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Some positive Survation Red Wall polling for LAB – politicalbetting.com

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    felixfelix Posts: 15,124
    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    It's a fair comment. People in the UK have poorer cooking skill than the rest of Europe. I come across people who struggle to make rice or pasta regularly and not having basic skills really limits the ability to each cheap and nutritious food. Takeaways are both expensive and unhealthy.
    Correct - and a great variety of simple meals can be prepared and cooked in barely 20 minutes - I know as I'm way too lazy and stingy to spend more time or electricity making them.
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,849

    Carnyx said:

    Despite @StuartDickson's best efforts to escape the UK security umbrella, he can't get away from it:

    @SamRamani2
    BREAKING: Boris Johnson confirms that Britain will come to Sweden's assistance if it is attacked


    https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1524393730500931584

    What is the fucking matter with the man. He's at the 'I love you' stage of being drunk, chucking our overstretched military at anyone who'll have it like an unwanted beery hug.
    He'll be in Finland next. Party girl Sanna Marin got in trouble for covid partying too. She immediately joined Ardern in being yesterday's face of modern politics. Now she just gads about in a 1990s style black leather jacket saying the Finns might join NATO one day.
    There is already a military alliance between the UK, Finland and Sweden (among others)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Joint_Expeditionary_Force
    My being a plank and amusing myself aside, people generally don't know about these sorts of things when they scoff at the UK still wielding and projecting soft power globally
    It certainly doesn't have as much military power as it used to. MoD planning what is it, 270 front line main battle tanks? (That was well before recent events, with their own pros and cons.)
    No, although Cyprus and Juffair do give us a good reach and influence but for sure thus ain't even 82 now let alone Suez times
    We have not enough nowadays to beat a carpet
  • Options
    SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,859
    dixiedean said:

    Sandpit said:

    dixiedean said:

    Hadn't realised the PL could end in a playoff game.
    Here's how. Still pretty unlikely, mind.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61407180

    The Beeb puts a story like that almost every season where it goes down to the final day of the season.

    Its actually far more plausible than some of the prior ones they've said. Considering the goals scored are identical, its actually pretty plausible that it could happen - unlikely, but plausible.

    I think a prior season it needed something like a 9-0 defeat for the league leaders to make it happen.
    What Liverpool need, is to beat Villa by a rugby score.
    Don't put any money on it.
    2-1 last night.
    Yeah, I realised that just after I posted it. Was hoping no-one noticed. Bloody Everton fans! :)
  • Options
    wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,930
    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    The agenda is they want a world where people are helpless and utterly reliant on state support. I am reliant financially on state support and it's fucking miserable. Anything that can be done to teach skills, techniques etc to help lift yourself away from poverty is a good thing.
  • Options
    IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    rcs1000 said:

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse

    Dorothy L Sayers also wrote about in Murder Must Advertise.
    Plus, deep freezes. You can't run one if you are hand-to-mouth about electricity,and they are the or a great saver.
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,849
    Carnyx said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    It's a fair comment. People in the UK have poorer cooking skill than the rest of Europe. I come across people who struggle to make rice or pasta regularly and not having basic skills really limits the ability to each cheap and nutritious food. Takeaways are both expensive and unhealthy.
    Yes but as soon as you suggest teaching cooking or managing money in schools traditionalist Tories complain that we are not teaching enough about kings or queens or capital cities.
    Call it "traditional values" class or something and teach them how to make pies?
    STeak and kidney pudding. Boiled gammon with caper sauce. Coronation chicken. Queens pudding. Eton mess. Lots of good ideas in that royalist menu someone posted yesterday. Would keep the trads happy.
    Steak and kidney pudding is horrific, tastes like wee, much better the Scottish steak pie with sausages.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,325
    malcolmg said:

    Carnyx said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    It's a fair comment. People in the UK have poorer cooking skill than the rest of Europe. I come across people who struggle to make rice or pasta regularly and not having basic skills really limits the ability to each cheap and nutritious food. Takeaways are both expensive and unhealthy.
    Yes but as soon as you suggest teaching cooking or managing money in schools traditionalist Tories complain that we are not teaching enough about kings or queens or capital cities.
    Call it "traditional values" class or something and teach them how to make pies?
    STeak and kidney pudding. Boiled gammon with caper sauce. Coronation chicken. Queens pudding. Eton mess. Lots of good ideas in that royalist menu someone posted yesterday. Would keep the trads happy.
    Steak and kidney pudding is horrific, tastes like wee, much better the Scottish steak pie with sausages.
    Depends if it has been made properly or not. Like many dishes made from offal it takes a bit of skill to get it right.
  • Options
    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,607
    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    What scheme to teach people how to cook? Most schools stopped doing Cookery at school when GCSEs arrived transforming it into a Home Economics type course which meant that a fully equipped Kitchen classroom was only required for 1/2 the lessons rather than all of them.

    In the Guardian article, it says they teach them how to cook cheap and basic meals as part of receiving assistance from a food bank. It's actually a good scheme though I think maybe it should be optional or recommended rather than mandatory as there's lots of people who are so afraid of the kitchen that they may go hungry rather than accept help if it meant cooking.
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,849

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    There is a massive problem that youngsters can't cook.

    We had 'Home economics' classes (how to cook basically) at school back in 1970s, but only for the girls!

    But there is also now increasing numbers of food banks saying people come to them and say 'don't give me anything I have to cook or heat as I cannot afford the electricity or gas to run the cooker'.

    cook it on their iphone or 85 inch tv
  • Options
    felixfelix Posts: 15,124
    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    I've never had a cooking lesson in my life - worked 30 odd years teaching - been very hard up at times. Basic shopping and cooking really isn't that hard ffs and yes it's cheap and healthy and tasty more often than not.
  • Options
    Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 49,251
    Cookie said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    Absolutely, Jack Monroe hates the Tories so I wouldn't expect any difference in the response. That's the point.

    Take the same message and change the messenger and it becomes a worthy comment that is right-on.
    Yes, many of the poor are not just poor in money; they are also poor in time. They do multiple jobs. And jobs which they can't just tune out of to do little personal bits and bobs.
    " I've been such a fool, Vassili. Man will always be a man. There is no new man. We tried so hard to create a society that was equal, where there'd be nothing to envy your neighbour. But there's always something to envy. A smile, a friendship, something you don't have and want to appropriate. In this world, even a Soviet one, there will always be rich and poor. Rich in gifts, poor in gifts. Rich in love, poor in love."
  • Options
    geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,144
    Watching Boris Johnson and Sauli Niinistö press conference.
    Impressive by both.
    It's on the Helsingin Sanomat website https://www.hs.fi
  • Options
    MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594

    malcolmg said:

    Carnyx said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    It's a fair comment. People in the UK have poorer cooking skill than the rest of Europe. I come across people who struggle to make rice or pasta regularly and not having basic skills really limits the ability to each cheap and nutritious food. Takeaways are both expensive and unhealthy.
    Yes but as soon as you suggest teaching cooking or managing money in schools traditionalist Tories complain that we are not teaching enough about kings or queens or capital cities.
    Call it "traditional values" class or something and teach them how to make pies?
    STeak and kidney pudding. Boiled gammon with caper sauce. Coronation chicken. Queens pudding. Eton mess. Lots of good ideas in that royalist menu someone posted yesterday. Would keep the trads happy.
    Steak and kidney pudding is horrific, tastes like wee, much better the Scottish steak pie with sausages.
    Depends if it has been made properly or not. Like many dishes made from offal it takes a bit of skill to get it right.
    Liver and bacon.....v good if done right.....
  • Options
    wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,930
    malcolmg said:

    Carnyx said:

    Despite @StuartDickson's best efforts to escape the UK security umbrella, he can't get away from it:

    @SamRamani2
    BREAKING: Boris Johnson confirms that Britain will come to Sweden's assistance if it is attacked


    https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1524393730500931584

    What is the fucking matter with the man. He's at the 'I love you' stage of being drunk, chucking our overstretched military at anyone who'll have it like an unwanted beery hug.
    He'll be in Finland next. Party girl Sanna Marin got in trouble for covid partying too. She immediately joined Ardern in being yesterday's face of modern politics. Now she just gads about in a 1990s style black leather jacket saying the Finns might join NATO one day.
    There is already a military alliance between the UK, Finland and Sweden (among others)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Joint_Expeditionary_Force
    My being a plank and amusing myself aside, people generally don't know about these sorts of things when they scoff at the UK still wielding and projecting soft power globally
    It certainly doesn't have as much military power as it used to. MoD planning what is it, 270 front line main battle tanks? (That was well before recent events, with their own pros and cons.)
    No, although Cyprus and Juffair do give us a good reach and influence but for sure thus ain't even 82 now let alone Suez times
    We have not enough nowadays to beat a carpet
    Beating carpets is something that should make a comeback. Along with scrubbing the doorstep
  • Options
    Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 49,251
    geoffw said:

    Watching Boris Johnson and Sauli Niinistö press conference.
    Impressive by both.
    It's on the Helsingin Sanomat website https://www.hs.fi

    So we can watch from start to Finnish?
  • Options
    OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,096

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Jack Monroe shows people how to cook on a budget but says that people shouldn't be put in a position of abject poverty by the benefits system, and notes that it has become increasingly difficult to be able to afford to eat even with the best budgeting and cooking skills because benefits have not kept pace with food inflation. That's a rather different position to voting against increases in benefits, lauding food banks as an alternative and shifting the blame for hunger onto the feckless poor.
  • Options
    SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,547
    PB anti-Woke warriors won't know whether to laugh or cry, jeer or cheer . . .

    Seattle Times ($) - San Juan Islands waterway could be renamed to honor Indigenous leader

    Ken Carrasco was reading about the 1855 Battle of Ash Hollow when he came across a familiar name: Gen. William Harney.

    The Harney Channel that his Orcas Island home overlooks, he realized, was named after a man who once tried to defend the San Juan Islands from British rule but also was responsible for the murders of Indigenous people and an enslaved woman. . . .

    Now three years later, Carrasco and Shaw Island resident Stephanie Buffum are leading an effort to rename the channel to honor Henry Cayou, an Indigenous San Juan County commissioner and commercial fisherman . . .

    The proposal to rename the waterway Cayou Channel was approved by the Washington State Committee on Geographic Names in April and is now under consideration by the Washington Board on Geographic Names. If approved, the proposal will go to the federal Board on Geographic Names for a final decision. . . .

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Harney

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_War_(1859)

    General George B. McClellan . . . claimed that General William S. Harney and Pickett conspired with a cabal, to start a war with Britain, creating a common enemy, to head off a north–south confrontation. . . .

    [SSI - my own theory is that Pickett was Harney's protege AND both were rash hotheads NOT noted for brainpower]

    Brigadier General William S. Harney, commanding the Department of Oregon, initially dispatched Captain George Pickett and 66 American soldiers of the 9th Infantry Regiment under Pickett's command, to San Juan Island with orders to prevent the British from landing . . . Concerned that a squatter population of Americans would begin to occupy San Juan Island if the Americans were not kept in check, the British sent three warships . . . Pickett was quoted as saying defiantly, "We'll make a Bunker Hill of it," placing him in the national limelight. . . .

    Pickett established the American Camp near the south end of San Juan Island, today one of two historical sites on the island, the other being the British Camp, defended by the Royal Marines on the north end of the island. . . .

    The governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island, James Douglas, had ordered Captain Hornby to dislodge the American troops, avoiding armed conflict if possible. At the time, the additional reinforcements sent by American General Harney had not yet arrived, and the island was occupied by only Pickett's 66 men.

    Hornby refused to take any action until British Rear Admiral Robert L. Baynes, who was in command of the British Navy in the Pacific, would arrive himself. When Baynes finally came and took stock of the situation, he told Governor Douglas that he would not escalate the conflict into a war between great nations "over a squabble about a pig".
  • Options
    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,607
    felix said:

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    I've never had a cooking lesson in my life - worked 30 odd years teaching - been very hard up at times. Basic shopping and cooking really isn't that hard ffs and yes it's cheap and healthy and tasty more often than not.
    Which is great but giving people a helping hand to get started is a really initiative. Whatever we can do to get people cooking and away from Deliveroo or the local high calorie, high salt, high fat expensive takeaway is to be welcomed. I think lefty campaigners who don't like the messenger are doing their own cause a disservice.
  • Options
    geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,144

    geoffw said:

    Watching Boris Johnson and Sauli Niinistö press conference.
    Impressive by both.
    It's on the Helsingin Sanomat website https://www.hs.fi

    So we can watch from start to Finnish?
    It's in English.

  • Options
    Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,534
    I agree that too many people can't cook from scratch.

