Irish State Aid (Banking)

The Irish stock market reacted positively to the decision by the Government to guarantee all deposits and borrowings for the six Irish-owned banks for the next two years.

But is this 'State Aid' and is it in contravention of EC Treaty (Article 87(1)) (ex Article 92)

Save as otherwise provided in this Treaty, any aid granted by a Member State or through State resources in any form whatsoever which distorts or threatens to distort competition by favouring certain undertakings or the production of certain goods shall, insofar as it affects trade between Member States, be incompatible with the common market.

So what about http://www.halifax.ie/ customers.

If I were Irish and had money in any other bank that was instituted to trade in Southern Ireland, I would withdraw my money and place it in one of the 6 protected Irish banks

Oh what a tangled web our politicians weaved when set out to citizenry deceive.
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Peasants Revolt

American politicians have dramatically voted against a $700bn bailout.

Tonight's decision of the US Congress to vote against the bailout of Wall Street has prompted disbelief among traders who accused politicians of putting their own interests ahead of those of the American people.

However, it should be noted, that Congressmen represent the people and they can hear the mood of the people and the people they say no

Where is Britains 21st century Watt Tyler.

Remember.... VAT is a European Union stealth TAX and the EU has been responsible for our failed Banking regulations.
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That Reshuffle

Revolting ministers could delay Gordon Brown's cabinet reshuffle. Plans to announce a new ministerial team at the end of the week may be shelved in the latest sign of tensions in the Labour ranks.

Geoff Hoon, the Labour chief whip, has become the latest Cabinet minister to put pressure on the Prime Minister over the future shape of his Government.



Other ministers, including David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, and Alan Johnson, have publicly said they want to remain in their current posts after a reshuffle.
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Another Fine Mess

This morning as the Conservative Party start their search for the Lonesome Pine in Birmingham, Alistair Darling has announced that the government will take control of Bradford & Bingley's .£41bn of mortgages and its personal loans, along with all its other debts.



Bunged and Badly

The deal increases the UK taxpayers' exposure to the deteriorating housing market, on top of the £100bn already guaranteed to Northern Rock.

Should have gone to speculation savers
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fundamental Secularism !!??

Bail Out

As the Tory Party "faff'" about and gather for their greenfest in Birmingham, Butch Brown and Sundance Darling are reportedly preparing nationalisation contingency plans in case there is no buyer for the stricken Bradford & Bingley.



It is interesting to note that Banco Santander do not have offices in Bolivia

You really will have to keep up with my sense of humour

RIP PN
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conference eve

Despite some signs of a "Brown bounce" following Labour's conference last week in Manchester. Tories have started to gather in Birmingham for their party conference, buoyed by their continuing opinion poll lead over Labour.



In an eve of conference interview, Tory leader David Cameron promised to present "a strong, clear, united Conservative party that is an alternative to a Government that's failed".

End of the Anglican crown

Moves to end the 300-year-long ban on Roman Catholics taking the throne and on eldest daughters succeeding as monarch are being seriously considered by Downing Street, it has been reported by the The Guardian

The constitutional reforms were included in proposals drawn up for Prime Minister Gordon Brown by Labour MP Chris Bryant.

It is said Downing Street would like the legislation to be passed quickly in a fourth term and Bryant briefed a constitutional pressure groups on the plans at a private seminar in Manchester this week.

Well let me point out that this is't going to happen

The Crown belongs to all sixteen Commonwealth Realms and whatever the House of Commons may debate, let alone legislate, it will affect all of Her Majesty's subjects outside the Kingdom.

It is for this purpose that the Statute of Westminster 1931 requires:

"that any alteration in the law touching the Succession to the Throne or the Royal Style and Titles shall hereafter require the assent as well of the Parliaments of all the Dominions as of the Parliament of the United Kingdom."

