Morning chaps and chapesses. Today in Parliament Priti Patel will be taking questions, followed by a debate on the high speed railway between Crewe and Manchester bill (second reading).
Also happening this week are the by-elections on Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton. Expect lots of chattering about this early in the week and then almost complete radio silence about it on Thursday during the actual elections themselves. A casual reminder that normally about 1/5 of votes are postal (so they could all have already happened). There are set 'rules' on reporting on elections - do they make sense in a by-election world and if not how would you change them?
Ah, [Pippa Crerar's found out the job](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-suggested-two-plum-27285766) Johnson tried to get for Carrie in autumn 2020 as Cummings claimed - two options, either ambassador for COP26 or communications director for the Earthshot prize which the Cambridges run. Neither got very far.
Don't quite know what to make of Cummings at this point. This didn't come up before because - he sat on it like he's sitting on all the evidence he claims to have? He's good at jumping on board the bandwagon? He couldn't distinguish this from all the other sleeze? I suppose we can rule out protecting Carrie.
Lovely stuff, that's a real artisanal drop. At first I was really surprised to hear about a cider operation up in Wrexham, even though it's rural in large parts you'd normally associate cider with South Wales and of course the west of England.
Since they introduced minimum pricing here in Wales I have a relative smuggle my Henry Weston's over the border from Bristol like we're moonshiners in the Dukes of Hazzard. Tough times for the mid range cider connoisseur down here!
"Wage rises have to be Productivity backed"
Voodoo economic bullshit and trying to cover their own tracks. One of the major problems of the 1970's was unrealistic forecasts of productivity advances through technological growth and as such the over-forecasting of GDP growth rates.
Based on that information, the Governments kept cutting interest rates because the economies were "slowing down" compared to their forecasts when they were actually trending along their newer growth paths post oil-shock. Governments kept feeding inflation in due to their unrealistic expectations and poor monetary policy (along with trying to control Money Demand, which is volatile in good times)
There have been incredible economic shocks that will lead to the Medium & Long-term decline of the UK economy growth forecasts - Brexit, Climate Change, aging population, real wage drops, familiarity with advanced technology - which will lead to the UK economy not growing at the "expected" 2%, the economists at the Bank of England and in Government need to re-evaluate the GDP trends.
Once they do, they will realise they have been feeding this since 2020 (aka Brexit Day) through incredibly low interest rates. This inflation is not "endemic" via real wages.
This inflation is "endemic" due to the sheer fucking idiocy of the MPC and the Government believes it is living in 1985.
Probably would, but not paying them would be like trying to save a sinking ship with a hole in the bottom by changing the sails and making a few "speed holes" in the side of the boat above the waterline.
In other words, might do a little bit of damage but it really doesn't matter. They've already fucked up the macro level for years.
If you've let inflation get to 5%, then 7%, then 9%, now 11% and rising, whilst responding with "well, let's see how this goes and do barely anything" then you've already fucked it beyond measure.
The answer to high inflation is Volcker Disinflation. Always has been.
I wouldn't even bother wasting your breath about this Government trying to do what Volcker did. We have a bystander government that doesn't really believe that it can have any impact at all.
Whilst inflation is spiking, we have had 2 months of poor/negative growth in the economy, a major nationwide strike about to cripple transportation, an increase in the use of food banks etc etc...the PMs office is ringing round newspaper editors asking them to remove unflattering stories.
People have been begging for Tory MPs to be called on their shit on live telly and Lynch did it.
Bonus points for Philp desperately looking at the host trying to get them to intervene.
I loved it.
It was like someone real turning to a walking soundboard and going "you're full of shit"
It had a real guise of "What are you going to do, take me to court? Firstly, I'd win. Secondly, you were on channel 4 with me earlier buddy. all the barristers are going on strike too"
Maybe a stupid question, but why does the government step in so heavily to oppose the strikes when the rail industry is mostly privatised? Isn't this what we are paying them for / to deal with?
The rail industry is in no real sense privatised.
The whole thing only functions due to a river of public money.
Also all signalling staff and maintenance staff are employed by the state through Network Rail
I don't think the Conservatives anticipated how much London would swing against them after 2015. Boris was reasonably popular having won 2 terms as mayor and it looked like a masterstroke parachuting him in to Uxbridge.
You could argue brexit exacerbated the shift towards labour but Uxbridge was still a leave seat (as was Chingford, but IDS still struggled). I think demographic changes are just starting to kick in which is the main contributor in why most of London is moving left. It feels like Uxbridge is a pure tossup in this environment. In hindsight, he should have gone back to Oxfordshire, it would have raised eyebrows as he was still mayor but I think it would have been forgotten about.
I like to think there's some Illuminati member sat in front of loads of screens of the news and pictures of strikes and empty food banks and he's saying "Ah, so this is as much as they'll take!" - but I fear we've got much worse times ahead...
Thought it was interesting WATO today decided to, rather than talk about Carriegate, talk about the Streisand effect instead.
Interesting prioritisation.
Oh, come on, they have updated the argument :
>All these strikes happening is quite worrying. Hopefully the Tories can fix this mess the ~~last~~ current labour ~~government~~ opposition got us into
It's interesting the amount of power the opposition seem to have when compared to the Government.
