Move over Mr Shakespeare.

Gerraway. Well fancy that.

You've got it all worked out haven't you.

A lollipop is winging it's way as we speak. Don't forget to read the instructions or you could ask your teacher if you can't read yet.

By strange coincidence I also went for a haircut today. I told the barber I hated Boris Johnson and he said everybody who has been in for the last month said the same. "He's a fat public school twat who loves bankers and should be strung up like Mussolini.," he said. "That's remarkable, you sound exactly like me, it is almost like you're a figment of my imagination," I replied. Then his head melted so I just bought a banana and left.

I also visited the barbers today, I got there via a train that featured old ladies talking about golliwogs and next door neighbors who post on forums. You know, the usual people who travel by train.

It must be national haircut day.
My barber's name is John.
John doesn't like bananas.
He does like trains though.
I walked to my barbers.
He hasn't got any customers who are elderly ladies with golliwogs.
He is an ex miner.

Oh I forgot.
.None of my neighbours were in the barbers.
An ex workmate of mine was though.
He was next after me.
He has a beard.
He didn't have any bananas.
His name is Scott.
He thinks Corbyn is an arsehole.
His wife is expecting a baby.

This thread is proof of the extent to which the tories have cut mental health services.

This is not about Anti Semitism, its about MONEY and the Labour left's support of PALESTINE

Anyone see the tory fool on question time trying to make his 50,000 nurses number up. It is unbelievable they are allowed to keep saying stuff without being arrested.

It seems they're very offended by this. Could you perhaps call them...snowflakes

It’s fairly clear the Tory think tank are well aware of what they have as a leader right now and they can’t risk putting him on live television or under any sort of scrutiny or he’ll unravel. While Corbyn is a looney and a danger according to the white van man that they want to con into voting for them without offering anything that will actually make his life better. Meanwhile those capable of independent thought who don’t just follow what the Daily Mail and Sun tell them to do can see that if Corbyn was a ‘car crash’ on TV the other night Johnson would be a multi car pile up.

It’s an absolute scandal that people are allowing themselves to be hoodwinked so easily. In a lot of ways these people deserve exactly what is about to come to them. But it’s also so sad. An entire election campaign headed by a buffoon saying three totally misleading and undeliverable words ‘get Brexit done’ keeping the buffoon away from real scrutiny and smearing the other side with totally unfounded lies. But mugs are actually allowing themselves to fall for it. Unbelievable.

I hope they try to do that. They will get destroyed.

Johnson is clearly avoiding scrutiny. He is delaying the interview with andrew neil until at least after the postal vote is over. He avoided the climate change one and there will be more. The biggest political fraud in history. And will still win cos its brexit innit.

https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status ... 0759089159

A british prime minister sends his own dad to a leaders debate prior to a General election. This fella is lowering the bar so far even the gutter refuses to entertain him.

https://twitter.com/BBCBreakfast/status ... 1021290496

The BBC seem to be defending Johnson not turning up here as well. And they are meant to show no bias. "Talks are ongoing"

[quote="horden"]

This is not about Anti Semitism, its about MONEY and the Labour left's support of PALESTINE

thankyou mr.horden. about time that fact is realised. he is not the first either to be called an anti semite or a holocaust denier after their criticsm of israel as a country and support of the arabs. seems you can knock certain countries more than others for me.

Lot of anger and frustration on here this morning.
Calm down lads and watch the blood pressure.
The irony is you know the answer as to why the tories can do what they like and have been getting away with murder for nine years. It is right in front of your nose but you can't see it.
If Johnson is all the things you say he is and is the buffoon you say he is, you should be rejoicing because that is the only chance nice Mr Corbyn has of being PM.
Corbyn could get elected with the help of a buffoon, so you should be encouraging that.
On a light hearted note did you know that Michael Gove is Boris Johnson's Dad. Yes it is true. Mr John McDonnell confirmed it on the news this morning.
On a serious note. Andrew Neil treat Jeremy Corbyn terribly and without respect and people rightfully are annoyed. I don't like Corbyn but he should be treat with respect by journos, who get away with murder on a daily basis.
The answer to that problem, on here anyway, is that everyone else should get the same treatment. The Andrew Neil treatment. Two wrongs don't make a right, as they say.
Andrew Neil is a nasty, horrible man and his tactics and disrespect should be stamped on.
Personally , knowing his track record, I wouldn't go anywhere near his studio until he showed a bit, no a lot more, respect.
Andrew Neil isn't the only one who behaves like this and it has to stop. The problem is though, everyone politician breaks his or her neck to get in front of the cameras and that encourages these nasty journos.
The other thing that crosses my mind is these television debates. Each party should have an equal chance to put across their message and we should be able to scrutinise them all. On top of that it shouldn't be just the leaders, we should go a bit deeper to maybe assess their strength in depth or lack of it, as the case may be. Where are the budding Foreign secretaries, Health, Defence, Home, Education, Environment secretaries etc etc etc.
Lets have a look at them under the spotlight.
I have to say I admire the stamina of Corbyn. He is 70 for God's sake. Share the bloody load. Where are the leader's deputies in all this. Why do the leaders have to be centre stage, get a few more of their team up to sing.