And whereas it is in accord with the established constitutional position that no law hereafter made by the Parliament of the United Kingdom shall extend to any of the said Dominions as part of the law of that Dominion otherwise than at the request and with the consent of that Dominion:

Update:

After Anoneumouse sent emails to number 10 Downing Street and to the egregious, shirt lifting Chris Bryant MP , Downing Street are now playing down that it is considering moves to end the ban on Roman Catholics taking the throne.

A Downing Street spokesman has said: "To bring about changes to the law on succession would be a complex undertaking involving amendment or repeal of a number of items of related legislation, as well as requiring the consent of legislatures of member nations of the Commonwealth."
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"ironique et eurosceptique"

Everybody should read this and follow the link



The EU Sceptic blog site England Expects has been consigned to the dustbin of history.

Gawain Towler the Press officer of the UK delegation to the European Union Parliament's Ind/Dem Group, who writes the blog explains why here

UPDATE: and more here
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The sun did have its hat on

Gordon Brown has made a passionate bid to reinstate confidence in his leadership of the Labour Party. In a speech he dismissed the Tories' claims that Britain is a "broken society", he insisted: "I don't believe Britain is broken - I think it's the best country in the world. I believe in Britain."



He added: "Let's hear no more from the Conservatives - we did fix the roof while the sun was shining."
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Platitudes for all

jacta alea est



Labour must be the "rock of stability and fairness upon which people stand".

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure;
Save from wrath and make me pure.

Not the labour of my hands
Can fulfill Thy law’s demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and Thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.

While I draw this fleeting breath,
When mine eye shall close in death,
When I soar to worlds unknown,
See Thee on Thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.
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The evil that men do

The young pretender David Miliband, who is seen as a potential challenger to the Prime Minister, paid tribute to Gordon Brown in his conference speech today.



Addressing Labour delegates, Miliband, who has denied any plans to challenge Brown, said the party must "defeat fatalism" and "replace it with hope".

Fingers crossed then!!
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Labour faces the abyss

The Labour Party begins its conference in Manchester this weekend in grim mood.



The findings of the biggest poll of its kind ever undertaken will deepen the party's despair. The party faces a humiliating wipeout across the country. Seat after seat is vulnerable to an astonishing Tory surge that could leave Labour with just 160 MPs (Observer)
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From Hogwarts to Hogwash

It looks like Harry Potter will vote for the Labour Party when the boy wizard is old enough to cast a ballot.

J. K. Rowling has donated 1 million pounds to the Labour Party to provide a much-needed boost to Gordon Brown as he fights for political survival. Reuters



I think Gordon will need more than £1 million pounds to save his political career. Perhaps J K should have donated Harry's invisibility cloak, so Gordon can sneak around the Manchester Conference.
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Short Selling

Gordon Brown has declared a halt to short-selling

Vote Labour..........we are solvent
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Bank Notes

Gordon Brown: the man that killed the Bank of Scotland
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I want to commit suicide

If the Labour party get voted in at the next general election I will commit suicide

I need your help, please Vote Labour
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The Loan Arranger

It is being claimed that Gordon Brown is personally involved in negotiations over a deal to save Britain's biggest mortgage lender the Halifax

The Prime Minister is said to have spoken to the chairman of Lloyds TSB to agree a merger with HBOS, which owns Halifax. Mail



Back in August we were told that Howard Brown the cheery employee who fronted eight years of adverts for Halifax is going to be ditched as the bank adopts a more serious tone in the credit-crunch. Telegraph
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call for calm

Desperate Cabinet ministers have called on the back bench rebels to hold their fire until after the Labour Conference.



Following a heated weekend which saw a dozen MPs, including a number of former ministers, openly strike at the Prime Minister, leading Cabinet members took to the airways to call for calm.
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Beware of backbencher's bearing nomination papers

Ahead of the Labour Party conference next weekend, another senior Labour MP has become the latest to call for a leadership election to decide whether Gordon Brown should continue as prime minister.

Joan Ryan was sacked as Labour party vice-chair and as the prime minister's envoy to Cyprus after telling BBC Radio 4's Today programme that there ought to be a "multiplicity" of challengers to compete with Brown to lead the party.