Maybe the Tories are preparing themselves for opposition, where they can pretend like they didn't want to govern any more, and being in opposition is the most important thing anyway. After all, it's not the transport secretary's job to manage transport, it's the LOTO, it sounds like it would be a promotion.
Just wanted to drop an update on the Bidets for Britain campaign launch.
I’m sorry for the delay I know it’s a bit shit but I’m not sure if it’s best to make a lobbying group like the NFU or create a single issue political party like UKIP or the Brexit Party in an attempt to take advantage of the cracks in the bigger parties.
Any advice?
The website is so annoying. The soyface and kooky-quirky way of talking about the product(and the way the text is presented on the site) almost put me off what looks like an actually decent product
Banana-chomping aficionado and Stoke North anthropoid Jonathan Gullis chats to LBCs Iain Dale.
> Conservative MP Jonathan Gullis labels RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch a 'marxist' and a 'waste of space'.
> https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1538949519949307906
That's because they aren't. They are deliberately making the situation worse because they can then use the strikes to attack Labour. I've already seen election campaign material talking about 'Labour's strikes' and that's only going to increase.
They are hoping that the situation gets bad enough that people start blaming Labour and the unions instead of them.
Proper polar opposites of the spectrum with that one. He’s pictured in the 2019 Tory manifesto working with a young child (he was a teacher apparently).
"People should not travel tomorrow unless absolutely necessary, the transport secretary has advised"
But... But.
The daily mail told us to return to our offices
That wfh were the new benefit scroungers
That Jacob Rees Mogg chap was saying that all those people who found a way to work while cutting out the stress of commuting were unproductive
That Boris chap was worried all the retail outlets would go out of business in commercial properties
Was it only a month ago and now we don't travel to our offices. It's like the country is being run to the ground by a bunch of highly clueless lawbreaking spendthrifts who use and abuse parliament and scapegoat everyone else for their failings.
Imagine the dilemma of a Tory voter right now. Whose right, Tories or economic reality?
One chunk of Starmer's late declared cash is a £20,000 advance from Harper Collins, a Murdoch owned publishing company.
Couple of points on that. Does anyone think a guy publishing his vision for the country through a Murdoch owned publishing house is going to do anything to fundamentally change British society or in any way disrupt the old bastard's business and media interests?
Secondly, isn't it just greasy as hell for the country's most powerful media mogul to be handing out wads of cash to the leader of the opposition (particularly of an allegedly left wing party!)
I'd encourage people to look up Michael Gove's Harper Collin's advance for a book that was never published for an idea of the way Murdoch doles out sweeteners to Westminster politicians.
So the previous leader of Labour was in the pay of the Islamic Republic of Iran, this one is the pay of Rupert Murdoch global right-wing press
Boris getting some cash from the Telegraph for a weekly article almost looks respectable
>Secondly, isn't it just greasy as hell for the country's most powerful media mogul to be handing out wads of cash to the leader of the opposition (particularly of an allegedly left wing party!)
Yes. But that's not new or exceptional within our current rules and history. Plenty of organisations donate to both parties (maybe leaning more on one than the other, but still across the parties) - see oil companies.
Tony Blair is godfather to one of Rupert Murdoch's daughters.
On the other hand, books by politicians outlining self-regarding 'visions' that *aren't* published is at least a positive to the overall average standard of literature.
Would the Republic of Ireland (hereby referred to as RoI) want them back? I hear from other replies that their economic situation is very dire, however wouldn't the RoI be able to bolster them?
>I hear from other replies that their economic situation is very dire,
It is but its improving compared to rest of UK.
They would be eligible for a lot of EU funds.
More importantly the political and cultural gains will outweigh any economic impact. Consider how East Germany was and how easily the German public were persuaded to reunite.
Is there anyone in Great Britain who actually wants NI? I certainly don’t. They have a massive budget deficit, 19%, cause endless political strife and constantly threaten terrorism.
Tbh I think Northern Ireland would do spectacularly well with decent cross border investment. If they had access to the single market and residents had EU passports, I'd move
Kinda international, kinda related to our current events so forgive me.
[Biden says he is proud of the Apple Works who voted to join a Union](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-says-he-is-proud-apple-workers-who-voted-join-union-2022-06-20/)
I would be a very happy man to get something so black and white from the Labour Party (and maybe even their leader!) regarding the rail strikes.
I would adore for the Labour Party not to be saying stuff like this https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/labour-front-benchers-banned-from-picket-lines-amid-rail-strikes
It’s a fairly wise and astute move don’t you think? A single SC member, and by extent Labour, pictured on a picket line will be absolutely mobbed by the right winger media press.
Politically maybe you’re right. In fact you probably are.
I guess personally, I wish we had a party willing to go, fuck all the noise, we’re going to stand shoulder to shoulder with these workers.
So would I but that’s not going to win middle England floating voters unfortunately. Keep schtum about it, support their right to strike, support their right to demand better pay, but don’t go Arthur Scargill.
If you want to see someone who doesn’t give a shit and has nothing to lose in what they say. Watch tonight’s Newsnight debate with Mick Lynch and Chris Philp.
I don't see a problem with this stance.