    But only an idiot would say that you can make homemade meals for "30p per day".
    Lee Anderson is an idiot, so that fits.
  • Options
    MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    PB anti-Woke warriors won't know whether to laugh or cry, jeer or cheer . . .

    Seattle Times ($) - San Juan Islands waterway could be renamed to honor Indigenous leader

    Ken Carrasco was reading about the 1855 Battle of Ash Hollow when he came across a familiar name: Gen. William Harney.

    The Harney Channel that his Orcas Island home overlooks, he realized, was named after a man who once tried to defend the San Juan Islands from British rule but also was responsible for the murders of Indigenous people and an enslaved woman. . . .

    Now three years later, Carrasco and Shaw Island resident Stephanie Buffum are leading an effort to rename the channel to honor Henry Cayou, an Indigenous San Juan County commissioner and commercial fisherman . . .

    The proposal to rename the waterway Cayou Channel was approved by the Washington State Committee on Geographic Names in April and is now under consideration by the Washington Board on Geographic Names. If approved, the proposal will go to the federal Board on Geographic Names for a final decision. . . .

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Harney

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_War_(1859)

    General George B. McClellan . . . claimed that General William S. Harney and Pickett conspired with a cabal, to start a war with Britain, creating a common enemy, to head off a north–south confrontation. . . .

    [SSI - my own theory is that Pickett was Harney's protege AND both were rash hotheads NOT noted for brainpower]

    Brigadier General William S. Harney, commanding the Department of Oregon, initially dispatched Captain George Pickett and 66 American soldiers of the 9th Infantry Regiment under Pickett's command, to San Juan Island with orders to prevent the British from landing . . . Concerned that a squatter population of Americans would begin to occupy San Juan Island if the Americans were not kept in check, the British sent three warships . . . Pickett was quoted as saying defiantly, "We'll make a Bunker Hill of it," placing him in the national limelight. . . .

    Pickett established the American Camp near the south end of San Juan Island, today one of two historical sites on the island, the other being the British Camp, defended by the Royal Marines on the north end of the island. . . .

    The governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island, James Douglas, had ordered Captain Hornby to dislodge the American troops, avoiding armed conflict if possible. At the time, the additional reinforcements sent by American General Harney had not yet arrived, and the island was occupied by only Pickett's 66 men.

    Hornby refused to take any action until British Rear Admiral Robert L. Baynes, who was in command of the British Navy in the Pacific, would arrive himself. When Baynes finally came and took stock of the situation, he told Governor Douglas that he would not escalate the conflict into a war between great nations "over a squabble about a pig".

    We'll live SeaShanty ;)
  • Options
    wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,930
    malcolmg said:

    Carnyx said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    It's a fair comment. People in the UK have poorer cooking skill than the rest of Europe. I come across people who struggle to make rice or pasta regularly and not having basic skills really limits the ability to each cheap and nutritious food. Takeaways are both expensive and unhealthy.
    Yes but as soon as you suggest teaching cooking or managing money in schools traditionalist Tories complain that we are not teaching enough about kings or queens or capital cities.
    Call it "traditional values" class or something and teach them how to make pies?
    STeak and kidney pudding. Boiled gammon with caper sauce. Coronation chicken. Queens pudding. Eton mess. Lots of good ideas in that royalist menu someone posted yesterday. Would keep the trads happy.
    Steak and kidney pudding is horrific, tastes like wee, much better the Scottish steak pie with sausages.
    Scotch meat pies are tops but steak pudding (forget the kidney) is awesome too. I do a beef pudding with a giant suet dumpling on the top as a bung for it to steam under
  • Options
    dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,952
    Crikey. Just heard Gove.
    One of the key requirements of "doing a funny voice" is the ability to discern which accent the speaker is attempting.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,325

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    The agenda is they want a world where people are helpless and utterly reliant on state support. I am reliant financially on state support and it's fucking miserable. Anything that can be done to teach skills, techniques etc to help lift yourself away from poverty is a good thing.
    A recent comedy. Round where I live.

    There are quite a number of bike shops catering to the very well off. Lots of work doing upgrades and stuff, that frankly, a competent bike owner could do themselves.

    So they have buckets of second hand bits. Lots of stuff that is straight off bikes that has just been bought - not even used. The bike is bought and then a long list of bit changed. Yes, I know - why not buy a bare frame and buy the toys to match? Anyway....

    A lot is not even worth fleabaying.

    So a couple of the owners got in touch with some local people and for a couple of quid, let them pick out any stuff they want. Awesome, you'd think?

    No, no, no, no..... No.

    Before you could say "Clipboard" - a couple of hi-vizziers from the Council popped in to try and claim they were selling dangerous and unsafe equipment.

    Of course they did this in earshot of some the rich evul middle class bike owners. One of whom was a lawyer. Of course. The hi-vizziers got pounded like dockside hookers.....
  • Options
    OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,096

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    Wasn't there a good survey years ago (before 2010 election?) showing you could get wildly different polling results on a suggestion made anonymously, and one quoted to a partisan politician. Especially if it was a Tory politician?

    This is a prime example of that. What Anderson has said is eminently sensible, there is a major issue with people not being able to cook in this country. Tackling that should be taken seriously.

    PS I heard Marcus Rashford making the same point last summer, and he helped develop a cooking for beginners course using his celebrity to get people interested. Funnily enough the people criticising Anderson didn't criticise Rashford.
    People didn't like Marie Antoinette saying "let them eat cake"* even though they would have probably quite liked to eat some cake.

    * yes I know she didn't actually say this.
  • Options
    noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,708
    MaxPB said:

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    What scheme to teach people how to cook? Most schools stopped doing Cookery at school when GCSEs arrived transforming it into a Home Economics type course which meant that a fully equipped Kitchen classroom was only required for 1/2 the lessons rather than all of them.

    In the Guardian article, it says they teach them how to cook cheap and basic meals as part of receiving assistance from a food bank. It's actually a good scheme though I think maybe it should be optional or recommended rather than mandatory as there's lots of people who are so afraid of the kitchen that they may go hungry rather than accept help if it meant cooking.
    I agree with all of that and also 90% of what Anderson said, but his line that there is no massive use for food banks in the country is wrong and I can see why it causes offence.

    Part of it is obviously politicians on both sides playing politics, but there is a massive need for both food banks and food education at the moment.
  • Options
    SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,859
    MaxPB said:

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    What scheme to teach people how to cook? Most schools stopped doing Cookery at school when GCSEs arrived transforming it into a Home Economics type course which meant that a fully equipped Kitchen classroom was only required for 1/2 the lessons rather than all of them.

    In the Guardian article, it says they teach them how to cook cheap and basic meals as part of receiving assistance from a food bank. It's actually a good scheme though I think maybe it should be optional or recommended rather than mandatory as there's lots of people who are so afraid of the kitchen that they may go hungry rather than accept help if it meant cooking.
    The anti-foodbank campaigners really annoy me.

    They’re not trying to actually solve problems except by government handouts, assume people never fall through cracks in the system, and think that before 2010 we had some sort of socialist Utopia (EUtopia?) where no-one ever went hungry.

    Here we have an example of a brilliant charity, working hard with some of the most disadvantaged in society, providing them with subsistence resources and training. The Guardian would usually laud this activity, but instead they hate it, for what looks to be no reason other than the fact we have Conservatives in government.
  • Options
    wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,930
    dixiedean said:

    Crikey. Just heard Gove.
    One of the key requirements of "doing a funny voice" is the ability to discern which accent the speaker is attempting.

    Bit of a Govema, what big eyes you've got moment I fancy given how quick he was babbling
  • Options
    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,607

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Jack Monroe shows people how to cook on a budget but says that people shouldn't be put in a position of abject poverty by the benefits system, and notes that it has become increasingly difficult to be able to afford to eat even with the best budgeting and cooking skills because benefits have not kept pace with food inflation. That's a rather different position to voting against increases in benefits, lauding food banks as an alternative and shifting the blame for hunger onto the feckless poor.
    Increasing benefits will do little to actually help people out of poverty unless you're suggesting we make benefits something like £1500-1800 per person per month which then becomes a question of who do you intend to impoverish to pay for it.
  • Options
    state_go_awaystate_go_away Posts: 5,417

    I think a lot of people like to comfort themselves with the idea that people using foodbanks are doing so because they don't know how to cook or manage a budget. But I am not sure they would actually be able to cope with having to live the lives those who do use foodbanks have. Doing it for a week and knowing that it will all then go away is not the same as doing it with no reason to believe it will ever stop.

    How did that Pulp song go?

    Rent a flat above a shop
    Cut your hair and get a job
    Smoke some fags and play some pool
    Pretend you never went to school
    But still you'll never get it right
    'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
    Watching roaches climb the wall
    If you called your dad he could stop it all, yeah
    You'll never live like common people
    You'll never do whatever common people do
    You'll never fail like common people
    You'll never watch your life slide out of view
    And you dance and drink and screw
    Because there's nothing else to do

    didnt he go to public school as well?
  • Options
    Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,781

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    Wasn't there a good survey years ago (before 2010 election?) showing you could get wildly different polling results on a suggestion made anonymously, and one quoted to a partisan politician. Especially if it was a Tory politician?

    This is a prime example of that. What Anderson has said is eminently sensible, there is a major issue with people not being able to cook in this country. Tackling that should be taken seriously.

    PS I heard Marcus Rashford making the same point last summer, and he helped develop a cooking for beginners course using his celebrity to get people interested. Funnily enough the people criticising Anderson didn't criticise Rashford.
    People didn't like Marie Antoinette saying "let them eat cake"* even though they would have probably quite liked to eat some cake.

    * yes I know she didn't actually say this.
    She was referring to all manufacturers of brioche
  • Options
    noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,708
    dixiedean said:

    Crikey. Just heard Gove.
    One of the key requirements of "doing a funny voice" is the ability to discern which accent the speaker is attempting.

    I thought it was clearly an excellent pastiche of a coked up politician having a mid life crisis?
  • Options
    pm215pm215 Posts: 934

    What Anderson has said is eminently sensible, there is a major issue with people not being able to cook in this country. Tackling that should be taken seriously.

    PS I heard Marcus Rashford making the same point last summer, and he helped develop a cooking for beginners course using his celebrity to get people interested. Funnily enough the people criticising Anderson didn't criticise Rashford.

    Perhaps that's because Rashford wasn't making "help people in immediate difficulties" conditional on "sign up to the cooking course" ? It's the linking of the two that is putting peoples' backs up, I think.
  • Options
    SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,547
    MrEd said:

    PB anti-Woke warriors won't know whether to laugh or cry, jeer or cheer . . .

    Seattle Times ($) - San Juan Islands waterway could be renamed to honor Indigenous leader

    Ken Carrasco was reading about the 1855 Battle of Ash Hollow when he came across a familiar name: Gen. William Harney.

    The Harney Channel that his Orcas Island home overlooks, he realized, was named after a man who once tried to defend the San Juan Islands from British rule but also was responsible for the murders of Indigenous people and an enslaved woman. . . .

    Now three years later, Carrasco and Shaw Island resident Stephanie Buffum are leading an effort to rename the channel to honor Henry Cayou, an Indigenous San Juan County commissioner and commercial fisherman . . .

    The proposal to rename the waterway Cayou Channel was approved by the Washington State Committee on Geographic Names in April and is now under consideration by the Washington Board on Geographic Names. If approved, the proposal will go to the federal Board on Geographic Names for a final decision. . . .

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Harney

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_War_(1859)

    General George B. McClellan . . . claimed that General William S. Harney and Pickett conspired with a cabal, to start a war with Britain, creating a common enemy, to head off a north–south confrontation. . . .

    [SSI - my own theory is that Pickett was Harney's protege AND both were rash hotheads NOT noted for brainpower]

    Brigadier General William S. Harney, commanding the Department of Oregon, initially dispatched Captain George Pickett and 66 American soldiers of the 9th Infantry Regiment under Pickett's command, to San Juan Island with orders to prevent the British from landing . . . Concerned that a squatter population of Americans would begin to occupy San Juan Island if the Americans were not kept in check, the British sent three warships . . . Pickett was quoted as saying defiantly, "We'll make a Bunker Hill of it," placing him in the national limelight. . . .

    Pickett established the American Camp near the south end of San Juan Island, today one of two historical sites on the island, the other being the British Camp, defended by the Royal Marines on the north end of the island. . . .

    The governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island, James Douglas, had ordered Captain Hornby to dislodge the American troops, avoiding armed conflict if possible. At the time, the additional reinforcements sent by American General Harney had not yet arrived, and the island was occupied by only Pickett's 66 men.

