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I suppose the only negative of Hannah Miller's approach is that it 100% felt like she was setting traps for Johnston, which tends to look a bit cynical/biased and generates sympathy when he inevitably falls into them. It's a totally valid tactic imo but it doesn't sit well with some people, they just see it as good old Boris being tricked and set up by a nasty journalist. The best traps are the ones the audience can't see either.
The absolute best killer interviews are the ones like Jonathan Swan's Trump interview, where it's the interviewee destroying themselves while the interviewee just sits back and watches.
Boris Johnson said he would "encourage people to go out to the cinema, enjoy themselves and support" movie theatres.
Quote from the BBC website, words fail me 🤔
Quote from the BBC website, words fail me
Well it worked so well in August why not get people out and about again?
It was good to see him doing another photo op today. He seems to be copying Trump by being in permanent campaign mode.
I'm sure we can imminently look forward to another catchy slogan
Maybe retain a sense of caution and go for:
Watch out whilst watching out.
Sit in the dark and be kept in the dark.
I’m sure we can imminently look forward to another catchy slogan
"Ignorance is strength"
"Turn on, tune in and cop out"?
**** granny save bond.
This could honestly be a good time to bring back drive-in cinemas. Car parks in towns are not that full now that people are not commuting and, it you want to show more than one film, you could take over a multistory.
Car park by day, cinema by night. I am a genius
i like the idea of the multistory carparks as Cinema, the screen would only be slightly smaller than the average home flatscreen.
"Strength Through Joy"?
willard
Full MemberThis could honestly be a good time to bring back drive-in cinemas.
What, October? Barely works outdoors in this country even in summer. Multistoreys aren't much good as the roof's too low.
Exhibition centres could work great though and they're mostly empty. Hmm.
Not much point in drive through cinemas. Just get Odeon or whoever to rent streaming capacity from Netflix and popcorn/sweets/drinks delivery from Deliveroo - sorted.
Three word slogan?
Arbeit macht frei.
Apologies for very bad taste.
Triumph of the will
Appropriate 3 word slogan?
"What the ****"
Appropriate three word slogan?
"Over To You"
As Boris, Cummings, Gove and their mates sail off into the sunset with the loot.
Going. Going. Gone!
Down. The. Swanee.
Suck. It. Up
You. Wanted. It
Three. Months. Left
Rinse. And. Repeat
Track_trace.xls
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Track_Tracethisone.xlsx
Track_trace.xls
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Too Many Rows
God knows what would have happened if they'd tried to print it out.
molgrips
Free MemberNot much point in drive through cinemas. Just get Odeon or whoever to rent streaming capacity from Netflix and popcorn/sweets/drinks delivery from Deliveroo – sorted.
"Going to the cinema" is a thing, basically the whole reason that people do it even now with awesome home cinemas etc. I like watching films, but I prefer going to the cinema. And there's just no substitute for a massive screen especially with Imax.
More soundbite politics...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54421489
Green energy you say?
Sounds good so we'll have some of that.
The proposed investment won't go far and is narrowly focussed...
pledge £160m to upgrade ports and factories for building turbines
Enough wind generated electricity to power every home in the UK by 2030? Ooh, yes - that will go down well with the little people.
johnson targets an increase in offshore wind capacity of 33% in the next 9 years; has any of that been discussed with the sector - turbine manufacturers, offshore construction specialists, generators, cable laying ship owners, onshore civils contractors?
He clearly has no idea of how long it takes for an offshore wind farm to move from concept to full operational performance.
Most are JVs which take time to set up; then you have the legals - DNOs, easements with local land owners for the onshore works.
The capacity does not exist to deliver that size of increase in a short time frame.
What is being done to increase capacity outside the tight scope of the proposed investment?
In summary, I'll believe it when I see it.
Enough wind generated electricity to power every home in the UK by 2030?
Boris is a big believer in generating useless wind, it's a logical step in his head 🙄
He's good a recycling...
2019
https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/1179353250824364032?s=20
2020
https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1313365580603371521?s=20
Almost certainly must be my imagination but my imagination seems to recall green energy subsides and the like being stabbed in the face by the Torys.
No, wait. Here you go: Linky
Plus, I seem to recall that loads of wind/tide/wave power companies (start up and established) going to the wall and/or being bought up by furen, non blue passport holding people, too.
Probably just my imagination, tho.
More soundbite politics…
That was exactly what I thought when I heard it. A policy announced to loud fanfare, which will then be taken into a back room and quietly smothered.
I'd put my house on not a single extra offshore wind turbine ever seeing the light of day.
Shall we have a count on how many times in his speech he'll say 'Build Back Better'?
