New Tory Leader

[Fen Canary 870]

4 hours ago, Yellow Fever said:

I actually thought SKS made an excellent point on this. Save the money and go after the supplier chains of the cheap boats in France. No boats, no boat crossings.

Going after the boats is a far more manageable problem.

How can you ban people selling dinghies? Especially in a foreign nation? 

Edited December 13, 2023 by Fen Canary

[Wings of a Sparrow 1,436]

4 hours ago, Fen Canary said:

How can you ban people selling dinghies? Especially in a foreign nation? 

Buy them all up then, still be cheaper than £290m 😁

[Fen Canary 870]

15 minutes ago, Wings of a Sparrow said:

Buy them all up then, still be cheaper than £290m 😁

Have they stopped making dinghies now then? Once the government owns all the boats nobody will ever build another one? 

[A Load of Squit 5,221]

5 hours ago, Fen Canary said:

How can you ban people selling dinghies? Especially in a foreign nation? 

You can certainly put in place mechanisms to stop the manufacture of boats ordered by the people smugglers, this would definitely reduce their capacity. 

He's already held talks with the EU and Europol to stop the problem at source.

These two measures alone are more likely to have an effect than all of the Tory policies over the last ten years.

[A Load of Squit 5,221]

The Tories will never develop a decent policy whilst you've got idiots like this spouting nonsense in the HOC, Nick Fletcher is an idiot.

 

[Worthy Nigelton 1,066]

10 hours ago, Barbe bleu said:

Does anyone actually read papers anymore?  Isn't it far more important to look at what opinions are formed on websites and social media than in print that ceased to be relevant at some point after 2010?

They are having less of an influence, for sure, but they're not dead yet. Maybe in another 15 years they will be totally irrelevant. 

[sonyc 5,541]

6 hours ago, Fen Canary said:

Likewise with Luton, I’ve worked there on numerous occasions as well as sitting training courses for work there. I’d rather be camping in Yemen to be honest it’s an absolute dump.

Ah....the anecdote. You've won all the points I made... hands down. I only had 3 kings but you had a full house all the time. You'd better hope no-one has a royal flush coming along.

And you'd actually prefer camping in Yemen than attending a training course in Luton?

Why is this 'othering' so prevalent? Looking at ALOS's recent post just above is another example. Someone characterises an area and everyone living in it. Only this weekend I heard someone say about King's Lynn "you don't hear an English person speaking anymore". One thing about Yemen I guess is that you'd be hard pressed to hear a Luton accent. That's at least one thing going for it Fen.

Haven't we always had migrants? The Huguenots had a big say in Norfolk didn't they? I'm married to an Irish woman (though do you know, reading your piece above Fen I'm so glad she or any of her ancestors didn't go to Liverpool to seek employment or try and make a living...otherwise I'd hate to imagine what you'd think of my judgement). 

 

Edited December 13, 2023 by sonyc

[Yellow Fever 3,839]

8 minutes ago, sonyc said:

Ah....the anecdote. You've won all the points I made... hands down. I only had 3 kings but you had a full house all the time. You'd better hope no-one has a royal flush coming along.

And you'd actually prefer camping in Yemen than attending a training course in Luton?

Why is this 'othering' so prevalent? Looking at ALOS's recent post just above is another example. Someone characterises an area and everyone living in it. Only this weekend I heard someone say about King's Lynn "you don't hear an English person speaking anymore". One thing about Yemen I guess is that you'd be hard pressed to hear a Luton accent. That's at least one thing going for it Fen.

Haven't we always had migrants? The Huguenots had a big say in Norfolk didn't they? I'm married to an Irish woman (though do you know, reading your piece above Fen I'm so glad she or any of her ancestors didn't go to Liverpool to seek employment or try and make a living...otherwise I'd hate to imagine what you'd think of my judgement). 

 

It was an old observation - indeed a correlation that the fewer immigrants a place has the more  'anti-immigrant' or insular it would be. Expecially true of rural Tory communities. Of course there are exceptions to this rule - the hotspots.

Locally Norwich and Gt. Yarmouth spring to mind - Norwich has a far more immigrants (%) than Yarmouth but Yarmouth 'has' the issue with them more-so. In reality I suspect its more to do with levels of deprivation and older demographics (the young that can have moved on)  irrespective of immigration - but hey - some people need somebody else to blame!

[Yellow Fever 3,839]

6 hours ago, Fen Canary said:

How can you ban people selling dinghies? Especially in a foreign nation? 

 

1 hour ago, Wings of a Sparrow said:

Buy them all up then, still be cheaper than £290m 😁

 

1 hour ago, A Load of Squit said:

You can certainly put in place mechanisms to stop the manufacture of boats ordered by the people smugglers, this would definitely reduce their capacity. 

He's already held talks with the EU and Europol to stop the problem at source.

These two measures alone are more likely to have an effect than all of the Tory policies over the last ten years.

Thanks ALS. It's clearly possible to target police resources with our French compatriots of the dingy (made to order apparently) supply chain of the smugglers. We do of course already work hand in glove with the French police on people smugglers!

In fact the idea is so obvious but its not so common sense - which is why I noted it.

