Looks like J5m has been reading fullfact they reckon cost of t&t nearer 20bn
, tho he neglected to mention that 😉

https://fullfact.org/online/37bn-test-trace-spending/

Hes just been in BBC Scotland saying that contracts for an oil field (now being questioned) were drawn up in 2001 and we can’t go back on a contract. Obviously international agreements are not nearly as important as 20yeras of oil and gas.

and we can’t go back on a contract.

Well he seems pretty happy to rip up international peace treaties…

“Thanks to Margaret Thatcher, who closed so many coal mines across the country, we had a big early start and we’re now moving rapidly away from coal altogether.”

According to the Daily Record, the prime minister laughed when he made the reference to Mrs Thatcher, whose time in Downing Street (1979-90) featured the miners’ strike of 1984-5.

Mr Johnson is reported to have added: “I thought that would get you going.”

**** me….

Even by his standards…

****ing hell!!

Glad it’s something to laugh about. It didn’t look very funny when I was passing Parkside Colliery on the way to school at the time. Not much to laugh about, unless you were one of the coppers bussed in from Essex on premium overtime to come and crack some northern skulls

What an utter **** that man is!

Boris Johnson’s shameful praising of Margaret Thatcher’s closure of the coal mines, brushing off the devastating impact on those communities with a laugh, shows just how out of touch he is with working people.https://t.co/Lga1FYHfqC

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) August 5, 2021

Dead cat… he knows how various communities feel about Thatcher and the pits.

Trying to win back a bit of Middle England.

Comments will upset a few but won’t change much

Culture war trumps all atm, his popularity ratings are sinking , but tory vote is holding, expect another 2/3 years of shambles, gaffes & scandals, all ignored by his base, because he’s protecting their values from scourge of woke or something

Probably a deliberate deflection tactic: visits Scotland; refuses to meet NS; rest of visit is completely naff; make an asinine comment to cover it up.

I think the ERG want shot… blame him for covid, brexit and Northern Ireland

Question is what is the replacement likely to be? I think Rishi might have blown it.

My money is on Patel… Thatcher with the empathy removed.

How will his comments go down with the new northern tories?

Its history Zippy, it was 40 odd years ago its been lost from the collective memory of many of these communities.

Unionised labour is long gone there has been no one to keep this alive, the people left who witnessed this are fast disappearing, and few people below the age of 60 can remember highly paid, skilled employment in these communities.

Thank you Kelvin thats a delight… i would pay very good money to actually see that happen

Thank Cold War Steve.

@kelvin – that’s genius. Are there any credits to who did that?

I did my dissertation on photomontage and it’s use as a political weapon. John Heartfield himself would be proud of that one. It’s entirely in the spirit on photomontage.

EDIT: Cold War Steve, should have known. Brilliantly done

Thank Cold War Steve

It is brilliant but I can’t help thinking it will have been based on a far less brilliant reality

The story of the original photo

Well there you go. Still a masterpiece from Cold War Steve though

Jesus H Corbet! A step too far even for the nicotine-stained man-frog

Why is Boris Johnson rubbing salt into the wounds of old mining communities, with his crass comments about Thatcher closing the coal mines?

Does he even understand the red wall? Madness. https://t.co/Jw7tiAJj05

— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) August 5, 2021

Imagine being accused of crass insensitivity by Nigel ****ing Farage?

The Scots Tories will not be impressed!

Boris also mentioned that the next independence referendum is at the bottom of his to-do list as he’s focused on the country all coming together to recover from the pandemic, however he refused to meet the First Minister to discuss covid recovery?

Its history Zippy, it was 40 odd years ago its been lost from the collective memory of many of these communities.

Not sure it is. I’m in Newcastle. When she died I remember a fair number of people going out to celebrate.

How will his comments go down with the new northern tories?

I live in the former red wall.

It’ll be brushed off with “It’s just a bit of banter…”, or “but Corbyn was a terrorist…”, etc.

The shift is real.

Boris also mentioned that the next independence referendum is at the bottom of his to-do list as he’s focused on the country all coming together to recover from the pandemic

Perfectly aligned with the current SNP leadership in that regard.

Jonba i agree and as a Northumbrian i f**king cheered for the first time for someones death.

There was no redemption for North East and other mining, heavy industry, shipbuilding communities, nothing was offered in its place except unemployment, decay, drugs, alcohol and a culture that is at best unpleasant.

Having family in Bedlington and Ashganistan (Ashington) and South Shields i understand this but as Butcher states the shift is real in the redwalls and Maggie is at worst a sort of fairytale ” get to bed or maggie will come and get you…

Unionised labour is long gone there has been no one to keep this alive, the people left who witnessed this are fast disappearing, and few people below the age of 60 can remember highly paid, skilled employment in these communities.

Sadly true, at 18 I worked at Bolsover colliery up until Sept 83, luckiky realised it wasn’t for me & got out before the strike, I’ll be 57 this Yr. Bolsover went from 65% labour vote in 2005 to losing to conservatives in 2019 😳

Anyone with strong feelings about Thatcher and the miners is unlikely to be a recent Conservative convert and all the new Tory voters are already all over twitter saying the miners downfall was all Scargill’s doing.

