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Ta, must have missed it. Absolutely astounding, Dido must feel insulted on only £11m. This type of behaviour tells you about their thinking, attitudes and absolute contempt for the rest of us. I almost look forward to hearing the diehards round here who'll still have a go at defending what's ludicrous, dangerous, inept and corrupt, so long as it's Tory. This is a horror story but like the Russia influence, AS, election subversion etc it will be kicked along the road until the 'behavioural scientists' think that it has disappeared from the public consciousness or the public is too done in by it all to raise a question or concern.
Apparently the new Tory MPs in the NE were not best pleased when they trotted out interviews to radio stations defending not paying kids' dinner money over the summer only to be made to look like complete obsequious charlatans, quite rightly, by Boris's U-turn. More experienced MPs were 'not available' for a few days to see which way the wind was going to blow (hard).
I see Domonic Rabb is doing his bit for love peace and unity on talk radio this morning
Thats not how you spell 'Demonic'
Russia report leaking in foreign press
Is this definitely happening?
I so want this to be true.
I wouldn't get too excited about the report...
It is expected to say there is no evidence of any successful interference by Russia in recent British elections, but will highlight a surprising lack of coordination across Whitehall to examine what Moscow has been attempting to achieve.
But that then begs the question, why the blatant cover-up?
This is what I don't get - all the hints are saying that there is nothing in the report, so why has it been suppressed for so long? All the talk was it should have been ready for release prior to the election. 🤔
Because it diverts attention from something else. "Oh, they're clearly hiding something, lets concentrate on this from now on". What's slid under the radar?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53142649
So there could finally be some movement.
Classic Johnson/Cummings though, they have been saying for ages that the government cannot publish it, but the committee who can publish it has to be established by guess who!
The latest delay is because an ex environment minister stuck to her promise to farmers, and voted against the UK dropping food standards for USA imports. That lack of blind obedience to the right kind of Brexit project (despite being very pro-Brexit herself) meant that she got black balled.
Amazing isn't it!
Seems like half of Britain are righteously ready to slow clap him into the sea, while the other half are ‘we’re winning the war (on Covid/immigrants/communists’, thanks to our Boris!’
Or maybe it’s split morelike the three-thirds, and so the (effectively) silent two-thirds are the actual key to the current carte-blanche enjoyed by our rulers?
What's the betting that Bojo, having found out that the job is harder and more boring than he thought, will declare he's Got Covid Done in July, reopen the pubs in a hurricane of cheering, then quit before it starts peaking again this winter, perhaps citing his ongoing need for recovery?
Surely these pictures will surface eventually
https://twitter.com/steveswannBBC/status/1275882137191841799?s=19
^ Funny you should mention. I just read
In a statement in the Commons earlier, Mr Johnson said people would be encouraged to use "mitigation" - such as face coverings and not sitting face-to-face - when less than 2m from each other but "where it is possible to keep 2m apart, people should".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53152416
So (en masse) he opens the pubs (on a midsummer weekend) and pretty much all public attractions/facilities then scraps the advised 2m (which many already seemed to interpret/observe as 2-3 feet if at all) and then trusts ‘British common sense’ to ‘not sit face to face’?
This is just pish trotted out. ‘Lockdown is over’ is what the majority will hear and will decide. The Gov know this.
It’s a ****ing sick joke. Remind me again why we have in the last 12 weeks faired so (comparatively) poorly on the World stage, and how we/the Gov have learned from that?
And now half of the country think the Tories ‘own the BBC’ - while the other half believes the Beeb to be a traitorous infernal Communist plot/gay agenda/black agenda/Islamic agenda/Zionist agenda/feminist agenda/PC agenda (delete as preferred) by which to steal our precious fluids/Christian anglo-saxon masculinity.
They can’t all be right, can they?
Mr Johnson said people would be encouraged to use "mitigation
Now it may have been me but I’m sure the word ‘mask‘ wasn’t used in Boris’s last and final briefing by him.