[Wings of a Sparrow 1,436]

51 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

 

 

Thanks ALS. It's clearly possible to target police resources with our French compatriots of the dingy (made to order apparently) supply chain of the smugglers. We do of course already work hand in glove with the French police on people smugglers!

In fact the idea is so obvious but its not so common sense - which is why I noted it.

Sledgehammer to crack a nut as usual with this lot.

Sometimes the answer is much closer to home.

[Wings of a Sparrow 1,436]

PMQs...

Tories are utterly deluded. SKS playing a blinder.

*Recruited 50,000 new nurses ?! I missed that one 😮

Edited December 13, 2023 by Wings of a Sparrow

[Herman 9,834]

1 hour ago, Wings of a Sparrow said:

PMQs...

Tories are utterly deluded. SKS playing a blinder.

*Recruited 50,000 new nurses ?! I missed that one 😮

What is in Starmer's tea. He seems more relaxed and funnier, less wooden and lawyerly. 

[TheGunnShow 6,019]

3 hours ago, Yellow Fever said:

It was an old observation - indeed a correlation that the fewer immigrants a place has the more  'anti-immigrant' or insular it would be. Expecially true of rural Tory communities. Of course there are exceptions to this rule - the hotspots.

Locally Norwich and Gt. Yarmouth spring to mind - Norwich has a far more immigrants (%) than Yarmouth but Yarmouth 'has' the issue with them more-so. In reality I suspect its more to do with levels of deprivation and older demographics (the young that can have moved on)  irrespective of immigration - but hey - some people need somebody else to blame!

Makes some sense in Germany too. Used to live in a border town called Guben (2000-1) and also lived in Bonn (2002-3). Guben bore witness to a shocker of a case where an asylum-seeker was chased through the town by the local neo-Nahzees, jumped through the glass panel of a door to try and get to safety in an apartment complex but only succeeded in bleeding to death. Just to make matters worse, the memorial stone laid out for him was vandalised several times over, the sentences passed on were quite lenient and indeed one of the main perpetrators came back to Guben to take part in an election for the old NPD party (basically their version of the BNP). But large swathes of the former East Germany didn't have too many immigrants.

Compare that to Bonn, which was certainly gloriously mixed and probably over 20% back then with it being the former capital of West Germany - and I don't remember ever hearing of anything like that there.

[Yellow Fever 3,839]

1 hour ago, TheGunnShow said:

Makes some sense in Germany too. Used to live in a border town called Guben (2000-1) and also lived in Bonn (2002-3). Guben bore witness to a shocker of a case where an asylum-seeker was chased through the town by the local neo-Nahzees, jumped through the glass panel of a door to try and get to safety in an apartment complex but only succeeded in bleeding to death. Just to make matters worse, the memorial stone laid out for him was vandalised several times over, the sentences passed on were quite lenient and indeed one of the main perpetrators came back to Guben to take part in an election for the old NPD party (basically their version of the BNP). But large swathes of the former East Germany didn't have too many immigrants.

Compare that to Bonn, which was certainly gloriously mixed and probably over 20% back then with it being the former capital of West Germany - and I don't remember ever hearing of anything like that there.

It's the 'fear' of the unknown - the 'other'. I think I once mentioned coming back to Norwich on the train from London and getting into conversation with a Saudi pair opposite me. Uncle and I guess 18 - 20 year old niece complete with abaya and niqab. Nice people and she was obviously dressed up to the nines under the outer garments - as any young western woman would be. Frankly I was far more concerned about them in Norwich where such clothing is rarely seen and the usual suspects being hostile in pure ignorance.

Edited December 13, 2023 by Yellow Fever

[Herman 9,834]

 

[dylanisabaddog 5,002]

22 hours ago, Fen Canary said:

Have they stopped making dinghies now then? Once the government owns all the boats nobody will ever build another one? 

It's really simple. The boats are almost exclusively made in Turkey and it's easy to find out where. We just need to have a friendly word with the Turks. 

We won't though. The Government love the boat problem because it wins them votes. In fact they have probably helped to deliberately push up the numbers because it frightens their supporters and it's all they have left. 

[TheGunnShow 6,019]

[Herman 9,834]

Scott Benton 🤣🤣🤣

[Barbe bleu 832]

On 12/12/2023 at 22:41, sonyc said:

The papers are online though, that's how they are mainly consumed.

The Mail online is the font of all right wing populist knowledge. It's the go to site for many of that persuasion. It spins its hate daily and there's plenty of takers. If you read them you find that many points end...

I'm not sure that online media is just the papers on the Internet.  The mail and guardian online have very similar worldviews to their hard copy cousins but we consume in a very different way with algorithm and stuff.

I guess in the olden days a person would get their paper and that was basically it apart from watch the news on telly. Nowadays it's quick clicks all over the place.  The BBC is probably more influential than it has ever been and there are so many sources of news from around the world that the influence of this or that paper in 2023 just doesn't compare to that in 2010, let alone 1997. 

That said, we have a world of choice but 90% of us just use that to go to a few websites or twitter accounts that take what we want to hear and put it to he extreme. Maybe we'll go to an enemy account just for the comments but then back to safe ground. 