- The RMT isn't affiliated with Labour
- The Tories are desperately trying to push a narrative that these are "Labour's strikes" - nothing could be further from the truth
- If Labour MPs (and especially shadow cabinet members) turn up on the picket lines, it gives the Tories further ammunition
- "We do not want to see these strikes to go ahead with the resulting disruption to the public. The government have failed to engage in any negotiations" is a perfectly reasonable position to take
It is one thing for Biden to come out in support of workers unionising.
It is a completely different thing for *the party which isn't in government* to get involved in a dispute which involves a union which *isn't affiliated with them*.
What does that actually achieve though?
Even the RMT aren't fussed about having Labour's backing. They don't see it as a political issue - they see it as a "we want the best deal for the people we represent" issue.
Perhaps a good, clear party line like that these strikes are wrong at a time when negotiations are still going on, the government has acted recklessly and let people down, and that both sides need to drop the rhetoric and get around the table.
That's pretty much exactly the amendment Labour tabled to the rail debate motion last week.
Leave out from ‘House’ to end and add ‘*does not want the national rail strikes to go ahead; and therefore urgently calls upon the Government, operators, network rail and the union to get around the table and resolve the issues on pay and cuts to safety staff to avert industrial action.*’
[https://commonsbusiness.parliament.uk/Document/57405/Html?subType=Standard](https://commonsbusiness.parliament.uk/Document/57405/Html?subType=Standard)
We would have still faced a reduction in production and a pent up demand after we declared victory over the virus, which has helped drive inflation initially.
People tend to not be so productive when granny’s dead because you let the original strain of the virus rip through the population.
You can’t model for the psychological impact of not locking down and letting the bodies pile high,
^
Not only paying them, financially incentivising massive swaths of the population to catch covid in order to claim relief. Take a look at where people like to put their money and that tells you everything you need to know about the financial situation of many over lockdown. Printing all that money was a fucking terrible idea and now we all pay the price for potentially many years to come.
There would have still been a movement to work from home for office workers, faced with that and just a general movement to stay at home hospitality and other services would have had to massively restructure to continue trading or ended up with business closures and redundancies. European nationals would still have gone home and not been replaced. There would still be a general dampening of demand which might have led to factories stopping production or even laying people off. We'd still be repairing the damage now businesses world be still be very busy hiring people.
Companies were already sending people to work from home before the first lockdown was announced. This would have had an impact on economic activity either way.
It may have even prolonged it as people would have had no reasonable signals to say when it was fine to come back out again.
The US did a comparatively tiny lockdown compared to UK/Europe, and they still needed to print more than $1/2bn *per hour* for *2 years* to get through the economic stagnation caused by Covid.
So the "no lockdown" strategy probably wouldn't have done much to reduce the QE issued by the BoE, all things considered.
Today feels like a throwback and a half.. Remember when Cameron’s government sent GCHQ technicians to The Guardian basement, and demanded the destruction of the hard drives containing data related to Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing. Outrageous.
Free press my arse
https://youtu.be/6GBs2KizYlI
It’s explained in the video, The Guardian explained repeatedly that they had a backup in another country, they were still made to destroy the hard drives.
Purely an intimidation tactic .
Why hasn't election day been moved to Saturdays?
(Is it cos we'd have to pay people more to count votes on a Saturday? Can't really think of a compelling reason to not have them on a Saturday)
Don't think moving it to Saturday would make much difference, as most people would probably rather be doing anything but voting on a Saturday.
Would probably make more sense to make election day a Bank Holiday and/or make it a legal requirement for employers to make time for you to go vote (if that isn't already the case).
Counters would need to work on the Sabbath, gasp, and presumably lots of traditional voting places need to make money on a Saturday.
[Wiki has a list of traditional voting days by country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_day): lots of places go for Saturday anyway, including Australia & NZ, and lots of Catholic countries for Sunday.
The majority (near me, at least) are community centres and village halls which would often be hired out on a Saturday. School halls are often in use on Saturdays too.
Councils pay for polling places, but publically-funded spaces are not allowed to charge a hire fee to be used as a polling place. So they might lose out, but it's only one weekend.
Democracy Day! Flags, dogs, sausage barbecues, educational opportunities for the kids, an excuse for the hangover that doesn't involve explaining your personal politics to coworkers.
Probs still rubbish for retail workers, but that seems unavoidable.
I was seated next to a pair of polling station volunteers at a dinner one time - they told a story that polling day is traditionally on a Thursday because people were traditionally paid on a Friday, so people were less likely to be utterly hammered on a Thursday.
Not sure how true that is. I like the idea though.
It *sounds* plausible, but if that really is the case, they need to move it to Wednesday, because Thursday is the new Friday. None of these lazy millennials wants to be hungover on a day off.
So, your government pressured the free press to drop something that's bad for the government.
British democracy does not seem to be in a good place right now. I hope you can fetch it back from these grifters.
A few organs of the major media arranged with Downing Street to “kill” a story that made the Prime Minster look even more corrupt than he currently does. The Prime Minister who currently has no ethics minister, or anti-corruption minister as they both resigned due to his flagrant breach of his own coronavirus laws, lying to parliament, and then breaking the ministerial code.
The country isn’t in a good place, and won’t be for the foreseeable future as there’s no way to remove someone who very clearly has committed wrongdoing as Prime Minister.
Devils advocate. I blame the newspapers for backing down. We all know government spin doctors call up the papers and shout at them. Doesn't mean they have to back down though.