    Hornby refused to take any action until British Rear Admiral Robert L. Baynes, who was in command of the British Navy in the Pacific, would arrive himself. When Baynes finally came and took stock of the situation, he told Governor Douglas that he would not escalate the conflict into a war between great nations "over a squabble about a pig".

    We'll live SeaShanty ;)
    Never doubted in your case!

    Mere evaporation also seems unlikely. Though sublimation just MIGHT be possible?
  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,654
    Sandpit said:

    MaxPB said:

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    What scheme to teach people how to cook? Most schools stopped doing Cookery at school when GCSEs arrived transforming it into a Home Economics type course which meant that a fully equipped Kitchen classroom was only required for 1/2 the lessons rather than all of them.

    In the Guardian article, it says they teach them how to cook cheap and basic meals as part of receiving assistance from a food bank. It's actually a good scheme though I think maybe it should be optional or recommended rather than mandatory as there's lots of people who are so afraid of the kitchen that they may go hungry rather than accept help if it meant cooking.
    The anti-foodbank campaigners really annoy me.

    They’re not trying to actually solve problems except by government handouts, assume people never fall through cracks in the system, and think that before 2010 we had some sort of socialist Utopia (EUtopia?) where no-one ever went hungry.

    Here we have an example of a brilliant charity, working hard with some of the most disadvantaged in society, providing them with subsistence resources and training. The Guardian would usually laud this activity, but instead they hate it, for what looks to be no reason other than the fact we have Conservatives in government.
    Food bank demand has exploded in recent years. Not entirely unconnected with left/right politics. The inability of many to cook has existed for decades.
  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,654
    edited May 2022
    pm215 said:

    What Anderson has said is eminently sensible, there is a major issue with people not being able to cook in this country. Tackling that should be taken seriously.

    PS I heard Marcus Rashford making the same point last summer, and he helped develop a cooking for beginners course using his celebrity to get people interested. Funnily enough the people criticising Anderson didn't criticise Rashford.

    Perhaps that's because Rashford wasn't making "help people in immediate difficulties" conditional on "sign up to the cooking course" ? It's the linking of the two that is putting peoples' backs up, I think.
    Also - what happens if you can't do the course for very good reasons, btw? Like child care.
  • Options
    dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,952

    PB anti-Woke warriors won't know whether to laugh or cry, jeer or cheer . . .

    Seattle Times ($) - San Juan Islands waterway could be renamed to honor Indigenous leader

    Ken Carrasco was reading about the 1855 Battle of Ash Hollow when he came across a familiar name: Gen. William Harney.

    The Harney Channel that his Orcas Island home overlooks, he realized, was named after a man who once tried to defend the San Juan Islands from British rule but also was responsible for the murders of Indigenous people and an enslaved woman. . . .

    Now three years later, Carrasco and Shaw Island resident Stephanie Buffum are leading an effort to rename the channel to honor Henry Cayou, an Indigenous San Juan County commissioner and commercial fisherman . . .

    The proposal to rename the waterway Cayou Channel was approved by the Washington State Committee on Geographic Names in April and is now under consideration by the Washington Board on Geographic Names. If approved, the proposal will go to the federal Board on Geographic Names for a final decision. . . .

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Harney

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_War_(1859)

    General George B. McClellan . . . claimed that General William S. Harney and Pickett conspired with a cabal, to start a war with Britain, creating a common enemy, to head off a north–south confrontation. . . .

    [SSI - my own theory is that Pickett was Harney's protege AND both were rash hotheads NOT noted for brainpower]

    Brigadier General William S. Harney, commanding the Department of Oregon, initially dispatched Captain George Pickett and 66 American soldiers of the 9th Infantry Regiment under Pickett's command, to San Juan Island with orders to prevent the British from landing . . . Concerned that a squatter population of Americans would begin to occupy San Juan Island if the Americans were not kept in check, the British sent three warships . . . Pickett was quoted as saying defiantly, "We'll make a Bunker Hill of it," placing him in the national limelight. . . .

    Pickett established the American Camp near the south end of San Juan Island, today one of two historical sites on the island, the other being the British Camp, defended by the Royal Marines on the north end of the island. . . .

    The governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island, James Douglas, had ordered Captain Hornby to dislodge the American troops, avoiding armed conflict if possible. At the time, the additional reinforcements sent by American General Harney had not yet arrived, and the island was occupied by only Pickett's 66 men.

    Hornby refused to take any action until British Rear Admiral Robert L. Baynes, who was in command of the British Navy in the Pacific, would arrive himself. When Baynes finally came and took stock of the situation, he told Governor Douglas that he would not escalate the conflict into a war between great nations "over a squabble about a pig".

    The Pig War.
    Harney and Pickett didn't come out well in my HS Canadian history course.
    The main street in Victoria is still named after the governor of Vancouver Island who sent the troops, James Douglas.
  • Options
    MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    mwadams said:

    mwadams said:

    Sandpit said:

    @oryxspioenkop
    I’m going to call this Russian river crossing attempt a failure.


    image

    https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/status/1524399801617592322

    7, possibly 8 tanks in that picture. Which, given they only have maybe 1,500 more tanks in Russia, is somewhat sub-optimal.
    So we can put that down as a qualified success, then? The river crossing got approximately 50 feet across the river, and they didn't lose all 1500 tanks in theatre.
    It looks to me that they got further than that - a (floating?) military bridge got knocked out?
    (You're right - there does seem to be a destroyed pontoon. Weird that my most of the destroyed vehicles are all lined up along that bank though.)
    More photos here:

    image
    image

    https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1524422346039308292
    That looks like a wipe out of a big chunk of one of these Russian BTGs?

    Morale of rest of the unit must be a tad low now...
    The damages that the military are taking must be destroying their morale.

    If an authoritarian leader loses the support of the military, that doesn't normally end well for the leader.

    Russian military must be feeling a bit 1916 about all this.
    Hopefully soon to turn into 1917...
  • Options
    GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,797
    That's Ashfield going back to Labour at the next election then...
  • Options
    wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,930

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    The agenda is they want a world where people are helpless and utterly reliant on state support. I am reliant financially on state support and it's fucking miserable. Anything that can be done to teach skills, techniques etc to help lift yourself away from poverty is a good thing.
    A recent comedy. Round where I live.

    There are quite a number of bike shops catering to the very well off. Lots of work doing upgrades and stuff, that frankly, a competent bike owner could do themselves.

    So they have buckets of second hand bits. Lots of stuff that is straight off bikes that has just been bought - not even used. The bike is bought and then a long list of bit changed. Yes, I know - why not buy a bare frame and buy the toys to match? Anyway....

    A lot is not even worth fleabaying.

    So a couple of the owners got in touch with some local people and for a couple of quid, let them pick out any stuff they want. Awesome, you'd think?

    No, no, no, no..... No.

    Before you could say "Clipboard" - a couple of hi-vizziers from the Council popped in to try and claim they were selling dangerous and unsafe equipment.

    Of course they did this in earshot of some the rich evul middle class bike owners. One of whom was a lawyer. Of course. The hi-vizziers got pounded like dockside hookers.....
    Clipboard wielders are worse than Durham curry and beer people
  • Options
    TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 114,359
    Watching that Gove video, crikey, he reminds me of a friend who went through a pretty messy divorce.

    It's not pleasant.
  • Options
    pingping Posts: 3,731
    edited May 2022

    I agree that too many people can't cook from scratch.

    But only an idiot would say that you can make homemade meals for "30p per day".
    Lee Anderson is an idiot, so that fits.

    As I pointed out upthread, it costs 30p to heat the bloody oven up to temperature, these days.

    You always get this kind of crap at the fag end of a Tory government. Out of touch, out of ideas, out of fat to cut off the state.
  • Options
    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,256
    edited May 2022
    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    It's a fair comment. People in the UK have poorer cooking skill than the rest of Europe. I come across people who struggle to make rice or pasta regularly and not having basic skills really limits the ability to each cheap and nutritious food. Takeaways are both expensive and unhealthy.

    It’s the remarkable thing about being in Italy. You hear a group of ordinary Italians having a most heated argument about something, and from the passion and energy you’d think the eldest daughter had run off with the best man or some similar family catastrophe was unfolding.

    Then, armed with a little basic Italian, you begin to make out enough words to realise that the debate is really about how to cook a certain recipe or whether one restaurant in town does pasta better than another.

    That said, today has been so hot that we escaped to the Slovenian mountains and have been exploring the remains of the trenches in the high mountains around Caporetto - the battle that did more than any single other thing to subsequently and eventually give birth to fascism in Europe - but a name that will draw blank looks from almost anyone you mention it to back at home.
  • Options
    SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 38,922

    I think a lot of people like to comfort themselves with the idea that people using foodbanks are doing so because they don't know how to cook or manage a budget. But I am not sure they would actually be able to cope with having to live the lives those who do use foodbanks have. Doing it for a week and knowing that it will all then go away is not the same as doing it with no reason to believe it will ever stop.

    How did that Pulp song go?

    Rent a flat above a shop
    Cut your hair and get a job
    Smoke some fags and play some pool
    Pretend you never went to school
    But still you'll never get it right
    'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
    Watching roaches climb the wall
    If you called your dad he could stop it all, yeah
    You'll never live like common people
    You'll never do whatever common people do
    You'll never fail like common people
    You'll never watch your life slide out of view
    And you dance and drink and screw
    Because there's nothing else to do

    didnt he go to public school as well?

    Don't think so. But his Mum was a Tory councillor.

  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,654
    pm215 said:

    What Anderson has said is eminently sensible, there is a major issue with people not being able to cook in this country. Tackling that should be taken seriously.

    PS I heard Marcus Rashford making the same point last summer, and he helped develop a cooking for beginners course using his celebrity to get people interested. Funnily enough the people criticising Anderson didn't criticise Rashford.

    Perhaps that's because Rashford wasn't making "help people in immediate difficulties" conditional on "sign up to the cooking course" ? It's the linking of the two that is putting peoples' backs up, I think.
    Yep - deserving vs undeserving poor, resonances with.

    Cooking courses are exactly the sort of self help thing one sees in many places. Like the DIY courses one gets from Mens Sheds.
  • Options
    wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,930

    I think a lot of people like to comfort themselves with the idea that people using foodbanks are doing so because they don't know how to cook or manage a budget. But I am not sure they would actually be able to cope with having to live the lives those who do use foodbanks have. Doing it for a week and knowing that it will all then go away is not the same as doing it with no reason to believe it will ever stop.

    How did that Pulp song go?

    Rent a flat above a shop
    Cut your hair and get a job
    Smoke some fags and play some pool
    Pretend you never went to school
    But still you'll never get it right
    'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
    Watching roaches climb the wall
    If you called your dad he could stop it all, yeah
    You'll never live like common people
    You'll never do whatever common people do
    You'll never fail like common people
    You'll never watch your life slide out of view
    And you dance and drink and screw
    Because there's nothing else to do

    didnt he go to public school as well?
    Nah, he went to a comprehensive. His mum was a Tory councillor though
  • Options
    OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,096

    I think a lot of people like to comfort themselves with the idea that people using foodbanks are doing so because they don't know how to cook or manage a budget. But I am not sure they would actually be able to cope with having to live the lives those who do use foodbanks have. Doing it for a week and knowing that it will all then go away is not the same as doing it with no reason to believe it will ever stop.

    How did that Pulp song go?

    Rent a flat above a shop
    Cut your hair and get a job
    Smoke some fags and play some pool
    Pretend you never went to school
    But still you'll never get it right
    'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
    Watching roaches climb the wall
    If you called your dad he could stop it all, yeah
    You'll never live like common people
    You'll never do whatever common people do
    You'll never fail like common people
    You'll never watch your life slide out of view
    And you dance and drink and screw
    Because there's nothing else to do

    didnt he go to public school as well?
    No, a Comprehensive in Sheffield. Although his mother was a Conservative Councillor, according to Wikipedia.
  • Options
    MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 25,132
    edited May 2022
    HYUFD said:

    The Express leads with welcome news for families suffering cost of living crisis.

    Many other papers lead on government back tracking on what Boris promised.

    Is coordinating government messaging really as difficult as they are making it look?

    Are you not reading BigG. 's dispatched. Boris is having a great day signing international treaties with non-NATO partners. He has just tweaked Putin's nose and said "nuke us if you dare Vlad"!

    Boris has his own hard hat and hi-viz coat, so he'll be fine...

    ...although if Putin is keeping up with the NI Protocol he might just be thinking, "Boris Johnson and international treaties? Pah!"
    If Putin nuked us, Johnson would of course send a Trident nuclear missile to nuke Moscow.