Ryan told the Today programme: "I have written to the party and asked for nomination papers to be issued."

Within minutes of Ryan's comments, Janet Anderson, the Labour MP for Rossendale & Darwen, also asked for leadership nomination papers to be sent out.

Labour officials say fewer than 10 MPs have requested nomination papers to be sent out, although reports suggest the figure may be slightly higher.
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no basis in fact

There is no evidence, neither empirical nor theoretical, that carbon dioxide emissions from industrial and other human activities can have any effect on global climate.

In addition, the claims so often made that there is a consensus among climate scientists that global warming is the result of increased man-made emissions of CO2, has no basis in fact.



The results of accurate measurements of global temperatures continue to be analysed by the international laboratories, now with 30 years experience in this process while a large number of scientists continue to perform high quality research. The results of these activities clearly demonstrate a wide range of errors in the IPCC projections.

John Nicol, BSc (University of Queensland), PhD (James Cook University)

Read from the source here
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Harman's Stalking Pony

Will Harriet Harman's Stalking Pony, Siobhain McDonagh, be able to punch her weight in the forthcoming cat fight that will inevitably breakout in the Labour party sisterhood?

McDonagh a junior member of the government is out of a job tonight after breaking ranks to call for a challenge to Gordon Brown as party leader

It is being spun by the Brownies, that she was the only member of the government not to nominate Gordon Brown for the party leadership last year - whether that is true or not....she is now saying she wants a debate about the future of the party.



Seconds out...round 1........Emily Thornberry has been the first into the ring, she broke cover this evening on the BBC PM programme.
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Whacky Traces

The Prime Minister, repeatedly told a press conference today that a £910 million contribution from the main energy suppliers would not be passed on to customers.

However, comments, from David Porter the chief executive of the Association of Electricity Producers, will come as an embarrassment to Gordon Brown. Who said: it was a straightforward question of economics that the costs of the Government package would be passed on to customers.

He added: "They will try [E.ON, Centrica and EDF] to contain this because they have to, but it remains to be seen just how much of it ends up on the customers’ bill in the longer run."

Con-Cern

Over the past few decades, economists have developed an elegant theoretical model that gives a framework for our current understanding of the fundamental forces behind global economics.

Hear in the UK, one major ingredient in this model is a hypothetical, ubiquitous quantum field that is supposed to be responsible for giving the UK economy its mass (this field would answer the basic question of why the economy has a mass or indeed, why it has any mass at all). This field is called the Brown field. As a consequence of wave-particle duality, all quantum fields have a fundamental particle associated with them. The particle associated with the Brown field is called the Brown Bozo.



Meanwhile later today, scientists from across the globe hope to recreate the Big Bang to discover what lay at the beginnings of the Universe: what some call the Higgs Boson and others ("The God Particle.")

The ambitious physics experiment at CERN laboratories in Switzerland may open the door into a new world of information or, Pandora's box.
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Taking the Biscuit

Alistair Darling faces an angry TUC

"A stable economy is not an optional extra - it is a means to an end: fairness, rising prosperity, opportunities for all"



I do enjoy Jacob’s Tuc biscuits. They are light and crisp. I find them lightly salted with an almost buttery taste. Each bite seems to almost melt in my mouth. Once I eat one it is very hard not to eat two or three more and in no time I have finished the packet. I must practice self control. The only problem is that they are very crumbly so you cannot carry them around as you just end up with a mass of Tuc crumble!.............
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'it's an ill wind'

Ever wonder why your electricity bills are so high?

Non-Fossil Fuel Obligation scheme

Over the last six years rising electricity prices have allowed the government to cash in on energy contracts at a substantial profit.

Revealed: Brown's £1bn power windfall ( Guardian)




Read more at EUreferendum
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Vote Green Go Blue

The crumbling state of Britain’s electricity network was exposed yesterday when power station breakdowns caused the first energy shortage of the autumn. Times



The European Union and the United Nations have agreed to start swapping carbon trading permits in October.