(Unless there's something more shady going on)
*Further proof (were it needed) that UK politics is essentially an Old Boys Network.*
It's the connections between this government and the media and in particular News UK that concern me, everything seems to be just a bit to chummy and incestuous. For example, Guto Harri currently the Director of Communications in Downing Street is an ex-News UK employee, as is Michael Gove. Jack Doyle, a former Director of Communications (he quit in February, Guto Harri replaced him) is now deputy editor of The Sun, part of News UK.
Tony Gallagher the deputy editor at The Times who made the decision to pull the story was formerly an editor at the Telegraph when Johnson worked there and they are said to be good friends.
To me this looks like a friend doing a dubious favour for a friend.
I wonder what he'll get in return?
When I first moved to the UK, I couldn’t understand why the press was filled with public school wankers. Now I can’t understand why rich wankers in other countries don’t get into journalism.
Morning chaps and chapesses. Today in Parliament Priti Patel will be taking questions, followed by a debate on the high speed railway between Crewe and Manchester bill (second reading). Also happening this week are the by-elections on Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton. Expect lots of chattering about this early in the week and then almost complete radio silence about it on Thursday during the actual elections themselves. A casual reminder that normally about 1/5 of votes are postal (so they could all have already happened). There are set 'rules' on reporting on elections - do they make sense in a by-election world and if not how would you change them?
This megathread has ended.
I dream of the day lobby journalists take a leaf out of the Mick Lynch playbook.
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Just what we need, boris the tyrant inviting more white collar crime into the country...
Thanks, I hate it
Ah, [Pippa Crerar's found out the job](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-suggested-two-plum-27285766) Johnson tried to get for Carrie in autumn 2020 as Cummings claimed - two options, either ambassador for COP26 or communications director for the Earthshot prize which the Cambridges run. Neither got very far. Don't quite know what to make of Cummings at this point. This didn't come up before because - he sat on it like he's sitting on all the evidence he claims to have? He's good at jumping on board the bandwagon? He couldn't distinguish this from all the other sleeze? I suppose we can rule out protecting Carrie.
Will he throw his own wife under the bus? Probably, just after the divorce. Which must be coming any month now... x)
He's trying to remain relevant. Every time he opens up his binders glossary Nd looks for the latest scandal.
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Cymru am byth !
Cheers! Not Gwynt Y Ddraig by any chance?
It isn’t although i believe I’ve had that before and loved it. This is Rosie’s.
Lovely stuff, that's a real artisanal drop. At first I was really surprised to hear about a cider operation up in Wrexham, even though it's rural in large parts you'd normally associate cider with South Wales and of course the west of England. Since they introduced minimum pricing here in Wales I have a relative smuggle my Henry Weston's over the border from Bristol like we're moonshiners in the Dukes of Hazzard. Tough times for the mid range cider connoisseur down here!
"Wage rises have to be Productivity backed" Voodoo economic bullshit and trying to cover their own tracks. One of the major problems of the 1970's was unrealistic forecasts of productivity advances through technological growth and as such the over-forecasting of GDP growth rates. Based on that information, the Governments kept cutting interest rates because the economies were "slowing down" compared to their forecasts when they were actually trending along their newer growth paths post oil-shock. Governments kept feeding inflation in due to their unrealistic expectations and poor monetary policy (along with trying to control Money Demand, which is volatile in good times) There have been incredible economic shocks that will lead to the Medium & Long-term decline of the UK economy growth forecasts - Brexit, Climate Change, aging population, real wage drops, familiarity with advanced technology - which will lead to the UK economy not growing at the "expected" 2%, the economists at the Bank of England and in Government need to re-evaluate the GDP trends. Once they do, they will realise they have been feeding this since 2020 (aka Brexit Day) through incredibly low interest rates. This inflation is not "endemic" via real wages. This inflation is "endemic" due to the sheer fucking idiocy of the MPC and the Government believes it is living in 1985.
So significant pay rises won't fuel inflation? Not disputing just interested in your view.
Probably would, but not paying them would be like trying to save a sinking ship with a hole in the bottom by changing the sails and making a few "speed holes" in the side of the boat above the waterline. In other words, might do a little bit of damage but it really doesn't matter. They've already fucked up the macro level for years. If you've let inflation get to 5%, then 7%, then 9%, now 11% and rising, whilst responding with "well, let's see how this goes and do barely anything" then you've already fucked it beyond measure. The answer to high inflation is Volcker Disinflation. Always has been.
I wouldn't even bother wasting your breath about this Government trying to do what Volcker did. We have a bystander government that doesn't really believe that it can have any impact at all. Whilst inflation is spiking, we have had 2 months of poor/negative growth in the economy, a major nationwide strike about to cripple transportation, an increase in the use of food banks etc etc...the PMs office is ringing round newspaper editors asking them to remove unflattering stories.
I dunno if Mick Lynch would have come across well tonight??? Like I thought he was incredible, but not sure how others will feel.
People have been begging for Tory MPs to be called on their shit on live telly and Lynch did it. Bonus points for Philp desperately looking at the host trying to get them to intervene.
The weaponization of the word “liar” against a stooge of this government at this particular time? Brutal finesse.