    In any case a UK Sweden mutual defence treaty is not yet the same as Sweden joining NATO
    Well my reading of it from tonight's PM programme is this: If Putin puts a boot onto Swedish or Finnish soil Boris will be on his case. If Putin so much as harms a hair on the head of a British Tommy sent to defend Sweden or Finland, NATO are involved.

    Johnson has ramped this up big time. He was the FIRST NATO leader to sign a treaty and any escalation into Scandinavia by Putin and it's all out confrontation. And do you know what? Good on you BigDog (I still wouldn't vote for the duplicitous b****** mind).
  • Options
    FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    Watching that Gove video, crikey, he reminds me of a friend who went through a pretty messy divorce.

    It's not pleasant.

    You think:
    he's like that because he's getting divorced.

    But it could be:
    he's getting divorced because he's like that.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,325

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    The agenda is they want a world where people are helpless and utterly reliant on state support. I am reliant financially on state support and it's fucking miserable. Anything that can be done to teach skills, techniques etc to help lift yourself away from poverty is a good thing.
    A recent comedy. Round where I live.

    There are quite a number of bike shops catering to the very well off. Lots of work doing upgrades and stuff, that frankly, a competent bike owner could do themselves.

    So they have buckets of second hand bits. Lots of stuff that is straight off bikes that has just been bought - not even used. The bike is bought and then a long list of bit changed. Yes, I know - why not buy a bare frame and buy the toys to match? Anyway....

    A lot is not even worth fleabaying.

    So a couple of the owners got in touch with some local people and for a couple of quid, let them pick out any stuff they want. Awesome, you'd think?

    No, no, no, no..... No.

    Before you could say "Clipboard" - a couple of hi-vizziers from the Council popped in to try and claim they were selling dangerous and unsafe equipment.

    Of course they did this in earshot of some the rich evul middle class bike owners. One of whom was a lawyer. Of course. The hi-vizziers got pounded like dockside hookers.....
    Clipboard wielders are worse than Durham curry and beer people
    The important thing is to "professionalise" everything so only middle class and above can afford it.

    This worked really well for childcare.
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,578

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    Wasn't there a good survey years ago (before 2010 election?) showing you could get wildly different polling results on a suggestion made anonymously, and one quoted to a partisan politician. Especially if it was a Tory politician?

    This is a prime example of that. What Anderson has said is eminently sensible, there is a major issue with people not being able to cook in this country. Tackling that should be taken seriously.

    PS I heard Marcus Rashford making the same point last summer, and he helped develop a cooking for beginners course using his celebrity to get people interested. Funnily enough the people criticising Anderson didn't criticise Rashford.
    People didn't like Marie Antoinette saying "let them eat cake"* even though they would have probably quite liked to eat some cake.

    * yes I know she didn't actually say this.
    Brioche wasn't it?
  • Options
    dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,952
    ping said:

    I agree that too many people can't cook from scratch.

    But only an idiot would say that you can make homemade meals for "30p per day".
    Lee Anderson is an idiot, so that fits.

    As I pointed out upthread, it costs 30p to heat the bloody oven up to temperature, these days.

    You always get this kind of crap at the fag end of a Tory government. Out of touch, out of ideas, out of fat to cut off the state.
    The irony is. Anderson was pushing back at many of his fellow back benchers who want something done about the cost of living. Many of whom are also from the fabled "Red Wall".
    It's a sign of the lack of ideological coherence of the Tory Party if anything, rather than of a government policy.
  • Options
    OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,096

    I think a lot of people like to comfort themselves with the idea that people using foodbanks are doing so because they don't know how to cook or manage a budget. But I am not sure they would actually be able to cope with having to live the lives those who do use foodbanks have. Doing it for a week and knowing that it will all then go away is not the same as doing it with no reason to believe it will ever stop.

    How did that Pulp song go?

    Rent a flat above a shop
    Cut your hair and get a job
    Smoke some fags and play some pool
    Pretend you never went to school
    But still you'll never get it right
    'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
    Watching roaches climb the wall
    If you called your dad he could stop it all, yeah
    You'll never live like common people
    You'll never do whatever common people do
    You'll never fail like common people
    You'll never watch your life slide out of view
    And you dance and drink and screw
    Because there's nothing else to do

    didnt he go to public school as well?
    Nah, he went to a comprehensive. His mum was a Tory councillor though
    Ha ha, great minds make similar recourse to Wikipedia. I definitely had him down as a fellow Comprehensive school kid though.
    I once ran into Jarvis Cocker in the toilets at Watford Gap services, which seemed a suitably Pulp like venue. Our eyes met but only Leon will be able to tell you whether there was any romantic spark. Pulp are amazing, one of my favourite bands.
  • Options
    MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415

    Despite @StuartDickson's best efforts to escape the UK security umbrella, he can't get away from it:

    @SamRamani2
    BREAKING: Boris Johnson confirms that Britain will come to Sweden's assistance if it is attacked


    https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1524393730500931584

    What is the fucking matter with the man. He's at the 'I love you' stage of being drunk, chucking our overstretched military at anyone who'll have it like an unwanted beery hug.
    Uniting the Baltics against the war criminal that is Putin is just desserts for his foolish and miscalculated criminal attack on the sovereign nation of Ukraine

    This is interesting and worthy comment, but aren’t you going to do ANY beergate this week? 🙁
  • Options
    FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    HYUFD said:

    The Express leads with welcome news for families suffering cost of living crisis.

    Many other papers lead on government back tracking on what Boris promised.

    Is coordinating government messaging really as difficult as they are making it look?

    Are you not reading BigG. 's dispatched. Boris is having a great day signing international treaties with non-NATO partners. He has just tweaked Putin's nose and said "nuke us if you dare Vlad"!

    Boris has his own hard hat and hi-viz coat, so he'll be fine...

    ...although if Putin is keeping up with the NI Protocol he might just be thinking, "Boris Johnson and international treaties? Pah!"
    If Putin nuked us, Johnson would of course send a Trident nuclear missile to nuke Moscow.

    In any case a UK Sweden mutual defence treaty is not yet the same as Sweden joining NATO
    Well my reading of it from tonight's PM programme is this: If Putin puts a boot onto Swedish or Finnish soil Boris will be on his case. If Putin so much as harms a hair on the head of a British Tommy sent to defend Sweden or Finland, NATO are involved.

    Johnson has ramped this up big time. He was the FIRST NATO leader to sign a treaty and any escalation into Scandinavia by Putin and it's all out confrontation. And do you know what? Good on you BigDog (I still wouldn't vote for the duplicitous b****** mind).
    This is the opportunity that we missed in Ukraine. We could have done the same. I argued that we should have.

    This is a case of the government learning from its shortcomings, and it's to be applauded.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,325

    HYUFD said:

    The Express leads with welcome news for families suffering cost of living crisis.

    Many other papers lead on government back tracking on what Boris promised.

    Is coordinating government messaging really as difficult as they are making it look?

    Are you not reading BigG. 's dispatched. Boris is having a great day signing international treaties with non-NATO partners. He has just tweaked Putin's nose and said "nuke us if you dare Vlad"!

    Boris has his own hard hat and hi-viz coat, so he'll be fine...

    ...although if Putin is keeping up with the NI Protocol he might just be thinking, "Boris Johnson and international treaties? Pah!"
    If Putin nuked us, Johnson would of course send a Trident nuclear missile to nuke Moscow.

    In any case a UK Sweden mutual defence treaty is not yet the same as Sweden joining NATO
    Well my reading of it from tonight's PM programme is this: If Putin puts a boot onto Swedish or Finnish soil Boris will be on his case. If Putin so much as harms a hair on the head of a British Tommy sent to defend Sweden or Finland, NATO are involved.

    Johnson has ramped this up big time. He was the FIRST NATO leader to sign a treaty and any escalation into Scandinavia by Putin and it's all out confrontation. And do you know what? Good on you BigDog (I still wouldn't vote for the duplicitous b****** mind).
    There was already a military alliance between the UK, Finland and Sweden (among others)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Joint_Expeditionary_Force

    Long standing UK policy.....
  • Options
    wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,930

    I think a lot of people like to comfort themselves with the idea that people using foodbanks are doing so because they don't know how to cook or manage a budget. But I am not sure they would actually be able to cope with having to live the lives those who do use foodbanks have. Doing it for a week and knowing that it will all then go away is not the same as doing it with no reason to believe it will ever stop.

    How did that Pulp song go?

    Rent a flat above a shop
    Cut your hair and get a job
    Smoke some fags and play some pool
    Pretend you never went to school
    But still you'll never get it right
    'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
    Watching roaches climb the wall
    If you called your dad he could stop it all, yeah
    You'll never live like common people
    You'll never do whatever common people do
    You'll never fail like common people
    You'll never watch your life slide out of view
    And you dance and drink and screw
    Because there's nothing else to do

    didnt he go to public school as well?
    Nah, he went to a comprehensive. His mum was a Tory councillor though
    Ha ha, great minds make similar recourse to Wikipedia. I definitely had him down as a fellow Comprehensive school kid though.
    I once ran into Jarvis Cocker in the toilets at Watford Gap services, which seemed a suitably Pulp like venue. Our eyes met but only Leon will be able to tell you whether there was any romantic spark. Pulp are amazing, one of my favourite bands.
    Pulp would be on my 'yeah, I guess' list
  • Options
    noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,708
    Taking food education further I would like to see an ongoing level of free life skills provision available for all.

    Something like first 2 hrs per week of cooking, sports, literacy, numeracy, personal finance, fitness, basic IT paid for by the state for everyone who wants it.

    A real investment in the people of the UK. It would be expensive at first but we would quickly become happier, better educated and also more productive in work and less costly to the health service.
  • Options
    Carnyx said:

    Sandpit said:

    MaxPB said:

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    What scheme to teach people how to cook? Most schools stopped doing Cookery at school when GCSEs arrived transforming it into a Home Economics type course which meant that a fully equipped Kitchen classroom was only required for 1/2 the lessons rather than all of them.

    In the Guardian article, it says they teach them how to cook cheap and basic meals as part of receiving assistance from a food bank. It's actually a good scheme though I think maybe it should be optional or recommended rather than mandatory as there's lots of people who are so afraid of the kitchen that they may go hungry rather than accept help if it meant cooking.
    The anti-foodbank campaigners really annoy me.

    They’re not trying to actually solve problems except by government handouts, assume people never fall through cracks in the system, and think that before 2010 we had some sort of socialist Utopia (EUtopia?) where no-one ever went hungry.

    Here we have an example of a brilliant charity, working hard with some of the most disadvantaged in society, providing them with subsistence resources and training. The Guardian would usually laud this activity, but instead they hate it, for what looks to be no reason other than the fact we have Conservatives in government.
    Food bank demand has exploded in recent years. Not entirely unconnected with left/right politics. The inability of many to cook has existed for decades.
    Yes it exploded because the regulations of food banks were relaxed as part of David Cameron's Big Society reforms. That ought to be celebrated.

    The year it exploded also saw a corresponding collapse in people taking payday loans.

    Some people have always got into difficulty, but isn't it great to have charity available when people fall between the cracks instead of predatory loan sharks?
  • Options
    FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    I think a lot of people like to comfort themselves with the idea that people using foodbanks are doing so because they don't know how to cook or manage a budget. But I am not sure they would actually be able to cope with having to live the lives those who do use foodbanks have. Doing it for a week and knowing that it will all then go away is not the same as doing it with no reason to believe it will ever stop.

    How did that Pulp song go?

    Rent a flat above a shop
    Cut your hair and get a job
    Smoke some fags and play some pool
    Pretend you never went to school
    But still you'll never get it right
    'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
    Watching roaches climb the wall
    If you called your dad he could stop it all, yeah
    You'll never live like common people
    You'll never do whatever common people do
    You'll never fail like common people
    You'll never watch your life slide out of view
    And you dance and drink and screw
    Because there's nothing else to do

    didnt he go to public school as well?
    Nah, he went to a comprehensive. His mum was a Tory councillor though
    Ha ha, great minds make similar recourse to Wikipedia. I definitely had him down as a fellow Comprehensive school kid though.
    I once ran into Jarvis Cocker in the toilets at Watford Gap services, which seemed a suitably Pulp like venue. Our eyes met but only Leon will be able to tell you whether there was any romantic spark. Pulp are amazing, one of my favourite bands.
    Pulp would be on my 'yeah, I guess' list
    Go and listen to "Being Followed Home" and then tell me what you think
  • Options
    MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 25,132

    Watching that Gove video, crikey, he reminds me of a friend who went through a pretty messy divorce.