(Yeah I get the pro/cons arguements)
The Messaging is so baaad it’s criminal tbh, it’s still 2 metres even the scientists reiterated that But the carry out was its 1m
Spain’s got people wearing masks in public where you can’t keep the adequate socially distancing but apparently it’s not good enough for us unless your on public transport.
(correction) ‘*lockdown/social distancing is effectively over’ is what the majority will hear and will decide. The Gov know this.
The prime minister warned that all the steps were "reversible".
Except for bringing back those we lost/will lose.
Seems like half of Britain are righteously ready to slow clap him into the sea,
I'm down with that, providing it's via a plank and the sea contains very hungry crocodiles.
My sister lives in Southern Italy (Puglia). There the wearing of masks in public places is considered polite and they have a very high take up, they also have had a 1m distancing rule. I know that this is not the only factor, but she was saying to me yesterday that in her province there were two reported cases of C19, not deaths but people testing positive. I think it was about 190 for the whole of Italy.
As a result she has been to restaurants, outside both times, can travel to other provinces and countries- but has to fill in detailed forms explaining her route and where she stayed- and generally has a more relaxed life. The schools are not back though.
They think Boris is an idiot and can’t believe how badly we have dealt with it here
Surely these pictures will surface eventually
If the issue is copyright infringement, then just publish them and see if the Tories are willing to give them an opportunity to establish a public interest defence in court.
I'm in Austria. Life is virtually back to normal here. Sporting events and Music Festivals will return from 1st July.
We went on lockdown in March. Everyone listened. Everyone stayed home.Then we had a slow return with masks. Masks are now only needed on public transport, doctor and pharmacies.
Most borders are open. UK is allowed as long as we do 14 day quarantine. I gave no rush to come to UK so it's not an issue.
It does seem from an outsider looking in that the UK truly @@@@@@ed it up. I pity you guys. Stay safe.
It does seem from an outsider looking in that the UK truly @@@@@@ed it up. I pity you guys. Stay safe.
I've got a mate out in Australia where they locked down immediately they got their first cases (total number of deaths - 104) and the word he used for observing what was happening in the UK was 'incredulous'.
He couldn't believe that the government was watching what was happening in Italy and Spain but still allowing huge public gatherings like Champions League games and the Cheltenham Festival to go ahead.
The clueless, slack-jawed face of modern British Government.
He's not learnt anything from these PMQs has he? He *must* know SKS's modus operandi by now. SKS goes through the Government's OWN reports, questions the figures.
Boris tries to dodge the question, complains that he's being questioned and then finally says the figures are bollocks.
SKS points out that the figures came FROM THE GOVERNMENT.
And yet BJ walks straight into it every time. What's the famous phrase about idiocy - trying the same thing again and expecting a different outcome. BJ has it down to perfection.
martinhutch
Subscriber
Surely these pictures will surface eventuallyIf the issue is copyright infringement, then just publish them and see if the Tories are willing to give them an opportunity to establish a public interest defence in court.
Is Jenrick being lined up to be a scapegoat for Bummings?
Is Jenrick being lined up to be a scapegoat for Bummings?
The photos are unproblematic in this modern social media age, TBH
Porn baron Desmond does seem discomfited being snapped next to an individual with such a sleazy reputation.
I'll throw in £1000 for someone to shoot him in the face. Let's have a whipround and solve the problem once and for all.
I’m in Austria. Life is virtually back to normal here. Sporting events and Music Festivals will return from 1st July.
We went on lockdown in March. Everyone listened. Everyone stayed home.Then we had a slow return with masks. Masks are now only needed on public transport, doctor and pharmacies.
Most borders are open. UK is allowed as long as we do 14 day quarantine. I gave no rush to come to UK so it’s not an issue.
It does seem from an outsider looking in that the UK truly @@@@@@ed it up. I pity you guys. Stay safe.