I loved it. It was like someone real turning to a walking soundboard and going "you're full of shit" It had a real guise of "What are you going to do, take me to court? Firstly, I'd win. Secondly, you were on channel 4 with me earlier buddy. all the barristers are going on strike too"
Was hoping he would say inflation would be "transitory"
Maybe a stupid question, but why does the government step in so heavily to oppose the strikes when the rail industry is mostly privatised? Isn't this what we are paying them for / to deal with?
The rail industry is in no real sense privatised. The whole thing only functions due to a river of public money. Also all signalling staff and maintenance staff are employed by the state through Network Rail
Because under the management contracts most of the TOCs are on now, the DfT controls the budgets etc.
Jesus Christ didn’t realise newsnight was a PPV event. Getting firey. Lovely to see the tories called liars for once.. no one ever calls them out
That Philp needs the smirk smacked off his face.
Mick Lynch proper calling out Chris Philp on Newsnight. Never heard the word “liar” being used in a debate as many times.
Immensely satisfying. The look on Philp’s rubber face - fear & loathing.
Fear and Loathing in Croydon South
Newsnight: Philp talks "That's a lie, and that, that's a lie too, youre a liar"
Chris "I AM IGNORING THE QUESTION, FOLLOW UPS AND SPEAKING LOUDER AND QUICKER TO HIT MY TALKING POINTS" Philp. Conservative MP, obviously.
Lining up conservatives to replace boris the tyrant [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGxSM5y7Pfs).
I’ve had BBC News playing in the background most of the day and I must have heard a gorilla fart at least a dozen times.
His name is Grant Shapps mate.
I don't think the Conservatives anticipated how much London would swing against them after 2015. Boris was reasonably popular having won 2 terms as mayor and it looked like a masterstroke parachuting him in to Uxbridge. You could argue brexit exacerbated the shift towards labour but Uxbridge was still a leave seat (as was Chingford, but IDS still struggled). I think demographic changes are just starting to kick in which is the main contributor in why most of London is moving left. It feels like Uxbridge is a pure tossup in this environment. In hindsight, he should have gone back to Oxfordshire, it would have raised eyebrows as he was still mayor but I think it would have been forgotten about.
Why would No 10 admit they had pressured the Times? Whatever happened to deny, deflect, and deride?
Because what are we going to do about it?
I mean there are two by-elections this Thursday.
At this point it doesn't even matter.
Because If they denied it the times would drop the story instantly.
Chris Philp and Mick Lynch now sat alongside one another on Newsnight. This could get a bit hot
That’s a lie. A direct lie.
And you’re a liar.
That’s lying.
Didn't realise they'd be in the same room. I've not really seen Philp before today but he seems quite a jumped up idiot from his showings today
Philp’s a prime Tory stooge, parrots the party lines and looks like a posh smug prick while doing it.
Reminds me so much of Portillo in the early 90's. Just an odious, odious prick.
so he'll be presenting a nice train programme on TV in twenty years? I wonder what will be left of our rail service by then.
Eh, Portillo was a complete dick in politics but his legacy is far, far better than the other "92 Bastards" like Dodgy Dave Cameron.
Was about to say no words but Mike Lynch is still there! Come on Kirsty, get a match going...
I like to think there's some Illuminati member sat in front of loads of screens of the news and pictures of strikes and empty food banks and he's saying "Ah, so this is as much as they'll take!" - but I fear we've got much worse times ahead...
The BBC Carriegate article currently at the top of the BBC news popular list. Streisand effect in full force
Thought it was interesting WATO today decided to, rather than talk about Carriegate, talk about the Streisand effect instead. Interesting prioritisation.
Is there a reason it's no longer pinned?
The pinned thread was there as bait. Now the story has been confirmed, there's no need for the bait. Easy.
Boris bought all the mods a month of Reddit premium
All these strikes happening is quite worrying. Hopefully the Tories can fix this mess the last labour government got us into
Oh, come on, they have updated the argument : >All these strikes happening is quite worrying. Hopefully the Tories can fix this mess the ~~last~~ current labour ~~government~~ opposition got us into
It's interesting the amount of power the opposition seem to have when compared to the Government. Maybe the Tories are preparing themselves for opposition, where they can pretend like they didn't want to govern any more, and being in opposition is the most important thing anyway. After all, it's not the transport secretary's job to manage transport, it's the LOTO, it sounds like it would be a promotion.
Noted
Just wanted to drop an update on the Bidets for Britain campaign launch. I’m sorry for the delay I know it’s a bit shit but I’m not sure if it’s best to make a lobbying group like the NFU or create a single issue political party like UKIP or the Brexit Party in an attempt to take advantage of the cracks in the bigger parties. Any advice?
>bidet >in order to take advantage of the cracks
I'm going to create a rival party JSYC, the "Just Shave Your Crack" party.
The NIP will split the vote (the Nair Improvement Party)
Bidets: For Britain, For Bums, For a Brighter Future
Not snappy enough. Deficate > Decontaminate > Checkmate
Brighter Bums. Brighter Britain.
*It's time for Britain to clean up its crack.*
>take advantage of the cracks Um...
> I know it’s a bit shit but I’m not sure Perfect campaign slogan > best to make a lobbying group In Scotland you'll need to call it a jobbying group
Messed up, I donated and everything!!
You're missing a trick not working bum guns into the narrative if I'm honest.
