Please continue with the political debate BUT let's stay clear of anything personal.

Thank you.

Rather than childish, ignorant name calling why don't you try offering some original insight for a change? Quoting your lying, tax avoiding newspaper doesn't count.

To donate to UK political parties an individual must be on the UK electoral register, which broadly means being a British citizen. Each party registers a legally liable treasurer with the Electoral Register, who I doubt is keen to risk accepting illegal donations.

Of course if the donation is not legitimate or the donor is proven to have obtained the funds via criminal means (a moralistic issue rather than a statutory one), it should be rejected or returned. Remember, many Russians in the UK are no friends of Putin, and I doubt those who have revoked Russian citizen status and are donating to the Tory party are particularly popular in Moscow.

So, unless you just don't like Russians, what's the problem? Every party receives donations from all sorts of folk of all sorts of origin. I have no love for Putin, or the Russian State, or their political system, or many of their nefarious activities, but that doesn't mean I automatically dislike all Russians. That would be xenophobia, would it not?

Russian money flooding the property market is another matter and is in part being looked into via UWOs. Clearly, massive and often illegally gained funds are being invested, channeled and laundered and a clamp-down including seizing assets is overdue.

Labour certainly can't complain about the company the Tories keep given Corbyn and McDonnell's associations with the IRA and other terrorist groups.

Now, tell me more about Comrade Cob's hat.

Without wanting to derail the derailment, I presume everyone's happy with the extra two years?

Personally, I'm beginning not to care anymore.

My plans to retire to Portugal have become a pipe dream, mainly due to the pound tanking & all the connotations that entails.

So it looks like I'm stuck in Blighty, waiting for the good times to roll, oh yes, but also waiting for the underclass to be well a truly shafted, even though they tipped the balance on this old sordid affair, exquisite irony.

In the future when all's well, that's how it goes isn't it?

you really have lost me there...

Corbyn is a kindly old gentleman that uses that persona to be a Russian apologist who sold secrets to the KGB, as I have said, he should be in the tower. The House of Lords should be disbanded, if we want a true democracy there should'nt be an unelected upper house. No MP should be allowed to serve more than two cycles of Parliament to keep the thinking fresh, no MP should be over 65, to keep the thinking fresh, we should sell all of the government building in London, they are worth billions, we should move it all to Nottingham/Birmigham.

The UK needs to become less London centric, and certainly less dictated to be fossils.

GMB regional secrataries, £75,000 a year, comrades!

Unusually there is a lot of sense in some of your post. I don't have to apologise for Corbyn as i belong to a different political party, but to suggest he sold secrets is hysterical tabloid nonsense.
I am against unelected representation on principle, however the older I get the more I value wise counsel. The only way to develop that is through experience, rather than the pathetic childish rantings of our Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson.
I have long argued for local democracy, for all but the most strategic issues, such as the federal model in Germany.

The ongoing negotiations are proceeding as I expected. The former Greek finance minister the motor bike riding yanis varoufakus said whilst negotiating with the EU said it was impossible to talk with them. Mainly because you would agree an arrangement ,then somebody else from the EU would move things in another direction. As I have commented before our bargaining position was weakened by jezza and thornberry going to Brussels and informing Barnier that they will support staying in the customs union . That was then followed up by members of Leeds city council also going to Brussels ,presumably on Eurostar first class. They informed Barnier they too would like to stay in the customs union. Coupled with the fact several extremely wealthy men, kinnock, Blair, mandelson are openly campaigning against brexit. You can see the problems that Teresa may has to surmount. Meanwhile back in snowflake guardian reader land ,anybody Surporting the EU exit is branded a little englander.

So it's the Boris Johnson defence - the donations were technically legal, so there's no issue; regardless of where that money came from, or what was expected or required in return?

As for the Russian money flooding London - I couldn't agree more; and Corbyn was right to push the government to extend Magnitsky powers to deal with that more robustly - which the Tories have actively resisted for years, as it's in direct conflict with the interests of their wealthy donors, who really rather like laundering all those dirty roubles.

I'm not even attempting the IRA nonsense - it's a direct regurgitation of the type of rabid nonsense coming out of the Daily Mail, and has been debunked and rebutted so many times, it's actually become boring - hence the new attack line around Russia, which is similarly stupid and designed to smear.

Cronus makes some good points now and again, I don't necessarily agree with them all, but they're valid. However, all this guff around Corbyn & the IRA/Russia really let's him down, why does Corbyn get under the skin of the right wing so much they have to resort to regurgitating guff from the DM & Sun?

Anyway, all this is irrelevant, it's all about fish now. After all these negotiations, months & months worth, it comes down to fish and a tray of dead haddock floating in the Thames. What a fkn farce this whole process has been from all sides.