    It's not pleasant.

    I liked Tim Farron's intervention:

    "Whatever Michael Gove had for breakfast the LDs would legalise it".
  • Options
    noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,708
    Farooq said:

    Watching that Gove video, crikey, he reminds me of a friend who went through a pretty messy divorce.

    It's not pleasant.

    You think:
    he's like that because he's getting divorced.

    But it could be:
    he's getting divorced because he's like that.
    Or because he had to live with Sarah Vine!
  • Options
    MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 25,132

    HYUFD said:

    The Express leads with welcome news for families suffering cost of living crisis.

    Many other papers lead on government back tracking on what Boris promised.

    Is coordinating government messaging really as difficult as they are making it look?

    Are you not reading BigG. 's dispatched. Boris is having a great day signing international treaties with non-NATO partners. He has just tweaked Putin's nose and said "nuke us if you dare Vlad"!

    Boris has his own hard hat and hi-viz coat, so he'll be fine...

    ...although if Putin is keeping up with the NI Protocol he might just be thinking, "Boris Johnson and international treaties? Pah!"
    If Putin nuked us, Johnson would of course send a Trident nuclear missile to nuke Moscow.

    In any case a UK Sweden mutual defence treaty is not yet the same as Sweden joining NATO
    Well my reading of it from tonight's PM programme is this: If Putin puts a boot onto Swedish or Finnish soil Boris will be on his case. If Putin so much as harms a hair on the head of a British Tommy sent to defend Sweden or Finland, NATO are involved.

    Johnson has ramped this up big time. He was the FIRST NATO leader to sign a treaty and any escalation into Scandinavia by Putin and it's all out confrontation. And do you know what? Good on you BigDog (I still wouldn't vote for the duplicitous b****** mind).
    There was already a military alliance between the UK, Finland and Sweden (among others)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Joint_Expeditionary_Force

    Long standing UK policy.....
    So what did he sign today?
  • Options
    IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    HYUFD said:

    The Express leads with welcome news for families suffering cost of living crisis.

    Many other papers lead on government back tracking on what Boris promised.

    Is coordinating government messaging really as difficult as they are making it look?

    Are you not reading BigG. 's dispatched. Boris is having a great day signing international treaties with non-NATO partners. He has just tweaked Putin's nose and said "nuke us if you dare Vlad"!

    Boris has his own hard hat and hi-viz coat, so he'll be fine...

    ...although if Putin is keeping up with the NI Protocol he might just be thinking, "Boris Johnson and international treaties? Pah!"
    If Putin nuked us, Johnson would of course send a Trident nuclear missile to nuke Moscow.

    In any case a UK Sweden mutual defence treaty is not yet the same as Sweden joining NATO
    Well my reading of it from tonight's PM programme is this: If Putin puts a boot onto Swedish or Finnish soil Boris will be on his case. If Putin so much as harms a hair on the head of a British Tommy sent to defend Sweden or Finland, NATO are involved.

    Johnson has ramped this up big time. He was the FIRST NATO leader to sign a treaty and any escalation into Scandinavia by Putin and it's all out confrontation. And do you know what? Good on you BigDog (I still wouldn't vote for the duplicitous b****** mind).
    Misunderstanding of NATO treaty. Thwacking NATO troops on non-NATO ground does not trigger art 5 or 6.
  • Options
    gettingbettergettingbetter Posts: 476

    HYUFD said:

    The Express leads with welcome news for families suffering cost of living crisis.

    Many other papers lead on government back tracking on what Boris promised.

    Is coordinating government messaging really as difficult as they are making it look?

    Are you not reading BigG. 's dispatched. Boris is having a great day signing international treaties with non-NATO partners. He has just tweaked Putin's nose and said "nuke us if you dare Vlad"!

    Boris has his own hard hat and hi-viz coat, so he'll be fine...

    ...although if Putin is keeping up with the NI Protocol he might just be thinking, "Boris Johnson and international treaties? Pah!"
    If Putin nuked us, Johnson would of course send a Trident nuclear missile to nuke Moscow.

    In any case a UK Sweden mutual defence treaty is not yet the same as Sweden joining NATO
    Well my reading of it from tonight's PM programme is this: If Putin puts a boot onto Swedish or Finnish soil Boris will be on his case. If Putin so much as harms a hair on the head of a British Tommy sent to defend Sweden or Finland, NATO are involved.

    Johnson has ramped this up big time. He was the FIRST NATO leader to sign a treaty and any escalation into Scandinavia by Putin and it's all out confrontation. And do you know what? Good on you BigDog (I still wouldn't vote for the duplicitous b****** mind).
    Quite right Mexicanpete in all respects. However the BBC strangely reports that Sweden and Finland have a long history of wartime neutrality. They seem to have forgotten that we reluctantly declared war on Finland in December 1941. Though it was not really the Finns' fault they found themselves on the wrong side.
  • Options
    SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,547
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    There we go, Bitcoin under $30k just as the US markets wake up. Gonna be a long day for cryptocurrencies.

    Those of us that bought between $3 and $8 are not panicking yet.
    You found your laptop then?
    My wife correctly guessed the lost password.
    1 2 3 4 [?]
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,578
    IanB2 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    It's a fair comment. People in the UK have poorer cooking skill than the rest of Europe. I come across people who struggle to make rice or pasta regularly and not having basic skills really limits the ability to each cheap and nutritious food. Takeaways are both expensive and unhealthy.

    It’s the remarkable thing about being in Italy. You hear a group of ordinary Italians having a most heated argument about something, and from the passion and energy you’d think the eldest daughter had run off with the best man or some similar family catastrophe was unfolding.

    Then, armed with a little basic Italian, you begin to make out enough words to realise that the debate is really about how to cook a certain recipe or whether one restaurant in town does pasta better than another.

    That said, today has been so hot that we escaped to the Slovenian mountains and have been exploring the remains of the trenches in the high mountains around Caporetto - the battle that did more than any single other thing to subsequently and eventually give birth to fascism in Europe - but a name that will draw blank looks from almost anyone you mention it to back at home.
    The battles on the Isonzo made the Somme and Paschendale look like masterpieces of military tactics.
  • Options
    MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 25,132

    Carnyx said:

    Sandpit said:

    MaxPB said:

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    What scheme to teach people how to cook? Most schools stopped doing Cookery at school when GCSEs arrived transforming it into a Home Economics type course which meant that a fully equipped Kitchen classroom was only required for 1/2 the lessons rather than all of them.

    In the Guardian article, it says they teach them how to cook cheap and basic meals as part of receiving assistance from a food bank. It's actually a good scheme though I think maybe it should be optional or recommended rather than mandatory as there's lots of people who are so afraid of the kitchen that they may go hungry rather than accept help if it meant cooking.
    The anti-foodbank campaigners really annoy me.

    They’re not trying to actually solve problems except by government handouts, assume people never fall through cracks in the system, and think that before 2010 we had some sort of socialist Utopia (EUtopia?) where no-one ever went hungry.

    Here we have an example of a brilliant charity, working hard with some of the most disadvantaged in society, providing them with subsistence resources and training. The Guardian would usually laud this activity, but instead they hate it, for what looks to be no reason other than the fact we have Conservatives in government.
    Food bank demand has exploded in recent years. Not entirely unconnected with left/right politics. The inability of many to cook has existed for decades.
    Yes it exploded because the regulations of food banks were relaxed as part of David Cameron's Big Society reforms. That ought to be celebrated.

    The year it exploded also saw a corresponding collapse in people taking payday loans.

    Some people have always got into difficulty, but isn't it great to have charity available when people fall between the cracks instead of predatory loan sharks?
    ...so it's a positive step forward? Right!
  • Options
    dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,952
    edited May 2022

    Taking food education further I would like to see an ongoing level of free life skills provision available for all.

    Something like first 2 hrs per week of cooking, sports, literacy, numeracy, personal finance, fitness, basic IT paid for by the state for everyone who wants it.

    A real investment in the people of the UK. It would be expensive at first but we would quickly become happier, better educated and also more productive in work and less costly to the health service.

    There might even be more permanent salaried positions for qualified FE teachers.
    I approve of this.
    And would chuck languages into the mix. And "wellbeing". Though I detest the term.
    CPD is a requirement in a lot of jobs.
    But we make Continuous Personal Development scarce and prohibitively costly.
  • Options
    wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,930

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    The agenda is they want a world where people are helpless and utterly reliant on state support. I am reliant financially on state support and it's fucking miserable. Anything that can be done to teach skills, techniques etc to help lift yourself away from poverty is a good thing.
    A recent comedy. Round where I live.

    There are quite a number of bike shops catering to the very well off. Lots of work doing upgrades and stuff, that frankly, a competent bike owner could do themselves.

    So they have buckets of second hand bits. Lots of stuff that is straight off bikes that has just been bought - not even used. The bike is bought and then a long list of bit changed. Yes, I know - why not buy a bare frame and buy the toys to match? Anyway....

    A lot is not even worth fleabaying.

    So a couple of the owners got in touch with some local people and for a couple of quid, let them pick out any stuff they want. Awesome, you'd think?

    No, no, no, no..... No.

    Before you could say "Clipboard" - a couple of hi-vizziers from the Council popped in to try and claim they were selling dangerous and unsafe equipment.

    Of course they did this in earshot of some the rich evul middle class bike owners. One of whom was a lawyer. Of course. The hi-vizziers got pounded like dockside hookers.....
    Clipboard wielders are worse than Durham curry and beer people
    The important thing is to "professionalise" everything so only middle class and above can afford it.

    This worked really well for childcare.
    Spot on. What's the point if being middle class unless everything is tailored to expressing your relative affluence?
    Why have a cheap exercise bike when you can spend £1500 on an exercise bike with a kindle fire stuck on it?
  • Options
    wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,930
    Farooq said:

    I think a lot of people like to comfort themselves with the idea that people using foodbanks are doing so because they don't know how to cook or manage a budget. But I am not sure they would actually be able to cope with having to live the lives those who do use foodbanks have. Doing it for a week and knowing that it will all then go away is not the same as doing it with no reason to believe it will ever stop.

    How did that Pulp song go?

    Rent a flat above a shop
    Cut your hair and get a job
    Smoke some fags and play some pool
    Pretend you never went to school
    But still you'll never get it right
    'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
    Watching roaches climb the wall
    If you called your dad he could stop it all, yeah
    You'll never live like common people
    You'll never do whatever common people do
    You'll never fail like common people
    You'll never watch your life slide out of view
    And you dance and drink and screw
    Because there's nothing else to do

    didnt he go to public school as well?
    Nah, he went to a comprehensive. His mum was a Tory councillor though
    Ha ha, great minds make similar recourse to Wikipedia. I definitely had him down as a fellow Comprehensive school kid though.
    I once ran into Jarvis Cocker in the toilets at Watford Gap services, which seemed a suitably Pulp like venue. Our eyes met but only Leon will be able to tell you whether there was any romantic spark. Pulp are amazing, one of my favourite bands.
    Pulp would be on my 'yeah, I guess' list
    Go and listen to "Being Followed Home" and then tell me what you think
    Yeah, I guess
  • Options
    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,607

    Taking food education further I would like to see an ongoing level of free life skills provision available for all.

    Something like first 2 hrs per week of cooking, sports, literacy, numeracy, personal finance, fitness, basic IT paid for by the state for everyone who wants it.

    A real investment in the people of the UK. It would be expensive at first but we would quickly become happier, better educated and also more productive in work and less costly to the health service.

    Totally agree, I think it would hugely help with our workplace productivity issues as well over the medium to long term. Part of the issue is that people simply fall out of learning new things and it becomes a huge problem later on in life.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,325

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    The agenda is they want a world where people are helpless and utterly reliant on state support. I am reliant financially on state support and it's fucking miserable. Anything that can be done to teach skills, techniques etc to help lift yourself away from poverty is a good thing.
    A recent comedy. Round where I live.

    There are quite a number of bike shops catering to the very well off. Lots of work doing upgrades and stuff, that frankly, a competent bike owner could do themselves.

    So they have buckets of second hand bits. Lots of stuff that is straight off bikes that has just been bought - not even used. The bike is bought and then a long list of bit changed. Yes, I know - why not buy a bare frame and buy the toys to match? Anyway....

    A lot is not even worth fleabaying.

    So a couple of the owners got in touch with some local people and for a couple of quid, let them pick out any stuff they want. Awesome, you'd think?

    No, no, no, no..... No.

    Before you could say "Clipboard" - a couple of hi-vizziers from the Council popped in to try and claim they were selling dangerous and unsafe equipment.