I'm going for triple figures
Dear god, this is awful!
Boris's schtick really doesn't work at all without his gaggle of sycophants to laugh at his terrible jokes and coo over his latin phrases.
And he's such a one trick pony, he can't do anything else, so he ploughs on regardless as it all falls flat
Build Back Better
Care for Carers
Build Back Better
Cosmic Spanners*
* I've not made that up. He just said Cosmic Spanner
He's promising the earth in this speech... but with a little bit of small print... he's claimed that "free enterprise" will deliver it all, not the government. Business keep telling him what they need to grow... he hampers them with every decision he makes... and he's going to turn around and point to them to grow us out of our situation. Growth in the next four years will have to come largely from the state... because of the choices he has made, and encouraged voters to support.
"invest £160 million in ports and factories" ... doesn't that sound like a big announcement for port towns and cities, and "green development"...? Chicken feed.
Oh god... he stuck to the dead cat "rice pudding" quote... recycling his favourite sound bites... now used to argue both for and against wind generation. Perfect Johnson multi-purpose bullshit.
Now he's using the response to the pandemic to persuade us of the magic of competition and sales to save us. Good god. Anti-state, low tax rant now in full effect. Such an 'interesting' spin on what this year has taught us about the role of the state.
So, to summarise:
In the upcoming recession/depression, you're all on your own.
'The Market' will sort it
Fingers crossed that some large companies who make wind turbines will inexplicably decide to invest a lot of money in the post-Brexit UK/Banana Republic. i don't know why they would, but hey... not my problem
Hang on a minute... here comes the Brexiteer culture war stuff...
Land of Hope and Glory and all that
God, this really is beyond awful.
"Britannia rules the wave"
"Global Britain"
"control over our fisheries"
"welcoming scientists and artists" - lol
He's just drunkenly rambling now...
The "rice pudding" thing is Classic Boris. Because that's not even a thing most people would say- it's a pretty oldfashioned term anyway and not a good metaphor either. So the person who he's referring to, is himself.
BaronVonP7
Free MemberAlmost certainly must be my imagination but my imagination seems to recall green energy subsides and the like being stabbed in the face by the Torys.
While yes, in all fairness today's Tory party is not 2012 or 2015's Tory party. It's not coincidental that this is the third different Tory government in a row that's shat on environmental policy but it's not the same people doing it. Same shit, different shits.
Marks out of ten...zero; I wouldn't even give half a mark for him turning up.
Clarity - none.
Logic - none.
Presentational style - none.
Factual content - none.
Relevance to electorate today - none.
As for floating windmills - give me strength; Don Quixote rules the waves.
The other day I took my daughter to Skegness. There is a ton of wind turbines off the coast - I think it is 3 separate windfarms, but they are all close enough together to appear as one.
Looking these up, there is the Lincs windfarm & the Lynn and Inner Dowsing wind farm.
The information board that I read on the seafront said that these turbines were enough to power every home in Lincolnshire - 330,000 homes I think it said.
Looking on Wikipedia, the Lincs windfarm alone cost £1billion including the electrical transmission links, and the timeline seems to be ~10 years from project start to completion.
And the Triton Knoll windfarm which is due to be completed in 2022 will provide energy to 800,000 homes is going to cost between £3 & 4bn.
While doing some digging on this one, the earliest article I found stated that work was due to begin and that was in 2013. So, a 9yr project at least (there would have been a lot more time spent with the planning etc. before that presumably).
I don't think £160m is going to go very far!
The former head of Siemens, Jürgen Maier, is presently on the radio doing the maths.
He reckons that to achieve his stated aims will take £50 billion+.
Boris is announcing £160 million of investment.
And we all know about what percentage of the investment announced ever makes it though to being delivered
I predict that not one single turbine will make it through the transition from soundbite into reality
They've fooled the country with big sounding numbers before... they think they can do it again and again.
What do we make it... 0.005% of GDP ?
Over what period? Shall we guess at spread over 5 years?
0.001% of GDP per a year?
You know that mythical bridge that Boris spent £50 million on, this will be just like to that.
Or the 40 new hospitals?
The tories are still talking about the mythical bridge to Ireland, yeah right.......
Or the 40 new hospitals?
Which he re-announced today or perhaps it was 40 new hospitals to add to the already promised 40, none of which have ever seen a drawing board never mind a spade in the ground.
If infrastructure money was delivered properly while being invested/spent sensibly and efficiently on properly planned and costed schemes we'd have a genuinely excellent road and rail network with a nice mix of local, regional and national power generation grids, quality housing/schools/community and so on.