Carbon trading is at the heart of the European Union's push to cut carbon dioxide emissions by one-fifth by 2020, a move it acknowledges will burden the economy with costs.



The Farmer's Almanac has just released their 192nd issue, always eagerly anticipated, and not just by farmers, but by weather watchers. And this for the simple reason that it has maintained a accuracy level of between 80 to 85 percent in predicting seasonal weather.

The choice is yours: Either believe the almanac and stock up on thermal underwear and snow shovels, or trust the Global Warmists, modern-day meteorologists and keep the ski clothes and storm supplies packed away.

As for me, I am heading to Hong Kong for the winter and not worry about the cold weather at all.
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Windfall

The Prime Minister faced an angry backlash after he used a keynote speech on Thursday night to make clear that there would be no "short-term gimmicks or giveaways" when the Government unveils its much-vaunted energy plan next week



Trade unions and Labour MPs responded by launching fresh demands for a windfall tax on the profits of the energy companies.

Researcher from the Poppy Project,

The Labour party deputy leader Harriet Harman has complained of "double standards" among the public towards prostitution.

Some 65% of women thought selling sex was unacceptable. The Minister for Women and Equality said "cultural attitudes" need to be challenged.



However, 100% of the women who voluntary make a living from prostitution disagree with Harriet
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A Tacky Hound

A series Gordon Brown supporters took to the airwaves today to criticise Charles Clarke for his comments about the prime minister.



Ed Balls, the children's secretary, said Clarke's comments were unoriginal and irrelevant to the debate about the party's future.

"It's not the first time Charles has made those kind of comments. I think it's Charles being Charles," said Balls, one of Brown's closest allies.
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reassurance and hope for everybody

The cabinet of Gordon Brown's Labour government is not operating, is no longer functioning, it has relinquished its responsibilities and is no longer a threat to the Conservative party. It is redundant.

Let us rejoice at that news
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Stop Digging

Today in a blazing row, Gordon Brown openly threatened to rob the big energy companies of their profits. He is angry that the industry is refusing to stump up money to bale out his failed economic policy.

When asked if a windfall tax on the profits of energy firms was on the table the Prime Minister's spokesman said, "We want to work in a constructive and collaborative way with the energy companies, but obviously nothing is ruled out."



The Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling has said he has "serious reservations" about a windfall tax.

Mr Darling said he "was not minded" to impose such a tax as the companies could simply pass the extra cost on to customers.

Business Secretary John Hutton has expressed similar scepticism and last month warned against deterring energy companies from investing in Britain.
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Knickers in a Twist

Stamp duty is to be suspended for a year on properties that cost up to £175,000 in a bid to boost the ailing housing market.



Will these proposals, drafted in an atmosphere of political crisis, actually work?

In much of London and the South East, you would be hard-pressed to find a home worth anywhere near the new stamp duty starting rate.

Alistair Darling, the Chancellor,also refused to say how the Government would finance the £600million cost of the cut. The Chancellor, still suffering a backlash from his comments at the weekend that Britain faced its toughest economic period in 60 years, said further details would be provided in his Pre-Budget Report later in the autumn probably when he gets his knickers untwisted.
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Weather Forecast

Alistair Darling has dismissed talk of an imminent reshuffle but, according to the Times, Whitehall insiders say he is wrong - and could be kicked out of the Treasury.



There has been speculation that David Miliband, the foreign secretary and possible Labour leadership challenger, could replace him, says the paper.

However, Guido thinks it's all Balls
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Mobile Call costs UP

A report commissioned by Vodafone claims that some 40 million Europeans would ditch their mobile phone if US-style billing comes to the EU where a mobile phone user has to pay to receive phone calls. The submission to the European Commission, seen by the Financial Times is in response to proposals from the European Commissioner for Telecoms, Viviane Reding cellular news

The Vodafone commissioned research questioned some 9,000 mobile users and reportedly it found significant resistance to the US-style charges and could lead to some 10% of the European Union cell users ditching their mobile phone.
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