    Of course they did this in earshot of some the rich evul middle class bike owners. One of whom was a lawyer. Of course. The hi-vizziers got pounded like dockside hookers.....
    Clipboard wielders are worse than Durham curry and beer people
    The important thing is to "professionalise" everything so only middle class and above can afford it.

    This worked really well for childcare.
    Spot on. What's the point if being middle class unless everything is tailored to expressing your relative affluence?
    Why have a cheap exercise bike when you can spend £1500 on an exercise bike with a kindle fire stuck on it?
    Obviously - but the important bit is to make sure that the Head Count can't get a cheap version. What is the point of having a Sign of Affluence if the Mob all have one?
  • Options
    noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,708
    edited May 2022
    dixiedean said:

    Taking food education further I would like to see an ongoing level of free life skills provision available for all.

    Something like first 2 hrs per week of cooking, sports, literacy, numeracy, personal finance, fitness, basic IT paid for by the state for everyone who wants it.

    A real investment in the people of the UK. It would be expensive at first but we would quickly become happier, better educated and also more productive in work and less costly to the health service.

    There might even be more permanent salaried positions for qualified FE teachers.
    I approve of this.
    And would chuck languages into the mix. And "wellbeing". Though I detest the term.
    Agree on wellbeing, but also couldnt define it so it was in my fitness. Languages borderline for me, not against it but not fussed compared to the others that I think are real issues within the UK.
  • Options

    Carnyx said:

    Sandpit said:

    MaxPB said:

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    What scheme to teach people how to cook? Most schools stopped doing Cookery at school when GCSEs arrived transforming it into a Home Economics type course which meant that a fully equipped Kitchen classroom was only required for 1/2 the lessons rather than all of them.

    In the Guardian article, it says they teach them how to cook cheap and basic meals as part of receiving assistance from a food bank. It's actually a good scheme though I think maybe it should be optional or recommended rather than mandatory as there's lots of people who are so afraid of the kitchen that they may go hungry rather than accept help if it meant cooking.
    The anti-foodbank campaigners really annoy me.

    They’re not trying to actually solve problems except by government handouts, assume people never fall through cracks in the system, and think that before 2010 we had some sort of socialist Utopia (EUtopia?) where no-one ever went hungry.

    Here we have an example of a brilliant charity, working hard with some of the most disadvantaged in society, providing them with subsistence resources and training. The Guardian would usually laud this activity, but instead they hate it, for what looks to be no reason other than the fact we have Conservatives in government.
    Food bank demand has exploded in recent years. Not entirely unconnected with left/right politics. The inability of many to cook has existed for decades.
    Yes it exploded because the regulations of food banks were relaxed as part of David Cameron's Big Society reforms. That ought to be celebrated.

    The year it exploded also saw a corresponding collapse in people taking payday loans.

    Some people have always got into difficulty, but isn't it great to have charity available when people fall between the cracks instead of predatory loan sharks?
    ...so it's a positive step forward? Right!
    Yes. I've said that repeatedly.

    Replacing Wonga with the Trussell Trust ought to be celebrated. It's one of the best developments in the past decade and a real world case of David Cameron's Big Society in action.

    Instead of people celebrating Cameron's achievement with that, people put it down as a failure.
  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,654

    Carnyx said:

    Sandpit said:

    MaxPB said:

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    What scheme to teach people how to cook? Most schools stopped doing Cookery at school when GCSEs arrived transforming it into a Home Economics type course which meant that a fully equipped Kitchen classroom was only required for 1/2 the lessons rather than all of them.

    In the Guardian article, it says they teach them how to cook cheap and basic meals as part of receiving assistance from a food bank. It's actually a good scheme though I think maybe it should be optional or recommended rather than mandatory as there's lots of people who are so afraid of the kitchen that they may go hungry rather than accept help if it meant cooking.
    The anti-foodbank campaigners really annoy me.

    They’re not trying to actually solve problems except by government handouts, assume people never fall through cracks in the system, and think that before 2010 we had some sort of socialist Utopia (EUtopia?) where no-one ever went hungry.

    Here we have an example of a brilliant charity, working hard with some of the most disadvantaged in society, providing them with subsistence resources and training. The Guardian would usually laud this activity, but instead they hate it, for what looks to be no reason other than the fact we have Conservatives in government.
    Food bank demand has exploded in recent years. Not entirely unconnected with left/right politics. The inability of many to cook has existed for decades.
    Yes it exploded because the regulations of food banks were relaxed as part of David Cameron's Big Society reforms. That ought to be celebrated.

    The year it exploded also saw a corresponding collapse in people taking payday loans.

    Some people have always got into difficulty, but isn't it great to have charity available when people fall between the cracks instead of predatory loan sharks?
    Timing's all wrong in my observations locally, with a big gap between the two, about 4-5 years.
  • Options
    FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    edited May 2022

    Farooq said:

    I think a lot of people like to comfort themselves with the idea that people using foodbanks are doing so because they don't know how to cook or manage a budget. But I am not sure they would actually be able to cope with having to live the lives those who do use foodbanks have. Doing it for a week and knowing that it will all then go away is not the same as doing it with no reason to believe it will ever stop.

    How did that Pulp song go?

    Rent a flat above a shop
    Cut your hair and get a job
    Smoke some fags and play some pool
    Pretend you never went to school
    But still you'll never get it right
    'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
    Watching roaches climb the wall
    If you called your dad he could stop it all, yeah
    You'll never live like common people
    You'll never do whatever common people do
    You'll never fail like common people
    You'll never watch your life slide out of view
    And you dance and drink and screw
    Because there's nothing else to do

    didnt he go to public school as well?
    Nah, he went to a comprehensive. His mum was a Tory councillor though
    Ha ha, great minds make similar recourse to Wikipedia. I definitely had him down as a fellow Comprehensive school kid though.
    I once ran into Jarvis Cocker in the toilets at Watford Gap services, which seemed a suitably Pulp like venue. Our eyes met but only Leon will be able to tell you whether there was any romantic spark. Pulp are amazing, one of my favourite bands.
    Pulp would be on my 'yeah, I guess' list
    Go and listen to "Being Followed Home" and then tell me what you think
    Yeah, I guess
    You either know it already or you didn't go listen. It's 6 minutes of magnificence and you replied before 6 minutes were up! There's no other song like it. Nobody else would write a song like that. Say what you like about Pulp, they are madly unique.
  • Options
    noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,708
    MaxPB said:

    Taking food education further I would like to see an ongoing level of free life skills provision available for all.

    Something like first 2 hrs per week of cooking, sports, literacy, numeracy, personal finance, fitness, basic IT paid for by the state for everyone who wants it.

    A real investment in the people of the UK. It would be expensive at first but we would quickly become happier, better educated and also more productive in work and less costly to the health service.

    Totally agree, I think it would hugely help with our workplace productivity issues as well over the medium to long term. Part of the issue is that people simply fall out of learning new things and it becomes a huge problem later on in life.
    Yes learning is great, and I had fallen out of the habit, just doing things I was already good at. Back to challenging myself more the last few years and it is undoubtedly better.
  • Options
    wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,930

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    The agenda is they want a world where people are helpless and utterly reliant on state support. I am reliant financially on state support and it's fucking miserable. Anything that can be done to teach skills, techniques etc to help lift yourself away from poverty is a good thing.
    A recent comedy. Round where I live.

    There are quite a number of bike shops catering to the very well off. Lots of work doing upgrades and stuff, that frankly, a competent bike owner could do themselves.

    So they have buckets of second hand bits. Lots of stuff that is straight off bikes that has just been bought - not even used. The bike is bought and then a long list of bit changed. Yes, I know - why not buy a bare frame and buy the toys to match? Anyway....

    A lot is not even worth fleabaying.

    So a couple of the owners got in touch with some local people and for a couple of quid, let them pick out any stuff they want. Awesome, you'd think?

    No, no, no, no..... No.

    Before you could say "Clipboard" - a couple of hi-vizziers from the Council popped in to try and claim they were selling dangerous and unsafe equipment.

    Of course they did this in earshot of some the rich evul middle class bike owners. One of whom was a lawyer. Of course. The hi-vizziers got pounded like dockside hookers.....
    Clipboard wielders are worse than Durham curry and beer people
    The important thing is to "professionalise" everything so only middle class and above can afford it.

    This worked really well for childcare.
    Spot on. What's the point if being middle class unless everything is tailored to expressing your relative affluence?
    Why have a cheap exercise bike when you can spend £1500 on an exercise bike with a kindle fire stuck on it?
    Obviously - but the important bit is to make sure that the Head Count can't get a cheap version. What is the point of having a Sign of Affluence if the Mob all have one?
    Very true. Also important to make cheap cuts of meat trendy in the dinner party and tv chef set so they become pricey and only for you. No belly pork or shin of beef for the peasants if you please
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,007
    IanB2 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    It's a fair comment. People in the UK have poorer cooking skill than the rest of Europe. I come across people who struggle to make rice or pasta regularly and not having basic skills really limits the ability to each cheap and nutritious food. Takeaways are both expensive and unhealthy.

    It’s the remarkable thing about being in Italy. You hear a group of ordinary Italians having a most heated argument about something, and from the passion and energy you’d think the eldest daughter had run off with the best man or some similar family catastrophe was unfolding.

    Then, armed with a little basic Italian, you begin to make out enough words to realise that the debate is really about how to cook a certain recipe or whether one restaurant in town does pasta better than another.

    That said, today has been so hot that we escaped to the Slovenian mountains and have been exploring the remains of the trenches in the high mountains around Caporetto - the battle that did more than any single other thing to subsequently and eventually give birth to fascism in Europe - but a name that will draw blank looks from almost anyone you mention it to back at home.
    Not me

    Go to the museums at Rovereto
  • Options
    IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Cummings has lost it. email for his latest substack drivel headed "Snippets 4 & AMA 1200 13 May: hundreds of Auschwitz’s in a few hours... and the media cheers like the crowds of summer 1914..."

    God knows what he's on about, but you can tell he is a Leaver to the core: plural of Auschwitz is Auschwitzes.
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,578

    Carnyx said:

    Sandpit said:

    MaxPB said:

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    What scheme to teach people how to cook? Most schools stopped doing Cookery at school when GCSEs arrived transforming it into a Home Economics type course which meant that a fully equipped Kitchen classroom was only required for 1/2 the lessons rather than all of them.

    In the Guardian article, it says they teach them how to cook cheap and basic meals as part of receiving assistance from a food bank. It's actually a good scheme though I think maybe it should be optional or recommended rather than mandatory as there's lots of people who are so afraid of the kitchen that they may go hungry rather than accept help if it meant cooking.
    The anti-foodbank campaigners really annoy me.

    They’re not trying to actually solve problems except by government handouts, assume people never fall through cracks in the system, and think that before 2010 we had some sort of socialist Utopia (EUtopia?) where no-one ever went hungry.

    Here we have an example of a brilliant charity, working hard with some of the most disadvantaged in society, providing them with subsistence resources and training. The Guardian would usually laud this activity, but instead they hate it, for what looks to be no reason other than the fact we have Conservatives in government.
    Food bank demand has exploded in recent years. Not entirely unconnected with left/right politics. The inability of many to cook has existed for decades.
    Yes it exploded because the regulations of food banks were relaxed as part of David Cameron's Big Society reforms. That ought to be celebrated.

    The year it exploded also saw a corresponding collapse in people taking payday loans.

    Some people have always got into difficulty, but isn't it great to have charity available when people fall between the cracks instead of predatory loan sharks?
    ...so it's a positive step forward? Right!
    Starvation is undoubtably a spur to the education and work ethic of the working classes, when seen from a comfortable state subsidised bar in Parliament.
  • Options
    wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,930
    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    I think a lot of people like to comfort themselves with the idea that people using foodbanks are doing so because they don't know how to cook or manage a budget. But I am not sure they would actually be able to cope with having to live the lives those who do use foodbanks have. Doing it for a week and knowing that it will all then go away is not the same as doing it with no reason to believe it will ever stop.

    How did that Pulp song go?

