using crude language - but if he calls him an English bastard then one would start to wonder if he was anti-English.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 06 May 12 - 05:02 AM

Eight million people, and they have to choose between Boris and Ken! Were they really the cream of the crop? That Hugh Paddick, who got a few votes, was splendid opposite Kenneth Williams in'Round the Horne' - I'd have voted for him.

Incidentally, 'Port Out Starboard Home': not true.

And Mrs Beckham said she got the name 'Posh' because she was delivered to school in a Rolls Royce.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,Michael J
Date: 06 May 12 - 04:51 AM

Posh meaning Port Out Starboard Home seems to be a myth:
http://www.snopes.com/language/acronyms/posh.asp

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: BrendanB
Date: 06 May 12 - 04:10 AM

I would suggest that the word 'posh' indicates someone who, through birth and inherited wealth, has been and remains insulated from any concerns regarding maintenance of living standards and who is welcome in the sort of elite groups which develop in any society and which are in this society based upon class structures. To be posh in that sense could make it hard to empathise with the lot of the ordinary person.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 May 12 - 03:53 AM

It was a tory MP OK, DaveH; but one who appears to have the enviable distinction of being about the most stupidly aggressive selfrighteous {& arrogant} booby in the entire history of the Universe...

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 06 May 12 - 03:40 AM

There you go! According to my dear departed mum in law - an arch Anglo Argentine, posh is from Port Out Starboard Home, all to do with trans-atlantic crossings - 1st class naturally!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 06 May 12 - 03:33 AM

and don't forget bongo3legs, it was a tory MP who described ' call me Dave ' Cameron and Boy George Osborne ' as arrogant posh boys '

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 May 12 - 01:21 AM

Penny~~ Point taken; but from the semantic pov, can't help thinking you have overdefined the word 'posh' ···

Not but what it is one of those silly, imprecise, overused words, always with an overtone hostility - or at least irony; or else inaccuracy, as when applied to the future Mrs Beckham in her Spice Girls days; she was not the least bit posh in any sense, but was just taller & dressed a bit neater & looked a bit haughtier than the other girls.

Silly: as this word always is.

---

Remember the old joke; two girls with Welsh accents:

-"Have you heard about Megan? Getting married she is."

"Is she pregnant?"

"No."

"Oh! There is posh!"

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 May 12 - 06:43 PM

Having said that - didn't we all do daft things when we were young?

Some people keep doing it into old age - like buying the Daily mail!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Les from Hull
Date: 05 May 12 - 06:26 PM

That's a reference to the Bullingdon Club at Oxford, members of which also include our current PM and Chancellor. Similar behaviour by less privileged people would no doubt result in police action, fines and/or imprisonment. I say privileged because as undergraduates they would have had little time to earn the money they pay off the restaurant damages. But that's how the class system works. Good manners are not obligatory.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Penny S.
Date: 05 May 12 - 06:14 PM

And Boris and David and George all belonged to the club that did it. Obviously I can't say who was or was not involved in any particular activity of that club, but they thought it was OK to belong. It was not exactly a one-off.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 May 12 - 06:03 PM

Well then that is very stupid.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Penny S.
Date: 05 May 12 - 05:50 PM

posh = people who think it's OK to go into someone's business premises and trash it because they can pay for the damage afterwards? (And I know someone who directly knows a restaurateur that happened to in Oxford.) And it's OK because they talk proper?

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 05 May 12 - 05:08 PM

appears

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 05 May 12 - 05:07 PM

I think so too, Big Al. I also happen to think he's very very funny in a strange way. My husband can't get enough of him on TV, he laughs like a drain whenever he apears!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 May 12 - 05:05 PM

Boris must be quite bright. Didn't he edit The Economist, or something like that?

Having said that he does a pretty good impersonation of a complete dick. I think there must be a lot more to him than meets the eye.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 May 12 - 03:54 PM

I sure do appreciate your appreciation I really do here and now!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 May 12 - 03:53 PM

Not really a very impressive series of exchanges. Why do people feel they want to join in this pathetic kind of substitute for a discussion?