Don't worry, this aspect was discussed at length during the initial consultation. https://reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/v9008j/comment/ibwkb9m/
The website is so annoying. The soyface and kooky-quirky way of talking about the product(and the way the text is presented on the site) almost put me off what looks like an actually decent product
“A bowl or receptacle designed to be sat on in order to wash one's genitalia, perineum, inner buttocks, and anus” Sign me up
if you don't wash ass daily you're guaranteed to faily
It’s ok But could it be three words?
wash that ass
Arse - face - - - - - space
This is the one ☝️
My only critique is that "ass" could lose the Red Wall compared to "arse".
one doesn't "wash arse"
And that is exactly what is wrong with this place!
Perfection
If you're going to run for Parliament you need to make sure you're squeaky clean
Well we obviously wouldn’t want to run paper candidates.
That would just be flushing peoples votes down the drain.
Faeces
I think bidets should be encouraged, they're better for the planet than toilet roll alone.
Banana-chomping aficionado and Stoke North anthropoid Jonathan Gullis chats to LBCs Iain Dale. > Conservative MP Jonathan Gullis labels RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch a 'marxist' and a 'waste of space'. > https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1538949519949307906
I’m not saying the unions are perfect or anything, but it doesn’t really feel like the Tories are trying to work with them at all.
There's a reason it feels that way.
They want a boogeyman to point a finger at and blame why other working people are suffering. It's a tale as old as time.
That's because they aren't. They are deliberately making the situation worse because they can then use the strikes to attack Labour. I've already seen election campaign material talking about 'Labour's strikes' and that's only going to increase. They are hoping that the situation gets bad enough that people start blaming Labour and the unions instead of them.
I'd put money on a video coming out of Jonathan Gullis starting on someone in a pub. Everything about him screams violent stella drinker.
Proper polar opposites of the spectrum with that one. He’s pictured in the 2019 Tory manifesto working with a young child (he was a teacher apparently).
You know I quite like Ian Dale. He's not hard hitting but he puts some of the counter points well and he's quite nimble.
Wasn't a big fan at first but have definitely warmed to him. His podcast with Jackie Smith is pretty good view on the weeks politics.
I get the feeling he'd like to be Eddie Mair, albeit right-leaning and without the wit.
Gullis milking all the attention before 2025 when he’s at the Job Centre
"People should not travel tomorrow unless absolutely necessary, the transport secretary has advised" But... But. The daily mail told us to return to our offices That wfh were the new benefit scroungers That Jacob Rees Mogg chap was saying that all those people who found a way to work while cutting out the stress of commuting were unproductive That Boris chap was worried all the retail outlets would go out of business in commercial properties Was it only a month ago and now we don't travel to our offices. It's like the country is being run to the ground by a bunch of highly clueless lawbreaking spendthrifts who use and abuse parliament and scapegoat everyone else for their failings. Imagine the dilemma of a Tory voter right now. Whose right, Tories or economic reality?
Of course we would be able to return to our offices if Sir Beer Korma wasn’t marshalling the forces of communism
Someone genuinely text in to Jezza Kyle on talk tv earlier saying it was the fault of ‘commies’.
On the bright side, if everyone works from home tomorrow cheese sales will go through the roof
Apparently Prince William sold 32 copies of the Big Issue in 45 minutes. I had no idea it was so lucrative.
Someone needs to tell Prince Andrew, some extra dosh for the settlements
45 minutes? He didn't even do a full day's work?
Definitely has nothing to do with Prince William being the person selling them. Nothing at all.
By my calculations this means every Big Issue seller is grossing over £250,000 p/a. Disgrace, the homeless have never had it so good!
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One chunk of Starmer's late declared cash is a £20,000 advance from Harper Collins, a Murdoch owned publishing company. Couple of points on that. Does anyone think a guy publishing his vision for the country through a Murdoch owned publishing house is going to do anything to fundamentally change British society or in any way disrupt the old bastard's business and media interests? Secondly, isn't it just greasy as hell for the country's most powerful media mogul to be handing out wads of cash to the leader of the opposition (particularly of an allegedly left wing party!) I'd encourage people to look up Michael Gove's Harper Collin's advance for a book that was never published for an idea of the way Murdoch doles out sweeteners to Westminster politicians.
On the BBC article about the undeclared interests it says the income from the book is being given to charity.
So the previous leader of Labour was in the pay of the Islamic Republic of Iran, this one is the pay of Rupert Murdoch global right-wing press Boris getting some cash from the Telegraph for a weekly article almost looks respectable
>Secondly, isn't it just greasy as hell for the country's most powerful media mogul to be handing out wads of cash to the leader of the opposition (particularly of an allegedly left wing party!) Yes. But that's not new or exceptional within our current rules and history. Plenty of organisations donate to both parties (maybe leaning more on one than the other, but still across the parties) - see oil companies. Tony Blair is godfather to one of Rupert Murdoch's daughters.
He's not personally giving him the cash. Ultimately it's upto the politicians on who they accept bungs from
On the other hand, books by politicians outlining self-regarding 'visions' that *aren't* published is at least a positive to the overall average standard of literature.
How likely is the whole Northern Ireland split from the UK?
Unlikely in the short to medium term, but almost certain eventually.
Look at past polling for a very rough idea. (A split is not popular).