Well apart from the covering up of outbreaks in ski resorts until the season was nearly over, spreading the infection far and wide. Austria is perhaps not the best comparison for getting things right.
Err, what???
He couldn’t believe that the government was watching what was happening in Italy and Spain but still allowing huge public gatherings like Champions League games and the Cheltenham Festival to go ahead.
My brother, who lives in Northern Italy says the same. General amazement that even with the two week head start Johnson failed to act.
And, almost exact same comments from a friend of mine in Switzerland and another in Aus.
Err, what???
I just assumed that was a photoshop composite, Cold War Steve stylee. But no!
WTAF?
Yeah but the way Dumbojo ruffles his hair, he is just soooo adorable.
Totally without gorm.
as said before kevin is king
binners
SubscriberI’ve got a mate out in Australia where they locked down immediately they got their first cases (total number of deaths – 104) and the word he used for observing what was happening in the UK was ‘incredulous’.
Obviously a big part of the problem is fatigue- if this week's madness is mad enough we forget last week's. People used to say throwing a dead cat on the table didn't work if there was already a dead cat on the table... But once there's enough, nobody can see the original dead cat, and you can't really tell whether there's 10 or 20.
So let's just take this moment to get back to Cat #3 or thereabouts, and remember that the UK lockdown wasn't declared until the day that the first hospital had to close because it was overflowing with covid patients.
Totally without gorm.
That Desmond swing photo is very much...
We are so far down the rabbit hole now. Boris proves his ability to be PM by doing a 'hey I can do press ups' photoshoot for the MoS (aptly described on Twitter as a Poundshop Putin moment).
While Cummings announces (no pretext of it being Boris' leadership any more) a crackdown on the civil service in Number 10.
Quick summary of today’s “rambunctious” speech…
If we let property developers (coincidently our donors) do what they want over the next ten years, it’ll help us deal with the economic impact of Coronavirus this year.
Yep, then followed it up with Nimby's are just going to have to put up with it when they bulldoze brown field 'and other' sites.
All I heard was some utter bollocks about taking a big pot of Major Tom's 100 year old sweat from prancing round his garden, mixing it with the bravejuice from the population and feeding it to the NHS. Something surreal like that anyway. Rousing. Most rousing.
What a ****.
"Down with sticks and up with bricks
In with boots and up with roots
It's in with suits and new recruits
It's build, it's build"
The total amount he's announced for infrastructure investment is just a bad morning in the office for Chris Grayling
What do any words coming out of Johnson's mouth mean.... precisely F*** All.
He isn't capable of doing anything other than speak and he does that ineffectually and incoherently. And that's on a good day.
Any bridges in that speech ?
Any bridges in that speech ?
Everything. Build a vast pile of random shit, quickly and without the proper checks and balances because "economy".
More roads is always an easy announcement. Climate crisis be damned, we have an economy to get going here!
Don't forget being favourable with taxing to allow it to happen.
Said on the radio that the money set aside for roads will build three miles of motorway. Also said the increased % of GDP to be spent in half what Germany have committed to.
More roads is always an easy announcement.
Can we make them garden roads?
It would save all that hassle of making something from tarmac and stuff.
I expect Boris could easily find a mate who was willing to pretend to be a construction contractor who would trouser the money in return for a large bung back to Boris, he seems like the sort of man who has mates like that coming out of his ears.
Bungs are crude, seat on the board for few 100k for a few hours 'work' a month 🙂
(After retirement of course.)
They are spunking £340m on the motorway junction near me. The junction that I used to drive across on my daily commute without any significant bother. Some days there was a risk of a 5 minute delay. On those day's I'd set off 5 minutes early.
£340m on one motorway junction.
£340,000,000.
They may have finished it by 2035 if the other work on the M60 is anything to go by
going all "Roosevelt" doesn't bode well, the World was dragged out of the great depression by tooling up for world war 2.
