Creative Midfielder

Yes, excellent article - I find having a Prime Minister who routinely and very regularly tell lies grossly offensive, so I probably react a bit emotionally to it at times. So, very good to see this revolting and shameful apology for a Prime Minister dismantled as an outright liar in a dispassionate and entirely objective manner. Just a shame that only a tiny portion of our media subjects him to any real scrutiny at all.

Well we are certainly agreed on the question of sensibly reducing energy demand and you are right that insulation standards have improved somewhat for new builds but I think you greatly exaggerate the extent of the improvement - if memory serves the improved insulation standards pre-date the declaration of the climate emergency so don't represent 'action' since then and although they are indisputably an improvement on our previously very low standards they were still regarded as very unambitious by the experts. The original proposal brought forward by the government was that all new houses would be built to Passivhaus standards (I think this was around 2015) and that was substantially watered down after intensive lobbying by the big building firms - there's a surprise!! I think your characterisation of the IB protests is entirely unfair - I'm puzzled as to why you consider their demands 'ill-defined', they seem pretty clear to me and I think they are far more substantive than the 'attention seekers' you suggest but let me make just tow points; Firstly, whatever we think about the improvements that have been made to insulation standards, and useful though they may be, they are essentially token gestures. We build relatively few new homes nowadays and the big issue/potential win has always been the improvement of the many millions of very poorly insulated homes within the UK. This is the issue which IB are campaigning on and which successive Tory governments have ignored - I'm not even counting the two, or was it three, utterly useless and ridiculous schemes which they launched and collapsed without achieving anything. Secondly, whilst I personally wouldn't necessarily approve or support the methods IB has used, as Herman has already pointed out, they have succeded in getting an important issue into the headlines which is something a huge amount of moderate and 'reasonable' campaigning has totally failed to do. I think that has a much wider message about the many failings of UK society, and what we laughingly call our 'democracy', in the 21st century that a group of people has to resort to these lengths to get a hearing for something about which virtually all experts and scientists agree on but a tin-eared government continues to ignore. As Herman said, what else can they do because I'm pretty sure every other avenue has already been tried to zero effect.

It would if the police attacked them as they have been doing with other peaceful protesters this year 😃 But on a more serious note you are quite right - both the press and more importantly the government have been told countless times over the last ten years by pretty much every environmental and climate group that insulating this country's appallingly poor housing stock would be one of the measures most cost effective and beneficial to the environment that could be undertaken. It would be win-win on several levels. The government hasnt taken a blind bit of notice - the HoC declared a climate emergency two and a half years ago and the Tory government(s) haven't done a single thing to react to that 'emergency'. In fact they've done worse than nothing, in trying to open a new coalmine and oilfields they are committed to making the emergency worse.

😂 So there you go @Rock The Boat, it isn't just me that thinks Johnson is economically illiterate even his natural supporters in the right wing thinktanks say not only is he economically illiterate but 'vacuous' to boot 😂 Johnson's speech condemned by Thatcherite thinktanks as 'vacuous and economically illiterate'' You're backing a complete duffer and trying to defend the indefensible - think you may end up as the last man standing because he seems to be getting precious little support from anyone else.

It is impossible to work out what it means when you don't know what will replace it - zero immigration was never even suggested as the answer. Throughout at least 5 years of the non-existant 6 years you keep referring to we were told that FoM would be replaced by an immigration system that reflected the country's needs - that, like pretty much everything else, this government has said about Brexit was a lie as the new system they brought in does nothing of the sort. This isn't just about lorry drivers - we have a massive shortage of nurses and in 2015, and I think pretty much every year since the government has promised to recruit an extra 50,000 nurses. We now have less nurses than we did in 2015!!! Changes are definitely coming but many not for the better and none of them have been planned - that is just a ludicrous narrative dreamt up in the last fortnight by the Tories as a pathetic fig leaf for the shambles they've created. Of course in the long run if certain occupations which are currently underpaid get a boost in wages that will be a good thing but no sane, or even semi-competent government would go about it the way this one has and in any case with inflation running ahead (and looking to rise a lot faster still) of pay rises then the pay rises are actually pay cuts for the vast majority. We are not heading for a high skills, high wage economy as the economically illerate buffoons are trying to claim, we are heading for high inflation and a stagnant economy.

Absolutely ridiculous (as usual) - they didn't even have six weeks to plan, as no one could have foreseen that Johnson would go out and at the very last moment sign such an atrocious deal and one even worse that May's. I've no idea how many business tried to plan for Brexit after the referendum but I'm guessing not many since it is pretty much impossible to plan for a moving and secret target. But even those that put plans in place when TM & the EU finally agreed a deal would have been totally scuppered by Johnson's last gasp disastrous deal. Add to that the Government itself had totally failed to plan for the introduction of the deal it agreed and has still failed to implement huge parts of it, and it is abundantly clear that the Government is solely responsible for the total shambles happening all around us.