Personal abuse on the internet is really just a form of self abuse, but carried out in public.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 May 12 - 03:37 PM

"Jim Carroll the accuser again"
What moi??
Don't get me wrong Bozo - I'm not knocking.
I think we oiks are damned lucky really - on the one hand we've got Boris as an example of the intellect that goes into the making of a Tory, on the other, we have you as a reminder of its compassionate face.
Keep up the good work - it really is appreciated.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 May 12 - 03:28 PM

Jim Carroll the accuser again!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 May 12 - 02:10 PM

"Still better the "arrogant posh boy" as you put it than the "arrogant oik"."
Why favour one (admitted) arrogant prick over another - lack of speech impediment maybe - obviously a problem with you - along with blacks and lesbians, I seem to remember?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 May 12 - 01:59 PM

'I read the Daily Mail and I don't find Boris amusing, pleasing or appealing as any kind of leader or representative'

poor Boris. He seems a decent enough chap to me. all those people voted for him. he must have something.

But the Daily Mail. No. I get it for the free dvds occasionally. But I really can't stand to have the bloody thing in the house.

When I bought my Fostex eight track tape recorder in the 1980's. I said to this uncle of mine - who'd been an engineer all his life - you know Fostex took a team of a thousand design engineers like yourself to create this machine. When has England - even in wartime put together a team like that. Les ( a tory all his life, and his wife a tory councillor) said - England never has - that's why we're in the shit.

The Daily Mail stands for the right of rich posh gits never to invest in this country but to have the best this country has to offer. And it seees any little thing that working class people get their mits on as unforgiveable and unpatriotic.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 May 12 - 01:54 PM

Thankyou Eliza, I would like to get to the bottom of this word "posh" - often used by socialists.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 05 May 12 - 01:42 PM

Oy! Don't stereotype please, Big Al. I read the Daily Mail and I don't find Boris amusing, pleasing or appealing as any kind of leader or representative. Some of us oldies read the Daily Mail mainly for the puzzles and crossword (simple souls that we are) It doesn't mean that we are rampant Fascists. And reading Bonzo's posts on this thread, I don't see anything abusive. His comments seem interesting to me, it wasn't he who used the word w*****, was it?

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 May 12 - 01:27 PM

lisping fool = ed miliband

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 May 12 - 12:52 PM

not sure who the lisping fool is. when you try to talk with you Bonzo - its a bit difficult cos all you get is dumb right abuse.

abuse isn't conversation or very interesting comment.

for people not in some government sinecure - the tories are a black hole of minimalist laissez faire government. Huge unemployment figures and the infrastructure goes to hell cos theres no tax coming in.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 05 May 12 - 12:30 PM

From:Jorrox - PM
Date: 05 May 12 - 12:07 PM

Woodsie. Nationality is nothing to do with it. Wanker.
I believe 'Woodsie' was responding to the comment:
Can we take it that you do not like the Scots then woodsie you sound such a pleasant person.
The fact that Woodsie had referred to Scottish wanker Brown was (presumably) to narrow the search down amongst other wankers named Brown.
Describing Gordon Brown as Scottish is quite accurate. Describing him as an Onanist is a matter of personal opinion.

Cheers
Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Gavin Paterson
Date: 05 May 12 - 12:07 PM

Woodsie. Nationality is nothing to do with it. Wanker.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 May 12 - 11:59 AM

I can't quite get to grips with this "posh" business. Is it that someone who speaks properly is posh, or do your sort regard speaking badly as being normal?

There were two young men mumbling something about one pound and a bowl at a fruit stall in Croydon's Surrey Street Market this afternoon - I suggested that their way of speaking would be excellent for playing Bill & Benn the Flowerpot Men!!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,Woodsie
Date: 05 May 12 - 11:49 AM

There you go! just because Brown & Goodwin happen to be both wankers and scottish and I hate them both deeply. You assume that I don't like scottish people. YesI am a pleasant person Megan and will not pre-judge a person because of a post on this forum!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 May 12 - 10:54 AM

Not half so tragic as if (perish the thought) the lisping fool ever became PM.