So you too think Michael Gove is his Dad????????????

Scraping the barrel a bit there, Dibbsy.

[quote="Watching from afar"]https://twitter.com/BBCBreakfast/status/1200337261021290496

The BBC seem to be defending Johnson not turning up here as well. And they are meant to show no bias. "Talks are ongoing"[/quote

The next time the BBC treat everything with no bias will be the first.

I sometimes wonder which planet you're on Dibbsy.

Sorry going back to this old point but i worked for a number of research charities and pharma companies and now for one of said US pharmaceutical companies specialising in policy and can i just throw in some facts here about all of this. Yes, government does meet with US and UK EU Japanese companies, and drug prices in this country are a particular hot topic. It's no secret that drug prices here in the UK are some of the lowest in the world, and the US is actually coming under increasing pressure to lower them in the states themselves. The big risk is if drug prices are too low and barely cover the cost of manufacture then there's a real risk that drugs don't even get launched here. Now ok, should such profit be made on medicines? That's a bigger question and has meany ethical points and i have no answer to that, but, R&D has to be paid for and jesus that's expensive. £1.2b to bring one medicine to market. That's one out of thousands of candidates that fail at various stages and still cost money.

The problem with Labour on this is they've completely missed some fundamentals. Firstly £500m a week going to US pharma. That figure is based on if every branded medicines was sold to the NHS at US prices. Problem is that's all medicines, not just ones from US companies so most of that £500m will actually go to UK, Swiss, Japanese companies. Then, we have NICE and NHSE Commissioning. NICE asses whether the drugs are cost effective at the price negotiated with pharma. If not deemed cost effective then no access or money. Then NHSE C decide whether they can afford it before giving it the green light in formularies. So raising drug prices too much instantly fail these two tests. Then there's something called VPAS which used to be known as PPRS. This allows the NHS to use branded medicines and the bill is capped to a 2% rise each year. If the NHS uses more medicines and pays more than the 2% that money is rebated to the treasury and is built into all NHS budget calculations. So how and where this extra £500m is coming from i have no idea as mechanically it cannot happen for the next 4 years.

Then there's the stripping of patents off pharma companies and making everything generic. This does mean that pharma will no longer invest in the UK (It's currently the 3rd biggest R&D and export sector in our country). That's a big hit to the economy. If you're not paying for the "innovation" and by that i mean all the research and development then the arse falls completely out of it and there are no new treatments. So think about all those advances in cancer recently. They won't be here in the UK. There will be no funding in clinical trials and importantly no funding into research with academia or hospitals, which the Labour plan relies heavily on. Now there will still be research here by academia, but with at least 60% of it being funded by "big pharma" it will not be the level of what it is now. In addition, to my point above, could academia or a publically owned body be prepared to spend up to 10 years and near £900m on research before going actually this isn't going to work...let's can it, not a chance. So there are some big flaws in the Labour policy that would be extremely damaging to the economy.

Finally, to add some balance, as i'm not promoting the Tories here, i just wanted to highlight policy problems, i will also do so with Tory plans. 40,000 extra nurses? Won't happen until we bring back bursaries or offset funding where your training is free as long as you stay in the NHS for 5-10 years. And to go right into detail, extending the Cancer Drugs Fund which there should be absolutely no need for is a disaster. All drugs should be funded by NHSE and assessed by NICE. Going through a side vent because they cost more either means they are costing too much or NICE and NHS assessment needs reform to build in the complexity of these drugs and administration. Then Boris targeting anti vaxers and potentially bringing in mandatory vaccination. Misses the point completely, antivax is not a huge problem. making services available and funding them is, all things mandatory vaccination won't fix and just put pressure on until they are fixed.

So anyway, my point in short. I love this talk of the NHS being properly funded, it is what's needed. But be very careful buying into the rhetoric behind getting rid of privatisation (actually brought in by Labour in 2009 under Any Willing Provider). Both parties have some pretty awful plans in this area but please don't be conned by Labour's policy just because you love the NHS. There are some things in it which could mean the NHS won't be able to even treat you as well as most other countries in the world as we just don't have the treatments anymore. We do some really great science in this country and yes, pharma is funding the majority of it, but at the end we get new treatments so it's not all utterly evil. Don't kill the golden goose and all that just because you hate profits, it's just the way the world works, and many of us are alive today because of the work that some scientists have done. let's not throw all that away

Personally I would rather scrutinise the guy who recently was responsible for the environment and expose his record.
I think there should be more of that.
When I see Corbyn or Johnson appear on TV, I tend to switch off my attention. It's same old same old.
The only exception I make is Jo Swinson for obvious reasons.