But we don't, we have a chaotic mix of local, regional and national politics that are not concerned with the day to day running of the country because it's boring; they want BIG and BOLD and ideally EXPENSIVE (cos it sounds good when you say that xxxx is a "£2bn regeneration scheme") and you end up spaffing money down the drain on pointless short-lived popularity-based schemes...
If you're having to do regeneration or "levelling up" it means you've failed at your core task of keeping the country running. Decades-old dogma within Government departments that move at glacial speed on short-term funding settlements delivers nothing - or at least, nothing beneficial or world-beating, it delivers the same old short-term shit every time that then needs re-doing in 5 years time.
And just building a hospital is absolutely no good at all if you've not thought about how to staff it, the parallel "procurement" (and funding, facilities etc) for training staff, buying equipment, running it properly... Everything in this country is broken - the education and investment in future careers has been slashed to the bone and we're short of nurses, doctors, specialised staff to operate equipment; the transport network to get to and from major facilities like this is stretched to the limit and falling apart. It's just a catalogue of cock-ups over decades of mismanagement.
The Jürgen Maier interview on 5live following soon after johnson's vacuous emissions provided such a stark contrast between johnson's empty words and Maier's hard facts.
- a windbag and a subject matter expert
- someone promising to spend money without accountability and a professional who was required to justify proposed investments and be answerable to shareholders for performance
- an individual who talks about jobs - both creation and losses - in the abstract and an individual who had direct responsibilty for his workforce.
- an unconvincing amateur playing to his shrinking audience and a professional
The tories are still talking about the mythical bridge to Ireland, yeah right
They could line it with wind turbines and get two for one.
Bung the mythical Severn Bore water electricity widget underneath it to get another freebie.
If you’re having to do regeneration or “levelling up” it means you’ve failed at your core task of keeping the country running.
Yes, but actually succeeding at your day job is soooo boring.
What you want is periodic Herculean efforts you can crow about for years... until another is needed to sort out all the shit you let go wrong while banging on about the last effort instead of doing the day job.
Windfarm announcement and Jurgen Maier interview here (2h:23m:10s) at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000n59m
Doesn't it rather depend how the £160m is used?
If that's used to facilitate trade finance e.g. guarantees etc. that could make tens of £billions available to windfarmm development schemes at relatively low cost.
But his Tory government "saved us from socialism"
cheddar
the PM announced £160m to upgrade ports and factories for building turbines
As I posted above, offshore windfarm developments are typically JVs; as an example, SSE as the generator and StatOil.
Siemens dominate the UK wind turbine market.
From my personal involvement in the onshore civils part of two schemes I don't think there is a requirement to facilitate trade finance for these large scale developments.
Doesn’t it rather depend how the £160m is used?
If that’s used to facilitate trade finance e.g. guarantees etc. that could make tens of £billions available to windfarmm development schemes at relatively low cost.
We all know how it'll be used. They'll get a load of expensive consultants in to conduct a lot of feasibility studies and stuff until its all gone
We all know how it’ll be used. They’ll get a
load of expensive consultantsfew of their mates in to conduct a lot of feasibility studies and stuff until its all gone
FIFY
As I wrote on the other thread, £160m = 5 miles of motorway or enough money to keep about a business of about 2,000 people employed for a year. I expect most will be spent on consultant fees for feasibility studies undertaken by McKinsey, PwC, Deloitte or KPMG.
Yup, £160m is an amount calculated to seem like a big amount to people who don't think in big numbers, without actually being a really meaningful sum. And that's even before it starts failing to arrive, or gets repromised 5 times in the next 6 years. Talking about putting investment into ports, while you're in the process of bringing in borders changes which are going to collapse every major port we've got, is pretty ironic though.
Yup, £160m is an amount calculated to seem like a big amount to people who don’t think in big numbers, without actually being a really meaningful sum.
As I mentioned above though, it's become endemic in every infrastructure scheme. It sounds big, it therefore sounds like it should be impressive.
£10m transformational work on [junction / building]
£1bn new terminal
No-one has any idea a) how much that money actually is (people simply don't think in terms that big) or b) how much these things could / should cost (like, what do you get if you spend 5% less or 5% more, what are the running costs, does the cost include over-runs...?)
I hate stuff like that, it's become a way of squandering money by telling "the public" that it's a £150m scheme whereas in fact you know that the £150m includes a 20% cost over-run, it could actually be delivered for 2/3rds that price if you really put your mind to it and so on. Boris is expert at babbling away with ultimately meaningless figures that sound good like a £200m investment without specifying anything about where or how that money is going to be "invested" (which normally translates as "wasted").