He's not going FDR, he's just re-announcing a reasonable size capital spending project that plays well to the "new Tory" voters he won over last year. It's nothing like the scale of either of FDR's plans, and isn't targeted at creating jobs, it isn't enshrining workers rights, it isn't about building a safety net for people without secure employment... it's targeted at companies who've paid for this government and expect to be looked after by it.
and yet i managed to say all that with a pair of "" 😉
Marina Hyde nails it once again
Stand aside, everyone: the Conservative cowboy builders are back on the job
As currently announced, Johnson’s “new deal” is just over 0.6% of the spend of Roosevelt’s New Deal, which is perhaps why he’s focused on upgrading the A15 in the Humber area rather than building the equivalent of the Lincoln Tunnel. He can’t build you a Hoover Dam, but he can probably run to a Hoover. Of course, one doesn’t expect accurate historical references from the prime minister, who is 0.6% as clever as he thinks he is.
Maybe the lectern notice should have read: Bish - Bash - Bosh
The if you're in a whole keep digging bit that get's me; I'm awaiting the claim it's a trade tunnel to Australia.
this response to the Marina Hyde piece seems apt.
"In politics stupidity is not a handicap." - Napoleon Bonaparte
though he probably didn't say in english!
If we let property developers (coincidently our donors) do what they want over the next ten years, it’ll help us deal with the economic impact of Coronavirus this year.
Unfortunately they were never going to go down the route of securing building trade jobs and social housing by pushing that rather than just having us end up more mini me mansion alikes on increasingly smaller plots.
How many of these things are actually new projects? I'm guessing you don't just knock up a road building project over night. I think they've already announced the A66 twice as investment guess third times a charm.
The schools investment sounded like a big figure but over ten years - how much is that actually going to be in years 8,9,10. Wasn't it also about 20% of what has actually been identified as required to address years of under investment.
Nicola Sturgeon reckons it's actually no new money at all.
For perspective, repairs to Westminster will cost at least £4bn.
First rule of tory spending announcements isn't it? Check how many times the same amount has already been announced, then check how many years it's over, and when the funding starts.
it's a bit....
First rule of tory spending announcements isn’t it? Check how many times the same amount has already been announced, then check how many years it’s over, and when the funding starts.
Hadn't Shelter flagged up the social housing budget was the same money but was now over 8 instead of 5 years.
@Klunk I had thought the same thing.
Quick summary of today’s “rambunctious” speech…
If we let property developers (coincidently our donors) do what they want over the next ten years, it’ll help us deal with the economic impact of Coronavirus this year. And also hide a small part of the damage caused by No Deal Brexit on 31/12/20 whilst allowing our mates to trouser huge sums, just like we always wanted
You mostly nailed it, but I thought I could improve it. Like a hideous, out of character, gauche, postage stamps for gardens, crammed in, over-priced, Jerry built, housing development on the outskirts of a village with a tiny primary school, no bus service to speak of, two pubs and one shop.
The profiteering stupid ****s.
Maybe the lectern notice should have read: Bish – Bash – Bosh
Blah - Blah - Blah might have been more appropriate.
Is it pmqs tomorrow? Will SKS go after this? Seems like an open goal.
Would definitely use the H.O.P repair bill as a comparative.
There’s no new money at all. He’s basically packaged up every infrastructure project they’ve got and sold It as a ‘New Deal’
*!
He must think we’ve all just fallen out of a *ing tree
John Crace is always bang on with his analysis of Boris and Chums
https://twitter.com/johnjcrace/status/1278030381695086592?s=21
There’s no new money at all. He’s basically packaged up every infrastructure project they’ve got and sold It as a ‘New Deal’
Yep it’s a good game he loves to keep playing, now about about those promised 40 hospitals.
Must be bad if even the beeb are picking it apart...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/53236921?__twitter_impression=true
I'd been avoiding the Johnson for a while. When I saw him on the news I thought he really didn't look at all well.