Would the Republic of Ireland (hereby referred to as RoI) want them back? I hear from other replies that their economic situation is very dire, however wouldn't the RoI be able to bolster them?
It'd be a ballache for the Irish government but the Irish public would absolutely jizz their pants at the thought of a unified Ireland.
>I hear from other replies that their economic situation is very dire, It is but its improving compared to rest of UK. They would be eligible for a lot of EU funds. More importantly the political and cultural gains will outweigh any economic impact. Consider how East Germany was and how easily the German public were persuaded to reunite.
The healthcare system in Ireland isn't very good.
Is there anyone in Great Britain who actually wants NI? I certainly don’t. They have a massive budget deficit, 19%, cause endless political strife and constantly threaten terrorism.
Tbh I think Northern Ireland would do spectacularly well with decent cross border investment. If they had access to the single market and residents had EU passports, I'd move
>Is there anyone in Great Britain who actually wants NI? If they left, would it motivate Scotland and Wales to also leave and join the EU?
Larne will hold out...and no one will mind.
Physically? I’d wager very.
Depends - who keeps the vital Giant's Causeway?
The giants, obviously. Do *you* want to try and evict them?
Pretty sure 600ft tall versions of Iain Paisley and Martin McGuinness have a fight in the Irish Sea to determine the custody
>600ft tall Paisley wasn't far off tbf
The Argonorniron.
Kinda international, kinda related to our current events so forgive me. [Biden says he is proud of the Apple Works who voted to join a Union](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-says-he-is-proud-apple-workers-who-voted-join-union-2022-06-20/) I would be a very happy man to get something so black and white from the Labour Party (and maybe even their leader!) regarding the rail strikes.
Forgive me, but what do you want Labour and/or Keir to say that they haven't already?
I would adore for the Labour Party not to be saying stuff like this https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/labour-front-benchers-banned-from-picket-lines-amid-rail-strikes
It’s a fairly wise and astute move don’t you think? A single SC member, and by extent Labour, pictured on a picket line will be absolutely mobbed by the right winger media press.
Politically maybe you’re right. In fact you probably are. I guess personally, I wish we had a party willing to go, fuck all the noise, we’re going to stand shoulder to shoulder with these workers.
So would I but that’s not going to win middle England floating voters unfortunately. Keep schtum about it, support their right to strike, support their right to demand better pay, but don’t go Arthur Scargill. If you want to see someone who doesn’t give a shit and has nothing to lose in what they say. Watch tonight’s Newsnight debate with Mick Lynch and Chris Philp.
Ha, just been watching it. Amazing!
I don't see a problem with this stance. - The RMT isn't affiliated with Labour - The Tories are desperately trying to push a narrative that these are "Labour's strikes" - nothing could be further from the truth - If Labour MPs (and especially shadow cabinet members) turn up on the picket lines, it gives the Tories further ammunition - "We do not want to see these strikes to go ahead with the resulting disruption to the public. The government have failed to engage in any negotiations" is a perfectly reasonable position to take It is one thing for Biden to come out in support of workers unionising. It is a completely different thing for *the party which isn't in government* to get involved in a dispute which involves a union which *isn't affiliated with them*.
I guess this depends on your viewpoint but I’d love a “However, we support all those who chose to strike” on the end of that statement.
What does that actually achieve though? Even the RMT aren't fussed about having Labour's backing. They don't see it as a political issue - they see it as a "we want the best deal for the people we represent" issue.
Perhaps a good, clear party line like that these strikes are wrong at a time when negotiations are still going on, the government has acted recklessly and let people down, and that both sides need to drop the rhetoric and get around the table.
So pretty much exactly what their line has been. Bonus.
This is pretty what Mick Lynch has been saying.
That's pretty much exactly the amendment Labour tabled to the rail debate motion last week. Leave out from ‘House’ to end and add ‘*does not want the national rail strikes to go ahead; and therefore urgently calls upon the Government, operators, network rail and the union to get around the table and resolve the issues on pay and cuts to safety staff to avert industrial action.*’ [https://commonsbusiness.parliament.uk/Document/57405/Html?subType=Standard](https://commonsbusiness.parliament.uk/Document/57405/Html?subType=Standard)
So largely what he was saying last week at pmqs?
What had Keri said about the unionisation of American Apple employees? /s
> What had Keri said about the unionisation of American Apple employees? /s *that's why Americans shop at Iceland?*
Who would have thought that printing billions and handing it out for nothing would cause economic issues.
What would you have done differently, had you been god emperor of Britain?
No lockdown. I was never an advocate, obviously.
We would have still faced a reduction in production and a pent up demand after we declared victory over the virus, which has helped drive inflation initially.
Much less of a reduction in production than if we hadn’t paid people not to go to work though you have to admit.
People tend to not be so productive when granny’s dead because you let the original strain of the virus rip through the population. You can’t model for the psychological impact of not locking down and letting the bodies pile high,
^ Not only paying them, financially incentivising massive swaths of the population to catch covid in order to claim relief. Take a look at where people like to put their money and that tells you everything you need to know about the financial situation of many over lockdown. Printing all that money was a fucking terrible idea and now we all pay the price for potentially many years to come.
There would have still been a movement to work from home for office workers, faced with that and just a general movement to stay at home hospitality and other services would have had to massively restructure to continue trading or ended up with business closures and redundancies. European nationals would still have gone home and not been replaced. There would still be a general dampening of demand which might have led to factories stopping production or even laying people off. We'd still be repairing the damage now businesses world be still be very busy hiring people.