Maier correctly (IMO) points out that in an industry that will thrive on research / innovation we need a higher stake in it (only 10% globally currently comes from UK, but not sure what that's measuring) and that requires the cooperation of government, academia and industry. It'd make sense to pile a lot of that money into innovation.
The former head of Siemens, Jürgen Maier, is presently on the radio doing the maths.
He reckons that to achieve his stated aims will take £50 billion+.
Boris is announcing £160 million of investment.
And we all know about what percentage of the investment announced ever makes it though to being delivered
I predict that not one single turbine will make it through the transition from soundbite into reality
Not once the consultants have taken the lot only to have the project quietly shelved.
Edit:
See you beat me to it on the consultants....
Government does not fund these developments, private sector infrastructure funds and banks do. Likewise any subsidies are paid for by the consumer through higher electricity prices - there is no direct government subsidy In this context £160 million to kick start things could be reasonably significant, I have not looked a the number for one of these developments for a long time, so dont know how far it will go. However, financially (VFM) offshore wind has proved a much better technology than many anticipated as costs have more than halved in 10 years.
However, financially (VFM) offshore wind has proved a much better technology than many anticipated as costs have more than halved in 10 years.
Indeed, Johnson & the telegraph spent years telling us all it was a nonsense idea
I wonder how long before they disown brexit?
Do you think he'll use the same catchphrases for promoting joining the EU (or a different new close arrangement) as he used to get us to leave? He has plenty of Brexit material he can reuse that's better this rice pudding thing he recycles every year...
Let's try one... "some people used to say that we had to Leave the EU to control our borders... well it's self evident that by partnering with all the countries we share borders with, we double the control we have over our borders, because we can control them from both sides" ... hmm... needs some latin, or references to pudding.
It's had the intended effect though, everyone is nice and busy dissecting his future spout about whirligigs and leccy juice cars for all in a decade, so they've not mentioned the utter cluster he's been making of the now time for a good couple of hours...
Today's "vision" was just an imaginary, future dead cat... Do people really think Bozza will be knocking about in 2030?
Do people really think Bozza will be knocking about in 2030?
Nah, obviously not.
But someone of his ilk will. They're like cockroaches, get rid of one and there are a host hiding under the nearest rock.
Remember Covid Marshall’s?
No. Neither does anyone else.
Boris’s promises are about tomorrow’s Daily Mail headlines, Full stop. He’s forgotten about them and moved on as soon as the words have left his lips
Not a single wind turbine will be erected as a result of today’s announcement. The usual suspects - KPMG, Deloitte, McKinsey and PWC - will soon hoover up that £160 million on consultancy fees and that’ll be that
Remember that this is a man who handed them £50 million to not build a bridge
Tomorrow’s headlines are all that matter. Everything else is incidental
If you didn't see New World Order this week - check Frankie Boyle's take on the University Lockdown situation (much bad language, obv)
Binners is right.
Every oafish utterance Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Wall-Spaffer Johnson makes is designed with one thing in mind. Keeping him from having a bad headline in the next day's Daily Mail.
Liz 'The Truss' Truss on R4 now.
What a horrible, aloof, contemptuous, thick, ignorant and rude woman she is.
She's as thick as mince. When she's asked a question, there's always a pause where you can literally hear the mechanisms in her head whirring and clicking.
And she's on selling freeports, or as us less gullible people like to refer to them... tax havens.
Even the most ardent Brexiteer must be despairing when they think that it's Liz who will negotiating complex trade deals. I wouldn't trust her to negotiate her way around Waitrose
Didn't the Tories close our freeports? In the name of free trade? Creating new ones is just announcing ourselves as somewhere 'flexible' for robber barons to operate, and two fingers up to the rule based approach to lowering barriers to trade between countries.
Truss was predictably and, as always, appalling.
She was expecting to talk about trade but Nick Robinson left that until the last 2 or 3 minutes choosing, instead, to push her on CV19 restrictions and she dismally trotted out the predictable responses.
I was disappointed she wasn't asked to explain - for the benefit of the listeners, of course - to explain what a freeport is, the economic benefits they bring and what measures will be implemented to prevent them being abused by smugglers and economic criminals.
That, I think, was a lost opportunity.
She was allowed to continue wittering on about a Canada style trade agreement without being challenged to explain what it is - again, for the benefit of the listeners.
It can't be long before zahawi and sharma are wheeled out again; have they tired yet of being instructed to repeatedly attempt to defend the indefensible?
Winston Churchill is, apparently, johnson's hero.
That being the case, what has he learned from studying and writing about the great man in the sole context of WW2?
Churchill was fully prepared to set aside party politics and establish a coalition government - for the greater good of the UK.
He sought out and welcomed the best scientists, cryptologists, business leaders into his team to work together, to challenge others, to develop solutions.
