92 ‘Bad language, personal nastiness or posts that are overly long, tangential or simply tedious may be deleted and their authors may be subject to temporary or permanent bans.’

Oooh glad we dont have that kind of behaviour here!

92 ‘Note that asterisked swear words still read as swear words’

what about # or ~

94 – The repeat of my appearance was on today I think so you might have caught that.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00c6xmc/Eggheads_Series_9_Episode_71/

I have not knowingly been on anything since but my lovely new wife makes episodic cameos in her dad’s programme on BBCNI.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0103v9b/Dereks_Dreaming_Again_Episode_1

IoS @100

I have just listened to the Skynews paper reviewers discussing it!! You didn’t even bother to add a link either.

94 BTW Judith Keppel from Eggheads (and the first “Millionaire” winner) is 69 in two months’ time……. wearing well that’s for sure.

Fitalass

So what has no money left got to do with defending the front page?

Lucian Fletcher @103

I hadn’t realised you had appeared on this programme!! My Mum and my Aunt are huge fans of it. So a PBeer on Eggheads and Chris A was on mastermind. Impressive. Wasn’t another regular on the Krypton Factor as well?

103 94 – The repeat of my appearance was on today I think so you might have caught that.

Precisely – a pretty good memory of mine don’t you think?

IoS @109

Quite a lot if you bother to follow the detail rather than the Mirror’s spin on it.

PfP the local fat cats need sorting but it is their employers, not the government, who have to do it.

Who voted for a local councillor recently who is not committed to removing these leeches?

I suppose it is easier to blame the government – this or any other government – rather than ourselves.

113 – Pretty impressive

LOL

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2003431/A-slop-bucket-home-Another-U-turn-Coalition-says-families-recycle-food-scraps.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

chris_g00 @27
We might as well have Ed Miliband as PM if he does.

I had no idea there were so many game show celebrities here, I’ll ask for autographs at the next meetup. I think my appearance on Brainteaser in 2006 will put me near the back of the queue though.

100

‘You know they are actually having a go at Cameron for spending money on a never ending war!’

Has the Mirror already forgotten that Afghanistan has been running for 11 years and that was Labour’s war?

HAS highlighted**

127

Switch resources from Afghanistan which after 11 years of going nowhere is clearly a complete waste of time.

129 Small wonder then that La Keppel looked so good for her age!

OK, here’s a test:

Thanks fitalass @92

toryorange @134
Did you do the HTML code for the hyperlink yourself? Edmund in Tokyo has kindly produced a widget to do it automatically by inserting a reply link under every post!

http://edmundintokyo.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/a-more-efficient-way-to-waste-time-on-politicalbetting-com-firefox-only/

Works in Firefox and Chrome.

135 – I didn’t watch it myself. Just a couple of facebook comments led me to know the repeat was on.

toryorange @134

You are welcome toryorange.

I like the idea of Peter Capaldi as the voice over for the Tesco mobiles ads.

141 Boy – is he going to get some stick from away crowds next season.

133

First we were going to defeat Al Queda,then it was to educate girls,then give the Afghans a constitution,then introduce democracy,then defeat the drugs trade,not to mention the various infrastructure projects,get rid of the Taliban and allow the Afghan government to pass laws to legalise rape in marriage.

And that was just some of New Labour’s objectives for Afghanistan 11 years ago,billions of taxpayers money spent and massive sacrifices from our troops.

Anyone got a clue what’s been achieved and why we should be there any longer?

fitalass @137
We could have abolished Overseas Aid, refused to bail out Euro Countries, stopped wasting money on ‘green’ projects.

We have no strategic interest in Afghanistan. It’s not worth the life of one British soldier. As for Libya, strategic interest is minimal, and has just served to highlight our weakness. We beg the Americans to keep us in a special relationship, I’m at a loss as to why they will for much longer as we degrade our own capability.

143/144 – He’s a legend in Wales.

For the first time in living memory, jokes about a Welshman having sex don’t involve sheep.

chris_g00 @148

You don’t see over seas aid, or the vaccination programme in particular, as being absolutely vital to countries abroad and us at home on so many fronts?

150 – “For the first time in living memory, jokes about a Welshman having sex don’t involve sheep.”

They do in a hilarious version I heard…

@146 With Bin Laden having been killed and the Taliban ousted from power we most certainly should withdraw now. Are we all out of Iraq yet ?
As for Libya, we need to oust Gaddaffi similiarly to how Gbagbo was outed in Ivory Coast, hes got British blood on his hands and thats good enough for me.

154 – You have to share it now Neil, it is past the lagershed after all.

155 If not the spelling of [adopted] names!

158 – I’m afraid I was bluffing. Though if one comes to me in my sleep I will post it tomorrow (after the lagershed!). Night!

Latecomer to this thread but I always try to comment on this subject – the number blaming Labour to some degree remains remarkably consistently in the low 60s, where it’s been for the best part of a year.

Surely EdM can’t win without getting that number below 50%.

FPT Sean Fear:

“Hampstead isn’t Inner London, and would have gone Conservative without boundary changes that favoured Labour.

The problem was the London-wide result, not the Inner London result. The Conservatives do reasonably well in Inner London. It’s Outer London where the problem lies. But, I do take your point, that the Conservatives spent ages trying to win posh left wingers over who hated them, and still voted against them, while neglecting people lower down the scale.

That cost them their majority. Cameron is awkward with C1s C2s in a way that Thatcher and Tebbit never were.”

Hampstead is Inner London, its in Camden.