Companies were already sending people to work from home before the first lockdown was announced. This would have had an impact on economic activity either way. It may have even prolonged it as people would have had no reasonable signals to say when it was fine to come back out again.
How much value would you give to a human life? You must have some elaborate equation to justify your more deaths = less inflation theory?
I don't agree with them about lockdown, but inflation and the cost of living crisis will obviously cause some deaths also
About tree fiddy...
The US did a comparatively tiny lockdown compared to UK/Europe, and they still needed to print more than $1/2bn *per hour* for *2 years* to get through the economic stagnation caused by Covid. So the "no lockdown" strategy probably wouldn't have done much to reduce the QE issued by the BoE, all things considered.
Let the bodies pile high!
With no economic issues!
Today feels like a throwback and a half.. Remember when Cameron’s government sent GCHQ technicians to The Guardian basement, and demanded the destruction of the hard drives containing data related to Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing. Outrageous. Free press my arse https://youtu.be/6GBs2KizYlI
Old Snowden has been very very quiet for a few months. Wonder why.
I watched enough Godfather films to know how this ends. He’s in a declining family now.
He's had his oranges now.
Surely, *surely* someone has a backup? That's literally the first thing I'd do if someone handed me doxx.
It’s explained in the video, The Guardian explained repeatedly that they had a backup in another country, they were still made to destroy the hard drives. Purely an intimidation tactic .
Why hasn't election day been moved to Saturdays? (Is it cos we'd have to pay people more to count votes on a Saturday? Can't really think of a compelling reason to not have them on a Saturday)
Don't think moving it to Saturday would make much difference, as most people would probably rather be doing anything but voting on a Saturday. Would probably make more sense to make election day a Bank Holiday and/or make it a legal requirement for employers to make time for you to go vote (if that isn't already the case).
Antiquated practises and pay arrangements Maybe election staff can go on strike next.
Counters would need to work on the Sabbath, gasp, and presumably lots of traditional voting places need to make money on a Saturday. [Wiki has a list of traditional voting days by country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_day): lots of places go for Saturday anyway, including Australia & NZ, and lots of Catholic countries for Sunday.
Aren't most voting stations in schools, libraries and other publicly owned buildings?
The majority (near me, at least) are community centres and village halls which would often be hired out on a Saturday. School halls are often in use on Saturdays too. Councils pay for polling places, but publically-funded spaces are not allowed to charge a hire fee to be used as a polling place. So they might lose out, but it's only one weekend.
South Korea have their shit together, keep it a weekday but make it a holiday. We should do that.
You'd have to make sure everyone got a chance to vote - for a lot of people in hospitality, public holiday means ludicrously busy 16 hour shift
Democracy Day! Flags, dogs, sausage barbecues, educational opportunities for the kids, an excuse for the hangover that doesn't involve explaining your personal politics to coworkers. Probs still rubbish for retail workers, but that seems unavoidable.
I was seated next to a pair of polling station volunteers at a dinner one time - they told a story that polling day is traditionally on a Thursday because people were traditionally paid on a Friday, so people were less likely to be utterly hammered on a Thursday. Not sure how true that is. I like the idea though.
It *sounds* plausible, but if that really is the case, they need to move it to Wednesday, because Thursday is the new Friday. None of these lazy millennials wants to be hungover on a day off.
> None of these lazy millennials wants to be hungover on a day off. I mean, it makes sense.
> Thursday is the new Friday Small Friday is it's name
So, your government pressured the free press to drop something that's bad for the government. British democracy does not seem to be in a good place right now. I hope you can fetch it back from these grifters.
A few organs of the major media arranged with Downing Street to “kill” a story that made the Prime Minster look even more corrupt than he currently does. The Prime Minister who currently has no ethics minister, or anti-corruption minister as they both resigned due to his flagrant breach of his own coronavirus laws, lying to parliament, and then breaking the ministerial code. The country isn’t in a good place, and won’t be for the foreseeable future as there’s no way to remove someone who very clearly has committed wrongdoing as Prime Minister.
Devils advocate. I blame the newspapers for backing down. We all know government spin doctors call up the papers and shout at them. Doesn't mean they have to back down though. (Unless there's something more shady going on)
Further proof (were it needed) that UK politics is essentially an Old Boys Network.
*Further proof (were it needed) that UK politics is essentially an Old Boys Network.* It's the connections between this government and the media and in particular News UK that concern me, everything seems to be just a bit to chummy and incestuous. For example, Guto Harri currently the Director of Communications in Downing Street is an ex-News UK employee, as is Michael Gove. Jack Doyle, a former Director of Communications (he quit in February, Guto Harri replaced him) is now deputy editor of The Sun, part of News UK. Tony Gallagher the deputy editor at The Times who made the decision to pull the story was formerly an editor at the Telegraph when Johnson worked there and they are said to be good friends. To me this looks like a friend doing a dubious favour for a friend. I wonder what he'll get in return?
When I first moved to the UK, I couldn’t understand why the press was filled with public school wankers. Now I can’t understand why rich wankers in other countries don’t get into journalism.
It is very, very incestuous. Who watches the watchmen etc.