Thanks mate most appreciated. Why can't the actual "news" sources report that.

I have a very basic knowledge of export laws and licences and to be honest this now makes perfect sense.

Paxman has just started interviewing Herman Cain on Newsnight. Sure to be amusing.

Seeing as the evidence seems to suggest he is guilty, I find it hard to give a crap about his case. I know I'm supposed to support people's rights no matter what, but his case is hard to sympathise with because he is quite clearly very well off and had no excuse to get wrapped up in that gooseberry fool other than pure greed.

I do agree that it is bullshit to claim the crime happened in your country because at some point data passed through some server or other. Unfortunately, must of the higher ups in law are older and so have a hard time grasping that physical space means strawberry float all as far as cyberspace is concerned. In fact law as it currently exists was not even designed to work in a world in which crimes can be comitted in a nebulous sphere of information to which geographical borders are pretty much meaningless. I think it is a case of legislation being in violation of reality.

Looks like Sinn Fein were expecting it as well and have been getting their propaganda ready for a while now.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0228/osnodaigha.html




Call me naive but surely they should also look into how much paper he took in that time? If he has taken enough cartridges to produce 3 million letters then he should have taken a huge amount of paper as well? For what its worth the constituency he represents had 80,000 registered voters in the last election.

So the Unions are thinking of disrupting the Olympics.

Good idea guys! That encourage inward investment and tourism - just the type of economic boost we need.

That would be a huge own goal as the public reaction would be almost universally negative I would assume.

So just like everything else the unions have done lately?

They seem to have gone completely mental. They only ever seem to do things which turn public support against them now. They seem more interested in causing as much misery as possible in a pathetic attempt to blackmail companies and the government into getting what they want than actually helping their members in any meaningful or productive way.

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Let's just disrupt this major event that's incredibly important to our country and it's people too. You know that event that's going to boost tourism and has given hundreds of people jobs (be it the builders working on the stuff or the people working at the events)! That'll win us public support.

Those unions are a disgrace, the only thing they care about is their own survival, they don't care about the workers at all.

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To be fair they haven't announced strikes, just threatened them.

And it only seems to be one Union.

Although others are considering striking as they aren't getting enough extra pay for doing their jobs during the Olympics.

They're hoping the threat is enough, but if they don't get exactly what they want they'll rig a vote to make sure the strikes go ahead.


What kind of insane logic are they using to think they deserve extra pay for doing their jobs just because the Olympics are on?

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Did you know that tourism actually goes.... down during an olympics? Hotel rates spike up and regular holiday-makers go elsewhere.

I disagree with that. It seems to be a common line trotted about by the right that union leaders are at odds with the membership. In the case of Unite (I believe that is the union under discussion here), that couldn't be further from the truth. The leaders of Unite simply would not be in place if they were that far from the membership, just like Cameron would be removed if he strayed from the core consensus of the Conservative Party.

I'm actually member of Unite, but not a public sector wing that would strike under these circumstances, and believe me if the members don't want to strike during the Olympics then it simply won't happen. Now to be fair I don't think members currently want to strike during the Olympics and in this case I don't think McClusky is talking for the membership. At this stage it is purely bargaining tactics in the same way a Government crackdown on union laws was touted a few months ago on the other side.

Certainly in their situation I don't think I would strike during the Olympics because of the loss of public opinion. However, you can't expect unions to strike when it will have minimal impact because otherwise the strike is absolutely pointless so whenever they do it there will be some disruption.

McClusky is SUCH a dickhead. And, lest we forget, on a rather large salary. Hypocritical champagne socialist bollocks.

But then we end up in the farcical situation of last November when the government said 'This strike will have huge effects and risk growth, productivity and jobs' and the Union then had to downplay the impact of their strike

John Redwood and David Starkey are both on Question Time tonight. Starkey no doubt will be fantastic.

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Random Fury!

STARKEY!!!!!!!!! *Sets to record* *Fetches popcorn* *Primes Twitter*

strawberry floating Starkey.

We were sent a union email today asking us to read the full interview with him and then make up our own minds ignoring the 'media slant'. Have to say, as a member, the full interview makes what he said seem much worse and frankly I was embarrassed. I can't see him surviving the next leadership elections. It's a massive tactical error and incredibly unhelpful to the cause of the workforce.

Is there a link somewhere to the full interview?

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Starkey has really outdone himself this time. Great episode!

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Random Fury!