    Rent a flat above a shop
    Cut your hair and get a job
    Smoke some fags and play some pool
    Pretend you never went to school
    But still you'll never get it right
    'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
    Watching roaches climb the wall
    If you called your dad he could stop it all, yeah
    You'll never live like common people
    You'll never do whatever common people do
    You'll never fail like common people
    You'll never watch your life slide out of view
    And you dance and drink and screw
    Because there's nothing else to do

    didnt he go to public school as well?
    Nah, he went to a comprehensive. His mum was a Tory councillor though
    Ha ha, great minds make similar recourse to Wikipedia. I definitely had him down as a fellow Comprehensive school kid though.
    I once ran into Jarvis Cocker in the toilets at Watford Gap services, which seemed a suitably Pulp like venue. Our eyes met but only Leon will be able to tell you whether there was any romantic spark. Pulp are amazing, one of my favourite bands.
    Pulp would be on my 'yeah, I guess' list
    Go and listen to "Being Followed Home" and then tell me what you think
    Yeah, I guess
    You either know it already or you didn't go listen. It's 6 minutes of magnificence and you replied before 6 minutes were up! There's no other song like it. Nobody else would write a song like that. Say what you like about Pulp, they are madly unique.
    It was a 'humorous' response. I haven't listened yet. I will at some point.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,325

    HYUFD said:

    The Express leads with welcome news for families suffering cost of living crisis.

    Many other papers lead on government back tracking on what Boris promised.

    Is coordinating government messaging really as difficult as they are making it look?

    Are you not reading BigG. 's dispatched. Boris is having a great day signing international treaties with non-NATO partners. He has just tweaked Putin's nose and said "nuke us if you dare Vlad"!

    Boris has his own hard hat and hi-viz coat, so he'll be fine...

    ...although if Putin is keeping up with the NI Protocol he might just be thinking, "Boris Johnson and international treaties? Pah!"
    If Putin nuked us, Johnson would of course send a Trident nuclear missile to nuke Moscow.

    In any case a UK Sweden mutual defence treaty is not yet the same as Sweden joining NATO
    Well my reading of it from tonight's PM programme is this: If Putin puts a boot onto Swedish or Finnish soil Boris will be on his case. If Putin so much as harms a hair on the head of a British Tommy sent to defend Sweden or Finland, NATO are involved.

    Johnson has ramped this up big time. He was the FIRST NATO leader to sign a treaty and any escalation into Scandinavia by Putin and it's all out confrontation. And do you know what? Good on you BigDog (I still wouldn't vote for the duplicitous b****** mind).
    There was already a military alliance between the UK, Finland and Sweden (among others)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Joint_Expeditionary_Force

    Long standing UK policy.....
    So what did he sign today?
    A further affirmation of what was the situation anyway - that if Russia attacks Finland or Sweden, then we will be very, very rude.

    This re-affirmation of outstanding commitments is a long standing thing in times of tension. For the very, very good reasons why, read The Guns of August -

    The Germans in 1914 convinced themselves that the UK would abandon the Belgians, because WWI wasn't going to work for them (the Germans) if the UK didn't.

    On the UK side, no-one thought that they needed to re-affirm the treaty. If they had...
  • Options
    IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    The agenda is they want a world where people are helpless and utterly reliant on state support. I am reliant financially on state support and it's fucking miserable. Anything that can be done to teach skills, techniques etc to help lift yourself away from poverty is a good thing.
    A recent comedy. Round where I live.

    There are quite a number of bike shops catering to the very well off. Lots of work doing upgrades and stuff, that frankly, a competent bike owner could do themselves.

    So they have buckets of second hand bits. Lots of stuff that is straight off bikes that has just been bought - not even used. The bike is bought and then a long list of bit changed. Yes, I know - why not buy a bare frame and buy the toys to match? Anyway....

    A lot is not even worth fleabaying.

    So a couple of the owners got in touch with some local people and for a couple of quid, let them pick out any stuff they want. Awesome, you'd think?

    No, no, no, no..... No.

    Before you could say "Clipboard" - a couple of hi-vizziers from the Council popped in to try and claim they were selling dangerous and unsafe equipment.

    Of course they did this in earshot of some the rich evul middle class bike owners. One of whom was a lawyer. Of course. The hi-vizziers got pounded like dockside hookers.....
    Clipboard wielders are worse than Durham curry and beer people
    The important thing is to "professionalise" everything so only middle class and above can afford it.

    This worked really well for childcare.
    Spot on. What's the point if being middle class unless everything is tailored to expressing your relative affluence?
    Why have a cheap exercise bike when you can spend £1500 on an exercise bike with a kindle fire stuck on it?
    Obviously - but the important bit is to make sure that the Head Count can't get a cheap version. What is the point of having a Sign of Affluence if the Mob all have one?
    Very true. Also important to make cheap cuts of meat trendy in the dinner party and tv chef set so they become pricey and only for you. No belly pork or shin of beef for the peasants if you please
    This is a standard Spectator bore meme, why pay £££s for takeaways when you can buy three penn'orth of scrag end of faggot from the butcher and boil it up with a fardel of shallots in a Le Creuset marmite in the slow oven of the Aga for 3 weeks. Serve with a full bodied first growth burgundy.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,325

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    The agenda is they want a world where people are helpless and utterly reliant on state support. I am reliant financially on state support and it's fucking miserable. Anything that can be done to teach skills, techniques etc to help lift yourself away from poverty is a good thing.
    A recent comedy. Round where I live.

    There are quite a number of bike shops catering to the very well off. Lots of work doing upgrades and stuff, that frankly, a competent bike owner could do themselves.

    So they have buckets of second hand bits. Lots of stuff that is straight off bikes that has just been bought - not even used. The bike is bought and then a long list of bit changed. Yes, I know - why not buy a bare frame and buy the toys to match? Anyway....

    A lot is not even worth fleabaying.

    So a couple of the owners got in touch with some local people and for a couple of quid, let them pick out any stuff they want. Awesome, you'd think?

    No, no, no, no..... No.

    Before you could say "Clipboard" - a couple of hi-vizziers from the Council popped in to try and claim they were selling dangerous and unsafe equipment.

    Of course they did this in earshot of some the rich evul middle class bike owners. One of whom was a lawyer. Of course. The hi-vizziers got pounded like dockside hookers.....
    Clipboard wielders are worse than Durham curry and beer people
    The important thing is to "professionalise" everything so only middle class and above can afford it.

    This worked really well for childcare.
    Spot on. What's the point if being middle class unless everything is tailored to expressing your relative affluence?
    Why have a cheap exercise bike when you can spend £1500 on an exercise bike with a kindle fire stuck on it?
    Obviously - but the important bit is to make sure that the Head Count can't get a cheap version. What is the point of having a Sign of Affluence if the Mob all have one?
    Very true. Also important to make cheap cuts of meat trendy in the dinner party and tv chef set so they become pricey and only for you. No belly pork or shin of beef for the peasants if you please
    I got a huge piece of 26 day aged rib of beef on the weekend at the butchers - he's dropped the prices on that, while the price of ox tail etc rockets up.
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,007
    IshmaelZ said:

    Cummings has lost it. email for his latest substack drivel headed "Snippets 4 & AMA 1200 13 May: hundreds of Auschwitz’s in a few hours... and the media cheers like the crowds of summer 1914..."

    God knows what he's on about, but you can tell he is a Leaver to the core: plural of Auschwitz is Auschwitzes.

    Is it? Not “Auschwitzen”? Or “Oswiecims”?
  • Options
    SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,547
    dixiedean said:

    PB anti-Woke warriors won't know whether to laugh or cry, jeer or cheer . . .

    Seattle Times ($) - San Juan Islands waterway could be renamed to honor Indigenous leader

    Ken Carrasco was reading about the 1855 Battle of Ash Hollow when he came across a familiar name: Gen. William Harney.

    The Harney Channel that his Orcas Island home overlooks, he realized, was named after a man who once tried to defend the San Juan Islands from British rule but also was responsible for the murders of Indigenous people and an enslaved woman. . . .

    Now three years later, Carrasco and Shaw Island resident Stephanie Buffum are leading an effort to rename the channel to honor Henry Cayou, an Indigenous San Juan County commissioner and commercial fisherman . . .

    The proposal to rename the waterway Cayou Channel was approved by the Washington State Committee on Geographic Names in April and is now under consideration by the Washington Board on Geographic Names. If approved, the proposal will go to the federal Board on Geographic Names for a final decision. . . .

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Harney

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_War_(1859)

    General George B. McClellan . . . claimed that General William S. Harney and Pickett conspired with a cabal, to start a war with Britain, creating a common enemy, to head off a north–south confrontation. . . .

    [SSI - my own theory is that Pickett was Harney's protege AND both were rash hotheads NOT noted for brainpower]

    Brigadier General William S. Harney, commanding the Department of Oregon, initially dispatched Captain George Pickett and 66 American soldiers of the 9th Infantry Regiment under Pickett's command, to San Juan Island with orders to prevent the British from landing . . . Concerned that a squatter population of Americans would begin to occupy San Juan Island if the Americans were not kept in check, the British sent three warships . . . Pickett was quoted as saying defiantly, "We'll make a Bunker Hill of it," placing him in the national limelight. . . .

    Pickett established the American Camp near the south end of San Juan Island, today one of two historical sites on the island, the other being the British Camp, defended by the Royal Marines on the north end of the island. . . .

    The governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island, James Douglas, had ordered Captain Hornby to dislodge the American troops, avoiding armed conflict if possible. At the time, the additional reinforcements sent by American General Harney had not yet arrived, and the island was occupied by only Pickett's 66 men.

    Hornby refused to take any action until British Rear Admiral Robert L. Baynes, who was in command of the British Navy in the Pacific, would arrive himself. When Baynes finally came and took stock of the situation, he told Governor Douglas that he would not escalate the conflict into a war between great nations "over a squabble about a pig".

    The Pig War.
    Harney and Pickett didn't come out well in my HS Canadian history course.
    The main street in Victoria is still named after the governor of Vancouver Island who sent the troops, James Douglas.
    Quite a fellow in his own right, rose through ranks of Hudson's Bay Co, spent much quality time at Fort Vancouver on Columbia River, now in WA State just north of Portland, Oregon. Before he along with HBC were run out by Americans with partition of Oregon Country, which explains his touchiness re: the pig.

    BTW, Douglas was also one of the few satraps-of-color in mid-19th century British Empire, being born out of wedlock in (today's) Guyana to a Scottish planter/merchant father and mixed African-European mother.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Douglas_(governor)
  • Options
    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,937

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    The agenda is they want a world where people are helpless and utterly reliant on state support. I am reliant financially on state support and it's fucking miserable. Anything that can be done to teach skills, techniques etc to help lift yourself away from poverty is a good thing.
    A recent comedy. Round where I live.

    There are quite a number of bike shops catering to the very well off. Lots of work doing upgrades and stuff, that frankly, a competent bike owner could do themselves.

    So they have buckets of second hand bits. Lots of stuff that is straight off bikes that has just been bought - not even used. The bike is bought and then a long list of bit changed. Yes, I know - why not buy a bare frame and buy the toys to match? Anyway....

    A lot is not even worth fleabaying.

    So a couple of the owners got in touch with some local people and for a couple of quid, let them pick out any stuff they want. Awesome, you'd think?

    No, no, no, no..... No.

    Before you could say "Clipboard" - a couple of hi-vizziers from the Council popped in to try and claim they were selling dangerous and unsafe equipment.

    Of course they did this in earshot of some the rich evul middle class bike owners. One of whom was a lawyer. Of course. The hi-vizziers got pounded like dockside hookers.....
    When I first moved to Cambridge, I lived in a shared house in Milton with a few blokes. One was a caterer who worked at one of the Cambridge colleges. He had made a top-notch bike by stealing bits of various other bikes from around the city at night: if a nice bike was locked through the wheel, he'd dismantle it and steal the frame, leaving everything else behind. If he needed the chainset, he'd take just that.

    What got me was that it would probably have been quicker to steal the whole bike; instead, he would carefully dismantle it, taking only the bits he needed, and leaving the rest in a pile. Because of his job, he was often around the city late at night.

    He'd also go into the back garden of the house and hit golf balls over the surrounding rooftops, not caring where they landed.
  • Options
    dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,952

    dixiedean said:

    Taking food education further I would like to see an ongoing level of free life skills provision available for all.

    Something like first 2 hrs per week of cooking, sports, literacy, numeracy, personal finance, fitness, basic IT paid for by the state for everyone who wants it.

    A real investment in the people of the UK. It would be expensive at first but we would quickly become happier, better educated and also more productive in work and less costly to the health service.

    There might even be more permanent salaried positions for qualified FE teachers.
    I approve of this.
    And would chuck languages into the mix. And "wellbeing". Though I detest the term.
    Agree on wellbeing, but also couldnt define it so it was in my fitness. Languages borderline for me, not against it but not fussed compared to the others that I think are real issues within the UK.
    Yeah. Just noticed you had sport and fitness as two discrete categories.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,325
    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Taking food education further I would like to see an ongoing level of free life skills provision available for all.

    Something like first 2 hrs per week of cooking, sports, literacy, numeracy, personal finance, fitness, basic IT paid for by the state for everyone who wants it.