A lot of the former pit areas around me are quite quickly becoming housing developments, each with a silver German car on the drive. They are very different to how they used to be.

A lot has happened since the early 80s in every area of society, this crass comment will have very little impact on anything.

mining, heavy industry, shipbuilding

and it wasn’t just these industries- think of all the companies that supplied them, shops supported by the local community. Unless the decimation of these areas was planned, it was a massive miscalculation. “Oh, these failing companies are costing us £5m a week to support. If they close down it will only cost £1m in dole for the workers laid off” ignoring the wider impact.
Bit like proposing in advance to withdraw Endurance from the Falklands cos it was costing too much. What has the spend on the war & subsequent ramped up military presence in comparison?

Strange how the nastiness Thatcher created seems to have gone from the collective memory in some of the areas worse affected. My Nan witnessed the soldiers Churchill sent into the Tonypandy riots- it was still talked about 70 years later when there was the 80s strikes & home county coppers were bussed into the Rhondda. It was seen as yet another Tory attack, how the red wall areas can now vote for the same beggars belief.

Bolsover went from 65% labour vote in 2005 to losing to conservatives in 2019 😳

Labour was still getting over 50% of the vote in Bolsover in 2017, the fact that they lost Bolsover to the Tories just two years later has nothing to do with a change of attitude towards Thatcher, she wasn’t an election issue.

The election issue was Brexit. In 2016 70% of Bolsover voters voted to leave the EU. A year later, in the 2017 general election, Labour promised to respect the referendum result and consequently they received over 50% of the vote.

Labour then spent the next two years doing whatever it could to frustrate Brexit, Corbyn even appointed one of Labour’s most committed Remainers to the post of shadow Brexit minister, accumulating to, in the 2019 general election, standing on a policy of “constructive ambiguity” and calling for a second referendum.

Consequently Labour went from receiving more than 50% of the vote in 2017 to losing to the Tories 2 years later.

Thatcher wasn’t an issue but Corbyn was. People whose families had consistently voted Labour for the last 100 years voted Conservative for the first time ever.

Whether they will ever return back to Labour after having done the unthinkable and voted Tory remains to be seen, quite possibly, but even if they do from now on they will undoubtedly represent a soft Labour vote, not the once rock solid support.

That I fear will be the lasting legacy of Corbyn’s leadership.

It’s weird I made a series of lessons on things we extract from the earth. One was on iron, there was a cool we match head blast furnace. But I was told to delete the slide with Ravenscraig on it. Now we’re in the borders and even the kids parents must be almost too young to know about it but still. Mind you a big Tory presence in the borders but that’s just my paranoia.

The election issue was Brexit. In 2016 70% of Bolsover voters voted to leave the EU.

Yeah, because after the mines closed all they got instead was a sports direct warehouse in Shirebrook staffed by Eastern Europeans on minimum wage.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/08/the-way-the-eu-treated-the-uk-opened-my-eyes-bolsovers-brexit

Lots of “opinions” in that article… but or course “my best friend is Polish”…

Can we talk about Johnson now?

Can we talk about Johnson now?

What exactly is stopping you from talking about Johnson Kelvin?

Can you not see the connection between Johnson, brexit, and how people vote?

Basically I brought up some uncomfortable truths, eg that people who vote Tory are not necessarily homophobic racists, so you want to change the subject back to that.

Btw the current MP for Bolsover is openly gay and married to a man. So much for so-called red wall social conservatives.

Edit : Go ahead and talk about Johnson. What have you got to say?

Go ahead and talk about Johnson. What have you got to say?

He’s a ****.

A very good point. However it’s been already covered several times.

And it turns out that he’s still a ****.

that people who vote Tory are not necessarily homophobic racists

Of course. But those who say, “my best friend is Polish”… but then go on to say the problem was all these Poles “coming over here” is exactly what was firmly behind the vote for Brexit and Johnson. I have plenty of friends and family who are in that camp, it’s all to common… “there’s too many of them… no not you, or anyone I know, they’re all good people contributing to society, I mean all those other ones I don’t know… they’re the ones ruining everything… we need to stop them coming here, whatever the cost”. There were other reason for voting Brexit (Greece can’t devalue something something), and for Johnson (keep Corbyn out something something), but for most people it stops there.

I’m pretty much in agreement, kelvin, at least for a significant number of people who voted to leave.
So what’s the sensible response?
It just feels intuitively wrong to me, but I don’t kkow what the rebuttal is, for the proposition that “more immigrants = fewer jobs for us…”

What’s the response? At a political level? You give them what they want, and then listen to them moan about the consequences. At a personal level? Just say you disagree and suggest talking about something else. Like how much of a self serving lying waste of space our so called PM is. Much quicker to find agreement there. More likely to move voting patterns as well.

The normalisation of lying coming from Trump and the Tories mean that for some political preferences are based on wild inaccuracies and fragile emotions. Evidence and policy goes out of the window for ‘whatevers’ and discussion is replace by ad hominems. There’s a prime opportunity for the LP to provide an alternative narrative but it ain’t going to happen.
Good point about Heartfield, where are the Neue Sachlichkeiters of today? Cold War Steve seems to be a one-man show.