I have always looked first at who is responsible for the department, John. So I suppose it is habit.
I would like to see accountability and responsibility scrutinised a bit deeper. Obviously the buck stops with the leader, but that's not to say we can't look at other ways of sorting things.
I would rather see the guy who is in charge of the environment on a daily basis than the PM of three months, who's only interest is brexit. If he says get brexit done one more time I'll strangle the bastard.

If we have all the heads of the various departments available why do we always need the leader, especially if we're only focussing on one subject.
I'm not against having the leader, I just want to see another face and hear another voice now and again.
There is an event tonight to which neither Corbyn or Johnson are attending, so it shows it can be done.
Let's have more of it.
Each to his own of course.

I wish it was Dec 13th.

The Welsh guy is dominating this debate and rebecca long bailey is getting murdered.
Sorry guys, as I suspected there is no depth in the labour party.
Should we have abbott up next???????????

The Welsh guy is controlling this debate and Rebecca long Bailey is getting murdered.
Should we have abbott up next???

You really have lost the plot Derwent, either that or my tv is playing up, because the debate I saw tonight, it was the other way around, the welsh bloke spoke like a man off the street, decent bloke, well intentioned but came across as a bit of an amateur, whereas RLB stole the show for me.

At the end of the day even if you saw it that way, you wouldn't admit to it, biased and poisoned, what the hell happened to you? you never used to be this bad.

RLB was awful, what was with all the bunny ears quote Marks? It's scary that she is the shadow business secretary

All wallpaper. Most of the country will have switched off when they saw that Boris and Grandpa weren't on.

I've stopped watching coverage now because the other parties are just fighting for scraps. It's a third place play off game now with the only question being how massive Boris's majority will be..

SSSHHHH. Don't tell Mr Horden, unless you can get past his blinkers.

I've got to admit these "debates" are getting boring.
It's as if these would be pretenders are deliberately trying to get Bojo elected.
I'd like to see some fun in the debates, get Abbott on and let's have a good laugh..

I can see it now.
Interviewer...................Well Diane how do you think the election is going?
Abbott..........................What election?

Ah yes the old Dianne Abbott rubbish. Tell me, wheres jacob rees mogg? After his appalling grenfell comments? Ah but she's female and black isn't she?

Avoid the election stuff, mostly lightweight aged students with delusions of adequacy swearing black is white and with the brass neck to keep a straight face while they do it.
Only thing that I recorded was Andrew Neil’s interview with Corbyn, just love how he drills for answers, cuts the sound bite shite off at the knees and thanks politicians for allowing him to humiliate them while the hold back a scowl.

[quote="Watching from afar"]Ah yes the old Dianne Abbott rubbish. Tell me, wheres jacob rees mogg? After his appalling grenfell comments? Ah but she's female and black isn't she?[/quote

Give in on Rees Mogg........where is he?
Yes she is female and black.

Just had a conversation with a lady who told me she did not qualify for labour's promised hand out to the waspis.
I heard McDonnell specifically say on TV that all the women who's retirement date had been extended past 60 would be reimbursed under labour and he referred to it as robbery.
I told her this and she said she was born in August 1960, was due to retire next August, had planned for it but now had to work until she was 66. She reckoned it would cost her the thick end of £50k
So why won't she be compensated under McDonnell's promise
Is it only for women born before 1960?
Can anybody explain?

I've found out for myself. Apparently labour's promise of compensation applies only to women born between april 1955 and april 1960.
The lady is going to miss out by a few months even though she is working six years longer.
I think most people would be peeved with that.
Never mind eh??

If she doesn't fall within those dates she's not a Waspi , unlucky but it is what it is. At least Labour intend compensating those that do, your new party aren't going to, and its your new party who raised the retirement age to 66 in the first place, and if they continue to be in government intend raising it again, though irrelevant really if you work for the TSB, N-Power or Tata Steel.

I do find it strange though that the Waspi women are not campaigning to retire at 60 just the compensation. I have a lady friend who if she could get her pension could afford to retire at 60 and wants to, but she has to now work till 66 as well.

You might be right about a new party but not the tories, not for me. No thanks.I'd rather abstain.
I wish you extremists had formed a new party instead of hi jacking mine. You haven't got the guts because you know that, by yourselves, you would get nowhere.
I don't know who it was but someone said the other day, if labour don't win this time and then still keep corbyn, they are risking going into oblivion.
Can't argue with that and I don't want that but I think it's inevitable. The country don't want reds under our beds.
If labour do win I'll accept it because I believe in democracy and abiding by the will of the people, unlike some I could mention.
As for voting tory you couldn't be wider of the mark but you're entitled to your opinion but if that is an example of your judgement, don't back horses.