 

 

[sonyc 5,541]

"go to a few websites or twitter accounts that take what we want to hear and put it to he extreme. Maybe we'll go to an enemy account just for the comments but then back to safe ground"

I think that's fair enough. We do mostly seek out what chimes for us and it is about knowing there are people out there with a similar world view. That we are not alone essentially.This gives us a certain comfort. The thing is to have enough independence of mind to still not believe our take. To retain uncertainty, or a level of openness, a simple curiosity. If we can get to that point, nothing someone else says quite upsets us as much.

Occasionally I find ignorant remarks get beneath my skin, because they lack awareness and I mean here, from people who are in high office. I have a higher bar set for them because with that power comes a greater responsibility to actually know things and life experience to understand themselves. Those in positions of power ought to have some humility and demonstrate it. If only we had such people they would model a way for many others. Unfortunately, we rarely do and such people we sometimes find in our daily lives only.

I don't think we can rely on journalists and papers is my final conclusion. They tend to amplify our thoughts and beliefs rather than deepen them. They are mainly surface and often lack a depth. 

 

[Wings of a Sparrow 1,436]

Sunak addressing the right wingers in Italy.

Jeez. More anti immigrant rhetoric.

[Herman 9,834]

16 minutes ago, Wings of a Sparrow said:

Sunak addressing the right wingers in Italy.

Jeez. More anti immigrant rhetoric.

I heard the report on BBC 4. They commented on how Meloni has moved further towards the mainstream rather than Sunak and co moving further towards the fascistii. Poor reporting.

[Herman 9,834]

Laura Kuennsberg is interviewing Michelle Mone and her husband about her involvement in the PPE  scandal tomorrow morning.

This will either be;

A) A hard hitting piece of journalism that tries to find out what really happened.

..or....

B) A puff piece designed to keep friends of the government happy.

[dylanisabaddog 5,002]

12 hours ago, Herman said:

Laura Kuennsberg is interviewing Michelle Mone and her husband about her involvement in the PPE  scandal tomorrow morning.

This will either be;

A) A hard hitting piece of journalism that tries to find out what really happened.

..or....

B) A puff piece designed to keep friends of the government happy.

Must have been prerecorded because I just heard an extract. Mone says "if I die, my children will benefit from the Trust". I've no idea if Kuenssberg went on to explain mortality to her. I shall watch later, even though I've already had enough stress this weekend. 

[Herman 9,834]

They're really taking the **** out of everyone.

 

[Herman 9,834]

5 hours ago, dylanisabaddog said:

Must have been prerecorded because I just heard an extract. Mone says "if I die, my children will benefit from the Trust". I've no idea if Kuenssberg went on to explain mortality to her. I shall watch later, even though I've already had enough stress this weekend. 

I couldn't face watching the whole thing but from the clips I've seen it looks as if Laura did a reasonable job of giving them enough rope.

[dylanisabaddog 5,002]

1 hour ago, Herman said:

I couldn't face watching the whole thing but from the clips I've seen it looks as if Laura did a reasonable job of giving them enough rope.

Bearing in mind it's the subject of a Crime Agency enquiry I'm surprised she said anything. 

[Wings of a Sparrow 1,436]

So did the 'government' by-pass the stringent procurement procedures regarding quality and standards that the NHS would have had in place. Will anyone ever be brought to justice. And no, Mone didn't really come out of it with any credit, but there's more people who signed the deal off should be feeling very uncomfortable.

Waiting for a plane full of PPE anyone?

 

[Barbe bleu 832]

23 hours ago, Wings of a Sparrow said:

So did the 'government' by-pass the stringent procurement procedures regarding quality and standards that the NHS would have had in place. Will anyone ever be brought to justice. And no, Mone didn't really come out of it with any credit, but there's more people who signed the deal off should be feeling very uncomfortable.

Waiting for a plane full of PPE anyone?

 

The Michelle Mone thing is clearly unsatisfactory,  the government is sueing, she is doing interviews and its being talked about widely.

But there is a risk that nothing at all is learnt from the whole affair because it has simply become the subject of unfocused rants.  I'd like to know more about this but it needs to be broken down into components that are scrutinised in detail. I can think of at least four key questions thst should be addressed in a focused and evidenced manner:

did medpro engage in profiteering by asking for higher than normal profits at a time of acute emergency

Did mone mislead decision makers by recommending a supplier (a recommendation that might have been valuable given her former trade) and not declaring her interest in that supplier.    

Did the decision makers undertake sufficient due diligence (accepting that this was an acute emergency and usual rules need not have applied) or just take her word for it (or actively favoured the bid because the who was more important than the what- i put this bit in brackets because the high court has already ruled against this assertion in previous cases do its a dangerous claim to make)

Did the contract awarded have sufficient clauses about quality and delivery to make sure that if the right stuff didn't come through at the right time nothing was paid out?

 

Edited December 18, 2023 by Barbe bleu

[Daz Sparks 1,186]

Ordinary people suffer a pandemic and all the associated hardships, whereas privileged scumbags, without any previous experience in procurement of PPE to the NHS have £60m in the bank. 

Bunch of corrupt b'stards.