Absolutely spot on and I can only think of one thing to add - not only are the Tories total hypocrites and have failed in all the ways you describe, they have also actively pushed public services which were working extremely well into the private sector in the stupid and purely ideological belief that the free market always does it better. There have been a great many failures of the 'free market' over the last fifteen years but not one of them have stopped the Tories trying to extend its role in our society and frequently to benefit their mates and paymasters. Our recent favourite crises are simply the latest examples of repeated and massive failures of the state, or more precisely successive Tory governments - economic illiterates, uncaring, incompetent, corrupt and deceitful who have turned this country back into the 'sick man of Europe'.

Absolutely brilliant, by far the best and most eloquent description of Johnson I've ever heard.

………….I think we all know the answer to that question 😂

😂😂😂 I didn't think it possible - you've been spouting rubbish and downright lies for years but with the wheels starting to come off Brexit your posts are getting even more ridiculous and stupid than that.

Ouch, that really is putting the boot in but then again why shouldn't they given all the sh*t they'had to put up with from May, Johnson and Frost? Also pretty sure that if the situations were reversed then the UK right wing press would be going completely over the top with glee.

I think you are being far too generous @sonyc, they knew full well what the implications for the GFA, peace process and the unity of the UK were , after all they'd been told many times by many different people. So I'd go for utterly irresponsible and entirely devious, and I reckon that is still understated as far as the conduct of Frost and Johnson is concerned.

Sadly, he could actually be right for once - it seems to have worked well enough for him, and Johnson both, so far. Seems as though for the dimwits that back them, the complete u-turns and totally contradictory statements they make just don’t register. The fact that nothing they’ve promised is actually delivered doesn’t register with the muppets either. 😂😂😂

Yep, yet another demonstration that he is a total ignoramus on economics, and pretty much everything else as well. Extraordinary that an incompetent idiot like Johnson, with no discernible talent at all other than spouting bullsh*t to the very gullible has managed to make it as far as becoming British PM. Mind you, one thing we learned from the referendum is that slightly over 50% of UK voters are extremely gullible. Perhaps even more extraordinary is that slightly over 40% of them have learnt nothing from their earlier stupidity and still believe that the snake oil they bought from Farage and Johnson is going to miraculously come good at some unspecified point in the far distant future…… 😂😂😂😂

First levelling up project ‘a huge success’ announces Johnson.

Exactly, which would make the season a total waste (apart from topping up the coffers of course 😃).

Personally I'm the complete opposite, I would much rather be beaten playing good football than endure a season of playing the same negative and uninteresting EPL standard dross that the majority of the Prem plays in order to grind out enough points so that they can repeat the same dreary process next season. But I accept that I'm in a minority on that and I completely agree with you that given the pressure that Farke is under from almost all quarters to grind out results at the expense of playing entertaining football then what he did today was perfectly logical. What is more, it worked but the idiots who were moaning for the last few weeks that we should be doing what we did today but that Farke was incapable of changing the way we play don't seem to like being proven wrong. So all of a sudden we have a completely different sets of moans - some people should be a lot more careful what they wish for 😃

So did this idiot explain why if Brexit (which happened 21 months ago now in case you've forgotten) was good for the HGV industry we are now looking at empty petrol pumps and supermarket shelves, and all the retailers are saying they can't build up their stocks in preparation for Christmas??? You really are a gullible idiot 😂

Think we'll put in a decent performance but if we actually look like getting anything out of the game then the ref will let Burnley kick us to pieces or VAR will hand them yet another dodgy decision, i.e. another standard EPL outing which we lose.

I think the only real distinction between the UK and the other 'banana republics' around the world is that we don't even have any bananas! But I can see why they would say that because we definitely fit the other criteria.

Whether or not the Greens are more 'left' than Labour, they certainly have a much more comprehensive and 'better' policy platform than Labour and they are much better led. In Caroline Lucas they also have a more intelligent and articulate MP (by a country mile) than anybody either the Tory or Labour party have to offer. So I wouldn't write them off completely. Unfortunately there is a substantial proportion of the English that seem to believe that we are still living in the 20th century (and then of course there is also a big group who believe we are still in the 19th century and then there's Rees-Mogg and his mates.....😂) so its no real surprise that England is such a backward country in many respects - and this is only going to get worse as Brexit drags us back towards the 20th century. It is also true that one manifestation of our backwardness - our farcial FPTP voting system which has maintained a two party tweedle-dee, tweedle-dum system of government for 300 years, does make it very difficult for any alternatives to gain any traction. But if the current state, i.e. dim, clueless and completely useless, of both the Labour and Tory parties (and let's add utterly untrustworthy in the case of the Tories) doesn't get people looking for an alternative - and voting for it - then this country deserves everything which is already starting to come its way. But the Greens are now in government in Scotland and soon will be in Germany, and are pretty strong at the local/regional level in many other European countries. So I know the odds are very much against it happening here but I still retain a very slight hope that perhaps people here will wake up to the realities of our situation before the incompetents and chancers that currently inhabit the HoC completely trash the country.

In which case then it is almost certainly untrue - Johnson is a serial liar, a bit like............

😂 Pity we don't have a national strategy to address the massive empty space..............between Johnson's ears!

😂 And right there is a perfect example of why we don't believe anything you post - because you come out with total rubbish and downright stupid lies.

😂 We don't forget, we just don't believe you.