You can come down here and watch me vote if you like, if you're so interested in who I vote for.
Put your money where your mouth is so to speak. Or I could say put up or shut up but I'm too polite for that, as you know.

Firstly, I'll have you know , I'm no extremist , far from it, and have guts to spare.

A new party is a good idea, but I don't think there would be enough support, certainly in the short term, and thanks to the rampant capitalism of the tories and neo- liberalism of New Labour destruction of this country time is something we don't have, if we wish to save the country before it goes past the point of no return, if it hasn't already. With that in mind we decided to hi jack our own party and save it from the sycophants who nearly destroyed it. What a great job we did, young people joining in droves and old neo- liberals leaving like lemmings jumping off a cliff.

I can see its Socialism more than anything else that you dislike. This proves what I have said before about Bliars Labour, if it attracted people like you then clearly something was wrong, and something was wrong as outlined above ( neo-liberalism ).

If Labour lose, and I think they will, Corbyn will have to go, and would probably want to go. I just hope the party stays on its Socialist course as opposed to lurching back to the right and neo-liberalism, the ideology that is the cause of many of todays problems and certainly isn't the answer to them.

Why don't you just tell us who you are voting for? what's to hide? what is there to be ashamed of? You know how I am voting, have you got the guts to tell us how you are voting?.

Get yourself down to the Diamond Bar tonight , a good left wing gig on , proceeds to Doncaster flood victims

I keep saying the same thing, there is no party that appeals to me so I'll probably abstain. I have always preached that everybody should vote and I have never failed to vote in a general election. I now realise that it was easy to vote in the past because I had a party to vote for and now that party has gone, nothing else appeals to me.
We all support the Donny flood victims round here and we were on the verge of being victims ourselves.
We were nearly cut off and only had one road open at the height of it.
We are about to go round to our daughters for the evening so won't be going to any bar. I'm assuming you mean the bar in Wood St.
I have been here since 1978 and I have rarely been in Donny on Saturday night. I don't usually drink in Donny. It's a bloody madhouse. I prefer to drink locally. We have some excellent places which we can walk to both for a meal and/or a drink.

I might add that I was a member of the labour party over fifty years ago long before Mr Blair came on the scene.
My first vote went to Wilson and Leadbitter

[quote]Ah yes the old Dianne Abbott rubbish. Tell me, wheres jacob rees mogg? After his appalling grenfell comments? Ah but she's female and black isn't she?/quote]

Cheap shot - it's nothing to do with race or sex, just the fact she us embarrassingly incompetent

[quote]Ah yes the old Dianne Abbott rubbish. Tell me, wheres jacob rees mogg? After his appalling grenfell comments? Ah but she's female and black isn't she?/quote]

Cheap shot - it's nothing to do with race or sex, just the fact she us embarrassingly incompetent

No. It's a fact. What Mogg said was more stupid and more offensive than anything she has said. If only he had been black and female he would have been in the papers for weeks after what he said. She is a huge target of the right wing media.

Oh like 300k for an extra 10,000 police officers, or was she just making up the economics as she went along like the rest of the labour party?

Phil I'm not sticking up for him or any politician,but have you actually listened to the interview from which you are extracting your comments from? I assume not. The problem currently is people taking snippets to support their own view, whatever that may be, and spreading it as #fact

Phil I'm not sticking up for him or any politician,but have you actually listened to the interview from which you are extracting your comments from? I assume not. The problem currently is people taking snippets to support their own view, whatever that may be, and spreading it as #fact

The victims and families of grenfell are the ones that should be listened to here and they despise mogg for his comments. Defending him is crass.

Isn't that half the issue- I've listened to enough of it therefore I will take a view on what I've heard - rather than an informed view of the facts. I'm not having a go at you, but for this election people have to dig their head out of the hole of iv'e voted labour/tory/libs all my life and therefore that's the way I will vote and vote to get back to a sensible way of being

Yes and that's exactly what I am doing. The Tories talk about nothing but Brexit and too many working class people have fallen for it. Brexit will do nothing for northern England yet some see it as their holy grail. I am trying to save them from themselves

What was so terrible about what JRM said?

If you’ve got any sense and you’re in a burning building you would get out. Seems perfectly sensible to me.

What was so terrible..... Jesus.

You know it’s bad when you say something that Boris Johnson might sack you for. Where do you start with what he said? What was right about it? Even if he was right to say what he did (he wasn’t) his comments were deeply offensive the implication is that someone of his intelligence would have survived is absolutely vile. 72 people died in that fire to make such comments is crass and insensitive in the extreme it shows a total lack of empathy and humanity. The Tories are not actually very good with humanity are they especially if those humans are poor?