There were egos a-plenty but they recognised that they must work together.
It's clearly too much to expect that johnson, inferior to Churchill in every way, would learn from Churchill's inclusive attitude and behaviour.
johnson and his clown circus are political and intellectual midgets; they are incapable of decisive action - take big decisions, own then and implement them forcefully.
Another compare'n'contrast - Churchill communicated clearly, forcefully and with absolute conviction; he led from the front and did so visibly.
johnson, despite his expensive education, is incapable of clear communication; as for conviction and leading from the front - don't make me laugh.
It's often said that we get the leaders we deserve.
What have we done to deserve johnson?
Oh, I forgot...get brexit done and all of that bollocks.
Churchill was also a racist drunk so Johnson has that bit right
Sorry DezB,
Think I'll give that Frankie Boyle clip a miss. He's as much part of the problem as anyone.
I recall watching his programme the week that the Brexit Party was launched, on a rainy day in some sad seaside town. The corresponding footage provided most os the shows content. Frankie and his chums ripped into the whole charade mercilessly, oh how they laughed.
The Brexit Party lainch looked to me like a Carry On film, my other half thought it looked like a scene from a Martin Parr photograph. We didn't laugh, we just saw how Farage had harnessed classic British imagery and how Frankie and his sanctimonious sidekicks where sticking two fingers up at half of the Country.
Never had it felt more obvious to us both why the Leave side had won.
frankconway
Full MemberWinston Churchill is, apparently, johnson’s hero.
Well, sort of. Johnson's hero isn't actually Winston Churchill, but a fictional version who lives only in Johnson's head.
You can get to know the imaginary parallel universe Churchill if you read Johnston's interesting alternative history, the Churchill Factor, a good fun read that consciously decides to avoid any facts that don't suit it. The same Churchill that Johnston evokes as an anti-EU figure, despite him saying "If I was 10 years younger I might be the first president of Europe", is the Churchill that Johnston declares saves the war after Germany captures Stalingrad... Nuff said really. His approach to the history is the same as his approach to the man, and his approach to the job of PM- just make shit up because doing it properly is too hard. Why study history when you can invent better history? Why fight covid when you can just declare yourself the winner?
And it's not just a case of erasing the bad stuff, though he can't help himself of course, and does exactly that. It's the rewriting of the reality that remains. It's weird that Johnston and others get so fired up about tearing down statues, when he made such a good job of erasing the real churchill and replacing him with, well, Johnston.
Some people, they have heroes and they ask themselves, "what would ghandi do? What would Churchill do?", and are inspired to follow suit. Johnston doesn't do that, he thinks, what do I want to do, then he tells everyone that this is what Churchill would have done, regardless. I think it's pretty sad that we'll never know if he believes it, or not. Probably it doesn't matter, Johnston doesn't really believe anything.
Did anyone else see this in thr Sunday Times yesterday?
Panicking No 10 dumps Donald Trump and woos Joe Biden
Tim Shipman, Political Editor
Sunday October 11 2020, 12.00pm, The Sunday Times
Boris Johnson’s team expect a bumpy ride if Joe Biden wins next monthMinisters have been told to forge links with the White House frontrunner Joe Biden after “writing off” Donald Trump’s chances of re-election, amid fears that the UK could be left out in the cold if the former vice-president wins.
Boris Johnson has been warned that Trump is on course for a landslide defeat with his Democratic opponents set to land a historic “triple whammy” by seizing control of the presidency, the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Private polling and computer models shown to No 10 last month put Biden’s chances of victory at more than 70%. The challenger has since opened up a double-digit lead and one predictive model based on polling this weekend gave him an 85% chance of winning, with the chances...
So govt are going full Alan partridge in his meeting with Tony Hayers: "can I just shock you? I like wine, despite what I just said earlier"
"I'll have a pint of bitter!"
"Just a mineral water for me please"
"Actually I'll have a mineral water too"
Johnson 'standing up to the scientists ' as its been portrayed in the torygraph by ignoring their requests for a 2 week circuit break is being hailed as a victory by the rw press & pundits, even tho it means more deaths.
Interestingly it was Sunak that vetoed that one tho, which will help bring his leadership bid credence with the hardliners
(sunak scandal will be leaked at the right time by murdoch to get give in tho)
Think of him as the Sorting ****.
Alas, much of Britain has yet to come to terms with the implications of the fact it elected a newspaper journalist to run it. I honestly can’t believe Boris Johnson has turned out to be a clinical procrastinator, a short-termist headline grabber, and a total chancer who only really responds to the need to do his job three minutes after deadline. If only there’d been some clue, you know?