Now granted the constituency is Hampstead and Kilburn and Kilburn is in Brent (and so Outer London) but the larger part is Hampstead and Kilburn itself is rather urban trendy. And yes the Conservatives were ahead in the Hampstead section but without Kilburn (which up to the election had a LibDem MP in Sarah Teather) the constituency would have been a 2 way marginal rather than 3 way, to the advantage of Labour.

The Conservatives did reasonably well vote wise in Inner London but gained no seats apart from Battersea which was a foregone conclusion. And its seats that count. The result was especially disappointing to them as so much effort had been put into the likes of Hammersmith, Tooting and Westminster N where they had high profile ‘Tatler Tory’ candidates. Picking up an extra thousand votes in Islington or Streatham achieved nothing for the Conservatives especially as this tended to be at the expense of gaining extra votes in the midlands and north where it would have been much more useful.

The results in Outer London weren’t actually too bad for the Conservatives with gains in Harrow E, Hendon, Finchley, Enfield N, Ealing Acton, Brentford and Richmond Park. The Conservatives doing okay in the outer ring of constituencies but very poorly in the half way out seats such as Ealing N, Brent N, Ilford S and Eltham, places where demographic change has been significant. The only really disappointing defeat for the Conservatives in Outer London was Eltham (another constituency which had a candidate from the chosen few).

As to the appeal of Cameron – I don’t blame him for his lack of natural appeal to the C1s and C2s as his background is so different to theirs (while Thatcher and Tebbit came from them). What does deserve blame though is Cameron’s seeming preference for surrounding himself with people of a similar background and for continually thinking that everybody shares the same interests as him.

The answer to the thread question is:
At least 10 years, probably a lot more – say until the additional;debt accumulated over their 13 years in power is entirely paid off (say – 2040).

‘Labour bankrupted the country yet again – keep them out for ever’ is a powerful message and will last at least until the next global recession is over and forgotten about.

Yellow.

chris_g00 @148

The interest in Afghanistan is that they are next door to Pakistan, and if the terrorists think they’ve won in Afghanistan they might just turn their attentions to Pakistan. Nuclear weapon in hands of non-state elements: not good

HD2 @178
Me – taxing houses is easy, though, since avoiding the tax is all but impossible.

Local councils (counties?) should have their own sales taxes, though, in exchange for all but scrapping the Central Govt grant.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/julianastle/100092232/this-scalp-hunting-could-destroy-the-lib-dems/

As the leader of a party with no hope of winning an outright majority at the next election, he can’t afford for coalition to become a by-word for fractious or divided government. If voters are determined to avoid another hung parliament in 2015, the Lib Dems could be squeezed almost out of existence.

Until recently, the good reputation of coalition politics seemed secure; relations between the governing parties were harmonious at the top, constructive and businesslike further down. Not so today. The relationship between the Prime Minister and his deputy has cooled, just as the relationship between their parties has become dangerously overheated. Reports of Conservative MPs shouting “Let’s get the yellow bastards!” at a meeting of the backbench 1922 committee underline just how bad things have become.

Unsurprisingly, this is having an impact on public attitudes. A recent study by the Institute for Government think tank found that, after strong early support for the idea of parties working together in coalitions, a majority of voters have now turned against it, believing single-party governments to be stronger, more decisive and less confused. This may not concern the Conservatives; it should scare the pants off the Lib Dems.

“Hospitals in the West Midlands have been exposed for trying to hide the true level of deaths on their wards.

Stafford and Walsall hospitals declared hundreds of extra patients as being terminally ill in order to remove their deaths from the hospital mortality rates – making the trusts look like they were delivering better care.

The number of patients designated as “terminal” by bosses at Walsall Manor Hospital increased from around 10 per cent to 78 per cent of all deaths, during a six-month period in 2008.

Meanwhile, at Stafford the figures shot up from around 10 per cent to 35 per cent. The revelations emerged at the public inquiry into poor standards at Stafford Hospital which heard evidence from death rates expert Professor Sir Brian Jarman.

He also told the inquiry that more than 20,000 people may have died as a result of poor care at hospitals across the West Midlands over the past 13 years.”

Read more: http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2011/06/14/hospitals-in-deaths-cover-up/#ixzz1PKEHtPq4

HD2 @178
Agree with you on the rightness, in principle, of the community charge; not sure that removing Labour voters from the register was ever an aim.

On fly tipping, you can make the fines as massive as you like but without enforcement there’s really no point. As it is, police forces often don’t take crimes such as burglary seriously. I can imagine the conversation when trying to report a mattress left in a lay-by (after two days trying to get through on the phone) “And just how is this affecting you, sir?”

Good article by Matthew Norman summarising well what I have been thinking about David Miliband:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/matthew-norman/matthew-norman-shame-on-david-miliband-for-dragging-his-party-down-2297369.html

There are definite elements of the Heath huff here. If he is not going to play he should get out sharpish and get a real job.

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/leftwatch/2011/06/blair-interview-new-labour-then-new-labour-now-new-labour-forever.html

176. Looks as though Oliver Letwin must have changed his name by deed poll. The poll tax came from the work of Lord Rothschild, William Walegrave and Kenneth Baker in 1986 although it was originally considered in a Green Paper in 1981 when the real Oliver Letwin appears to be working in America.

Alternatively, timmy is having another of his flights of fancy. Perhaps he should really be trying to understand how the Shadow CoE was the real author of introducing and then abolishing the 10p tax rate, abolishing “boom and bust” and designing the tripartite system of regulation that collapse in a heap when tested.

To enable the Labour Party to tell the big lie over the NHS, it is necessary first to get the intimidated bureaucrats to tell 20,000 “little” lies.