The Beebs Reality Check regularly pulls things apart, but they rarely give it any prominence, and when they do, they get pulled apart for anti-government propaganda. 🤷♂️
When I saw him on the news I thought he really didn’t look at all well.
"This week, I have mainly been bullshitting about infrastructure."
Heseltine is presently being interviewed on Five Live. As you can imagine, he is absolutely tearing apart Joris Bohnsons pathetic speech yesterday, his centralisation of power at number 10 and pointing out the utter madness of going ahead with Brexit and piling more economic misery on top of the devastation of Covid.
He's correctly observing that they have learnt nothing from the 1980's and we're about to repeat the mistakes and return to the same levels of unemployment, and the same devastation in the same places.
I’d been avoiding the Johnson for a while. When I saw him on the news I thought he really didn’t look at all well
I can't bear to look at him or even listen to his voice, quite apart from the vapid mealy mouthed nonsense he spouts, his plummy affectations and received pronunciation makes me feel sick; a constant reminder that we ve not progressed at all and the upper class are still lording it up over us
And his pasty fat face disgusts me, he's a very odd man, he looks increasingly unhinged; like an Oxford footlights Benny hill impersonator and extra from one flew over the cuckoo's nest. That he's ostensibly leading the country is deeply shameful and profoundly embarrassing.
No I couldn't sit through one of his speeches, even if it's just hate watching or seeing him flounder when a police cadet faints behind him. We all know he's going to fall flat on his fat face politically but that's scant compensation for the pulverised country we ll be stuck with
He reminds me of Mungo from blazing saddles, although he doesn't have the strength to knock out a horse, or even complete a press up. Fat knacker
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So Heseltine thinks the Tory govt actions in the 80s were a mistake? Didn't seem too concerned at the time did he?
Re the FDR new deal- my economics & history memory is a bit vague after 30+ years, but I think although it got people working in the short term in the US, the UK's approach to economic stimulus in the early 1930s gave it a better recovery than the US. The UK didn't spend on infrastructure projects, but reduced taxes etc to encourage private sector growth.
he looks increasingly unhinged;
There might be something in that
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53081022
"It's clear now that this virus does cause problems in the brain whereas initially we thought it was all about the lungs. "
He reminds me of Mungo from blazing saddles, although he doesn’t have the strength to knock out a horse
Bojo just pawn in game of life.
So Heseltine thinks the Tory govt actions in the 80s were a mistake? Didn’t seem too concerned at the time did he?
He certainly did seem concerned at the time. To give him his due, Hezza constantly harangued Thatcher that the deindustrialised regions should see huge government investment not just be left to rot. He has been a lifelong advocate of power and money being devolved to the regions so that they can make their own spending decisions. She ignored him. He was also fiercely pro-EU too.
Actually... if you study his opinions, it's amazing to think he was ever a member of a Thatcher government. He didn't seem to agree with much that she did.
In fact he doesn't even fit in anywhere in the present Tory party. At the last election he was very clear that he had voted Lib Dem, and subsequently had the whip withdrawn. He's absolutely scathing about Boris Johnson and his Brexiteer chums
he looks increasingly unhinged;
There might be something in that
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53081022
“It’s clear now that this virus does cause problems in the brain whereas initially we thought it was all about the lungs. ”
Fair enough, the escaped mental patient look and demeanour owes a lot to his lockdown haircut (I suspect he was welcomed the opportunity or excuse to go full Einstein or Doc Emmett brown)
But I meant pre covid too. He's a weirdo. Remember the deeply strange gestures and hand movements he was making in that joint presser with leo varadker - like Elisa Lam/ the girl in the lift, the handcrafted buses, the football tackle that had Richard Ashcroft peeing himself in the background etc
His natural home is soda hosing booze dressed up in a toga and lighting fifty pound notes in front of the homeless, not leading a government