    A real investment in the people of the UK. It would be expensive at first but we would quickly become happier, better educated and also more productive in work and less costly to the health service.

    There might even be more permanent salaried positions for qualified FE teachers.
    I approve of this.
    And would chuck languages into the mix. And "wellbeing". Though I detest the term.
    Agree on wellbeing, but also couldnt define it so it was in my fitness. Languages borderline for me, not against it but not fussed compared to the others that I think are real issues within the UK.
    Yeah. Just noticed you had sport and fitness as two discrete categories.
    Yes - get people into actually doing sport. Excessive emphasis on fitness, too early, can just put them off.

    Now I must go and row on the Thames.....
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,007

    HYUFD said:

    The Express leads with welcome news for families suffering cost of living crisis.

    Many other papers lead on government back tracking on what Boris promised.

    Is coordinating government messaging really as difficult as they are making it look?

    Are you not reading BigG. 's dispatched. Boris is having a great day signing international treaties with non-NATO partners. He has just tweaked Putin's nose and said "nuke us if you dare Vlad"!

    Boris has his own hard hat and hi-viz coat, so he'll be fine...

    ...although if Putin is keeping up with the NI Protocol he might just be thinking, "Boris Johnson and international treaties? Pah!"
    If Putin nuked us, Johnson would of course send a Trident nuclear missile to nuke Moscow.

    In any case a UK Sweden mutual defence treaty is not yet the same as Sweden joining NATO
    Well my reading of it from tonight's PM programme is this: If Putin puts a boot onto Swedish or Finnish soil Boris will be on his case. If Putin so much as harms a hair on the head of a British Tommy sent to defend Sweden or Finland, NATO are involved.

    Johnson has ramped this up big time. He was the FIRST NATO leader to sign a treaty and any escalation into Scandinavia by Putin and it's all out confrontation. And do you know what? Good on you BigDog (I still wouldn't vote for the duplicitous b****** mind).
    There was already a military alliance between the UK, Finland and Sweden (among others)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Joint_Expeditionary_Force

    Long standing UK policy.....
    So what did he sign today?
    A further affirmation of what was the situation anyway - that if Russia attacks Finland or Sweden, then we will be very, very rude.

    This re-affirmation of outstanding commitments is a long standing thing in times of tension. For the very, very good reasons why, read The Guns of August -

    The Germans in 1914 convinced themselves that the UK would abandon the Belgians, because WWI wasn't going to work for them (the Germans) if the UK didn't.

    On the UK side, no-one thought that they needed to re-affirm the treaty. If they had...
    The Armenian genocide memoir that I’m reading right now makes that same point. The Armenian author is in Germany in 1914 when WW1 kicks off. At first everyone is elated because they are convinced Germany can easily win a swift war against France and Russia

    Then “England” joins the war and the elation turns instantly to a numb, stunned sourness, as Germans realise the war will be looooooong and they might not win

    Never seen it told that way before
  • Options
    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,256
    edited May 2022
    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    It's a fair comment. People in the UK have poorer cooking skill than the rest of Europe. I come across people who struggle to make rice or pasta regularly and not having basic skills really limits the ability to each cheap and nutritious food. Takeaways are both expensive and unhealthy.

    It’s the remarkable thing about being in Italy. You hear a group of ordinary Italians having a most heated argument about something, and from the passion and energy you’d think the eldest daughter had run off with the best man or some similar family catastrophe was unfolding.

    Then, armed with a little basic Italian, you begin to make out enough words to realise that the debate is really about how to cook a certain recipe or whether one restaurant in town does pasta better than another.

    That said, today has been so hot that we escaped to the Slovenian mountains and have been exploring the remains of the trenches in the high mountains around Caporetto - the battle that did more than any single other thing to subsequently and eventually give birth to fascism in Europe - but a name that will draw blank looks from almost anyone you mention it to back at home.
    The battles on the Isonzo made the Somme and Paschendale look like masterpieces of military tactics.
    Indeed. Although we did pause for a breather atop the hill the capture of which first made the name of a then lieutenant Rommel.
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    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,937
    Farooq said:

    HYUFD said:

    The Express leads with welcome news for families suffering cost of living crisis.

    Many other papers lead on government back tracking on what Boris promised.

    Is coordinating government messaging really as difficult as they are making it look?

    Are you not reading BigG. 's dispatched. Boris is having a great day signing international treaties with non-NATO partners. He has just tweaked Putin's nose and said "nuke us if you dare Vlad"!

    Boris has his own hard hat and hi-viz coat, so he'll be fine...

    ...although if Putin is keeping up with the NI Protocol he might just be thinking, "Boris Johnson and international treaties? Pah!"
    If Putin nuked us, Johnson would of course send a Trident nuclear missile to nuke Moscow.

    In any case a UK Sweden mutual defence treaty is not yet the same as Sweden joining NATO
    Well my reading of it from tonight's PM programme is this: If Putin puts a boot onto Swedish or Finnish soil Boris will be on his case. If Putin so much as harms a hair on the head of a British Tommy sent to defend Sweden or Finland, NATO are involved.

    Johnson has ramped this up big time. He was the FIRST NATO leader to sign a treaty and any escalation into Scandinavia by Putin and it's all out confrontation. And do you know what? Good on you BigDog (I still wouldn't vote for the duplicitous b****** mind).
    This is the opportunity that we missed in Ukraine. We could have done the same. I argued that we should have.

    This is a case of the government learning from its shortcomings, and it's to be applauded.
    The current conflict in Ukraine was predictable. After 2014, Putin (and by extension Russia's) actions and rhetoric was all heading this way. Salisbury and all the other sh*t he was doing reinforced this.

    I know this triggers some people, but Ed Miliband's actions in the wake of the use of chemical weapons in Syria contributed to Putin's actions. It made it look as though the west was impotent, and would not react to anything bad people did. He could act as though the west could be divided.

    Despite this, as a country, I think we did well, considering most other civilised countries did not give a damn. Then again, we had been directly affected by the Litvinenko and Salisbury affairs.
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    Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,781

    Watching that Gove video, crikey, he reminds me of a friend who went through a pretty messy divorce.

    It's not pleasant.

    I had thought of all the twatty Brexiteers out there, there was one, that while very weird in many ways appeared otherwise comparatively sane, and that was Gove. This morning he proved he was even more twatty than the worst of them.
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    wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,930
    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly

    In his contribution to the Queen’s speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a “brilliant scheme” whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

    We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

    When an opposition MP put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

    This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

    From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a “massive use for food banks”, he meant no massive need for them.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1652284326

    There is a real problem of people not being able to cook properly.

    If Jack Monroe had said that people struggle to cook properly and budget and support was needed for that, you wouldn't blink twice, but a Tory says that and its horrific.
    Alternatively, we could find out what Jack Monroe thinks;

    "Helping somebody conditional on them saying 'you know what, this is all my own fault, please teach me how to be better at being poor', is disgusting, actually."

    https://t.co/wq1LE6rDf5

    To a large extent, it's the Captain Vines theory of economics. Being poor forces you into making bad long-term choices. If you are rich enough to have time and space to cook and buy in bulk, you can feed yourself well and cheaply much more easily than if you are in a bedsit or worse
    So she wants people to learn how to cook, but doesn't like a scheme that literally teaches people how to cook. It's almost as if the campaigners have an agenda. Isn't the actual answer - "hey it's not ideal but one extra person who can cook cheaply is another person out of food poverty".
    The agenda is they want a world where people are helpless and utterly reliant on state support. I am reliant financially on state support and it's fucking miserable. Anything that can be done to teach skills, techniques etc to help lift yourself away from poverty is a good thing.
    A recent comedy. Round where I live.

    There are quite a number of bike shops catering to the very well off. Lots of work doing upgrades and stuff, that frankly, a competent bike owner could do themselves.

    So they have buckets of second hand bits. Lots of stuff that is straight off bikes that has just been bought - not even used. The bike is bought and then a long list of bit changed. Yes, I know - why not buy a bare frame and buy the toys to match? Anyway....

    A lot is not even worth fleabaying.

    So a couple of the owners got in touch with some local people and for a couple of quid, let them pick out any stuff they want. Awesome, you'd think?

    No, no, no, no..... No.

    Before you could say "Clipboard" - a couple of hi-vizziers from the Council popped in to try and claim they were selling dangerous and unsafe equipment.

    Of course they did this in earshot of some the rich evul middle class bike owners. One of whom was a lawyer. Of course. The hi-vizziers got pounded like dockside hookers.....
    Clipboard wielders are worse than Durham curry and beer people
    The important thing is to "professionalise" everything so only middle class and above can afford it.

    This worked really well for childcare.
    Spot on. What's the point if being middle class unless everything is tailored to expressing your relative affluence?
    Why have a cheap exercise bike when you can spend £1500 on an exercise bike with a kindle fire stuck on it?
    Obviously - but the important bit is to make sure that the Head Count can't get a cheap version. What is the point of having a Sign of Affluence if the Mob all have one?
    Very true. Also important to make cheap cuts of meat trendy in the dinner party and tv chef set so they become pricey and only for you. No belly pork or shin of beef for the peasants if you please
    This is a standard Spectator bore meme, why pay £££s for takeaways when you can buy three penn'orth of scrag end of faggot from the butcher and boil it up with a fardel of shallots in a Le Creuset marmite in the slow oven of the Aga for 3 weeks. Serve with a full bodied first growth burgundy.
    300% increase in price overnight if some tosser like Blumenthal cooks it in a vacuum cleaner bag at 40 degrees facing north.
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    dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,952

    dixiedean said:

    PB anti-Woke warriors won't know whether to laugh or cry, jeer or cheer . . .

    Seattle Times ($) - San Juan Islands waterway could be renamed to honor Indigenous leader

    Ken Carrasco was reading about the 1855 Battle of Ash Hollow when he came across a familiar name: Gen. William Harney.

    The Harney Channel that his Orcas Island home overlooks, he realized, was named after a man who once tried to defend the San Juan Islands from British rule but also was responsible for the murders of Indigenous people and an enslaved woman. . . .

    Now three years later, Carrasco and Shaw Island resident Stephanie Buffum are leading an effort to rename the channel to honor Henry Cayou, an Indigenous San Juan County commissioner and commercial fisherman . . .

    The proposal to rename the waterway Cayou Channel was approved by the Washington State Committee on Geographic Names in April and is now under consideration by the Washington Board on Geographic Names. If approved, the proposal will go to the federal Board on Geographic Names for a final decision. . . .

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Harney

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_War_(1859)

    General George B. McClellan . . . claimed that General William S. Harney and Pickett conspired with a cabal, to start a war with Britain, creating a common enemy, to head off a north–south confrontation. . . .

    [SSI - my own theory is that Pickett was Harney's protege AND both were rash hotheads NOT noted for brainpower]

    Brigadier General William S. Harney, commanding the Department of Oregon, initially dispatched Captain George Pickett and 66 American soldiers of the 9th Infantry Regiment under Pickett's command, to San Juan Island with orders to prevent the British from landing . . . Concerned that a squatter population of Americans would begin to occupy San Juan Island if the Americans were not kept in check, the British sent three warships . . . Pickett was quoted as saying defiantly, "We'll make a Bunker Hill of it," placing him in the national limelight. . . .

    Pickett established the American Camp near the south end of San Juan Island, today one of two historical sites on the island, the other being the British Camp, defended by the Royal Marines on the north end of the island. . . .

    The governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island, James Douglas, had ordered Captain Hornby to dislodge the American troops, avoiding armed conflict if possible. At the time, the additional reinforcements sent by American General Harney had not yet arrived, and the island was occupied by only Pickett's 66 men.

    Hornby refused to take any action until British Rear Admiral Robert L. Baynes, who was in command of the British Navy in the Pacific, would arrive himself. When Baynes finally came and took stock of the situation, he told Governor Douglas that he would not escalate the conflict into a war between great nations "over a squabble about a pig".

    The Pig War.
    Harney and Pickett didn't come out well in my HS Canadian history course.
    The main street in Victoria is still named after the governor of Vancouver Island who sent the troops, James Douglas.
    Quite a fellow in his own right, rose through ranks of Hudson's Bay Co, spent much quality time at Fort Vancouver on Columbia River, now in WA State just north of Portland, Oregon. Before he along with HBC were run out by Americans with partition of Oregon Country, which explains his touchiness re: the pig.

    BTW, Douglas was also one of the few satraps-of-color in mid-19th century British Empire, being born out of wedlock in (today's) Guyana to a Scottish planter/merchant father and mixed African-European mother.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Douglas_(governor)
    Have urinated against that obelisk.
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