Not half so tragic as the 13 years of total labour bumbledom!

Still better the "arrogant posh boy" as you put it than the "arrogant oik".

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 May 12 - 10:46 AM

should Boris be leading the party...? He effortlessly exudes that patrician/ Macmillan type style that Daily mail readers find so appealing. Like Thatcher, he understands the tory zeitgeist with every fibre of his being.

Whereas Cameron seems like last years model. He was Blair Mk2, to counter the Labour/Rank Charm School approach.

It would be funny - if it were the script of a comedy film. As the propective leaders of a great nation - its bloody tragic.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Will Fly
Date: 05 May 12 - 10:22 AM

Mmm... Before you get to triumphalist, Bonz, take a look at the wider local elections scene. Not too good for Cameron on the whole. One swallow doesn't make a summer, and one Boris doesn't make a trend.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 05 May 12 - 09:55 AM

I agree that the man was fairly elected after due process. But what I particularly dislike about him is his studied 'bumbling buffoon' persona. He likes to come across as a rather endearing, benign and harmless twit. My guess is he's nothing of the sort. My late old friend would have said, "Him? Woi, he's as cunning as a whool crate er monkeys, make nooo mistake!"

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 May 12 - 09:42 AM

Was intrigued with the idea that Johnson might just be the next Prime Minister - a lobotomised 'arrogant posh boy' at the helm - now that would really be telling it as it.
Was also intrigued to hear him shrugging off the idea with all the sincerity of a latter-day Richard III.
Funny old world!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 May 12 - 09:27 AM

Certainly not brown!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Megan L
Date: 05 May 12 - 09:02 AM

Can we take it that you do not like the Scots then woodsie you sound such a pleasant person.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,Woodsie
Date: 05 May 12 - 08:45 AM

At the end of the day this is democracy and if you don't like it go and live in some other shithole - tough! What really defies logic is the people whinging about what was a fair democratic process. Whatever shit happens over the next 4 years and beyond will be mainly due to the state this country was left in by that Scottish wanker Brown who sold all our gold at rock-bottom price and gave what money that was left to his fellow Scottish banker scum!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: GUEST,woodsie
Date: 05 May 12 - 08:38 AM

"Of course, Livingstone has, as before, the honour of not being elected when his count was almost a million votes.

When you consider most politicians have a few thousand at best...."

That's a bit stupid "most politicians" are elected in a smaller constiuency or ward. The Mayoral election was across whole of London! and Ken got LESS votes than Boris.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 May 12 - 07:58 AM

Boris reminds me a bit of Michael Foot- all the huffing and puffing. An odd cove.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Musket
Date: 05 May 12 - 07:04 AM

Of course, Livingstone has, as before, the honour of not being elected when his count was almost a million votes.

When you consider most politicians have a few thousand at best....

One interesting aspect is how political parties think all votes are based on their policies and performance. London Mayor election bucked the national trend to the effect that this truly had to be a personality vote.

It is bemusing to think that both Mayors have treated their domain in exactly the same way as GLC was run under Livingstone many years ago. So Cameron was congratulating Johnson on his interventionist almost socialist policies.

And they said irony is dead....

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: s&r
Date: 05 May 12 - 05:30 AM

PS John Sargeant had the grace to remove himself from the contest...

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: s&r
Date: 05 May 12 - 05:28 AM

There is a mischief about voting intentions that defies logic. John Sargeant was repeatedly voted for in Come Dancing. Electing Boris is as illogical: the only suitable opponent in these circumstances is Miss Piggy.

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Newport Boy
Date: 05 May 12 - 04:34 AM

Talk about turkeys voting for Christmas! Londoners have no right to complain for the next 4 years.

Subject: BS: Welcome back Boris
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 May 12 - 03:37 AM

And good ridance to red livingstone.